May we not conceive each of us living beings to be a puppet of the Gods, either their playthings only, or created with a purpose-which of the two we cannot certainly know?--Plato Laws.
It is the role of artistic theories, these days, as always, to make the artworld, and art, possible. The Artworld, A. Danto (581)
The artworld stands to the real world in something like the relationship in which the City of God stands to the Earthly City. The Artworld, A Danto (582)
My knowledge of Danto is thin. So, I was surprised by the Kantianism in the first quote from his Artworld above. Danto's approach to art clearly resonates with Kuhn's analysis of science (and, indeed, Structure is alluded to on the first pages of the article).
I like the bold, temporal invariance of Danto's understanding of the role of artistic theory. It's compatible, of course, with his position that artistic theory has (possible varying) secondary roles to play. Moreover, while it goes against the spirit of his remarks, he doesn't say that art is impossible without artistic theory. But the "is" of artistic identification requires it. So only art that does not presuppose artistic identification can be ungrounded by artistic theory.* So far, so good.
But I hesitate over the second passage from his (1964) article quoted above. It flirts with theological concepts. Now, for Danto the contrast (or "opposition") between the artworld and real world is not one of contraries, but it is a contrast nevertheless. It's as if he is not allowing consideration of the possibility that some artistic identification could efface the opposition between art/real & Heaven/Earth that Danto is presupposing; it's a tacit denial that somebody could decree the establishment of the City of God here on Earth. To reject this option as a category mistake, can't be right because theologically such a decree is always, alas, a live option; Danto has no right to such a rejection because on his account some (future) artistic-theoretical revolution could generate a new world.
You might say, so what? Danto's analysis of art, which is often associated with an institutional approach to art, fails, then, to understand totalitarianism, large and small, as an artistic attempt at organizing the world--it underestimates, then, what may be at stake in art.
Or, even if we are philosophizing puppets in some puppeteer's show, we can't overlook that we figure in somebody else's artworld.
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