ABSTRACT
This chapter sets out some of the theories of art and knowledge that have been responsible for wedging art and knowledge apart. It aims to draw attention to the small number of concepts and images that underpin claims regarding the distance between art and knowledge in the history of ideas. The chapter discloses the tendency to think in binary oppositions, such as 'inside' and 'outside', 'reason' and 'sensation', and 'reality' and 'appearance', and show how the oppositions prioritize art or knowledge in such a way that the possibility of a relationship is always precluded. It demonstrates some of the problems inherent in the binary models adopted, and set out some responses from the history of philosophy. Theories of the integrity of art are a product of modernism. The idea of art being distinct from knowledge is central to John Dewey aesthetics. Pragmatism seeks to avoid the metaphysical oppositions that lead to conflict or stalemate within philosophy.
