Art and Representation

This is an outline of Carroll, Philosophy of Art, Chapter 1

My personal comments are in red.

Analyzing Concepts (from the book's Introduction)

In philosophy, the word 'art' indicates a concept. One concept differs from
another in covering a different category of things, and we assume that there are
distinct criteria for being in one category than another. Finding these criteria is
known as conceptual analysis. For example, "Norwegian" and "likes lutefisk" are
different categories even if both are true of Sven Svenson. Because only some
Norwegians like lutefisk, and some people who aren't Norwegian like lutefisk,
Sven must belong to the category of Norwegians by meeting different criteria than
Sven meets in belong to the category of those who like lutefisk. Likewise, "musical
work" and "work of art" might both be true of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, but
some music isn't art and some art isn't music.

With most concepts, a thing will have to meet SEVERAL criteria to fall into
that category. Each of the individual criteria that it must meet are said to be
NECESSARY CONDITIONS for being in the category. Once we have the total SET
that we need, we have fulfilled the SUFFICIENT CONDITIONS for the
concept. For example, the concept of fatherhood involves two necessary
conditions, being male and being a parent, and those two conditions are together
or jointly sufficient. We now have a conceptual analysis of "father."

In defining art, philosophers hope to spell out the necessary and sufficient
conditions for belonging to the same category as all the other things that we call
"art."

We TEST or EVALUATE a conceptual analysis by identifying some things that

we already count as members of the category, and making sure that these examples
really do satisfy all the criteria we have identified as sufficient conditions. If we
find a work of art that fails to meet one of the necessary conditions, we know we've
made a mistake. Our list is too exclusive (it excludes too many things). But we also
need to identify things that do NOT belong in that category, and if we find one that
satisfies our current list of sufficient conditions, we again know that we've made a
mistake. Our list is too inclusive (it includes too many things). So conceptual
analysis requires thinking about things that ARE covered by our concept as well as
things that are NOT covered by our concept. While being a parent is a necessary
condition for fatherhood, by itself it is it is too inclusive to be sufficient (it includes
moms, but moms aren't fathers). And while being a mom is sufficient for being a
parent, it is too exclusive to be necessary for parenthood (it excludes dads). It can
be very difficult to find the necessary and sufficient conditions for a concept, and
art is one of the most difficult and subject to debate.

Representation as a necessary condition for being art

First Candidate for a definition of art: x is an artwork only if x is an

imitation. It is important to notice that this proposal only stipulates a necessary
condition for being art. It's like asking for a definition of "cat" and being told that
cats are animals. It helps, but it's not intended to be a full definition.

This captures the ideas of Plato and Aristotle, and captures the core idea of the
first systematic definition of art (in the "modern" sense of "art"):

Batteux (1746). To be fine art, it is necessary that something be an imitation of

something else.
For Batteux, that "something else" is beautiful nature (including imitations of
events and attitudes).

According to Paul O. Kristeller, Batteux and his contemporaries were mainly

thinking about five arts: painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and poetry. And
when it came to music, Peter Kivy argues, they were thinking of music with words.

Modern abstract paintings demonstrate that this definition is incorrect. Prior

to the 20th century, we might have used instrumental music as our
counterexample. Literature is another problem case. These are, at best,
representations rather than imitations.

But ARE these really counterexamples? Couldn't we instead conclude that

these aren't art? Why should we assume that they are art?

Second candidate: x is an artwork only if x is a representation, where

something is a representation if it is intended to stand for something besides itself
and others can recognize that it does so.

Architecture remains a counterexample. Churches do not "stand for" anything,

yet they are works of art.

This counterexample is weak. First, churches might represent God's power

and glory, and thus count as representations in the necessary sense. Second,
Batteux did not count architecture as a fine art. He put it in a different category,
that of artifacts "both useful and agreeable." (Public speaking is another case of this
"mixed" category.) Why assume that architecture really is a fine art, and not, as
Batteux suggests, a borderline case?
 Third Candidate: The neo-representational model: x is an artwork only if x has
a subject about which it makes some comment. Notice that this lays down a
requirement for being art, but it does not claim that satisfying this condition is
sufficient for being an artwork. After all, many sentences on this page satisfy this
condition, but these sentences are not works of art.

The core idea of neo-representationalism is that art always has some semantic
content (including expressive content: a work of art may denote something and
express an emotion toward it, as when Picasso's Guernica expresses horror at the
bombing of civilians in war).

Strong point in favor of the theory is that it shows why conceptual art is art
(e.g., Duchamp's readymades -- they warrant interpretation).

BUT expressive music remains a problem. A piece of music might express

sadness, but what does it express sadness ABOUT? There does not seem to be
anything denoted here -- there's no SUBJECT toward which the music expresses
itself. A similar problem arises for a lot of architecture.

