Roland Barthes writes eleven years earlier than Foucault about a similar subject. How do we interpret a text with or without recognizing that it has a specific author who created it? And what precisely is an author? Do we need one? Barthes argues that writing is the destruction of every voice, at every point of origin. In this space where all identity is lost, even the identity of the individual author, what we have to focus on is the reader’s role given that the origin of the author is not necessary anymore. This means that instead of a focus on the origin of the text, we would now focus on its destination (who reads it, and how, with what interpretation?) The term author seems to be closely linked with the term authority and Barthes wants to avoid it. Assigning an author to a text furnishes it with a final signified and closes the writing. His view is of an either-or manner: Either we have an author, thus a constrained final signified that prevents us to focus on the reader’s role, or we have a dead author which frees a text to limitless varieties of interpretation from its readers. It may be interesting to inquire on why Barthes is so set on connecting the author’s existence with a tyrannical one that governs upon the text. In his article we find references to how the explanation of the work is always sought to the man or woman who produced it, as if this were the voice of a single person confiding an ultimate secret to us. And although Barthes makes a point, I think that it is Foucault who, while arguing against him, carries this point further away into the universe of discourse.
Foucault addresses the question, what is an author? He excavates through the terrain that Barthes leaves and discovers how a certain number of notions that are intended to replace that privileged position of the author actually appear to preserve this same privilege and suppress the real meaning of his disappearance. For example, Barthes would “kill” the author and tell us that what we have left is solely the work. Foucault argues that the question about what a work is is just as problematic as the one of sustaining an author to a work. Another problem once the author “disappears” is that writing maintains a primal status. Not without rendering certain signs and signifiers that could be traced back to the author. So what is important is to locate the space left empty by the author’s disappearance and watch the openings it uncovers. For example an author’s name is not simply an element in discourse, it performs a role and assures a classificatory function (I can read Foucault better if I know his biography and the other works he wrote, these other works go under his name, understood as works written by him) But what is important I believe, is that the author is not a free, independent spirit who is aware of transcendental truths. He is rather located inside a discursive construct and is, thus, either exposed or deprived of certain author-functions that take place in discourse. The author is the principle of a certain unity in writing and the text always contains signs referring to him, again and again. This idea of authorial appropriation is important to Foucault because now we may study discourses by examining the subject who produces and is a part of them (a culture, history etc.) We can now ask ourselves how can a subject appear in the order of discourse, and what place can it occupy in this order. Once aware that the author is not free to create in a world of inexhaustible significations, once we realize his limited functional principle in the world of ideas, we may be able to study him as a subject that constrains interpretation from the reader’s perspective, without assigning a Barthean role of tyranny and authority over the text.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Umberto Eco, The Open Work and its Constraints
Eco’s notion of “The Open Work” is an attempt to understand modern artworks which can be rendered open by their author, and further completed by the performer, viewer, reader or audience. This notion legitimates the variety of interpretations one work may give us. But despite how we may never know which interpretation is the correct one, we cannot have unlimited interpretations of a work either. I will explain how Eco’s concept of openness relates to Interpretation and to modern aesthetics. Once this is explained, I will point to the consequences that the concept of “openness,” understood also as “unfinished work” or “work in movement,” give raise to. Most of these consequences have to do with the limits of interpretation constrained by the intentionality of the author and the constraints of history. I am also including a few responses to Eco’s notion of Interpretation as to show some of the problems it may have.
In “Open Work,” Eco uses Stockhausen as an example of a modern musical piece rendered open by its own author. The work created rejects the definitive, concluded message and rather multiplies the formal possibilities of distribution and performances. A single music sheet with a series of groupings is presented, and the performer is given the freedom to mount the sequence of musical units in the order he chooses. So Stockhausen’s piece can have a variety of forms given by different composers. We could say that it can have unlimited interpretations, depending on each individual performer who mounts it together. But although no individual interpretation of Stockhausen’s work can be like the other, this does not mean that they are all that different, as if they suddenly rose out of chaos. What is important to note is that Stockhausen, who remains the author of the piece, created the work with the series of musical groupings to be mounted at chance. So with this intent in mind, he also gave the work its openness. To Eco, this idea of “openness” is essential to contemporary art. In “The Open Work” he explains that this idea of “openness” is far removed from meaning “infinite possibilities” and complete freedom of reception (pp.6.) What in fact is available is a rage of rigidly pre-established and ordained interpretative solutions, and these never allow the reader, the performer or the viewer to move outside the strict control of the author. With the example of Stockhausen’s musical piece, it is evident that the performer can re-invent the work in a psychological collaboration with the author itself.
I find it important to stop and expand how important the author’s intentions and authority are according to Eco. He argues that the author offers the interpreter with a work to be completed. But the author is aware that once completed by a third party, the work in question will still be his own. It will not be a different work because a form which belongs to him will be assembled complete, even though he permits this assemblage to be done by a third party. It is the author who proposes a number of possibilities which have already been rationally organized and endowed with specifications for a proper development. So the premises to the work, despite its “openness” or incompleteness, are finitely rendered in the original data provided by the author. Authorial intention is so important to Eco because this is what guarantees that the work will be a work. Without authorial intent, we would only have a mere conglomeration of random components ready to emerge from chaos, in his view.
So what Eco notices about the “openness” in Stockhausen’s piece is that it invites us to identify inside the old category of “open works” (one with indefinite interpretations) a more restricted classification. He calls this new category of contemporary works, “works in movement” because they consists of unplanned or physically incomplete structural units which need to be completed with an ongoing dialectic between the author’s intentions and the performers choices among those options he is given. The “work in movement” is the possibility of numerous different personal inventions, but it is not an invitation to indiscriminate participation. This invitation offers the performer with opportunities to insert himself as oriented by the author, into something which will always belong to the world invented by the author.
I want to point the reason why an “Open Work” does not lend itself to infinite interpretations. It is because there is a closure to this unfinished process, and it is given by the performer, reader, viewer or audience, depending on each case. To show how this “closure” works, I will use the example of Stockhausen again. The composer delivers a work with certain characteristics that give it its “openness,” (in this case the musical groupings on the sheet, the incompleteness of the piece which gives room to chance etc.) Once the individual performer receives it and gives it form through his personal selection of notes the unfinished work is completed. I write completed and not closed because there is a fundamental difference between these two. The work is completed by one performer, but it is not closed because there are hundreds of other performers who will give it different closures, selecting from Stockhousen’s options provided by his work. Eco writes in “The Open Work”:
“Every performance exploits the composition, but it does not exhaust it. Every performance makes the work an actuality, but is itself only complementary to all other performances of the work.” (pp.15)
Another way we could think about this inexhaustibility-about why the work is never closed is by acknowledging the observations of phenomenologist writers such as Merleau-Ponty and Husserl. Eco states that both philosophers are aware of the unperceived side in our perceptions. Husserl observed that in each external perception the sides of the objects perceived suggest to the viewer the unperceived side. This side is grasped in a non-intuitive manner and is expected to become an element of the succeeding perception. Merleau-Ponty observed that the contradiction which we feel exists between the world’s reality and its incompleteness is identical to the one that exists between the ambiguity of consciousness and its commitment to a field of presence.
