NATIONAL E N D O W M E N T FOR THE HUMANITIES VOLUME 4 NUMBER 1 FEBRUARY 1983 Humanities Art, Philosophy, and the Philosophy of Art period of Abstract Expressionism, ward behavior might be indistin­ when decisions for or against The guishable between the two. In all these Image were fraught with an almost cases one must seek the differences religious agony, the crass and casual outside the juxtaposed and puzzling use of tacky images by the new examples, and this is no less the case artists seemed irreverent and juve­ when seeking to account for the dif­ nile. But the Warhol show raised a ferences between works of art and question which was intoxicating and mere real things which happen immediately philosophical, namely exactly to resemble them. why were his boxes works of art This problem could have been while the almost indistinguishable raised at any time, and not just with utilitarian cartons were merely con­ the somewhat minimal sorts of tainers for soap pads? Certainly the works one might suspect the Brillo minor observable differences could Boxes to be. It was always conceiva­ not ground as grand a distinction as ble that exact counterparts to the that between Art and Reality! most prized and revered works of BY ARTHUR C. DANTO A philosophical question arises art could have come about in ways Not very many years ago, whenever we have two objects inconsistent with their being works aesthetics—understood as the phi­ which seem in every relevant par­ at all, though no observable differ­ losophy of art—was regarded as the ticular to be alike, but which belong ences could be found. I have dim, retarded offspring of two to importantly different philosophi­ imagined cases in which an artist glamorous parents, its discipline and cal categories. Descartes for dumps a lot of paint in a centrifuge its subject. Philosophy in the twen­ example supposed his experience she then spins, just "to see what tieth century had become profes­ while dreaming could be indistin­ happens"—and what happens is that sionalized and technical, its methods guishable from his experience awake, it all splats against the wall in an formal, and its analytical aims the so that no internal criterion could array of splotches that cannot be discovery of the most fundamental divide delusion from knowledge. told by the unaided eye from The structures of thought, language, Wittgenstein noted that there is Legend of the True Cross, by Piero della logic and science. Philosophical nothing to distinguish someone's Francesca. Or an anarchist plants questions about art seemed periph­ raising his arm from someone's arm eral and its answers cloudy—far too going up, though the distinction cloudy for those caught up in the between even the simplest action reinvention of painting and music 1 and a mere bodily movement seems and literature to find much help in fundamental to the way we think of the dated, faded reflections of the our freedom. Kant sought a crite­ aesthetician. And students with a rion for moral action in the fact that primary interest in art who may it is done from principles rather have registered for courses in this than simply in conformity with condescendingly tolerated specialty those principles, even though out­ found themselves confronting a perplexingly irrelevant literature. In aesthetics, and I am certain 1 should 1954, the philosopher John Pass- never have gotten involved with it more published a paper with the had 1 not visited a singular exhibi­ accurate title "The Dreariness of tion at what was then the Stable Aesthetics," and it must have been Gallery on East 74th Street in New just about then that the wit and York in 1964. Andy Warhol had painter Barnett Newman delivered filled the space with piles of Brillo one of his most quoted sayings: boxes, similar to if somewhat stur­ "Aesthetics is for aft what ornithol­ dier than those brashly stenciled ogy is for the birds"—-a sneer whose cartons stacked in the storerooms of edge is blunted today by the fact supermarkets wherever soap pads that the vulgarism it echoes has are sold. I was familiar of course faded from usage. with the exploitation of emblems of I have always had a passionate popular and commercial labels by interest in art and a logical passion the Pop artists, and Warhol's por­ for philosophy, but nothing in my traits of Campbell's Soup cans were experience with either conflicted legendary. But as someone who with the general dismal appraisal of came to artistic age in the heroic dynamite in the marble quarry, and the tradition, to the degree that which are regarded as especially the explosion results in a lot of they had thought about art at all, "philosophical," like Raphael's School In this issue... lumps of marble which by a