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Danto’s philosophical approach determines his methodical and theoretical discipline in philosophy of art and aesthetics. To start understanding his theories and philosophical thoughts, it is better first to ask what his understanding of philosophy is and what method he offers for philosophical investigation. Since Danto has written independent works in the realm, understanding his philosophical concerns about art involves the explanation of his general philosophical ideas. If his philosophy of art bears any innovation and unique treatment of art and representation, then it’s inevitable to fully understand his basic and rudimentary concepts on which his whole philosophy is constructed. Furthermore, and through investigating his basic concepts, one can find Danto’s general approach and conceptions. Contemporary art after the decline of modern art challenges Danto’s thoughts. As Danto puts it, contemporary art is nowadays connected to consciousness more than any other time. Danto puts forward a new approach in philosophy of art and art criticism based on his method of philosophical investigation. His specific methodology and philosophy of art will be discussed here in this article and their differences will be clarified. Meanwhile, it is discussed that, according to Danto, examining the condition of contemporary art and its status in history of art is one of the dominant issues in philosophy of art and art criticism.

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Victor Burgin is a famous British artist, renowned for his photographs and theories on art. Introducing his prominent theory through collected essays in a book titled The End of Art Theory he was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1986, in addition to exhibiting his works in Institute of Contemporary Arts and Kettle's Yard Gallery in Cambridge (1984). In this book, he exposes "the end of art theory" contrary to other theories with similar subject the most renowned one belongs to Arthur Danto. Influenced by such thinkers as Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, and Jacques Lacan, Burgin’s writings mainly cover the fields of conceptual art, criticism, and art theory. His recent book, Parallel Texts is a collection of his essays, interviews and theoretical writings. According to Burgin, “art theory”, understood as those interdependent forms of art history, aesthetics and criticism which began during the Enlightenment and culminated in the recent period of “high modernism” is now at the end. Nonetheless, since every theoretical argument about art may be considered essentially a kind of theory, it seems paradoxical that Burgin as an artist simultaneously is theorizing about art and critic. No need to say that applying a kind of theory in deliberating about an artwork is inevitable. This article discusses the Burgin’s idea on conceptual art which is predicated upon Freudian psychology and is mostly focused on artist’s character as the fruit of natural structure of human psyche through a social process. He not only expresses the art theory in a continuum of art history, criticism and aesthetics but also defines it in the cycle of economy and politics. From his point of view, artwork is nothing but the product of this interwoven system. For him, a conceptual artwork is theoretically expressive. In other words, nowadays the art has transferred into theory and criticism it follows that art theory has reached to an end and now it is declared through artworks. To conclude, the author would argue that in the world of art today, there is no need to separate professions as artists, critics and theorists anymore since all of them are compacted in one: an artist own self!

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Next to their deep influence on human relations and social views, one of the effects of the groundbreaking developments occurred during the last few centuries in philosophy, science, economy, culture and art is the reviving attention to feminine issues in multiple realms and notably that of art. One of the prominent figures who have conducted distinguished research in this field is Linda Nochlin. She is best known as a proponent of the question “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” which has led to new feminist investigation in art history. Drawing on Feminist aesthetics she challenges the basic philosophical and social presuppositions in art world and argues that for a great artist-genius to be known and for a great work of art to be shaped, social beds and institutional factors play an important role. This article would discuss her main viewpoints on this matter. It will be expressed that Nochlin sets Men’s artistic works against those of women to show that both men and women are capable of producing every sort of artworks and hence to contend that there’s no such a concept as feminine artistic style. She proposes this notion that the women artists’ selection of what is called feminine concept is done under the influence of social, institutional and educational elements.

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Regarding the importance of theoretical arguments about Islamic Art, a serious and coherence theory of Islamic Art and its philosophical fundamentals is needed more than ever. What historians, Traditionalists and critics present in their works fails to shed light on all aspects of Islamic Art. Lately, there has been published a booklet by Doctor Hassan Bolkhari under the title of “Ghadr: A Fundamental Theory of Art, Architecture, and Beauty in Islamic Civilization”. I’ve studied that booklet and found some of its ideas disputable. Parts of the booklet’s core ideas were previously published in “Mystical Rudiments of Islamic Art and Architecture” by same author. Here I am to discuss some of the basic ideas and concepts of the booklet and provide some insights on them.

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Academic disciplines of art history and art criticism are generally based on Western canon, the textbooks for these disciplines –internationally- being mostly focused on a historical study of Western art and its underlying aesthetic principles. In recent decades, however, this situation has changed, and as researches from various cultural backgrounds have gradually joined these disciplines, a heightened awareness regarding non-western art and aesthetics has been raised. Cross-cultural art criticism is based on the notion that the definitions and manifestations of art differ in various nations and cultures, and therefore a standard, Western framework for art criticism might not be applied to all of these various practices and worldviews. Cross-cultural approach underlines contextual studies and mostly favors anthropological approaches and methodologies. It does not study the work of art per se and in isolation, but its aim is to understand the people through their works of art. Therefore, the works of art should be studied in regards to their original context, and be viewed in the same way that their creators viewed them. The work of art is not a subject to study out of sheer curiosity, but it is a manifestation of complex metaphysical, social, and emotional issues of a certain culture.

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Mohammad-Karim Pirnia, one of the most prominent scholars of the history of Iranian architecture, has recorded two major achievements: the principles of Iranian architecture and the stylistics of Iranian architecture. In this article we will discuss his suggested principles for Iranian architecture. For this purpose, we will first show how his five principles have evolved and completed through time. Then we will refer to his words about each of the principles we have gathered from the original source but widely spread and will present them in an integrated and coherent form. 

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objectivity with regard to interpretation of an artwork means being allowed to talk about true or false interpretations. Some theorists, call them anti-intentionalist, see discovering of the artwork’s meaning with reference to the intentions of the author as problematic. Some anti-intentionalists, including Roland Barthes, basically deny objectivity in interpretation of artworks. Others, including Monroe Beardsley, accept the objectivity in interpretation but ascribe it to the context. On the other side of the debate, some intentionalists, e.g. Hirsch, Levinson, and Carroll, see the intentions of the author as the ground for objectivity. The present article indicates that the intentionalists’ arguments are stronger and more consistent with the practices of art and criticism. Furthermore, there is also a debate that whether the intentions of the actual author are the ones that should be looked for or those that can be ascribed to a hypothetical author. In this respect, we illustrate that Noel Carroll’s actual intentionalism provides us with the best answers.

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Although none of the concepts of form as following function or form as a purely semiological order or the necessity or otherwise of taking the context into account in design are new in architecture today, it is still hard to create any remarkably thoughtful architecture without having answers to such questions. The present text is an exploration of the high-rise, gate-like twin tower type: a type without a significant historic precedent, and as such, relatively free from post-design semiological loads despite the limited numbers of its examples. Having Jim Collins’s idea of the replacement of ‘form follows function’ with ‘value follows location’, the text attempts to demonstrate that even in the case of this type in which close associations between design ideas and semiological references are not far away, one can still witness a fluidity in the relationship between form and function on one hand, and form and socio-political and cultural context on the other. In other words, it is not just the classic views on typology whose historicist and rationalist traditions seem inadequate to explain this type, but also that neither the earlier idea of form following function nor the latter one of the building as a meaning-producer and a conveyor of semiological references can provide a firm ground in this regard.

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As many have said, “ethical criticism of art” has been the most enduring topic in the philosophy of art; but, in this broad topic, we must distinguish two problems: the first is the possibility of ethical criticism of artworks, and the second is the relevance of such criticism to the aesthetic value of artworks. In other words, the first problem is whether we can reasonably engage in ethical criticism of artworks or not, whereas the second problem is whether the ethical criticism of an artwork relates to the aesthetic criticism of it. This essay, however, is just about the second problem. To deal with the problem, we firstly divided the arguments against ethical criticism of art into three divisions - ontological, epistemological, and methodological - and then, gathering the arguments for the possibility of such criticism, from radical moralism to moderate autonomism and even “immoralism”, we attempted to meet the opponents and show that it can be reasonable to criticize ethically.

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One of the main questions concerning the status of art in Islam is whether there is a knowledge or thinking in Islam as the origion of the works of art. In other words, is there any artistic vision in Islamic thought? If the answer to this question is negative, what can be said of the masterpieces of art from architecture to calligraphy in the world of Islam? However, if the answer is positive, there are following ambiguities which should be removed.

1. True religious knowledge in Islam should be distinguished from the dogmatic Islamic ideology.

2. The traditional concept of art in Islam should be discerned and be differentiated from the new concept of art in the realm of aesthetics.

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