Narrative - Fantasy of Realness (Hayden White)

Real events do not offer themselves as stories
Hayden White

I. Introduction

In the depths of academia there is a dispute over the reality of narrative, particularly as used in historical description. When historian Hayden White (1928-2018) made the claim that narrative is a fundamentally imaginative creation, this was in order to counter the pervasive view in the study of academic history that historical narrative reports were as accurate as scientific evidence. However, this argument also has wider implications for the later conception of the narrative-self, a creation of postmodern philosophy, that defines identity as being an individual's integration of their own internalised and evolving story into a structured sense of unity. In that there can be no connection drawn between fictions and real-lives. Thus, the conception of the narrative-self will be shown to be making a category error or, at best, to be a vague and banal method of self-description.

In this regard, certain unkind persons (who weren't even defending the position of narrative-self) have written of White's dismissal of all history, all narrative, as being solely fictional and therefore totally unreal. Characterising White's position as being describing all narrative as; a falsehood, a propaganda, a delusion if we believe it to reports anything 'true'. These persons then disregard the basis of White's claim as being in contradiction to the equally preposterous claim that certain (historical) narratives can be taken as objective fact, a literally absolute description of events as they really happened. However, perhaps these certain persons were only using the argument of White's to prove another point in a larger scale analysis of narrative as utilised by historians, psychologists, sociologists, linguists, and philosophers. Then, in this case, perhaps we should give these certain persons a break and instead look to fully realise the arguments of White and what they would actually have to say about narrative such as we story-tellers would wish it to say about life if we gave it the air and space to breathe as a theory (and the decency to interrogate it fairly when not otherwise occupied with writing an MA thesis).

II. White's conception of Narrative meta-codes
(from 'Being & Narrative', University of York MA dissertation by CGM)

White's formulation is concerned with historical writing as being interpretive and that this explication takes its form primarily as narrative. Narrative is by definition an imaginative construction in that the historian approaching historical events imposes an ideological perspective in trying to create an ordered plot. Narrative has this vital stance because it is what White (1987) calls a “meta-code, a human universal on the basis of which transcultural messages about the nature of a shared reality can be transmitted.” (p.1) Our desire to impose narrative upon a report of events is so natural, so instinctive, that it is only the absence (or refusal) of narrative that creates problems.

White's characterisation of narrative as a kind of 'meta-code', that is, as the empirical grounding for all communication could be seen as an attempt to equate the apparent ubiquity of narrative with an innate human condition. The formulation of which is the basis for White's argument that narrative is a solution to the problem of fashioning human experience into a form of meaning that is fundamentally human rather than culturally dependent. White also echoes Barthes' dictum here that narrative: “is simply there like life itself... international, transhistorical, transcultural,” (Quoted in White 1987) narrative is, for White, the fundamental human experience of meaning.

However, it is an imposed meaning. Problems begin when the historian, for example, tries to give real events the form of a story. “It is because real events do not offer themselves as stories that their narrativization is so difficult.” (White 1987, p.4) That is, this attempt at creating a narrative coherence; one with 'closure', a defined start, and a coherent form, imposes a structure on the historical past that was not there before and as such is similar to the novelist's act of creation. For White history as it is lived, i.e. the present and our ongoing existence is merely an unrelated sequence of occurrences. Some things, for sure, do happen as a result of earlier actions, but more regularly the sense of our lives is currently 'hidden' from us. The activity of the narrative historian is no different from that of the literary fabulists. It is this that prompts White (1989) to say that, “the notion of a 'true' story is virtually a contradiction in terms. All stories are fictional.” (p.27) Historians may aspire to reproducing the reality of events but this absolute view is impossible, history must, in an attempt at communicable coherence, involve selection and therefore distortion and fictionalisation.

Historians, then, are naïve in their belief that their narratives could be 'copies' of real events past, White considers this to be a distortion as it involves selecting and filling in, a deviation from the perfect replica. The distinction between real and imaginary events presupposes this notion of reality that there is 'the true', i.e. something that only 'real' narratives can be said to possess. We might refer to this as being 'correct to the facts or events themselves' but such a perfect record could not be possible. Consider the historical recording of a famous battle, for example, for it to be factually true in regard of the event itself it would have to involve either an almost endless detailing of every perspective of all the participants or else it would have to involve an objectively true account that gave a complete view of the battle within a historical framework.

