Carroll—A contemporary introduction—Chapter 5—Part III

Noël Carroll
Philosophy of Art: A contemporary introduction
(1999)

[SK's comments]

---

[249]

...

Part III
Identifying art

Definition and identification

Recent attempts to define art ... have proven thus far to be inconclusive. ...

And yet we are able

to identify art ... with a very

high degree of consensus.

" . . . , presuming of course
that nothing important is riding on the

consensus

itself,
for if there is, it will soon disintegrate. . . . "

Thus the question of how we manage to do it

remains pressing.

Well,
the apparent paradox given above establishes that

the question

is difficult,
not that it is

pressing

.

Those are two different things.

Moreover, this is not

merely an academic question.

Classifying artifacts as artworks is

central to our practice

of art. ... is integral to

determining how we should respond

to it. ... Should we attend to the expressive properties of a amalgam of crushed and mangled automobile chassis or

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consign them to the junkyard?

How about

  first the one,

    and then the other

?

If art, these objects bear scrutiny and interpretation. If not, we call the Department of Sanitation.

". . . Quick, what's the number for Critics and Interpreters? . . ."

Carroll—A contemporary introduction—Chapter 5—Part II (cont.)

Noël Carroll
Philosophy of Art: A contemporary introduction
(1999)

[SK's comments]

[this post picks up where this one left off]

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[226]

...

Neo-Wittgensteinianism has an obvious problem dealing with readymades and found objects. If In Advance of a Broken Arm is an artwork, then any snow shovel that is indiscernible from it, including yours and mine, should be an artwork as well. If we simply attend to the

[227]

perceptible features of the shovels in question, they should all count as artworks, since they are perceptually indiscernible. ... But this result is wrongheaded. ... The Institutional Theorist appeals to certain nonmanifest, relational properties that In Advance of a Broken Arm possesses and that my snow shovel does not, ...

The Institutional Theorist calls the relevant social practice "the artworld." The artworld, he claims, is

a social institution, like religion,

insofar as it is

underwritten by rules and procedures.

Candidates are artworks because they abide by the pertinent artworld rules and procedures. In other words, an artwork is

generated by

playing by

the required rules and procedures. These social rules are the underlying factors that

make artworks possible

(they are

analogous to the genetic mechanisms

that account for family resemblances).

The relation of the artwork

to the rules

is

not a manifest property

of the artwork—you cannot eyeball it ... ; it is

a function of

the social context

into which the artwork is inserted.

This seems not quite

genetic

so long as it is
not quite a

mechanism.

.

It approaches a "mechanistic" tractability only as scale and sample approach infinity.

i.e. It is tractable in this way only where it can be formulated as a problem of disorganized complexity and its surface thereby observed.

But
to land on these emergent

rules

you have to ignore all of the "rules"
which prevail at the organized level,

i.e.,
in this case,
at the so-called individual level.

If the discovery that humanity is a culture-bound superorganism merely becomes the latest rationalization for subjugating 'individuals' to 'the system', then it would be better to put this discovery on a rocket and shoot it to the moon.

a wittgensteinian interlude within a contemporary introduction (cont. #1)

 

COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 7, 573-605 (1975)
'Family Resemblances: Studies in the Internal Structure of Categories'
ELEANOR ROSCH AND CAROLYN B. MERVIS
University of California, Berkeley

Six experiments explored the hypothesis that the members of categories which are considered most prototypical are those with most attributes in common with other members of the category and least attributes in common with other categories. In probabilistic terms, the hypothesis is that prototypicality is a function of the total cue validity of the attributes of items.
...

As speakers of our language and members of our culture, we know that a chair is a more reasonable exemplar of the category furniture than a radio, and that some chairs fit our idea or image of a chair better than others.

However, when describing categories analytically, most traditions of thought have treated category membership as a digital, all-or-none phenomenon.

That is, much work in philosophy, psychology, linguistics, and anthropology assumes that categories are logical bounded entities, membership in which is defined by an item’s posses-

[574]

sion of a simple set of criterial features, in which all instances possessing the criterial attributes have a full and equal degree of membership.

In contrast to such a view, it has been recently argued that some natural categories are analog and must be represented logically in a manner which reflects their analog structure.

Rosch (1973, 1975b) has further characterized some natural analog categories as internally structured into a prototype (clearest cases, best examples of the category) and nonprototype members, with nonprototype members tending toward an order from better to poorer examples.

