보일듯 말듯 가물거리는
안개속에 쌓인 길
잡힐 듯 말 듯 멀어져 가는
무지개와 같은 길
그 어디에서 날 기다리는지
둘러 보아도 찾을 수 없네

그대여 힘이 되주오
나에게 주어진 길
찾을 수 있도록
그대여 길을 터주오
가리워진 나의 길

이리로 가나 저리로 갈까
아득하기만 한데
이끌려 가듯 떠나는
이는 제 갈길을 찾았나
손을 흔들며 떠나 보낸 뒤
외로움만이 나를 감쌀 때

그대여 힘이 되주오
나에게 주어진 길 찾을 수 있도록
그대여 길을 터주오 가리워진 나의 길

By definition, Bacon’s instauration demands two simultaneous processes: restoration and institution. He seeks to restore hope, which has been lost in Aristotle’s organon, and establish a new logic derived from the rules of experiment. In other words, a fresh start is necessary, for the old logic has fallen into the vanity of superinduction and the despair of impossible progress. Bacon’s new logic empowers the mind to “exercise its rightful authority over the nature of things” (7). Bacon desires the “victory of art over Nature” (120), which will produce the beneficial effect to the mankind. This is his Novum Organum, the new science.

In fact, Bacon’s new logic first builds upon the recognition of our imperfect understanding. Men should not attempt to go beyond what they cannot know. Only the “right and proper humility of the human spirit” (13) can lead men to a proper employment of scientific methods. An attempt to overreach or overestimate can produce nothing but a contemptible error. For this reason, Bacon devises the new logic, which “confines the sense within its proper sphere” (15), and gradually leads men to particulars. In this method, the maximum minimization of the accidental outcomes is attained.

Such is the Baconian experiment that generates definite rules and axioms. The notion of experiment as the “well-weighed experience” allows “the new light of axioms to be derived from the particulars by a certain course and rule, which in turn will point to new particulars” (110).  This experimental method is different from that of the empiricist, because the latter merely extract works from works, and experiments from experiments. Bacon’s road freely rises and falls, “first ascending to axioms, then descending to works” (ibid), which, in turn, makes it a “legitimate interpreter of Nature” (119). Moreover, it is also superior to rationalist philosophy, which fails to inquire into the causes of the most familiar things. Bacon’s new logic gives attention not only to the frequently occurring things, but also to the base and sordid details. Only in such attempt to find the light and information in every common thing lies a hope for ever-improving knowledge.

In general, these sets of well-established rules constitute Bacon’s most significant invention: the method of induction. Bacon claims this new induction method to be the proper means for the discovery and contrasts it with Aristotelian syllogism, which relies on premises that are much susceptible to false definitions and abstractions. Moreover, he strongly attacks the syllogism for its separation from the practical and efficient cause. Bacon explicitly claims that the modern science must focus on the physical causes, which investigate the moving principles, not the static. Correspondingly, he asserts that the new logic must look at the beginning in which the ends are not built-in. Otherwise, it cannot manipulate the Nature by the power of knowledge; it adds nothing to “the welfare of mankind.”

Moreover, as a true scientific method, the induction “analyzes Nature by proper rejections and exclusions” (111). Bacon considers this reduction rule to be necessary, for it compels us to be content with the true and solid intermediate axioms. In fact, the old logic fell to the falsity because it presumptuously attempted to draw universal principles straight from the particulars. Bacon argues that the correct way to arrive at the most general axiom is to follow the gradual and continuous ascent from the senses. Only in this way are the universal rules “not abstract but are really limited by the intermediate ones” (ibid). After all, “everything of practically utility depends on things intermediate” (75).

Finally, it is through the induction and exclusion method that Bacon succeeds to escape idols and superstitious inquiries. Bacon’s new logic rightfully stands in the middle way, establishing a “true, lawful and lasting marriage between the empirical and the rational faculties” (14). Just like the bee, the novum organum “gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and field, then transforms and digests it by a power of its own” (105). This is the modern science—that changes nature through the true course of an experiment. It is an active philosophy that will constantly “bring new works, divine wisdom and order” (79). The new logic is the knowledge and power.

Discussing the definition of art without its intrinsic features is certainly provocative. Yet claiming that they are irrelevant to the essence of art is even more provocative; in fact, it is dangerous. The most common or traditional definitions of “art” usually involve the consideration of the elemental aspects, such as composition and technique. Consequently, excluding such conventional explanation necessitates a bold, new paradigm. Danto’s notion of the artworld— though lacking a clear reasoning on few points—does not fail to provide a fresh perspective on the realm of aesthetics philosophy. By focusing not on the ‘paint,’ but on the ‘painter’ of the painting, Danto seeks to unite the work, style, and the person.

As a passionate content-hunter, Danto strongly rejects the Imitation Theory of Socrates and Plato: “who needs, and what can be the point and purpose of having, duplicates of a reality we already have before us?”[1] Though the idea of the mimesis might have significance during the early historic periods, Danto believes that it must be discredited, since the photography and the Brillo Box has now appeared. It is plain for him that the narrow view of the Imitation Theory cannot explain the new art forms, and that no such definition can be based upon an examination of artworks.[2] As a result, he endorses the Reality Theory of Art, which states that the art does not imitate but creates a new reality.[3] The aesthetic pleasure precisely lies in being able to differentiate a new reality from the old. In other words, one must understand art through this Reality Theory not only to experience the true pleasure but also to grasp the internal development of the artworld and the aesthetic potentiality of the transfigured objects.

