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]

[30]

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.

Haig Khatchadourian—Common Names and "Family Resemblances"

Haig Khatchadourian
Common Names and "Family Resemblances"
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Mar., 1958)

[SK's comments]

Maurice Mandelbaum:
"Haig Khatchadourian has shown that Wittgenstein is less explicit than he should have been with respect to the levels of determinateness at which these resemblances are significant for our use of common names."

This paper makes for utterly thankless reading. I think it's also completely wrong about the "determinateness" issue. Unfortunately, several art-philosophers of the day refer to it, including in the above case, where it serves as a means of reconstituting what Wittgenstein sought to dissolve. Hence we charge ahead at full-throttle.

[341]

COMMON NAMES AND "FAMILY RESEMBLANCES"

I

... we propose to give, first,
a brief analysis of Wittgenstein's notion ...

Next we shall try to show
that

whether or not "family resemblances" constitute a general feature of ordinary language so far as common names are concerned,

there are at least some common names
such that the things named by them

do have

one or more features in common,

though this feature or these features are not

a determinate or relatively determinate

quality or characteristic.

Whatsoever could be a

feature

without also being

a determinate

quality or characteristic

?

Whatsoever
could this "determinacy"
be

relative

to?