While the domain for which such a claim has been demonstrated most unequivocally is that of color there is also considerable evidence that natural superordinate semantic categories have a prototype structure. Subjects can reliably rate the extent to which a member of a category fits their idea or image of the meaning of the category name , and such ratings predict performance in a number of tasks.

Carroll—A contemporary introduction—Chapter 5—Part II

Noël Carroll
Philosophy of Art: A contemporary introduction
(1999)

 

[SK's vitriol]

 

---

[224]

Part II
Two contemporary
definitions of art

The Institutional Theory of Art

...

[225]

...

Institutional Theorists like [George] Dickie were

impressed

by a certain criticism of the family resemblance method ... Suggested by Maurice Mandelbaum,

the objection

scrutinizes

the central metaphor of Neo-Wittgensteinians

—family resemblance—

and finds it wanting.

Carroll—A contemporary introduction—Chapter 5—Part I

Noël Carroll
Philosophy of Art: A contemporary introduction
(1999)

 

[SK's vitriol]

 

---

[206]

5
Art, definition and identification

Part I
Against definition

Neo-Wittgensteinianism: art
as an open concept

... we have examined successive attempts to define art. ... each of them appears inadequate in turn. Undoubtedly, this has led some readers to suspect that maybe one cannot define art at all; ... Or, perhaps some of you thought this from the very beginning; ... you may feel reassured to learn that [this] is also a philosophical position, sometimes called Neo-Wittgensteinianism.

...   Probably one reason that Western philosophers have been preoccupied with defining art for the last century or so is that it is during this period that we have found ourselves confronted with a dazzling array of different kinds of art ...

And, ... during the same period, Westerners grew more and more familiar with the art of other cultures, ...

[207]

... Whereas for centuries art developed slowly and smoothly ... , by the twentieth century matters were getting confusing. ...

It is at least plausible to suppose that if we had assembled a group of informed art lovers at some imaginary point around the middle of the eighteenth century and paraded a selection of objects before them ... they would have been able to agree, to a surprising extent, about which of the objects were art and which were not. ... They possessed a shared, though often unarticulated, understanding ...

Artists, too, shared in this common understanding, ...

...

Identifying art became a pressing issue;

 

Not really. I mean, those few who did care, cared intensely. That is one way to measure pressingness. But if we also find that many of these people had something more riding on this issue, so much more than the comfort of shared understanding or the general human hatred of confusion, then the "pressing" quality of their discourse on the matter is more plausibly explained by self-interest than by anything more cosmic. But, do expect the case for the cosmic importance of x to be made in a book devoted to x!

 

...

Carroll—A contemporary introduction—Chapter 4—Part 2

Noël Carroll
Philosophy of Art: A contemporary introduction
(1999)

 

[SK's vitriol]

 

---

[182]

Part II
The aesthetic dimension

Aesthetic experience revisited

...   the aesthetic theory of art is not a comprehensive theory of all art. However, the notion of aesthetic experience pervades our discussion of art. ...

... the most popular conception of aesthetic experience claims that it is

the disinterested and sympathetic attention and

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contemplation of any object whatsoever for its own sake.

... Our responses to artworks—let us call them art-responses—may encompass things other than aesthetic experience. Yet what is it when we experience an artwork aesthetically? ...

We can have what we call aesthetic experiences of artworks, or of everyday things, like nature. These experiences involve

attention

and

contemplation

as their most characteristic elements. ...

Moreover, what are called aesthetic experiences are

sympathetic,

at least in this sense

: that we

take cognizance

of the object in question and we attempt to let it

guide us where it will.

 

I think that, ideally, we would not attempt so hard. Ideally, we would only realize later (if at all?) that we had been guided.

If so, then we might as well go ahead and define 'interestedness' as 'whatever is preventing us from being "guided"'. And this, of course, includes trying so hard to be guided that we can't even breathe.

Yes, this all sounds too gooey and romantic. In one sense it is extreme. Why go quite so far? Because,

"Often a rider, if he is not to be parted from his horse, is obliged to guide it where it wants to go; so in the same way the ego is in the habit of transforming the id's will into action as if it were its own."

(Freud)

 

...   [The work] may be intended to lead us where we do not wish to go. It may

alienate our sympathies.

However,

our experience can still be called aesthetic

so long as we approach the work openly, ...

...

[184]

... We would not typically call an experience of a work aesthetic that altogether ignored the structures of the work and what they were intended to do.

