Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

Representation and Presentation: A Reply to Professor Dickie

Author(s): Monroe C. Beardsley
Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 58, No. 9 (Apr. 27, 1961), pp. 238-241
Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2023037
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238 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

or design in art, but this is not a compelling reason to demand that

all the components of a representative work of art (a unified visual
design, a unified subject matter, a unified dramatic design, etc.,)
themselves be unified into still another unified design. I suspect
that, as a matter of fact, in the large majority of the great works of
art visual design and its elements are unrelated to subject matter.
GEORGEDICKIE
WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY

REPRESENTATION AND PRESENTATION: A REPLY

TO PROFESSOR DICKIE

Professor Dickie has given an acute explication of a subtle fal-

lacy: that of mistaking a comparison of two parts of the subject
in a representational design (i.e., a design that depicts) for a com-
parison of the subject (i.e., what is depicted) with the design itself.
His analysis clarifies the nature of this error, and perhaps the five
cases he cites are instances of it. My Giotto example certainly
appears to be; it is at best vitiated by loose speaking. The other
four I would defend.
The distinction that he is concerned with is of general relevance
in aesthetics, so I would like to take it up briefly. As Mr. Dickie
shows, the question is what qualities may correctly be attributed
to visual designs as such. Several hard problems in the aesthetics
of fine art involve the relation of subject to design, and to discuss
them intelligibly (or even to be sure they are genuine problems)
we must draw a satisfactory distinction between the two things to
be related.
A particularly puzzling case, it seems to me, is that of predicates
referring to depth or third dimension. Do they apply correctly
to the subject or to the design? Fine arts critics themselves have
vacillated on this point. To cite one example, Clive Bell, shortly
after his well-known statement that "To appreciate a work of art
we need bring with us nothing but a sense of form and color and
a knowledge of three-dimensional space," makes this remark: "If
the representation of three-dimensional space is to be called 'repre-
sentation', then I agree that there is one kind of representation
which is not irrelevant. " 1 But is it to be called " representation " ?
that is the question. I hold that these depth-predicates can apply
to either subject or design-that there is represented depth and
there is presented depth, and they can vary independently. Some-
times it is correct to say that a painting represents one object as
1 Art, 5th ed. (N. Y.: Stokes, [n.d.]), p. 27.
 COMMENTS AND CRITICISM 239

more distant than another, because we can "read" that object as

farther from the picture plane. Sometimes it is correct to say
that a painting-even one that is non-representational-has cer-
tain parts that are (i.e., look) farther back or in front of others
(for example, the simple figure-ground relationship). But when
a design is deep and also represents depth, the distinction is by no
means easy to preserve.
What criterion, then, will serve to help us make and keep the
distinction? I believe Mr. Dickie is using three criteria, and I
object to all of them.
(1) His first criterion is that we can attribute to a visual design
only those qualities that remain invariant through a 1800 rotation.
This is, I think, much too restrictive, and would not in fact be
"generally said." I don't know how far he would extend this.
For example, a 450 rotation converts a square into a diamond-
which is a wholly different figure, phenomenally speaking. As to
the upside-down transformation, a left-hand arrow is a different
design from a right-hand arrow; the universe-class sign (V) is dif-
ferent from the null-class sign (A), for the former is unstable, the
latter stable.2 It would be better to lay down the rule that what is
represented by a design must also be represented by its mirror-in-
version. One could argue, for example, that a photograph cannot
contain any information that would not be given if it were reversed.
But this is too strong, for a photograph of a car tells us whether it
has a left-hand or a right-hand drive.3
(2) Mr. Dickie 's second criterion seems to be constructive: he
lists a basic set of predicates that are stipulated to apply to designs
or their parts, and then, in effect, excludes all other predicates that
cannot be defined in terms of them. This latter step is a form of
reduction, and it amounts, I think, to denying that visual designs
can have any qualities that cannot be localized. But surely it is
not true that complex areas have no qualities but those which single
patches of color can have.
(3) His third criterion seems to exclude such predicates as take
2 On the difference between top and bottom, left and right, see Rudolf

Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception (Berkeley: University of California, 1954),

pp. 16-19.
3 See the extremely interesting article (cited by Arnheim) by Mercedes
Gaffron, "Right and Left in Pictures," The Art Quarterly, Vol. XIII (1950),
pp. 312-331. Gaffron points out powerful differences (in depth, in the rela-
tion of the depicted objects to the observer, etc.) between some paintings or
prints and their mirror inversions. This is especially noticeable in some of
Rembrandt 's etchings, when seen in reverse-that is, the way they were
originally drawn on the plate. I am indebted to two of my colleagues, Pro-
fessor Robert Walker and Professor Hans Wallach, for a vivid demonstration
of this reversal effect.
240 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

their literal meaning from human contexts ("happiness," "sad-

ness," "divine suffering," etc.). He seems to be saying that none
of these terms can correctly be applied, even in a metaphorical
sense, to visual designs. I do not see how he would defend this
position, so I do not know how to counter his defense. And any
general principle that might be used to support it (as that there
can be no true metaphorical predications about designs) seems to
me clearly wrong.
Let us try a fourth criterion, which seems acceptable. If it is
possible to find a non-representational design to which a predicate
truly applies, then that predicate can be applied to the design-
aspect of a representational painting. This is not a necessary con-
dition: we can't assume that, for every quality of designs that are
representational, there must be some non-representational design
with the same (or a closely similar) quality. But surely it is a
sufficient condition. Then I would say that since there are non-rep-
resentational designs that are cheerful, it is possible to speak of a
representational design as cheerful, without referring to the sub-
ject. Mr. Dickie evidently disagrees with me here: "How could
a visual design or its elements alone be cheerful?" But it is so,
and whatever sort of evidence is required to show that it is so, can
be made available. For example, if he will agree that some music
is cheerful, then we can show how certain abstract designs can be
reliably correlated with such music. If, on the other hand, he
denies that there is such a thing as cheerful music, but agrees that
there are cheerful people and events, we can show how certain
musical passages can be reliably correlated with those people's be-
havior and those events.
There is, however, in Mr. Dickie's paper the suggestion that he
would fall back upon another argument, for he seems to hold that if
a line is cheerful it can only be "because it suggests a smile," and
hence "functions as an abstract depiction of a smile, not as a
plastic element." Here he seems to be forcing a dilemma upon us.
He asks: when a line is cheerful, must it have something in common
with the look or bearing of a cheerful person? If we say No, then
he replies that the fusion theory breaks down, since there is nothing
in common between a cheerful design and a cheerful subject. If we
say Yes (because it is the similarity that justifies the metaphorical
extension of the term "cheerful" from person to line), he replies
that therefore the line must be an "abstract depiction." But I
have argued in Chapter 6 of Aesthetics that "depiction" (or
"representation" in this sense) is best defined in such a way that
not all similarities between design and object amount to depiction.
So I hold that a design can be cheerful without depicting a cheerful
 BOOK REVIEW 241

person (just as music can) ; and it can depict a cheerful person

without itself being particularly cheerful. (That a line can be
cheerful without depicting cheerfulness, I am ready to agree in
doubting. But I believe that lines can be brittle and jagged with-
out depicting brittle and jagged objects. And I do think non-repre-
sentational designs may have what I mean by "focus," though
perhaps that is not the best term for the region on which many of
the dynamic movements of the shapes converge.)
I was also much interested in Mr. Dickie's suggestion that the
importance of fusion, if there is such a thing, has often been over-
stressed because of too much concern to show that great paintings
must be unified, not only as designs and as subjects, but in the
relation of subject to design. Perhaps so, but I think we must also
inquire into the source of this concern. The concept of subject-
design unity is connected in an important way, I believe, with two
basic problems in the aesthetics of plastic art. First, there is the
question whether we can really call a representational painting an
aesthetic object, of which both subject and design are components,
in the sense in which we call a song an aesthetic object, of which
words and music are components. It might not be appropriate to
call it such unless there is some relation between design and sub-
ject that unifies them for perceptual experience. Second, let us
grant that the unity of a design has a bearing on whether or not
it is a good design, but we seem to be saying more than this when we
say of a representational painting that it is a good painting. And
if this species of goodness (that is, being a good painting) has any-
thing to do, as I believe it has, with the quality and coherence of the
experience the painting affords, then there is some justification for
holding that this goodness depends, in part at least, upon the fusion
of what it represents with what it presents.
MONROE C. BEARDSLEY
SWARTHMORE
COLLEGE

BOOK REVIEW

Concepts, Theories, and the Mind-Body Problem. Edited by

HERBERTFEIGL, MICHAELSCRIVEN,AND GROVERMAXWELL.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press [1958]. xv, 553
pp. (Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. II.)
$7.00.
This volume is the second in a series published by the Minnesota
Center for the Philosophy of Science. It consists of ten articles,