I am not referring to these thinkers randomly. Their understanding of phenomenology is similar to Eco’s understanding of what an “Open Work” renders. It becomes essential for the work to present itself as open and as always promising future perceptions. This ambiguity found between the work’s openness (granted by the author) and its completeness (given by the performer) that can complete it, but never close it, does not represent an imperfection. To Eco, it appears to be its very definition. In “Two Hypothesis About the Death of Art” he states that when we interpret a work, there is no contradiction in assuming that A) One must appreciate the whole structure of the work as a declaration of poetics. B) That such a work can be considered fully realized only when its poetic project can be appreciated as the concrete, material and perceptible result of the its underlying project. (pp.176)
This move away from necessity and a fundamental reality, towards indeterminacy is seen as positive to Eco. Not only is it a historical event, it also matches the advances of science which started out assuming there was a center and moved away from this idea through discoveries about relativity and physics. History is an important factor in the process of interpretation to Eco. It would have not allowed us certain interpretations in the past that we hold today about the same work. But also, works couldn’t have been created with this authorial idea of “openness” in mind until now. Taking this example to a conventional level, we wouldn’t be able to have medieval flight insurance for example. We need a history that will allow planes to fly first and flight insurance to be created afterwards. This is to say that Stockhausen couldn’t have written the piece earlier than he did, and as a response to other works which did not have a notion of “openness” to them. But what is important to understand is that Eco’s notion of “openness” is one which lets the work be completed by its variety of interpretations which appear linearly through history. So Aesthetics should pay attention to the modern notion of openness and sought to expand it.
Eco understands openness as something intended to be that way by the author of the work. He also understands “the open work” as one with limited possibilities of interpretation. I would now like to place his thought through a more negative lens, and point that Eco’s notion of interpretation is one that may have too many constraints for some critics. Philosophers such as Richard Rorty and Jaques Derrida would, I believe, see this “openness” which renders a variety of interpretations as one which is extremely limited. One reason is due to the authorial intent of the work which regulates it and gives legitimacy to its possible interpretations. Thinkers like Rorty would argue that this sort of “legitimacy” is not of the right kind, that it is too elitist for example. The debates between Eco, Culler and Rorty found in the Tanner lecture focused on textual interpretation. With his defense on authorial intent, Eco suggests that the aim of the text is to produce (through the author) a model reader; one who reads it as it is designated to be read. This reading may include the possibility of being read so as to yield multiple interpretations. The problem with authorial intent seems to rest here: Whoever surpasses the limits of interpretation that the work is supposed to have (as rendered by the author) is over-interpreting. Without necessarily being able to prove that one interpretation is the right one, Eco still places constraints on the interpretation of the work, as to avoid over-interpretation.
Richard Rorty argues against the idea of a limited and legitimate variety of interpretations, he also argues against the authority of the author being essential to the work. He permits the possibility of unlimited interpretations given that the authorial intent is not fundamental for interpreting. Against Eco’s claim that the work has a “nature” and that legitimate interpretation would, in a way, illuminate this nature (even if its nature is “openness”) Rorty urges us to forget the idea of discovering what a text really is. Culler is another scholar who debates against Eco, following Derrida’s notion of “unlimited semiosis.” To Culler, over-interpretation is unavoidable and even necessary. The authorial intention would be unnecessary to interpret a text, given that the author can be considered “dead,” and so can his intentions.
These debates seem to center, among other things, on the validity or legitimacy of the author’s intent to give the work its “openness.” This authorial legitimacy is explored better as a problem in the analytic field, and it has to do with the author’s intentionality towards the work. Monroe Beardsley, an analytic aesthetician wrote an article called “The Intentional Fallacy.” There, he argued against the view that a work of art means what an artist says it means or what he intends it to mean. Briefly, Eco and other romantics would argue that: 1) The artist intended x to be p in a wok y.
2) x means p in a wok y.
Beardsley on the other side, argues that the intentions of the artist are not relevant to the interpretation of the work because 1 does not entail 2, and it does not provide direct evidential support for 2. Given that the intentions of the author are not always available, and that, according to Beardsley, we can have a correct interpretation of a work with little knowledge of its author, this entails that the intentions of the author are neither available nor desirable. In other words, the intentional fallacy is what tells us that, if we ask the author for the meaning of the work, the author may ask us to go to the work to find its meaning, but if we want to know about the meaning of the work we will have to return to the author.
So some of the arguments against Eco’s notion seem to ask this question: “What is wrong with over interpretation?! Why do we need constraints? Why do we need an author to legitimize our interpretations?” Most of these arguments circle around the acceptance or denial of authorial intent. And the main problem regarding authorial intent is that either it cannot be empirically proved, like Beardsley states, or it leads us to circularity. I think Eco would argue that history will sooner or later provide us with empirical proof of the author’s intentionality, through the work. Regarding the negative value given to his notion of interpretation understood as one with constraints, there may also be a response. We are still allowed to have a variety of interpretations of a work, just like we phenomenologically experience a variety of limited perceptions through our visual field. Authorial intent is not a constraint to Eco, it is what prevents us from completing a work out of random conglomerated elements, out of chaos. It is what gives us the unfinished elements to finish the work with our individual reading of it. In this essay, I have tried showing how this notion works as related to modern aesthetics and the problem of interpretation, and I have explained the problem it may present, as related to authorial intent. In the end, the circularity posed earlier may not be a problem to Eco, who does not grant us unlimited interpretations of a work, and yet manages to leave the work “open” and accessible to future readings.
Sources
1) Eco, Umberto. “The Open Work.” Harvard University Press. Cambridge, MA.1989
2) Eco Umberto, “Two Hypotheses About the Death of Art.” The Open Work. Harvard University Press. Cambridge. MA.1989.
3) Umberto Eco, “ On Interpretation and Overinterpretation (The Tanner Lectures on Human Values)” Edited by Stefan Collini. Cambridge University Press. 1992.
4) Wreen, Michael, "Beardsley's Aesthetics, Intentional Fallacy.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
In “Open Work,” Eco uses Stockhausen as an example of a modern musical piece rendered open by its own author. The work created rejects the definitive, concluded message and rather multiplies the formal possibilities of distribution and performances. A single music sheet with a series of groupings is presented, and the performer is given the freedom to mount the sequence of musical units in the order he chooses. So Stockhausen’s piece can have a variety of forms given by different composers. We could say that it can have unlimited interpretations, depending on each individual performer who mounts it together. But although no individual interpretation of Stockhausen’s work can be like the other, this does not mean that they are all that different, as if they suddenly rose out of chaos. What is important to note is that Stockhausen, who remains the author of the piece, created the work with the series of musical groupings to be mounted at chance. So with this intent in mind, he also gave the work its openness. To Eco, this idea of “openness” is essential to contemporary art. In “The Open Work” he explains that this idea of “openness” is far removed from meaning “infinite possibilities” and complete freedom of reception (pp.6.) What in fact is available is a rage of rigidly pre-established and ordained interpretative solutions, and these never allow the reader, the performer or the viewer to move outside the strict control of the author. With the example of Stockhausen’s musical piece, it is evident that the performer can re-invent the work in a psychological collaboration with the author itself.
I find it important to stop and expand how important the author’s intentions and authority are according to Eco. He argues that the author offers the interpreter with a work to be completed. But the author is aware that once completed by a third party, the work in question will still be his own. It will not be a different work because a form which belongs to him will be assembled complete, even though he permits this assemblage to be done by a third party. It is the author who proposes a number of possibilities which have already been rationally organized and endowed with specifications for a proper development. So the premises to the work, despite its “openness” or incompleteness, are finitely rendered in the original data provided by the author. Authorial intention is so important to Eco because this is what guarantees that the work will be a work. Without authorial intent, we would only have a mere conglomeration of random components ready to emerge from chaos, in his view.
