Born in Athens which was the most powerful society in the world at the time. His family was powerful as well, and he was expected to go into politics. The influence of Socrates changed his career plans, and went into philosophy instead.
Plato was a student of Socrates. Socrates was famous for his "socratic method" of posing pointed questions on the nature of individuals' values. Socrates didn't form formal theories though, and did not write down his ideas. Plato formalized and wrote extensively, especially in the form of "dialogs", typically involving Socrates. His most famous dialog was The Republic
Charioteer Analogy: a charioteer drives two horses - a black one and a white one. The black one is unruly, does whatever it wants. That one represents pure "Appetite". The white one stays the course, basically too much - it would run forward unswervingly until it dies. That represents pure "Thumos". The drive represents "Reason" which is needed to pull everything together. The three of them comprise the "soul".
By our modern standard, ancient Greece was rife with beautiful art of many forms (paintings, sculptures, architecture, music, etc). The Greeks did not separate these arts (arts by our definition) from other "techne" or crafts such as wood-working, politics, horsemanship.
The Greeks held poetry in very high esteem - a gift from the Gods. Homer was recited in public, every educated Greek knew Homer
Plato wanted poetry and poets excluded from his 'ideal society' altogether for these reasons:
Tolstoy felt that Europe was becoming spiritually corrupt, largely as a result of the state of "art" (bad art). The popular belief at the time was that art was all about simple beauty. Though Tolstoy argued that this was wrong, and analogous to only placing value on food that tastes good. He defined art as the transmission of emotion from the artist to the viewer
Tolstoy defined the quality of art as having two characteristics:
In 1912 wrote a book in which he defended art that does not merely immitate appearances. Art of Cezanne (the moutain) was criticized for not being realistic enough. But Bell argued that true art is not about realistic looking paintings, but anything that produces an "aesthetic" emotion.
Beardsley's theory of art is in the same vain, but extends Clive Bell's theory. Beardsley describes an "aesthetic experience" (as opposed to aesthetic emotion). Theory includes these three criteria:
Something produced with the intention that it have the capacity to satisfy the aesthetic interest
elaborate on: excludes avant-garde pieces from his definition of art
Thinks its a waste of time to look for necessary and sufficient conditions for philosophies like art, because they are open concepts
No necessary conditions. Sometimes described as the "no theory" theory of art
Wittgenstein gives the example of a "game". What are the definitions? Amusing? Competative? Decision-making? Not necessarily. We cannot pin down any concrete necessary conditions or properties
Philosopher's discussions still have value because they essentially praise the attributes of the art
Mandelbaum takes exception to Weitz' "creativity" point and also his "family resemblance" point.
Within Weitz' argument about creativity, and art not being open to radical change if it indeed has an essence, Mandelbaum
Given the example of a game; one cannot tell the difference, merely by resemblance, between card game and, say, fortune telling. Deeper inspection is required. Same with looking at photos of similar looking people. Cannot assume that there is a family resemblance simply because two people share common features. For them to be family, they need a genetic connection.
Had more to say about the failures of the open concept, particularly on the "family resemblances". Family resemblances argument is recursive. Mona Lisa -> Medieval -> other, etc. There is no base case. Logically flawed
X is art if:
Conferring status. This procedure makes it art. Works like the Fountain are particularly important to point us to the true theory of art. A very stripped down artwork consisting only of the status conferral.
We don't need credentials for these general social practices. Just need to get involved. Less formal social network. A thing becomes a work of art in the same way a thing becomes a garden. Note: in this theory, "status conferral" has been dropped.
Finally, maybe we need to re-evaluate Dickie's theory. Perhaps he focused too much on "avant garde" stuff. He was trying to include the Fountain in his theory; all there is to the Fountain is showing the piece to the art-world public. But maybe after the Fountain, art lost its way. Recall Tolstoy's point that we should not accept everything that any bourgoise says is art. Perhaps all of avant-garde art is not art! But we won't explore this further in the course.
Art is not simply making stuff to show to people, but rather doing something more sophisticated and theoretical. Precisely with the avant-garde, does the nature of art present itself to us.
Danto wrote a paper about the Artworld that inspired Dickie to come up with his own Institutional Theory of Art. But their theories are quite different. Danto's theory has more substance.
Jeff: Danto's thing is like Plato's theory of Forms - art just has a different form than the thing that it looks like
Example of painting Landscape with Fall of Icarus (1555): Need to distinguish meanings of the word is:
When we say, "that blob of paint is icarus", is doesn't fit with any of the above definitions. Rather, somehow the blob of paint represents Icarus. This is the is of artistic representation.
X is artwork, if and only if:
Danto's view excludes the ancient cave paintings from art, since they wouldn't be offered any theory on the nature of art. Danto essentially says that art is now driven by philosophy about art
Blue Monochrome failed in a sense because it wasn't really a real thing. It could still be interpreted -- because it poses questions about the nature of art. So it failed to be a real thing, but succeeded in being real art. (?)
Avant Garde - modern and timely art. Something that is appropriate for our time. There is no going back to some previous form of art. But, with avant garde art, this is the end of art. Danto claims that art can no longer progress. Now we will only have change, and no more progress. Similar to what Hegel said about the end of history - when Napoleon defeated the prussians. From that point on, there can be change, but not progress since we have reached the political "ideal".
Could art continue to improve trying to imitate reality? Around the mid-15th century, we started to see the linear perception in paintings being very convincing. If we can reach the point of the holodeck on star trek TNG, we will have perfected imitation
Concept of progress doesn't really apply here. Though we may be expressing different feelings, our ability to express them doesn't change.
But Danto feels that art is about neither imitation nor expression. But about philosophical theory.
Danto feels that the avant garde was necessary for our time. But at the same time, a little sad because it represents the end of progress of art