Haig Khatchadourian—Art-Names and Aesthetic Judgments

Haig Khatchadourian
Art-Names and Aesthetic Judgments
Philosophy, Vol. 36, No. 136 (Jan., 1961), pp. 30-48

[SK's comments]

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I

IN an earlier paper
I have attempted to show,
among other things,
that the names (primarily) of

human artifacts

and

man-devised activities and processes

involve in their uses
the notion of
some

end-in-view,

function,

or use

(more or less different in the case of different names),
which partially regulates these uses.

In this paper I shall limit myself to a somewhat detailed discussion of one very important class of such common names which requires a separate treatment.

I mean art-names.

The term "use"
is not ordinarily used
in connection with works of art;

...

But what is generally meant ... is that [artworks] have no

practical

uses.

Speaking of uses,
one recalls T. S. Eliot's title
"The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism";
and this use of "use" does not sound peculiar or strained.

Still, we usually find it more appropriate to speak of

purpose,

end,

and

intention

in connection with works of art.

Accordingly,
we shall speak of the notion of

a specific kind of end- or purpose-in-view,

instead of the notion of

a specific kind of use,

as implicit in the ordinary uses (or meanings) of "work of art" ...

That

a notion of purpose
which the work is
regarded as intended to realize
in being a work of art

is involved in our ordinary uses of art-names,
is seen
by

considering the way in which we talk about so-called paintings, novels, poems, sculpture, and the like.

E.g.

(I)
(a) "What sort of poem is this?
It leaves me cold";
"This is a poor poem:
it has made no impression at all on me";
"This isn't a good poem:
it didn't affect me at all".

(b) "What a fine novel!
It is so gripping!"
(or "It is so exciting, so full of suspense!" etc.);
"This is a very good poem:
it is so moving";
"This is a great poem:
it moves one to the depths of one's soul;
it evokes the profoundest emotions".

(II)
(a) "This is not a painting but blobs of paint on a canvas—it lacks all unity"
(or "It is disorganized, chaotic; it lacks a unified theme", etc.);

(b) "This is certainly a good short story:
it has unity of plot,
it develops with an inner necessity,
its theme is worked out with great

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skill;
it moves swiftly and surely to a climax;
nothing in it is superfluous—every word, every action, every scene contributes to the total effect".

The judgments in (I) (a) and (b),
and similar judgments which we constantly make
and hear others make

about things called paintings, novels, poems, and so forth,
indicate,
first,
that
we ordinarily

hesitate or even refuse

to apply the name "work of art",

without qualifying it

by the epithets "poor" or "not good",

to "works" which seem to be

incapable of producing

some kind of effect

or other in the spectator or hearer;

and
that
we apply the name "work of art"

without qualification

by "poor" and the such
(or, instead, qualified by the opposite epithets "good", "very good", etc.),
to "works"

which seem to be capable

of producing some kind of effect or other in the spectator or hearer.

(The

kind or kinds of effects,

the notion of which seems to be implicit in the ordinary uses of art-names,
we shall henceforth call

the "aesthetic experience"

.)

Second,
(a) and (b) in (II) above, and similar judgments, indicate that we hesitate or even refuse to apply the name "work of art"

—or only apply it qualified by such epithets as "poor" or "not good"—

to "works"
which

seem to lack

certain kinds of formal characteristics;

and that we apply the name to "works" which seem to possess these kinds of characteristics.¹

---

¹ We apply "work of art" to "works" mostly when we assume that they are capable of producing an aesthetic effect but are not concerned with the degree or extent of this effect.

We qualify "work of art" by "good" or "poor", or by similar value terms, when we are assessing or judging the degree or extent of the effect that a work is regarded as capable of producing.

However, "work of art", with emphasis on "art", is also used as a value term, as equivalent to "good work (of art)". On the other hand, we ordinarily hesitate to say "poor work of art",

though we do say: "X is poor or bad art".

"Work of art", or perhaps "art" in this expression,

seems to have a laudatory meaning,

to involve the notion of achievement

—to borrow the term from W. B. Gallie ["Art as an Essentially Contested Concept", Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 23 (April 1956)]. [Paywalled!]

Thus it would be odd if not self-contradictory to say: "Bad or poor work of art."

---

For example,
in the celebrated case of Brancusi's "Bird in Space",
the United States Customs officials who refused to regard the work as a piece of sculpture, as a work of art, are reported to have justified their judgment by saying
something to the effect that

a hunter wouldn't shoot at it if he saw it;

i.e. that it did not look like a bird.

In this case, the reason or ground for the judgment is the absence of certain formal characteristics in the thing judged.

In other cases, analysis of actual critical judgments shows that the ground for one's calling, or of refusing to call, a given thing a work of art, is the belief that the given thing is capable, or is incapable of producing, respectively, an "aesthetic experience" in the hearer or spectator.

Sometimes, however, the reason is mixed, or combines both modes of justification:
appeal is made both to formal characteristics possessed

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or lacked by the given thing, and also to the actual or possible effects it produces or fails to produce in the hearer or spectator.

Our first thesis,
therefore,
is that

the notion of (some kind of) end-in-view

is implicit in

the uses or meaning of "work of art",

which in ordinary discourse broadly regulates the term's application.

If a given thing actually exhibits or seems capable of exhibiting a certain end-in-view or possesses a certain kind or certain kinds of affections,

the name would be given

to it;

otherwise it would be withheld,

or is applied but only with certain qualifications.

But this is not quite correct as it stands.

At the minimum,
there is the difference
between
those

notions

which are merely

implicit in

some

uses or meaning

and those
on which basis

the name would be given

.

For one thing,
and as in the case of other artifacts such as cars and clothes,

the application or the withholding of the name "work of art" in the kinds of cases stated above,
i.e. where some kind(s) of affection(s) is (are) exhibited or not exhibited,
is also determined by

the judge's estimate of

the nature of the prevailing causal conditions

—by whether these conditions are

"Standard" or "Non-standard"

conditions.