 

I would hesitate to call an experience aesthetic if it made too much of intentions and not enough of structures . . .

 

... what of disinterestedness? Disinterestedness is generally regarded as the most important element of aesthetic experience. But is aesthetic experience really disinterested?

...   The existence of such a state is often inferred by considering certain examples and by proposing disinterestedness as the best concept for explaining them. For instance, if someone goes to a school play because her daughter is in it, and she spends all her time nodding beamingly at her offspring's performance, proponents of disinterestedness will suggest that we all agree that her experience is not aesthetic. What is wrong here? The proponent of disinterestedness explains: her attention is guided by her personal interests; it is not impartial; it is not disinterested.

Likewise, if a patron of the arts admires his recently acquired painting because he is sure it will make him world famous, his attention is motivated by his personal interests; ...

Finally, where a Bolshevik commissar reads a novel solely to confirm that all the references to Stalin are adulatory, he was not reading in a manner that most would call aesthetic. ...

Surely in these cases, there is something

wrong

or

deficient

about the way in which the audience members in question are responding to the relevant artworks.

 

As a friend of aesthetics, I ask: What tf is really, truly wrong with these cases as given? It's clear enough that they are deficient, if we insist on wording things that way. It's clear how they are "deficient," and in what they are "deficient." But what's really wrong with being deficient in just this way?

A parent may be smothering, a patron may be vain, and a commissar may be morally bankrupt and unfeeling, but of course this is not at all what Our Man means to suggest, and he is correct, presumably, that the (un)wisdom of these various stances is no more what is at issue in the diagnosis and consideration of "interested" attention than it is in the construction of ideals of "disinterested" attention.

What is at issue? It's a question of what is or is not happening. It's a simple question, really. The dialogue around it is so complex only because so many people, so much of the time, don't like the answers.

When the "happening" is cognitive rather than behavioral, it is extremely difficult to catch any glimpse at it at all; but that also is not what is at issue above. No matter on what side of the issue we have situated ourselves, by entering capital-P debate we presume to apply some deductive rigor to the problem as we see it; and if empirical investigation is difficult or impossible in the given case, that is no deterrent to such nonempirical methods as the capital-Ps deploy; if anything, a problem's intransigence to empirical methods actually validates the appeal to nonempirical methods.

So, speaking for a theory in which he does not personally believe, a theory which he has in fact made a career of opposing, Our Man Here professes surety that the Aesthetic Theorist thinks there is something wrong with "interested" attention paid to an artwork which (let us just presume) also affords the attention-payer the opportunity for aesthetic satisfaction. But how could there really be some big-picture moral principle at stake here? If there is such a principle at stake, then pretty much everyone who believes in a Judgment Day is in for a much tougher time than they realize, since pretty much everyone has been "wrong" about art in precisely this way, if not all the time then at least some of the time. Why? Because we are profoundly interested creatures. It's necessary, actually, that we reset ourselves to "interested" in certain situations! The above-given examples, each in their own way, suggest a few of the more salient human situations in which "disinterest" would be pathological.

Where I think friends of aesthetics have erred most often and most egregiously is in characterizing the effort to achieve "disinterest." For the longest time it seems this was construed as an effort of the aesthete to achieve some stance vis-a-vis the object of interest. I've never been sure how that would even work, since it seems . . . very "interested," explicit, and self-conscious to put forth just that much effort toward the taking in of some artwork. It seems possible to me only in the abstract that "effort" could be "disinterested"; in reality, I don't see how I could evince "effort" and "disinterest" together in a single thought or action: should this be demanded of me, then the demand itself has simply created an "interest"; or, if there is no real demand, then there can be nothing like "effort" either.

But the artist, conventionally speaking, makes an effort too: the artist can make an effort to entrain the subject into so-called "aesthetic" subjectivity; or they can make no such effort, or they can make some other effort, or (this one really caught on for a while) they can make great, valorous effort to entrain the subject into non-aesthetic subjectivity. If we really do think we can place a given artist on such a continuum, then we have surely identified one kind of "intent"; and then, for any "intentionalists" among us, there is the semblance of a principled reason for declaring there to be "something wrong" with the doting mother or (Urmson's example seized upon by Dickie) the greedy impresario. Something seems intuitively "wrong," or at least unfair, about all that noble art-effort coming to nothing on account of such base motives as attachment or greed.

Our Man does seem to believe in intent, and in intent-ional-ism. He seems actually, i.e. personally and professionally, to believe in it.

