Philosophy Looks at the Arts
ed. Joseph Margolis
(Third Edition, 1987)
[29]
2. Aesthetic Concepts
FRANK SIBLEY
[orig. 1959]
The remarks we make about works of art are of many kinds. For the purpose of this paper I wish to indicate two broad groups. ... We say that a novel has a great number of characters ... ; that a painting uses pale colors ,... Such remarks may be made by, and such features pointed out to, anyone with normal eyes, ears, and intelligence. On the other hand, we also say that a poem is tightly knit or deeply moving ; that a picture lacks balance ,... It would be neutral enough to say that the making of such judgments as these requires the exercise of taste, perceptiveness, or sensitivity, of aesthetic discrimination or appreciation; one would not say this of my first group. ...
Aesthetic terms span a great range of types and could be grouped into various kinds of sub-species. But it is not my present purpose to attempt any such grouping; I am interested in what they all have in common. Their almost endless variety is adequately displayed in the following list: unified, balanced, integrated,... The list of course is not limited
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to adjectives; expressions in artistic contexts like telling contrast, sets up a tension, conveys a sense of, or holds it together are equally good illustrations. ...
I have gone for my examples of aesthetic expressions in the first place to critical and evaluative discourse about works of art because it is there particularly that they abound.
"...because it is there particularly (and not much of anywhere else) for which they exist..."
...is how I would have put it.
But... we employ terms the use of which requires an exercise of taste not only when discussing the arts but quite liberally throughout discourse in everyday life. ...many expressions do double duty even in everyday discourse, sometimes being used as aesthetic expressions and sometimes not. Other words... function only or predominantly as aesthetic terms;... graceful, delicate, dainty,... Finally, to make the contrast with all the preceding examples, there are many words which are seldom used as aesthetic terms at all: red, noisy, brackish, clammy,...
Clearly, when we employ words as aesthetic terms we are often making and using metaphors ,... Certainly also, many words have come to be aesthetic terms by some kind of metaphorical transference . ... But the aesthetic vocabulary must not be thought wholly metaphorical . Many words, including the most common... are certainly not being used metaphorically when employed as aesthetic terms, the very good reason being that this is their primary or only use, some of them having no current nonaesthetic use. And though expressions like "dynamic," "balanced," and so forth have come by a metaphorical shift to be aesthetic terms, their employment in criticism can scarcely be said to be more than quasi-metaphorical. Having entered the language of art description and criticism as metaphors they are now standard vocabulary in that language.
So, once upon a time, to call a piece of music dynamic was just a metaphor.
Things like oceans, markets, and schizophrenics could be
characterized by constant change, activity, or progress,
(Google)
(
or were they merely
positive in attitude and full of energy and new ideas?
)
but pieces of music didn't really "change" or "progress" as they went along. i.e. Perhaps in advance of much metaphorical transference which is now taken for granted, people didn't necessarily think about a piece of music as a process of "change" or "progress." Or maybe they always did, in which case "dynamic" was never a metaphor. I wouldn't know. I'm just trying to work through the argument above.
The only constant in life is change! Once you are hip to this platitude, "dynamic" can no longer be just a metaphor. But if you are in denial of this platitude, or if you lived in a time and place where the prevailing worldview strongly repressed awareness of change and just as strongly insisted on awareness of constancy, then it's possible (maybe) to imagine that for such a person the term "dynamic" could be a "metaphor" even when applied to a temporal artwork, i.e. to an artwork which is always "progressing" if not merely towards its own unremarkable completion.
Though "dynamic" may be a poorly chosen example for my purposes, it illustrates well enough the issue of certain founding metaphors having become standard vocabulary in the language of art description and criticism . I take the term "standard vocabulary" here to indicate neither a general/literal meaning nor a critico-foundational "metaphorical shift," but rather some other meaning(s) which developed within the (airless) world of "criticism" and also, I can only assume to a far lesser extent than is implied above, within the ostensibly broader but actually/probably exceedingly narrow world of mere "description." And of course this means that the otherwise overused-and-abused e-word is, for once, fair game.
... Often, it is true, people with normal intelligence and good eyesight and hearing lack, at least in some measure, the sensitivity required to apply them [aesthetic terms];...
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... It is over the application of aesthetic terms too that, notoriously, disputes and differences sometimes go helplessly unsettled. But almost everybody is able to exercise taste to some degree and in some matters. It is surprising therefore that aesthetic terms have been so largely neglected. ...