White's claim is based on the view of a perfect replica of events as being ultimately flawed, and yet this still seems to be his unobtainable goal. For if all stories fall into fictions as White contends, then this presumes that what the historian wants to do is give an exact mirror-image of events as they happened, that is, the perfect objective view. However, correct as this might be in describing the failings of absolute objectivity, this does not discount the work of serious historians who want to represent what historical events mean to our present day lives, that is, what the 'stories' of the past have to say about views of modern morality, politics and so forth.

III. Everyday storytelling and narrative

Indeed, although we could follow this line more and see where it leads, it is, I would suggest, dealing with a conception of narrative that is too 'specialist', too academic for the general audience. Now perhaps certain persons held a distinct form of narrativity that they wished to elucidate, but for today and for now what we are interested in are the snapshot real-life stories that people wish to share with others. Not least because the idea of Digital Storytelling has started to gain traction as community project in the minds of local government, charitable organisations, and (my point of interaction) public libraries. These various projects are all about supporting people to create stories of their life experiences to share with others, stories that are intended to "engage participants who were not digitally-confident, introducing them to online culture in a way that built skills and emphasised personal relevance." (Ainsley 2019)

At this point we might wish to note that our 'concerns' are those that are purely academic, as generally most people have very little regard for the 'truth' of any particular narrative, which is one of the reasons that I would suggest people are so susceptible to fake news. Still, I will leave this particular analysis for another day. They should be concerned nonetheless as it is evident that not interrogating the truthfulness (or otherwise) of a statement (be it political propaganda or otherwise) is not merely for the academics but that logical thinking should be a skill that all have. Another reason for philosophy to be taught at school and the earlier the better. Anyway.

What of the truth of our personal narratives? Might it be more likely that in the action of making a intimate story into a performative utterance that we find previously hidden aspects to this account that we had not investigated ourselves previously? I think that this is more likely the case (and bares out reports from various workers) than the possibility that someone might create a Walter Mitty fiction. And even if they were to do so then surely then this would be more 'harmful' to themselves than any public listener.

These individual anecdotes might well be a fictional as any story, but like other larger scale stories we as a society tell ourselves, there is also a 'truth' within them. The story of Love for example, and I say story here because although scientists will attempt to 'prove' the basis of love as a chemical reaction, this is not what it means to the sufferer. The sight of a loved one can be accurately (scientifically at any rate) described as electromagnetic radiation reflecting onto the cornea and this activating a recognition memory which in turn fires sex hormones and other neurochemicals, but this hardly even touches upon the human feelings that this means or rather this does not even come close to describing something understandable to another human being, it is a very remote representation that is almost alien to hear. The experience of life is not like a scientific process and although it may not be truly said to be in reality much like a story either (being in fact more chaotic and less definite) but it is graspable as a story and communicable also.

When we crave 'realness' in stories, what we mean is, I want this to be relatable to me, to engage with my impressions of whatever. The real in 'real life stories' isn't objective perhaps, but it was never meant to be and yet it is still real enough.

There are different sorts of stories of course, we've covered two here, personal-public narratives and 'intercultural' stories about human experience (the 'story' of Love) and there are many others to be investigated.

Next time: Social narrative as social control. When stories are used to instil an attitude or belief in the many (those who serve) by the few (those with power), thinking especially of the heroic romanticisation of war being used to drive those unwilling (by the thought of killing and potentially being killed) into fighting for their country.

Bibliography.

Ainsley, M. What’s the story? An independent evaluation of the Digital Storytelling Residences, (Scottish Book Trust, 2019) Published Online.
White, H., Content of the Form, (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1987).
White, H., 'Figuring the nature of times deceased', in Future Literary Theory, Ed. by R. Cohen, (New York: Routledge, 1989).

Suggestion #5 Art & Illusion

What is it that art seeks to represent if we describe it as a mirror-copy of the world or an emotional illusion of an object/event?

Could it be that art is not an attempt to copy that which already exists, nor does it attempt to confuse or mislead, but is instead an attempt to create something.

A something-that and it is what the 'that' constitutes in is what makes the art work worthy of further investigation.

