10.13135/2036-542X/8112
The paper analyses Gianni Vattimo’s hermeneutic conception of art. It primarily focuses on the claim that art should be understood as a happening of truth (Heidegger) and thus as a practice of transformation. It argues that the claim has important ontological consequences, supporting this argument with references to Heidegger and Gadamer. In turn, this argument prompts an ontological investigation of art. The proposed ontology has at least four elements: first, works of art, which challenge producers and recipients; second, interpretive activities performed by those who engage with works of art in order to follow the configurations actualized by artworks; third, everyday activities that are transformed through the interpretative activities in question; and fourth, activities of art criticism that recipients use to evaluate the impulses they get from works of art. The being of art is constituted by a practice that brings together these elements in their relations to one another.
application/pdf
2036-542X
8112
1
it
Georg Bertram
Trópos
transformation
In Defence of a Hermeneutic Ontology of Art
Text.Serial.Journal
https://ojs.unito.it/index.php/tropos
9
Monografica
2016-06-01
2023-08-20
2016-06-01
2023-08-20
11-24
1
Georg Bertram
2016/06/01
10.13135/2036-542X/8112
11
Freie Universität Berlin
2036-542X
1
transformation
24
In Defence of a Hermeneutic Ontology of Art
https://ojs.unito.it/index.php/tropos/article/download/8112/6821
9
                                                           trópos • anno IX • numero 1 • 2016 – ISBN 978-88-548-xxxx-x
                                                               DOI 10.4399/97888548xxxxx2 – pag. 11-24 (giugno 2016)




           In Defence of a Hermeneutic Ontology of Art
                                                                                   G B*




   : The paper analyses Gianni Vattimo’s hermeneutic conception of art. It
      primarily focuses on the claim that art should be understood as a happening
      of truth (Heidegger) and thus as a practice of transformation. It argues that
      the claim has important ontological consequences, supporting this argument
      with references to Heidegger and Gadamer. In turn, this argument prompts
      an ontological investigation of art. The proposed ontology has at least four
      elements: first, works of art, which challenge producers and recipients; second,
      interpretive activities performed by those who engage with works of art in
      order to follow the configurations actualized by artworks; third, everyday ac-
      tivities that are transformed through the interpretative activities in question;
      and fourth, activities of art criticism that recipients use to evaluate the impulses
      they get from works of art. The being of art is constituted by a practice that
      brings together these elements in their relations to one another.

   : art, artworks, art criticism, interpretation, transformation.


In his  book “poesia e ontologia”, Gianni Vattimo offers a powerful
defence of the hermeneutic ontology of art. Now, one may wonder what I
mean when I say “the hermeneutic ontology of art”. For everyone familiar
with the book, it is clear that Vattimo’s primary interest was not the ontology
of art per se, but in using ontology to understand the origins of art. He thus
speaks of the “ontological foundation of art” (Vattimo : ), claiming
that art can only be understood if it is conceived of as being rooted in human
existence. And from this it naturally follows that hermeneutic ontology is
the best method to grasp it. It thus seems that Vattimo might find a study
on the ontology of art as such problematic, because for him, art can only
be understood in the context of a form of life that exceeds the limits of art
in many ways. The most important characteristic of the human form of
life is no doubt the fact that language pervades it. Thus, following Gadamer,
Vattimo says that above all else, every ontological inquiry must be an analysis
of what it means to live in language (cf. Gadamer , part ).
    This said, I am aware that my inquiry into the question of what an
ontology of art might look like deviates from the path paved by Vattimo’s
   ∗
       Professor of Philosophy at the Freie Universität Berlin (georg.bertram@fu-berlin.de).


