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object may be claimed for the work of art embodied in it in spite of the
fact that to be embodied in an object is not to be identical with it. So
embodiment can be readily seen to provide a possible basis for speaking
of emergence without losing the advantages of reference and identity—
the difficulty, precisely, of certain extreme forms of idealist views of works
of art that locate diem somehow in plural minds or in some vaguely
merely physical objects in which they are embodied and, as such, identify-
ing references to them will exhibit whatever limitations obtain on the
ascription of such properties. These rather abstract theorems may be
animated by considering the homeliest cases. Stones cannot properly be
said to feel anger: it's not just that it is always false that stones feel angry;
it's inappropriate to say that they do or don't. Human beings dream:
REFERENCES
1
Cf. Joseph Margolis, 'On Disputes VTII (1968), 147-54; also, Joseph Margo-
about the Ontological Status of a Work lis, The Language ofArt and Art Criticism
of Art', The British Journal of Aesthetics, (1965), Ch. IV.
195
WORKS OF ART, CULTURALLY EMERGENT ENTITIES
* Cf. Joseph Margolis, 'Critics and Cf. "The Artworld', Journal of Philo-
Literature', The British Journal of Aes- sophy, LXI (1964), 571-84, to which
thetics, XI (1971), 369-84; also, The Danto has quite recently added this
Language of Art and Art Criticism, Chs. essential ingredient of 'aboutness' (for
V-VI. instance, at the State University of
* I have sketched the need for these very New York Conference on Philosophy
briefly, both with regard to persons and the Arts, November 2-4, 1973).
196