Xll
Preface
Where it will lead is also a matter of open history. This third edition serves, then, as a provisional resting place within a field of continual change—to which perhaps it may contribute once again a sense of promising new directions well worth pursuing.
I have scandalously picked the brains of a great many of my professional friends, in preparing this collection. And, I must admit, I have largely failed to incorporate their suggestions. If I could have put together a volume of at least two hundred additional pages, I probably would have accommodated their recommendations—and gladly. But it was impossible. I shall, therefore, not mention these friends by name here. There's no reason to encumber them in any way; and they will know—the entire army of them—that I'm most grateful for their having offered their advice on my request. I have also benefited, I may say, from some anonymous advice solicited by the press. The principal gap in the readings which I had hoped to fill (and have tried in part to fill by clever indirection) really requires some of the better, more technically informed papers on the structure of the various arts themselves. I do feel that that need still poses a serious limitation in this third edition. I should very much like to see a companion volume that, in the spirit of this edition, addresses the actual arts in an ample and detailed way.
I must single out for special mention that agreeable kind of encouragement, verging on nudging, that I only slowly came to notice, first sounded by my very good friends at Temple University Press, Jane Cullen and David Bartlett. I know I would not have made the effort but for them.
Part One
Aesthetic Interests and Aesthetic Qualities
It is notoriously difficult to define the boundaries of such large and lively interests as the scientific, the moral, and the aesthetic. At least since Immanuel Kant, philosophers have hoped to be able to mark out nice logical distinctions among the kinds of judgments corresponding to such interests. In fact, Kant imposed one of the great obstacles to modern philosophy in this respect: enormous effort has been required to show that the demarcation lines Kant favored—or other similarly construed distinctions—actually falsify or distort the uniformities and differences favored among our conceptual networks. This is not to say that questions that belong to the very heart of empirical science, moral judgment, the appreciation and criticism of fine art are not easily identified. They are, of course. But since Kant, philosophers have been inclined to hope that when they are sorted, such questions will lead to neat categorical differences justifying their having been distinguished in the ways in which they have. Hence, there is a certain embarrassment at stake in failing to discover the required distinctions.
On the other hand, one may very well question the notion of discovering the difference between the scientific, the moral, and the aesthetic. What would such a discovery be like? It seems fairly clear that the distinctions would prove to be some philosopher's proposal, not a discovery at all. One need not deny that there are certain hard-core questions that belong unquestionably to each of these domains. But that hardly means that the boundaries of each are open to inspection. Criticism shades into science, and moral considerations into appreciation. In the moral domain, for instance, it is often maintained that moral judgments are inherently action-guiding, that there is no point to a moral judgment if it is not intended to direct another or oneself to act appropriately in a relevant situation. But if that is so, then how are we to understand valid moral
2
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Aesthetic Interests and Aesthetic Qualities
3
judgments in situations in which the required action is impossible ("you ought to, or are obliged to, pay that loan today though you've squandered the money at the racetrack") or in which the action appraised or appreciated is beyond the capacity of normal persons to perform at will ("St. Francis acted as a saint")?
Even after it develops that no simple logical differences exist among scientific, moral, and aesthetic judgments, philosophers may enthusiastically continue their attempt to distinguish the aesthetic domain. Inquiry then turns to another sort of distinction—for instance, the controlling interest of each of these domains. So one may argue that distinctive sets of reasons are regularly put forward to defend those sorts of judgments we call aesthetic, economic, or moral. The judgments themselves need not differ in their logical properties; it may be only that there are clusters or classes of reasons that would be relevant to each. And the question arises whether these are overlapping for the sorts of judgment distinguished, whether they may be sharply defined, or whether they may be exhibited only by way of admissible samples.
Beneath all this lurks the question of the nature of such large category-terms as the aesthetic, the moral, the scientific. It may be asked, for instance, whether philosophers are primarily explicating the meaning of "aesthetic" or whether, by an ellipsis, they are really generalizing about the properties of certain sorts of judgments or remarks that are taken without dispute (though they are not infrequently disputed) to belong within the scope of aesthetic interest. That is, one may ask whether an analysis of the meaning of "aesthetic" will be fruitful independently of the second sort of issue, whether in fact it can even be undertaken. The point is not without some interest (given the professional literature), because it is well known that philosophers have quite regularly disputed among themselves whether this or that is really appropriate to the aesthetic point of view. It may then be that statements about the aesthetic point of view are actually elliptical summaries of findings upon this or that set of favored data—which some philosophers at least will have thought to be related in an important way to our concern with fine art; other philosophers, appearing to dispute the very meaning of the aesthetic, may either be disputing those findings or providing alternative findings for other sets of data.
J. O. Urmson's contribution, some years ago, to the Aristotelian Society's symposium on "What makes a situation aesthetic?" (1957) threads through this sort of consideration. His method is in accord both with some traditional conceptions of the central features of aesthetic interest and with a certain powerful theme in recent Anglo-American philosophy (associated originally with the name of Wittgenstein): that the
use of terms in actual currency in our language need not, and may not be able to, be defined by means of necessary and sufficient conditions. There are, however, certain telltale features of Urmson's account. Urmson adopts the cautious approach of distinguishing between the "simpler cases" and the more difficult cases of aesthetic evaluation. He favors the view—associated with the original sense of the "aesthetic"—that the aesthetic aspects of things are concerned with how objects or phenomena appear to, or are discriminated by, the senses. He saves the thesis by admitting both that non-perceptual properties may be included "by courtesy" and by conceding that the more complex cases of aesthetic concern cannot be satisfactorily reduced to the formula for the simpler cases. He also distinguishes between the merit of things as being good things of a kind and the aesthetic merit of things, that is, their merit judged from a certain point of view. It is, in his view, merely contingent that the criteria for judging the goodness of a thing of a kind may well be the same as the criteria for being aesthetically meritorious (dining room tables, for instance). But the combination of these two concessions forces us to request a more detailed account of what it is, precisely, that makes a situation aesthetic.
Here, the difficulties encountered are of the greatest importance. For one thing, the extension of the terms "aesthetic" and "work of art" are clearly not the same, though it is often supposed that the point of aesthetics is to clarify the nature of our appreciation of fine art: natural phenomena and objects not designated artworks are ordinarily admitted to be aesthetically eligible. But then, the very range of artworks changes in rather surprising ways (see Part Two) and, with that, the range of what might be viewed as aesthetically relevant changes as well. The principal pressure points regarding the meaning of aesthetic interest, however, are all centered in one way or another, on the aesthetic relevance of the imperceptible or the non-perceptual. But the quarrelsome nature of the non-perceivable cannot be denied. For instance, the distinction of forgeries and fakes in art suggests a consideration that cannot normally be restricted to what is perceptually accessible. Sometimes, as in print-making, it may merely be that the intention to produce a print from an authentic plate contrary to the original artist's authorization makes a particular print a forgery. If that consideration is aesthetically relevant, then the aesthetic cannot be confined to the perceptible. But the question remains whether that consideration is actually relevant aesthetically—rather than in some other way. Commentators disagree. Again, it is extremely difficult to see how the literary arts can be subsumed under the formula for the "simpler cases." Clive Bell had already admitted this in pressing the general thesis that Urmson's view approaches: it occasioned the most acrobatic adjust-
4
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Aesthetic Interests and Aesthetic Qualities
5
ments imaginable; some theorists were led to hold that reading texts in order to understand the meaning of what was written was simply not essential to (though it was needed to occasion) one's aesthetic appreciation of a poem or novel. A third difficulty concerns the relevance of background information—cultural, biographical, intentional factors (see Part Five). If one must grasp something of the context in which a work of art is produced in order to appreciate it aesthetically, then even if one centers one's interest on what is perceivable, non-perceptual factors will and must relevantly inform what is perceivable. For example, to understand a style, a genre, a representation, a symbol, a historical tradition, a personal intention, is to understand what cannot be explicated solely in perceptual terms. Finally, if these difficulties be conceded, then one must concede as well that the appreciation of works of art may entail the exercise of capacities other than perceptual—for instance, imagination or conceptual understanding. The point is that the properties of a work of art may not be such as either to invite perceptual inspection at all or to invite perception primarily or exclusively. So-called conceptual art is often not perceptually accessible at all, though for that reason some will dispute whether conceptual art is not a contradiction in terms. And much art, not only literature but painting and music as well, seems to be appreciated only when certain imagining abilities are called into play. The empathists had pressed the thesis in a certain restricted way, but there seems to be a larger range of abilities at stake. The perception of physiognomic aspects of the lines in a painting, discrimination of the "movement" of a musical line, the appreciation of scenes depicted in novels or of the motivation of characters in a play all suggest our reliance on abilities that may inform sensory perception but that cannot be characterized merely as such.
Monroe Beardsley's comparatively recent effort (1970) to isolate the aesthetic point of view and the nature of aesthetic qualities is cognizant of all these difficulties. Beardsley attempts nevertheless to salvage a thesis, associated with his well-known effort to construe aesthetic appreciation as an objective undertaking, in which aesthetic properties or values are actually possessed by objects, objects that may be examined for them in certain assignably correct ways by normally endowed percipients. He shifts here from earlier formulations, in speaking of the experiencing rather than the perceiving of artworks (or other suitable objects); and he holds that aesthetic gratification is primarily obtained by attending to the "formal unity" and "regional qualities" of an object or phenomenon. This raises questions about whether such properties can be shown actually to obtain in a given object, to be somehow discernible in it, to preclude the tenability of alternative and incompatible ascriptions of such properties (see Part Six); it also imposes on us the problem of specifying how to give "correct"
and "complete" instructions about experiencing the actual aesthetic values that an object may be supposed to have. Whatever the difficulties Beardsley's account generates, it constitutes the most forthright and informed effort we have to recover the objectivity of aesthetic discourse as such from the pressures of the sort already adduced.