Thoughts were prompted by the reading of this book

History of Aesthetics (2) Baltasar Gracián y Morales

Balthasar Gracián (1601 – 1658) was a Spanish Jesuit Priest and Moralistic Writer whose influencial work Oráculo manual y arte de prudenica (1637) was translated into many other languages, most famously into German by Schopenhauer, and became an important starting point for many of the discussions upon the nature of aesthetics in the 18^th century. It was in The Oracle (alternatively The Art of Worldly Wisdom) that the first conceptual description of taste (it is believed, e.g. Kivy in ‘The Seventh Sense’) was first set out.  However, the style of the book is somewhat ‘labyrinthine’ in that it tends to ‘orbit’ a point without directly making it. This makes his writing rather easy to take as flippant or else as a misanthropic pithy saying without any deeper or more rigourous grounds to them, but, much like one of his later admirers Nietzsche, to take him at this surface level is to do a disservice to his work.

The Oracle is undoubtedly meant as a moral guide to life, much like the earlier stoic work Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, but within its pages is also a delicate aesthetic theory, one that will reoccur with the development of the ‘man of fine taste’ in post-Baumgarten European Aesthetics. Good taste in the Oracle is not merely a concept related to our critical or aesthetic behaviour but is a constituant part of what we are; it represents the faculty of liking or disliking in a wide range of situations and towards a variety of objects and so forth, and thus it represents the first attempted construction of taste as a mental faculty. A further insight that Gracián elaborates is that this taste is not an innate function of mankind, but that it is must be honed through the correct education. We might say, therefore, that although we all have the capability for exhibiting good taste in our lives it is only those who make the correct efforts and with the appropriate dedication that may be called a ‘person of good taste’ or in Gracián’s words “a saint.” I believe he means this (in the final aphorism) to be taken as a near impossiblity, rather than sainthood being something that most could achieve, the total achievement of Virtue is a task that is almost endless. However, no less worthy for that, that it is rather a life’s work and when do we know when it is complete? Well, like the saint it is only once dead and another can pass judgment upon our life. For saints are only sainted postmortum, which may be seen as a final misanthropic witticism of Graciáns, but I prefer to see this as a humourous aside to those that feel they could not get any better. Your life is never complete, Gracián is saying, it is a constant education to better one’s self and follow the path of Virtue and Virtue is synonymous with good taste in this reading. [Note: Although, under some readings 'saint' = Christian, as Gracián was a Jesuit priest, I'm using the 'saint' = canonized model.]

Following is a small selection from the Oracle of various fragments of aphorisms that deal with taste, either directly or indirectly, and are divided into the; original Spanish, Walton’s translation, and my interpretation.

14.

Un bel portarse es la gala del vivir: desempeña singularmente todo buen término.

A gracious deportment is the adornment of life: it provides the best way to the attainment of every worthy end.

If you behave well then your life will go more smoothly towards the Virtuous.

22.

Es munción de discretos la cortesana gustosa erudición.

The armoury of the discreet is polite, tasteful learning.

I take the emphasis on learning here to be the vital point.This is what the ‘discreet’ have as their advantage over all others.

28.

En nada vulgar. No en el gusto.

Be vulgar in nothing. In the first place, not in your taste.

The importance of taste, that is, its preeminance above all other ‘qualities’. The vulgar is in opposition to what is Virtuous.

32.

Estar en opinión de dar gusto.

Cultivate a repution for being pleasant.

I would see taste (gusto) here as being worthy of cultivation in that your dealings with other people will be all the better for its development, as he goes on to say “those who behave in a friendly way make friends.” Thus, those who are ‘tasteful’ will further develop their taste.

33.

Tenga, pues, libertad de genio, apasionado de lo selecto y nunca peque contra la fe de su buen gusto.

Maintain, then, freedom of spirit, be zealous in pursuit of what is choice, and never sin against the verdict of your good taste.

Do not presume too much, extremes are to be avoided, taste deals with wise moderation.

39.

Es eminencia de un buen gusto gozar de casa cosa en su complemento: no todos pueden, ni los que pueden saben.

It is high privilege of good taste to enjoy everything in its perfect state: not every one is capable of doing this, and not all those who have the ability know how to do so.

It is not just a natural endowment, taste must be ‘cultivated’ that is it must be educated in the appropriate manner.

41.

Son las exageraciones prodigalidades de la estimación, y dan indico de la cortedad del conocimiento y del gusto.

Exaggerations are excesses of the judgment and indicate limited knowledge and taste.

Exaggeration is “an offshot of lying” and is damaging to your own [reputation for] wisdom. The wise prefer understatement to overstatement. Although it should be pointed out that Gracián himself is normally to be found overstating the case...

51.

Lo más se vive de ella: supone el buen gusto y el rectísimo dictamen; que no bastan el estudio ni el igenio.