I do not believe in intentionalism.

I do believe that "disinterestedness" and "interestedness" both happen, and that the distinction between them is a coherent distinction, both abstractly and empirically.

I believe that "disinterested" aesthetic experience has an indispensible social function. However, this does not simply stipulate by implication that its "interested" counterpart is "wrong," either in general or in given cases, as above.

What is wrong? Intentionalism is wrong. Stuffed-shirt art-papistry is wrong. Calling a mother "wrong" for being unable to "distance" herself from her young daughter's school theater production is definitely super wrong! Labelling her connoisseurship of kid-theater as "deficient" is closer to the capital-P truth, but this is a bit rude and misdirected even for my tastes.

What can we say about the latter case? We can say much that will get us in equally hot water with a whole other department of the institutional Boomersphere leviathan. That is, we can refuse to agree that "disinterest" is in evidence when we have good reason to think otherwise, and we can refuse to agree that "interestedness" is not in evidence when it very clearly is.

We can simply notice

that this silly little example actually is fully paradigmatic;

that mother-to-daughter is only the most powerful of many particularistic attachments;

that these attachments do not need to be half this powerful to be, nonetheless, fully destructive of "disinterest" and constitutive of "interest";

that culture is "a mythical hero-system in which people serve in order to earn a feeling of primary value" (Becker again), and that this is an "interest" that lives in every single human being, sometimes sublimated, other times exploding above the surface;

BUT, all the same, that such "interest" does not simply come and go at the same time, to the same degree, with same consequences, for everyone alike;

that every particularlistic attachment, every self-conscious tribal identification, every pang of hunger for "a feeling of primary value," every single one of these is a tidal wave of explicit "interest" countervailing any implicitly "disinterested" practice;

and that it is not possible for "disinterest" to simply push back with equal force, since the very essence of "disinterest" is that it is implicit, unspoken, and yes, therefore intensely fragile.

 

Carroll—A contemporary introduction—Chapter 4—Part 1

Noël Carroll
Philosophy of Art: A contemporary introduction
(1999)

 

[SK's vitriol]

 

---

[156]

4
Art and aesthetic experience

Part I
Aesthetic theories of art

Art and aesthetics

The term "aesthetics" has a variety of meanings. In ordinary language, people often refer to

so-and-so's aesthetics

— ... something like ...

artistic principles, preferences, and/or ... agenda.

A reader, listener or viewer can also have "an aesthetic" in this sense. Here it refers to

her convictions

about art or

her preferences.

However, "aesthetics" also has

a theoretical usage.

...

In the broadest sense,

"aesthetics"

is roughly equivalent to

"the philosophy of art."

... This is a loose sense, but one that is frequent, even among philosophers.

However,

for theoretical purposes,

"aesthetics" also has

a narrower meaning.

"Aesthetics" originally derives from the Greek work, [sic] aisthesis, which means "sense perception" or "sensory cognition." In the middle of the eighteenth century, this term was adapted by Alexander Baumgarten as the label covering the philosophical study of art. Baumgarten chose this label because

he thought that artworks

primarily address

sensory perception and very low-level forms of cognition.

The important thing to notice about Baumgarten's usage of the term is that

he looked at art

from

[157]

the reception side

of things. He conceived of it from the perspective of the way in which art addresses spectators.

Thus, when philosophers talk about aesthetics in the narrower sense, that frequently signals that they are interested in

the audience's portion of the interaction

between artworks and readers, listeners and viewers. Commonly "aesthetics" is used

as an adjective,

modifying nouns that clearly refer to the audience's share. Some examples include:

"aesthetic experience,"

"aesthetic perception,"

and

"the aesthetic attitude."

These phrases all refer to

some mental state

that a spectator brings to or undergoes either

in response

to artworks or to nature.

 

. . . and who would or could dispute that art audiences indeed are in some mental state or other??

. . . how on Earth to convince oneself that the "mental state" of an audience member is not actually a response to the work before them? If this is not to be considered either a "mental state" or a "response," then . . . are they to be considered an audience??

Carroll—A contemporary introduction—Chapter 3—Part 2

Noël Carroll
Philosophy of Art: A contemporary introduction
(1999)

 

[SK's snark]

 

---

[137]

Part II
What is artistic form?

 

Excellent question. Perhaps this should be Part I?

