Contextualism or essentialism? A dilemma around Arthur C. Danto’s philosophy of art

Abstract

Arthur C. Danto’s philosophy of art offers a unity full of hues that reflect his own efforts in order to solve many different demands. His quest for a successful definition of art found motivation in a problematic and particular kind of essentialism. However, the general proposition of his program defends, simultaneously, a structural model of contextual features encrypted on the concept of artworld. The aim of this paper is to recover the theoretical context around this concept in order to restore visibility and explanatory primacy in its characterization of the artistic phenomenon over the alleged essentialism.