Most things in life depend upon right choice: it implies good taste and the most accurate judgment, for study and intelligence are not enough.

An argument for free will is also within the pages of Gracián’s Oracle. Also, it is not by study alone that a man might exhibit taste, i.e. one cannot just read books (like Gracián’s) one has to be about to put this knowledge to use and know how to act correctly through practical and not just theorectical application.

65.

Gusto relevante. Cabe cultura en él, así como en el ingenio; realza la excelencia del entender el apetito del desear, y depués la fruición del poseer. Conócese la altura de un caudal por las elevación del afecto.

Good taste. There is room for cultivation here, just as in the case of the mind; the excellence of the understanding enhances the appetite of desire, and, later on, the enjoyment of possession. The extent of a man’s capacity is to be known by the loftiness of his taste.

The “loftiness of taste” is, again, not a ‘limit’ that we are born with, but one that may be extended by our cultivation.

-

If there are any Spanish speakers who could offer a different translation to Walton’s and help out with any cultural nuances that seem to have snuck past me then I’d be truly grateful.

Old Post #2 - Aesthetic Appreciation of Murder

[Originally written for and published on the old version of this blog]

In art we are able to appreciate the presentation of matters that we would otherwise find horrific or morally objectionable if they were encountered in real-life. We might say of the brutal death of a character in a film, play, or novel that it was particularly realistic or moving. What is it that finds enjoyment in these situations, are either of these descriptions why we come to call the depiction of murder or torture beautiful?

Mercutio's Death in Zeffirelli's Film

It doesn't appear that realism is a quality that we can have a substantial claim to, at least not for the basis of appreciation of violent fiction. If we take the death of Mercutio as a famous death in fiction as our example, it is not the realism of the depiction that we take pleasure in. If the actor is terrible we might find our enjoyment of the play hindered, but what right do we have to make this claim? From a large audience perhaps it is imaginable that several people might have seen someone stabbed and die in a similar way to Mercutio, but we do not need first-hand experience of any given event to appreciate it aesthetically. Indeed, too much realism may have a similar effect that too little has. Realism here does not have to directly correspond with nature, rather it is whether it is imaginable as the sort of thing that would happen in the narrative we are observing. So, while realism, of a sort, is partially what we look for, it is only ever as a secondary quality (one that, in its absence or abundance, becomes more apparent).

If realism is not the cause of our appreciation then perhaps it is emotional effect of the event. However, the emotional reaction we take from the fictional depiction of murder is distinct to that of a murder in real-life. We don't call the police to arrest Tybalt for example. Is this then the pleasure we experience, that we are able to vicariously experience another's suffering without moral comeback? That the kind of 'cultivated' emotion we experience with the viewing of art, in contradistinction to real-life events and situations, is an opportunity to purify ourselves of these emotions of 'fear and pity' what Aristotle calls Katharsis. Some might argue for this, but I believe this to be too simplistic a theory, we are seeking for the cause of artistic pleasure not some kind of juvenile emotional thrill (whether it is purified or not). Although this too can accompany the experience of viewing art, indeed, I do not wish to deny the emotional pull of witnessing great artistic depictions of death, but that greater still is the 'need' to experience art.

Judith Beheading Holofernes by Caravaggio

We call these artistic depictions of death beautiful, but unless we were a sociopath we would never say the same about the death of a proximally close person to us. (I feel that I have to add the proviso of proximal closeness, as the constant media coverage of the deaths of soldiers, celebrities, and various victims have distanced our engagement with these otherwise real events.) Unless confused by context one can grasp these images of death as a purely artistic creation, but one that must 'fit' within our already accepted structures. However, art is also about pushing both creative boundaries and our boundaries as an audience, that is, the very social norms they must operate within to be intelligible or acceptable. Can an image of a gruesome murder (e.g. Judith Beheading Holofernes) be considered art? We consider Caravaggio's painting as art precisely because it is not only emotive, realistic or technical. All these form part of the construction of a contextual frame which sets the work in the scale of value we might impose on it, but greatest of these is aesthetic experience, for if this is lacking then the work is merely a depiction without merit. A work that depicts a subject as strong as murder without artistic merit is one that immediately falls into a form of moral bankruptcy, in that it sensationalises a subject for cheap returns. Whether it is its 'realism', 'technicality', or 'shock'.

