Art as Appearance: Two Comments on Arthur C. Danto's After the End of Art

In his latest book about art Arthur Danto claims that aesthetic appearance—visuality in the visual arts—has become more and more irrelevant for most of contemporary art. This essay first immanently critiques the distinction between the aesthetic and artistic properties underlying this claim. Danto's claim about the irrelevance of the aesthetic is not compatible with the spirit of his own writings: what Danto denies in After the End of Art has been a cornerstone of his theoretical work since The Transfiguration of the Commonplace , namely, that the aesthetic is indeed both an elementary and a defining property of art. Examples ranging from Duchamp's Fountain to a recent installation by the Art & Language group are discussed to support this critique. Second, the essay defends Danto's contention that developing a "definition of art" is a sensible enterprise. But it turns out that Danto's (self-ascribed) "essentialism" concerning art has no essentialist implications in any specific sense.     

The Unimaginable

Arthur Danto advocates the thesis that we cannot imagine the art or artwork of the future. This thesis is motivated primarily by his Hegelian conception of history and secondarily by his holistic conception of art, which is informed by Wittgenstein. At first glance the thesis seems to conflict with Danto's second thesis that anything (any object) can be a work of art. Danto's solution to this problem is not very convincing. A more promising approach can be found in Kant's aesthetics and especially in his concept of genius.     

Essentialism and Historicism in Danto's Philosophy of Art

Arthur C. Danto has long defended essentialism in the philosophy of art, yet he has been interpreted by many as a historicist. This essentialism/historicism conflict in the interpretation of his work reflects the same conflict both within his thought and, more importantly, within modern art itself. Danto's strategy for resolving this conflict involves, among other things, a Bildungsroman of modern art failing to discover its essence, an essentialist definition of art provided by philosophy which is indemnified against history, and a thesis about the end of art once it has been defined. Is this strategy successful, or does it result, as I argue, in a philosophical disenfranchisement of art of precisely the type that Danto himself has criticized?     

According to What: Art and the Philosophy of the "End of Art"

In 1964, when Danto first encountered Warhol's Brillo Box, Jasper Johns made a painting titled According to What. Danto's new book After the End of Art also provokes this question because in his restatement of Hegel's verdict on art's historical role he drops an essential part of the implied definition of art: the issue of adequacy between content and presentation. Why dispense with this crucial point of quality judgment? My critique falls into three parts. The first part shows how the whole historical argument rests upon a shift of criteria. According to Hegel art reached its highest point of achievement in classical antiquity when adequate embodiment seemed indispensable to the presence of the spirit. It subsequently lost this exclusive rank—first through Christianity, then through modern philosophy—when a new spiritual self-awareness emerged which no longer seemed to need external manifestation. Although Danto disputes the concept of absolute self-possession as the metaphysical vanishing point of Hegel's construction, he nevertheless subscribes to its apparent evidence in late twentieth-century art and culture. In the second part I discuss the characteristic distortions of Hegelian-type historicism and confront them with both the obvious misrepresentation of the works of art themselves and the different code of conduct in practical art history. This leads to a rather disenchanting conclusion: according to an old, deeply ingrained philosophical prejudice there is no problem about quality in art, because the true yardstick and fulfillment of art is philosophy itself. The final part tries to unpick this tangle by showing that there was in fact, contemporaneous with Hegel, a remarkably different interpretation of the self-same auspices of modern art which comes much closer to its actual achievements, and this without denying the basic philosophical predicament of which Danto has reminded us.     

The End of Art?

This article focuses on the arguments that Arthur Danto has advanced for alleging that the developmental history of art is over. The author is skeptical of Danto's conclusion and maintains that Danto has failed to demonstrate that art history is necessarily closed. The author also contends that Danto's end-of-art thesis is better construed as a specimen of art criticism than as an example of the speculative philosophy of art history.     