These conditions,
in the case of works of art,
we shall call
"Standard Conditions of Aesthetic Perception"
and
"Non-standard Conditions of Aesthetic Perception",
respectively,

using the term "aesthetic perception" in a wide sense,
as

a synonym of the traditional "contemplation".

(a) Like all other artifacts,
so-called works of art,
generally speaking,

cannot exhibit their particular end(s)-in-view,

cannot function as works of art

(or cannot produce an aesthetic experience),

in the absence of

certain minimal environmental causal conditions.

Is this just a very wordy tautology?

If the intended

exhibit,

function,

or

product

is not in evidence,
how to argue that the

conditions

were, in fact, of the required type?

Or, is our account of the "conditions" simply determined after the fact?

In order that a "work of art" may be

sensibly

and therefore aesthetically

perceived

by the hearer or spectator,
certain physical conditions have to be present.

Previously,

aesthetic perception

was stipulated to mean

a synonym of the traditional "contemplation"

.

Perhaps the range of

physical conditions

which permits this is not unlimited;

but whatever could be 'necessary and sufficient' here?

Does the "traditional" aesthetic notion of "contemplation" in fact presume such conditions as Our Man has in mind?

Or, do we simply "contemplate" whatever is

given

?

A "painting", a "sculpture", a "cathedral"

has to be seen—

and under

certain lighting conditions

which may vary even from one work to another,
depending on its general and specific natures—from certain angles and a certain range of distances.

Also, in order that it may be sensibly
(but more especially, aesthetically)
perceived,

certain psychological conditions

have to be present:

the hearer or spectator must be in a certain mental state, frame of mind, or mood:

what,
in the case of the auditory arts we call
a "listening mood".

Well, is "contemplation" not itself a

psychological

concept, through and through?

If so, then this is the same kind of tautology as that of "conditions" above.

Certainly one would expect "conditions" to have an outsized role in determining

mood

per se.

But what is there to say about this besides that which is obvious?

And in some cases,
especially in the case of so-called modern works,

a special training or orientation,

some technical knowledge,

or

previous art-experience

may also be necessary.

Shall we also call these "psychological conditions"?

Shall we say that

so-called modern

artists intended this,
just as "traditional" artists purportedly intended their

cathedrals

to be seen

under certain conditions

?

Similarly a "poem" or a "short story" has to be read under certain very broad and flexible physical and psychological conditions (in a certain "atmosphere");

and a "symphony" or a "sonata" has to be heard under certain general acoustic conditions, in a broadly-defined kind of "atmosphere".

Besides these minimal general physical and psychological conditions, requisite in the case of works of art in general, and the more specific conditions requisite in the case of works of different

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art forms (plastic or temporal works), certain even more specific conditions may be requisite

—conditions peculiar to the specific genre or even the individual nature of a work—

in order that a "work" may exhibit or be actually capable of exhibiting the intended end-in-view.

In other words, these

more specific kinds of standard conditions

of aesthetic perception

become relevant

mainly
where
the applicability or inapplicability
of

the more specific names,

such as "sculpture", "poem", "cathedral",
and more so,
"Greek statue", "lyric poem", "Gothic cathedral",
rather than the very general "work of art",
are concerned.

Well, just suppose that the rage to

name

can be eased just a bit.

Does this perhaps cause our vaunted "conditions" to

become

quite a bit less

relevant

?

Or, conversely,
what is really the problem with failing to "name" the art-object in accordance with tendencies revealed under

standard conditions

?

And/or, bringing yet further skepticism to bear,
do we "name" a "cathedral" one thing during daylight hours and something else during the night? I think not.

(b) Besides the conditions which are absolutely necessary for the aesthetic perception of a work of art at all
and
for a work's

actually being able

to exhibit its intended end-in-view

(conditions which are mainly if not entirely physical),

there are other conditions, which though not absolutely necessary, are requisite for

a full perception

of a work.

These conditions, generally speaking, are at the same time the conditions which enable a work to

exhibit most effectively

its intended end-in-view,
to produce the maximum effect,
to evoke the richest aesthetic experience it is capable of producing or evoking.

For convenience, we shall call these conditions the "most favourable" or "optimum" conditions of aesthetic perception.

It should be added that our "Standard Conditions of Aesthetic Perception" is intended to cover conditions of both types, (a) and (b).

In this brief sketch

we cannot enter into

the complex question
of the nature of aesthetic experience,

Looks like you're already

in

it, my man!

of the kinds of effects which constitute the end-in-view of things called works of art, as implicit in our ordinary uses of art-names

—assuming that in ordinary discourse these effects are sufficiently defined to enable us to distinguish them.

Nor can we attempt to distinguish the "aesthetic experience" or "aesthetic effects" from other kinds of experiences, effects or affections.

We are here using "aesthetic experience", "aesthetic effects"and "aesthetic affection"
merely to indicate in a general way
that
the notion of

a certain complex but more or less specific

kind of experience,

effect or affection
—which we have labelled "aesthetic" for purposes of reference—
is

implicit in the ordinary uses of art-names.

Not only is this not what was said above,
it is, also, impossible to believe.

(We might add that the aim of the entire present paper is simply to give a more or less bare general outline to be filled in in subsequent studies.)

Fortunately, such a study is not absolutely essential here;
though it would definitely give substance and concreteness to many of the things we shall be speaking about, particularly in Parts II and III.

Still, we might briefy note,
first,
that aesthetic effects may be emotional or intellectual or both;
and
second,
that there seems to be one more specific kind of effect which under standard conditions is expected of anything ordinarily called

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a work of art or, more specifically, a poem, a painting, etc., whatever other kinds of effects it may also be expected to produce or may actually be capable of producing.

This effect is

pleasure

and the affection is pleasurableness.

