In Defence of Forgery

Abstract

In this thesis, I provide a defence of forgery against criticisms made by Sherri Irvin in her ‘Forgery and the Corruption of Aesthetic Understanding’. First, I show that forgeries do not necessarily corrupt our aesthetic understanding. Next, I show how forgeries can be beneficial to our aesthetic understanding. They can act as a corrective to other problems in our aesthetic understanding; stimulate interest in art and aesthetics; act as a form of criticism; be interesting artworks in their own right and lead to greater cognitive diversity in our aesthetic judgements. Finally, I set out the benefits to our aesthetic understanding that forgeries can provide, by showing where we should place our aesthetic credibility or trust.