Jedno dzieło sztuki, wiele interpretacji

In the article, the author tries to present what the specificity of the issue should consist of – the One and the Many in the aspect of the philosophy of art. For this purpose, he refers to the thought of H-G. Gadamer and Th. W. Adorno, showing the specificity of the existence of artistic objects and the necessity of the emergence of separate interpretations inscribed in it, which, however, have their source in the possibilitiesoffered by a work of art, and are not an external application of content, with a completely separate specificity of existence. When adapting philosophical content, he tries not to forget about the exemplification coming straight from the world of art.

New science of art of Hans Sedlmayr

This article provides a brief systemic analysis of the key concepts of the so-called new science of art developed by the Austrian art historian Hans Sedlmayr. The result of Seldmayr’s pursuits are reflected in creation of his own philosophy of art and culture based on a particular worldview. The cognition of the whole, along with individual and unique, underlies this science. Understanding is the goal of scientific knowledge for Sedlmayr. It suggests not only abstract knowledge, but peculiar existential experience as well. Sedlmayr interprets the understanding of artwork as its contemplation, which in turn, is identical to its actualization or presence. In Seldlmayr’s art of science, epistemologies and ontologies merge into each other. He interprets artworks simultaneously as the event and as the social organism, which overcomes the linearity of time and fragmentation of plurality. This artificial complex system, built on the paradoxical identity of the single and plenty, is both finite and infinite. Sedlmayr’s views encompass classical and nonclassical approach towards cognition of the whole. He relies on the principles of monism, seeking to reduce all concepts to a single basis, single point of singularity that designates the synthesis of all the moments of the whole and can be expressed by a single category. The main category, which resembles the center of the opposites, is the “midpoint” (Mitte). The aforementioned ideas are consistent and logical only in such scientific worldview that identifies ontology and epistemology, which implies the unity of contemplation and phenomenon of the artwork. Therefore, in Sedlmayr's constructions, actualization or revival of the artwork is identical with its comprehension. The systemic approach towards the artwork reflected in the theoretical works of Sedlmayr extends the boundaries of art science and converges with philosophy.

Kant and Recent Philosophies of Art

This article is to be a bridge between Kant’s aesthetics and contemporary art – not by being a paper on Kant and contemporary art, but rather by being on Kant and contemporary philosophy of art. I claim that Kant’s views on the appreciation of art can accommodate contextualism as well as ethicism. I argue that not only does contextualism fit Kant’s views on the appreciation of art; in §§51–3 of the third Critique, Kant’s appreciation of art is in accordance with contextualism. I go on to argue that not only does ethicism fit Kant’s views on the appreciation of art; in §§51–3, Kant’s appreciation of art is in accordance with ethicism.

On Conceptual Revision and Aesthetic Judgement

This paper calls into question the view typically attributed to Kant that aesthetic judgements are particularist, resisting all conceptual determination. Instead, it claims that Kant conceives of aesthetic judgements, particularly of art, as playing an important role in the revision of concepts: one sense in which aesthetic judgements, as Kant defines them, ‘find a universal’ for a given particular. To understand the relation between artistic judgements and concepts requires that we consider what I call Kant’s diachronic account of aesthetic ideas, or how such judgements unfold in the course of communication and reflection. My reading draws Kant much closer to debates in the philosophy of art on the semantic dimension of artworks. Here, illuminating the way in which aesthetic judgements about art can play a role in conceptual revision allows us to make sense of the way in which modern artworks contest concepts rather than merely presenting or expressing them.

