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Monday, February 19, 2007
J's Pub (Danto Conference Discussion)
Posted by Jonathan Neufeld on February 19, 2007 at 11:32 PM | Permalink
There were a number of requests to keep the discussion going from the Online Conference. The open-endedness of this weblog provides a perfect place for indefinitely continued discussion. Treat this as you would the bar where you meet after the official proceedings are over. (I'm not sure why I find it so easy to imagine J, "the sullen young artist with egalitarian attitudes" in Transfiguration, running a bar.) The papers and comments are still up on the conference page--feel free to download them if you haven't yet had a chance to take a look.
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Comments
Posted by: Derek Allan | Feb 20, 2007 3:21:16 AM :
Since this is a ‘later at the bar’ conversation, maybe I can be bold enough to re-ask the question I asked before that no one answered. It was:
“Something has long puzzled me about the debate about the meanings of an artwork changing over time (which I realize involves many other writers apart from AD).
If the debate relates to the interpretation of all objects – art or not – then in what sense is it a debate in the philosophy of art? Presumably, in this case, any answer one arrived at would not reveal anything about art specifically.
If, on the other hand, the debate relates to art specifically (i.e. this property of being able to change meanings is seen as specific to art), then shouldn’t the real question be: what gives art this peculiar power to change its meanings?
My reading of Danto has not helped me out of this dilemma. Nor, I must confess, has my reading of other contemporary aestheticians. Can anyone suggest an answer?”
I would be interested to know if people think my question:
(a) silly and irrelevant (preferably with an explanation why they think that)
(b) unanswerable
(c) answerable and the answer is ….
Posted by: George J. Leonard | Feb 20, 2007 3:46:59 AM :
Nice to meet you at the bar, Derek!
Certainly yours is not a "silly" question at all, but-- sticking to AD's work for now-- I don't think the debate has been "about the meanings of an object changing over time." Isn't it about the *status* of an object changing from "mere real thing" to "art object?" And even then, only for those who have been socialized, as it were, into a newer "art world?" At least that's my take on it. I don't have TOC in front of me and my terms may not be exactly Arthur's terms, but that's the idea of it, I think.
Posted by: Derek Allan | Feb 20, 2007 6:20:16 AM :
Thank you, George
You are perfectly right and a lot of the discussion has been about that. (I did have a question about that too, incidentally, which went unanswered; but one thing at a time.)
However, at least one of the papers (Sondra Bacharach’s: 'How Transfiguration Saved the Style Matrix' was one of them, I recall) got on to the question of meanings changing over time – which prompted my question.
Do you have any thoughts?
I’ll buy you a drink while I listen.