                                                                                                                  
    Georg Bertram


research. But what does it mean to speak of an “ontology of art”, and, more
importantly, how can speaking of art in terms of ontology help us better
understand art itself ? In my view, an ontology of art is an answer to the
question “What is art?” Ontology in general tries to explain the meaning of
the statement “there is x”. Thus, in the case of art, we want to explain what
we mean when we say “there is art”. So much for terminology. But why
should one be interested in the ontology of art, given that hermeneutics
has already taught us that art has its foundations in human existence?
    My answer is twofold: Firstly, it is crucial that we remain aware of
the risks inherent in conflating ontology in general with the ontology of
art. If we conceive of human existence as an existence defined by artistic
creativity (as the early Nietzsche wanted to do, for example; cf. Nietzsche
), we end up watering down the specificity of what constitutes art.
Instead, we should insist on the fact that what constitutes art has its own
specificity, and should recognize that uncovering it necessitates ontological
inquiry. So, secondly, it seems important to me that we analyse the specific
ontology of art — important, because the ontology of art often founders on
a problematic ontological assumption. Although the temptation to assume
that artworks necessarily stand at the centre of an ontology of art is great,
this temptation quickly leads us to the assumption that understanding what
art is demands a detailed analysis of the specific properties of artworks. But,
to say it with Vattimo, this somewhat myopic view causes us to lose sight of
the fact that art is a bearer of truth — a source of experience in the sense
that it has the potential to change our world. But what could possibly make
up the core of an ontology of art if it isn’t the artworks themselves?
    In what follows I will try to answer this question and in doing so will try
to lay the groundwork for an ontology of art. I begin with two of Vattimo’s
claims that are fundamental for an ontology of art (part ). I then develop a
basic outline of such an ontology by drawing on the works of Heidegger
and Gadamer (part ). In the third part of my paper I will address the worry
that the hermeneutic ontology of art fails to account for the specificity of
what constitutes art because it is too general.
    Dispelling this worry will make clear the ways in which art is a specific
practice distinct from others, and why it cannot serve as a paradigm for
human practice in general (part ).


. Two Basic Claims

I would like to take up two of Vattimo’s claims as a starting point for the
following reflections — two claims that are, in my view, very important
for understanding what art is. Vattimo shares these claims with the major
                                          In Defence of a Hermeneutic Ontology of Art   


hermeneutic philosophies of art, namely the philosophies of art of Heideg-
ger and Gadamer. The first claim goes something like this:

   () Artworks develop their own laws.

    How artworks do this might be explained in the following way: Every
work of art determines for itself how its elements are related to one another.
This might be easier to understand if we detail some of the concrete ways
elements are related to one another in works of art: there are relations
between words, between harmonies, between colours, between bodily
postures, between different objects in an installation, and so forth. Such
relations define the configuration of elements in a given work. For their
part, these relations tell us quite a lot, because they unfold their own mode
of meaning. They contrast with one another, establish boundaries between
each other, repeat, form transitions, and much more. These relations are
formed in a different way in every single work of art.
    Thus, we can understand many, if not all artworks as structures that
connect different elements in a unique way; that is, as structures that con-
nect words, tones, colours, or all of the above. What characterizes such
connections is the fact that individual elements only acquire their value
through their relations with other elements. In other words, in a work of
art, the identity of an element is defined through the relations it has with
other elements. This is also true in cases where the artwork is made up
of elements that also exist independent of the work itself. Let us take the
example of a poem. A poem is, in most cases, made up of words within
a natural language, and hence draws on elements that, at least in some
respects, precede it. But the semantic compositions of individual words are
transformed in the poem. They do not merely have the meaning assigned
to them in ordinary language, but take on new meanings.
    The way a work of art configures its elements is decisive for its relation
to its genre. Even though many artworks belong to an established genre,
such as the string quartet or the novel, the genre as such does not wholly
determine the form that individual works ultimately take. The attempts
of Noel Carroll and others to provide necessary and sufficient conditions
that must be satisfied by specific art forms like film have ultimately failed
(cf. Carroll ). The reason for this failure is simple: It lies in the fact that
every artwork reinvents the art form it belongs to and in doing so alters the
very form itself.
    Vattimo refers to Luigi Pareyson when he writes that an artwork has
to develop its “forming form” (Vattimo : ), which gives it its own
law independent of the rules of the genre. According to Pareyson, art is
a specific mode of formativity that every work of art actualizes in a new
      Georg Bertram


way (cf. Pareyson ). One could think of Adorno’s concept of the “law
of form” here, too (Adorno : ff.). The law of form is a concept used
to describe the ways in which an artwork constitutes its own identity and
thus — as Vattimo emphasizes — its own individuality. Since works of art
are not made out of concepts, judgments, and propositions, they cannot
use concepts to form their individuality. This is why Adorno claims that
the mimesis that constitutes the identity of individual works of art is “their
resemblance to themselves” (Adorno : ). Through the relations
established between their elements, works of art imitate themselves in all
of their parts. Their parts are formed in such a way that all of the parts are
integrated into the artwork as a whole. So much for the first claim.
    The second claim is:

     () The experience of art is transformative in the sense that the act of engaging
     with a work of art has the capacity to change the world of the recipient.