Philosophical reception in modern art history

This article explores the applicability of philosophical reception in terms of analysis of the phenomenon and the essence of art and artworks. The goal of this research lies in substantiation of the need for proliferation of the philosophical reception in art history for the holistic study of art in the aspect of its “ontologization”. Emphasis is placed on the fact that modern art history sets the tone in examination of the formal and substantive sides of art, its types and genres. Methodological and theoretical framework for art history is the philosophy of art, which recently however does not hold the leading position in the analysis of art, and even yields to aesthetics. The problem of comprehending the essence of art and the value role of artwork in life of a person and society remains open. It is rather not the subject of close attention of the art historians, but may become such. Thus, the art history analysis should be complemented with the philosophical reception. Namely this aspect is given special attention in this research. Philosophical reception is a peculiar algorithm for understanding the meanings and ideas of the artwork, as well as realization of the essence of this phenomenon. Art is often viewed as one of the forms of collective consciousness (along with science, mythology, etc.); however, the philosophical reception helps to establish the value-semantic nature of art that prevails over the social and aesthetic. Comprehension of any genre or type of art through the prism of art history is essentially refracted in the philosophical reception. In this case, the researcher is able not only assess the style and genre nature of the artwork, but also to trace its position in the turn of eras, personality concepts, ideologies, and worldviews. It is undoubtedly gives an apparent advantage to any modern researcher who aims to perceive the essence of art.

Достоевский, Аполлон Григорьев, Бахтин

Аполлон Григорьев и Бахтин затрагивали достаточно разные вопросы творчества Достоевского, но корреляция между их работами очевидна на уровне их металогики, их философии, их культур-философских оснований. Григорьев, вместе с Достоевским, находился у истоков почвенничества, хотя отзывы Григорьева о творчестве Достоевского эпизодичны и довольно инвективны. Григорьев, в основном, отказывал Достоевскому в том, что его искусство соответствует «правде жизни». Но и первый вариант книги Бахтина о Достоевском не был апологетическим. Григорьев и Бахтин реализуют свою философию через эстетику (философию искусства). Искус-ство, согласно Григорьеву, имеет истоки в самой жизни, а жизнь через искусство реализует себя и сама себя понимает; поэтому критик – также «художник». Бахтин также исходит из принципа корреляции искусства и жизни, выводя отсюда свое понятие «творческий хронотоп». У Григорьева, Бахтина, Достоевского дело идет об онтологии искусства, как и об искусстве онтологии. Искусство онтологии подразумевает самую широкую эстетизацию жизни: ее вдвижение в горизонт искусства. Данная установка – предмодернистская и модернистская. В генезисе понятия «органическая критика» отозвались уроки Канта как автора трех философ-ских «Критик». Идеи Канта были значимы также для Достоевского и Бахтина. Григорьева могло за-интересовать философское измерение, приданное Кантом понятию «критика». Поэтому «органиче-ская критика» относится преимущественно к философии, поднимая объемный перечень вопросов, превышающих собственно эстетические. Согласно Бахтину, полифония Достоевского заключается в том, что автор выступает «медиумом», «пропускающим» через себя различные идеи («голоса» персонажей, различные «точки зрения» и т. п.) Автор-медиум «проводит» «через себя» и «из себя» массу различных идей без сущностного отвержения какой-либо из них. «Автор-медиум» пытается говорить от лица жизни, но также и даже «вместо жизни», что ведет к логической и смысловой подмене «мира» – «картиной мира». Отвер-жение сущностное вовсе не означает отсутствия у автора отвержения формального, т. е. просто констатированного. Однако сущностное неотвержение означает гораздо больше, чем то или иное формальное отвержение. Жизнь, историческое бытие в таком случае оказывается для Достоевского практически «хаосом». В развитие идей Бахтина следует, что при внедрении в свой художественный мир карнавального начала Достоевский утверждает «связку» чувствительность / физиологизм. Ее истоки – в сентимен-тализме XVIII в. Данная «связка» находит религиозную проекцию в феномене юродства. Поэтому итоговой бахтинской трактовкой Достоевского (1963) движет пафос «оправдания» писателя, полно-та художественного мира которого в главном реализована через религиозно трактованную Досто-евским «картину мира» (все-таки «картину мира», но не сам «мир»). Apollon Grigoriev and Bakhtin touched upon quite different issues of Dostoevsky’s work but the correlation between their works is obvious at the level of their metalogic, their philosophy, and their cultural-philosophical foundations. Grigoriev, together with Dostoevsky, was at the origins of “pochvennichestvo” (a grassroots movement), although Grigoriev’s comments on Dostoevsky’s work are episodic and rather injective. Grigoriev basically denied Dostoevsky that his art corresponded to the “truth of life”. But even the first version of Bakhtin’s book about Dostoevsky was not apologetic. Grigoriev and Bakhtin realize their philosophy through aesthetics (philosophy of art). Art, according to Grigoriev, has its origins in life itself, and life through art realizes itself and understands itself; therefore the critic is also an “artist”. Bakhtin also proceeds from the principle of correlation between art and life, deriving from this his concept of “creative chronotope”. Grigoriev, Bakhtin, and Dostoevsky deal with the ontology of art as well as the art of ontology. The art of ontology implies the broadest aestheticization of life: its movement into the horizon of art. This attitude is pre-modern and modern. In the genesis of the concept of “organic criticism”, the lessons of Kant as the author of three philosophical “Critics” could be echoed. Kant’s ideas were also significant for Dostoevsky and Bakhtin. Grigoriev might have been interested in the philosophical dimension that Kant gave to the concept of “criticism”. Therefore, “organic criticism” refers primarily to philosophy, raising a voluminous list of issues that exceed the aesthetic ones themselves. According to Bakhtin, Dostoevsky’s polyphony consists in the fact that the author acts as a “medium”, “passing” various ideas through himself (“voices” of characters, different “points of view”, etc.). The author- medium “conducts” “through himself” and “out of myself” a lot of different ideas without the essential rejection of any of them. The “author-medium” tries to speak on behalf of life but also even “instead of life”, which leads to a logical and semantic substitution of “the world” – “an image of the world”. Essential rejection does not at all mean that the author has no formal rejection, i.e. just stated. Essential non-rejection, however, means much more than any formal rejection. Life, historical being in this case turns out to be practically “chaos” for Dostoevsky. In the development of Bakhtin’s ideas, it follows that, when introducing carnivalization into his artistic world, Dostoevsky affirms a “link” of sensitivity / physiology. The origins of this “link” are in the sentimentalism of the 18th century. This “link” finds a religious projection in the phenomenon of “yurodstvo” (foolishness). Therefore, Bakhtin’s final interpretation of Dostoevsky (1963) is driven by the pathos of the “justification” of the writer, whose integrity of the artistic world is mainly realized through the religious “image of the world” (aft er all, the “image of the world” and not the “world” itself).