The really interesting word here is

expected

.

Indeed, people do "expect pleasure" from art, but once again, it is another question entirely whether "expectation" plays any role (or what role it does play) in concept formation.

Whatever the nature of aesthetic experiences may be in this or that particular case, there is a demand dictated by ordinary usage that they shall include or involve pleasure;
otherwise the experiences would ordinarily not be called aesthetic experiences.

Whether the work is a tragedy by Sophocles, a comedy by Molière, a novel by Balzac, a quartet by Bartok, or a sculpture by Rodin, we implicitly expect it, by the very fact that we call it a work of art or a tragedy, comedy, novel, and the like, to give us pleasure.¹

---

¹ We should mention here that the affections which are implicitly involved in the uses of art-names, except in so far as they all seem to include an element of pleasurableness, are probably not related other than by criss-crossing "family resemblances".

Moreover, this pleasurableness itself is understood so broadly and indefinitely in the ordinary uses of art-names that it constitutes only a thin link between different sorts of affections, and allows very great flexibility.

It also allows the almost indefinite extension of the notion of an "aesthetic experience"—and hence of the notion of work of art—so that new kinds of affections and new kinds of artifacts and sensible devices which are capable of producing one or another of these affections can be added to the list of genres of one and the same art, and even to the list of the arts: as has constantly happened in the history of art.

This flexibility in the notion of art makes it impossible to give a final description or definition of art in terms of kinds of formal characteristics or of kinds of affections;

but at the same time it makes it possible to include new kinds of artifacts and emotional or intellectual affections under the embracing notion of art.

---

The tragedy may move us to tears, indignation, pity, terror;
we may suffer with Electra or sigh with Hamlet or be "wrought to the extreme" with Othello;
but the total effect of the work should never be one of boredom or ennui
(i.e. negatively, the absence of pleasure):

though it is not essential—perhaps it is not even possible—to experience the pleasure exactly simultaneously with the tragic emotions of "pity and terror", as the performance unfolds.

It is precisely this demand that makes the psychological problem of how a tragedy can give us pleasure despite the other—and apparently antithetical—feelings or emotions it evokes, a genuine and serious aesthetic problem.

That the notion of pleasure is involved even in the case of tragedy is indicated by the way we talk about our reactions to a performance of a work of this kind.

We do say, it seems to me, that we have enjoyed, or have not enjoyed, say, King Lear, after being at a performance of the play.

If a person says he has not enjoyed King Lear,
we ordinarily infer that

(a) the conditions under which he watched the play were not "standard conditions".
For example,
that the tragedy was poorly performed, or that the speaker himself had been tired, not in the mood, etc.;
or that

(b) the speaker's tastes are

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crude and/or that he did not understand the work;
or

that both (a) and (b) were the case.

And so on.

But

we would not think

that the reason why the speaker did not enjoy King Lear was that the latter

is not intended,

as a work of art,
to produce pleasure,
to be enjoyed;

that the enjoyment or non-enjoyment of the tragedy is irrelevant to its being a work of art.

Interesting turn here.

By 'interesting', I mean:

in and of itself it is a base sophism;

yet it raises a worthy question which otherwise goes unnoticed :

would we not think

that the reason why

someone does

enjoy

a play
is that it is

intended

to produce pleasure

?

This may, maybe,
in fact be "the reason";
but
I know that I myself do not "think" this,
hence I can only "think"
that "we" also do not "think" this.

Human beings do not often think the reason.

There is really nothing novel or skeptical in saying this.

Rather, this is simply the immediate fact to be reckoned with.

Qua work of art,
we regard it as intended to give pleasure,
though qua work of art
of a certain kind called tragedy,
we may regard it as (also) intended to evoke (say) "pity and terror".

If what we have said so far is true,
it will not be difficult to see
what role such terms as

"good", "very good", "excellent", "magnificent", on the one hand, and "poor", "very poor", "awful", on the other hand,
play in aesthetic judgments.

Well, do any

terms

play

a

role

in aesthetic judgments

?

Their role seems, rather, to be description and communication of said "judgments".

Formation is necessarily something else.

Briefly,
a work of art is ordinarily called a "good work of art",
under what are regarded as standard conditions
(in the sense of the optimum conditions),
if

(1) it is regarded as exhibiting, or as capable of exhibiting, in an eminent degree, any one or more of the sorts of affections implicit in the uses of "work of art".

That is, a work is said to be a good work if it is regarded as having, or as capable of having, a so-called strong effect on the hearer or spectator;

of evoking, or as capable of evoking, an intense aesthetic experience.

This is especially so if the effect produced is lasting or is regarded as lasting.

(2) Alternatively and correspondingly,
the work is called a good work if it is believed to possess formal characteristics which enable it to exhibit the above affections in an eminent degree or to produce a strong aesthetic effect.

It is true that formal characteristics in a poem, a painting, a sculpture, may be valued for their own sake;
as also sheer technical skill.

Also, that different formal characteristics have been prized in different periods and ages.

But technical skill is generally condemned as mere virtuosity if it is regarded as artistically insignificant;
if,
that is,
it is not regarded as contributing to the creation, in the hearer or spectator, of certain sorts of effects said to be aesthetic effects.

As for the prizing of formal characteristics for their own sake,
apart from the effects they produce,
or are thought capable of producing,
this may be due either to the application to art of an already-present theory of art—such as the Classical or the Romantic theory—or to some view which regards certain formal characteristics as inherently satisfying or pleasurable.

But in the case of any aesthetic view which is worthy of the name, the final aesthetic justification of the valuations made on its basis is the nature of the effect or effects these characteristics produce.

It is a commonplace of the history of art that art which conforms to a priori canons turned into hallowed dogma

—like the classical division of tragedy into five acts or the observance of the so-called unities of action, place and time—

without regard to the aesthetic effects intended to be realized by

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conforming to these canons:
i.e. to whether these canons are aesthetically beneficial or harmful,

soon degenerates into mediocrity.

