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What effect should the avant garde have on our understanding of what art is? We read three essays by modern, first-rate American philosopher Arthur Danto, all published in The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art (1986): the title essay, “The Appreciation and Interpretation of Works of Art,” and “The End of Art.”
I understand you may not have heard of Danto, and you may think modern art is goofy, but you’ll definitely enjoy this discussion and the reading anyway. Danto gives a picture of philosophy and art at war throughout history: philosophy says that art can’t get at truth and is otherwise useless, yet philosophers like Plato seem afraid of the power of art to corrupt. What’s the deal?
Also, Danto claims that art is over; the end of art has happened. So suck it, artists. (Actually, artists can keep on doing what they’re doing; they’re fine, yet art is still over.) Plus, can you stare at a urinal and thereby make it art? What if it’s in a museum? Danto loves them crazy ass post-modern artists, and thinks that their work shows that art was not what we thought it was.
Plus, Seth talks about the plane crashing into the IRS building near his house, and we respond some listener postings.
This work is unfortunately not available free on the Internet, but is worth your purchase. Try Amazon or your preferred bookseller. We also refer heavily to Calvin Tomkins’s “The Bride and the Bachelors.” For a summary of “The End of Art,” you can read this excerpt from one of Danto’s later books: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s5911.html. You could also check out the Amazon preview of Danto’s book “The Transfiguration of the Commonplace,” which we refer to a bit.
End song: “This Night Before the End,” by Mark Lint and the Simulacra, recorded mostly in 2000 but finished just now.
#1 by Jay Bailey on March 7th, 2010
With my undergraduate degree in fine art with a minor in philosophy and my MFA in painting, I found your discussion about Arthur Danto to be a fantastic introduction to P.E.L. I now teach in the art department at UNLV and can probably provide an interesting perspective on the ideas of the “end of art” and the art world as it relates to your discussion.
Danto was required reading in several seminar classes in graduate school. As an art maker this type of thinking and writing was problematic. A young art student can become too entrenched with theory and philosophy. Basically, it makes you think too damn much. It took me some time to purge the weight of how one paints now that art has met its end. I suppose it’s no different from a musician who learns scales, chords, and theory but then must learn to ignore his training and just play music. To hell with your theory, just make (or in music, play) something cool. Something to respond to. Something worth my precious, depleting time.
University art departments are becoming infected with philosophy. Many of my students are finding themselves too concerned with the ideas of critics and theorists, and sadly they are making art in response to those ideas. There is far too much art coming from young artists who are essentially demanding an audience with a background in aesthetics.
You guys have a great show. Keep it going. It reminds me of philosophy class. I miss all of that banter.
#2 by Getty Lustila on March 8th, 2010
This was an incredibly interesting podcast!
My interaction with Danto’s work has been chiefly through reading “Narration and Knowledge” (an expansion of his previous “Analytical Philosophy of History”), as a History undergraduate a couple of years back. While I was impressed with it, my lack of background in Aesthetics caused me to shy away from his writing on the Philosophy of Art. So needless to say, this was really great insight into that aspect of Danto’s philosophy.
I was also quite shocked to hear you talk briefly about Dr. Berry! I’m planning to attend Georgia State University in the fall to study Political/Continental Philosophy at the advice of my philosophical mentor (another UT-Austin Graduate) Joel Mann. I guess it is truly a small world.
Cheers and keep it up!
Getty Lustila
#3 by Mark Linsenmayer on March 9th, 2010
Thanks, Jay!
I think I like your faces the best, e.g. http://www.jaybailey.com/restrainedordered.html.
#4 by Seth Paskin on April 6th, 2010
I like the idea of being ‘infected’ by philosophy.
Like the hantavirus.
Getty, don’t let lack of background ever stop you from inquiring. There’s no other way to get background.
#5 by Oliver Michaels on April 16th, 2010
Thank you so much for your discussion. I am an artist btw. I was really interested in developing a greater understanding of art through philosophy at art school. Though it is something I gave up on a few years after because I don’t find it easy to do the reading/thinking alone and besides I’m trying to feel these days instead of think, something it turns out I’m particularly bad at so it occupies a disproportionate amount of my time. But now my confused conception of what art is sits very much unresolved behind my practice and heckles my ego from the bleachers during my routine bouts of self-doubt… so it was good to listen to your discussion.