Timothy Binkley's recent paper (1977) is a witty, iconoclastic piece—one of a number he has written in the same spirit—in which the more received and conventional views about the aesthetic appreciation of works of art are threatened by attention to implications drawn from bolder, more recent, and more extreme efforts in the arts themselves. Here, relying on certain novel developments in so-called conceptual art, Binkley shows effectively that there are actually works of art (if such they may be called) that cannot be explicated in perceptual terms. Even if one contests his specimens—though the dubious force of doing so is clear enough—Binkley does oblige us to see that, even in more conventional settings, intentional, contextual, background considerations are all but impossible to eliminate (see Parts Four and Five). So construed, his account challenges not only the more straightforward presumption of Urmson's discussion but also the prospect of sustaining the kind of objective discovery that Beardsley favors.
Perhaps the most important implication of Binkley's account is that it is quite impossible to separate the characterization of the aesthetic from one's sense of the range of what constitutes art. This is not to say that definitions isolate essential properties (see Part Two) but only that the point of defining the aesthetic is to throw into relief the kinds of properties prized in the context of appreciating art. Contemporary linguistic analysis has benefited aesthetics, in a very noticeable way, by subjecting to detailed scrutiny large lists of the familiar terms we use to characterize works of art. The truth is that this examination has never been attempted before in a fully systematic way or with the advantage of a powerful and well-developed philosophical method. The result has been some discoveries of considerable importance.
The pivotal question for all such analysis is, what are the conditions on which we correctly apply a characterizing (aesthetic) term to a given work of art? The finding has been that these vary strikingly with different sets of terms. The question is obviously important, since only by means of the analysis indicated could we hope to describe the logical nature of aesthetic disputes about works of art. Is, for example, this Rembrandt somberl Are those colors garish"! Would you say she has a regal manner? Clearly, the issue spreads far beyond the narrow confines of art to the appreciative remarks we make in general conversation.
There is, of course, an extraordinarily large number of respects in which
4
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Aesthetic Interests and Aesthetic Qualities
5
ments imaginable; some theorists were led to hold that reading texts in order to understand the meaning of what was written was simply not essential to (though it was needed to occasion) one's aesthetic appreciation of a poem or novel. A third difficulty concerns the relevance of background information—cultural, biographical, intentional factors (see Part Five). If one must grasp something of the context in which a work of art is produced in order to appreciate it aesthetically, then even if one centers one's interest on what is perceivable, non-perceptual factors will and must relevantly inform what is perceivable. For example, to understand a style, a genre, a representation, a symbol, a historical tradition, a personal intention, is to understand what cannot be explicated solely in perceptual terms. Finally, if these difficulties be conceded, then one must concede as well that the appreciation of works of art may entail the exercise of capacities other than perceptual—for instance, imagination or conceptual understanding. The point is that the properties of a work of art may not be such as either to invite perceptual inspection at all or to invite perception primarily or exclusively. So-called conceptual art is often not perceptually accessible at all, though for that reason some will dispute whether conceptual art is not a contradiction in terms. And much art, not only literature but painting and music as well, seems to be appreciated only when certain imagining abilities are called into play. The empathists had pressed the thesis in a certain restricted way, but there seems to be a larger range of abilities at stake. The perception of physiognomic aspects of the lines in a painting, discrimination of the "movement" of a musical line, the appreciation of scenes depicted in novels or of the motivation of characters in a play all suggest our reliance on abilities that may inform sensory perception but that cannot be characterized merely as such.
Monroe Beardsley's comparatively recent effort (1970) to isolate the aesthetic point of view and the nature of aesthetic qualities is cognizant of all these difficulties. Beardsley attempts nevertheless to salvage a thesis, associated with his well-known effort to construe aesthetic appreciation as an objective undertaking, in which aesthetic properties or values are actually possessed by objects, objects that may be examined for them in certain assignably correct ways by normally endowed percipients. He shifts here from earlier formulations, in speaking of the experiencing rather than the perceiving of artworks (or other suitable objects); and he holds that aesthetic gratification is primarily obtained by attending to the "formal unity" and "regional qualities" of an object or phenomenon. This raises questions about whether such properties can be shown actually to obtain in a given object, to be somehow discernible in it, to preclude the tenability of alternative and incompatible ascriptions of such properties (see Part Six); it also imposes on us the problem of specifying how to give "correct"
and "complete" instructions about experiencing the actual aesthetic values that an object may be supposed to have. Whatever the difficulties Beardsley's account generates, it constitutes the most forthright and informed effort we have to recover the objectivity of aesthetic discourse as such from the pressures of the sort already adduced.
Timothy Binkley's recent paper (1977) is a witty, iconoclastic piece—one of a number he has written in the same spirit—in which the more received and conventional views about the aesthetic appreciation of works of art are threatened by attention to implications drawn from bolder, more recent, and more extreme efforts in the arts themselves. Here, relying on certain novel developments in so-called conceptual art, Binkley shows effectively that there are actually works of art (if such they may be called) that cannot be explicated in perceptual terms. Even if one contests his specimens—though the dubious force of doing so is clear enough—Binkley does oblige us to see that, even in more conventional settings, intentional, contextual, background considerations are all but impossible to eliminate (see Parts Four and Five). So construed, his account challenges not only the more straightforward presumption of Urmson's discussion but also the prospect of sustaining the kind of objective discovery that Beardsley favors.
Perhaps the most important implication of Binkley's account is that it is quite impossible to separate the characterization of the aesthetic from one's sense of the range of what constitutes art. This is not to say that definitions isolate essential properties (see Part Two) but only that the point of defining the aesthetic is to throw into relief the kinds of properties prized in the context of appreciating art. Contemporary linguistic analysis has benefited aesthetics, in a very noticeable way, by subjecting to detailed scrutiny large lists of the familiar terms we use to characterize works of art. The truth is that this examination has never been attempted before in a fully systematic way or with the advantage of a powerful and well-developed philosophical method. The result has been some discoveries of considerable importance.
The pivotal question for all such analysis is, what are the conditions on which we correctly apply a characterizing (aesthetic) term to a given work of art? The finding has been that these vary strikingly with different sets of terms. The question is obviously important, since only by means of the analysis indicated could we hope to describe the logical nature of aesthetic disputes about works of art. Is, for example, this Rembrandt somberl Are those colors garish! Would you say she has a regal manner? Clearly, the issue spreads far beyond the narrow confines of art to the appreciative remarks we make in general conversation.
There is, of course, an extraordinarily large number of respects in which
6 Aesthetic Interests and Aesthetic Qualities
all of our characterizing terms may be classified. Can we state necessary conditions for their use? sufficient conditions? necessary and sufficient conditions? Are there terms for which we can supply neither necessary nor sufficient conditions? If there are, how is their use supported? Are there purely descriptive terms? purely evaluative terms? terms that are mixed in this regard? Are there descriptive and evaluative terms whose proper use depends on affective responses on our part? on dispositions to respond? Are there terms for which one can provide paradigm cases? terms for which one cannot? And if the latter (think of epithets like "He's the Michelangelo of poetry"), can and how can they be supported?
From the vantage of a large perspective, one can see that the sort of analysis indicated is simply the application, to a range of terms having a somewhat local interest for specialists in aesthetics and the arts, of a general method of working. The main force of this strategy has already been marked out very clearly in the philosophical contributions of such authors as Wittgenstein, John Wisdom, and J. L. Austin. But what is fascinating to observe is the correspondence among findings made in the most disparate fields of philosophical analysis.
The point can be made in either of two ways. We have been made to notice that a large number of expressions central to talk in different domains are readily but informally associated with paradigm instances, without, however, permitting us to formulate either necessary or sufficient conditions for their use. Otherwise stated, we have been made to notice that arguments supporting certain sorts of judgment central in different domains cannot be classified as deductive or inductive but depend on some "intermediate" logic in accord with which we may specify only "characteristically" favorable or unfavorable evidence. There are cases, that is, in which we argue more from instance to instance than from principle or rule to application, more analogically than by appealing to formal canons. And this, it turns out, is particularly worth emphasizing in the domain of aesthetics.
Frank Sibley's discussion (1959) of qualities prominent in aesthetic discourse is probably the most thoroughgoing effort made to date to fix the "intermediate" logic of the bulk of the expressions employed there. It has actually provoked an immense number of responses and counter-responses. And in doing so, it has led us to sort out a good number of central distinctions that any comprehensive theory of aesthetic interest, aesthetic perception, aesthetic qualities, would need to consider. Sibley is quite explicit about aesthetic discrimination's being a perceptual ability, but a perceptual ability involving the exercise of taste. He has also pressed as uncompromisingly as possible the thesis that aesthetic qualities are not condition-governed in any way that bears on the confirmation or discon-
Aesthetic Interests and Aesthetic Qualities 7
firmation of relevant aesthetic claims: they are, apparently, emergent qualities of some sort, dependent on nonaesthetic properties, possessed by the objects in question, and discriminable by percipients having the re_ quisite taste. These details of his theory fix the sense in which it Would be a mistake to construe his thesis as intuitionistic.