Similarly,
the question of whether or not a given work, say Tolstoy's War and Peace, has, for example, structural unity, must be decided in the final analysis by whether or not the work produces a unified total effect, and not by appeal to what novelists have so far been doing, or what has so far been regarded as structural unity.

What now is the significance of our above qualification
"under standard (optimum) conditions"
in our analysis of the use of "good work (of art)"?

Its significance lies in the fact that
a work
which

does not actually produce

the kinds of effects we have been talking about

will not necessarily be denied

the appellation "good work of art"
(and instead, be called a 'poor" or a "very poor" work, or even "trash" and not art at all),

if and when

the conditions under which it is seen or heard

are not regarded as standard

(even if the conditions which are absent are only the optimum conditions and not those which are absolutely necessary)
for its aesthetic perception.

Thus
we do not normally condemn a given musical work as a poor work or as poor music if it fails to move us in the absence of conditions ordinarily regarded as requisite for properly listening to music:

if,
for instance,
there is a great deal of commotion in the concert hall or outside it, or (even if only) the seats in the hall are uncomfortable and the lights are glaring.

Similarly we will not condemn a given painting, which fails to make an impression on us, as a poor work or poor painting if we are examining it in dim light, or under lights which alter its natural colours (the colours it has under ordinary white light), such as red or yellow light.

Similarly, mutatis mutandis, with plays.

Plays

are almost universally—if not universally—regarded as

things to be seen performed

and

not merely to be read.

This applies to plays in general,
though not necessarily to every single play.

A play may be intended by its author to be a "closet play".

In that case its performance is not a standard condition for its aesthetic perception,
and we can legitimately dismiss it as a poor play if it fails to move us when we read it.

Also,
though many plays
(and we ordinarily think, all "good plays")
are more effective on the stage than in print, this may not be the case in a given instance.

That is, performance is not an absolutely fixed and universal standard condition, but only a standard condition generally speaking.

(This illustrates

the flexibility and variability

of so-called optimum standard conditions.)

Also, a play may be so defective, structurally speaking

—it may have no consistent plot, for instance;
or its characters may be stiff and lifeless—

that even an inexperienced reader can tell that it is a poor play;
i.e. that it would be ineffective if performed.

But note that in many cases where performance is not essential for one to tell a good play from a

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poor one,
performance is not really eschewed as a standard causal condition and as a standard condition for the applicability of "good work of art";

it is actually made use of

in imagination.

A sensitive and experienced reader may imagine a given play being performed,
and

does not have to wait

until he sees the play actually performed to pass judgment on it.

But the chief points in our present discussion are,
one,
that we will not condemn a play as poor art
(and certainly not as "trash" rather than art)
if it does not move the judge under environmental conditions which are non-standard.

A work is regarded as a poor work or even as "trash" and not art at all, only if it is ineffective under conditions which are regarded as standard conditions—or if it possesses characteristics which are regarded as detrimental to its producing an aesthetic effect even under standard conditions.

The second main point is that

it is rarely, if ever,

that a person can

judge how good or how poor a play is

unless and until

he sees it performed. As we have said before, consideration of the standard (optimum) conditions for a given work's aesthetic perception is necessary for determining the extent or degree of the work's goodness or badness, as well as for its broad valuation as good or poor (above average or below average).

Similarly,
mutatis mutandis,
with novels, paintings, and so on.

This brings us to
the second part of our analysis
of "good work of art".

Apart from the cases mentioned above, a work may be called a good (or even a very good or an excellent) work of art if it is thought to be capable of producing an aesthetic effect (especially a strong effect) if and when the prevailing conditions are non-standard (in the sense of unfavourable) conditions for works of art in general, and more importantly, for the particular work involved.

Secondly, a work may be called a good work if it is regarded as possessing formal characteristics which would enable it to produce an aesthetic effect even under non-standard (unfavourable) conditions.

Thus we regard a work as good or very good art if it literally

"compels attention",

if it is effective even under conditions which render many works completely or almost completely ineffective;
or if it "casts a spell" on the hearer or spectator despite distracting conditions.

We have mentioned that generally speaking the hearer or spectator has to be in what is called the right mood for seeing or hearing a given work,
and
that being in the "right mood" is a standard condition for the aesthetic perception of a work of art.

That is why we do not normally expect a cheerful work, such as a military march, to cheer up a man whose wife has just died;

nor do we expect a funeral march to dampen a new-wed's spirits.

(Consequently we would not call the military march a poor military march if it fails to cheer up the bereaved husband, or the funeral march a poor funeral march if it fails to sober up the new-wed.)

How glowingly then would we

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speak of the military march which actually cheers up a bereaved person, or of the funeral march which makes even a new-wed ponder on the mutability of all things!

The implicit reasoning
behind this is obvious:

"If a work X, or Y, or Z is or can be so effective under adverse conditions,
how much more effective would it be under favourable conditions!"

So far we have analysed the use of "good" in "good work of art" in terms of the notion of certain kinds of affections, and complementarily, of kinds of formal characteristics in works of art,

which are regarded as productive (primarily under standard conditions) of one or another of these kinds of affections.

But a work may also be judged to be good art if it is regarded as productive of

new and fresh kinds of effects,

if it employs new materials or media, new techniques of organization, or new subject-matter.

That is, originality in effect, in the use of materials and in technique, are regarded as achievements over and above the minimal achievement in originality and freshness which the use of "work of art" implies.

But again, originality in technique and in the use of materials is generally regarded as aesthetically valuable, as meriting the application of the epithets "good", "very good", etc., only when it is believed to be aesthetically effective.

Originality for originality's sake,

novelty for novelty's sake,
is ordinarily disparaged rather than praised.