The foregoing has marked out the area I wish to discuss. One warning should perhaps be given. When I speak of taste in this paper, I shall not be dealing with questions which center upon expressions like "a matter of taste" (meaning, roughly, a matter of personal preference or liking). It is with an ability to notice or see or tell, that things have certain qualities that I am concerned.
Well ok,
the obvious tack is to take the list,
graceful,
delicate,
dainty,
handsome,
comely,
elegant,
garish,
and ponder whether these are
truly
there for the
noticing,
or
whether they are mere artifacts
of
personal preference
.
What do you think?
IIn order to support our application of an aesthetic term,
we often refer to features
the mention of which
involves
other aesthetic terms:
"it has an extraordinary vitality because of its free and vigorous style of drawing,"...It is as normal to do this
as
it is to justify one mental epithet by other epithets of the same general type,
intelligent by ingenious, inventive, acute,
and so on.But often when we apply aesthetic terms,
we explain why
by referring to features
which do not depend for their recognition
upon an exercise of taste:
"delicate because of its pastel shades and curving lines,"...When no explanation of this latter kind is offered,
it is legitimate to ask or search for one....aesthetic terms always ultimately apply because of,
and aesthetic qualities always ultimately depend upon,
the presence of features which...
are visible, audible, or otherwise discernible
without
any exercise of taste or sensibility.Whatever kind of dependence this is,...
what I want to make clear in this paper
is that
there are no nonaesthetic features
which service in any circumstances
as
logically sufficient conditions for[32]
applying aesthetic terms.
Aesthetic or taste concepts
are not in this respect
condition-governed
at all.
There is little temptation
to suppose that
aesthetic terms resemble words which,
like
"square,"
are applied
in accordance with
a set of necessary and sufficient conditions....aesthetic terms apply to widely varied objects;
one thing is graceful because of these features,
another because of those,...In recent times
philosophers
have broken the spell of
the strict necessary-and-sufficient model
by
showing that many everyday concepts are not of that type....since these newer models
provide satisfactory accounts
of many familiar concepts,
it might plausibly be thought
that
aesthetic concepts are of some such kind...I want to argue
that
aesthetic concepts differ radically
from any of these other concepts.
Amongst these concepts to which attention has recently been paid
are
those for which
no necessary-and-sufficient conditions can be provided,
but for which
there are a number of relevant features,
A, B, C, D, E,
such that
the presence of
some groups or combinations of these features
is sufficient
for the application of the concept...."dilatory," "discourteous," "possessive,"...
However,
with concepts of this sort,
although decisions may have to be made
and judgment exercised,
it is always possible to extract and state,
from cases which have already clearly been decided,
the sets of features or conditions
which
were regarded as sufficient in those cases.These relevant features
which I am calling conditions are,
it should be noted,
features which,
though not sufficient alone
and needing to be combined with other similar features,
nevertheless carry some weight
and
can count only in one direction.
Being a good chess player
can count only towards
and not against
intelligence. ...[33]
...what I want particularly to emphasize
about features which function as conditions for a term
is that
some group or set of them
is sufficient
fully
to ensure or warrant the application of that term. ...But aesthetic concepts
are not condition-governed
even in this way.There are no sufficient conditions,
no nonaesthetic features
such that
the presence of some set or number of them
will
beyond question
logically justify or warrant
the application
of
an aesthetic term. ...We are able to say
"If it is true he can do this,
and that,
and the other,
then one just cannot deny that he is intelligent,"...
but we cannot make
any general statement of the form
"If the vase is pale pink,
somewhat curving,
lightly mottled,
and so forth,
it will be delicate,
cannot but be delicate." ...No doubt there are
some respects in which
aesthetic terms
are governed
by conditions or rules.
For instance,
it may be impossible
that
a thing should be garish
if
all its colors are pale pastels,
or flamboyant
if
all its lines are straight.
There may be, that is,
descriptions
using only nonaesthetic terms
which are
incompatible with
descriptions employing certain aesthetic terms. ...
I do not wish to deny
therefore
that taste concepts
may be governed negatively
by conditions.
What I am emphasizing
is
that they quite lack[34]
governing conditions of a sort
many other concepts possess. ...