statisti­ thought chiefly about the art of of Athens or Mann's The Magic Moun­ cal miracle combine into a pile which their own time: Plato, about the illu- tain. Were someone to choreograph 1 Art, Philosophy, and the Philoso­ looks like The Leaning Tower at Pisa. sionistic sculptures of his contem­ Plato's Republic, that would not, phy of Art by Arthur C. Danto Or the forces of nature act through poraries; Kant, about the tasteful simply because of its exalted con­ 3 The International Encyclopedia millennia on a large piece of rock objects of the Enlightenment; tent, be more philosophical than of Dance until something not to be told apart Nietzsche, about Wagnerian opera; Coppelia or Petrouchka. In fact these from the Apollo Belvedere results. the Wittgensteinians, about the might be more philosophical, 4 Footnotes: The Study of Nor are these imaginary possibili­ extraordinary proliferation of styles employing as they do real dancers Choreography ties restricted to painting, sculpture, in the twentieth century, when a imitating dancing dolls imitating 5 Explaining and Understanding and architecture. There are the whole period of art history appeared real dancers! Music by Howard Mayer Brown famous chimpanzees who, typing at to last about six months. But the Where are the components for a random, knocked out all the plays of Warhol boxes, though clearly of theory of art to be found? I think a 7 The Critical Editions of Verdi Shakespeare. But Wordsworth their time, raised the most general first step may be made in recogniz­ and Lully sought to make poetry out of the question about art that can be ing that works of art are representa­ most commonplace language, while raised, as though the most radical tions, not necessarily in the old sense 8 The Letters of Arnold Schoen­ Auden invented a style of reading possibilities had at last been real­ of resembling their subjects, but in berg and Alban Berg poetry which was indistinguishable ized. It was, in fact, as though art the more extended sense that it is 1 0 Dustjackets: Catalogs, Discog­ from ordinary talking—so for all had brought the question of its own always legitimate to ask what they raphies and all that jazz! anyone could tell, Moliere's M. identity to consciousness at last. are about. Warhol's boxes were Jourdain could have been speaking However this identity is to be clearly about something, had a con­ 1 2 Back to Bach: Aston Magna poetry rather than prose all his life. articulated, it is clear that it cannot tent and a meaning, made a state­ John Cage has made the division be based upon anything works of ment, even were metaphors of a 1 4 Is the Medium the Message in Musical Performance? NO, by between music and noise problem­ art have in common with their sort. In a curious way they made Samuel Baron; YES, by Malcolm atic, leaving it possible that sets of counterparts. One prominent the­ some kind of statement about art, Bilson sounds from the street could be orist, for example, regards paintings and incorporated into their identity music, while other sets which we as very complex perceptual objects. the question of what that identity 1 7 Shakespeare's Scripts would spontaneously suppose music So they are, but since objects can be is—and it was Heidegger who pro­ happen not to be, just because of imagined perfectly congruent with posed that it is a part of the essence 1 8 Sixty Years of Chinese Drama the circumstances of their produc­ those which are not art works, of being a human that the question 2 0 Tuning in to the Humanities: tion. And it takes little effort to these must have equivalent com­ of what one is is part of what one is. The Children's Media Initiative imagine a dance in which the dancers plexity at the level of perception. But nothing remotely like this could do ordinary things in the ordinary After all, the problem arose in the be true of a mere soap box. Dances, 2 2 Grant Application Deadlines ways; a dance could consist in first place because no perceptual dif­ too, are representational, not simply someone sitting reading a book. I ference could be imagined finally in the way in which a pair of dancers 2 3 Recent NEH Grant Awards once saw Baryshnikov break into a relevant. But neither can possession may dance the dance the characters 2 5 NEH FY 1983 Budget football player's run on stage, and I of so-called "aesthetic qualities" dance in the action they imitate, but thought it altogether wonderful. serve, since it would be strange if a in the same wide sense in which 2 6 Editor's Notes True, it may seem difficult to sup­ work of art were beautiful but even the most resolutely abstract NEH Notes and News pose art could have begun with something exactly like it though not art has a pictorial dimension.