So what Eco notices about the “openness” in Stockhausen’s piece is that it invites us to identify inside the old category of “open works” (one with indefinite interpretations) a more restricted classification. He calls this new category of contemporary works, “works in movement” because they consists of unplanned or physically incomplete structural units which need to be completed with an ongoing dialectic between the author’s intentions and the performers choices among those options he is given. The “work in movement” is the possibility of numerous different personal inventions, but it is not an invitation to indiscriminate participation. This invitation offers the performer with opportunities to insert himself as oriented by the author, into something which will always belong to the world invented by the author.
I want to point the reason why an “Open Work” does not lend itself to infinite interpretations. It is because there is a closure to this unfinished process, and it is given by the performer, reader, viewer or audience, depending on each case. To show how this “closure” works, I will use the example of Stockhausen again. The composer delivers a work with certain characteristics that give it its “openness,” (in this case the musical groupings on the sheet, the incompleteness of the piece which gives room to chance etc.) Once the individual performer receives it and gives it form through his personal selection of notes the unfinished work is completed. I write completed and not closed because there is a fundamental difference between these two. The work is completed by one performer, but it is not closed because there are hundreds of other performers who will give it different closures, selecting from Stockhousen’s options provided by his work. Eco writes in “The Open Work”:
“Every performance exploits the composition, but it does not exhaust it. Every performance makes the work an actuality, but is itself only complementary to all other performances of the work.” (pp.15)
Another way we could think about this inexhaustibility-about why the work is never closed is by acknowledging the observations of phenomenologist writers such as Merleau-Ponty and Husserl. Eco states that both philosophers are aware of the unperceived side in our perceptions. Husserl observed that in each external perception the sides of the objects perceived suggest to the viewer the unperceived side. This side is grasped in a non-intuitive manner and is expected to become an element of the succeeding perception. Merleau-Ponty observed that the contradiction which we feel exists between the world’s reality and its incompleteness is identical to the one that exists between the ambiguity of consciousness and its commitment to a field of presence.
I am not referring to these thinkers randomly. Their understanding of phenomenology is similar to Eco’s understanding of what an “Open Work” renders. It becomes essential for the work to present itself as open and as always promising future perceptions. This ambiguity found between the work’s openness (granted by the author) and its completeness (given by the performer) that can complete it, but never close it, does not represent an imperfection. To Eco, it appears to be its very definition. In “Two Hypothesis About the Death of Art” he states that when we interpret a work, there is no contradiction in assuming that A) One must appreciate the whole structure of the work as a declaration of poetics. B) That such a work can be considered fully realized only when its poetic project can be appreciated as the concrete, material and perceptible result of the its underlying project. (pp.176)
This move away from necessity and a fundamental reality, towards indeterminacy is seen as positive to Eco. Not only is it a historical event, it also matches the advances of science which started out assuming there was a center and moved away from this idea through discoveries about relativity and physics. History is an important factor in the process of interpretation to Eco. It would have not allowed us certain interpretations in the past that we hold today about the same work. But also, works couldn’t have been created with this authorial idea of “openness” in mind until now. Taking this example to a conventional level, we wouldn’t be able to have medieval flight insurance for example. We need a history that will allow planes to fly first and flight insurance to be created afterwards. This is to say that Stockhausen couldn’t have written the piece earlier than he did, and as a response to other works which did not have a notion of “openness” to them. But what is important to understand is that Eco’s notion of “openness” is one which lets the work be completed by its variety of interpretations which appear linearly through history. So Aesthetics should pay attention to the modern notion of openness and sought to expand it.
Eco understands openness as something intended to be that way by the author of the work. He also understands “the open work” as one with limited possibilities of interpretation. I would now like to place his thought through a more negative lens, and point that Eco’s notion of interpretation is one that may have too many constraints for some critics. Philosophers such as Richard Rorty and Jaques Derrida would, I believe, see this “openness” which renders a variety of interpretations as one which is extremely limited. One reason is due to the authorial intent of the work which regulates it and gives legitimacy to its possible interpretations. Thinkers like Rorty would argue that this sort of “legitimacy” is not of the right kind, that it is too elitist for example. The debates between Eco, Culler and Rorty found in the Tanner lecture focused on textual interpretation. With his defense on authorial intent, Eco suggests that the aim of the text is to produce (through the author) a model reader; one who reads it as it is designated to be read. This reading may include the possibility of being read so as to yield multiple interpretations. The problem with authorial intent seems to rest here: Whoever surpasses the limits of interpretation that the work is supposed to have (as rendered by the author) is over-interpreting. Without necessarily being able to prove that one interpretation is the right one, Eco still places constraints on the interpretation of the work, as to avoid over-interpretation.
Richard Rorty argues against the idea of a limited and legitimate variety of interpretations, he also argues against the authority of the author being essential to the work. He permits the possibility of unlimited interpretations given that the authorial intent is not fundamental for interpreting. Against Eco’s claim that the work has a “nature” and that legitimate interpretation would, in a way, illuminate this nature (even if its nature is “openness”) Rorty urges us to forget the idea of discovering what a text really is. Culler is another scholar who debates against Eco, following Derrida’s notion of “unlimited semiosis.” To Culler, over-interpretation is unavoidable and even necessary. The authorial intention would be unnecessary to interpret a text, given that the author can be considered “dead,” and so can his intentions.
These debates seem to center, among other things, on the validity or legitimacy of the author’s intent to give the work its “openness.” This authorial legitimacy is explored better as a problem in the analytic field, and it has to do with the author’s intentionality towards the work. Monroe Beardsley, an analytic aesthetician wrote an article called “The Intentional Fallacy.” There, he argued against the view that a work of art means what an artist says it means or what he intends it to mean. Briefly, Eco and other romantics would argue that: 1) The artist intended x to be p in a wok y.
2) x means p in a wok y.
Beardsley on the other side, argues that the intentions of the artist are not relevant to the interpretation of the work because 1 does not entail 2, and it does not provide direct evidential support for 2. Given that the intentions of the author are not always available, and that, according to Beardsley, we can have a correct interpretation of a work with little knowledge of its author, this entails that the intentions of the author are neither available nor desirable. In other words, the intentional fallacy is what tells us that, if we ask the author for the meaning of the work, the author may ask us to go to the work to find its meaning, but if we want to know about the meaning of the work we will have to return to the author.
So some of the arguments against Eco’s notion seem to ask this question: “What is wrong with over interpretation?! Why do we need constraints? Why do we need an author to legitimize our interpretations?” Most of these arguments circle around the acceptance or denial of authorial intent. And the main problem regarding authorial intent is that either it cannot be empirically proved, like Beardsley states, or it leads us to circularity. I think Eco would argue that history will sooner or later provide us with empirical proof of the author’s intentionality, through the work. Regarding the negative value given to his notion of interpretation understood as one with constraints, there may also be a response. We are still allowed to have a variety of interpretations of a work, just like we phenomenologically experience a variety of limited perceptions through our visual field. Authorial intent is not a constraint to Eco, it is what prevents us from completing a work out of random conglomerated elements, out of chaos. It is what gives us the unfinished elements to finish the work with our individual reading of it. In this essay, I have tried showing how this notion works as related to modern aesthetics and the problem of interpretation, and I have explained the problem it may present, as related to authorial intent. In the end, the circularity posed earlier may not be a problem to Eco, who does not grant us unlimited interpretations of a work, and yet manages to leave the work “open” and accessible to future readings.
