Cathy Elgin: Eight Notes on Nelson Goodman-
Theory of Art, Reference, and Their
Relevance to Science.
1. Goodman contends that Art is cognitive.
Nelson Goodman (1906 - 1998)
Goodman contends that Art is cognitive.
This heralds a shift in philosophical aesthetics from value theory to epistemology, cognitive science and philosophy of mind.
On his view, aesthetics is no less “serious” than science. Looking closely at the cognitive processes involved in the production, comprehension and appreciation of art will yield insights into how the brain works , how the mind structures thought, experience, etc. as well as examining a broader range of cognition beyond propositional attitudes (TJBs- True Justified Propositional Beliefs). Art does perform some traditional cognitive functions, but Goodman argues that we must also expand our traditional conceptions of “cognition.”
Urges us to reassess our understanding of “Cognitive.”
· Test for adequacy of the concept of “cognitive” is that if it makes better sense of science, is required for us to understand how science works, or is crucial to the scientific process then it is proper to consider it a cognitive activity.
· Surely science is “cognitive” thus if science is cognitive then functions which enhance or elaborate scientific functions are cognitive.
The traditional thinking on this matter is that
1. Cognition is strictly a matter of belief and to hold a belief is to hold a proposition as true.
2. Science is exclusively interested in truth.
3. Art is not intrinsically interested in truth.
Therefore, the argument goes, art has little to do with either science or cognition.
But each of the above is mistaken:
Contra #1: Cognition involves belief AND other things, for instance:
1. Imagination
2. Perception (with or without belief)
3. Know how (such as driving: requires perception and interactions based on those perceptions but not propositional belief.)
4. Recognition
5. Clarification
6. Pattern detection
7. Detecting “relevant” similarities
These are cognitive activities that do not specifically involve belief. There’s more to cognition than belief. Therefore there is a great deal more to cognition than believing or belief formation. We must refocus on “perception” as an activity of mind. This requires a reorientation of art theory and the recognition that the production and appreciation of art relies on, and reveals, many of the same cognitive functions that go on in the production and appreciation of science.
Contra #2. Science is Not (merely) Seeking Truth
To validate science we need a broader goal the mere acquisition of (many) true beliefs. One is assured an infinite number of (necessarily) true beliefs so long as one restricts oneself to tautologies and their logical entailments.
But science is not seeking nor would it be content with that. Better to see the goal of science as understanding. However, this underscores the point made above. Understanding is the Product of Active Mind. Understanding requires creative theorizing (construing a picture).
Contra #3:
It is not clear that art is not at all interested in “truth.” (See Aristotle.) However, as has already been noted, science is not (exclusively) interested in truth either. Consider the value of metaphor or simile in explaining a scientific concept?
Q: How is a sieve like a cell membrane?
A: Both are semipermeable depending on the size of the object admitted in or screened out.
Cognitive access to this shared property is only gained through the simile. Thus art provides a means by which we can gain cognitive access to information.
2. All experience is mediated by Active Mind
In classical empiricism, the mind is scene as passive: John Locke suggests the mind is a tabula rasa; Bertrand Russell spoke of “bare particulars” given in perception. As late as the mid 20th Century philosophers and scientists were still working with the notion that there could be theory-free observations of “what’s really there.” Rudolf Carnap and other introduced the notion of the “Protocol Sentence.” This was thought to be a statement that describes immediate experience or perception and as such was held to be the ultimate ground for knowledge. These so-called atomic statements were to be describing what is simply “given” in experience unembellished by the observer.
But Goodman denies this is an accurate account of perception. (There are no bare particulars; there are no “innocent eyes.”)
Protocol sentence:
In the philosophy of Logical
Positivism, a statement that describes immediate experience or perception and
as such is held to be the ultimate ground for knowledge. Such a statement is
also called an atomic statement, observation statement, judgment of perception,
or basic statement; in particular, the term protocol sentence is associated with
the work of Rudolf Carnap, a 20th-century
German-American philosopher of science and of language.
A protocol sentence, which
reports the sensations of a particular observer at a particular time, may range
in complexity from “blue patch now” to “A blue sphere is on
the table.” It is thought to be irrefutable and therefore the ultimate
justification for other more complex statements, particularly for statements of
science. If a scientific statement is equivalent in meaning to some set of
protocol sentences, it is considered true; thus, science is firmly grounded in
observation and experience.
