Abstract

Arthur Danto was an original thinker, and like all creative readers of the history of philosophy he invariably heard in those who caught his attention echoes, faint or raucous, of his own thoughts. Danto rejects the transparency theory as inadequate to how we talk about art and to artistic practice. For Danto, an artwork is not a mere representation, with a particular kind of content. Echoing a familiar theme from traditional aesthetic theory, Danto reminds us that “it is crucial to distinguish the form of a representation from the content of the representation”. Sartre and Danto agree that artistic style and expression differ essentially from mundane character and meaning. By his own admission, Sartre's favored argumentative technique was to invest heavily in sharp categorical distinctions where common sense and philosophical refinement are inclined to see complexity and ambiguity.