Dear Eduardo,
Why not send your post to the moderator for the AHRC Workshop list.
Some people there do not subscribe here. And many of the 1,200 members
here have not subscribed there -- so they may not be interested. Fragmenting
a conversation across multiple lists is a disservice to both groups.
Yours,
Ken
p.s. For those who wonder about the Picasso quote, it has to do with the
Picasso's PhD debate leading up to La Clusaz. But I explained on AHRC
why Picasso would not have earned a PhD and this is also why he was not
a philosophy doctor. A doctor teaches and shares knowledge. Picasso was
a guild master who kept the secrets of his genius to himself, sharing only
his work. He was a master and not a doctor -- to be a great master in
Picasso's eyes (as in the medieval guilds) was a status far greater than
the status of a university doctor. An interesting aspect of the medieval
universities was that the teachers saw themselves as masters of the
university corporation, a specific guild, much as the weavers, brewers, and
metalworkers had their specific guilds. The degree doctor was a special
license within the university carry with it larger and wider authorization
than the lower levels of degree. The reason we call an academic degree a
degree is that it originally indicated status within a social and professional
structure.
Picasso was not part of that structure and he had no reason to be. Only
in our world, where a doctorate indicates status, do we feel any need
to say that Picasso was a philosophy doctor. In Picasso's world, nearly
none of us would have had any place -- hardly anyone did, a Braque,
a Matisse, a handful more. He was a master. We are bystanders. Even
those of us who may also work as artists would hardly count in Picasso's
world.
Saying that "Picasso was a hell of a philosophy doctor in art" is rather
like saying "Zeus is a grand meteorologist of thunder." It's not quite
right because it measures different things. Picasso made art as Zeus made
thunder. Calling Picasso a philosophy doctor in art is a demotion like
that of demoting a god to a meteorologist.
Chris Rust and I focused on Picasso precisely because his unparalleled
standing as an artist made clear the difference between professional
master standing and the status of university doctor. The difference is
not a difference of degree, but of kind.
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