    Vattimo articulates the second claim by defining the experience of art
as a happening of truth. “There is an experience of truth when the person
who undergoes the experience is truly changed as a result of it.” (Vattimo
: ) In the aesthetics of Heidegger and Gadamer, works of art make
it possible for recipients to have an experience in the robust sense of the
term. A happening of truth thus has a negative dimension. It does not leave
the world in the state it was in before the event. The artwork confronts
the recipient with a different world. This, in turn, brings about a change in
her world. After engaging with the artwork, the recipient’s world appears
differently to her. In short, art is a practice of transformation, and the
transformation in question can be understood in a very concrete way:
Works of art make recipients see in new ways (like the paintings of Manet).
They make recipients move in new ways (like the music of Stravinsky). Or
they alter recipients’ emotions towards others (like Flaubert’s novels).
    Following Gadamer, Vattimo lays his primary focus on the linguistic
aspect of what a world is, which in turn guides his inquiry into what it
means that happenings of truth form a new world. But if one thinks of
the works of Herder or Merleau–Ponty, to name just two examples, one
might also consider the role that perception or bodily movement play in
the formation of a new world. Our engagement with works of art not only
changes how we speak, but also how we perceive or move. This conception
of the transformative dimension of art makes clear that different works of
art effect changes in different ways: Some works of art change the way we
see; others the way we hear; and so on.
    How can these two claims serve as the foundation for an ontology of
art? For those who share the hermeneutic convictions articulated by these
                                     In Defence of a Hermeneutic Ontology of Art   


claims, it might seem that there is nothing left to do. But this is misleading. It
is far from obvious how both claims can be brought together. The following
question might make the problem clearer: How does an object that adheres
to a self–given law shared by nothing else in the world at large effect a
change in that very world? At first sight, it seems as if a law that only applies
to the very object that brings it into being has absolutely zero potential to
have an effect on anything else. However, I think it is possible to maintain
both the claim that art gives itself its own laws and that it is a practice of
transformation. Nevertheless, we have some more work to do before we
can explain how it is possible to combine them with one another. And the
work to be done lies within the purview of the ontology of art.


. Basic Features of a Hermeneutic Ontology of Art

There is a general tendency to conceive of the ontology of art as an ontology
of objects. Since art is realized by objects, it seems natural to view the
question of what artworks are as the fundamental question of the ontology
of art. The first claim outlined above might even give support to such an
approach. If every work of art develops its own laws, then inquiring into
the specific constitution of the work of art might seem to be the best way
to illuminate what art is. One might thus be tempted to define the specific
constitution of what art is in terms of the specific constitution of the work
of art. But we should resist this temptation. Because if we prioritize the
work of art, it becomes impossible to understand art as a transformative
practice. I have already touched on the reason for this: If we conceive of
artworks as objects bound by laws that apply to nothing else in the world
beyond the individual work, it is far from obvious how they can have an
effect on anything else. Thus, if we take the specific constitution of the work
of art as the foundation of an ontology of art, we will be forced to think
of art as a practice that has no effect on the rest of the world. This might
lead us to conceive of art as a practice of pure enjoyment or pure play —
a conception of art that Vattimo and many others reject for good reasons.
Thus, we should not start with the first claim alone. Rather, we should take
both claims as starting points for the construction of a viable ontology of
art.
    This provisional conclusion sheds light on both Heidegger’s and Gada-
mer’s aesthetics. Neither Heidegger nor Gadamer ground their respective
ontologies of art in the conception of artworks as objects, even if Heidegger
is not very explicit here. “The Origin of the Work of Art” begins with a
critique of the seemingly intuitive conception of the work of art as a neutral
thing that simply has special properties. Heidegger asks whether we have
      Georg Bertram


