exemplar for us all–meaningfulness as such in thoroughly worked form.
Danto’s theory of artistic expression undervalues this ambition as a central
element in artistic making.
Guy Sircello has argued cogently that“any serious and reasoned determin-
ation of what is art and what is not [and so,eo ipso,Danto’s] [will] project some
attitude or personal characteristic”and that“if philosophy is to have any role in
this activity, it will be todetermine which attitudeorwhichcharacter itisbestto
have.”^55 As a skeptical cosmopolitan, Danto adopts a pose of avoiding all such
projection, but projection there nonetheless is.“Disavowal”–especially dis-
avowal of all salvationist aspirations–is the obverse side of Danto’s cosmopolit-
anism; it is central“to his aesthetic taste and judgment,”^56 and it is projected
throughout his writing. It is an enormously generous and admirable critical
stance, but it is not clear either that it can recognize itself as a critical stance or
that it properly registers some of the aspirations to exemplarity achieved via
thoroughly worked form that are essential to some of the most serious art.
Are works of art, then, centrally expressive objects where what is
expressed is to some extent both personal and affiliated with contingencies
of different culture, as Danto’s cosmopolitan theory of expression urges? Or
are works of art centrally expressive objects where what is expressed is a
shared and essentially human aspiration (inflected within a cultural frame-
work, which itself necessarily articulates such an aspiration) for full mean-
ingfulness and freedom, exemplified in commanding artistic beauty, as Hegel
urges? One might well hope to avoid, overcome, or at least mitigate this
dichotomy, and to see works of art as expressive somehow of both personal-
cultural contingenciesandof a defining human aspiration, hence asreally
mattering. In order to move in this direction, however, it will help to con-
sider bothhowexpression is achieved andwhyexpression matters.How is artistic expression achieved?
Expression theories of art take as their point of departure the insight that
works of art, whatever else they are, are products of human action. Just as
there are different theories of the nature of human action, however, there(^55) Guy Sircello,“Arguing About Art,”in Aesthetics Today, ed. Philipson and Gudel,
pp. 477–96 at p. 494.
(^56) Horowitz and Huhn,“The Wake of Art,”p. 51.
92 An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art