Just to be clear, what I've been discussing is the artistic depiction of what would otherwise be considered a 'morally' shocking event. The further elaboration of a real-life event being treated as art is not worth considering as it falls into the realm of the sociopath again (although we can imagine a situation were the audience believes the actor's performance unaware that he has suffered a fatal heart attack, for example, but this is only due to a context failure). My claim then is that we are not 'duped' by art, willingly or not, into reacting in some quasi-psychological manner (as has been suggested by some philosophers) but that our reactions are very 'real'. However, it is the status of the 'realness' that is being questioned, I consider it a real experience of art, but it is not a real experience of murder.

Reply to the argument #1 - "Timeless experience is not experience"

[Before reading this, please read yesterday's piece here]

Although it is argued that the timeless experience is not "merely a gesture", but that it is indeed a "fuller experience",  it is the intent of this response to show that this is all it is and could ever be under the framework of description offered.

Rather than offer one way in which we might define art (as historical) instead we are given another definition as the one correct manner (or, at any rate, the ‘best’). Indeed, it becomes obvious by the end that this definition of experience is nothing so solid, but is rather merely a vague gesture towards what an artistic experience might comprise of. Hence, the acknowledgement of our own ‘historicity’ and the odd image of the historical and the timeless ‘mixing’ in some part, greater the amount of timelessness the greater the art work, or the experience possible from the art work. However, here is clear point, where is the timelessness to found? By this description it would seem that it is a ‘thing’ that a good artist can implant within a work and thus stimulating a greater or fuller aesthetic experience in us the viewer. This seems misplaced although it is an understandable mistake if we follow the standard trail of aesthetic reasoning as it has developed from the enlightenment until present day. This trail and the misplaced route I place at the door of ‘aesthetic concepts’ as defined most elegantly by Frank Sibley in his same titled work of 1959.

Let me just define where I see the problem before I go on to attack it. Firstly, the placing of the aesthetic concept ‘timelessness’ in the object is problematic itself even before we consider how it is placed there by the supposedly historical being of the artist. Next, having placed this experience as reliant on an external quality of an object, the question of interpretation of art objects is merely dismissed as being an unknowable. Thus, what we are left with is merely a gesture towards some sort of ‘mystical’ experience. An experience that we might conclude is certainly capable of being totally subjective, but not problematic for all this. “Well, it’s MY experience of the object that is of importance and anyway if it’s a timeless experience then can’t we all be said to be experiencing the same sort of thing, in a round-about manner?” Well, perhaps, but then perhaps this timely experience of the timeless aspect of art is rather a sort of mental confusion. The sort of paradox suggested by Zen masters to lead the thinker towards enlightenment, however, this particular koan is an empty gesture, although if the intended outcome what seeing ‘this’ then its complexity was rich indeed. And this then is my main worry, that what we really want when we experience art is some sort of mysterious feeling, as if the point of art is not to feel connected with something but to feel bewildered by the inability to say anything at all. That it is this that is the connecting feeling we must be aiming for. We are all one in the World means we are all so absolutely confused that we accept this all together.

If this were the point of art then surely the majority of films, music, paintings, sculptures, and so forth would instead be a chaotic mass of swirling sound, colour, form, and motion with the strict intent of inducing this kind of pseudo-mystical rapture. I say pseudo here because this sort of conception is exactly that, a sort of ‘quick fix’ mysticism for the pretentious. The mystic, if they are to be a mystic in my understanding, does not engage in something so quick and easy, but neither are they engaged in something solvable by a great deal of hard thinking. Ultimately they might seek refuge in the realm of the beyond (as I would see it) but I would suggest this communion comes about from an acceptance within one’s whole life and is not a simply transportable experience available to all (or, rather, available to all without much effort).

Although an effort is made to suggest that art should be without the evidence of history, it is admitted that this cannot be so, for then it would be outside of human agency, instead we are offered the image of an art work created with intent of it being communicable to all humanity ever. A bold claim. Although the basis of this perspective was to avoid the levelling down of the institutional art experience (that we must know the historical context to understand or to even experience the art object) the outcome has ended the same. An art experience must be an experience that communicates some vague abstract of human experience for it to be an art experience that is worth having, but why must it be an experience of a certain type?

We cannot get round the fact that we are historical beings and that the things we create (be they art objects or not) necessarily ‘live’ with us in time as well as being solid formations of a certain cultural time. It is also true to describe the process of art as an attempt at expressing something fundamental about human experience, that it is an articulation of that experience of the artist. Well, why not just acknowledge these facts? What is challenging about art is not to be found in how we define art, but in how (and WHY) we approach it at all.