a firm understanding of the concept of a neutral thing that makes such
a conception possible (cf. Heidegger , part ). And, as is well–known,
he answers in the negative. Nevertheless, Heidegger’s contribution to the
ontology of art is ambiguous. It can be summed up in the claim that the
specific constitution of the being of art cannot be explained in terms of the
specific being of artworks as objects because we don’t have the concept of a
neutral object that we would need in order to construct the ontology of art
in this way.
    Gadamer is much more explicit in his rejection of the idea that the
ontology of art should be conceived of as an ontology of artworks as
objects. He writes: “[...] this was precisely the experience of the work of
art that I maintained in opposition to the levelling process of aesthetic
consciousness: namely that the work of art is not an object that stands over
against a subject for itself. Instead the work of art has its true being in the
fact that it becomes an experience that changes the person who experiences
it.” (Gadamer : ) Gadamer’s reasoning is clear: if we think of art as
something reducible to artworks, then we have no way of conceiving of art
as a practice of transformation.
    Gadamer, and to a lesser extent Heidegger, thus confront us with the
following question: How is it possible to construct an ontology of art that
does justice to the claim that art is a transformative practice? The answer
to this question seems easy to me: We should conceive of the ontology
of art as the ontology of a practice of transformation. So, what is art qua
practice of transformation? I would like to detail what such a practice of
transformation might look like by analysing three further claims.

     () Artworks are inseparable from recipients’ interpretations of them.

    Vattimo stresses several times that recipients and their interpretations are
constitutive for every work of art (cf. Vattimo : ff.). I wholeheartedly
agree with him, but I want to underscore the fact that we have to understand
this as an ontological claim. Gadamer’s concept of play might be helpful
here. In stressing that art has to be understood as a practice of play, Gadamer
claims that artworks and their recipients are inseparably bound up with
one another. There is no play if there is no way for the play to be played
(cf. Gadamer , esp. part ). Thus, the being of the play is co–constituted
by the players. Without them there would be no play at all. According to
Gadamer, we have to conceive of art in the same way. Without producers
and recipients there would be no works of art. This allows us to make
a slight correction to our first claim. Even though it is true that every
artwork establishes its own laws, this is only half the matter. Rather, a more
complete understanding of the claim might go something like this: Works
                                      In Defence of a Hermeneutic Ontology of Art   


of art construct their own laws in order to challenge their producers and
recipients. That is, a work’s laws are not ends in themselves. Their very
singularity allows them to pose a challenge to their recipients, and in this
way they can have an effect on the world beyond their own boundaries.
    How does an artwork challenge its recipients? It does so by compelling
them to engage in a series of specific activities. I call the activities in question
interpretive activities (cf. Bertram : ff.). An interpretive activity is an
activity that articulates the configuration of elements in a work of art by
reformulating this configuration in a different medium. Engaging with a
work of art is a form of articulation because it demands that one allow one’s
own actions to be guided by the relations contained in the work itself. In
this respect, we can say that artworks demand a certain mode of behaviour.
Using one of the central concepts from Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory, we can
characterize this behaviour as “mimetic” (cf. Adorno : ff.). A mode
of behaviour that recognizes things by allowing itself to be guided by the
structure of those things is mimetic. We would understand the notion of
mimetic behaviour falsely if we thought of it as being mainly passive (as
Adorno sometimes suggests). Recipients have to become active in order
to be guided by the artwork, such that aesthetic practices always have two
sides: on the one hand, they reflect the fact that a specific dynamic is founded
in the work of art itself, and that recipients allow their interpretive activities
to be guided by this dynamic. On the other hand, every engagement with a
work of art allows these interpretive activities to play out in different ways.
In other words, recipients bring new approaches to the table every time
they engage with a work of art, and intervene in the practices of others in
different ways every time they confront them with an interpretation.
    Simply saying that the act of reception is an interpretive activity remains,
however, too general. An adequate conception of the transformative nature
of art necessitates a more precise account of the practices that enable recipi-
ents to articulate the constellations of elements in specific artworks. Which
activities are involved? That is, which activities are interpretive activities? I
will approach this question by roughly sketching out a schematic distinction
between four types of receptive activity: bodily, perceptive, emotional and
symbolic:

    a) in explaining interpretation, bodily activities usually get left out. Nev-
       ertheless, in dealing with many artworks, they play a central role.
       They typically come to bear in the reception of music, but also in
       works of architecture and the plastic arts.
    b) unlike bodily activities, we often pay attention to the role of percep-
       tion when discussing artworks. However, such accounts usually do
       not pay proper attention to the active quality of perceptions.
     Georg Bertram


     c) another form of activity has recently gained prominence as an object
        of theoretical inquiry. Recipients find their emotions constantly chal-
        lenged when engaging with artworks, and with narrative artworks
        in particular.
     d) as stated, we usually consider the symbolic, and, in particular, linguis-
        tic dimensions of interpretation, although we often run the risk of
        losing sight of the way these activities articulate the configurations
        actualized by works of art. Recipients often follow artworks through
        linguistic articulation, or in the case of music, through singing along
        or other forms of vocal articulation.