 

 

Different views of artistic form

Form is an important concept for talking about art. ... However, ... it cannot serve as the

defining feature

of all art ... Formalists and neoformalists ... overplay their hand. ... But much art

possesses form

and that, in large measure, is often why we appreciate it. ...

So, what is artistic form?

Perhaps the most common way of thinking of artistic form is to conceive of it as

one half of a distinction—

the distinction between

form
and
content.

The neoformalist tries to clarify this contrast by turning it into the distinction between

meaning
and
mode of presentation.

However, ... if there are artworks without meanings, ... then this way of conceptualizing form entails that such artworks lack form altogether.

But ... Often "meaningless" artworks—such as works of pure music—are what we typically take to be the greatest exemplars of artistic form. ...

This suggests that one might look for a broader way of crafting the contrast between form and content.

One way

of doing this is to say that

content is
whatever makes up the artwork,

and

form is
the way that
whatever makes up the artwork
is organized.

Content is the
matter;

form is the
manner.

Form operates on whatever comprises the content. Again, this makes our conception of

the form

of an artwork

dependent on

our conception of

the content

of the artwork. That is, one cannot determine

the manner of its organization,

until one knows

what is being organized.

A problem arises here almost immediately. ...

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the notion of content, as just stated, is

excessively ambiguous,

and this ambiguity is likely to infect whatever we say about artistic form ...

...   Imagine a historical painting of St. Francis and a donkey. What

makes up

this artwork? In one sense, ... oil paint. At another level ... lines, colors and closed shapes. ... representational figures that refer to certain subjects or referents, ... which, in turn, may also be expressive of the human quality of kindness. Furthermore, the painting may take a point of view ... It may ... suggest a thesis about St. Francis: ... the painting may even advance a more general theme: ...

...   this list could be even longer if our descriptions of these dimensions were more fine-grained.

 

In other words, criticism can never be fully 'objective' so long as fine-ness of grain is left to the critic themselves to decide upon. The "grain" can always be tailored to critical needs, turning up as much or as little basis for commentary as is needed/desired.

 

Carroll—A contemporary introduction—Chapter 3—Part 1

Noël Carroll
Philosophy of Art: A contemporary introduction
(1999)

 

[SK's comments]

 

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[108]

3
Art and form

Part I
Art as form

Formalism

Like the expression theory of art, formalism arose as a reaction to representational theories of art. And also like the expression theory, it was prompted by striking shifts in artistic practice. ... [i.e.] modern art or modernism. ... Cubism and Minimalism ... abstraction. ...

Undoubtedly, one

important cause

of the evolution of this type of modern art was

the advent of photography.

 

Important as in:
  doing much of the causing?

Or, as in:
  one cause among others,
  but "important" in some other way(s)?

 

Carroll—A contemporary introduction—Chapter 2—Part 2

Noël Carroll
Philosophy of Art: A contemporary introduction
(1999)

---

[79]

Part II
Theories of expression

What is expression?

... even if not all art is expressive, much art is. ... [so] , we still need to say something theoretical about expression and art, inasmuch as quite a lot of art is expressive. ...

... in ordinary language. ... sometimes ["expression"] behaves like a synonym for "representation." ... "The White Paper expresses the British position" ... "The White Paper represents the British position." However, ... philosophers of art, ... typically when they talk of expression, they intend it to contrast with representation. ...

Another broad meaning of "expression" in everyday speech is roughly "communication." ... But ...

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... this too is a broader sense ... than philosophers of art have in mind. ...

... when philosophers of art talk about what poems express, they are not thinking broadly about the communication of ideas. ... [but rather about]

certain human qualities

(also known as

anthropomorphic properties)

—notably, emotional tones, moods, emotively colored attitudes, ...

When I say "this poem is angry" I could mean at least two things: that the poet

reports that he is angry

... or that the poet

expresses anger.

... One could say [i.e. "report"] "We are angry" in the same tone of voice that one could say "Everyone here is over five feet tall." [But] ... when we express anger in life or in art, we

manifest

anger—we

show it forth.

... the quality of our anger saturates our utterance. ...

To express anger, in this sense, is to

get the feeling of anger across

—to make it perceptible (to

embody or objectify

it). ... Roughly ... to express ... is to manifest outwardly an emotive property— ...

