Tanad

I never had moving, direct, experiential relationships with painters like Pollack and Johns and only occasional flickers with a Miro, a cubist Picasso, Kandinsky. And I never learned how to interpret them along the lines I had been taught for other works. So I just kind of ignored them, being stuck at the turn of the century, much like I was stuck in the 80s for song long with my music tastes.

I was never critical, I just didn’t ‘get’ or ‘enjoy’ them. Danto’s book gave me a framework for understanding why I had so much trouble with modern art and why engaging with it was so different and, to me, more difficult than engaging with more traditional art. His thesis about the attempt to be non-representational – or more accurately – work out what that means, the notion of the art ‘world’ that self-references intent and the means of production, the (un)intentional exclusion of the uneducated or casual viewer all worked to keep me at a distance from basically most of what happened in the 20th century.

I feel like now I have a way of accessing that world – in a limited way – where I didn’t before. It’s still alien to me as an aesthetic experience compared to Chagall or Michelangelo, but there is something there now for me. Doing this podcast turned out to have a direct impact on my life recently, as I spent a wonderful couple of hours with my father in the modern wing of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where we had a very moving experience with the permanent installation of Cy Twombly’s 50 Days at Iliam.

However, now armed with the knowledge that Art has been ‘vaporized’, and is not necessarily representational anymore; the shock is lessened. Indeed it seems that any Joe Blow can select an object and drag it into an art museum, and request an onlooker to ponder and try to ‘get at the meaning’ of the object placed. Indeed, it does seem like revenge upon the philosopher.

I am also surprised however that Seth was disillusioned (in the sense of Art as non-representational) by the art of picasso, Kandinsky, klimt, etc. Art had not vaporized into dragging urinals into museums in early 20th century. Symbolic and abstract art still inspire thought directed at representation rather than the essence of objects (urinals and ropes). I am of course mostly a dullard when it comes to Art, but even so can appreciate the difference between a Kandisnky and a urinal.

I am still way behind your current episode in my listening, but I’m getting there! I enjoyed this podcast as well. Mark, I am particularly sympathetic to the pluralist riff that you brought to the discussion (via Danto). I recently enjoyed this TED talk from back in 2004 that suggests the “TRUTH” of these pluralistic ideas (http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html). I thought you’d find it entertaining as well.

And, as a gratuitous suck-up, I enjoyed “This night before the end.” Good stuff!

Cheers,
David E.

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.)

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.

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.

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!

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.

Like the hantavirus.

Getty, don’t let lack of background ever stop you from inquiring. There’s no other way to get background.

I think I like your faces the best, e.g. http://www.jaybailey.com/restrainedordered.html.

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