A painting using the "dripping technique", or the techniques and methods of cubism, surrealism, impressionism or any other new or relatively new technique and method;

a musical work using twelve-tone scales, polytonality, and the like,

is regarded as a good work of art only if it is believed to be capable of producing fresh kinds of aesthetic effects, of enlarging our aesthetic experience, of widening and deepening our perceptions.

It is a platitude that there is a bad as well as a good way of employing a new medium, technique, method.

Secondly,
we

normally demand a certain amount

of originality and freshness in any work
for it to be properly called a work of art at all,
whether the medium or method used is old or new.

It is a commonplace that originality does not necessarily consist in the creation of a new art, a new genre, a new technique, and so on.

Traditional arts, genres, methods and techniques may also be employed with originality.

Still,
technical novelty,
and the extension of the field of an art to include new or relatively new subject-matter,

such as Scott's extension of the field of the novel in the direction of the past and the Romantic poets' rehabilitation of the imagination,

are regarded by some—even by those who do not think that they are sufficient—as of value in and by themselves.

(Some might say that a work of this sort is good "so far as its technical aspect, or its subject-matter, is concerned", leaving the question whether or not it is also good in

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other respects-good as a whole, open.)

We might add that this tendency to regard as valuable in and for themselves formal qualities which are otherwise
(and were, probably, originally)
regarded as good in so far as they are a means to the realization of an end regarded as good, is quite common, not only in art but also in ethics
(as J. S. Mill has pointed out in the case of the latter),
and generally, whenever human artifacts and man-devised activities and processes are concerned.

Coming now to the use of "poor" or "not good" as the antonym of "good" in our present sense,

a work is said to be "poor" or "not good" (also "bad art")
if,
firstly,
it is regarded as incapable of producing any, or capable of producing only a feeble, aesthetic effect under standard conditions.

Secondly, it is said to be a "poor" work if it is regarded as only capable of producing what may be called "unaesthetic" effects.

That is, effects which are ordinarily regarded as antithetical to aesthetic effects.

Examples of such "unaesthetic" effects are sheer horror and disgust.

In this type of case, the work is generally regarded the poorer in direct proportion to the intensity of the "unaesthetic" effects it produces.

Correspondingly,
a work is said to be "poor" or "not good" if it lacks certain (kinds of) formal qualities, or possesses certain (other kinds of) formal qualities,

which it is thought render it incapable of producing anything but a feeble aesthetic effect, or even any aesthetic effect at all, under standard conditions.

Secondly, it is said to be a "poor" work if its formal qualities are regarded as incapacitating it from producing any but "unaesthetic" effects under standard conditions.

It is to be noted that in cases where a work is regarded as completely incapable of producing any aesthetic effects, or capable of producing only "unaesthetic" effects,

the work may still be regarded as a "poem", "painting", "sculpture" (though not a work of art),

because and in so far as it possesses some of the formal qualities found in things ordinarily called poems, paintings, sculpture, respectively

(e.g. it is written in verse, employs sound in melodic and harmonic relationships, or colour patterns in spatial relationships, respectively).

This is only sometimes true.

Occasionally (particularly when the speaker wants to emphasize the artistic worthlessness of the work) а work of this sort is denied even the name of "poem" or "poetry", "painting", "music", and so on;

in which case these terms will be thought of as including in their meaning the notion of "work of art" or artistic merit.

For instance, when one condemns a so-called poem as "mere verse" or as a "mere jingle, not poetry", a so-called painting as "nothing but paint smeared on a canvas", a so-called musical work as "mere noise, not music".

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We should emphasize that the above discussion regarding one use of "good" and "poor" in aesthetics applies without qualification only when a work is thought of as artistically complete.

A fragmentary poem would not ordinarily be called a poor poem if it fails to create a well-rounded effect.

Nor would we expect an obviously unfinished painting to be effective or very effective.

But

(1) sometimes it is very difficult if not impossible to decide whether or not a given work is to be regarded as artistically complete.

Aristotle's "having a beginning, a middle, and an end" is, to say the least, not always helpful even in tragedy where it was originally meant to apply.

Some of the difficulties are illustrated by Keats's Hyperion and Schubert's Unfinished Symphony.

The latter is certainly a complete work, though an "unfinished" symphony; while the former seems to me to be both a fragment of a poem ("poem" being used here as the name of a literary genre) and artistically incomplete.

Furthermore (and this is also significant for other reasons), the artist and his public sometimes disagree about a given work's artistic completeness or incompleteness.

(2) We may and sometimes do pass judgment on an unfinished work, calling it a good or a poor work (though we often speak of it as a "fine fragment" if we regard it as good) on the basis of what there is of it (e.g. Keats's Hyperion).

Also, on the basis of the extant portion of an unfinished work, people often make guesses as to the artistic merit which the work would have had were it completed.

II

It may be thought,
in the light of Part I,
that art is

or can be

divided into

the major art-forms:
literature, music, painting, and so on,

in terms of

more specialized kinds of

aesthetic effects

which
what we now call
literary works, musical works, paintings, etc.,
may be supposed to be capable of producing under standard conditions,
provided that these works are thought of as artistically complete.

Or, in linguistic terms,

that
"literary work", "musical work", "painting", "sculpture", etc.,
implicitly involve in their uses
the notion of the capacity to produce—under standard conditions—kinds of more specialized effects
(different in the case of literary works, paintings and musical works, etc.)
than the general kinds of aesthetic effects involved in the use of the more general term "work of art".

Also, that in the same way
"literary works", "paintings", and the like
are classifiable into "poems", "novels", "plays", and "landscapes", "seascapes", "portraits", etc., respectively,
in terms of

still more specialized

effects.

But this does not seem to be true:

the notion of different particular kinds of aesthetic affections

seems to be absent

from

the ordinary

or even the technical

uses
of such terms as "painting", "literature", "sculpture".

Similarly, mutatis

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mutandis, with "poem", "novel", "play", "seascape", etc.