Grounds for argument #1 - "Art is best experienced viewed timelessly"

[This piece and its reply are steps along the way to building a larger conception]

Pablo Picasso’s Guernica (above) is a painting that can be taken as being in response to a particular event; the Nazi bombing of said town during the Spanish civil war, and indeed in a solely historically defined, or timely fashion, this can be said to be completely correct, but in ‘reducing’ the painting to only having this sort of historical attachment removes what is its deeper more expansive force. In a sense, I want to say and this is my addition, that a true work of art and therefore a fuller aesthetic experience is one that is timeless (to use a Wittgensteinian phrase[1]). That is, that we can appreciate Guernica not because we can relate in some way its historical value but that it speaks to us (that is, it shows us) about things that are of primordial importance to the experience of human existence. The images of horror, pain and suffering without a direct cause show us something of the conflict we all face; against faceless power, against convention, and against our own historicality, that we cannot escape: The war of existence. Thus, we have here a distinction between art (timeless) and propaganda (only timely). The key point here is that propaganda is only timely, that it communicates nothing but present circumstances in an attempt to influence public opinion. Therefore, the more an artwork has of the element of timelessness the closer it is to being true art. However, I do not believe that such a work would ever be completely possible as we are always already within our own historicity. That is, there is always something attaching us to our present circumstances and that this ‘expression’ of the timeless cannot be a true expression in any categorical sense, but that it is attempting to show us something beyond.

This brings forth another point, a distinctly Wittgensteinian one, that of saying and showing (this is how Richard Shusterman in his Pragmatist Aesthetics describes it – in so many words – without referencing the obvious influence). As Shusterman says quoting Dewey, “the particular quality which unifies and thus constitutes aesthetic experience, can only be felt… and cannot be described nor even specifically pointed at.”[2] Any attempt to describe or define the aesthetic experience in words, which goes beyond just a pointing out, is an impossible task. As the aesthetic experience is an ‘immediate experience’ then this is inadequate as grounds for a justificational standard for critical judgement. That is, defining art as aesthetic experience, is defining something comparatively clear (art) by something obscure and indefinable. Thus, there is no measurement here, but if it cannot be properly described how can we define art in this manner? Shusterman answers, “a good definition of art should direct us toward more and better aesthetic experience” and “redefining art as experience liberates it from the narrowing stranglehold of the institutionally cloistered practice of fine art.”[3]

However, what of a foreign visitor viewing Picasso’s Guernica who does not have any of the Western cultural conventions of art that we all do, and for that matter what of our viewing of an ancient art from a ‘lost’ civilisation how can either make any sense without an understanding of the history? Well, this may be true and I would agree with this but then to make this all that the artwork is[4] seems to miss the point of the artwork. We do not need to know the artist’s intent (indeed, there is a strong case that we cannot ever know the artists intent) to interpret an artwork, but to ‘correctly’ interpret it? That is another matter[5].

The question should still remain, how exactly am I using timelessly as a concept? For it seems to suggest some sort of transcendent experience, that is to say, one outside of human agency. However what I am suggesting is nothing like this, perhaps it would be best to say that I am using this notion of timelessness more in a poetically metaphorical manner than philosophically conceptual, I am not suggesting something transcend of human experience. Rather, something that is timeless as ‘we’ are timeless, that is we as Humanity. Thus, the primordial experience shared by all, the experience of experience, but I do not mean this in such a vague and nebulous fashion. At least not in the context of defining art, although to call this notion a concept would be suggest that I have (like many have mistakenly done before) taken an abstract and made it a ‘thing’. Of course, I have no such intention, but I have something like this in mind, “one who lives not in time but in the present is happy” and “in order to live happily I must be in agreement with the world. And that is what ‘being happy’ means.”[6] Therefore, art when viewed timelessly (rather when it exhibits this timelessness and is thus capable of being viewed timelessly) is showing us our fundamental experiential natures that is our constant running up against the ‘limits of the world.’ This could be expressed thusly, “feeling the world as a limited whole – it is this that is mystical.”[7] Moreover, we might substitute mystical for an aesthetic experience quite successfully here.

---

[1] Perhaps a moment to explain this mention of Wittgenstein here, in using ‘timeless’ I am referring to section 6.4311 namely, “If by eternity is understood not endless temporal duration but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present.”