Sources
1) Eco, Umberto. “The Open Work.” Harvard University Press. Cambridge, MA.1989
2) Eco Umberto, “Two Hypotheses About the Death of Art.” The Open Work. Harvard University Press. Cambridge. MA.1989.
3) Umberto Eco, “ On Interpretation and Overinterpretation (The Tanner Lectures on Human Values)” Edited by Stefan Collini. Cambridge University Press. 1992.
4) Wreen, Michael, "Beardsley's Aesthetics, Intentional Fallacy.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
“Heart of Darkness,” Impressionism and Marlow’s Self Identity
Question to be answered: Does Conrad use Impressionism as a style to produce a new kind of modernist consciousness or a new conception of self that is more focused on the inner truths of life than outward phenomena?
In Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, we are lead into the heart of Africa through the eyes of Marlow, who views the outer world within his closed consciousness. Few critics would oppose the great aesthetic value of the vivid impressions provided by this character. But what I find relevant in the value of Conrad’s descriptive style is that it produces a new kind of conception of the self. The identity of Marlow is an example of this conception. His narration is more focused on inner consciousness than on the outward phenomena. This new type of self identity created by Conrad can be associated with his Impressionist style. Before expanding on this claim, I will explain what Impressionism is and how it works in literature. I will later explain why the aesthetic value of impressions is so important to the modernist consciousness and its conception of the self.
Ian Watt, in his article “Impressionism and Symbolism in Heart of Darkness”, argues that the novel is essentially impressionistic. Watt refers to David Hume as a philosopher who clarifies through his theory of knowledge what this concept is. To Hume, all the perceptions in the human mind resolve themselves in two distinct kinds: impressions and ideas. Our impressions are those with the greatest force and violence, and our ideas ore those defined as less lively perceptions, which occur after we reflect on our original sense-impressions. This means that an impressionist work would focus on impressions, and put lesser force on the causes or meaning of those impressions, which come afterwards, once reflection takes place. Heart of Darkness, understood in this way and lived through the consciousness of Marlow, is an Impressionist work. It is evident at times that Marlow represents what a man cannot know. He begins his tale by mentioning to the other sailors that what he experienced affected him personally, but that some of his impressions are not clear, and will probably never be.
Yet to understand the effect of it on me you ought to know how I got out there, what I saw, how I went up that river (…) It was the farthest point of navigation and the culminating point of my experience. It seemed somehow to throw a kind of light on everything about me-and into my thoughts. It was somber enough too-and pitiful-not extraordinary in any way-not very clear either. No. Not very clear… (H.o.D pp.7)
A problem with the Impressionist style is found in the relationship between individual sense impressions and meaning. Given that Conrad provides us first with Marlow’s vivid description, and later, with his interpretation of the event described, the force of the impression becomes stronger than the understanding of it. Even before he begins his tale, Marlow affirms that the most he can talk about are his inner impressions. So it appears that we will never be allowed outside Marlow’s consciousness, and outside the walls of the closely shut cell containing his impressions. So this style creates a new definition of the self, one that engages us with the character’s inner thoughts but leaves little objectivity towards the outside phenomena. In other words, Conrad only provides us with Marlow’s vivid impressions, so as readers we are limited to the hollowness of these descriptions which either lack meaning, or have no objective relevance to outside phenomena. Watt explains this almost tragically when he writes, “From this it follows that the ideas we form of the outer world and of other minds, may be but a day dream.”
Another characteristic of Impressionism as explained by Watt, is the unordinary sense of temporality it presents. Marlow’s mind receives messages from the outside world, but his reflexive process, and his decoding of meaning is much slower. Watt calls this “delayed decoding,” and points that it is a consequence of Impressionist writing. The process of delayed decoding is what lets Marlow roam inside the vaults of consciousness for so long a time before arriving to a more general idea. As readers, we don’t get what the general meaning of an event is because Marlow can only decode his impressions. We first get a description of a vivid impression, and later a delayed meaning which has lost its force. This makes the consciousness of the modernist self different from other accounts of identity. Marlow for example, is a self less aware of reality and more aware of his impressions, to the point where his impressions become his reality.
As an example of this delayed decoding process, I mention the part where Marlow encounters in the forest a variety of heads attached to poles as a product of Kurtz’ bloody rituals. There is a reason I believe why this scene does not directly lead us to make a moral judgment like we typically would. The force of Marlow’s impressions limits a more general description of the outer reality, so it is difficult to know if Marlow—closed within his consciousness—really understands what is happening. Despite the fact that the Russian mentions how Kurtz “is bad, very bad” (H.o.D pp.57) Marlow does not understand what those figures mean until later, and even then, he does not directly link Kurtz to this horror.
And then I made a brusque movement and one of the remaining posts of that vanished fence leaped up in the field of my glass. You remember I told you I had been struck at a distance by certain attempts of ornamentation, rather remarkable in the ruinous aspect of the place. Now, I had suddenly a nearer view and its first result was to make me throw me head back as if before a blow.
The problem of reading this passage only through Marlow’s consciousness is that we are left with many gaps to fill in. Conrad provides us with a modernist creation of the self, where the outer world is never revealed fully revealed. Marlow’s temporal delay in decoding the messages he receives from the outside (first he believes the heads are mere ornaments, then he realizes they are something else-something more sinister) also limits his understanding of reality. This temporal device utilized by Conrad, prevents Marlow from experiencing shock, or horror, instinctively. If he did, this would lead us to believe Marlow’s sense of morality is more accurate. But once he figures out that these “ornaments” are decapitated heads, he pushes us back inside his consciousness where morality is absent and all we have left are pure impressions. Instead of accurate description of the outside phenomena, what we get is Marlow’s stream of thought:
“was not so shocked as you may think. The start back I had given was really nothing but a movement of surprise. I had expected to see a knob of wood there, you know (…) There it was black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids- a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, with dry shrunken lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth, was smiling too, smiling continuously at some endless and jocose dream of eternal slumber. (H.o.D pp.57)
Here lies the most relevant aspect of Conrad’s impressionism. The modernist self becomes extremely aware of his inner truth but, unable to escape the trap of his consciousness, becomes terribly unaware of outside reality. Instead of seeing the entire horror of Kurtz’ immoral acts (the decapitated heads being evidence for this) what we get is Marlow’s comparison of death to “some endless jocose dream of eternal slumber.” At this level and through Marlow’s consciousness, the horror of death and Kurtz’ irrational murders diminish in force against the vividness of pure impressions. This is the irony of a modernist conception of the self: how it limits us to the character’s stream of thought, and how it prevents us from keeping track of the general meaning prevailing in the story. Not only is it evident that the physical impressions precede Marlow’s understanding of a cause. It is also evident that Marlow’s delayed decoding of events is a strategy which prevents us, on a first read, to focus on the objectivity of the horror.
So the irony about this conception of the self is that for the sake of pure impressions and vivid descriptions, for the sake of entering Marlow’s stream of consciousness, we get a limited account of what the outside phenomena really means. Patrick Brantingler in his article Imperialism, Impressionism and the Politics of Style defends this view, although he relates it to impressionism. To Brantingler, Conrad’s impressionism allows him to mask his nihilism, or to maintain contradictory values between imperialism and anti-imperialism. Relating this idea to Conrad’s modernist account of the self, we could say that the way he masks this contradiction is through Marlow’s consciousness. If we understand impressionism as a discourse which expresses or disguises contradictions, like Brantingler does, then we can also view Marlow’s limiting consciousness as one which also masks contradictions. When Marlow expresses how he thinks the decapitated heads are to be seen (as sleeping happily over the poles, for example) he prevents us from understanding reality outside his mind. But if we do escape the trap of his consciousness, we can also read this passage at a different level, where the horror of Kurtz’ murders and bloody rituals gets unmasked from the impressionist style that disguises it. So, with the story’s impressionist style, Conrad manages to create a modernist account of the self who is more concentrated on his inner reality than on the outside phenomena. In this paper, I have tried to point to this, but also, to unmask the contradictions and problems that this account of the self raises.