Instead,
each of these different names seems to involve in its uses

the same notion of general kinds

of aesthetic effects as is involved in the ordinary uses of the generic name "work of art";

what distinguishes "literary works", "paintings", and "musical works" from one another

—at least as far as the notion of aesthetic affection implicit in the uses of art-names is concerned—

seems to be such things as

the nature of the medium or media used

(e.g. sounds, painted canvases, marble or bronze)

the medium's mode of employment,

and

the kinds of technique used

(the latter two only in so far as they are themselves determined by the nature of the medium or media and not by the genius and inventiveness of individual artists and schools of art).

If we now pass to the formal qualities of
paintings,
literary and musical works,
and so on,

we do not observe any determinate or relatively determinate qualities common to them all, but observe only common determinables.

On the more determinate level, there are only criss-crossing "family resemblances", as Professor W. B. Gallie rightly points out.

The same is true of works falling under the same generic art-form, such as poems, novels, plays;
or even of two novels, two poems, two plays.

But in the case of the first,
and still more in the case of the second,
the "family resemblances" are of a relatively more determinate nature than those obtaining between (say) a novel, a symphony, a sculpture, and a cathedral.

Still,
we should not underestimate the importance of

the very general formal qualities

which works of

the same generic art-form

have in common.

For it is on the basis of these qualities that particular works are judged to be good or poor paintings, literary works, sculptures, and so on.

And it is on the basis of

the less general formal qualities

characterizing each of

the genres falling under the same art-form

that particular works are judged to be good or poor poems, novels, plays; or landscapes, seascapes, portraits; or sonatas, symphonies, quartets.

Finally, the historical fact that certain very general formal qualities and not others have been associated with what we call "novels", "plays", or "poems"; or "literature", "painting", or "music", can be explained by a study of the history and origin of these genres and the more general art-forms.

III

In her "The Use of 'Good' In Aesthetic Judgments", Dr. Helen Knight argues that things of different kinds—tennis matches, poems, paintings—are judged to be good on the basis of their

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satisfying different criteria of goodness.

"The goodness of these things, tennis matches, paintings, etc., depends on their satisfying the criteria of goodness

for things of their kind."

And even when we judge different things of the same kind, say two paintings, our judgments may be based on different "criteria qualities" they possess:

We praise a picture because the parts balance each other, because the colours are orchestrated, because the figures are solid, because the colours are brilliant.

These are all formal criteria, but we do not class them together because of a common property.

Classification is important, but it does not reduce the diversity of criteria.

All this seems to me to be perfectly true.

But Dr. Knight's analysis in the paper referred to does not seem to me to go far enough.

For she does not (and characteristically does not attempt to) explain

(1) why there is such a diversity of criteria,
why
(i) different criteria of goodness are employed by the same or by different judges in judging different kinds of things—tennis matches, poems, paintings—to be good of their kind,
and
(ii) why different criteria may be used by different judges in judging one and the same thing—Cézanne's "Green Jar", Raphael's "School of Athens", Shakespeare's Tempest (to use Dr. Knight's examples) and so on;

(2) why we appeal to the criteria we do appeal to or what makes the criteria criteria of goodness.

The only "explanation" which Dr. Knight gives of the latter, (2), is found in the following passage:

"What is the guarantee of a criterion?
What determines the truth of 'so-and-so is a criterion for goodness in pictures'?
The guarantee, I would answer, lies in its being used as a criterion."

This "explanation"
seems to me to be unsatisfactory.

The guarantee for the truth of a criterion, for a criterion's being a criterion, is "its being used"—by whom?

By any individual, by any group, or by some special group such as the group of critics, or by the majority of listeners or spectators?

Secondly, how and in what sense does the use of a "criterion quality" as a criterion make it a criterion?

Is the use of a given criterion an arbitrary matter?

And can

just any quality

in a work be properly regarded as a "criterion quality", be properly used as a criterion?
(if yes, why? if no, why not?).

Don't we accept certain "criteria" as correct criteria and reject others as not correct criteria, as not criteria at all?

Thirdly, what is the relation between different "criteria qualities", between different criteria used in judging (a) one and the same work, and (b) different works of the same kind?

Is there or is there not some relation between

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them which makes them all "criteria qualities" or criteria for that particular work, or even criteria for different works of the same kind
(different paintings, poems, sculptures, as the case may be)?

Dr. Knight is aware of the first problem.

She continues:

Organization of groups, space composition, profundity, etc., are criteria of goodness because they are used as such.

But we must face a difficulty.

Who is it that uses them?

It is true that some are in general use. . . .

There is also the important fact that we often use criteria without being able to name or distinguish them.

But we must acknowledge that some are only used by critics, and not even by all of them.

We must admit that criteria are not firmly fixed, like the points (at any one time) of a Pekingese.

But it completely misrepresents the situation to say they are not fixed at all.

That it completely misrepresents the situation to say that criteria of goodness are not fixed at all is granted.

But so long as there is some disagreement in the use of criteria, Dr. Knight's difficulty remains.

Moreover, even if this difficulty were resolved, and even if there were complete agreement among all men regarding criteria, our other questions would remain unanswered.

Our account, however, seems to give us at least a major part of the explanation for what Dr. Knight says about so-called goodness of a kind:

the uses of "good" in statements such as
"Cézanne's 'Green Jar' is good",
"Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is a good novel",
and so on.

(1) If it is true that

the notion of

some kind of broadly defined affection

is implicitly involved in the ordinary uses of the name "work of art",

it follows that a thing

does not need to possess

any one particular determinate or relatively determinate characteristic
or a set of these
—a characteristic or a set of characteristics common to all things called "works of art"—

for it to be properly called a work of art.

What is only required is that a thing should possess one set or another of a large number of overlapping sets of determinate or relatively determinate characteristics,

by virtue of which

it becomes capable of producing

the implied kinds of effects under standard conditions.