This view was challenged by
philosophers who argue that all statements presuppose some nonobservational
framework (such as the ability to recognize a colour
as blue). Therefore, they assert, protocol sentences are not basic and can
always be replaced by a set of more fundamental sentences. The attempt to
ground knowledge in protocol sentences is then faced with the possibility of an
infinite regress to ever more basic sentences. Further, if the protocol
sentences are truly reports of the sensations of a particular observer, then
they are not intersubjectively testable; being not
necessarily true for all observing subjects, they are not scientific. Thus,
according to this criticism, if every scientific statement were equivalent to a
set of protocol sentences, then each would be equivalent to a set of
nonscientific statements—i.e., to a set of purely subjective statements.[1]
According to Goodman, the mind is active from the onset. The shape and content of experience/perception depend on the work the mind does (focusing, past experience, expectations) Perception is a matter of focusing, ignoring, overlooking, etc.. In fact, focusing is the flipside of ignoring.
• The eye comes always ancient to its work, obsessed by its own past and by old and new insinuations of the ear, nose, tongue, fingers, heart, and brain. It functions not as an instrument self-powered and alone, but as a dutiful member of a complex and capricious organism.
• Not only how but what it sees is regulated by need and prejudice. It selects, rejects, organizes, discriminates, associates, classifies, analyses, constructs. It does not so much mirror as take and make; and what it takes and makes it sees not bare, as items without attributes, but as things, as food, as people, as enemies, as stars, as weapons. Nothing is seen nakedly or naked. [2]
Despite the fact that the Kantian insight (that the mind constructs experience) has been challenging this view for over two hundred years, there still persists that myth of the “pure Empirical Fact.” Classical empiricism would claim that perception is “automatic.” Suggests that perception is an automatic biological process (Bottom Up) of just “seeing” what’s “there.” But this again is the dual myths of the “innocent eye” and the “absolute given.”
Goodman claims rather;
While perception may, in many cases, be automatic, that does not mean passive. It does not mean inevitable.
Note: Hearing a remark in you native language- cannot help, but hear it as a sequence of intelligible (meaningful) sounds (cognitively impenetrable?). Though this can be automatic, this is a learned, cognitive skill. And for those with poor command of the language, it takes effort. But for those with good command over language it is “second nature.” Learned and acquired actively.
This model can transfer to other modes of perception as well. Consider wine tasting, X-ray reading, bird calls, and art. For one unfamiliar with bird calls, she cannot hear the Cardinal. For one unfamiliar with X-ray reading, she cannot “see” the facture.
But we must not make the mistake of thinking that she is doing something “wrong” because she is not seeing “what’s there.” The X-ray acts as a symbol of a facture for one schooled in the symbol system, but not for one unschooled. Further, is it only pragmatic need that fixes what symbol processing is correct (pragmatically appropriate). Were I simply selecting props for a stage play, the fact that the X-ray does not act as a symbol of a fracture for me is irrelevant. In some context I might be thought epistemically disadvantaged, in others I am epistemically on even footing and in still others I may be epistemically advantaged as compared to the X-ray reader.
Despite the fact that perception may (seem) be automatic, there is nothing basic or given in perception. In fact, it is probably the very appearance of passivity that explains what this mistaken notion of passive perception has hung around for so long.
3. Goodman’s Nominalism and Contextual Relevance:
Two Arguments for Fact Constructivism: Goodman and Putnam:
Goodman's Reductio Pg. 32-3
1. Suppose a constellation exists merely as a matter of there exits the stars that compose it.
2. Then, any group of stars would be a constellation.
3. But (2) is absurd
4. Therefore, 1 is false.
– (a) A constellation only exists if we classify it as one by distinguishing it according to some principle, and
– (b) what principle we use is not constrained by the way the world is, but rather by our practical purposes.
5. Generalization: If constellations only exist because we classify them as such, then the same goes for food, fuel, giraffes, people, and everything else.
6. Therefore, no kind of object, or fact about objects exists, unless we come up with a term to designate that kind of object.
