Interpretation and definition: modes of discourse on art

• Grant number: 22/02447-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: May 01, 2023
• Status: Discontinued
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - History of Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Lucianno Ferreira Gatti
• Grantee: Vinicius Oliveira Sanfelice
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 23/14985-0 - INTERPRÉTATION ET DÉFINITION: MODES DE DISCOURS SUR L'ART, BE.EP.PD

Abstract

This research project aims to develop a mixed approach to discourses on art, mingling aspects introduced by two modern theories on the subject of interpretation of art and definition of work of art. It covers an analysis of Paul RicSur's hermeneutical theory about the role of interpretation in the experience of art, as well as an investigation of Arthur Danto's theory on the definition of work of art and the search for an ontology of art. Both theories deal with the concept of work of art based upon expression, style and rhetoric, emphasizing metaphor as a cardinal component. A work of art is an object of interpretation inseparable from its signification, whether one considers the hermeneutics' "surplus of meaning" or the essentialism's "embodied meaning". Hermeneutics and essentialism examine the correlation between art, language and reality, speculating on the possibility and pertinence of a definition of art: the first, through the premise of the "ontological vehemence", that is, the assumption that the comprehension of a work of art, self-emanated, has ontological range; the second, by an attempt to define art. This project's ambition is to analyze if those components (premise and attempt) are, in fact, sine qua non for the sought-after elucidation, as electing one of them might be insufficient to address art. Once verified the hypothesis, it allows us to regard the two theories, each one belonging to a specific branch of philosophy, as distinct forms of discourse which approach the same topics, but with different methods. Furthermore, they may be joined by subjects and in line with current aesthetics' targets: "the end of art", metaphoricity, style and pictorial representation.