This is just a backdoor gambit at 'necessary and sufficient conditions'.

No difficulties are elided by shifting the onus from

determinate characteristics

to some

effects

to be

determined

.

A "poem" may be rhymed or unrhymed, short or long, in free verse or in metrical verse;

it may be sad or humorous, serious or light, intellectual or emotional, realistic or non-realistic, subjective or objective, descriptive or contemplative, about cabbages or about kings;

and yet it may for all that be properly called a "poem" (a work of art)—so long as it is capable of producing an aesthetic effect under conditions which are standard for poetry.

Similarly with "paintings", "sculpture", and so on:
in general, any kind of work of art.

Aesthetic effects are produced in many ways;
paintings produce them in one way,
by means of one set of very

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general kinds of formal qualities, poems in another way, sculpture in a third way, and so on;

and different individual paintings (poems, etc.) produce specific aesthetic effects in different specific ways, by means of different sets of more specific kinds of formal qualities.

The only limitation on the kinds of determinate or relatively determinate characteristics a poem, a painting, a sculpture may have as a poem, painting, or sculpture—and as a work of art in general—is imposed by the demand (fixed by ordinary usage) that any such work should be capable of producing an aesthetic effect under standard conditions for the particular kind of work concerned.

In the light of this it is not surprising to find that, instead of common determinate or relatively determinate characteristics,

(a) works of different generic art-forms,
and even

(b) different works of the same generic art-form
possess only general "family resemblances".

The main difference between (a) and (b) here is that the "family resemblances" between works having the same generic artform are greater in degree or are relatively more determinate than the "family resemblances" between works falling under different arts.

Thus we find greater resemblances between two poems, or two paintings than between a poem and a painting.

(2) From the same considerations
it also follows that
the possession of one particular determinate or relatively determinate characteristic
or a set of these

is not a (linguistically-determined) requisite for properly calling a poem a "good poem".

Or to put the matter in a different way, there is no reason (that stems from linguistic usage) why all "good poems" should have in common one determinate or relatively determinate characteristic, or a set of these.

Similarly with paintings, sculpture, and the like.

Secondly, it follows that works of different art-forms do not have to have common determinate or relatively determinate characteristics in order to be properly called "good works of art" (or specifically, good poems, paintings, and so on).

In short, "good" in the present sense, as used in aesthetics, does not denote any specific determinate or relatively determinate characteristic or characteristics (formal or otherwise) either when applied to works of different art-forms or to works of one and the same art-form.

(But it would be misleading to say that "good" in this sense has therefore no denotation at all.)

And as Dr. Knight shows in the paper cited above, we do, as a matter of fact, appeal to different "criteria qualities", even in the case of works of the same art-form (poems, paintings, etc., respectively) in judging them to be good of their kind.

The reason, according to our account, is that different works of the same art-form or of different art-forms may be capable of producing an intense, profound and/or lasting aesthetic effect in the listener or means of different determinate or

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relatively determinate formal and non-formal characteristics, under conditions which are standard for the kind of particular work concerned.

For, as we have said, the aesthetic effects implicitly involved in the use of art-names are very general and fluid, and are defined only in general outline and perhaps only in some directions

(i.e. the corresponding concepts are

"open-textured concepts",

to use F. Waismann's phrase);

and this allows great variability in the means of creating an aesthetic effect.

The same applies,
mutatis mutandis,

to the use of "not good" or "poor" in the sense in which we are concerned with them here.

(3) Our account goes still farther.

It not only explains the diversity of criteria actually applied in judging a work to be good or not good (as also in calling a given object a work of art to begin with):

it also explains why

the characteristics appealed to in aesthetic judgments

are actually appealed to;

and it further determines the correctness or incorrectness of the criteria actually appealed to.

But do we

appeal to criteria

?

The very notion of an "appeal" suggests that this happens after the fact.

The

judgment

comes first,
the "appeal" comes later;

and then,
how can we be sure that we thereby "appeal" to the real reasons for the judgment?

The criteria actually used by the same person or by different persons in judging the same work or different works, whether they be of the same generic art-form or of different generic art-forms, all have this feature in common:

they appeal to characteristics in a work which are (rightly or wrongly) regarded as responsible for the work's effectiveness or ineffectiveness as a work of its kind (as a "poem", "painting", etc.),

and for the degree of its effectiveness or ineffectiveness, under conditions which are standard for the particular work in hand.

But
(a) since

one and the same work

may produce

different effects,

may evoke different emotions and thoughts, in different spectators or listeners, or may be thought, by different persons, to be productive of different emotions and thoughts;
and
since—and more fundamentally—one listener or spectator may regard one kind of effect as aesthetic while another may regard it as unaesthetic;

different spectators

or listeners

may pick out

different characteristics

of the work as "criteria qualities" for judging it to be good, poor, and so on, each judge regarding the characteristics he picks out as responsible for the particular effect or effects produced in him.

Still
(b) even if and where two or more spectators or listeners agree as to the general or even the specific nature of the effect the work is supposed to be capable of producing,
and agree in regarding this as aesthetic or as unaesthetic,
they may still disagree concerning the specific characteristics of the work which are responsible for this effect,
and therefore are responsible for the work's being a good, poor, or indifferent work.

Hence one source of disagreement in aesthetic judgment or of diversity of criteria actually used.

(4) Our analysis of the notion of standard conditions of aesthetic perception gives us another major reason why the criteria actually

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used even in relation to one and the same work may be so diverse and varied.

The

complexity, variety, and richness

of these conditions (especially the psychological ones) in the case of

works of art,

as contrasted with

the relative simplicity and restrictedness

of the kinds of standard conditions in the case of

many other artifacts,

such as chairs, tables, tools, instruments, is a main reason why it is often so

difficult to decide

whether a work is good or poor;
and still more,
how good or how poor it is.

For it is often very

difficult if not impossible to decide

whether the conditions under which a work is being seen or heard

are standard

conditions.