But it has invited a variety of challenges. For one thing, it raises a question about how to decide—as well as what the theoretical groun(j mav be for deciding—between whether a candidate object actually has or mereiy seems to have the aesthetic quality assigned. These—graceful, delicate dainty, handsome, comely, elegant, garish, to take one troublesome array of terms that Sibley himself provides—are supposed to enter into valid objective judgments about matters of fact. But there can be no matters of fact where the is/seems contrast is not assigned a critical epjstemjc function. This thesis is clearly advanced for instance by Isabel Hungerian(j For another, it raises a question about whether aesthetic appreciation and perception—in any generous sense of those notions—can be confine(j t0 perceptual considerations. Sometimes, it seems that aesthetic appreciation may well be non-perceptual; sometimes, it seems that aesthetic Perception itself can only function as such when properly informed by relevant background considerations, as of history, biography, intention (see Parts Four and Five). If so, then aesthetic perception must be an ability that cannot be adequately characterized as a merely perceptual ability -j-nis js the theme of the strong objection that Kendall Walton advances (1970) The very categories of art, Walton argues, in terms of which works 0f art are properly perceived, require that our perception be appropriately oriented in terms of a wide variety of factors bearing on the origm 0f a given work, factors not normally construed as being of aesthetic relevance Here, Walton opposes the views of both Sibley and Beardsley. Walton also manages to draw attention to the variety of aesthetically relevant features of works of art that are either not directly considered by Sibley or that would appear to be anomalous from the point of view Gf either Sibley or Beardsley—in particular, conceptual art and representational art His reflections, here, tend to confirm the distinctively cultural nature of art (see Parts Two and Three)—hence, of the culturally informed nature of pertinent perceptions.
The enlargement of the range of aesthetically relevant qualities and features suggests both the inescapability of a mixed array of distmctions and the unlikelihood of any thesis like Sibley's holding without exception The mere mention of representational qualities (see Part Four) for m. stance, signifies the implausibility of construing certain sorts of discriminations as being not condition-governed in Sibley's sense. Some authors notably Peter Kivy and Ted Cohen, have persuasively shown that either
8
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Aesthetic Interests and Aesthetic Qualities
9
relevant aesthetic properties (for instance, unity in music) may be taken to be condition-governed or else the putative demarcation between aesthetic and nonaesthetic perception is merely a question-begging version of the original thesis. Cohen (1973) in fact mounts a direct attack—a pragmatic attack, he calls it—on the very distinction between aesthetic and nonaesthetic perception. To the extent that we favor the challenge, emphasizing the intrusion of taste and appreciation in putatively perceptual discrimination, we are inexorably led to consider the possible defensibility of alternative, non-convergent ways of "seeing" a work of art (see Part Six); and, correspondingly, of the need to replace a narrowly perceptual thesis with one that accommodates the relevance (a) of background information; (b) of non-perceptual discrimination; (c) of interpretation; (d) of taste and appreciative orientation. Kivy (1973) attempts to show, more directly, that among the very concepts that Sibley had supposed to be not condition-governed we must admit salient predicates that actually are condition-governed. Cohen, therefore, challenges the entire distinction between the aesthetic and the nonaesthetic; Kivy, the logical uniformity of just those distinctions that Sibley regards as involving aesthetic concepts.
Among the more energetic opponents of the very usefulness of aesthetic categories—in particular, of that of the aesthetic "attitude" (allegedly addressed to distinctly aesthetic "qualities")—we must count George Dickie (1964). What Dickie attempts to do is trace the vacuity of the notion of the aesthetic attitude through a large number of influential theorists from Clive Bell and Edward Bullough to Beardsley and more recent authors. The main charge Dickie presses is that a certain receptiveness to a special set of determinate qualities is usually assigned to calling into play the "aesthetic attitude"; but, as he argues, its champions fail to mark off suitably any such operative preparation for pertinently appreciating eligible objects—usually but not necessarily artworks. Unfortunately, Dickie himself does not address with equal force the question of what might be the generic features of the very properties the intended orientation is supposed to render accessible or naturally salient. That question has never been satisfactorily explored: on the one hand, "aesthetic" qualities are specified, the systemic distinction of which is hard to formulate in a way at once theoretically important and defensible; on the other, aesthetic "interest" or "attitude" is specified in great detail, without however demonstrating how it either justifies featuring certain qualities only, or how it sensitizes us to some such selection.
The distinguished Polish aesthetician, Roman Ingarden, represents an entirely different approach to the aesthetic. Ingarden (even more than Maurice Merleau-Ponty) is the influential phenomenologist best known to Anglo-American philosophers of art. Ingarden's account (1964) links the
aesthetic not only to appreciation—the appreciation of art—but also, in an essential way, to the very structure of artworks themselves. It is critical to Ingarden's thesis that a work of art is inherently "schematic" or at least "partially" indeterminate. This of course raises serious difficulties about the sense in which artworks are real at all, since the idea that something is both actual and indeterminate in structurally important respects (not concerned with issues of vague boundaries or the like) verges on the incoherent or the ontologically monstrous. Nevertheless, in a way that has clearly influenced literary theorists like Wolfgang Iser (1978) and even more recent varieties of reader-response theory, the aesthetic is taken by Ingarden to center on the "co-creative" activity of observers or percipients of art, on the way in which a work is "completed," rendered fully determinate, by responding to the "schematic structure" of the work in question. Here, of course, the notion of the aesthetic threatens to become quite a radical one. In particular, in Ingarden's hands, it can hardly be counted on to support the sense of perceptual objectivity favored by such theorists as Beardsley and Sibley—which is not to say that Ingarden does not insist on pertinent constraints on the exercise of aesthetic sensibility. One sees here, therefore, a certain distant convergence between the problems of phenomenological aesthetics and hermeneutic aesthetics, even though their motivation and inspiration are distinctly different. For both attack the pervasive theme of perceptual objectivity (what is sometimes called "objectivism"—as by Edmund Husserl) so dear to Anglo-American philosophy. The "aesthetic," therefore, proves to be the rather rampantly spreading field within which all pertinent quarrels about the nature and appreciation of art are simply collected—without itself remaining a suitably manageable or explicit focus of particular conceptual quarrel. It marks for that reason a family of terms that threaten to become more and more vestigial.
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15. Ibid, p. 36.
16. Ibid, p. 38.
17. "On the Origins of 'Aesthetic Disinterestedness'," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 20 (1961), pp. 131-143.
18. "What Makes a Situation Aesthetic?" in Philosophy Looks at the Arts Joseph Margolis (ed.), (New York, 1962). Reprinted from Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 31 (1957), pp. 75-92.
19. Ibid, p. 15.
20. "Contextualism Reconsidered," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism vol. 18 (1959), pp. 224-225.
21. Ibid, p. 225.
22. Loc. cit.
23. Ibid, p. 227.
24. Ibid, p. 237.
25. Ibid., p. 228. (Italics mine.)
26. Vivas's remark about the improbability of being able to read The Brothers Karamazov as art suggests that "intransitive attention" may sometimes mean for him "that which can be attended to at one time" or "that which can be held before the mind at one time." However, this second possible meaning is not one which
is relevant here.
27. Vivas, op. cit., p. 231.
28. The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 57 (1960), p. 624.
29. Loc cit.
30. Op. cit., p. 53.
31. Ibid, p. 54.
32. Ibid, pp. 54-55.
33. Ibid., pp. 55-56.
34. Ibid., p. 56.
35. The Aesthetic Attitude (New York, 1920), p. 79.
36. Op. cit., p. 35.
37. Ibid, p. 377.
38. Ibid, pp. 377-378.
39. Ibid., p. 379.
40. Ibid, p. 380.
41. Loc. cit.
42. H. S. Langfeld, op. cit., p. 73.
43. J. Stolnitz, op. cit., p. 36.
44. "Morality and the Assessment of Literature," Philosophy, vol. 37 (1962), pp
193-207.
45. Ibid.. p. 193.
46. Loc. cit.
47. Ibid., p. 206.
48. Tomas, op. cit., p. 63.
6.
Artistic and Aesthetic Values
ROMAN INGARDEN
In this lecture I shall be concerned mainly with the differentiation of artistic and aesthetic values. With this in view it will be necessary for me to make various other distinctions: first that between the work of art and the aesthetic object, and also a distinction between an aesthetically valuable quality on the one hand and value and its further determinations on the other. These distinctions have been elaborated in my various writings on aesthetics and theory of art, beginning with the book Das literarische Kunstwerke (1931), but I shall here try to take further than before the differentiation between artistic and aesthetic values.
In contrasting the work of art and the aesthetic object I shall omit for the sake of brevity discussion of the manner in which the work of art exists, whether as a real object or in some other way. But I will mention shortly the question whether a work of art is a physical object having a specific form or whether it is rather something which is constructed on the basis of a physical object as an entirely new creation brought into being by the creative activity of the artist. The essence of this activity consists of specific acts of consciousness in an artist, but these invariably manifest themselves in certain physical operations directed by the artist's creative will which bring into being or transform a certain physical object—the material—bestowing upon it that form whereby it becomes the existential substrate of the work of art itself, for example a work of literature or music, a picture, a piece of architecture, etc., and at the same time assuring to it relative durability and accessibility to a multiplicity of observers. Nevertheless in its structure and properties a work of art always extends beyond its material substrate, the real 'thing' which ontologically supports it, although the properties of the substrate are not irrelevant to
From British Journal of Aesthethics, IV (1964), 198-213. Reprinted with permission of the British Society of Aesthetics.
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the properties of the work of art which depends upon it. The work of art is the true object to the formation of which the creative acts of the artist are directed, while the fashioning of its existential substrate is a subsidiary operation ancillary to the work of art itself which is to be brought into being by the artist.
