The Work of Art as fictio personae

Abstract

The article investigates how and why we treat works of art as persons. From rhetoric to jurisprudence, various disciplines have dealt with the practice of attributing human features and abilities to insensate objects. The agency of works of art acting as fictitious persons is not only rec­ognized at the level of aesthetic experience, but also outside it, because there have been cases in which they were subject to legal liability. Per­sonhood is not reducible to individual human beings. However, since works of art lack senses and consciousness, there is ultimately a limit to the personifying metaphor.

Članak istražuje kako i zašto tretiramo umetnička dela kao osobe. Od retorike do filozofije prava, različite discipline bavile su se praksom kojom se neživim objektima pridavaju ljudske osobine i sposobnosti. Moć delovanja umetničkih dela kao fiktivnih osoba nije prepoznata samo na nivou estetskog doživljaja, već i izvan njega, jer su zabeleženi slučajevi u kojima su bila podvrgnuta krivičnoj odgovornosti. Ličnost nije svodiva na pojedinačna ljudska bića. Međutim, pošto umetničkim delima nedostaju čula i svest, na kraju krajeva personifikujuća metafora ima granicu.