Being Hegelian after Danto

In this article I will discuss some systematic issues of Arthur Danto's philosophy of art and art history from a Hegelian perspective. Belonging to "Absolute Spirit," art can be called a "spiritual kind." Since spiritual kinds are reflective and self-determining, they are not susceptible to philosophical definition. Nevertheless, elements of essentialism can be maintained when describing art's historicity and conceptual structure. To this end, "art" can be interpreted as a two-tier concept: in inherently reflecting its concept, it projects its own conditions into the past, co-opting "prehistorical" artworks as predecessors and classical examples. Hegel's view of art as conceptually structured in itself can have disenfranchising or reenfranchising consequences: either reducing art to minor philosophy, or acknowledging its privileged access to its own essence. After Danto's detachment of the philosophy of art from aesthetics, Hegel would himself be deprived of the possibility to "define" art by intuition ( Anschauung ). Even if the spirit consists of essential kinds, philosophy is not in a privileged position to establish the essence of art and thus the difference between art and philosophy. Rather, philosophy must acknowledge art as a neighbor (Heidegger) and as partner in a dialogue.     

The End of Art: A Philosophical Defense

This essay constructs philosophical defenses against criticisms of my theory of the end of art. These have to do with the definition of art; the concept of artistic quality; the role of aesthetics; the relationship between philosophy and art; how to answer the question “But is it art?”; the difference between the end of art and “the death of painting”; historical imagination and the future; the method of using indiscernible counterparts, like Warhol's Brillo Box and the Brillo cartons it resembles; the logic of imitation—and the differences between Hegel's views on the end of art and mine. These defenses amplify and fortify the thesis of the end of art as set forth in my After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of History (1997).     

Leibniz on Diplomacy and Discernible Art

Abstract

This article discusses Leibniz’s unique blend of aesthetics and diplomacy. While his art extended diplomacy beyond the bounds of political realism, his diplomacy gave occasion to his art. His identity of indiscernibles (objects with the same properties are identical) inspired philosopher Arthur Danto to define contemporary art in terms of a qualitative perceptual division between the world and the Artworld (objects with the same properties may or may not be art). Although Leibniz would have disputed Danto’s bifurcated artistic perspective, Danto vindicates Leibniz’s major contribution to contemporary aesthetic philosophy by defending his belief in the moral foundation of art. Leibniz was not only one of the pre-eminent men of German letters of his time, he also excelled in diplomacy on behalf of the Hanoverian court. His international relations (IR) theory of peace through grand global alliances is only just beginning to be understood, though his aesthetics and correct diplomacy continue to validate individual creativity, liberal freedoms, and universal enlightenment up to this very day.     

HUME,HISTORY, AND THE USES OF SYMPATHY

This article focuses on the role of sympathy and antipathy in David Hume's History of England (1754–1762) in relation to the broader place of sympathy in Hume's moral philosophy. Hume, in his earlier philosophical work, argues that sympathy is a naturally occurring responsiveness to others’ feelings, similar to the resonance between musical strings. In his History, however, he carefully curates his readers’ emotional responses, inviting sympathy with figures of suffering—such as King Charles I and Mary Queen of Scots—while also, often almost simultaneously, stirring intense antipathy for those whose religious extremism he regards as socially dangerous and beyond comprehension. After first situating the emergence of Hume's theory of sympathy in its early eighteenth-century context, this article explores in detail the techniques of sentimental management that appear across the six volumes of the History of England. The elaborate deployment of emotions in Hume's historiography is shown to be in tension both with some aspects of his philosophy of natural human sympathy and with his brief reflections on the writing of history. Hume channeled his readers’ sympathies toward particular targets and against others. A careful analysis of this usefully sheds light on the management of sympathy in modern historiography, on which Hume has had an enduring influence.     

后现代主义与后现代史学

后现代主义是 2 0世纪 70年代在欧美等西方学术界兴起的一种社会思潮。近些年来 ,我国学界对于后现代主义作品的介绍颇多 ,但对其进行认真研究的论著则较少。本文对后现代、后现代主义和后现代史学的发展过程进行了疏理 ,尤其是就后现代史学对现代史学的挑战作了认真的探析 ,认为后现代史学的核心是力图动摇西方现代历史编撰学的基础 ,颠覆西方自启蒙以来建立起来的历史观念     