Every work of art of whatever kind has the distinguishing feature that it is not the sort of thing which is completely determined in every respect by the primary level varieties of its qualities; in other words, it contains within itself characteristic lacunae in definition, areas of indeterminateness: it is a schematic creation. Furthermore, not all its determinants, components, or qualities are in a state of actuality, but some of them are potential only. In consequence of this a work of art requires an agent existing outside itself, that is an observer, in order—as I express it—to render it concrete. Through his co-creative activity in appreciation the observer sets himself as is commonly said to 'interpret' the work or, as I prefer to say, to reconstruct it in its effective characteristics, and in doing this as it were under the influence of suggestions coming from the work itself he fills out its schematic structure, plenishing at least in part the areas of indeterminacy and actualizing various elements which are as yet only in a state of potentiality. In this way there comes about what I have called a 'concretion' of the work of art. The work of art then, is the product of the intentional activities of an artist; the concretion of the work is not only the reconstruction thanks to the activity of an observer of what was effectively present in the work, but also a completion of the work and the actualization of its moments of potentiality. It is thus in a way the common product of artist and observer. In the nature of things a concretion goes beyond the schematic structure of a work of art, but at the same time it is—or at any rate it can be—that for the emergence of which the work serves or rather that in which the work achieves its full and complete image—or at any rate a more complete image than in any likeness which is at variance with the work itself. Empirically a work is always manifested to an observer in some concretion. But this does not prevent the observer's trying to apprehend the work in its pure schematic structure together with all its characteristic potentialities. But this mode of apprehending a work of art demands a special attitude and exertions in the observer if he is to withhold himself from all arbitrary completion of qualitative indeter-minacies while at the same time taking full account of the special character of its every moment of potentiality. Such apprehension of a work of art is rather rare and is not realized in the everyday 'consumer's' attitude in his commerce with works of art.
As the joint product of artist and observer a concretion will differ to a greater or less extent from one instance to another, but the nature and extent of the variations depend both on the character of the work
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(particularly the type of art to which it belongs) and on the competence of the observer as also on the empirical nature of his observation and the particular conditions in which it takes place. There are two possible ways in which a work of art may be perceived. The act of perception may occur within the context of the aesthetic attitude in the pursuit of aesthetic experience or it may be performed in the service of some extra-aesthetic preoccupation such as that of scientific research or a simple consumer's concern, either with the object of obtaining the maximum of pleasure from commerce with the work or—as frequently happens in the reading of literature—with the object of informing oneself about the vicissitudes of the characters depicted in the work or some other matter of extra-literary fact about which a reader can obtain information on the basis of the work of art (as, for example, by reading Homer, classical scholars seek to inform themselves about the life of the ancient Greeks, their customs, dress, etc.).
Within the context of both attitudes either of two perceptive aims may predominate. Either the observer will seek in commerce with the work to realize the concretion most authentic to it or this will not be a matter of particular concern or he may even seek to give free rein to phantasy and up to a point to concretize the work in accordance with personal whim (for example, a stage manager). If a concretion occurs within the aesthetic attitude, there emerges what I call an aesthetic object. This object will resemble or be congenial to what was present to the mind of the artist when creating the work if the concretion is carried through with the endeavor to conform to the effective characteristics of the work and to respect the indications it gives as to the limits of permitted fulfilment. But even if he tries to remain true to the work itself, the aesthetic object actually produced by the observer often differs in many details of articulation from what is permitted or—if one may use the term—demanded by the work itself. Because of this the basic character of the whole is changed or at the least a mass of details will conflict in different reconstructions of the same work of art—which is one source of quarrels and controversy. To every work of art there pertains a limited number of possible aesthetic objects—possible in various senses: In the broad sense we are concerned with concretions which are achieved genuinely within the context of an aesthetic attitude taken up by the observer but without consideration whether the effective reconstruction is faithful to the work of art or whether the plenishing and actualization of its moments of potentiality accord with its effective aspects, or to some extent deviate from it. In the narrower sense we speak of possible aesthetic objects only where both the concretions of a given work involve faithful reconstructions of it and also the plenishing of the work and the actualization of its moments of potentiality lie within the boundaries indicated by its effective qualities. These concretions may still differ among themselves in various respects
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because a work of art always admits of diverse ways in which its areas of indeterminacy may be filled out and completed: some of these plenishings harmonize better and some worse with the fully articulated moments of the work and with the rest of the implementations of its indeterminacies.
The effective emergence of the 'possible' concretions of a work of art—in either of the above senses of the word—obviously depends not only on the work itself but also on the presence of competent observers and on its being apprehended by them in one way rather than another. This in turn depends on various historical conditions. Hence any work of art (and this operates differently for the different arts) passes through various periods of brilliance, that is, periods in which it attracts frequent and correct aesthetic concretions, and other periods when its attractiveness is weakened or even disappears if it is no longer 'legible' to its public. Or again it may meet with observers who have a completely different manner of emotional reaction, who have become insensitive to certain values of the work or frankly hostile to them, and who therefore are unqualified to produce the sort of concretion in which these values shine forth and act upon the observer. When this happens a work of art is not only unreadable but, as it were, dumb.
The alternate periods of brilliance and obscurity and the variations in the number of potential observers which are bound up with them—the fact that at different times one and the same work of art appears in differently moded concretions and that it changes as it were its features and lineaments, loses its power of acting upon observers and is able only imperfectly to display its potential values—all this explains why the theory of the. relativity and subjectivity of aesthetic and artistic values is so popular and seems so plausible. The sense of the words 'subjective' and 'relative' in this context depends on the nature of the philosophic background against which they are intended to be understood. I cannot go more closely into this matter here but in connection with the question whether or in what sense the theory may be entertained I would like to suggest certain preliminary considerations. The first step is the distinction between a work of art and an aesthetic object and the next is the differentiation of artistically valuable from aesthetically valuable qualities. Without these distinctions it is impossible to reach agreement about the subjectivity or relativity of aesthetic (or artistic) values.
There exists, however, a sense of 'subjective'—usually not formulated precisely—in which the theory of the subjectivity of aesthetic (or artistic) values ought to be rejected outright, despite its popularity. This is the view that the value of a work of art (or an aesthetic object, which is usually confused with it) is nothing else but pleasure (or, in the case of negative value, disagreeableness) understood as a specific psychical state or ex-
perience, lived through by an observer in contact with a given work of art. The greater the pleasure he obtains the greater the value the observer attributes to the work of art. In truth, however, on this theory the work of art possesses no value. The observer indeed announces his pleasure by 'valuing' the work of art, but strictly speaking he is valuing his own pleasure: his pleasure is valuable to him and this he uncritically transfers to the work of art which arouses his pleasure. But the same work evokes different pleasures in different subjects or perhaps none at all and even in one and the same subject it may evoke different pleasure at different times. Hence the so-called value of the work of art would be not merely subjective but relative to the observer and his states. The relativity of the value of a work of art so understood is a simple consequence of its subjectivity in the foregoing sense.
He who would embrace the theory so elucidated has in his support the obvious fact that some works of art cause us pleasure, a pleasure which may vary with the circumstances, and others either do not evoke pleasure or may even cause displeasure of one sort or another. This fact, banal as it is, admits of no doubt—as also the other fact that in general people prize their pleasures and shun what is disagreeable. Acknowledging this fact we would only complain at the failure to recognize the kind of pleasure which is imparted to us by works of art and how its varieties are related to the varieties of value inherent in the work of art. By recognizing that these pleasures have a special character of their own and exist in a different manner from the pleasures deriving from a good meal or fresh air or a good bath we should carry our affair a little forward although it would contribute nothing to the question whether or how values inhere in works of art themselves. For it seems certain that these pleasures, being either actual states of mind or qualities of mental states and experiences, are not included in the work of art or tied to it. But if these pleasures constituted the sole value which is manifested in our commerce with works of art, it would not be possible to attribute value to the work itself. For the pleasure remains entirely outside the work of art. The work is something which transcends the sphere of our experiences and their contents, it is something completely transcendent in relation to ourselves. And the same can be said of the aesthetic objects constructed on its basis. It is precisely in the sphere of the work of art and its concretions, a sphere beyond that of our experiences and their content, that we must look to see whether it is or is not possible to find something which can be recognized as specifically and truly valuable.
Neither can this value be found in the work of art itself (or in its aesthetic concretion) so long as it is conceived as a kind of reflection of the instrumental value attributed to the work on account of the several
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pleasures which we experience in contact with it, or if the work of art is treated as a tool for evoking this or that sensation of delight. The experiencing of such pleasures is of course often the occasion for their appearing to the experient as a delusive mirage of value in the work of art. It is especially with naive people who, lacking education in the arts, are particularly susceptible to their emotional influences that this kind of delusion arises and for this reason those of little experience are inclined to be carried away by enthusiasm for works of art which lack genuine value. The emergence of such mirages of value is not identical with genuine worth whether artistic or aesthetic and cannot provide an argument that value depends solely on this type of reflected pleasures and is therefore subjective or relative. The value of a work of art is not to be sought in such qualities but can be expected to be found only in some self-subsistent characteristic.