Sources
1) Brantlinger, Patrick. Imperialism, Impressionism and the Politics of Style. “Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism.” Ithaca. NY. Cornell University Press, 1988. Reprinted in “Heart of Darkness, a Norton Critical Edition.”
2) Conrad, Joseph. “Heart of Darkness.” Norton Critical Edition. Norton and Company press. NY. 2006.
3) Watt, Ian. Impressionism and Symbolism in “Heart of Darkness.” “Conrad in the Nineteenth Century.” Berkley. University of California Press. 1979. Reprinted in “Heart of Darkness” Norton Critical Edition.
In Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, we are lead into the heart of Africa through the eyes of Marlow, who views the outer world within his closed consciousness. Few critics would oppose the great aesthetic value of the vivid impressions provided by this character. But what I find relevant in the value of Conrad’s descriptive style is that it produces a new kind of conception of the self. The identity of Marlow is an example of this conception. His narration is more focused on inner consciousness than on the outward phenomena. This new type of self identity created by Conrad can be associated with his Impressionist style. Before expanding on this claim, I will explain what Impressionism is and how it works in literature. I will later explain why the aesthetic value of impressions is so important to the modernist consciousness and its conception of the self.
Ian Watt, in his article “Impressionism and Symbolism in Heart of Darkness”, argues that the novel is essentially impressionistic. Watt refers to David Hume as a philosopher who clarifies through his theory of knowledge what this concept is. To Hume, all the perceptions in the human mind resolve themselves in two distinct kinds: impressions and ideas. Our impressions are those with the greatest force and violence, and our ideas ore those defined as less lively perceptions, which occur after we reflect on our original sense-impressions. This means that an impressionist work would focus on impressions, and put lesser force on the causes or meaning of those impressions, which come afterwards, once reflection takes place. Heart of Darkness, understood in this way and lived through the consciousness of Marlow, is an Impressionist work. It is evident at times that Marlow represents what a man cannot know. He begins his tale by mentioning to the other sailors that what he experienced affected him personally, but that some of his impressions are not clear, and will probably never be.
Yet to understand the effect of it on me you ought to know how I got out there, what I saw, how I went up that river (…) It was the farthest point of navigation and the culminating point of my experience. It seemed somehow to throw a kind of light on everything about me-and into my thoughts. It was somber enough too-and pitiful-not extraordinary in any way-not very clear either. No. Not very clear… (H.o.D pp.7)
A problem with the Impressionist style is found in the relationship between individual sense impressions and meaning. Given that Conrad provides us first with Marlow’s vivid description, and later, with his interpretation of the event described, the force of the impression becomes stronger than the understanding of it. Even before he begins his tale, Marlow affirms that the most he can talk about are his inner impressions. So it appears that we will never be allowed outside Marlow’s consciousness, and outside the walls of the closely shut cell containing his impressions. So this style creates a new definition of the self, one that engages us with the character’s inner thoughts but leaves little objectivity towards the outside phenomena. In other words, Conrad only provides us with Marlow’s vivid impressions, so as readers we are limited to the hollowness of these descriptions which either lack meaning, or have no objective relevance to outside phenomena. Watt explains this almost tragically when he writes, “From this it follows that the ideas we form of the outer world and of other minds, may be but a day dream.”
Another characteristic of Impressionism as explained by Watt, is the unordinary sense of temporality it presents. Marlow’s mind receives messages from the outside world, but his reflexive process, and his decoding of meaning is much slower. Watt calls this “delayed decoding,” and points that it is a consequence of Impressionist writing. The process of delayed decoding is what lets Marlow roam inside the vaults of consciousness for so long a time before arriving to a more general idea. As readers, we don’t get what the general meaning of an event is because Marlow can only decode his impressions. We first get a description of a vivid impression, and later a delayed meaning which has lost its force. This makes the consciousness of the modernist self different from other accounts of identity. Marlow for example, is a self less aware of reality and more aware of his impressions, to the point where his impressions become his reality.
As an example of this delayed decoding process, I mention the part where Marlow encounters in the forest a variety of heads attached to poles as a product of Kurtz’ bloody rituals. There is a reason I believe why this scene does not directly lead us to make a moral judgment like we typically would. The force of Marlow’s impressions limits a more general description of the outer reality, so it is difficult to know if Marlow—closed within his consciousness—really understands what is happening. Despite the fact that the Russian mentions how Kurtz “is bad, very bad” (H.o.D pp.57) Marlow does not understand what those figures mean until later, and even then, he does not directly link Kurtz to this horror.
And then I made a brusque movement and one of the remaining posts of that vanished fence leaped up in the field of my glass. You remember I told you I had been struck at a distance by certain attempts of ornamentation, rather remarkable in the ruinous aspect of the place. Now, I had suddenly a nearer view and its first result was to make me throw me head back as if before a blow.
The problem of reading this passage only through Marlow’s consciousness is that we are left with many gaps to fill in. Conrad provides us with a modernist creation of the self, where the outer world is never revealed fully revealed. Marlow’s temporal delay in decoding the messages he receives from the outside (first he believes the heads are mere ornaments, then he realizes they are something else-something more sinister) also limits his understanding of reality. This temporal device utilized by Conrad, prevents Marlow from experiencing shock, or horror, instinctively. If he did, this would lead us to believe Marlow’s sense of morality is more accurate. But once he figures out that these “ornaments” are decapitated heads, he pushes us back inside his consciousness where morality is absent and all we have left are pure impressions. Instead of accurate description of the outside phenomena, what we get is Marlow’s stream of thought:
“was not so shocked as you may think. The start back I had given was really nothing but a movement of surprise. I had expected to see a knob of wood there, you know (…) There it was black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids- a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, with dry shrunken lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth, was smiling too, smiling continuously at some endless and jocose dream of eternal slumber. (H.o.D pp.57)
Here lies the most relevant aspect of Conrad’s impressionism. The modernist self becomes extremely aware of his inner truth but, unable to escape the trap of his consciousness, becomes terribly unaware of outside reality. Instead of seeing the entire horror of Kurtz’ immoral acts (the decapitated heads being evidence for this) what we get is Marlow’s comparison of death to “some endless jocose dream of eternal slumber.” At this level and through Marlow’s consciousness, the horror of death and Kurtz’ irrational murders diminish in force against the vividness of pure impressions. This is the irony of a modernist conception of the self: how it limits us to the character’s stream of thought, and how it prevents us from keeping track of the general meaning prevailing in the story. Not only is it evident that the physical impressions precede Marlow’s understanding of a cause. It is also evident that Marlow’s delayed decoding of events is a strategy which prevents us, on a first read, to focus on the objectivity of the horror.