–
– (Would an ant have an word for a giraffe?) (NO)
“The line between a giraffe and the surrounding air is clear enough if you are a human being interested in hunting for meat. If you are a language using ant or amoeba, or a space voyager observing us from far above, the line is not so clear, and it is not clear that you would need or have a word for ‘giraffe’ in your language. More generally, it is not clear that any of the millions of ways of describing the piece of space-time occupied by what we call a giraffe is any closer to the way things are in themselves than any other of the others.” (Rorty, Richard 1999 p. xxvi)
Nouns name sets of objects, not “natural kinds” nor preferred sets of objects. By our linguistic practice, we put some objects together and then label the category. I think if it this way. We put various items in a box and then put a label on that box. The label then allows us to gain cognitive access to certain properties that the items have in common, and to ignore the (potentially many) properties that they do not share. Note that ANY two objects can be classified together, and would exemplifying some relationship(s) or another. Attaching labels to things (e.g. dog) allows us to categorize it and seize upon a host of shared properties quickly. It also tells us what properties we should/must pay attention to and which we should, at least for the time being, ignore. It is a cognitive heuristic. But note how the very use of these names shapes our experience of the world.
To appreciate each individual experience as the unique moment of consciousness that it is would be an anathema to understanding. There would be no objects nor relations (or rather, our experience would not be the experience of objects standing in relations to one another). There would be, instead, “as one great blooming, buzzing confusion” (James: PP 462).
It is worth noting, I think, that many of the devises employed by European men centuries ago to mask the telltale signs of aging -dyeing one’s hair red or powdering one’s face and rouging one’s lips- would not “fool” anyone today as perhaps they once did. Why? One answer might be that we have learned to “read” the signs of aging differently.
Language, then, is how we make our worlds and how we make order out of chaos. Further, a label associates together not only such objects as it applies to, but also the label itself is associated with the other labels of a kind or kinds. (e.g. “Dog” label is a “Mammal” label.) Less directly, it associates its referents with these other labels and with their referents, (e.g. Dogs are mammals.) and so on.
Goodman notes that our standard sorting of the world is often serviceable, even if humdrum. Novel uses of old categories bring out neglected likenesses and differences, force unaccustomed associations, and in some measure remake our world.
"grasps fresh and significant relationships and devises means for making them manifest"[3]
All categorization is set by convention or pragmatic need and the different pragmatic goals we have will affect what the contents of our perception are. For instance, were one assembling a reading list for a philosophy of art course, one would have to balance comprehensiveness and accessibility.
For any set there is an extension no matter how disjointed
and the set may be a unit class set.
If all sets are equally real, then reality doesn’t favor any one set over any other. The naming of one set of real objects (conjury) - is not intrinsically better or metaphysically more real than any other. Our only basis of preference would have to be pragmatic.
Goodman is claiming that the structure we “find” in the world is only to be found because we project this structure onto the world via our conceptualizations and linguistic practices. His favorite example is the constellation known as “Big Dipper”. As he see it, we “made” the Big Dipper by focusing our attention on one (arbitrary) set of stars and naming it. Which arrangement of stars constitutes the Big Dipper is fixed by convention. Any concept has conventional boundaries. Likewise any conception of the world is be conventional and can only be guided by pragmatic need and success.
NB: Human task of Understanding is to discover which sets are more
worth paying attention to (serves a given purpose, or doesn’t further an
actual interest).
We impose the order on our experience of the world. Whatever order we see is a result of the order we impose.
However, we are tempted to bestow on these pragmatically composed sets the status of “Nature’s Own Categories” or “Natural Kinds.” But their status is owning to their usefulness to furthering actual human ends rather than owing to their inherent “nature.”
Further, any grouping (even the pseudo-natural kind grouping) must necessarily overlook (potentially important) distinctions and differences. Any time we put two things together and say “These are the same.” We must necessarily ignore the many ways in which they are in fact NOT the same.[4] This is another instance where “focusing” is the flipside of “ignoring.”
So while the certain grouping might be useful for many/most purposes (an heuristic) occasions may and do occur where an alternative grouping would be more useful. One of the great values of art, according to Goodman, is that it provides us with an opportunity for try out alternative groupings. (See Goodman on metaphor.)
4. We impose order on the world by devising symbol systems.
The word and concept we employ are symbols by which we create meaning in the world. We do this in art, in science and in practical matters. By using symbols, we can make order out of chaos. We can group and represent groups and inter-group relations in a kind of mental shorthand which all conserves mental resources (time and space and energy). Language is the primary symbolic means by which we organize our experience of the world. The world we experience is the world our language carves up for us. We live in a world of “cats” and “dogs” for instance, only because our language practice focuses our attention of certain qualities shared by members of the set, and away from other qualities unshared by members of the set. So in a very real way, what we see is what our language puts before us.
