Arthur C. Danto

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Arthur Danto (2012)

Arthur Coleman Danto (born January 1, 1924 in Ann Arbor , Michigan , † October 25, 2013 in New York ) was an American philosopher and art critic . Danto was one of the few representatives of analytical philosophy with extensive knowledge of continental European philosophy . His range of topics included in particular the areas of aesthetics , art theory , philosophy of history , philosophy of mind , theory of action and mysticism . In his works, influences from Hegel , Nietzsche , Sartre and Wittgenstein can be seen .

Career

From 1945 Danto began studying painting and history at Wayne State University in Detroit with the aim of becoming an artist. After he had completed his bachelor's degree there in 1948 , he began his philosophy studies at Columbia University in New York in 1948 , where he received his master's degree in 1949 . With a Fulbright scholarship he was able to study in Paris with Merleau-Ponty from 1949 to 1950 . In 1951 he returned to the USA to teach at Columbia University, where he remained until his retirement in 1992. He received his PhD in 1952 with John Herman Randall Jr. on Historical Judgment for Ph. D. , and was appointed professor 1,966th In 1983 he was President of the American Philosophical Association and from 1989 to 1990 President of the American Society for Aesthetics . Since 1965 he was one of the editors of the Journal of Philosophy and worked as an art critic for the weekly magazine The Nation from 1984 to 2009 . He was also co-editor of the Naked Punch Review and wrote for the art newspaper Artforum .

plant

In his books, Danto covers a wide range of philosophical subjects. In Analytical Philosophy of History (1965) he examines methodological problems of the historical sciences . With the works Nietzsche as Philosopher (1965) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1975), Danto tries to rehabilitate these two authors within analytic philosophy. From the 1980s onwards, Danto devoted himself entirely to the philosophy of art, showing an increasing interest in historical and work-related details. In his main work on art philosophy, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace (1981) and in his subsequent collections of essays The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art (1986) and Beyond the Brillo Box (1992), Danto tries to analyze the representational character of works of art. His art reviews, which have been published in the weekly newspaper Nation since 1984, were published together with art-philosophical additions in three anthologies: The State of the Art (1987), Encounters & Reflections: Art in the Historical Present (1990) and Embodied Meanings: Critical Essays and Meditations (1994 ).

History theory

In his first work, Analytical Philosophy of History (1965), Danto deals with methodological questions in the science of history . He thus significantly fertilized the methodological discussions of the discipline in the 1960s and 1970s.

Danto opposes philosophies of history that want to make statements about the whole of history. The science of history deals with events of the past, which generally does not allow any projection into the future. It links the beginning and end of stories in a narrative manner ( narrative sentences ) and is therefore conceptually different from a theory in which legal hypotheses are formulated that explain or predict events based on given conditions. The narrative organization of stories is in principle guided by the subjective interests of the historian and is never congruent with their subject.

Action theory

With his concept of basic action , which he explains in detail in his work Analytical Philosophy of Action (1973), Danto has given essential impulses for a detailed analysis of the concept of action. According to this, basic actions for actions have a similar meaning to basic sentences in epistemology. The existence of actions presupposes the existence of basic actions. Mediated actions must, in order not to get into an infinite regress of “through-that” relationships, contain final actions that are not mediated themselves. Such basic actions exist only in connection with complete actions. We can get to them solely by subtracting features of the full plot in which they are embedded.

Danto identifies basic actions, which are always expressed in body movements, with the corresponding neurophysiological processes. Body movements are not themselves caused by acts of will. For Danto there is not on the one hand the person who performs an act of will and on the other hand his actions, but we "are our actions and one with the relevant areas of influence of our bodies".

Art theory

The starting point of Danto's art theory is the question: what makes an object a work of art? To answer them, he created the term Artworld (dt. Art world ). In a later essay he defined the art world as a “loose association of people” who enter into a “discourse of reasons” that “transfers the status of art to things”. A work of art as such only gains access to the art world through an art-theoretical interpretation: "Art is a thing whose existence depends on theories". The status as a “work of art” is granted to an object, in that the interpretation establishes its relation to “ aboutness ”. It is considered a work of art because it embodies a meaning as a symbolic form of expression. In contrast to George Dickie , the “founder of the institutional theory of art”, Danto emphatically emphasizes that only the “institutionalized discourse of reasons” and not an “empowering elite” (as with Dickie) gives an object art status. Legitimate members of the institutional art world are those who have access to the discourse.

According to his own accounts, Danto's thesis was triggered by a visit in 1964 to the New York Stable Gallery , which had exhibited Andy Warhol's Brillo Boxes . He rated the Brillo Box exhibition as a “key experience, capable of revolutionizing the whole of art theory: Warhol and other pop art artists had shown that of two objects that looked exactly the same, one was a work of art and the other was not could."