DECORATIVE arts also pose a problem. A beautiful pattern often lacks both a
subject and a comment on that subject. But why should we grant that the
decorative arts are art?

_______________________________________________________

The special case of pictorial representation

Even if being a representation is not a necessary condition for being an

artwork, many artworks are representations. So what makes something a
representation?

Four basic proposals:

 Resemblance Theory
x represents y if only if x significantly resembles the look of y.

No good: two manufactured products are visually very similar, but

neither represents the other. Also, the etching of George Washington
on the dollar bill resembles George Washington, and vice versa, but we
don't want to say that George represents his etching. So visual
similarity is not sufficient.

Second try: Visual design x pictorially represents y (which is not a

visual design) if only if x significantly resembles the look of y.
 No good: a photo in an art history book is a visual design that both
resembles and represents the painting that it pictures. "Tightening up"
the definition excludes too much.

FURTHERMORE, resemblance is not necessary for representation.

Denotation represents without resembling, so resemblance is not
necessary. For example, the word "cat" denotes cats, but the word "cats"
in no way resembles cats.

 Illusion Theory
x represents y if only if x causes the illusion that y is present.

No good: who really thinks that x is y? And if we did, why would we

appreciate x? If I thought I was looking at the real thing, what would I
be appreciating?

 Conventionalist or Semiotic Account

Visual design x pictorially represents y if only if x denotes y in accordance
with some established system of conventions. In other words,
representation requires a conventional visual "language." Resemblance is a
matter of being familiar with the governing conventions.

No good: If it really were just a matter of convention, then new visual

techniques would seem less realistic (because unfamiliar), not more.
Furthermore, even very familiar styles (e.g., cubism) never seem realistic.

 Neo-Naturalist Account (emphasizes recognition but not the

deception of illusion)
Visual design x pictorially represents y if only if (1) x is
intended to be recognized as featuring y in x by looking and (2)
it is successfully recognized in this way and (3) x is intended
to denote y, and (4) relevant viewers recognize that x denotes
y.

This theory combines requirements for both visual

recognition and denotation.

HOW do we recognize x as y? Perhaps by resemblance! But

that's for psychologists to determine.

Go back to the argument given against Resemblance Theory: the objection

about denoting without representing depends on a false assumption if we
remind ourselves that we are talking about PICTORIAL
 representation. "Cat" denotes cats, but it doesn't pictorially do so.

This theory captures the fact that some people recognize what a picture
denotes the very first time they see the picture, even if they've seen no
other pictures in that style.

Non-pictorial representation

How do we have representation in non-pictorial cases? For example, music and

literature?

No single thing seems common to all cases. There appear to be four types of
representation:

1. Unconditional (requires no prior agreements or conventions)

What we've already endorsed with pictorial representation: some natural
capacity is exploited to allow us to recognize x in y.

2. Lexical (requires a pre-established conventional code)

What the conventionalist or semiotic approach claimed was generally the
case is sometimes the case: certain movements in ballet, or the halos above
the heads of saints in pictures.

3. Conditional Specific
Only succeeds if the audience already knows, by other means, what is being
communicated. (Basically, you can "see" x in y after you're told to look for x
in y.)

4. Conditional generic
Only succeeds if the audience is looking for a denotation via representation.
(For example, in a game of charades, you're looking for x in y without
knowing what x is.)

CHAPTER TWO

Art and Expression

This is an outline of Carroll, Philosophy of Art, Chapter 2

My personal comments are in red, like this, and you can see that they have a
different style of lettering.. They elaborate on Carroll or react to Carroll.

The expression theory of art (an attempt to define art)

Representation theories and expression theories agree that art communicates,

but they disagree about what is communicated. The expression theory
emphasizes emotions, not ideas or thoughts. Advantage: an idea or thought
must be about something, but some emotions do not. So artworks that lack
denotation can still be art.

Two types of expression theory: arousal and cognitive (non-arousal

conveyance)

We will concentrate on Tolstoy's version of the arousal theory.

Full version:

x is a work of art if and only if x is (1) an intended (2) transmission

to an audience (3) of the self-same (type identical) (4)
individualized (5) feeling state (emotion) (6) that the artist
experienced (himself/herself) (7) and clarified (8) by means of
lines, shapes, colors, sounds, action, and/or words.

