This essay will discuss the need for the humanities to address visual culture studies as part of its interdisciplinary mission in today's university. Although mostly unnoticed in recent debates in the humanities over historical and theoretical frameworks, the relatively new field of visual culture has emerged as a corrective to a growing disciplinary territorialism on the part of art history. A study of the theoretical purview of visual culture reveals that it in truth encompasses a continuation of art history's initial (...) interdisciplinary humanist project of cultural critique initiated by Aby Warburg and Erwin Panofsky. This article will argue that art history's inability to fully appreciate visual culture's relevance in today's research and pedagogical settings has given the humanities the opportunity to address a field which is rooted in the humanities' project of interdisciplinary inquiry. (shrink)

“[I]t is the belief men betray, and not that which they parade which has to be studied.” This short Peircean sentence has been the subject of important yet underrated attention in the reception of Peirce’s philosophy, passing through the art historians Edgar Wind and Erwin Panofsky and arriving finally at Bourdieu. This paper explores the affinities between Peirce’s and Panofksy’s thinking, as well as their historical connections and their common sources, taking its cue from an analysis of the similar arguments (...) the two authors offer to justify the analogy between Gothic architecture and Scholasticism. The fulcrum for the comparison between Peirce and Panofsky is located in the writings of Edgar Wind: a leading figure, this article proposes, in the history of European pragmatism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Wittgensteinian Approach to Discerning the Meaning of Works of Art in the Practice of Critical and Contextual Studies in Secondary Art EducationLeslie Cunliffe (bio)In order to get clear about aesthetic words you have to describe ways of living.Wittgenstein, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief1Language is a labyrinth of paths. You approach from one side and know your way about; you approach the same place from (...) another side and no longer know your way about.Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations2IntroductionThis article explores a Wittgensteinian approach for dealing with the meaning of works of art in the practice of critical and contextual studies in art education. The article is aimed at developing a methodology for eleven to nineteen year olds, known in the UK as the secondary phase of education, but the approach could be generalized to other educational phases.Henry Finch3 interprets four references to meaning found in Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of language as a quadrant that combines the horizontal axis of meaning as physiognomies (the experiential and visual) and meaning as constructions (concepts, uses, science, and mathematics), with a vertical axis of meaning as imperatives (rule following, obligations, and law) and meaning as custom (ceremonies, myths, and ritual).4 The quadrant represents Finch's understanding of Wittgenstein's views about how language serves a different but complementary role in the way human beings engage [End Page 65] with meaning in the world and their place in it.5 Such meanings are embedded in social practices, including first-person responses to a physiognomy, although these start off as biologically primed reactions.Michael Luntley argues that Wittgenstein's philosophy of language and the related remarks on perception should be understood as setting conditions for the possibilities of judgment in "seeing the world aright, in taking the right attitude to the world"6 rather than simply mapping the possibilities of meaning, as the former underscores the role of will7 in the way meaning is actively witnessed and ethically processed by an agent. Having the right view is still only a view, but for Wittgenstein this amounted to an immense ethical and philosophical project to see things accurately and in correct relationship to each other. Such perspectival stances result from an agent's capacity to selectively engage with meaning, with a more unitary understanding resulting from criss-crossing the same territory from different points of view. Wittgenstein's four references to meaning can be thought of as forming four different points on a compass that direct the "self-as-will engaged with that which is independent of will "8 in a quest to see things aright. By extension, such an approach could be used in art education to enable students to develop the dispositions to see works of art aright.Marcia Eaton describes the tension between epistemic and interpretative approaches to the meaning of works of art in this way: "In which direction should one go? In other words, how can judgments which seem so personal (relative, subjective, etc.) also play a role in interpersonal (absolute, objective, etc.) language games?"9 Michael Podro gives a similar description of the apparent tension between a context-bound analysis of works of art and their irreducible and autonomous qualities as like "constantly treading a tightrope."10 Ralph Smith highlights the difference "between having knowledge about art and personally experiencing its presence and power."11Ben Tilghman12 advocates a Wittgensteinian way of going beyond these twofold approaches for understanding and interpreting art by focusing on the role that ponderable and imponderable evidence play in achieving the right stance when attempting to condense the meaning of works of art. Following Wittgenstein, Tilghman argues that a judgment based on imponderable evidence can often be supported by ponderable evidence, a process that is always linked to the relative experience, knowledge, and wisdom of the person making the judgment. Wittgenstein's four references to meaning could be thought of as points on a compass for directing the will in fittingness when endeavoring to understand the role and relationship of ponderable and imponderable evidence in any attempt to see works of art aright. But before these ideas can be... (shrink)