Philosophy and Ethics in Germany

The two-year-long series of events known as “Philosophy:Art” was brought into being by the philosophers Julian Nida-Rümelin and Jakob Steinbrenner from the University of Munich in cooperation with the Federal Cultural Foundation. A symposium on photography held this year in July will mark the end of the first phase of the series. Goethe.de spoke to Jakob Steinbrenner about the surprisingly positive response it triggered among audiences and about what connects philosophy and art and what they can learn from each other.

Professor Steinbrenner, when you were planning the “Philosophy:Art” project with Professor Dr. Julian Nida-Rümelin did you suspect it would be such a hit with audiences?

“Suspect” is maybe a little too strong, but I certainly hoped it would be. The point of departure for this joint project between Philosophy Chair IV at Munich University and the Federal Cultural Foundation was the observation that when it comes to the everyday running of museums, time and resources for dealing with the fundamental questions of art are only partly available. My dearest wish, which so far has actually been more or less fulfilled to the hilt, was that analytic aesthetics would come up with some answers, primarily due to the fact that in this field of philosophy the language spoken is generally understandable. This can only be said to a limited extent about the usual discourses on art that are often out of touch with the real world.

Right from the very start it was clear to us that our target audience had to be a general public that was broadly interested in art, but had mostly limited access to academic discourse. That is why the lecturers and speakers were not to represent only analytical positions, but also to discuss the particular focal area from the point of view of art practice and art criticism.

Non-professional art lovers are often underestimated intellectually

In Munich at the event on the communication of art at the Villa Stuck the hall was so jam-packed that many people had to be turned away. What, in your opinion, is driving so many people into the museums to listen to philosophers and art experts talk about art?

I think there are quite a few very different factors contributing to this. On the one hand, the speakers we had invited, Isabelle Graw, Holger Liebs and Karlheinz Lüdeking, are important names in the world of art. This was most definitely one of the reasons why there were so many personalities from the academies of art, not to mention all the artists, gallerists and curators attending. Furthermore – and this was shown quite clearly in the run-up – the event aroused a great deal of interest among art facilitators, whether they are art historians or art teachers. I suspect that in those circles there is in fact a desire to get more support for their work from the realm of philosophy. And finally there were also a lot of non-professional lovers of art who are actually looking for a little help, especially when it comes to the appreciation of contemporary art.

Such a complex, multi-layered audience to a certain extent confronts both speakers and us organisers with a major balancing act. In my opinion however it is the latter group, the non-professional art lovers, who are most often intellectually underestimated by the “movers and shakers” of the art world; it is often assumed that this audience can only be enticed into art appreciation with the aid of blockbuster exhibitions, spectacular museum architecture or ludicrous theoretical structures. This is the wrong approach, especially in view of the experiences I have gained from this series of events. Audiences are most definitely interested in clearer and more understandable argumentation, especially in the field of art and in these times of being swamped by waves of digital communication they have possibly developed a preference for oral presentation.

Art and vanity

What have you, as a philosopher, learnt personally from the events so far? Has your view of art changed?

I have learnt that audiences have a strong desire to have important questions of art theory explained to them in a clear and comprehensible way. In the event on design at the Neue Museum in Nuremberg I found out a lot about design and at the event in the Sprengel Museum in Hanover I learned a lot about museum architecture. From my philosophical colleagues I got to know new forms of argumentation and the “players” from the world of art confirmed my prejudice that in the world of art it is at times more a matter of vanity rather than art.

Philosophy deals with truth. Is philosophy looking for the same truth as art? What is the relationship between art and truth?

The way I see it in the realm of art it is only a case of truth in the figurative sense. A work of art can be “suitable”, it can be right or wrong, but it cannot be true. Only sentences or, at best, thoughts can be true. According to a minimalist view of truth that is shared by many philosophers these days the attribute “is true” is a so-called sentence operator that, as the name already says, can only be applied to sentences.

A follow-up series on the subject of cultural identity

On 7th June the fifth event entitled “Photography between Documentation and Spectacle” is to take place at the Kunstmuseum in Bonn and that will mark the end of the series. Is there going to be a follow-up series?

Yes, we are working on it. The next project is to focus on the subject of cultural identity and the role art plays in it. The remarkable thing is the fact that in all cultures some form of art plays a certain role. Each role in itself can to a certain extent be understood as a replica of that particular culture. In other words, what is left of a culture, if you take away its art?

The idea is to focus on the framework that determines the possibilities for art within a culture. Nowadays in particular this subject seems to be dominating thinking. Especially in these times when, on the one hand, globalisation seems to be having more influence and, on the other, the question of safeguarding or at least regaining one’s own identity is becoming more and more important for cultures and societies. In contrast to the present project, “art:philosophy”, the subject needs to be pointed in a much more international direction. At the same time we are on the look-out for new formats, for example, exhibition projects, events, etc., in which art meets theory and, vice versa, theory meets art.