(1) rules out cases where one's ordinary behavior conveys a sympathetic
response in others, e.g., your loss of a job makes you behave in a way that
makes the observer feel sad. But sympathetic response doesn't make
something into art. The action must be intended (performed (?) intentionally)
to move an audience.
(2) builds in the assumption that art communicates. Combine #2 with #5 and
you have the core of the arousal theory.
(3) puts a restraint on what counts for successful communication (an identity
condition).
(4) is an originality requirement; it rules out generic expressions, such as
mass-produced greeting cards.
(6) is the experience condition. Add it to condition #3 and we have a sincerity
requirement.
(7) rules out mere venting/letting off steam. It is the clarity condition.
(8) restricts art to expressions that arise in a publicly-accessible medium,
suggesting that some skill must be acquired by artists for exploring public
media.

(7) is central to Collingwood's theory, but it only receives a very brief mention
in Chapter Fifteen of Tolstoy's What Is Art?, where it seems part of his ideal of
universal-accessibility. To actually have Tolstoy's theory, we would replace
"and clarified" with "and made universally accessible."
Carroll proposes that expression theories are more comprehensive than
representational theories, so expression theories are a step forward in
theorizing about art.

Objections to the expression theory

We could reject condition #2 and have a SOLO expression theory: the artist is
not interested in communicating with others, but only wants to clarify her
(Emily Dickinson) or his (Franz Kafka) emotions to herself/himself. And we
want to allow this "solo" expression to be art.

Response to the solo version: If the artist does not intend to communicate to
others, why "fix" the clarification in a publicly-accessible medium?

In principle, a work of art is capable of transmitting emotion to others. This

variation allows "lost" works and practice works to count as art.

Another reason to reject the solo version: If the artist really wants to keep it
private, she/he could have developed a private language (an idiolect) that
would prevent others from understanding.
Reply: There is no such thing as a private language.

A better reason to reject the solo version: Each artist is her/his first audience.
The artist has a dual perspective on the artwork, both as creator and as critic.
Otherwise, the artist would not know how to revise, or even stop working on, a
work in progress. Therefore each work of art really is intended for an audience,
even if only an audience of one.

(Kant's views in section 50 endorse this last position. Without the critical
perspective of taste, genius might produce original nonsense. Genius
individualizes, but taste "clips its wings" by insisting on clarity and order.)

(Tolstoy's response to the solo version: In Chapter 8 of What is Art?, Tolstoy

argues that the more we restrict the audience, the more we trivial the artwork.
To try to create "private" art is to treat art as something of limited consequence.
"Solo" art is another species of counterfeit art.)

Problems with the experience condition

Carroll's first challenge to the identity condition:

If the actor playing Iago in Shakespeare's Othello really felt Iago's self-hatred,
then the actor would not recall all the words, etc. Therefore it will not often be
of the self-same type.
Carroll takes the identity condition to require that the artist feels the emotion
at the time of the creation of the artwork. (But many Romantics have a more
complex view than this. For example, Wordsworth: "I have said that poetry is
the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion
recollected in tranquility; the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of
reaction, the tranquility gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that
which was the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself
actually exist in the mind.") A good portrayal of Iago will summon up, from the
past, real feelings the actor has felt.

Carroll's second objection to the identity condition: Each art form develops
standard formulae or conventions for generating emotions, and an artist can
communicate emotions by learning these (Aristotle's Poetics analyzes these for
ancient Greek tragedies). Once we have rules in place, we don't need the artist
to feel anything.

Carroll's third objection: a "cynic can make a moving artwork." And a lot of art
is commissioned, and there is no reason to suppose that every artist carrying
out a commission feels the emotions she/he is paid to convey.

Reply to Carroll's second and third objections: Both Tolstoy and Collingwood
are aware that this happens, but both argue that these cases are not genuinely
art. They are insincere and fake: like forgeries, they are not really art.

Problems with the experience condition

Carroll finally asks whether an artist must "at some time or other" have had the
emotion that is communicated. Carroll thinks not. (Wordsworth's criterion)
Psychopaths can manipulate people despite their lack of feelings. Can't there
be psychopath artists?
(Tolstoy and Collingwood would answer that a "scam" is not a genuine work of
art.)

Problems with the clarity condition.

Some art is raw and unprocessed. Beat poetry, and punk art.

Reply: Punk art? Would that be punk music and fashion? Nothing was less
spontaneous and more calculated than punk! If a punk band plays a song that
was written previously --whether a "cover" version of someone else's song, as
when the Sex Pistols covered the Monkees' song "I'm Not Your Stepping
Stone," or they perform their own song for the 500th time, as when the Sex
Pistols sang "Anarchy in the U.K." at show after show-- it can hardly count as
raw and unprocessed. Furthermore, improvising (what the beats did) does not
demonstrate a lack of clarification.

A different (and better) attack on the clarity condition: Surrealism and

Symbolist art aim at elusive feelings. Clarification is avoided. Aleatoric (chance)
art intentionally adopts strategies to eliminate the clarification process.