For Goodman, to properly interpret a work of art is to interpret it as a symbol. There may be generally right interpretations, but there are no correct or incorrect interpretations.
Goodman and the value
of Metaphor
The Principles of
Newspeak"
An appendix to 1984
Written by : George Orwell in 1948
Newspeak was the
official language of Oceania, and had been devised to meet the ideological
needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism. In the year
1984 there was not as yet anyone who used Newspeak as his sole means of
communication, either in speech or writing. The leading articles of the Times
were written in it, but this was a tour de force which could only be carried
out by a specialist, It was expected that Newspeak would have finally
superseded Oldspeak (or standard
English, as we should call it) by about the year 2050.
The purpose of
Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and
mental habits proper to the devotees of IngSoc, but
to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when
Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak
forgotten, a heretical thought -- that is, a thought diverging from the
principles of IngSoc -- should be literally
unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary
was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could
properly wish to express, while excluding all other meaning and also the
possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by
the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and
stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible
of all secondary meaning whatever.
…To give a
single example - The word free still existed in Newspeak, but could only be
used in such statements as "The dog is free from lice" or "This
field is free from weeds." It could not be used in its old sense of
"politically free" or "intellectually free," since
political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were
therefore of necessity nameless.
…Newspeak was
designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose
was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.
The words Communist
International, for instance, call up a composite picture of universal human
brotherhood, red flags, barricades, Karl Marx, and the Paris Commune. The word Comintern, on the other hand, suggests merely a
tightly-knit organization and a well-defined body of doctrine. It refers to
something almost as easily recognized, and as limited in purpose, as a chair or
a table. Comintern is a word that can be uttered
almost without taking thought, whereas Communist International is a phrase over
which one is obliged to linger at least momentarily. In the same way, the
associations called up by a word like Minitrue are fewer
and more controllable than those called up by Ministry of Truth. This accounted
not only for the habit of abbreviating whenever possible, but also for the
almost exaggerated care that was taken to make every word easily pronounceable.
But Goodman’s account a metaphor suggests that
Orwell’s worst nightmare would never really come true due to the creative
power of metaphor. Goodman suggest that
one of the great values of metaphor is that it allows us to think new thoughts
and carries us beyond the limitations of ordinary language. On Goodman’s view, a good, live
metaphor brings us to the realization of shared properties between things, a
set of properties or a relationship previously unnoticed. Were I to say,
“That student in my morning class is an energy black hole.” this would cause one
hearing this remark to ask “In what way could she be like an black
hole?” “What could she and a
black hole have in common?” Or
Goodman’s preferred way of putting it, “What is the name of the
category of things to which both the student and black holes
belong?” Perhaps the category is
named “Things with the power to devour all interest, activity and light
leaving nothing by a void.”
Were I to say, “That student in my morning class is an energy black hole.” this would cause one hearing this remark to ask:
“In what way could she be like a black hole?”
“What could she and a black hole have in common?”
Or Goodman’s preferred way of putting it,
“What is the name of the category of things to which both the student and black holes belong?”
Perhaps the category is named “Things with the power to devour all interest, activity and light leaving nothing but a void.”
Or consider:
-That student is a panting puppy
(to describe an uncritical enthusiastic admirer)
-That student is a prancing poodle (to describe a pampered pretentious person)
Both taken together highlight an affinity between people and
dogs, but very different affinities.
In each the student is seen as a metaphorical object whose behavior
exemplifies a certain class of behaviors also exemplified by puppy dogs.
In the first case, this class of behavior might be named “indiscriminate
enthusiasm displays.” In the second, the behavior named might be
“haughty and self-satisfied displays.” The students exemplify these
behaviors (as do the dogs).
The metaphor brings us to recognize the joint possession of the
previously unlabeled property because it is just this property that the
student and the puppy exemplify thus locating them both in the same class
(category). It is not the mere joint possession of this property alone
which brings us to this awareness (allows the student to refer by
exemplification) for this would not explain our recognition. Properties
can be jointly held, but not recognized.
It is the metaphor which is the catalyst for this recognition and thus
successful reference.
This explains a kind of knowledge/understanding gained
from art and art-like processes that helps us better equipped to know
the world.
Monty Python:
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxXW6tfl2Y0
OSCAR WILDE:
Your Majesty, you're like a big jam
doughnut with cream on the top.
