Philosophy in the Contemporary World

A complete sense of the world is an alternative normative ethical standard utilizing aesthetic integration. The temporary nature of aesthetic integration renders it a more useful tool for understanding human experience than does any philosophical or religious system containing allegedly permanent truths. The aesthetic integration of theatre provides a basis for discussion of the cognitive content of choice in action. I show that theatre reflects ethics. Then I turn to Jean-Paul Sartre's and Karl Marx's notions of "reciprocal freedom" as an example ethic. A consequence of reciprocal freedom is that the needs of others must be taken into account. I contend that a life lived in pursuit of aesthetic integration can indeed be an ethical life—and even serve as a model for an ethical life. This is not an idea generally embraced in Western culture, particularly when it is contrasted with military meaning-visions

Though Arthur Danto has long been engaged with issues of embodiment in art and beyond, neither he nor most of his interlocutors have devoted significant attention to die art form in which art and embodiment most vividly intersect, namely dance. This article, first, considers Danto's brief references to dance in his early magnum opus. The Transfiguration of the Commonplace, Second, it tracks the changes in Danto's philosophy of art as evidenced in his later After the End of Art and The Abuse of Beauty. And finally, it utilizes Danto's most recent work on the philosophy of action to suggest a new Danto-inspired definition of art, namely "apposite bodies."

According to Artlrnr C. Danto, widiout the progressive development of a dominant style the historical narrative structure of art in the West can no longer be sustained. It is thus the case in the contemporary world that art where liberated, has found its end in the arrival of a myriad of art-making styles where none is above the other. It is the aim of the present paper to suggest that the historical nanative structure of art cannot end in the way diat Danto asserted. Instead, by examining the issue through the application of the aesthetic conceptions of Benedetto Croce and R.G. Collingwood it can be shown that Danto is committing a philosophical error by abstraction. It is then the focus of this paper to resolve die error and to provide a descriptive account of art's liberated state in the world today by making the argument for the primacy of the aesthetic

This paper investigates Danto's claim that the narrative of art is over. In this state, which Danto sees as ideal, art is free from any master narrative, and its direction cannot be predicted. The claim that art ought to remain in its current state—pluralistic, free and with no further historical development—is problematic. Danto is correct that late 20th c. art could not be explained through a single narrative, and the myriad forms art takes demonstrate its pluralism. But Danto's assertions that freedom is the outcome of inexplicability and that progress is measured according to amenability to narrative do not necessarily follow. Based on Gombrich's theory of pictorial representation, I provide an alternative explanation of Danto's claim that art no longer manifests the narrative of the era of art, arguing that the shift in art's preferred form of presentation, though no longer supporting narrative explanation, is developing as a language of disclosure

Current controversies manifest an inherent tension between artistic freedom and moral constraint—a tension exacerbated by our reluctance or inability to define modem art. This paper maintains that Kant and Hegel are two of the pivotal figures with which any reflections on the ground, nature, and limits of artistic freedom must begin. Both phdosophers, for example, explicitly argue that artist and audience alike require a certain kind and a certain degree of freedom in order to carry out their respective projects, be they creative, cognitive, or aesthetic. While Kant's interest in art is limited mostly to its aesthetic affects, i.e., the faculty-driven feelings associated with beauty and the sublime, Hegel rejects feelings of any kind as constituting a proper subject-matter for philosophy, and so reaffirms the classical conception of art as essentially an expression of truth. Despite these fundamental differences, the two phdosophers' respective explanations of art and artistic autonomy must both be considered if we are to understand properly modem and post-historical forms of art, which for all their novelty and differences (both real and apparent) draw heavily on both the Kantian and Hegelian traditions for theh justification. So, while Kant and Hegel may not supply us with direct or decisive ways to think through contemporary issues involving artistic freedom or questions concerning the moral legitimacy of art, they can help us map out the historical landscape of philosophical thought on art and artistic autonomy and thereby provide us with the prolegomena to such an effort

Despite common perspectives, art has become less about creativity and more about cultural worth and service to the state. Using Deleuze, Guattari and Žižek, I argue the appropriation creates subjectivity subordinate to the state. This stifles the creative power of art and creates subjectivity by division. The state carries out this appropriation through the creation of propaganda. This ultimately leads to a negation of the subject. I then propose several methods to disassemble instituted subjectivity and shift art's creative powers back to the viewer and the artist. However, there are stdl possibilities of slipping back into this false art of the state. Thus, to free aesthetics and art from hierarchy and binaries, we must reexamine art's role and creative processes in order to return the creation of subjectivity to come from within, as opposed to from without

The task of finding art in the world is presented as a tale of three dynamic forces that have shaped art in recent times. The first is expansion of the domain of art. This is reflected in linguistic change. The term "art" has grown enormously in sense and extension. The second force is the public's subjective response to art writ large. Our commercial culture compels reaction. The third force is the art world's active promotion of the expansion of art's domain and the contextualization of the public's subjective response to it. The aspiration of the paper is to bring some clarity to how we presently identify art, respond to it, understand it, and institutionalize it. The tale concludes with discussion of the fiiture of art m the world today.