As regards the instrumental values of works of art as tools for arousing pleasures and delights in those who observe them, this kind of value can be attributed but only in a derivative sense as a consequence of the fact that states of pleasure are themselves valuable for the subject, not in the sense that the work of art is itself endowed with some attribute and strictly speaking without regard to the attributes it has. This derivative type of value is usually ascribed to tools in almost complete disregard for the nature and structure of the object they are used to produce. If the consumer is subjected to an emotionally pleasant influence from a certain work, this is enough for him to attribute to the source of his delight the instrumental value of a tool causing that delight. This instrumental value is obviously relational: by virtue of its determination as a value-type such value is related on the one hand to the object which serves as tool and on the other hand to the effect for which the tool serves. The stamp or seal of this value lies wholly in its relation to the quite different, non-relational value ascribed to the delight or pleasure. Moreover, the value of an instrument is relative in another sense too: it is in its very occurrence dependent and mutable, changing its qualitative determination according to the nature and the value of whatever the tool serves to produce. And finally it is dependent on the observer and the state in which he happens to be at a given moment. When an observer ceases to react emotionally to it or is no longer sensitive to it as a work of art, so far as it is treated as an instrument of enjoyment, it is not valued by him either positively or negatively but becomes an object of indifference. But the work of art itself undergoes no change in its properties during these modifications of subjective mood and response. It remains something finished, complete for itself, through the changing forms of contact, unaffected by the multiform appreciations of different observers. Yet those values or value qualities
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which I am here searching for are able to manifest themselves to the observer only at the moment when the latter achieves some apprehension of the work itself, even though a partial and as yet imperfect one, when his commerce with the work achieves an unveiling of the intrinsic features of the work (features which seldom obtrude themselves at first contact), and when an apprehension of its structure and properties enables him to descry its essential values, those which are peculiar to any work, which give witness and in fact are the evidence for its claim to be a work of artistic value. The observer must of course succeed in achieving this apprehension and appreciative commerce: if his skill in perceiving or responding to the work is fallacious, neither its properties nor its values will reveal themselves to him. But this does not mean that the work is then deprived of value, only that the observer is in one way or another inefficient—either through a general lack of artistic culture or because he is unequipped or at that particular moment unable to appreciate the particular work.
This is to say, if we are seeking what I want to call the 'artistic value' of a work of art, it must conform to the following requirements:
(1) It is neither a part nor an aspect of any of our empirical experiences or mental states during commerce with a work of art and therefore does not belong to the category of pleasure or enjoyment.
(2) It is not something attributed to the work in virtue of being regarded as an instrument for arousing this or that form of pleasure.
(3) It reveals itself as a specific characteristic of the work itself.
(4) It exists if and only if the necessary conditions for its existence are present in the qualities of the work itself.
(5) It is such a thing that its presence causes the work of art to partake of an entirely special form of being distinct from all other cultural products.
In other words, if any object lacks this thing which I here call artistic value, it ceases in consequence to be a work of art. If on the other hand it appears in its negative form—as an imperfection rather than a merit—then the work is to some degree abortive, i.e., it can only be counted as a work of art at all if some positive values (that is, values in the narrower, and strictly correct, sense of the word) are manifested in addition to negative ones.
It behooves now to indicate some examples of this kind of value. But first I must distinguish between qualities (i.e., determinants of value) which
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are valuable in the artistic or aesthetic or moral sense and a value which appears in an object as a necessary consequence of its possessing a particular aggregate of valuable qualities in a given category. In other words, value emerges on the foundation of a specific aggregate of valuable qualities and it is dependent inter alia on this aggregation both for the degree of its value and for its type. Values differ from one another only in virtue of having their specific determinants and qualifying properties. Some of these qualities determine the general type of value (i.e., whether it is aesthetic or moral or economic or utilitarian), while others determine the specific variety within the general type, as for example 'beauty,' 'prettiness' or 'ugliness' within the general range of aesthetic values. And to these variants within a general type belongs what I have called the 'degree' or 'elevation' of any value. As will be seen, we are confronted with many different distinctions and it is only by analyzing them and elaborating them in detail that it is possible to make any progress in the little studied field of general theory of value. The examples to follow will enable readers to grasp what I intend when I speak for instance of qualities as opposed to values themselves and their closer determinations (or qualities of value).
For the moment we will simply state. Artistic value—if we are to acknowledge its existence at all—is something which arises in the work of art itself and has its existential ground in that. Aesthetic value is something which manifests itself only in the aesthetic object and as a particular moment which determines the character of the whole. The ground of aesthetic value consists of a certain aggregation of aesthetically valuable qualities, and they in turn rest upon the basis of a certain aggregate of properties which render possible their emergence in an object. Both the one and the other kind of value assumed the existence of a complete work of art (or aesthetic object). It is not important here how the constitution of both types of object has been arrived at. What is indubitable is the fact that for the constitution of an aesthetic object the co-creative activity of an observer is necessary and therefore several aesthetic objects may emerge on the basis of one and the same work of art and that these may differ among themselves in their aesthetic value. But, as has been said, this is not an argument in support of the subjectivity of that value. This genetic way of considering the whole matter cannot be repudiated or disparaged and yet it is not this which is decisive as to the existential character of aesthetic values themselves.
Irrespective of what its origin may be and the part taken by the observer in constituting it, the aesthetic object in the moment of being constituted is something with which the observer is in direct contact however he may apprehend it or respond to it. And for all that this object is something
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standing in relation to the observer and his experiences, it is at the same time transcendent (a separate self-subsistent whole) just as much as is the work of art or any other existentially independent natural object which exists of its own right. This transendence extends not only to those properties of a work of art or aesthetic object which are neutral in point of value but also to its valuable qualities and to the values which are constituted on their basis.
We will now return to the work of art. We distinguish two aspects, aspects which are neutral as regards value and those which are axiologi-cally potent, using the latter term to cover both valuable qualities and the values themselves and their particular determinations.
To the first category belong primarily those attributes which determine the type of art with which we have to do, whether it is a work of literature, painting, music, etc. So, for example, a work of literature is a construct of multiple strata and has a quasi-temporal structure, since its parts follow one another in temporal sequence, and this enables it to present events in the time of its presented world. A painting is not quasi-temporal in this sense, i.e., its parts do not follow each other in sequence, and therefore if a painting is representational it can present only a single incident at a particular moment of occurrence. On the other hand, unlike a literary work, a painting is characterized by two or three dimensional extension in visual space. A literary work is first and foremost a linguistic construct. Its basic structure comprises a twofold linguistic stratification: on the one hand the layer of phonemes and linguistic sound-phenomena; on the other hand the meanings of the words and sentences, in virtue of which the higher-level units of meaning emerge and from them the representational content of the work and the aspects in which the subject matter is presented. Although a painting lacks the dual stratification of language, it has its own proper means of presenting aspects of objects and through the objects presented and the manner of their representation may be constructed higher-level elements such as situation or narrative. All the features which belong in a painting to the representation of the actual world are absent to non-figurative painting; and still another situation with regard to the axiologically indifferent features of a work of art arises in connection with music or architecture.
Besides these axiologically neutral features which determine the basic type of a work of art, there occur in all types of art other axiologically neutral features which together combine to constitute an artistic 'individual' in its absolute uniqueness. Thus in a literary work there are completely determinate sentences arranged in a definite order possessing an established sense and precise syntactical formation. These are composed of words which possess a fixed sound and which belong to a given
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language and are chosen out of the vocabulary of that language in SUCn a way as to create an individual linguistic style peculiar to the author or even to the particular work. There are many other axiologically neutral properties, all of which together with the general features which determine its type form what I shall call the axiologically neutral skeleton of the work, without which the work would not exist as just this unique work of art and no other. It is clear, however, that this skeleton does not constitute the whole work of art irrespective of whether we are concerned with it in its purely schematic form or with one of its concretions. Despite their axiological neutrality the features which belong to the skeleton of a work are not without bearing for a whole range of axiologically significant features. On the contrary, so long as the skeleton is appropriately endowed, its properties lead to the emergence of entirely new features which belong just as intimately to the work of art but differ in that they are axiologically significant, artistically valuable qualities which emerge in this or that aggregation and endow the work with various artistic values. They are basically of two kinds: there are those which are allied to the excellences or defects of 'artistic craftsmanship'—that is, virtues of artistic technique—and next there are various sorts of competence possessed by a work of art in virtue of its having certain properties and components and not others. We will first give examples.
In literary work the individual sentences may be simple or complex, their structure may be paratactic or hypotactic. Such features are in themselves axiologically neutral and belong to the axiologically neutral skeleton of the work. Similarly when we find in one work a preponderance of nouns and in another of verbs, or a preponderance of general, abstract names in one while another is so constructed that even intricate concepts are expressed through names of particular things. We do not attach value to such features in themselves. But if we say of a sentence (irrespective of whether it is simple or compound) that it is clear and transparent in structure while another is intricate in a sense which precludes clarity, or if we say that it is obscure or incomprehensible, we are in such case indicating characteristic features of the sentences which are not artistically indifferent. They are, or at any rate they may be, valuable and particularly so if their occurrence is no longer sporadic or if a casual occurrence is not justified by the manner in which the sentence is used or the situation in which it occurs. When obscure sentences become a mass phenomenon which cannot be explained by the necessity of using such sentences in order to express certain objective situations or to evoke a certain artistic effect (by which we mean something not indifferent as regards aesthetic value), then we are alleging, whether for the work as a whole or for certain parts of it, characteristics which carry positive or negative significance for its
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artistic value. There may, of course, be various sources for the obscurity 0f particular sentences or of a text, but with the exception of one case which will be mentioned later unclarity, obscurity, unintelligibility, are a defect in a given sentence or work while lucidity, clarity of expression, and precision of construction are a virtue. These properties of linguistic components then become value qualities characterizing the literary work itself. (It might be objected that this is not a matter of artistic value but simply a value of a general natural kind which appears when the work is not purely an artistic creation but, for example, has a scientific aim as well. But all we are concerned with at the moment is the fact that it is an emergent feature of the work positively or negatively significant in regard to value.) In the field of literary art this lucidity (or its opposite), occurring along with other similar value qualities, may acquire a special character, a special role in the structured organic whole which is the work of art, and harmonizing with other artistic value qualities it may induce the emergence of new features of value either in the work of art or in its concretions. Indeed, the above-mentioned features of sentences or of the language generally may entail some properties of the presented world in a given work. If the language is unclear, ambiguous, difficult to understand, then the presented objects take on a characteristic imprecision. Both particular details and the relations between them become blurred in their outlines; one might say that their constitution becomes incompletely articulated, disorganized, and does not give a clear impression of the thing presented.
