Contemporary Aesthetics (Jan 2008)
Not Just Mere Things
Abstract
This paper examines Arthur Danto's contention, put forward in The Transfiguration of the Commonplace, that at a certain point in its history art becomes philosophy. The similarities and differences between Danto's view and the Hegelian one from which it is derived are examined. Using Danto's favorite example of a philosophical work of art, Andy Warhol's Brillo Box (1965), it is argued that a more plausible interpretation of the meaning of the work undermines Danto's claims about art's transformation into philosophy.
