Between Dreams and Perception - Danto's Revisited Definition of Art in the Light of Costello's Criticism
Abstract
One of the topics to which philosopher Arthur C. Danto paid systematic attention is the definition of art.
His contribution to the discussion developed mainly in his book The Transfiguration of the Commonplace works on the principle of indiscernibles and aims to distinguish artwork from mere real things. However, Danto did not provide us with a formal definition in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions.
Later on, Danto isolated two of necessary conditions and characterised art as "embodied meaning" in his Art after the End of Art. But this was not his last say on this topic, though.
In 2013, Danto published his last book What Art Is and added the third necessary condition of "wakeful dreams." In my paper, I aim to consider this Danto's step concerning Diarmuid Costello's criticism of Danto's cognitivism as presented in the article 'Whatever happened to "embodiment"? The eclipse of materiality in Danto's ontology of art.' I shall seek to answer a question of whether Danto's revision of the definition can resist Costello's arguments. Or more precisely, given the new necessary condition, I shall argue that the wakeful dreams- condition makes Costello's arguments even more urgent.