In his paper ‘The Uselessness of Art’, Peter Lamarque defends a sophisticated version of the thesis that to value an artwork as art is always to value it ‘for its own sake’ rather than for any purpose or value it might have. Critically discuss Lamarque’s defence of this view.

[Lamarque’s paper is in the Summer 2010 issue of Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. As you will see, Lamarque’s defence of the ‘art for art’s sake’ thesis distances it from many of the interpretations of that thesis that we have touched on in the course, and it is important to make this clear in your paper and to assess whether such distancing enables Lamarque to meet the kinds of objections traditionally levelled at the thesis.]