I have said that
if an object is characterized
solely
by certain sorts of features
this may count decisively against
the possibility of applying to it
certain aesthetic terms.But of course
the presence of
some such features
need not count decisively;
other features
may be enough to outweigh those...One can find
general features or descriptions
which
in some sense
count in one direction only,
only for or only against
the application
of certain aesthetic terms. ...This is shown by the naturalness of saying,
for example,
that someone is graceful
because she's so light,
but
in spite of being quite angular or heavily built;
and
by the corresponding oddity
of saying that something is graceful
because it is so heavy or angular,
or delicate
because of its bright and intense coloring. ...Although there is this sense in which slimness, lightness, lack of intensity of color, and so on, count only towards not against, delicacy, these features, I shall say, at best count only typically or characteristically towards delicacy; they do not count towards in the same sense as condition-features count towards laziness or intelligence; that is, no group of them is ever logically sufficient.
One way of reinforcing this
is to notice
how features
which
are characteristically associated with
one aesthetic term
may
also be similarly associated with
other and rather different aesthetic terms."Graceful" and "delicate" may be
on the one hand
sharply contrasted with
terms like "violent," "grand," "fiery,"......on the other hand
"graceful" and "delicate"
may also be contrasted with
aesthetic terms which
stand much closer to them,
like "flaccid," "weakly," "washed out,"...
; and
the range of features
characteristic of these qualities,...
is virtually identical with
the range for "delicate" and "graceful." ...[35]
...an object
which is described
very fully, but exclusively
in terms of
qualities characteristic of delicacy,
may turn out
on inspection
to be not delicate at all,
but anaemic or insipid.The failures
of novices and the artistically inept
prove
that quite close similarity
in point of line, color, or technique
gives no assurance
of gracefulness or delicacy.
Well,
(says captain obvious)
what is
failure
?
More importantly,
what is
assurance
?
Assurance is,
among other things,
the overlap on the Venn Diagram
between
popular art and conceptual art.
i.e.
It is the imposition of an
aesthetic concept
with such force
("laying it on with a trowel")
that
failure is not an option;
or
it is the similarly forceful imposition
of
something else
("hammering home the point")
so as to bypass or preempt
a properly "aesthetic" reception;
or
(most effectively and worthily, I would say)
it is the application of "minimum force", as in Sennett's formulation:
effectively using an ambiguity forces its maker to think about economy. Ambiguity and economy seem unlikely bedfellows, but they take their place in the larger family of craft practices if we think of creating ambiguity as a special instance of applying minimum force.
(Sennett, The Craftsman, 234)
The trowel, the hammer, and the cleaver all come,
oddly enough,
to the same thing:
they awaken System 2;
at which point we are,
it could be argued in terms such as Sibley's or Beardlsey's,
railroaded into a certain kind of aesthetic experience which just happens to involve a lot of thinking
(precisely the kind of thinking that their papers betoken!),
whether that be a matter
of
disentangling ambiguity,
of
grasping some point,
or
of
being like
"OKAY OKAY OKAY HOLY SHIT GODDAMN...!"
Assurance
is one of the rare things that arch conceptualists have in common with some (but only some) aestheticists. Assurance is working backward from effect to cause
as described by McLuhan.
Didacticism, e.g., is also a species of assurance. And, for Sibley here, it seems clear enough from the wording (although it is not stated explicitly) that assurance is ham-handed.
The artistically inept
cannot fail to get the memo
only if the memo is "laid on with a trowel."
Like, if you have to shout at x decibels to get a child of y intelligence to behave, then you have to shout at x+x1 decibels at a child y-y1
Assurance is what is sought by those who seek control. It would not be surprising to find that the need for control underlies any or all of the above species of assurance (although it could be hard to prove).
A failure and a success
in the manner of Degas
may be generally more alike,
so far as their nonaesthetic features go,
than either is like a successful Fragonard.But it is not necessary
to go even this far
to make my main point.A painting
which has
only the kind of features
one would associate
with vigor and energy
but which
even so
fails to be vigorous and energetic
need not have
some other character,
need not
be instead, say,
strident or chaotic.It may fail to have
any particular character whatever. ...
There are of course
many features
which do not in these ways
characteristically count for (or against)
particular aesthetic qualities.
One poem has strength and power
because of the regularity of its meter and rhyme;
another is monotonous and lacks drive and strength
because of its regular meter and rhyme.We do not
feel the need to switch
from "because of"
to "in spite of."However,
I have concentrated upon features
which are characteristically associated with
aesthetic qualities
because,
if a case could be made
for the view
that taste concepts
are in any way governed
by sufficient conditions,
these
would seem to be
the most promising candidates
for governing conditions.But
to say that features are associated
only characteristically
with an aesthetic term
is to say that
they can never amount to sufficient conditions ;...