... an artwork may also manifest a range of other human qualities ... we might say "The story is courageous" or "It expresses courage," ... Thus, what may be expressed are not only

emotive qualities,

but

any human qualities,

Carroll—A contemporary introduction—Chapter 2—Part 1

Noël Carroll
Philosophy of Art: A contemporary introduction
(1999)

---

[59]

2
Art and expression

Part I
Art as expression

The expression theory of art

For centuries, representation was taken to be the central, defining feature of art. ... broadly, the emphasis in imitation theories of art was on

the outward aspects of things—
the look of objects and the actions of humans.

In a loose sense ... the objective features of the "external" world— ...

nature and observable behavior.

But, in the West, as

the eighteenth century

dissolved into

the nineteenth,
ambitious artists

... began

to turn inward;

... less preoccupied with ... appearance ... than with ... their own

subjective experiences.

... landscapes [e.g.] were charged with

a significance beyond their physical properties.

... artists ... attempted to

register their reactions
—the way they felt—

about the landscapes. ...

... Romanticism places premier value on

the self and its own individual experiences.

... some outward scene ... is not presented for its own sake, but as a stimulus for the poet to

examine his or her own emotional responses to it.

[60]

...

... We still live in the shadows of Romanticism. ... Many twentieth-century art movements ...

can be seen

as direct descendants of Romanticism.

Should these movements
be seen as such?

Moreover, ... these developments ... employing distortion and abstraction for expressive purposes ... made ever more evident the inadequacies of imitation and representational theories of art.

. . . but presumably this didn't happen right away. I think Danto has a point there. The initial reaction, and the final reaction of many people until their final death-reaction, is simply to resist expansion of the "concept," as we might say in Anal. Phil. terms.

Danto can always be counted on to make many good points, but he usually manages to draw precisely the wrong conclusions from them. If "it was impossible to accept" Postimpressionism, at first, "as art unless inept art," then this does not at all suggest that "terrain is constituted artistic in virtue of artistic theories." What it suggests, in fact, is that theories and concepts are the last to adapt themselves to a new reality.

If so, then Our Man Here has an even bigger problem than Danto: What does this say about any "analysis" of "our" concepts and practices? Are we analyzing yesterday's newspaper hoping to find out what is happening today?

Carroll—A contemporary introduction—Chapter 1 (Part 2 of 2)

Noël Carroll
Philosophy of Art: A contemporary introduction
(1999)

---

[33]

Part II
What is representation?

Pictorial representation

...

...

...

[34]

...

Traditional approaches to
pictorial representation

... The resemblance theory of representation states that x represents y just in case x resembles y. ... the illusion theory of pictorial representation maintains that x represents y just in case x causes the illusion of y in spectators. ...

...

... Plato thought painting to be strictly analogous to holding a mirror toward an object. ... [hence] Plato held what we are calling a resemblance theory of representation. ... Note that this theory claims two things. First that resemblance is a necessary condition for representation—that x represents y only if x

[35]

resembles y. But it also claims something else, namely that if x resembles y, then x represents y. ... The first occurrence of "if" here signals that resemblance is a sufficient condition for representation—... The "only if" portion of the formula states that resemblance is a necessary condition for representation. ...

... if x resembles y, does it follow that x represents y? This seems false; ... Imagine two [identical] automobiles... They roll off the assembly line one after the other, ... These two ... will resemble each other maximally, but neither represents the other. ...

... Resemblance is a

reflexive relation.

... But

representation is not reflexive:

I resemble myself in every respect, but I do not represent myself. ...

... resemblance is a

symmetrical relation.

That is, if x is related to y, then y is related to x in the same way (xRy if and only if yRx). If I am Pat's brother, then Pat is my brother. ... But

representation is not a symmetrical relation.

If a picture of Napoleon resembles Napoleon, it follows that Napoleon resembles his picture, but it does not follow that Napoleon represents his picture. ... Thus,

[36]

resemblance cannot serve as a model for representation, ... there will be many cases of resemblance ... that will not warrant attributions of representation. ...

One might try to get around this objection via amending the resemblance theory by stipulating that x must be a visual design. ... Thus, even if Napoleon resembles his portrait, we will not say that he represents it because Napoleon is not a visual design. But this calls attention to a[nother] problem ...

What most visual representations
resemble most
are other visual representations.

A picture of Richard Nixon looks more like a picture of Bill Clinton than it looks like Richard Nixon. ...

...

...

Resemblance, then, does not appear to be a sufficient condition for representation. But is it a necessary condition? ...

... When we say that

one object represents another object,

we mean, at the very least, that

the first object is a symbol for the second object.

