The philosopher and art critic Arthur C. Danto has produced a body of work of a breadth that is unusual in an era of specialization. To the overriding philosophical question of the twentieth century--"What is philosophy""--he has devoted two major texts: What Philosophy Is: A Guide to the Elements (1968) and Connections to the World: The Basic Concepts of Philosophy (1989). To the pop-art phenomenon Danto has addressed his groundbreaking essay "The Artworld" (1964), his book The Transfiguration of the Commonplace: A Philosophy of Art (1981), and several of the essays collected in The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art (1986). His art criticism proper, produced regularly for The Nation magazine since 1984 and collected in several volumes, including The State of the Art (1987) and The Madonna of the Future: Essays in a Pluralistic Art World (2000), as well as his essays in exhibition catalogues, have carried many of his ideas into popular discussion and...