Denis Laurence Dutton (9 February 1944 – 28 December 2010) was an American philosopher of art, web entrepreneur, and media activist. He was a professor of philosophy at the

University of Canterbury The University of Canterbury (UC; ; postnominal abbreviation ''Cantuar.'' or ''Cant.'' for ''Cantuariensis'', the Latin name for Canterbury) is a public research university based in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was founded in 1873 as Canterbur ...

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

. He was also a co-founder and co-editor of the websites Arts & Letters Daily, ClimateDebateDaily.com, and cybereditions.com.

Life and career

Denis Dutton was born in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, United States, on 9 February 1944, as the second of four children of William and Thelma Dutton, who were booksellers and founded what became Dutton's Books, a chain of independent bookstores. He grew up in North Hollywood, graduated from

North Hollywood High School North Hollywood High School (NHHS) is a public high school in the North Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. It is in the San Fernando Valley and enrolls approximately 2,500 students. Several neighborhoods, including m ...

, and was educated at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an ...

, where he earned his bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1966 and his PhD in philosophy in 1975. Between taking these degrees, he went to India with the

Peace Corps The Peace Corps is an Independent agency of the U.S. government, independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to communities in partner countries around the world. It was established in Marc ...

and learned to play

sitar The sitar ( or ; ) is a plucked stringed instrument, originating from the Indian subcontinent, used in Hindustani classical music. The instrument was invented in the 18th century, and arrived at its present form in 19th-century India. Khusrau K ...

. Dutton taught at several American universities, including the

and the

University of Michigan–Dearborn The University of Michigan–Dearborn (UM-Dearborn) is a public university in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1959 with a gift from the Ford Motor Company, it was initially known as the Dearborn Center, operating as a remote branc ...

, before emigrating to New Zealand. Dutton started teaching at the

, in 1984. From 2008 to 2010, he was the Head of the Philosophy school in an unofficial capacity and acted briefly as Head of Humanities. At its December 2010 graduation ceremony, the University of Canterbury awarded Dutton a research medal for his work. He was a member of the

editorial board The editorial board is a group of editors, writers, and other people who are charged with implementing a publication's approach to editorials and other opinion pieces. The editorials published normally represent the views or goals of the publicat ...

for '' The Rutherford Journal''. On 28 December 2010, Dutton died from

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...

Arts & Letters Daily

Dutton was best known for the web aggregation site Arts & Letters Daily, which he founded in 1998 and which secured him a place among "the most influential media personalities in the world". The site, described as "the first and foremost aggregator of well-written and well-argued book reviews, essays, and other articles in the realm of ideas", features links to articles across the web about literature, art, science, and politics, for which Dutton wrote pithy teasers. In recognition of ''Arts & Letters Daily'',

Steven Pinker Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychology, cognitive psychologist, psycholinguistics, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psycholo ...

called Dutton a visionary for recognizing that a website "could be a forum for cutting-edge ideas, not just a way to sell things or entertain the bored".

Cybereditions

Dutton served as executive director of Cybereditions, a print on demand publishing company he founded in 2000 which specializes in new and out-of-print copyright works, mostly of a scholarly nature. The editorial board of the company has included other academics such as Frederick Crews,

Anthony Grafton Anthony Thomas Grafton (born May 21, 1950) is an American historian of early modern Europe and the Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University, where he is also the Director the Program in European Cultural Studies. He i ...

and

Marjorie Perloff Marjorie Perloff (born Gabriele Mintz; September 28, 1931 – March 24, 2024) was an Austrian-born American poetry scholar and critic, known for her study of avant-garde poetry. Perloff was a professor at Catholic University, the University of ...

Aesthetics

Dutton wrote on

authenticity in art Authenticity in art is manifested in the different ways that a work of art, or an artistic performance, can be considered authentic. The initial distinction is between ''nominal authenticity'' and ''expressive authenticity''. In the first sense ...

and distinguished between ''nominal authenticity'', in which a work of art is correctly attributed to its author rather than being a forgery, and ''expressive authenticity'', where a work is a true expression of an individual's or a society's values and beliefs. In his book ''The Art Instinct'' (2010) Dutton opposes the view that art appreciation is culturally learned, claiming instead that art appreciation stems from evolutionary adaptions made during the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

. He set out abbreviated versions of his theory in a 2009

Google Talk Google Talk was an instant messaging service that provided both text and voice communication. The instant messaging service was variously referred to colloquially as Gchat, Gtalk, or Gmessage among its users. Google Talk was also the name o ...

lecture and a 2010

TED talk TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "Ideas Change Everything" (previously "Ideas Worth Sprea ...