    With all such activities, recipients articulate the constellations that un-
fold themselves in artworks. They develop these activities in the face of
challenges posed by artworks. It would burst the confines of this paper
to analyse each of the forms of practice mentioned. Thus, I would simply
like to make the functional similarity between them clear, since this is
something that is often overlooked in discussions on aesthetics. We usually
consider interpretation as being an articulation in words, and often conceive
of it as a distanced, cognitive way of dealing with the artwork. Such an
understanding may be common, but it is problematic in a double sense:
first, a linguistic interpretation of an artwork is not necessarily a distanced,
cognitive way of dealing with the work, since an interpretation can only
succeed if a recipient is able to allow her interpretation to be guided by the
constellations contained in the work itself, without allowing it, as something
that is independent of the work in many respects, to gain the upper hand.
Second, such linguistic articulation is only one form of interpretive prac-
tice. In order to gain a full notion of these practices, we have to consider
linguistic interpretation in its relation to other practices.
    If we step back for a minute, it becomes evident that none of the expla-
nations of artworks and interpretive activities given thus far really offer a
sufficient solution to the problem that occasioned our inquiry in the first
place. They do not explain the transformative dimension of art. But one
might object that this is precisely what they do. If I say that recipients are
part of the very ontological constitution of the work of art and that recip-
ients engage with artworks by means of certain activities, then it clearly
follows that recipients are transformed by artworks. One could bolster
this claim by again drawing on Adorno’s concept of “mimesis”. As already
stated, interpretive activities have to be understood as mimetic activities:
They imitate the structures manifested by the work of art. Even though I
agree with all of this, this does not mean that the concept of interpretive ac-
tivities alone provides a sufficient account of art’s transformative dimension.
Because addressing the way a work of art guides and alters the recipient’s
                                          In Defence of a Hermeneutic Ontology of Art   


interpretive activities still leaves unanswered how this might change the
recipient’s world. Think, for example, of one of Cézanne’s paintings. These
paintings provoke a very specific mode of perception. Their very structure
compels recipients to see in a particular way. But while this might enable
the recipient to perceive a new world, it does not change the world itself.
Thus, so long as our ontology of art remains founded in the way the work
of art guides the recipient’s interpretive activities, we can’t say much more.
   But we can easily develop the explanation further. We just have to say
that interpretive activities have an effect on other practices that the recipient
engages in outside of the work of art. This enables us to say what we wanted
to say: Engaging with Cézanne’s paintings changes the way the recipient
sees the world at large. The artwork teaches her new modes of seeing that
are not only important for her engagement with art, but for her everyday
practices as well. Simply put:
   () Interpretive activities change our everyday activities in the world at large.

    This claim makes it clear that art is not just one practice added to other
everyday practices. Rather, everyday practices are constitutive for the prac-
tice of art. This insight has significant consequences for our conception of
the ontology of art. Art is not only constituted by artworks and interpretive
activities. Art as practice is constituted by works of art, interpretive activi-
ties, and other everyday activities that are transformed by our engagement
with works of art. Artworks teach us new rhythms. They prompt us to
find new words or experience different emotions. As such, engaging with
a work of art changes the world of a recipient. The ontology of art has to
be formulated in terms of the ontology of a transformative practice that
encompasses artworks, interpretive activities, and everyday activities.
    But our explanation is still not complete, because it still lacks a robust
account of the transformative dimension of art. Let’s take another look at
the fourth claim: Interpretive activities change our everyday activities in
the world at large. But what does it mean that interpretive activities effect
changes in the world at large? Does every interpretive activity automatically
effect changes in our world? Are artworks manipulating us? I think it is
important to make it clear that recipients remain free in their engagement
with works of art. This can be done if we bring the recipient’s critical
activities to the fore.
   () The being of the work of art is always also determined by the recipient’s
   evaluations of it.