More importantly, this theory enables the recognition and emphasis of the institutional framework, i.e., the artistic statement. Without the artistic identification, art itself is impossible, since it is the theory that “takes [art] up into the world of art, and keeps it from collapsing into the real.”[4] Danto verifies such claim by analyzing the Brueghel’s painting, The Fall of Icarus.

The work will have a different structure than it would have had were you not to have noticed the legs at all, or not to have known they were Icarus’ legs, and hence have believed something else central to the painting than what actually is: these legs are the focus of the whole work, not in the sense that the legs are the subject and the rest background, but in the sense that the whole structure of the painting is a function of these being Icarus’ legs, the rest not being background at all.[5]

Through this example, Danto makes us aware of how our ordinary perception geared to survival is not suitable for the structuring of a visual field. That is to say, if one considered Duchamp’s Fountain as a common urinal, it is because he ignored what did not fit his schemata at first glance. “For certainly the work itself has properties that urinals themselves lack: it is daring, impudent, irreverent, witty, and clever.”[6] Moreover, this also shows why Danto disapproves of the concept of the psychic distance that several aestheticians supported as a way to understand artwork properly as such. An art work cannot be—and should not be—seen in a disinterested manner. The spectator is responsible for interpreting, i.e. “offering a theory as to what the work is about, what its subject is,” [7] using all his knowledge and imagination. “If it is an art work, there is no neutral way of seeing it; or, to see it neutrally is not to see it as an artwork.”[8]

Comprehending the work of art in relation to its time is also critical in Danto’s artworld. The works of Warhol and Kandinsky could never have been possible in earlier times. For instance, the “Brillo Box vindicates its claim to be art by propounding a brash metaphor: the brillo-box-as-work-of-art. It brings to consciousness the structures of art which, to be sure, required a certain historical development before that metaphor was possible.”[9] In a sense, it was inevitable—and even necessary—that it emerged in the twentieth century. Danto presumes that the aesthetic theories must transform according to the ever-changing practice and discourse of the artworld. “There is no special way works of art have to be. And that is the present, and I should say, the final moment in the master narrative. It is the end of the story.”[10] Therefore, both the artist and the audience must continuously acquire new sets of skill and knowledge, not only to understand the present-day artworks, but also to prepare to accept those of the future.

Likewise, precisely because when “we are living a period of history, we do not necessarily know what that period will look like to a future historical consciousness,”[11] we must learn to appreciate the inherently ambiguous nature of art. As Danto says, the “aesthetic object” is not some “eternally fixed Platonic entity, a joy forever beyond time, space, and history.”[12] The historical identity is never fixed; so is the artwork. The work must be interpreted differently according to its framework. Besides, such flexible attitude opens up the richer artworld through facilitating the expansion of the style matrix. The more the columns are added to the matrix, “the greater variety of artistically relevant predicates, the more complex the individual members of the artworld become.”[13] After all, Danto has enriched the aesthetic experience by creating a new row to the matrix of the art theory.

Ultimately, Danto seeks to promote the shared aesthetic experience by letting more people know about the artworld. According to Danto, the artistic interpretation, as a transformative procedure, “is something like baptism, not in the sense of giving a name but a new identity, participation in the community of the elect.”[14] It is about learning to communicate our own perspectives with the others’. For everyone perceives the world in a unique way, we can find joy while exploring all these different viewpoints. Moreover,

… the greatness of the work is the greatness of the representation the work makes material. If style is the man, greatness of style is greatness of person […] Learning to recognize a style is like learning to recognize a person’s touch on his character. In attributing a work to a person, we are doing something as complex as attributing an act to a person when we are uncertain of his authorship.[15]

In the end, what Danto hopes for is the world where every man continuously refines his aesthetic judgment. His artworld is not only about “art,” but philosophy in general, which “begins to arise when the society within which it arises achieves a concept of reality.”[16] The Brillo Box fascinated him not merely by its original metaphoric statements. Its true significance lies in that it did “what works of art have always done—externalizing a way of viewing the world, expressing the interior of a cultural period, offering itself as a mirror to catch the conscience of our kings.”[17]

*Notes

[1] Arthur Danto, “The Transfiguration of the Commonplace,” Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1981, p. 8

[2] Danto, “The Transfiguration,” preface vii

[3] Arthur Danto, “The Artworld” in Stephen Ross, SUNY Series in Philosophy, New York: State University of  New York Press, 1984, p 473

[4] Danto, “The Artworld,” p. 480

[5] Danto, “The Transfiguration,”p. 116

[6] Ibid, p. 96

[7] Ibid, p. 119

[8] Ibid, p. 119

[9] Ibid, p. 208

[10] Arthur Danto, “After the End of Art,” New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1997, p. 47

[11] Danto, “The Transfiguration,”p. 43

[12] Ibid, p. 111

[13] Danto, “The Artworld,” p. 481

[14] Danto, “The Transfiguration,”p. 126

[15] Ibid, p. 207

[16] Ibid, p. 78

[17] Ibid, p. 208