So the irony about this conception of the self is that for the sake of pure impressions and vivid descriptions, for the sake of entering Marlow’s stream of consciousness, we get a limited account of what the outside phenomena really means. Patrick Brantingler in his article Imperialism, Impressionism and the Politics of Style defends this view, although he relates it to impressionism. To Brantingler, Conrad’s impressionism allows him to mask his nihilism, or to maintain contradictory values between imperialism and anti-imperialism. Relating this idea to Conrad’s modernist account of the self, we could say that the way he masks this contradiction is through Marlow’s consciousness. If we understand impressionism as a discourse which expresses or disguises contradictions, like Brantingler does, then we can also view Marlow’s limiting consciousness as one which also masks contradictions. When Marlow expresses how he thinks the decapitated heads are to be seen (as sleeping happily over the poles, for example) he prevents us from understanding reality outside his mind. But if we do escape the trap of his consciousness, we can also read this passage at a different level, where the horror of Kurtz’ murders and bloody rituals gets unmasked from the impressionist style that disguises it. So, with the story’s impressionist style, Conrad manages to create a modernist account of the self who is more concentrated on his inner reality than on the outside phenomena. In this paper, I have tried to point to this, but also, to unmask the contradictions and problems that this account of the self raises.
Sources
1) Brantlinger, Patrick. Imperialism, Impressionism and the Politics of Style. “Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism.” Ithaca. NY. Cornell University Press, 1988. Reprinted in “Heart of Darkness, a Norton Critical Edition.”
2) Conrad, Joseph. “Heart of Darkness.” Norton Critical Edition. Norton and Company press. NY. 2006.
3) Watt, Ian. Impressionism and Symbolism in “Heart of Darkness.” “Conrad in the Nineteenth Century.” Berkley. University of California Press. 1979. Reprinted in “Heart of Darkness” Norton Critical Edition.
Weitz and the Role of Theory in Aesthetics
In the past, the main goal of aesthetics has been to formulate a definition of art. A definition is a statement of the necessary and sufficient properties of what is being defined. This statement has to prove its purpose of giving a true or false claim about the nature, or essence of art and what characterizes it from anything else. Many theorists sustain that unless we know what art is, we cannot begin to respond to it adequately or to say why one work is better than the other. Morris Weitz, in his essay “The Role of Theory in Aesthetics” wants to plead for the rejection of this problem. He argues that a true definition of art, consisting of its necessary and sufficient properties is not possible. That a definition only closes the concept of art when in its very use, this concept demands to remain open.
To explain Weitz’s approach to aesthetics, I will first mention Wittgenstein’s approach to language found in Philosophical Investigations, given that many critics including Weitz, have explored Wittgenstein’s refusal to theorize and construct definitions of philosophical entities. In his work, Wittgenstein raises an illustrative question, What is a game? The traditional theoretical answer would be in terms of some exhaustive set of properties common to all games. To this Wittgenstein gives us a list of board games, card games, ball games, and asks if there is something common to them all. Despite the assumption that there must be something common to them or else they would not be called “games,” if we look and see weather there is something common to them all, weather there are any necessary and sufficient properties to “game” will not find it. All we may find are similarities and relationships between different games. If one asks what a game is, we usually pick out sample games and describe them. Weitz, just like Wittgenstein, points out the difference between describing and defining. He writes:
“Knowing what a game is is not knowing some real definition or theory but being able to recognize and explain games and to decide which among imaginary and new examples would or would not be called ‘games.” (pp.31)
The Wittgensteinian problem about the nature of games is just like the problem about the nature of art to Weitz. If we look and see what it is that we call art, we will also find no common properties, only similarities. Knowing what art is has nothing to do with being able to define it, but rather with being able to describe it, recognize it and explain it in virtue of those similarities. While a definition would close a concept, the characteristic of description is its open texture. We can correctly describe something as art by virtue of its similarities, but no exhaustive definition can be given.
To further explore Weitz’s idea of an open concept, I will refer to the example he uses when mentioning Joyce’s novel Finnegan’s Wake. Weitz asks, is Finnegan’s Wake a novel? The traditional way, in search for a definition that would permit us to answer yes or no, would construct this as a factual problem concerning necessary and sufficient properties. The new way, which avoids a definition, would have to decide weather the work is similar in certain respects to other works already called “novels.” As long as Finnegan’s Wake shares some, but not every similarity to other novels, then the concept of art can be extended to cover the new case. So this work is like recognized novels A and B in some respects, but not like them in others. But then, neither was B in some respects like A when a decision to extend the concept was made. Finnegan’s Wake standing as N+1 is similar to A and B in some respects, but not in others so the problem is not factual but rather one of decision making whether the verdict has to do with expanding the conditions as to apply to the new concept. So following Wittgenstein, Weitz notices how an exhaustive definition is not possible, and how it would only close a concept that should remain open. “Art itself is an open concept” (pp.32) he writes. Searching for a definition of what cannot be defined is like trying to squeeze what is an open concept into an honorific formula for a closed concept.
Another important difference that will help us understand the distinction of a formula and what lies behind it, is that between descriptions of art and artistic evaluations. When we say that X is a work of art, we use art as an evaluative (good, mediocre etc.) and descriptive (blue, soft etc.) concept. When X is a work of art is understood as descriptive, what we give are not necessary and sufficient conditions, but rather bundles of properties most of which are present (although they need not to) when we describe things as works of art. Cases where normal conditions are denied are also capable of being true in certain circumstances. So we can have “X is a work of art and exists only in the mind.” “X …and was made by accident when he spilled paint into the canvas.” Etc.
Obviously, if none of the conditions were present for recognizing something as a work of art in virtue of similarities, we would not describe it as one. But none of these is either necessary or sufficient.
Now, the problem with the evaluative notion of art is that instead of describing it praises. Although we may use art to praise, Weitz stresses that what cannot be maintained is that theories of evaluative use are real definitions of art. They are only definitions of chosen criteria which a critic personally decides to use in favor of a work. These honorific definitions only make Weitz’s argument stronger, because they prove, through their debates over the reasons for changing the criteria of a definition, that the concept of art remains open. Weitz writes:
“If we take aesthetic theories literally, as we have seen, they all fail; but if we reconstrue them, in terms of their function and point…we shall see that aesthetic theory is far from worthless.” (pp35)
There is a certain kind of pluralism in Weitz’s argument, which is inclusive of the different aesthetic theories, yet does not accept one exhaustive definition of art. So Weitz, diving into a pool of Wittgensteinian objects, all related transitively through a series of similarities, comes out of it as a non-essentialist about the concept of art. He argues against a definition because he finds it problematic in its practicality, empirical validity and lack of inclusiveness to new art works. Weitz, by pointing that what we do when we say, X is art, is give a description, also mentions that evaluative properties are used to give legitimacy to a work arbitrarily considered to be art. This arbitrariness and the debates going on between different philosophers who evaluate and try to define art are a strong proof to Weitz’s argument. Definitions change because there is no exhaustive definition of art, and once we understand this problem, all we can do is leave the concept open, describe art, and understand what a work is by virtue of its transitive similarities to other works.