Obscurity, imprecision, partial or complete unintelligibility, and the like, are not only blemishes in themselves but are signs of bad workmanship, defects of literary technique, betraying inadequate mastery of language or ineptitude in its employment. Such shortcomings in the creative powers of an author bring in their train blemishes in the work which is the fruit of his activity and these blemishes in their turn constitute a negative value in the work of art.
Of course the above negative value-characteristics of sentences or whole sentence-aggregates may on occasion be introduced into a literary work of set purpose by the author. But when this is done the purpose must be apparent from the work itself. Vagueness in the meaning of a sentence may be utilized for some artistic effect; or the feature of a badly constructed and defective sentence may form part of the presented material of the work, being spoken or written by one of the characters in it. In this way an author could represent the incompetence of an inexperienced writer whose vicissitudes form the theme of his book. In these circumstances obscurity is not a defect of the work itself but a feature of one of the objects represented in the work, a feature which is directly shown instead
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of being indirectly described. Obscurity in a sentence or some larger section of a work may be intentional, lastly, for the sake of contrast in order that the contrary virtues of the remainder may be enhanced to greater prominence the more vaguely, clumsily, or otherwise defectively those parts are constructed which function merely to serve as contrast. In such case defectiveness is merely a means of reinforcing merits which otherwise might not strike us. Intentional faultiness which fulfils a special function within the work as a whole is not evidence of any lack of literary skill in a writer and is not a technical fault in the work itself. On the contrary, it is a sign of technical skill; it is as it were a simulation of unskillfulness whose purpose is the better to display technical proficiency and craftsmanship in the art product.
By analogy certain regional features of composition of a work, whether literature, music, or painting, are in themselves axiologically neutral properties of the organic structural whole and can be indicated by a purely objective analysis of the work. For example, such and such a disposition of the parts whether serially or in spatial order, a particular way of arranging the elements of one part of a whole so as to contrast with the freer or looser dissemination of elements in other parts of the same work—are structural features in themselves neutral as regards value. One may affirm their presence in a work quite objectively without any implied judgment of value. But these structural properties again, in themselves neutral in respect of value, may entail other properties which do have a positive or negative value significance. For example a too harmonious arrangement of details or parts may reveal itself as an excess of pedantry, overmuch solicitude for creating the impression of orderliness which becomes obtrusive in its uniformity, a certain affectation in ascribing a predominant role to compositional qualities as if correctness of composition were sufficient of itself to determine the final value of a work of art. A certain type of perfection in composition when it goes along with perceptible defects of another kind, that is of content, becomes a source of monotony, tediousness and so on. Compositional irregularity which serves no obviously intended artistic purpose in the work is a plain defect, upsetting the balance of forces within the whole. Again it may be evidence of inexperience in the author, a technical shortcoming in the work, which has negative value as such irrespective of what negative value qualities it entails. On the other hand it may happen that in a particular work disorder in the composition may be seen on the basis of the other qualities of the work to be intentional and to fulfil definite functions within the whole. It does not cease thereby to be disorder but its role as a factor of disvalue may nevertheless ultimately conduce to the emergence of a moment of positive value in the organic whole. It may, but it need not. For the fact
that a certain irregularity of composition was intended does not of itself guarantee that the intention was correct or that it was successfully realized so that in the final outcome it gave rise to some positive value in the structure of the whole. For example, the narration of the fortunes of the characters in a novel may not accord with the temporal sequence of the events—a well-known and frequently used technique of novelists. One may doubt, however, whether this device as used for example by Aldous Huxley really conduces to the intended artistically valuable effect. In this connection, in order to discover whether a certain aspect of a work has positive or negative value it is not enough to examine the value characteristics of that aspect in isolation; it is necessary to extend one's survey to the whole work, since various qualities of this kind may, and sometimes must, exercise a mutual influence on each other in regard to their value characteristics, and it is only in the whole organic unity of the work (where both its neutral and its value-significant features are taken into account) that their final form is revealed. This is in agreement with the earlier statement that the real function of artistically valuable moments is revealed only on the basis of an appreciation of the work, which is not possible so long as we confine ourselves to the enjoyment of these or the other empirical pleasures mediated by it.
To give one more example of an artistic value quality I will refer to features of certain of Rodin's sculptures in marble. What strikes us in them is the extraordinary precision and at the same time the softness in the working of the surfaces, reproducing the softness of a woman's body represented by the statue. This method of working the surface of the marble plays here an essential role in the function of representing an object—a woman's body—different in character from the material from which the sculpture is formed in such a way that the observer is to some extent put under the impression that he is in visual contact not with marble but with human flesh. This is an artistic function, and its virtue consists in the skillful representation of an object whose qualities are basically unlike the material of the sculpture. But this skill is not the only merit here, not the only artistic value in the work. The perfection which consists in technical mastery displayed in the shaping of the surface of the stone may also contribute something of artistic value to a work, something detectable in the work itself and not to be identified with any subjective experience or psychological state of admiration or pleasure. Indeed, admiration presupposes that we have successfully apprehended the feature of which I am speaking in the work itself and is something separate superadded to what is visibly present in the work.
One could multiply examples of artistic values and disvalues at will. One "tight speak for instance of the unsuitably chosen material of some works
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of art—e.g., the neo-Gothic university buildings at Chicago made of concrete instead of stone—or we might contrast 'noble' baroque with one which is cheap and tawdry, overloaded with ornament. But I believe that the examples I have already given will be sufficient to indicate what I have in mind when I speak of artistically valuable qualities in a work of art, though it would be less easy to convey a correct notion of qualities of this kind or that of the artistic value quality whose notion emerges on their basis as their final resultant. I will therefore now proceed to give in contrast some examples of aesthetic value qualities, positive and negative, leading on to the exemplification and determination of aesthetic value and
its potential varieties.
A very great variety of aesthetically valuable qualities is exhibited in constituted aesthetic objects. All of them are characterized by being something given directly to perception, or if one prefers the expression they are directly presented phenomena not something indirectly deducible from other data or something whose existence can only be inferred on the basis of the apprehension of the whole work. They are concretely present to experience. In order that aesthetically valuable qualities may be constituted, an aesthetic experience must be achieved since it is only in this kind of experience that these qualities come to realization. (The difficulty of distinguishing them from artistically valuable qualities may lie partly in the fact that it does not seem impossible that some of the properties which we have treated as artistically valuable qualities may also enter into experience—as valuable—within the context of a given aesthetic object. In such cases do we have to do with artistically valuable or aesthetically valuable qualities? But to avoid complicating the matter in advance I will proceed to give a certain number of examples.)
There first come to mind various emotional qualities such as those suggested by the expressions 'sad,' 'threatening,' 'serene,' 'festive,' 'sublime,' 'pathetic,' 'dramatic,' 'tragic,' etc. But there also, such qualities as in contrast with the foregoing, one might call intellectual, as for example 'witty,' 'clever,' 'acute,' 'interesting,' 'profound,' 'boring,' 'dull,' 'trite,' 'pedestrian,' and so on. There are also aspects of a formal character, such as uniformity and variety, harmony and disharmony, awkwardness, compactness, coherence, expressiveness, dynamism, and so on. Another class are 'artificial,' 'affected,' 'natural,' 'simple and unaffected,' 'exaggerated,' 'genuine,' 'false,' 'insincere,' 'lacking in integrity,' and so on.
We may distinguish these qualities into two main types: (1) those which are aesthetically valuable in a positive or negative sense both in themselves (when they emerge in an aesthetic object) and also when they are associated with other qualities of this class; (2) qualities which are in themselves neutral as regards aesthetic value but which acquire an aesthetic
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value when they are exhibited in association with other aesthetically valuable qualities. We call the first type unconditionally valuable and the second conditionally valuable (aesthetically), although even the former are not entirely independent of the context in which they are manifested. To the class of conditional aesthetic values belong at least some of the emotional qualities. If someone is sad in everyday life on account of some grievous loss, this sadness which imposes itself on his ordinary life-experience is aesthetically neutral. But the character of sadness which arises for example in the music of Chopin, a sadness be it noted which is uniquely produced by musical means, is in a given work (that is in a particular performance and audition, i.e., an aesthetic concretion) indubitably a feature relevant to aesthetic value, an element in the complete set of determinant qualities of a given work (e.g., Etude Op. 25, No. 7). Similarly the dramatic tension of some quotidian human conflict may be entirely devoid of aesthetic value, but in the Revolutionary Study (Op. 10, No. 12) such dramatic tension is an aesthetically valuable feature. On the other hand the qualities which we name by such words as 'solemn,' 'profound,' 'tedious,' or 'banal' belong to the category of unconditionally aesthetically valuable qualities. Why it is that approximately the same emotional quality at one time has an aesthetic value and another time has none, constitutes a vast theme in itself connected on the one hand with the unique function of the aesthetic experience by which the aesthetic object is brought into being and on the other hand with a peculiar modification which characterizes the mode of existence of the content of an aesthetic object—matters which I have tried to elucidate elsewhere1 but which are too complex to deal with here.