THE PRINCE OF WALES:
I beg your pardon?
OSCAR WILDE:
Um .....
It was one of Whistler's.
JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER:
I didn't say that.
OSCAR WILDE:
You did, James, you did.
THE PRINCE OF WALES:
Well, Mr. Whistler?
JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER:
I- I meant, Your Majesty, that, uh,
like a doughnut your arrival gives us pleasure and your departure merely makes
us hungry for more.
(laughter and congratulations)
JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER:
Yes, thank you. Right, Your Majesty
is like a stream of bat's piss.
(gasps)
THE PRINCE OF WALES:
What?
JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER:
It was one of Wilde's.
OSCAR WILDE:
It sodding was not! It was Shaw!
THE PRINCE OF WALES:
Well, Mr. Shaw?
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW:
I, um, I, ah, I merely meant, Your
Majesty, that, ah, you shine out like a shaft of gold when all around is dark.
THE PRINCE OF WALES:
Oh, ho-ho, very good
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXZJF0-d_M8
Carnac the
Magnificent:
A: Clean air, a virgin and a gas station open on Sunday.
Q: Name three things you won't find in Los Angeles.
George Orwell’s 1984
overestimated the power of ordinary language by underestimating the power of
poetry. Both Goodman and Orwell agree
however in the power of language to shape our thought and thus our world.
5. All (art) Pictures Refer
Two 2 primary modes of reference: both are symbolic
1. denotation
2. exemplification.
Look first at denotation:
Denotations are purely conventional mechanisms.
Let “Q” denote the lectern.
“Q” works to denote the lectern to the extent and only so long as the established convention lasts.
Imagine I was explaining my car accident and I used a salt shaker and a pepper shaker to represent my car and the car that hit me. There is absolutely no “natural” connection between the shakers and the vehicles. Successful reference is achieve entirely by convention.
Pictorial representation achieves reference. In that sense it is like linguistic reference.
Name to a subject = (sort of) Portrait to a subject
Predicate to a subject = (sort of) Image to a class
But pictures, just like words, need to be interpreted as a symbol in order to achieve reference. Goodman argues at length against the idea that pictures (any pictures, including “realistic” pictures) succeed in referring by way of some “natural” (non-conventional) relationship of resemblance or “looking like.” “Looking like” as a vehicle for denotation is notoriously problematic.
- It is very elastic (a matter of style really).
- Resemblance is a symmetric relation while denotation is not.
A resembles B to the exact extent that B resembles A. Photos of me resemble me to the exact extent that I resemble them. But denotation is not a symmetric relation. Photos of me represent me, but I do not represent photos of me.
- Paintings look more like other paintings then they do like objects depicted in paintings.
- Images of Christ or Mary may look nothing like those whom then denote (perhaps more like the model who sat for the painting or a lamb).
- Even lousy portrait succeeds in reference.
Any resemblance account is going to have to specify in what way the picture looks like the thing it resembles. Seeing the resemblance can only happen after one has been trained to know what to pay attention to (in the picture and in this thing depicted) and what to ignore. If I showed you a photo of my wife and you remarked, “My goodness! She’s only 3 inches tall!” you would be paying attention to the wrong properties of the photo. But you had to learn that; that is, you had to learn how to “read” the photo of my wife as a representation of my wife.
Potential Problem: What about pictures of non-existing things? Santa Pictures? They cannot, on this account, denote anything because there is no Santa. (Sorry.)
Isn’t a picture “of” Santa referring to something? And if so, would not that imply that Santa “exists” is someway? Can something be a representation of X only if there exists an X of which the something is a representation?
Well… that depends upon what the meaning of “representation of X” means. Goodman thinks our language is sloppy here and it leads some to unjustified metaphysical commitments.
Goodman’s Answer:
- There are Santa pictures NOT in virtue of the fact that there are “pictures that denote Santa.”
- Rather there are Santa pictures in virtue of the fact there is a “box” that we put certain pictures in (and not others) and the label on the box is “Santa Pictures.”
- That is, there are pictures which belong to a class of objects which is create through or language and labeling practices, a class known and named as “Santa Pictures.”
- This is a class (like any other class) which we have established and maintain by convention.
Must clean up some messiness with respect to “picture of a…” or “represents”
“Picture of a man” may mean:
- Picture representing/ denoting a particular man.
