ABSTRACT
The appeal of art – its extraordinary status in modern life – arises partly from the fact that within all of disenchanted modernity it is in the value-sphere of art that these longed-for ends are most likely to be found. However, such aesthetic capability is necessarily formed in opposition to, and in contrast with, the rationalised, prosaic external order of the world, so all that is possible is a meaning within meaninglessness, and freedom within unfreedom. The basis of Duchamp’s appeal lies in the way he can, at the same time: radically challenge art; maintain a place within art; and powerfully develop the internal cosmos of the aesthetic value-sphere. The sociological explanation of Duchamp can be continued with reference to Weber. Essentially, from a Weberian sociological perspective, the ready-mades only make sense within the aesthetic value-sphere, and seem shockingly nonsensical within the terms of any of the rationalised spheres where reason itself is a dominant form of legitimation.