[2] Shusterman, Pragmatist Aesthetics, p. 57

[3] Ibid.

[4] The shadowy figure I refer to here is Hegel, but this may be an unfair characterisation.

[5] That is, what is a correct interpretation?

[6] Wittgenstein, Notebooks, pp. 74, 78.

[7] Wittgenstein, Tractatus, 6.45. [my emphasis]

Old Post #1 - Is Finnegans Wake a novel?

This is an old favourite of mine. It's just a simple description of anti-essentialism in aesthetics as described by Morris Weitz. Written sometime in 2008 I think.

---

When we begin with aesthetics the first question any theoretically-minded person will be tempted to ask is the ‘What is art?’ question. This sort of question one imagines will lead us to identify the ‘necessary and sufficient’ conditions of art. However, art is not such a factual discipline; indeed, beyond mathematical formulae (the foundation of those who look at art in this manner) it is impossible to see quite where is the factual problem that is solvable in this way (we might think of cognitive psychologists here in the same regard). This is what the philosopher of aesthetics Morris Weitz meant when he said that there is no essential answer, that philosophers are merely approaching art incorrectly, asking the question ‘what is art?’ is itself a flawed and hopeless task, but yet still this temptation remains (it is not only in art that the temptation is found and nor here alone does it cause us problems and confusions). Weitz (influenced by Wittgenstein) wants us rather to consider in what context do we understand and use the concept of art; that is, the question should be rather not ‘what is art?’ but ‘how do we understand and use the term art in language?’

 If we are to look at the profusion of art theories that came about during the early 20^th century (especially mid-World Wars) that was matched by the amount of art movements, all of them attempted to give an answer to the essence of art. For it was felt that without this answer that we could never get close enough to even understanding what art was, for ‘how can we talk about it, as good or bad, if we cannot give a definite answer of what it comprises of?’ Formalist, Emotionalist, Intuitionist, Organicist, and Voluntarist theories of art all came to give a description of this hidden essence, but although there are still some who hold with a particular theory, for the most part it has been agreed that none of these theories gave a final answer to the question.

Weitz’s claim then is that art cannot be subject to this sort of essential factual definition, as it is an ‘open concept’. Briefly, Weitz believes that art is akin to what Wittgenstein calls ‘family resemblances’, that while we might find some similarities between some examples of art (or games, or what have you) that there is no one unifying ‘something’ that is common to all, but rather similar things or ‘family resemblances’. So, questions like ‘is Finnegans Wake a novel?’ are not factual questions (answerable with a yes or no), but are decision problems. One that is dependent upon a set of conditions, which are always variable (within certain parameters). A concept is an open concept if it is always amenable to change, the concept of art is an adventurous one, as there are always new ideas and movements coming forth (indeed, this might be taken as a defining characteristic, but art is not one thing). Once an art movement becomes ‘closed’ this is normally the death knell of the movement, it is named and constrained, doing this with a wider field, i.e. art, literature, theatre, would be a ridiculous step to deny art its creativity.

What is at stake here is the realisation that there are no necessary and sufficient properties available by a factual analysis but an evaluative decision of not intrinsic but extrinsic or relational properties. However, this takes us from Weitz’s conception and towards that of later philosophers of aesthetics like Stephen Davies, Arthur Danto and George Dickie. To quote Danto from The Artworld, “To see something as art requires… knowledge of the history of art…” This new angle of aesthetics is concerned with the ‘institutional’ nature of art, namely its historical and social properties.

To conclude this short piece on Weitz’s anti-essentialism, I would summarise his main position as against the incorrect use of aesthetic theories. That is, when they are taken literally, i.e. as an attempt to answer conceptual questions (like ‘what is art?’ or ‘is Finnegans Wake a novel?’) in a factual manner, they lead to errors of circularity or, worse, the confining of creativity. Aesthetic theories are not useless however; they are arguments (or recommendations) for looking at a certain criteria of art in a certain way.

Some notes on the nature of Art... (5) Art and Education

The problem such as it is comes with attempting to give them what they want. And who are they 'they' in this case? Funding bodies, MPs, Vice-Chancellors, and all the others who look to higher education that is not strictly vocational as a luxury.

If the current generation have been raised to look at university education and ask 'what's it worth?' or rather 'what job will it get me?' then the answer to the problem lies not in giving them a quantitative answer (“Philosophy is, in commercial jargon, the ultimate ‘transferable work skill”) but a qualitative one.