LEVINAS,HISTORY, AND HISTORIOGRAPHY

In this book Anton Froeyman has provided us with a colorful and intriguing account of a Levinasian approach to historical inquiry and historical writing. In my discussion of his book I describe central features of his account and notice how he uses, to develop his view, recent developments in historiography—including the work of figures like Natalie Davis and Carlo Ginzburg, in philosophical thinking about history and historiography, and in various postmodern developments. I sketch central features of Levinas's ethical metaphysics and show that Froeyman's focus on Levinas's interest in our relations with other persons and in particular with their relative differences from us is too narrow. A proper understanding of our infinite responsibility to and for all others, as Levinas portrays it, leads to a broader account than the one Froeyman gives and one that enables us to understand with greater clarity how historiography fits into the Levinasian understanding of our temporal and interpersonal relations with others.     

20世纪30年代冯友兰学术思想的唯物史观取向

20世纪30年代唯物史观在中国学术界的奔腾而人,直接影响和规定着冯友兰学术思想的基本状貌。《中国哲学史》、《秦汉历史哲学》和《新事论》等文本共同凸显出冯友兰在哲学史观、史学观和文化观上的唯物史观取向。冯友兰在30年代取法唯物史观这一事实,对我们审视以往的学术史及反思当下的学术语境有着深刻的启示。     

IN THE FOLDS OF TIME: RASHĪD AL‐DĪN ON THEORIES OF HISTORICITY

By focusing on Rashīd al‐Dīn's (d. 718/1318) historiographical oeuvre and here in particular his “History of the World,” this article challenges the usual approach to his Jāmi? al‐tawārīkh (Compendium of Chronicles) and argues that his was a deeply pluralistic enterprise in a world with many centers, tremendous demographic change, high social mobility, and constantly shifting truth‐claims in an ever expanding cosmos, to which Rashīd al‐Dīn's method, language, and the shape of his history were perfectly adaptable. This article introduces the notion of “parallel pasts” to account for Rashīd al‐Dīn's method. By placing the Jāmi? al‐tawārīkh and its author in their historical and intellectual context, this article also argues that this method is not restricted to Rashīd al‐Dīn's historiography: His historiographical work ought to be seen as part of his larger theological and philosophical oeuvre into which the author placed it consciously and explicitly, an oeuvre that is, like Rashīd al‐Dīn's historiography, pluralist at heart, and that could be as easily classified as “theology” or “philosophy” as “historiography.”     

Comparative Historiography: Problems and Perspectives

Just like history, historiography is usually written and analyzed within one spatio-temporal setting, traditionally that of a particular nation-state. As a consequence, historiography tends to localize explanations for historiographical developments within national contexts and to neglect international dimensions. As long as that is the case, it is impossible to assess the general and specific aspects of historiographical case studies. This forum, therefore, represents a sustained argument for comparative approaches to historiography. First, my introduction takes a recent study in Canadian historiography as a point of departure in order to illustrate the problems of non-comparative historiography. These problems point to strong arguments in favor of comparative approaches. Second, I place comparative historiography as a genre in relation to a typology that orders theories of historiography on a continuum ranging from general and philosophical to particular and empirical. Third, I put recent debates on the “fragmentation” of historiography in a comparative perspective. Worries among historians about this fragmentation—usually associated with the fragmentation of the nation and the advent of multiculturalism and/or postmodernism—are legitimate when they concern the epistemological foundations of history as a discipline. As soon as the “fragmentation” of historiography leads to—and is legitimated by—epistemological skepticism, a healthy pluralism has given way to an unhealthy relativism. As comparison puts relativism in perspective by revealing its socio-historical foundations, at the same time it creates its rational antidote. Fourth, I summarize the contributions to this forum; all deal—directly or indirectly—with the historiography of the Second World War. Jürgen Kocka's “Asymmetrical Historical Comparison: The Case of the German Sonderweg” examines the so-called “special path” of Germany's history. Daniel Levy's “The Future of the Past: Historiographical Disputes and Competing Memories in Germany and Israel” offers a comparative analysis of recent historiographical debates in Germany and Israel. Sebastian Conrad's “What Time is Japan? Problems of Comparative (Intercultural) Historiography” analyzes the conceptual linkage between Japanese historiography and specific interpretations of European history. Richard Bosworth's “Explaining ‘Auschwitz’ after the End of History: The Case of Italy” charts in a comparative perspective the changes since 1989 in Italian historiography concerning fascism. All four articles support the conclusion that next to the method of historical comparison is the politics of comparison, which is hidden in the choice of the parameters. Analyses of both method and politics are essential for an understanding of (comparative) historiography.     

