Arthur Danto
| Arthur Coleman Danto | |
|---|---|
Arthur Danto, 2012
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| Born |
January 1, 1924 Ann Arbor, Michigan |
| Died | October 25, 2013 (aged 89) New York City |
| Alma mater |
Wayne University Columbia University |
| Era | 20th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Analytic |
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Main interests
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Philosophy of art Philosophy of history Philosophy of action |
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Notable ideas
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Narrative sentences Basic actions End of Art Post-historical Art Indiscernibles |
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Influenced
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Arthur Coleman Danto (January 1, 1924 – October 25, 2013) was an American art critic and philosopher. He is best known for having been influential, long-time art critic for The Nation and for his work in philosophical aesthetics and philosophy of history, though he contributed significantly to a number of fields, including the philosophy of action. His interests included thought, feeling, philosophy of art, theories of representation, philosophical psychology, Hegel's aesthetics, and the philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer.
Danto was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, January 1, 1924, and grew up in Detroit. After spending two years in the Army, Danto studied art and history at Wayne University (now Wayne State University) and then pursued graduate study in philosophy at Columbia University. From 1949 to 1950, Danto studied in Paris on a Fulbright scholarship under Jean Wahl, and in 1951 returned to teach at Columbia. In 1992 he was named Johnsonian Professor Emeritus of Philosophy.
Arthur Danto argues that "a problem is not a philosophical problem unless it is possible to imagine that its solution will consist in showing how appearance has been taken for reality." While science deals with empirical problems, philosophy according to Danto examines indiscernible differences that lie outside of experience.
Danto "believes that persons are essentially systems of representation."
Danto laid the groundwork for an institutional definition of art that sought to answer the questions raised by the emerging phenomenon of twentieth-century art. The definition of the term “art” is a subject of constant contention and many books and journal articles have been published arguing over the answer to the question "What is Art?" Definitions can be categorized into conventional and non-conventional definitions. Non-conventional definitions take a concept like the aesthetic as an intrinsic characteristic in order to account for the phenomena of art. Conventional definitions reject this connection to aesthetic, formal, or expressive properties as essential to defining art but rather, in either an institutional or historical sense, say that “art” is basically a sociological category. In terms of classificatory disputes about art, Danto takes a conventional approach. His "institutional definition of art" considers whatever art schools, museums, and artists get away with, regardless of formal definitions. Danto has written on this subject in several of his recent works and a detailed treatment is to be found in Transfiguration of the Commonplace.
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