. Dutton also argued that progress in the arts and sciences had declined, especially since around 1800.

Criticism of academic prose

As editor of the journal ''

Philosophy and Literature ''Philosophy and Literature'' is an American academic journal founded in 1977 by Denis Dutton. It explores the connections between literary and philosophical studies by presenting ideas on the aesthetics of literature, critical theory, and the ...

'', Dutton ran the Bad Writing Contest, which aimed to "expose 'pretentious, swaggering gibberish' passed off as scholarship at leading universities". In 1995, the contest was won by

Homi K. Bhabha Homi Kharshedji Bhabha (; born 1 November 1949) is an Indian people, Indian scholar and Critical Theorist, critical theorist. He is the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. He is one of the most important figur ...

and

Fredric Jameson Fredric Ruff Jameson (April 14, 1934 – September 22, 2024) was an American literary critic, philosopher and Marxist political theorist. He was best known for his analysis of contemporary cultural trends, particularly his analysis of postmode ...

. In 1998, the contest awarded first place to philosopher and

University of California-Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley ...

Professor

Judith Butler Judith Pamela Butler (born February 24, 1956) is an American feminist philosopher and gender studies scholar whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism, queer theory, and literary theory. In ...

, for a sentence which appeared in the journal ''

diacritics A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

.'' Butler defended their work against the charges of academic pedantry and

obscurantism In philosophy, obscurantism or obscurationism is the Anti-intellectualism, anti-intellectual practice of deliberately presenting information in an wikt:abstruse, abstruse and imprecise manner that limits further inquiry and understanding of a subj ...

in the pages of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

''. Dutton then ended the contest. The Bad Writing Contest emerged in an intellectual climate dominated by the fallout from the Sokal affair, in which the alleged opaqueness and obscurity of

postmodern Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting the wo ...

writing came in for criticism:

Edward Said Edward Wadie Said (1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American academic, literary critic, and political activist. As a professor of literature at Columbia University, he was among the founders of Postcolonialism, post-co ...

, for instance, deplored "diminishment and incoherence" in the writings of some of his colleagues and

Martha Nussbaum Martha Nussbaum (; Craven; born May 6, 1947) is an American philosopher and the current Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she is jointly appointed in the law school and the philos ...

condemned academic writing that was "ponderous and obscure".

Politics and activism

Dutton supported "conservative ideas" and was a member of the Libertarian Party for some years. Dutton was one of the founding members and first chair of the NZ Skeptics. In 2009, he stated that he believed that "

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

is still an open question". He was also a passionate supporter of

public radio Public broadcasting (or public service broadcasting) is radio, television, and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service with a commitment to avoiding political and commercial influence. Public broadcasters receive ...

. In the early 1990s, he founded the lobby group ''The New Zealand Friends of Public Broadcasting'' in response to proposals to devolve New Zealand's two non-commercial public radio stations. In 1995 he was appointed to the board of directors of

Radio New Zealand Radio New Zealand (), commonly known as RNZ or Radio NZ, is a New Zealand public service broadcaster and Crown entity. Established under the Radio New Zealand Act 1995, it operates news and current affairs station, RNZ National, and a classi ...

, where he served for seven years. After concluding his term as a director, Dr. Dutton and Dr. John Isles issued a report criticising Radio New Zealand for loss of neutrality in news and current affairs, failure to adhere to charter and opposed to contestable funding of broadcasting.

Bibliography

Dutton's publications include: * * * * * * *

References

External links

Arts & Letters Daily

Video (and audio) of interview/conversation with Dutton
and John Horgan on Bloggingheads.tv
Current Biography cover story on Dutton

An interview about Arts & Letters Daily
on ''The Marketplace of Ideas''
An interview about ''The Art Instinct''
on ''The Marketplace of Ideas'' * *
Denis Dutton: A Darwinian theory of beauty (TED2010)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dutton, Denis 1944 births 2010 deaths American libertarians American philosophy academics American skeptics American critics of postmodernism Deaths from prostate cancer in New Zealand Epistemologists New Zealand libertarians New Zealand people of American descent New Zealand sceptics Academics from Los Angeles American philosophers of art University of California, Santa Barbara alumni Academic staff of the University of Canterbury University of Michigan–Dearborn people Writers from Los Angeles North Hollywood High School alumni