Science, Culture, and the Reconciliation of Knowledge and Understanding

Arthur Pontynen is Professor Emeritus and former Chair, Department of Art, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh. His research centers on the truth claims of works of art, the intellectual justification for the humanities, and the current truth-claims of academia. Involved is a philosophical and historical analysis of the interactions between science and culture. He is the author of For the Love of Beauty: Art, History, and the Moral Foundations of Aesthetic Judgment (2006), and Cultural Renewal. Restoring the Liberal and Fine Arts (2015), and is co-author of Western Culture at the American Crossroads: Conflicts Over the Nature of Science and Reason (2011). He was a Smithsonian Fellow, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, and a Heritage Foundation Fellow, and has been interviewed on National Public Radio and Radio Free Europe. Numerous book chapters, research references, catalogues, and articles have been published in American, English, Chinese and Israeli journals.