The question [of] which aesthetically valuable qualities can co-exist in a single aesthetic object in such a way as not to diminish but strengthen their own valuableness while leading to other higher-level qualities which are themselves aesthetic value determinants; which qualities are mutually exclusive or bring about a diminution or conflict of qualities; which finally exert a mutual attenuation in respect of aesthetic value—these are matters whose theoretical analysis has barely been begun. Their investigation must begin with analysis designed to clarify this or that particular aesthetically valuable quality by bringing about their intuitive elucidation, more particularly as the names we generally use to refer to them are for the most part ambiguous and too vague. This kind of research is likely to succeed only when we make constant use of concrete examples of works of art, or their corresponding aesthetic objects, where we have reached agreement that a specific quality is manifested in them and are at the same time in a position to point to some allied qualities which are exhibited in combination with different sets of associated qualities so that we can directly
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Aesthetic Interests and Aesthetic Qualities
grasp the way in which particular qualities are modified in accordance with their context. There is no doubt that the practical study of possible (and necessary) relations among aesthetically valuable qualities has existed for a very long time in art. Every truly creative artist, musician poet, painter, etc., in creating new works carries out certain experiments in this field. In composing his work the artist as it were sees ahead by creative intuition into possible complexes of aesthetically valuable qualities and how they will conduce to the emergence of an overall aesthetic value in the work as a whole. At the same time, he tries to find the technical means to realize a particular complex by his choice of those aesthetically neutral qualities (colors, sounds, shapes, etc.) which by forming the skeleton of a work create the objective conditions (i.e., those on the side of the work of art) necessary for the realization of the subjective conditions: that is, the existence of a suitable observer and the achievement of an aesthetic experience, without which neither these neutral qualities could be exhibited, nor [could] the aesthetically valuable qualities which together cause the emergence of a particular complex of qualities and the constitution of a corresponding aesthetic value determined by this whole complex substrate.
It will be apparent from what has been said that aesthetic value, made concrete on the basis of a given work of art, is nothing else but a particular quality determination marked by a selection of interacting aesthetically valuable qualities which manifest themselves on the basis of the neutral skeleton of a work of art reconstructed by a competent observer.
Note
1 Cp Das literarische Kunstwerk, § 25 and O poznawaniu dziala literackiego (Concerning the cognit.on of a literary work), § 24 also m English Aafett Experience and Aesthet.c Object,' Journal of Philosophical and Phenomenology Research, vol. 21, no. 3, 1961.
Bibliography to Part One
A comparatively recent summary of the historical development of aesthetics is provided in:
Ruth Saw and Harold Osborne, "Aesthetics as a Branch of Philosophy," British Journal of Aesthetics I (1960), 8-20. A fuller survey is provided in:
Monroe C. Beardsley, Aesthetics from Classical Greece to the Present (New York, 1966);
and a sense of the changing status of the fine arts is conveyed in: Paul O. Kristeller, "The Modern System of the Arts," Journal of the History of Ideas XII (1951), 469-527; and XIII (1952), 17-46.
General doubts about the fruitfulness of aesthetics may be found in: William E. Kennick, "Does Traditional Aesthetics Rest on a Mistake?" Mind
XVII (1958), 317-334; J. A. Passmore, "The Dreariness of Aesthetics," reprinted in William Elton (ed.), Aesthetics and Language (Oxford, 1954). One of the early symposia of an analytic sort, with contributions by J. O. Urmson and David Pole, appears in: "What Makes a Situation Aesthetic?" Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, supplementary vol. 31 (1957), 75-106. Various other attempts to explicate aspects of the aesthetic point of view are to be found in:
Henry Aiken, "The Aesthetic Relevance of Belief," Journal of Aesthetics and
Art Criticism IX (1951), 301-315; Virgil Aldrich, "Picture Space," Philosophical Review LXVII (1958), 342-352; Monroe C. Beardsley, Aesthetics (New York, 1958), ch. 1; George Dickie, Art and the Aesthetic (Ithaca, 1974);
W. B. Gallie, "The Function of Philosophical Aesthetics," reprinted in William
Elton (ed.), Aesthetics and Language (Oxford, 1954); Joseph Margolis, Art and Philosophy (New York, 1978), chs. 2-3; I- A. Richards, Principles of Literary Criticism (London, 1925), ch. 2;
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Jerome Stolnitz, Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art Criticism (Boston, 1960); Vincent Tomas, "Aesthetic Vision," Philosophical Review LXVIII (1959), 52-67-Eliseo Vivas, "A Definition of the Esthetic Experience," reprinted in his Creation and Discovery (New York, 1955).
An important exchange on the meaning of the aesthetic appears in:
George Dickie, "The Myth of the Aesthetic Attitude," American Philosophical
Quarterly I (1964), 56-66; George Dickie, "Beardsley's Phantom Aesthetic Experience," Journal of
Philosophy LXII (1965), 129-136; Monroe C. Beardsley, "Aesthetic Experience Regained," Journal of Aesthetics
and Art Criticism XXVIII (1969), 3-11.
Beardsley's more recent discussions of the nature of aesthetic categories may be found in:
Monroe C. Beardsley, The Aesthetic Point of View, ed. Michael J. Wreen and Donald M. Callen (Ithaca, 1982);
Monroe C. Beardsley, "In Defense of Aesthetic Value," Proceedings and Addresses of The American Philosophical Association, vol. 52 (1979), 723-749. His contributions are examined in:
John Fisher (ed.), Essays on Aesthetics; Perspectives on the Work of Monroe C. Beardsley (Philadelphia, 1983).
Frank Sibley's essay has generated a rather large industry. Among his own related papers may be mentioned:
Aesthetic and Non-Aesthetic," Philosophical Review LXXIV (1965), 135-159;
"Aesthetic Concepts: A Rejoinder," Philosophical Review LXXII (1963), 79-83;
"Objectivity and Aesthetics," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl. vol. 42 (1968), 31-54.
Reviews by various hands of the principal issues may be found in: Ted Cohen, "Aesthetic/Non-aesthetic and the Concept of Taste: A Critique of
Sibley's Position," Theoria XXXIX (1973), 113-152; Isabel Hungerland, "Once Again, Aesthetic and Non-Aesthetic," Journal of
Aesthetics and Art Criticism XXVI (1968), 285-295; Peter Kivy, Speaking of Art (The Hague, 1973);
H.R.G. Schwyzer, "Sibley's 'Aesthetic Concepts'," Philosophical Review LXXII (1963), 72-78;
Gary Stahl, "Sibley's 'Aesthetic Concepts': An Ontological Mistake," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism XXIX (1971), 385-389.
The relevance of forgery, intentional considerations, and imagination is aired in: Virgil C. Aldrich, Philosophy of Art (Englewood Cliffs, 1963); Timothy Binkley, "Deciding about Art," in Lars Aagaard-Mogensen (ed.), Culture and Art (Nyborg and Atlantic Highlands, 1976);
Bibliography to Part One 135
Arthur C. Danto, "Artworks and Real Things," Theoria XXXIX (1973), 1-17;
Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art (Indianapolis, 1969);
Nelson Goodman, "The Status of Style," Critical Inquiry I (1974), 799-811;
Alfred Lessing, "What Is Wrong with a Forgery?" Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism XXIII (1965), 464-471;
Leonard B. Meyer, "Forgery and the Anthropology of Art," in Lars Aagaard-Mogensen (ed.), Culture and Art (Nyborg and Atlantic Highlands, 1976);
Melvin Rader, "The Imaginative Mode of Awareness," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism XXXIII (1974), 411-429;
Richard Rudner, "On Seeing What We Shall See," in Richard Rudner and Israel Scheffler (eds.), Logic & Art (Indianapolis, 1972);
Mark Sagoff, "The Aesthetic Status of Forgeries," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism XXXV (1976), 169-180.
On forgery, see further, Part Three and its Bibliography.
For Ingarden's views, see further, the Bibliography for Part Three; but also, for a sense of the complications of the phenomenological use of "aesthetic" due to Ingarden:
Wolfgang Iser, The Act of Reading (Baltimore, 1978).
Background views against which to fix the distinction of Sibley's thesis may be found in:
P. H. Nowell-Smith, Ethics (London, 1954), chapters 5-6;
John Wisdom, "Gods," reprinted in his Philosophy and Psycho-Analysis (Oxford, 1953);
Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books (Oxford, 1958). None of these is narrowly concerned with aesthetics.
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The Definition of 4n
Related papers, concerned with the individuation of works of art, include: Monroe C. Beardsley, Aesthetics (New York, 1958), ch. 1; Donald Henze, "Is the Work of Art a Construct?" Journal of Philosophy Lll (1955), 433-439;
Margaret Macdonald, "Some Distinctive Features of Arguments Used in Criticism of the Arts," reprinted (revised) in William Elton (ed.), Aesthetics and Language (Oxford, 1954);
Joseph Margolis, "The Identity of a Work of Art," Mind LXVII (1959), 34-50;
Stephen Pepper, "Further Considerations on the Aesthetic Work of Art," Journal of Philosophy XLIX (1952), 274-279.
On issues particularly concerned with Nelson Goodman's views about the identity and the individuation of works of art, see:
Adina Armelagos and Mary Sirridge, "Personal Style and Performance Prerogatives," in Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, Illuminating Dance: Philosophical Explorations (London, 1984); Joseph Margolis, "The Autographic Nature of the Dance," in Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, (ed.), Illuminating Dance; Joseph Margolis, "Art as Language," 77k? Monist LVIII (1974), 175-186; Alan Tormey, "Interdeterminacy and Identity in Art," The Monist LVIII (1974), 203-213;
William E. Webster, "Music is Not a'Notational System'," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism XXIX (1970), 489-497.
Clearly, the issue of the definition and individuation of art cannot be easily separated from the ontology of art. The bibliography and selections for Part Three, therefore, are particularly pertinent. Pertinent more narrowly, however, to what, in a somewhat overly homogenized way, have come to be treated as the problems of an "institutional" definition of art, one should include:
Arthur C. Danto, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace (Cambridge, 1981);
Arthur C. Danto, "The End of Art," in Lang, The Death of Art (New York, 1984);
George Dickie, The Art Circle (New York, 1984).