For instance—to give just one example—it is sometimes very difficult to decide

how much one should know

about

the author's life and intention

in creating the work, in order to understand the work correctly and get its full impact.

Perhaps he means
(or he ought to mean)

how much one must know

.

It's fair enough to call this a

psychological  condition,

and to observe that it is difficult to say what is

standard

here.

But then,
maybe this just is the answer
to all such

How much . . . ?

questions.

The effort of Critics to manifest a place for

life and intention

as "standard conditions" is just one version of the more widely visible prescription that audiences must become as critics. But it seems simple enough to point to those infamous 19th c. milieux wherein extensive biographical knowledge was customary, yet "aesthetic judgment" was as epistemically unhinged as ever; ditto, perhaps, for later 20th c. Pop Culture.

History indeed bends towards audiences adopting the posture of the critic, but without the rigor. i.e. It is not enough to be able to point out, with whatever justification, that biography has become a "standard condition" of judgment, not if the judg-ers of the world do not themselves view or treat it as any kind of "condition" at all; not if the judgers do not recognize any "conditions" upon their judgment. And really, who does recognize this? Who should have to recognize it, just to be allowed to participate in the Culture Heroism of their own milieu? No one should, and no one does.

And as we have already said, a judgment of a work's aesthetic worth can do the work full justice, on the basis of its effects on speсtators or listeners, only if the conditions under which it is perceived are standard conditions (especially in the sense of optimum conditions).

Our account indicates that the guarantee of a given quality's

being a criterion quality

does not lie in the sheer fact of its

being used as

a criterion quality.

What makes a criterion a (correct) criterion are the ordinary uses of the terms "work of art", "poem", "painting", etc., and of (one of the uses of) the terms "good", "not good", and the like.

More precisely, criteria qualities, properly speaking, are those qualities in a work which

are actually responsible

for the work's effectiveness or ineffectiveness under standard conditions.

They are the qualities which make it capable or incapable of producing an aesthetic effect; and in the former case, of producing an aesthetic effect of a particular intensity, profoundity, and/or duration.

(5) I agree with Dr. Knight that my liking a picture (a novel, a symphony) is not (she says "is never") a criterion of its goodness,

that "we never say 'this picture is good because I like it!'"

I also agree that it is not true
"that we always like what we judge to be good, and dislike what we judge to be bad.

It is common to find indifference combined with approval—'I can't see anything in so-and-so, but I believe it's good'.

And we also find liking combined with disapproval".

But our reasons for holding or agreeing to these things are different from Dr. Knight's.

If a work evokes an aesthetic experience in me, and if, as we have maintained, an aesthetic experience contains an element of pleasure, it would follow that so far as the pleasurableness of the work is concerned, I will like it.

For,

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taking pleasurableness as such, we like what is pleasurable.

However, liking the work is a consequence of its pleasurableness, which comes from the work evoking in me an aesthetic experience.

Hence, if I judge the work to be good, it is not because I like it, but because it is pleasurable, and therefore because it evokes in me an aesthetic experience.

Still, even though I may sometimes judge a work to be good because it evokes an aesthetic experience in me, this is not always the case.

A work may evoke an aesthetic experience in me, and therefore I may like it so far as it is pleasurable; and yet I may judge it to be a poor work.

Conversely, as we have mentioned, I may dislike the work and yet may judge it to be a good work.

It is precisely because of these things that we have said throughout this paper
that
we judge a work to be good if we regard it as capable of producing an intense, profound, and/or lasting aesthetic effect or evoking an aesthetic experience

—and we must now add, in a qualified judge (listener or spectator)—

and not that we judge it to be good if it actually produces in any given case an intense, profound, and/or lasting aesthetic effect.

This calls for a definition of
"qualified judge".

By this term I mean a person who is what would ordinarily be regarded as sensitive, discriminating, emotionally and intellectually mature, and has some general technical knowledge of art and whatever specific knowledge—knowledge of the artist's life, intentions, and the like—which the aesthetic valuation of a particular work may appear to require.

We might add that,
in the light of ordinary usage,
being a qualified judge is now to be understood as part of what we have called
Standard Conditions of Aesthetic Perception,

sometimes as an optimum condition,
sometimes as a necessary one

(which indicates that at least in the case of some conditions the distinction between necessary and optimum standard conditions is not sharp and only a matter of degree).

Returning to the question of the relation or lack of relation between liking or disliking a work and judging it to be good or poor, respectively,

we should now explain that the statement that liking a work is not a criterion of its goodness is somewhat misleading and not quite true as it stands.

Sometimes people do

judge a work to be good because they like it.

This is because they regard their aesthetic taste as being so mature and discriminating that they take their being pleasurably affected, and therefore so far forth their liking the work, as an indication that the work is pleasure-evoking in itself; or less misleadingly—is capable of evoking pleasure in all qualified judges.

That is,

they generalize from their own reaction,

since they regard themselves as qualified judges.

I think that this is the 'social meaning' of the act, insofar as the outcomes of various such acts are functionally indistiguishable;

yet this is not a fair or adequate description of what

people do

.

The mental act of

generalizing

has some peculiar aspects which must be accounted for anytime it is to be ascribed to a person in a situation.

There must be a situation from which,
and another to which,
one generalizes.

It is not enough merely to say that human beings are nature's preeminent generalizers, although that is true as far as it goes. We are also highly adaptive, but only if there is something to adapt to.

Similarly when people judge a work to be poor because they dislike it.

The opposite is the case when people judge a work to be poor

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even though they like it, or that it is good even though they dislike it.

That is, this is the case when people do not regard their emotional reactions to be mature enough to serve as a reliable indication of a work's worth or lack of worth.

We need not add that the validity of the judgments of both types of people depends on whether or not the latter are qualified judges, or not qualified judges, respectively.

  American University,
   Beirut, Lebanon.

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