It is important to observe, however,
that in this paper
I am not merely claiming
that no sufficient conditions
can be stated for taste concepts.For if this were all,
taste concepts might not be
after all
really different
from one kind of concept recently discussed.
They could be accommodated
perhaps with those concepts
which Professor H. L. A. Hart has called
"defeasible" ; it is a characteristic
of defeasible concepts
that we cannot state
sufficient conditions for them
because,
for any sets we offer,
there is always
an (open) list of defeating conditions
any of which might rule out[36]
the application of the concept .
The most we can say schematically
for a defeasible concept
is that, for example,
A, B, and C together
are sufficient for the concept to apply
unless some feature is present
which overrides or voids them.But,
I want to emphasize,
the very fact
that we can say this sort of thing
shows that we are still
to that extent
in the realm of conditions.The features governing defeasible concepts
can ordinarily count only one way,
either for or against.To take Hart's example,
"offer" and "acceptance"
can count only towards
the existence of a valid contract,
and
fraudulent misrepresentation, duress, and lunacy
can count only against. ...[But] We could not conclude even in certain circumstances,
e.g.,
if we were told of the absence
of all "voiding" or uncharacteristic features
(no angularities, and the like),
that an object must certainly be graceful,
no matter how fully it was described to us
as possessing features characteristic of gracefulness.... Many concepts, including most of the examples I have used (intelligent, and so on, above), are much more thoroughly open and complex than my illustrations suggest. Not only may there be an open list of relevant conditions; it may be impossible to give precise rules...
...we may have to abandon as futile any attempt to describe or formulate anything like a complete set of precise conditions or rules, and content ourselves with giving only some general account of the concept, making reference to samples or cases or precedents. ...
For to exhibit a mastery of one of these concepts we must be able to go ahead and apply the word correctly to new individual cases, at least to central ones; and each new case may be a uniquely different object,...
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... In dealing with these new cases mechanical rules and procedures would be useless; we have to exercise our judgment, guided by a complex set of examples and precedents. Here then there is a marked superficial similarity to aesthetic concepts. ... Neither kind of concept admits of a simply "mechanical" employment.
But this is only a superficial similarity. It is at least noteworthy that in applying words like "lazy" or "intelligent" to new and unique instances we say that we are required to exercise judgment ; it would be indeed odd to say that we are exercising taste . ...
To profit by precedents we have to understand them; and we must argue consistently from case to case. This is the very function of precedents. Thus it is possible, even with these very loosely condition-governed concepts, to take clear or paradigm cases of X and to say "this is X because . . ." and follow it up with an account of features which logically clinch the matter.
Nothing like this is possible with aesthetic terms. ...
When, with a clear case of something which is in fact graceful or balanced or tightly knit, someone tells me why it is, what features make it so, it is always possible for me to wonder whether, in spite of these features, it really is graceful, balanced, and so on. No such features logically clinch the matter.
The point I have argued may be reinforced in the following way.
A man who failed to realize the nature of aesthetic concepts, or someone who, knowing he lacked sensitivity in aesthetic matters, did not want to reveal this lack might by assiduous application and shrewd observation provide himself with some rules and generalizations;
and by inductive procedures and intelligent guessing, he might frequently say the right things. But he could have no great confidence or certainty;...
[38]
... Though he sometimes says the right thing, he has not seen, but guessed, that the object is delicate. However intelligent he might be, we could easily tell him wrongly that something was delicate and "explain" why without his being able to detect the deception. ...
In other words, we could write an annotated program or give a pre-concert talk.
But if we did the same with, say, "intelligent" he could at least often uncover some incompatibility or other which would need explaining.
In other words, we could advertise the portending annotations along with the concert notice itself, and we could therein tell the audience what they will think after they have been told what to think.
In a world of beings like himself he would have no use for concepts like delicacy.
Show of hands, who has use for concepts like delicacy ?
As it is, these concepts would play a quite different role in his life. He would, for himself, have no more reason to choose tasteful objects, pictures, and so on, than a deaf man would to avoid noisy places. He could not be praised for exercising taste; at best his ingenuity and intelligence might come in for mention. In "appraising" pictures, statuettes, poems, he would be doing something quite different from what other people do when they exercise taste.