Or
- A Man-picture (member of a certain class of pictures)
Likewise we must clean up some messiness with respect to “Description of a man” may mean:
- Description of a particular man.
Or
- A Man-description
The former is a case of genuine denotation of a non-empty set. The latter may or may not denote a non-empty set. In telling you the object in questions is a man-picture, I am NOT telling you that it denotes a man, but only telling you the type of picture it is. (i.e. what box to sort it into).
Consider, we recognize a landscape as a landscape not by comparing it to an actual vista, but by comparing it to other objects already admitted to the class of “landscape paintings.” In telling you that it is a landscape, I am only telling you the type of picture that it is (what box you will find it in). Fantasy landscapes on the covers of science fiction novels for example, or Thomas Kinkade paintings are landscapes even though they denote no actual locale. This grouping process explains much of the history of art and explains how it is that we come to read paintings.
Question: Why is the Santa picture
kind (which we constructed) not called the Unicorn picture kind (which we
constructed)? After all, they refer to the same thing, that is, the
null set.
Answer: For the same reason a Santa description is not a unicorn description. Both refer to the null set, but we sort them into different categories. We sort the picture not according to what they denote, but rather on other grounds. Santa picture kind belongs to a larger set of objects called Santa representations (including stories, guys at the mall, etc.). We end up with a network of interrelated symbolic representations.
As a matter of linguistic practice, as it happens, we do not currently sort “Santa-pictures” by looking at what they denote, but rather by other features, features that can and do change over time. This is why something that never would have counted as a Santa-picture” years ago (One depicting a fat guy in Bermuda shorts at the beach) does count as a Santa-picture today. Again, it has nothing to do with reference.
Key to his nominalism:
Speaking strictly, nouns denote categories of objects; avoids having to talk about “Universals” and non-existing possible objects.
Note: (David Hume’s and John Locke’s solution)- They suggest that names are truncated descriptions, whose independent parts are secured in the use of the name. The problem with this attempted solution, while avoiding the problem of ontological commitment to non-existing objects, it might not individuate among descriptions sufficiently or may actually refer to someone accidentally.
Goodman sees another advantage to his approach is that he can explain how a tradition can evolve naturally.
Evolution begins with convention firmly establishing s, r, & t as instances of Santa pictures while regarding w as a marginal example and excluding u as too dissimilar to count as set member. Then over time, the convention comes to accept w as uncontroversial member of the set and u, by virtue of its similarities with w (and despite its dissimilarities with s, r, & t) is now regarded as a marginal member of the class. (Santa on the beach with surf board in Bermuda Shorts)
6. Goodman on “Symbol”
Anything that refers to or signifies in anyway. (Words, notes, numerals).
Smoke is not a symbol because it is “part of fire.” In and of itself, it has a purely physical/causal relationship to fire, not a symbolic relationship.
But if you USE smoke as an indication of fire then this IS a symbolic relationship.
e.g. The tree rings just exist as part and parcel of the tree. But when USED as an indication of the tree’s age, they act as a symbolic representation of the age of the tree.
Goodman suggests at one point that the question “What is art?” might be replaced by the question “When is art?” to signify that a symbol only acts as/ is a symbol when used as a symbol.
Returning to the two reference primitives:
1. Denotation (referring)
2. Exemplification
For denotation-symbolism the relation is purely conventional.
For exemplification-symbolism the relation is NOT purely conventional. The sample must share the property/ ies with that to which it refers.
Ex of Exemplification: Paint Swatches refer to the color shade of which they are an exemplification by virtue of the fact that they are (known to be) an exemplification.
Ex: Logic exercises/problems worked out in a textbook. They exemplify logical principles to which they refer.
The students are not merely supposed to understand the answer to the problems in the text. Understanding means getting at the principle which is exemplified and to use this new insight to solve additional problems at the end of the chapter. The only way to get at the principle is via the relation of exemplification existing among the class members.
But one must do much more the “see” what is being exemplified. This is similar to the shortcoming of claiming photo’s represent by “looking like.” Resemble in what way? Figuring out which of all the exemplified properties to pay attention to and which to ignore is itself an act of interpretation. Only if you know how to interpret the example do you have access to the information. Imagine that you were hiring me to reupholster your couch and I showed you a fabric swatch and I asked you what you thought. If you replied. “Well that is far too small to use for the couch.” you would demonstrate that do not know how to interpret/ employ this symbol.
