Step 12: Aut Aut brief candle....

No reference to real or existing persons and events are casual...On the real utility of genre theories revisited, and the consequent inevitable intentional fallacy (and btw,intensional fallacy as well). The most interesting argument I believe is around my understanding of Danto's distinction between contraries and opposites.

The efficacy of the genre theory comes thus to be questioned not only on the terms of its undecidability (beyond its normal, usual inaccessibility), but in terms of a necessary polisemy, connatural with the open work, where the open work is considered a necessary response to our more complex world view and experience. And yes, interesting the concept of "triviality" in arguments concerning compliance to genre... Ready?


Perhaps as a consequence of the difficulties traced out in the previous steps, some traditions have shifted the focus from genre thinking (that is technical compliance) to the search for the finality or the teleology of specific works, and/or of Art. This to take into account the explicit or implicit openness of works of art, an openness that cannot be denied even to historical phenomenon.

This renders vain the initial project, that sought to reduce criticism to description by compressing the intentional factor to the initial choice of genre. This per force. It is no longer uncommon and often necessary to ask the artists to explain the work, to justify its classification, to clarify its being.

This supposes not only that the artist be honest, that he or she be disinterested, but that there be a ready classification for what he intends to do. Furthermore, it is necessarily an under-determined procedure (neither sound nor complete), in that perforce there must be other, exogenous criteria if such a valuation of the work is not to be tautological. It is not sufficient to say that "I meant it that way", "I did it on purpose", now is it?

We have to develop a way of evaluating the criterion themselves. We have to as it were, to critique critique itself (the third man problem).

Let us take a step back. Let us suppose that all these dilemmas are difficult yes, but that generally we do not find them so problematic. In general, there is substantial convergence in our judgements. While there may be extreme or limit cases, a considerable consensus exists, and diverse methods whereby we build such a consensus. History is the mother of all truth, a rather cruel and obtuse mother, but nonetheless our mother. Probably the residual uncertainty is really in order, as this incomplete consensus is part and parcel of an evolved conception of sense and meaning, and it is not at all strange that our judgements should follow the dynamic upon which they sink their foundation, that is language.

Let us take a limit case. An artist creates his experience. He is quite accultured, and so he is certain to have created something quite new and unique. So new and unique that he feels the need to explain that which he has done, so that, understanding it, we may appreciate it, and consider it worthy of our evermore tried and pressed attention.

Whatever could he say to convince us of the value of what he has done? What possibile motive and reasons could he supply? What sort of arguments, if indeed it may be necessary an argument? To what could he appeal?

Arthur Danto, differently from Walton, considers just this case. He does not consider the evolutionary work, but the revolutionary work which sets out as its main purpose that of staying out of our usual or known categories. Where compliance to established genres is at best trivial.

To this end he considers two types of predicates. Contradictory and contrary. Predicates P an Q are said to be contradictory for all x, P(x) or Q(x) and if P(x) then not Q(x). Predicates S and R are said to be contrary more simply if S(x) then not R(x), leaving open that neither S(x) or R(x) . According to Danto, predicates utilised historically to the type of discussion we are examining have been implicitly of the second type. And, always according to Danto and perhaps logic, in order to meaningfully apply a contrary predicate, one must previously apply a higher order predicate, let us say K.
It is most probably that it this that we all mean when we ask, "to what may he appeal to?"

Now, I do not wish to go further into the specifics, nor defend further the claims, even though they are analogous to most the widely accepted claims regarding compliance of certainly less contended questions, such as that of concrete things and not abstract categories. My aim is as always another.

What I wish to say takes that its cue by recognizing that I am certain that for Danto being K stands for being ART. For Danto this means to be a member of the artworld (to which belong not only works but also subjects and authorities). How this belonging is determined is not really explained or justified, though it is convincing. No reasoning, no argument, no decision procedure is furnished that is not in the end open to a sonorous "So what!". What is important is that before we fill our mouths with discussions on esthetic criteria, and their applicability to specific cases, we must indeed seem to have to know or agree that we are really dealing with "Art".

And we are back to the start. We simply do not know what that means nor what sort of reasoning could satisfy our requests. Perhaps a judgment-consensus on the ultimate goal, use or purpose of art. But in that case we are certain of one thing and only one thing: that we will never possibibly succeed in our endeavour.

Does art give us something? And just one thing? And is it an example of itself? And if we don't feel anything, is it not art? And if we don't think anything, is it not art? And if we think just anything, is it?

And yet, it seems ever so importa to distinguish art from non art. For if we do not succeed in including or excluding an experience from this heavenly olympus, all our efforts seem not only vain, but vacuous.

And all our yesterdays have taught us that we have never succeed in this endeavour.

The contemporary crisis.