ABSTRACT
Arthur Danto believes he finds a problem in the fact that of two objects, alike in all respects, one may be a work of art and the other not. Danto imagines an artist, whom he calls J., exhibiting a mirror, a most commonplace mirror. J. denies that his mirror makes any allusion to the hoary metaphor for art and so the fact that his work of art happens to be a mirror is of no moment; it might as well have been a breadbasket just like the one on Danto's breakfast table. Arthur Danto believes that a work of literature has an essence, although it is a curiously qualified "so-to-speak" one, but at any rate he thinks that works of literature are "constituted" by various facts that some other people–Intentional Fallacyites, for example–believe are only "external" to "the work itself.".