Problems with the originality/individualized condition

The histories of Christian or Hindu art show traditions full of very generic
emotions.
(Hindu aesthetics specifically values generic emotions above individualized
ones! The more generic, the more the experience leads to a negation of the self.)

THE BOTTOM LINE: does all art express emotion?

No. A lot of recent conceptual art conveys ideas, but no emotions. "It is
cognitive, not emotive." Look at Escher, Warhol, etc.
Defenders of expression theory could reply that humans CANNOT HELP BUT
express emotions when they communicate. Carroll's reply: The accountant
who adds up a column of figures and communicates the results can do so
without conveying emotion (the result will be the same if a second person, in a
different emotional state, does the same thing).

Some pure/absolute music is beautiful and pleasing, without conveying

emotion. The audience feels pleasure, but the music does not express pleasure.
It stimulates it.

Do we even need a public medium?

Couldn't it just be done "in" the artist's head? And then reported on? A lot of
conceptual art seems to work this way. The public object reports on the work
of art rather than transmits it. (Couldn't we say the same about a music score
and a music performance?)

Carroll concludes that none of the necessary conditions are really

necessary. Worse, they are not even sufficient.

The nasty letter/speech examples satisfy all the requirements, but they are not
works of art.
But Carroll does not engage with Tolstoy's response to this point: Carroll is
talking about "counterfeit art." For Tolstoy, lack of individuality gives us a
counterfeit. Lack of clarity gives us a counterfeit. Lack of sincerity gives us a
counterfeit. So generic Christian art is no good. Symbolist art is no good (in
fact, Tolstoy goes out of his way to attack Symbolism). Finally, insincere art is
no good.

A problem with AROUSAL theory

What distinguishes expression from mere propaganda? Transmitting an

emotion to an audience does not distinguish art from propaganda. To deal with
this, Collingwood has a substitute condition for condition 2 as discussed by
Carroll. The emotion is not transmitted to the audience. Instead, it is clarified
for the audience. Instead of "arousing" the emotion in the audience, the
audience becomes aware of their existing emotions.

How is it possible for art to be expressive?

Although some art is not expressive, a lot of art is. However, there are puzzles
concerning this. PEOPLE (and some other animals) are expressive in the literal
sense of "expressive," having emotional and other mental properties that they
reveal to others.

But works of art are physical objects, repeatable structures, and other artifacts.
The challenge: If something has no emotions, it cannot be expressive. So works
of art cannot be expressive.

This challenge rests on two central claims: If artworks (and/or their parts)
possess expressive properties, they must be capable of possessing mental
properties, but these are not the kind of things that can bear mental properties.

Two ways to respond to the challenge:

1. Deny that artworks literally express anything: they

only metaphorically do so.
2. Fight the challenge directly by attacking the two claims.

Metaphorical Exemplification

This thesis says that artworks (and their parts) literally possess properties
which we describe metaphorically with expressive labels. (E.g., when it is slow
and in a minor key, we are likely to say that music is sad.)

The notion of exemplification tells us that the artwork possesses,

metaphorically, some of the same properties as another thing. We say that it is
done metaphorically because it doesn't look as if artworks can possess these
properties literally (see the challenge immediately above).
Problem: what system allows us to consistently map our metaphors onto the
literal properties? Metaphor approach has no clear answer to this question.

Attacking the reasons to deny literal exemplification

We apply expressive labels to a wide range of representations, both fictional

and non-fictional. We label both the characters represented and the
representations in which they appear. But we do not do so by attributing these
expressive properties to the person who actually created the representation.

Examples: Fox Mulder is deadpan. The X-Files series is deadpan.

(If I can write a letter that expresses love, why can't I write a fictional one with
the same quality? And why can't I create a fictional character who expresses
the same mental property? If a real person can express it, both a fictional
character and a representation can do so.)

This analysis rests on our ability to distinguish between the mental properties
of the author (often called the historical author), the narrative persona (the
point of view adopted), and the characters. E.g., Mark Twain (or Samuel
Clemens, the historical author) wrote Huck Finn in the voice of Huck (the
narrative persona), a fictional character, and in the narrative, the characters of
Tom and Jim have display various emotions.

Many things have expressive properties literally, without having mental

properties.
The expressive persona of the sad-looking St. Bernard dog is different from the
actual feelings of the dog, yet the dog has the expressive property of
looking-sad without being sad. Obviously, this is due to the dog's
facial configuration. But other configurations might also have a sad look, e.g.,
a willow tree. A storm can be furious, etc.

We apply the terms anthropomorphically. Is this metaphorical in nature?

Proposal: metaphors become dead metaphors, at which point they are literal.

Notice that Carroll's claim limits expressive properties to configurations or

structures. Is this true?