    In his book, Vattimo underscores the importance of interpretation and
criticism in art. As far as the latter goes, he writes: “Criticism, understood
    Georg Bertram


in its most general meaning, as a discourse on the work that starts from
the work itself, is an essential mode of enjoying the work, insofar as it
is not an accidental addition, grounded, as it were, on an encounter that
would happen at the level prior to discourse [...]” (Vattimo : ). For
Vattimo, the importance of criticism shows that art always has a linguistic
dimension and thus can only be adequately understood through hermeneu-
tic ontology (in Gadamer’s sense). I completely agree, but I would like to
draw another lesson from the importance of criticism for art in general.
Art criticism is a practice that allows recipients to take a step back from the
initial impulses they get from the work of art and gives them occasion to
ask whether they value these impulses or not. Recipients reflect on whether
the artwork makes a valuable contribution to their everyday lives and their
self–understanding. The way we evaluate works of art takes many forms,
ranging from short conversations while reading a novel to long discussions
after a film, blog entries, interpretations in art research, and — finally — art
criticism in the narrower sense. In all these forms recipients articulate what
they perceive to be the value or lack of value of the work for their world
and their everyday lives.
    The practice of art criticism thus rounds out the ontology developed
thus far. It makes clear that recipients are not manipulated by works of art
but are — at least to some extent — free to determine what they deem to
be valuable in a work of art. The decision as to whether a work of art is a
success or failure is thus left to the recipient. The freedom of recipients to
make judgments about a work is an essential element of art as practice of
transformation, and, even further, of the development of the arts themselves.
In other words, a crucial aspect of art as practice of transformation is the
fact that recipients make judgments about whether a specific work makes
a valuable contribution to their world and their everyday practices. And
by discussing art, producers and recipients constantly redefine the arts.
Thus, art must be understood as a self–conscious practice in the sense
that works of art are always accompanied by reflections on what art is,
how it works, and why it is valuable. In a nutshell: Art is always bound
up with reflections on the concept of art. Here, “reflection” should not
simply be understood as the abstract practice of asking “What is art?” The
reflection that is constitutive for art is always concrete. It takes the form
of questions like: “Is this poem melodic?” “Did you notice the tensions in
the sonata’s first movement? Do they really work?” By asking questions like
this, producers and recipients reflect on the poem and the sonata as forms
through which art is realized. They reflect on art in its concrete realizations.
    In sum: What does it mean to develop an ontology of art as an ontology
of a practice of transformation? It means that we distinguish between
different elements of the practice of art that are irreducibly bound up
                                          In Defence of a Hermeneutic Ontology of Art        


with one another. As we have seen, the ontology of art as a practice of
transformation doesn’t just boil down to an analysis of a set of activities.
Nor is it exclusively a matter of analysing artworks or aesthetic experiences.
Rather, the ontology of art as a practice of transformation encompasses
a variety of different objects and practices, such as artworks, interpretive
activities, everyday activities, and activities of art criticism. The being of
art is constituted by a practice that brings together these elements in their
relations to one another. This is the basic claim of the hermeneutic ontology
of art.


. Art as Object–Centred Practice of Reflection

However, one could object that the hermeneutic ontology of art fails be-
cause it is far too general. Because isn’t the proposed ontology of art in the
end just another general hermeneutic ontology? According to Gadamer,
the general structure of understanding can be explained in terms of the
hermeneutic circle in which objects, self–understanding, and reflections on
self–understanding are irreducibly bound up with one another (cf. Gadamer
: ff.). Thus, it might seem as if my discourse is destined to be noth-
ing more than an exposition of a slightly specified general ontology. Have
we lost sight of the specific constitution of art in our attempt to develop a
hermeneutic ontology of art? I think the worry is completely justified, but
I also think it can be overcome, which I will try to do by adding two final
claims. The first is negative. It admits that it is not possible to define art as
practice in a way that would entirely distinguish it from other everyday prac-
tices. The second claim is positive. It shows that we might better understand
what distinguishes art from other forms of praxis by defining it as a practice
of reflection. In doing so, it clarifies why the search for an ontology that
would provide a clear–cut distinction between art and everyday practices is
bound to run into a dead end. The negative claim goes like this:

   () Since art is a constitutively unstable practice, its ontology does not explain that
   which defines it in a way that would allow us to positively distinguish it from other
   everyday practices.