... But what is a symbol? ... Peirce

[37]

defined a symbol as

a sign
"whose special significance or fitness
to represent just what it does represent
lies in nothing but the very fact
of there being a habit, disposition or other effective rule
that it will be so interpreted."

...

Consider a military map. A thumbtack can stand for an armored division, but it does not resemble an armored division. ... In a context like this one, what stands for the armored division is arbitrary. ... But

if the symbol relation (denotation) is the core of representation,

and if denotation can obtain without resemblance,

then resemblance is not a necessary condition for representation.

Carroll—A contemporary introduction—Chapter 1 (Part 1 of 2)

Noël Carroll
Philosophy of Art: A contemporary introduction
(1999)

---

[19]

1
Art and representation

Part 1
Art as representation

Art, imitation and
representation

... In the course of outlining his utopia, [Plato] argued that poets—particularly dramatists—should be outlawed. ... According to Plato, the essence of drama was imitation—the simulation of appearances. ... he believed that appearances appeal to the emotions and that stirring up the emotions is socially dangerous. An emotional citizenry is an unstable citizenry, ready to be swayed by demagogues ...

Arguments like Plato's against poetry are

still heard today

when it comes to discussions of the mass media.

How alike are these arguments, really?

Often we are told that TV with its seductive imagery ... makes for an unthinking electorate.

Because seductive TV imagery makes us ready to be swayed? Because this imagery appeals to the emotions? Who is making that argument quite like Plato?

...

Aristotle, however, believed that Plato's case was overstated. ...

[20]

... Tragedy evokes pity and fear in spectators, but, he said, it does this for the purpose of catharsis—that is, for the purpose of purging the emotions. ...

... Aristotle also thought that Plato was mistaken in presuming that drama did not address the mind ... He maintained that people can learn from imitations, ...

Though Plato and Aristotle disagree in their diagnosis ... Both take poetry to be involved essentially in the imitation of action. ...

What painters try to do, on the Platonic-Aristotelian view, is to reproduce the appearances of things—to copy them— ...

... Plato and Aristotle primarily thought of dance and music as accompaniments ... They were parts of drama, ... Thus, along with drama and painting, Plato and Aristotle thought of music and dance as primarily imitative or representational arts.

[21]

When the Greeks used their word for "art," they had a broader conception in mind than we do today. For them,

an art

was

any practice that required skill.

Medicine and soldiering were arts on this conception. ... [they] would not have defined the arts, in their sense, as solely involved in imitation. However, it is clear that ... [they] thought that these [today's fine arts] shared a common feature: ... imitation.

... the theory of art that we find presupposed [here] ... We may state it thus:

x is an artwork only if it is an imitation.

...

Today, after almost a century of abstract painting, ... the theory that art is imitation appears to us to fail as a general theory of art, ...

...

... in deference to Plato and Aristotle, we should also add that ... When they went in the theater, or when they went to the unveiling of a new sculpture, what they saw were imitations ...

[22]

...

So, in their own time, the imitative (mimetic) theory of art advanced by Plato and Aristotle had some initial plausibility. It coincided with the dominant examples of Greek art and it also

informed readers about
what to look for and to appreciate

in the art of their contemporaries,

Seriously, Boomer?!

Carroll—A contemporary introduction—Introductory Chapter

Noël Carroll
Philosophy of Art: A contemporary introduction
(1999)

---

[2]

Introduction

What is philosophy?

The word "philosophy" has many different meanings. ... Herein, "philosophy" will generally refer to a certain academic discipline.

... there are many different schools of philosophy, ... [which] often have different aims and emphases. The type of philosophy that we will we will be exploring in this book is often called analytic philosophy. ...

... it is sometimes called "Anglo-American" philosophy, ... a somewhat misleading label ... it is not ... the only form of academic philosophy in the English-speaking world. ...

... "What exactly does this school of philosophy analyse?" Simplifying drastically, we might say that

what analytic philosophy analyses

[3]

are concepts.

That is why it is sometimes also called

conceptual analysis.

...

Concepts, of course, are fundamental to human life.

Concepts organize our practices.

The concept of a person, for example, ... The concept of a number ... the concept of knowledge ...

Without such concepts, the activities in question would not exist.

Ok,
so politics, morality,number,
indeed knowledge itself,
these practices (a.k.a. activities)
simply would not exist
without the requisite concepts.

How about without the words?

Must we possess the word
in order to possess the concept?