Berel Lang (ed.), 77i<? Death of Art (New York, 1984); It should also be said, however, that Danto's and Dickie's theories have, despite appearances, hardly anything in common. There is, of course, an important sense in which the issue, in one respect definitional, is, in another, concerned with ideological legitimation. On this score, the Frankfurt Critical tradition is particularly relevant See for example:
Ernst Bloch, Georg Lukacs, Bertolt Brecht, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor Adorno, Aesthetics and Politics (trans, ed. Ronald Taylor) (London, 1977);
Herbert Marcuse, The Aesthetic Dimension; Toward a Critique of Marxist Aesthetics (Boston, 1978).
Part Three The Ontology of Art
Theorizing about what kind of entity a work of art is cannot but be initially baffling. If, on the one hand, we insist that it is some sort of self-contained entity that exists independently of being appreciated, we have difficulty accommodating literature at least. If, on the other, we insist that a work of art exists only insofar as an aesthetic percipient interacts with some other object—an object less than the work of art that emerges from the putative interaction—we have difficulty fixing a work of art as a public object that may attract critical exchange capable of a measure of objectivity (see Part One). Some works of art, notably in the plastic arts, either are or are quite closely linked to physical objects—or so it seems; and other art works—notably where notations are readily accessible, as in music, literature, drama—seem hardly to be physical objects at all. In some of the arts, we are inclined to think that particular works are uniquely manifested, paintings for instance, or medieval cathedrals—though the qualification suggests a mere contingency. In other of the arts, etchings and music for instance, we are quite prepared to speak of particular printings of the same etching and particular performances of the same sonata. Hence, we are tempted to think that some works of art are particular objects and that some are not particulars of any sort at all. Finally, in this regard, there is good reason to think that the metaphysical peculiarities of art are bound to be matched by every other kind of entity that can be distinguished in the context of human culture—persons, for instance, or words and sentences, even actions of an institutionalized sort. So the ontology of art promises to be a pecularily strategic inquiry, in terms of which, briefly, the relationship between human culture and physical nature may be perspicuously sketched.
Broadly speaking, the central issues tend to cluster around the question m how to identify and reidentify a particular work of art and around the
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The Ontology of Art
2U5
question of how to specify the nature of the entity thus identified. These questions are not entirely separable, of course, because a favored answer to one will affect the eligibility of answers to the other. And the answers to either are bound to reflect larger strategies concerning a comprehensive philosophy. Thus, for example, an adherence to materialism is likely to encourage the view that works of art are physical objects or at least intimately "associated" in some way with physical objects. The difficulty of maintaining that thesis may incline one toward a form of idealism or at least to an idealistically skewed account; and with that may come support for the claim that works of art are actually not particulars at all, but universals.
There is no tightly linear history of the theory of art. Nevertheless, one can excerpt the views of a number of leading contemporary discussants about the ontology of art that yield a strong sense of continuity and of the pointed and deliberate refinement of the central questions. In this regard, though he cannot rightly be said to have written in the analytic style favored by the Anglo-American tradition, Roman Ingarden (Part One) has, perhaps uniquely, provided a clear picture of the phenomenological aspects of our aesthetic interest in art and of the inescapable ontological complexities that that engenders. Ingarden appreciated the dependence of aesthetically relevant remarks on the public identification of a work of art, but he also wished to accommodate the variety of sensitive discriminations that different percipients differently placed might defensibly be led to make, on the basis (he supposed) of the somewhat schematic structure of actual art works. Ingarden was led, therefore, to think of a work of ait as, somehow, the developing construction of a historically changing community of sensitive respondents. In order to fix the identity of particular works, he was attracted to the view that, although a work of art was made up of a number of "levels" of elements, some were more fundamental than others (relative to identity) and perhaps also less amenable to the variable flowering of interpretive and appreciative responses. There is a sense in which Ingarden fixes the field to be analyzed without providing an entirely explicit and coherent analysis of the entities of the field. For we are left with the problem of the precise conditions under which works of art are actually identified and of the precise sense in which a work of art is an object of some particular kind. What one wants to know is, how can tie variety of properties attributed to works of art actually be the properties of some particular thing? Ingarden indicates well enough the range of such properties that must be accounted for; but he does not tell us how to collect them in the ontologically relevant sense.
The papers included in Part Three attempt to sort the different kinds of art—given the rather different properties that poems, paintings, sonatas,
etchings, and the like exhibit—in a way that will permit us to say whether there is some general rubric that could cover all the arts and, if so, what it might be. Richard Wollheim (1968), for example, is inclined to contrast those arts that either involve performance or depend on notation (the two being quite closely linked, as in music, or, more ambiguously, as in literature) with those arts (chiefly, the plastic arts) that directly involve composition with physical materials. His conclusions are somewhat tentative. He cannot altogether reject a physicalist account of certain of the arts, since on his view, expressive and representational properties may be ascribed to physical objects (see Parts Four and Five); but, on the other hand, he cannot fit such a view to other of the arts and is therefore attracted to the possibility that (some) works of art are universals. What Wollheim makes clear is that the type/token distinction, explored earlier in the literature, is absolutely central to the clarification of the ontology of art. In this regard he attempts to sort out the differences between the class/member distinction, the kind/instance distinction and the type/token distinction. Ironically, it is his adherence to the phenomenological aspects of aesthetic appreciation that complicates his ontology, for it is his attention to the complexities of performance and interpretation that lead him to theorize about art works as universals. We are, however, bound to raise questions about how particular (token) works could conceivably share properties with abstract entities (types) thought somehow to be the works of art. For example, if music uses sound, then how is it that an abstract entity, a sonata, could possibly have temporal or spatial or sensory properties? And if the entities favored fail to exhibit such properties, then how can they be the works we attend to in the usual way?
Nicholas Wolterstorff (1975), in effect, presses these difficulties against Wollheim, preserving the latter's distinction between "objects" and "performances." Wolterstorff rejects the view that types and tokens can share properties, opting instead for the ingenious view that they share predicates. He therefore finds no difficulty in viewing works of art as universals, in conformity with a more general defense of his, favoring the reality of universals (in On Universals [1970]). But Wolterstorffs solution raises difficulties of its own: first of all because it is not clear how types and tokens can "share" predicates or what that entails; secondly because the special difficulties confronting Wollheim's view confront Wolterstorffs as well. In particular, Wolterstorff must face the problem of explaining how it is that works of art can be created and destroyed—even if that involves destroying a notation—as well as the problem of explaining how an abstract entity can be said to have sensory or physical properties of any sort. The puzzle persists, therefore, that, say, a sonata can be heard but heard in different performances in different places at different or the same times.
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How to interpret the type/token relationship still presents difficulties. And of course, more fundamentally, Wolterstorffs thesis rests entirely on the plausibility of a Platonist picture of reality. For example, it is not clear in what sense, following Wolterstorff, we may suppose that the "world" of Gogol's Dead Souls may be said to be real prior to the historical events of Gogol's Russia. It does look as if Wolterstorffs account could not survive the defeat of Platonism or the denial of or agnostic response to the claim that the whole of nature falls within God's providential order.
Joseph Margolis (1977) has attempted to link the problems of numerical identity and of metaphysical nature together. By insisting on the ontologi-cal distinction of culturally emergent entities—in particular, works of art—he interprets tokens as tokens-of-types and construes what is thus individuated as an "embodied" entity of a certain complex sort. There are, therefore, no types distinct from tokens that could be compared or that could be said to share either properties or predicates. Tokens simply are tokens-of-types; and reference to types is heuristically introduced solely for the purpose of facilitating the individuation of particular objects as tokens of one and the same type. Correspondingly, the notion of an embodied entity is intended to facilitate the collection of the entire range of relevant properties—both physical and intentional—that Ingarden and others have insisted may be ascribed to works of art. The solution offered is characterized as a form of nonreductive materialism and suggests something of the ontological oddity of works of art in particular and of cultural entities in general. That solution, however, does not countenance a dualism of substances, only a nonreducible plurality of kinds of properties. Art works, embodied entities in general, are complex (emergent)—not compound or additive—entities, exhibiting properties that obtain only in the indissolubly embodied form in which they exist in the world of human culture.
Nelson Goodman (1976) has focused in a useful way the general problem between what he calls autographic and allographs arts, which the question of art fakes and forgeries dramatizes. For, on Goodman's view, forgeries of musical works, for example, are impossible—in general, forgeries of allographic works. Goodman's account has started a considerable industry (see Dutton, ed., 1983). Because of his nominalism, however, Goodman would be entirely unwilling to construe the autographic/allographic distinction in terms of the strong reading of the type/token distinction favored by Wollheim and Wolterstorff, as opposed, say, to that favored by Margolis. Nevertheless, it may be argued both that so-called allographic works may be forgeries, without boarding the realism/nominalism issue, and (more importantly) that there is no principled distinction to be had between autographic and allographic arts—that all art works are identified and characterized in terms of their history of production and that any art
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work can, reasonably, in accord with the contingencies of technology and social tolerance, be authentically duplicated or rendered in plural instances. Furthermore, notations or scores for art works must themselves be suitably read in autographically relevant terms (see Margolis, 1984).
All these papers, however, force us to consider whether an adequate ontology can be formulated that declines to take into consideration the special products of human culture. In this respect, the philosophy of art serves strategically as an introduction to the largest conceptual issue that confronts us all, namely, that of the relationship between physical nature and human culture. What, we want to know, must be added to our account of nature in order to accommodate the existence of persons, of works of art, of language itself?
The Ontology of Art
The Ontology of Art