   Following Vattimo following Pareyson, I made the claim that every work
of art formulates its own laws. This is why a work of art cannot draw on
some set of general rules that would prescribe how it has to be formed.
There is no recipe for producing successful works of art. Every work of
art has to justify the rules it gives itself on its own. This is why art is an
essentially unstable practice. It is unstable because every work of art has to
      Georg Bertram


determine anew what it means to effectively pose a challenge to established
human practices. The practice of art is a constant struggle over how artistic
impulses can reshape our world and which ones are most apt to do so. The
instability of art has two important aspects: Firstly, art is always changing. It
is not a practice whose boundaries could ever be established once and for all.
Rather, art’s boundaries are in constant flux. As I have already pointed out,
art is always concerned with itself. Art criticism and artworks themselves
always reflect on what art is. But the reflection in question has no object
that would somehow be independent of the reflection. In other words,
reflection on what art is is not founded in a cognitive distance to the object
reflected upon. Rather, the reflection changes its object. By making claims
about which works of art succeed as art and which do not, art criticism in
its various guises becomes part of the determination of what art is. Thus,
the objects, forms, features, and activities that distinguish art as a specific
form of practice are always changing. Conceiving of art as a practice of
transformation thus means that that which defines what art is is always
being determined anew. Secondly, the boundary between art and everyday
practices is itself an object of art’s reflection on itself. Works of art reflect on
the ways in which they distance themselves from or engage with the world
at large. In this way, the boundary between them is internal to art itself.
Thus, as I said above, the search for a definition of art that would define
it as something wholly distinguished from everyday practices is bound to
run into a dead end. The ontology of art cannot define the being of art in
this way precisely because art as practice lacks the very stability that would
make such a clear–cut distinction possible.
    However, it does not follow from this that we have to give up every
attempt to define what art is. That would only follow if we demanded that
every attempt to define art provide clear criteria for distinguishing what art
is from what it is not. But this is only one way of delineating the definitive
features of art, and thus is only one way of constructing an ontology of art.
A different conception of what an ontology of art should accomplish might
be put like this: The ontology of art should aim to explain the function art
has within the human form of life. It does not necessarily need to provide
criteria for what art is and what it is not. It simply provides criteria for the
determination of what role art plays internal to a constellation of other
human practices. And these criteria are based in the following claim:

     () Art is a practice of reflection founded in objects that force subjects to reshape
     their everyday practices.

   The last piece of the puzzle merely consists in making explicit what has
been implicit all along in the ontology of art proposed here. Even though it
                                     In Defence of a Hermeneutic Ontology of Art   


might seem as if the proposed ontology is not far from being just another
general hermeneutic ontology, a closer look shows that this is not the case.
I claimed that art as a practice of transformation is co–constituted by both
interpretive activities and everyday activities, and tried to account for the
way they are connected to one another by saying that interpretive activities
move recipients to alter their everyday activities in the world. Further, I
added that recipients reflect on the changes in question through art criticism
understood in a broad sense. Why do they reflect on the impulses they
get from works of art in this way? Recipients take art as a medium for
determining who they are in a new way. This gives us a hint as to what kind
of practice art is. Art is a practice of reflection. Subjects reflect on their own
self–understanding by engaging with works of art. Art doesn’t just provoke
some generic transformation. Rather, art occasions a transformation of the
recipient’s everyday practices through specific objects that are produced
with the aim of giving new impulses to human activities and are themselves
the objects of critical discussion. In short, the transformations occasioned
by art are the results of a specific mode of object–centred reflection. Thus,
the claim that art is a practice of reflection has to be further qualified. What
is specific to art as a practice of reflection is that in art, the reflection is
prompted by objects (in contrast to, say, linguistic forms of reflection in
psychotherapy or philosophy). In art we put our energy into objects, not
for the sake of the objects themselves, but for our own sake.
    So, is the objection I posed at the beginning of the last part of this pa-
per justified? Is the hermeneutic ontology of art too general? I think my
response to this objection shows that it is based on an erroneous conception
of how we should define what art is. According to the hermeneutic explana-
tion put forth here, constantly questioning the boundary between art and
everyday practices is itself an element of art as practice of transformation.
This is why it is false to demand that every explanation of what constitutes
art account for the boundary between art and everyday practices. An expla-
nation of what constitutes art should provide something quite different: It
should provide an explanation of why art is a valuable practice within the
human form of life. I have tried to give such an explanation by claiming
that art is an object–centred practice of reflection. Defined as an object–
centred practice of reflection, art has the value of affecting recipients in
unforeseeable ways, spurring them to change their everyday practices. By
extension, it thus has the value of occasioning new forms of practice within
the human form of life, and thus bears the potential to change the world in
general. Another way of explaining the value of art might go something
like this: Art is a practice that allows us to develop indeterminacy within
the human form of life and thus enables us to retain an openness towards
the future.
     Georg Bertram


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