Gombrich’s critique of Hauser’s Social History of Art

This article examines E.H. Gombrich’s critical appraisal of Arnold Hauser’s book, The Social History of Art. Hauser’s Social History of Art was published in 1951, a year after Gombrich’s bestseller, The Story of Art. Although written in Britain for an English-speaking public, both books had their origins in the intellectual history of Central Europe: Gombrich was an Austrian art historian and Hauser was Hungarian. Gombrich’s critique, published in The Art Bulletin in 1953, attacked Hauser’s dialectical materialism and his sociological interpretation of art history. Borrowing arguments from Karl Popper’s critique of historicism, Gombrich described Hauser’s work as collectivist and deterministic, tendencies at odds with his own conception of art history. However, in his readiness to label Hauser a proponent of historical materialism, Gombrich failed to recognize Hauser’s own criticism of deterministic theories of art, especially formalism. This article investigates Gombrich’s reasons for rejecting Hauser’s sociology of art. It argues Gombrich used Hauser as an ideological counterpoint to his own version of art history, avowedly liberal and individualist in outlook.     

近代中国史学转型期的传统派史家——张尔田史学思想简论

张尔田是清末民初的重要史学家。在中国史学由传统史学向近代史学转向之时,他以继承和发扬浙东史学为己任,在史学宗旨和史学方法等方面,注重对中国传统史学精神和方法的阐发;同时,他针对近代新史学中处于主流地位的新考据学派的疑古倾向和考据倾向展开批评。张尔田的史学思想,代表了部分近代中国传统派史家的史学思想,值得中国史学史研究者重视。     

科学史学乎?“科学古学”乎?——傅斯年“史学便是史料学”之思想渊源新探

在现代中国史学史上,傅斯年以其"史学便是史料学"的口号,成为所谓"史料学派"的代表人物。而"史料学派"之推动历史研究的科学化,又常与德国兰克学派的理论和实践相比仿。不过傅氏虽然曾留学德国,但从他的藏书和其它资料来看,其实他在留学期间,对兰克学派及其德国的历史研究,并没有太多接触。相反,傅氏对西方博古主义或古学运动对古典文化的研究,颇有兴趣。他在回国以后所开展的一系列工作,也显示出他之强调史料的扩充和整理,并由此来推广科学史学的做法,介乎于科学主义和博古主义之间。     

‘Selig wer auch Zeichen gibt’: Leibniz as Historical Linguist

Abstract

Leibniz’s philosophical and philological interests overlapped at many points, and some of his fundamental philosophical notions shaped his views on language, particularly his thinking about language history, in decisive ways. Although he is better known for his work on universal language, his writings on natural language and language history are worth consideration both for their subtlety and for the insight they give into the complex history of thought on this topic. The principles of sufficient reason, praedicatum inest subjecto, and his doctrine of marks and traces are echoed in his work on natural languages and in his account of their histories. He attempted to reconcile philosophical investigations of the natural languages with the Biblical accounts of the confusion of languages at Babel, and in his approach to etymology he participated in a long tradition of thinking about language and its essence as hidden or secret, the truth of which remains scattered in signs and which etymology alone may occasionally reveal.     

“Wachstum” oder “Revolution”? Ernst Cassirer und die Wissenschaftsgeschichte

“Growth” or “Revolution”? Ernst Cassirer and History of Science. Ernst Cassirer's contributions to history of science have been long time neglected. The aim of this paper is to show the historical and philosophical framework of Cassirer's engagement in this field, starting from his seminal work about the problem of knowledge in science and philosophy of the modern age. Moreover the author suggests that Cassirer's late studies about Galilei and the origins of mathematical science are of some interest in order to comprehend both his commitment to contemporary history of science (from Burtt to Koyré) and his intellectual heritage for our agendas in a post‐Kuhnian era.