But I found myself really frustrated that you did not bring Heidegger into your discussion. I noticed that two of you are coming from a Phenomenological background and must know Heidegger discusses many of these issues in ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ in a way that would have really pushed your discussion to, well, where I wanted it to take place.
I’d love to hear a second discussion that covered ‘Origin’ and the thinkers that responded to it in relation this Danto podcast. Please consider it.
#6 by Seth Paskin on April 17th, 2010
Thank you Oliver, that’s an excellent suggestion. As we circle back to this topic, we will try and find a way to work in ‘Origin’.
–seth
#7 by Luke on May 13th, 2010
Hey guys, great podcast and a particularly great episode. I’m glad you’re doing so many dead philosophers because they are necessary for your listeners to understand the context within which modern philosophers work, but this episode on a living philosopher was your most exciting episode yet.
Your podcast is very substantive and also funny and fun to listen to – a very rare combination indeed.
I have my own podcast for which I interview philosophers, scientists, and historians (mostly about the two fields of philosophy most interesting to the layman: ethics and philosophy of religion), and I am very impressed by the quality of your work on ‘The Partially Examined Life’!
I look forward to your work on the pragmatists and I hope you will eventually have time to cover additional recent or living philosophers, especially: Quine, Lewis, Popper, Strawson, Rawls, Nagel, Nozick, Rorty, Davidson, Mackie, Hare, and… well, many others!
#8 by Wes Alwan on May 17th, 2010
Thanks Luke — I think I’ve come across your site before. These guys are definitely on the list!
#9 by Nate on May 20th, 2010
First, a quick “thanks” for doing what you do. This is by far my favorite podcast. Entertaining and informative discussions. Outstanding text selection. I only wish you guys could do it more often…
Regarding The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art, do you think Danto is justified in concluding that “since Plato’s theory of art is his philosophy, and since philosophy down the ages has consisted in placing codicils to the platonic testament, philosophy itself may just be the disenfranchisement of art.” This generalization of philosophy seems to me a rather strange conclusion here. Is “philosophy itself” equivalent to the canon of philosophical texts?!? Overall I find his thesis quite brilliant, but I think this claim about philosophy itself is far too broad and ultimately misleading.
I wonder how much his thesis would be affected by substituting something like “the history of philosophy” for “philosophy itself,” considering that he argues from an historical perspective. The disenfranchisement of art still seems to hold as does the warranted criticism of historical philosophy, though perhaps he would not be able to make the same predictions about the fate of art and philosophy if the two disciplines are not linked in the way he describes. These predictions seem to rest on the idea that philosophy originates as a reaction to art.
So, maybe it would be better to simply ask, is it possible to do philosophy without Plato? If no, then Danto is certainly correct. If yes, then amending the argument (rather than discarding it) seems appropriate.
#10 by Mark Linsenmayer on May 20th, 2010
Now, Nate, if we recorded more often then YOU wouldn’t have time to read all of the texts along with us.
Danto is talking as a Hegelian, as in “the Spirit of philosophy,” referring to the dominant texts in history, like you suggest. Of course there are exceptions. This is like calling all philosophy phallocentric or whatever.
Second, I for one think this “the history of philosophy is a footnote to Plato” is a load of bunk. Plato did not have the conceptual apparatus to handle even a fraction of what debates are about today, and I can only point to the Theaetetus episode for evidence of that: I think it’s a significant stretch to think that, e.g. his long stretch about “How can there be false opinion?” is in any way relevant to modern epistemology. Wes would argue otherwise, I’m sure. As for art, many of the art forms we’re most concerned with didn’t even exist for Plato to react to.
#11 by Mark Linsenmayer on May 20th, 2010
I just put forward the prospect of a Frege episode, and Seth audibly shuddered, saying “if we do that, they’ll expect us to go forward down the whole list of analytic philosophers!”
So we’ll do it, but not right away, and hence many of the ones in the line you list will probably not rear their heads until episode 65. (Hare?? I read some of him for an ethics paper I wrote in undergrad but never thought to chase him down for more… I do like Davidson, though, and Quine’s definitely on the list.)
#12 by Wes Alwan on May 21st, 2010
Yes, I would argue otherwise.