It (the arts and the humanities) has a value intrinsically, but this gesture of value can never be enough. Instead there should be a detailing of the value of the arts in a way were value itself is shown to be undermined in the accountant's sense of value.

Some notes on the nature of Art... (4) Phylogeny & Aesthetic judgement

There are problems with evolutionary accounts for beauty or aesthetics, mainly it is an attempt to define in reverse, a backwards reading of the situation. The sense of beauty is reduced to a peahen's choosing a mate as being one and the same. There is no need to attribute a peahen with a human aesthetic choice.

Does the peahen find the peacock's feathers beautiful? Why would she think this? Is the beautiful then a thought rather than simply an aesthetic experience (whatever that might mean). Isn't the thought the experience?

Are we not really hungry unless we think 'I am hungry?' - no.

I am hungry, the sensation, the thought holds no further meaning, the experience does not stand for the thought. The experience is enough.

Does art do this, or is it something else? That is to say, something unique.

(This should induce cold shivers)

There is nothing 'special' in this unique sense, art cannot be a different case of family resemblances (Wittgenstein) anymore than truth or any other philosophically dense concept can, but art is not a philosophical case, although asthetics makes it one.

What then is it fundamentally? - Why ask for fundamentals here, this only takes us backwards.

What is fundamental about aesthetics is that it is not grounds for anything, i.e. it isn't truly fundamental at all. It is a simple activity rooted in our natural seeing or elsewise in our natural use of resemblance.

Some notes on the nature of Art... (3) Definite Gesture

This relates to some earlier comments.

Attempts at definition, be they of art or love or friendship, all ultimately seem to flounder and fail. We can say what they are not in a large number of cases and provide examples which show this as clearly distinct (although this may be harder in the case of art than any other) but providing a complete definition seems to fail on the use of the word, i.e. it is too well used, or perhaps, we could say it is used too often in situations were it should not and instead merely gestures towards a 'something like...'

However, the fact that this 'gesture' is understood at all shows that there is something being communicated.

What then does art communicate? That here there is something of value.

Some notes on the nature of Art... (2) Thoughts on Poetry

The poem as occasioning the question of meaning rather than giving the answer or the meaning itself.

Novels are stories or a work. Poetry, however, offers fewer occasions to be naively read, that is, as simple stories.

Question of meaning comes about from an imaginative stance taken towards a poem, even a syntactically rebellious one, that is primarily linguistic. Not a literal reading, not simply 'messages' or folk-tales in poetry. These tend to be bland anyway.

Meaning (the meaning of a poem) in the sense of signification. Its relation to a wider cultural story. No sense in talk of 'finding' meaning, it was already there.

Musicality of poetry. That 'these words' cannot be replaced by other words. The sense of finding the correct 'fit'. Poetry as a technique that must be mastered, it is not merely playing with words, in the sense that almost anything will do. Far from it, it is akin to building a very complex structure and trying to keep its balance.

Critical practices require more than simply imagination and the poem. A sophisticated critical reading would include many other aspects. The musicality, the cultural context, and so on. Indeed, the critical reading as being a work inspired by the former, in a sense the 'child' to the poetic 'parent' or at least have these connections in a familial manner.

Some notes on the nature of Art... (1) The Rules of Art

Many practices can be considered normative, but that doesn't mean that they all rely on explicit rules.

A normative activity is normative because it is first a social activity. These systems of conventions are assigned normative powers by cultures/society and there cannot be these 'rules' in art, otherwise they would be repeatable 'facts' (presumably).

Art work as a gesture* of the surrounding culture. Thus, intransitive, for how could I describe all the rules that apply to the work?

Even if we accept that rules must at some level go to form its basis.

Understanding could be considered as training in rules. Art not only a question of feeling. You only like what you understand. Can this always be right? What of absurdist art? The surprise of art. Showing us a new way of seeing something we already understand. Not new origination (potential impossibility) but new invention of use/seeing/synonym.

The artist, the critic, and the spectator share the same 'form of life' (Wittgenstein).

An artist's work isn't explicitly a following of rules.

Knowledge of rules of art available only after in hindsight, before they are only implicit/potential. The paradox of rules.

Rorty. 'We don't interpret art works, we use them.'

* [Gesture theory? No theory at all. Does thinking of art as a gesture help in any way? It shws us that here is something worth looking at. Something of VALUE.]