Snarkiness aside, this is all rather astounding. It is as if taste has been collapsed into description.
Frankly, as a college freshman I occasionally felt rather like this hypothetical "man," struggling to find my way inductively to an understanding of what the fuck someone was saying about some justly-forgotten piece of music.
e.g. The "momentum" and "inevitability of the cadence" has remained foreign to me even having been beaten over the head with it for several years. I did not grow up in a world where the cadence was inevitable. This certainly did not stop me from liking classical music nor from wanting to play it. Of course Dr. Damschroeder, if I recall, didn't say much at all about liking or disliking, or about verbal description. What he did say (repeatedly) was that we were learning to "perform this music properly." And that is something else, eh? That is indeed the way of someone who lacked sensitivity in matters of "interpretation" and did not want to reveal this lack with improprieties of concertization. That is a ritual beheading of intuition by calculation, with the scalp displayed like a trophy outside the Big Man's hut. That is the closing-off of an open-ended process of discovery. Instead, you get either propriety or a bad grade on your transcript.
Via induction, I would conclude that "momentum" just means you get louder and sway a little more noticeably. If you're a pianist you rock your head back slightly; flutists bat their eyelashes; cellists sway; clarinetists conduct with the clarinet as if it were a baton; etc. If you're enough of an ironist and a virtuoso and you have the luxury of assuming that a majority of your audience will "get it," then you can invert the momentum, get softer, straighten up and withdraw into your chair as the "inevitable" cadence arrives with a whimper. By assiduous application and shrewd observation you too can provide yourself with some rules and generalizations . You can make some solid back-of-the-napkin calculations about the structual importance of each change of harmony simply by observing the affected mannerisms of the cats who got the gigs.
By now I am of course at risk of post facto revisionism. I do recall for certain that I eventually landed on the metaphor of a person pulling a piece of string in front of a cat hoping it will chase. That seemed to me to be the level on which all of this supposed concern with "proper" performance and appreciation was operating. With dozens of cadences in each movement, the routine quickly becomes unbearable. Eventually the cat either gets bored or catches on...and stops chasing.
Another really galling thing about this milieu, not so much where I went to school but in the tuba events I attended outside of school, was that the taste-as-description mode also has found a pedagogical home, apparently, in the studio and masterclass environment, where it masquerades as a big-brained, open-minded concern with the bigger picture.
At this point I want to notice in passing that there are times when it may look as if an aesthetic word could be applied according to a rule. ...
One might say, in using "delicate" of glassware perhaps, that the thinner the glass, other things being equal, the more delicate it is.
...someone might formulate a rule and follow it in applying the word to a given range of articles. ...
If someone did merely follow a rule we should not say he was exercising taste, and we should hesitate to admit that he had any real notion of delicacy until he satisfied us that he could discern it in other instances where no rule
[39]
was available.
...there is still no reason to think we are dealing with a logical entailment.
It must not be thought that the impossibility of stating any conditions (other than negative) for the application of aesthetic terms results from an accidental poverty or lack of precision in language,...
...if we were to give special names much more liberally than either we or even the specialists do... it would still be impossible, and for the same reasons, to supply any conditions.
We do indeed, in talking about a work of art, concern ourselves with its individual and specific features. We say that it is delicate not simply because it is in pale colors but because of those pale colors,...
But it is obvious that even with the help of precise names,... any attempt to state conditions would be futile.
After all, the very same feature, say a color or shape or line of a particular sort, which helps make one work may quite spoil another. ...
...
[40]
...
One after another, in recent discussions, writers have insisted that aesthetic judgments are not "mechanical":... "Technical points can be settled rapidly, by the application of rules," but aesthetic questions "cannot be settled by any mechanical method."
Instead, these writers on aesthetics have emphasized that there is no "substitute for individual judgment" with its "spontaneity and speculation" and that "The final standard . . . [is] the judgment of personal taste."
What is surprising is that, though such things have been repeated again and again, no one seems to have said what is meant by "taste" or by the word "mechanical."
There are many judgments besides those requiring taste which demand "spontaneity" and "individual judgment" and are not "mechanical." Without a detailed comparison we cannot see in what particular way aesthetic judgments are not "mechanical," or how they differ from those other judgments, nor can we begin to specify what taste is. This I have attempted.
It is a characteristic and essential feature of judgments which employ an aesthetic term that they cannot be made by appealing, in the sense explained, to nonaesthetic conditions. ...
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...
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