David Walsh

In Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature, Alva Noë argues that art is defined, in part, by its ability to disturb the organized activities that shape our lives. This article endorses Noë’s perspective, while integrating Nishida Kitarō’s novel concept of “kōiteki chokkan” (acting intuition) and examples from traditional Japanese arts to demonstrate how art is an unfolding interaction between the artist, their creation, and the environment. Nishida’s view complements and adds depth to Noë’s, clearly articulating the implicitly enactivist understanding of art in Noë’s work. It is argued that, as a result, art is both a “strange” and “ordinary” tool.

What characterises art? Is it an object, a practice, an activity, an expression, an experience—or something entirely different? One way to answer is by looking at what art does rather than what it is—at the work art itself achieves. This paper places Nishida Kitarō in dialogue with Alva Noë, showing how both view art as something that actively works in and with the world. For Nishida, art exemplifies kōiteki chokkan, enacted by the interplay of action, intuition, and world. For Noë, art is an activity that offers new ways to organise life. Building on John C. Maraldo’s enactivist reading of kōiteki chokkan, this paper argues that Nishida and Noë share an implicitly enactivist view of art, where artistic actions and intuitions both shape and get shaped by the world. While they differ on the artist’s role, their perspectives together offer a more robust enactivist theory of art.