To explain Weitz’s approach to aesthetics, I will first mention Wittgenstein’s approach to language found in Philosophical Investigations, given that many critics including Weitz, have explored Wittgenstein’s refusal to theorize and construct definitions of philosophical entities. In his work, Wittgenstein raises an illustrative question, What is a game? The traditional theoretical answer would be in terms of some exhaustive set of properties common to all games. To this Wittgenstein gives us a list of board games, card games, ball games, and asks if there is something common to them all. Despite the assumption that there must be something common to them or else they would not be called “games,” if we look and see weather there is something common to them all, weather there are any necessary and sufficient properties to “game” will not find it. All we may find are similarities and relationships between different games. If one asks what a game is, we usually pick out sample games and describe them. Weitz, just like Wittgenstein, points out the difference between describing and defining. He writes:
“Knowing what a game is is not knowing some real definition or theory but being able to recognize and explain games and to decide which among imaginary and new examples would or would not be called ‘games.” (pp.31)
The Wittgensteinian problem about the nature of games is just like the problem about the nature of art to Weitz. If we look and see what it is that we call art, we will also find no common properties, only similarities. Knowing what art is has nothing to do with being able to define it, but rather with being able to describe it, recognize it and explain it in virtue of those similarities. While a definition would close a concept, the characteristic of description is its open texture. We can correctly describe something as art by virtue of its similarities, but no exhaustive definition can be given.
To further explore Weitz’s idea of an open concept, I will refer to the example he uses when mentioning Joyce’s novel Finnegan’s Wake. Weitz asks, is Finnegan’s Wake a novel? The traditional way, in search for a definition that would permit us to answer yes or no, would construct this as a factual problem concerning necessary and sufficient properties. The new way, which avoids a definition, would have to decide weather the work is similar in certain respects to other works already called “novels.” As long as Finnegan’s Wake shares some, but not every similarity to other novels, then the concept of art can be extended to cover the new case. So this work is like recognized novels A and B in some respects, but not like them in others. But then, neither was B in some respects like A when a decision to extend the concept was made. Finnegan’s Wake standing as N+1 is similar to A and B in some respects, but not in others so the problem is not factual but rather one of decision making whether the verdict has to do with expanding the conditions as to apply to the new concept. So following Wittgenstein, Weitz notices how an exhaustive definition is not possible, and how it would only close a concept that should remain open. “Art itself is an open concept” (pp.32) he writes. Searching for a definition of what cannot be defined is like trying to squeeze what is an open concept into an honorific formula for a closed concept.
Another important difference that will help us understand the distinction of a formula and what lies behind it, is that between descriptions of art and artistic evaluations. When we say that X is a work of art, we use art as an evaluative (good, mediocre etc.) and descriptive (blue, soft etc.) concept. When X is a work of art is understood as descriptive, what we give are not necessary and sufficient conditions, but rather bundles of properties most of which are present (although they need not to) when we describe things as works of art. Cases where normal conditions are denied are also capable of being true in certain circumstances. So we can have “X is a work of art and exists only in the mind.” “X …and was made by accident when he spilled paint into the canvas.” Etc.
Obviously, if none of the conditions were present for recognizing something as a work of art in virtue of similarities, we would not describe it as one. But none of these is either necessary or sufficient.
Now, the problem with the evaluative notion of art is that instead of describing it praises. Although we may use art to praise, Weitz stresses that what cannot be maintained is that theories of evaluative use are real definitions of art. They are only definitions of chosen criteria which a critic personally decides to use in favor of a work. These honorific definitions only make Weitz’s argument stronger, because they prove, through their debates over the reasons for changing the criteria of a definition, that the concept of art remains open. Weitz writes:
“If we take aesthetic theories literally, as we have seen, they all fail; but if we reconstrue them, in terms of their function and point…we shall see that aesthetic theory is far from worthless.” (pp35)
There is a certain kind of pluralism in Weitz’s argument, which is inclusive of the different aesthetic theories, yet does not accept one exhaustive definition of art. So Weitz, diving into a pool of Wittgensteinian objects, all related transitively through a series of similarities, comes out of it as a non-essentialist about the concept of art. He argues against a definition because he finds it problematic in its practicality, empirical validity and lack of inclusiveness to new art works. Weitz, by pointing that what we do when we say, X is art, is give a description, also mentions that evaluative properties are used to give legitimacy to a work arbitrarily considered to be art. This arbitrariness and the debates going on between different philosophers who evaluate and try to define art are a strong proof to Weitz’s argument. Definitions change because there is no exhaustive definition of art, and once we understand this problem, all we can do is leave the concept open, describe art, and understand what a work is by virtue of its transitive similarities to other works.
Definition of Art: Essentialism, Anti-Essentialism and the Problem of Indiscernible Counterparts
Arthur Danto places the problem of indiscernible counterparts at the center of his argument in his book The Transfiguration of the Commonplace, a Philosophy of Art. He begins with a thought experiment which I find useful to lead us through this paper. There is an art exhibition with seven identical red squares framed and hanging on the walls of the museum. Danto establishes several claims about these squares : a) That five of those red squares are artworks, b) that those artworks are not only numerically different, they are also different in genres, such as a landscape, a work of abstract expressionism, an historical painting etc. c) Two of the squares are not artworks at all. These possibilities create a problem of indiscernible counterparts (PIC) which can be given the preliminary formulation:
PIC: What theory of art could adequately explain the possibilities illustrated in this thought experiment?
Finding a theory which would define art and explain all the possibilities of artworks has been the main goal of aesthetics. But first, why is a definition important? A definition is a statement of the necessary and sufficient properties of what is being defined. This statement has to prove its purpose of giving a true or false claim about the nature, or essence of art and what characterizes it from anything else. Many theorists sustain that unless we know what art is, we cannot begin to respond to it adequately or to say why one work is better than the other. So logically, a definition must satisfy the necessary and sufficient properties of the concept it is trying to define. In reality, defining art as a concept is problematic and sometimes even controversial. In this paper I introduce the problem of definition related to Aesthetics. I present Morris Weitz’s anti-essentialist approach to aesthetics with a question in mind; can it solve this thought experiment? I then present Arthur Danto’s essentialist definition of art which presents a solution to PIC as pictured in the though experiment.
I. Why a Definition?
In the past, philosophers have tried defining art by considering the properties of artworks. I summarize some of these theories to point to the problems they have rendered.
a) Mimetic Theories of Art
The first definition of art can be found in Aristotle’s “Rhetoric.” Here Aristotle defines art as mimetic, given that if imitates reality, and also as cathartic, given that it must produce a feeling of catharsis on its audience. Later, Plato in his Republic also states that art must have mimetic properties, because the arts represent or imitate reality. So with these two definitions, artworks become ontologically dependent on physical objects. To Plato, these objects were also ontologically dependent on the non-physical Forms. So it is the real objects which have more reality than the artworks, rendering this conditional (IT)
“If X is art then X is an imitation of reality” But this definition stopped being useful when the camera was invented and photography “captured” reality without having to “imitate” it. This is an example of how a definition becomes too narrow against the dynamics of artistic innovation. So IT becomes insufficient as a theory to define art.
b) Traditional Definitions of Art
Later, traditional definitions of art defined artworks through certain properties such as art being representational (when art imitates reality), expressive (when art expresses something) and formal (when art has a certain form or symmetry.) But if we try to put these conditions together as ones that an artwork must satisfy, it is evident that the definition is deficient.
“If X is representational or formal or expressive then X is art”
Because an instruction manual can also be a representation without being an artwork, and human faces and gestures are expressive without having to necessarily be artworks. Also, both natural objects and artifacts produced for craft or utility purposes have formal properties can even look symmetric, and yet they are not necessarily artworks.