Art and Indiscernibility: Arthur C. Danto and the Dynamics of Analytic Philosophy

Arthur C. Danto was one of the most influential and prolific philosophers of art of the second half of the twentieth century. More particularly, his encounter with the art of Andy Warhol in 1964 became a crucial moment that would catapult his lifelong attempt to spell out the theoretical conditions of contemporary art, and the implications those conditions held for art history and criticism. In this article, however, I show that Danto was in fact primed for his encounter with Warhol by the newly emerging identity of Anglo-American analytic philosophy at mid-century. Using unpublished archival material, I show that Danto's fundamental insights in his first two major essays in the philosophy of art, “The Artworld” (1964) and “Artworks and Real Things” (1973), were in place at least two years before his chance meeting with Warhol's artwork. In making this more modest historical claim, however, I argue that Danto was part of a broader generation of philosophers who were attempting to work through some of the fundamental problems raised by the naturalist tradition of American thought since the late nineteenth century, problems that became central to the emerging identity of analytic philosophy in its early stages. Among the most pressing of these problems was how values functioned in a naturalistic universe absent theological or metaphysical grounding. Drawing from this philosophical space, Danto's account of art deeply influenced the direction of Anglo-American philosophy of art during the second half of the twentieth century. In the process, he became one of the most significant theorists of contemporary art in the English-speaking world.

Kant and Adorno on Mind and World: From Wild Beauties to Spiral Jetty

Theodor W. Adorno’s governing procedure in Aesthetic Theory is to reconstruct the terms and concepts of traditional aesthetics and the philosophy of art through the actuality of artistic modernism in its various guises. The necessity of this procedure turns on the recognition that modernist art has become a stand-in for the now-wrecked authority of living nature. Adorno contends that “natural beauty,” as elaborated by Immanuel Kant, is the recognition of that now-lost experience of nature, and that art beauty must be thereby interpreted as becoming the reconstructed afterimage of natural beauty. The article tracks the development of this thought from Kant’s account of “wild beauties” through Adorno’s chapter “Natural Beauty” to its actualization in Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty.