Abstract

There is a close relationship between art and philosophy. From time to time, philosophy attempts to make art its theme. Invariably it has to acknowledge the very qualities of art that it seeks to explain - art’s elusiveness and its indeterminateness. On the other hand, it is the nature of art to philosophise within itself, about itself, and about the world. In this sense it operates as tacit philosophy. The language of art and the language of philosophy differ in form; but recent turns in philosophy have led to the expression of its truth in terms that transcend language and question its own epistemic structure. At the same time, art has always acknowledged its approach to ‘truth’ and ‘knowledge’ as being ‘other’ to that epistemology. This ‘otherness’ to traditional ways of knowing is recognised in philosophical discourse as ‘alterity’. The thesis posits that in art alterity has always been, and remains, tacit and integral to art’s being. Thus, by exploring the ways in which – through alterity – art and philosophy intersect and interweave, the thesis aims to reveal a new kind of knowledge that transcends the rational and the empirical but is nonetheless not only valid, but of the very highest integrity. That knowledge is transmitted through a particular critical and creative approach to philosophy and to art that opens the possibility of the ‘event’ of Alterity. The thesis uses a discourse of philosophy and critical theory to reveal Alterity in philosophy, principally through the work of Derrida, Heidegger, Adorno, and Levinas; Alterity in art through the works of Fra Angelico, Pollock, Fantin-Latour, Malevich, Vermeer, and Saitowitz; and Alterity in my own art practice through a set of six sculptures.