In his latest work, What Art Is , Danto gives two complementary definitions of art. With reference to previous works, he initially describes art as “embodied meanings”, p. 37, and in the following also refers to them as “wakeful dreams”, p. 48 f.).

Awards (selection)

Fonts

  • Analytical Philosophy of History , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1965
    • German: Analytical Philosophy of History , translated by Jürgen Behrens, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1974, ISBN 978-3-518-06373-6 .
  • Nietzsche as Philosopher (1965)
  • Mysticism and Morality: Oriental Thought and Moral Philosophy (1969)
    • German: Mystik und Moral - Eastern and Western thinking . [1988]. Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich 1999, ISBN 978-3-7705-3271-1 .
  • Analytic Philosophy of Action , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1973
    • German: Analytical philosophy of action , translated by Ulrich Vogel, Scriptor Verlag, Königstein i. Ts. 1979, ISBN 3-589-20675-6 .
  • Jean-Paul Sartre , Fontana Modern Masters, 1975
    • German: Jean-Paul Sartre . Steidl, Göttingen 1986
  • The transfiguration of the commonplace: a philosophy of art , Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1981, ISBN 0-674-90346-3 .
    • German: The Transfiguration of the Ordinary , translated by Max Looser, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1984, ISBN 3-518-06427-4 .
  • The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art , Columbia University Press, New York 1986
    • German: The philosophical incapacitation of art , translated by Karen Lauer, Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich 1994, ISBN 978-3-7705-2825-7 .
  • Encounters and Reflections: Art in the Historical Present (1990)
  • Beyond the Brillo Box: The Visual Arts in Post-Historical Perspective (1992)
  • Connections to the World: The Basic Concepts of Philosophy (1997)
    • German: Paths to the world - basic concepts of philosophy . Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich 1999, ISBN 978-3-7705-3071-7 .
  • After the End of Art (1997)
  • What Art Is . Yale University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-300-17487-8
    • German edition not available

literature

  • Monika Betzler: Arthur Coleman Danto . In: Monika Betzler, Mara-Daria Cojocaru , Julian Nida-Rümelin (eds.): Aesthetics and philosophy of art. From antiquity to the present in individual representations (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 375). 2nd, updated and supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-520-37502-5 , pp. 227-237.
  • Dirk Koppelberg: Arthur C. Danto . In: Stefan Majetschak (Hrsg.): Classics of the philosophy of art. From Plato to Lyotard . Beck, Munich 2005, pp. 287-306
  • C. Menke: Review: AC Danto, Nietzsche als Philosopher. Munich 1998. In: FAZ, May 3, 1999.
  • C. Illies: Review: AC Danto, Mysticism and Morality. Eastern and Western thinking. Munich 1999. / AC Danto, Paths to the World. Basic concepts of philosophy. Munich 1999. In: FAZ, January 11, 2000.
  • Walter Zitterbarth: Arthur Coleman Danto . In: Julian Nida-Rümelin , Elif Özmen (Ed.): Philosophy of the Present in Individual Representations (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 423). 3rd, revised and updated edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-520-42303-0 , pp. 103-111.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Arthur C. Danto, philosopher and art critic, has died, aged 89
  2. ↑ Arthur C. Danto: Analytic Philosophy of History , Cambridge 1965, pp. 111, 115, 141
  3. ↑ Arthur C. Danto: Analytical Philosophy of Action , Königstein i. Ts. 1979, p. 116
  4. ^ Arthur C. Danto: The Artworld . In: Journal of Philosophy . Vol. 61/1964, pp. 571-584.
  5. ↑ Arthur C. Danto: Reunion with the Art World: Comedies of Likeness . In: ders .: Art after the end of art . Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich 1996, p. 55.
  6. ↑ Arthur C. Danto: The Transfiguration of the Ordinary. A philosophy of art . 3. Edition. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1996, p. 207.
  7. ↑ Michael Hauskeller: What is art? Positions of aesthetics from Plato to Danto . Beck, Munich 1998, p. 100.
  8. ↑ Dirk Koppelberg: Arthur C. Danto . In: Stefan Majetschak (Hrsg.): Classics of the philosophy of art. From Plato to Lyotard . Beck, Munich 2005, p. 300.
  9. ↑ Arthur C. Danto: Reunion with the Art World: Comedies of Likeness . In: ders .: Art after the end of art . Fink, Munich 1996, pp. 53, 57. 62.
  10. ↑ Michael Hauskeller: What is art? Positions of aesthetics from Plato to Danto . Beck, Munich 1998, p. 99.
  11. ^ Arthur C. Danto: What Art Is. Yale University Press, 2013
  12. ^ Frank Jewett Mather Award , accessed October 11, 2010.
personal data
SURNAME Danto, Arthur C.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Danto, Arthur Coleman (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American philosopher and art critic
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Ann Arbor , Michigan
DATE OF DEATH October 25, 2013
Place of death new York