Abstrakt
In the 1980s, the situation in the artworld led philosophers to the conclusion that art came to an end. The term 'end,' however, is ambiguous in this debate.
On the one hand, it refers to exhaustion of particular art forms (such as the end of painting), on the other hand, it corresponds to 'end' the sense of a 'purpose' or 'objective.' In my proposal, I focus on the most elaborated version of the end-of-art thesis pronounced by the American philosopher Arthur C. Danto, who claimed that art came to an end in the narrative sense.
Danto's conception of the narrative is deeply rooted in his philosophical system since the 1960s when he published his first monography Analytical Philosophy of History in which he introduced 'narrative' as a kind of a historical explanation. Accordingly, the end-of-art thesis is fully understandable only in the wider context of Danto's philosophy.
However, if we widen the scope of the analysis, a profound tension reveals. On the one hand, Danto holds that history is radically open in that any future event can redescribe the past in retrospect and therefore no claim about the future state of affairs is justified.
On the other hand, the claim that a certain narrative of art came to an end and that there will be no master narrative anymore refers to the future. Danto's end-of-art thesis, thus, contradicts his theory of historical explanation advocated in Analytical Philosophy of History.
Concerning this, I aim to propose an alternative reading of the end-of-art thesis, which would correspond with Danto's philosophy of history. In the opening sequence of my presentation, I will outline Danto's thoughts on the philosophy of history presented in Analytical Philosophy of History, especially his arguments why such claims predicting the future have no place in the historiography.
In the second part, I will proceed to the explanation of Danto's narrative end of art completed when art freed itself from the burden of self-definition and entered the era of pluralism in which it is not subordinated to any master narrative, determining what art is and excluding the rest. I aim to show the beforementioned tension between the two claims and to offer an alternative reading of Danto's thesis, which will eliminate its prophetic dimension.
Following Noël Carroll's criticism based on the idea of the end-of-art thesis as an orientational narrative, I propose to read Danto's thesis as an appeal to philosophers to modify their attitude towards art. Concerning the distinction between the two meanings of 'end' presented in the opening paragraphs of this abstract, I believe that Danto's end-of-art philosophy works better as a reflection on the purpose of philosophy in post-historical art.