II. Art without a Definition
Many philosophers, skeptic about finding a definition of art, have taken an anti-foundationalist approach based on Wittgenstein’s idea of “family resemblances .” Morris Weitz, in his article “The Role of Theory in Aesthetics” was the first to deny the importance of a definition for art . This anti-essentialist approach to aesthetics derived from Wittgenstein’s anti-essentialist approach to language found in Philosophical Investigations. Referring to language, Wittgenstein raised an illustrative question about the nature of a definition, “What is a game?” He wants to make us aware that although the traditional theoretical answer would be in terms of some exhaustive set of properties common to all games, there may be no properties common to all of these games. Instead, Wittgenstein provides a list of board games, card games, ball games, and asks if there is something common to them all. Despite the assumption that there must be something common to them or else they would not be called “games” what becomes evident is how all of these games have no single property in common. If we look and see weather a ball game, a card game and a board game have something common to them all, whether there are any necessary and sufficient properties to “game,” we realize there are none. All we may find are similarities and relationships between different games. Weitz, like Wittgenstein, points out the difference between describing and defining. He writes:
“Knowing what a game is is not knowing some real definition or theory but being able to recognize and explain games and to decide which among imaginary and new examples would or would not be called ‘games.” (pp.31)
The Wittgensteinian problem about the nature of games is just like the problem about the nature of art. If we look and see what it is that we call art, we will also find no common properties, only similarities. Knowing what art is has nothing to do with being able to define it, but rather with being able to describe it, recognize it and explain it in virtue of those similarities. While a definition would close a concept logically by providing its essential definitions, the characteristic of description is its open texture. We can correctly describe something as art by virtue of its similarities, but no exhaustive definition can be given.
To illustrate how art can be understood as an “open concept” without a definition, I will refer to the example Weitz uses when mentioning Joyce’s novel Finnegan’s Wake. Weitz asks, is Finnegan’s Wake a novel? The traditional way, in search for a definition that would permit us to answer yes or no, would construct this as a factual problem concerning necessary and sufficient properties. The new way, which avoids a definition, would have to decide weather the work is similar in certain respects to other works already called “novels.” As long as Finnegan’s Wake shares some, but not every similarity to other novels, then the concept of art can be extended to cover the new case. So this work is like recognized novels A and B in some respects, but not like them in others. But then, neither was B in some respects like A when a decision to extend the concept was made. Finnegan’s Wake standing as N+1 is similar to A and B in some respects, but not in others so the problem is not factual but rather one of decision making whether the verdict has to do with expanding the conditions as to apply to the new concept. Through Wittgenstein, Weitz notices how an exhaustive definition is not possible because it only closes a concept that should remain open. “Art itself is an open concept” (pp.32) he writes.
I now refer back to the red squares with this question: Would an anti-essentialist theory of art asses all the possibilities in the thought experiment efficiently? If we rely on “family resemblances” as a notion to guide us through the identification of artworks by virtue of their similarities with other works, we can see how this concept becomes deficient. We have seven red squares, all alike visually, and if we approach the thought experiment from this position, then all the squares would have to be considered artworks, given that they all share similar, if not identical properties. But it is the case that two of those red squares are not artworks, they are mere real squares with red paint. So an anti-essentialist approach does not take into account the problem of indiscernible objects (PIC) which would render some red squares to be artworks, such as A) and some such as C) which are squares with red paint, but not artworks. Weitz finds definitions to be problematic in their practicality, empirical validity and lack of inclusiveness to new art works. But his anti-essentialist approach is problematic, I believe, by being too inclusive.
If we base our identification of artworks on the idea of “family resemblances,” then we would logically have to include the squares with red paint which are not artworks into the category of artworks. These non-artworks would have to wrongly be considered as artworks because they share the exact visual properties as their indiscernible counterparts.
III. Art with an essentialist Definition
In relationship to the thought experiment, I explained why an anti-essentialist (AE) approach would not be able to solve PIC. With AE as a theory, we would not be able to say that the squares with red paint are not artworks. AE would assume that if one of those red squares is an artwork, then any square which is similar to a red square, or exactly alike, is also an artwork because they all share the same visual properties. So AE does not solve c) given that we have artworks and non-artworks which are exactly alike, thus, AE is insufficient (and too inclusive) to cover the possibilities of this thought experiment. It is evident then, that an anti-essentialist definition of art cannot adequately explain the possibilities in the thought experiment. What we need is a definition that would help us discern between the red squares considered artworks and the red squares that are not artworks. An essentialist theory of art, on the other hand, would offer a solution to c) and a response to PIC. Danto defines an artwork to have two necessary properties: meaning and embodiment . So x is art only if X has embodied meaning. The point here is that an object such as the red square depends on an essentialist theory for its existence as an artwork. Without essentialism, a reductionist of art would say that red square is just a red square and nothing more. But if the red square is logically dependent, and relies on theories of art, then it is detached as an object from the real world and becomes a part of the world of interpreted things; of an artworld. To Danto, an object o is an artwork only under an interpretation I, where I is a sort of function that transfigures o into a work. So I (o)=W. Then even if o is a perceptual constant, variations in I constitute different works. This form of identification is what Danto calls “the is of artistic identification” and it is closely related to the way we interpret a work of art as opposed to the way we would interpret a real object.
Taking this to the thought experiment, we can now say that there are red squares which have embodied meaning, such as those which have been “transfigured” into artworks and can be interpreted as being more than just objects. The squares in C) are squares painted in red; they are objects reduced to its physical properties and have no meaning as artworks. The squares in A) are artworks because they rely on an essentialist theory that lets us interpret them as such. PIC derives from Leibniz’s law of indiscernibility which states, in one of its versions, that:
“If for every property X, object X has F if and only if object Y has F, then X is identical to Y.”
Danto’s essentialism distinguishes between the manifest, visual properties of the red squares, and the essential, non-visual properties of the red squares considered as artworks to avoid Leibnitzian generality. The PIC that Danto poses can be understood with this formulation:
“X is an indiscernible counterpart (IC) of Y if and only if X and Y share all manifest properties.”
Two objects with the same visual property F can be identical, yet one of them is an artwork while the other is not. So if object X is not identical with object Y, then there must be a non-visual property F, such that X is F and Y is not F. We can see that at one level, the red squares share the same physical properties with their real counterparts. But at another level, some are art while some are not. This solution is similar to those who argue against reductionist accounts of identity for personhood. It would be like saying that a person is a material body and has a whole class of predicates which apply to material bodies. We cannot discover that a person is not a material body, just like we cannot say that these indiscernibles do not have the properties of real objects. They do. But the same way that personhood is more than just a material body (at least to those who are non-reductionists about the self) the red squares are also, more than just physical objects. In this paper I have summarized the most common definitions of art and the problems that these render. I have explained the problem that rise from finding a definition of art solely through the visual properties of artworks. I have also focused on essentialist and anti essentialist definitions of art to present how each theory would work under the thought experiment that pictures indiscernible counterparts (PIC.)
Sources
1) Danto, Arthur. “The Transfiguration of the Commonplace, A Philosophy of Art.” Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1981.
2) Danto, Arthur. “The Artworld.” The Journal of Philosophy. Vol.61, No. 19, 1964.
3) Mates, Benson. “The Philosophy of Leibniz” Oxford University Press. NY. 1986
4) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. “The Definition of Art.” Htpp://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ert-definition.
5) Weitz, Morris. “The Role of Theory in Aesthetics.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. Vol 15, No.1 (Sep. 1956) pp.27-35
6) Wittgenstein, Ludwing. “Philosophical Investigations.” Translated by G.E.M Anscombe. Macmillian Company. New York. 1958
7) Fisher, John Andrew. “Is there a problem with Indiscernible Counterparts? The Journal of Philosophy. Vol.92. Sept.1995
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