This is also at work in science.
Experiments exemplify principles. But for this to work it must be the case that the cognitive agent is aware of the fact that some details of the experiment (properties) matter (salient) and others a do not (arbitrary).
Therefore, again the agent must learn to read the image, etc. This requires focus and discrimination.
Note: Scientists are required to “replicate the results.” But this begs the question (assumes what it attempts to prove). Replicate what?
“The relevant details.” But just what they are cannot be known by passively viewing the experiment.
Replication requires another experiment which varies the un-exemplified details and see if the exemplified properties recur.
Side Note: Elgin gave an example of how Tolstoy’s novel War & Peace exemplifies Tolstoy’s own theory of history. But there is a problem with her example: while Tolstoy’s theory is basically “History is chaotic.” the novel does not exemplify chaos. Maybe this; Tolstoy’s theory is that the narrative of history is an extended “Chaos description” and Tolstoy’s novel is a (less extended) chaos description. Therefore, the novel refers to Tolstoy’s theory of history by exemplifying “chaos description”- “being a chaos description” is their shared property.
7. Goodman on Defining "Art"
Definitions of art always come to sorry end; however, one might identify “symptoms of art.”
Identifies Five Symptoms
of Art
1. Syntactic Density
2. Semantic Density
3. Relative Repleteness
4. Exemplification
5. Multiple and Complex Reference
1. Syntactic Density-
Remember the Syntax refers to the way in which words and other elements of a sentence can be combined to form grammatical sentences. More broadly it can be understood as the way in which any sort of symbols (the actual objects in a symbol system) can be combined according to system rules to create proper formula.
Syntactic Density is a (sort of) mathematical notion. Between any two symbols (e.g. numerals) there is a rule governed way of generating a third distinct symbol with its own unique referent. If the slightest difference in the rendering of the symbol makes a difference to the function of the symbol itself if it is syntactically dense.
Note: alphabet systems are deliberately NOT syntactically dense. This is why “fort” doesn’t matter when reading a text. “A” and “A “ may have identical syntactical function despite the difference in the rendering of the symbol. But such in not the case in a line drawing for example.
Altering the formal quality of the line in a line drawing, even slightly, may very much change its syntactic function.
Note: Syntactic Density is neither necessary (poetry in different printings) nor sufficient (economics graph) for art. So when does it matter and when doesn’t it? When it comes to individuating works of art, all aestheticians can do is follow practice. There are no a prior principles involve to prescribe in advance of practice. Still, we might have principled reasons for objecting to a certain practice or admission in retrospect. But these come on the heels or innovations in practice.
2. Semantic Density-
Semantically (Meaning) Dense- symbols are provided for things (mean the kind of things) which can be distinguished from each other by the finest differences and nuances in a certain respect. This allows for the possibility of unlimited refinement in the precise description of the thing described.
A consequence of semantic density is in-eliminataible ambiguity and indecision. (Is this a picture of (does it mean) a sunset 12 minutes after the sun has set? 13? Maybe yes, maybe no.)
Thus there are (often) multiple, equally good, interpretations. Nothing in the picture determines which of two competing notions of “what the picture means,” or which one precise interpretation, is more appropriate.
Mapping scheme to realm.
Scheme = the set of symbols with
their varied possible applications.
Realm = that to which the system can be applied.
System = the correlation of the scheme to realm
There may be many applications (systems) which hook the scheme onto the realm.
Goodman seems to be anticipating the later work of Samir Ziki when he posits “situational constancy.”
“the way in which its technical virtuosity is used to
generate ambiguity. Here I use the term ambiguity to mean its ability to
represent simultaneously, on the same canvas, not one but several truths, each
one of which has equal validity with the others. These several truths revolve around the
relationship between the man and the woman. There is no denying that there is a
relationship between them. But is it her
husband, or her lover, or a suitor or a friend?
Did he actually enjoy the playing or does he think that she can do
better? Is the harpsichord really being
used –she is after all standing- or is she merely playing a few notes
while concentrating in something else, perhaps something he told her, perhaps
announcing a separation or a reconciliation, or perhaps something a good deal
more banal. All of these scenarios have equal validity in this
painting which can thus satisfy several ‘ideals’ simultaneously
–through its stored memory of similar past events, the brain can recognize
in this painting the ideal representation of many situations- and can categorise the scene represented as happy or sad.
Thus ambiguity, but NOT vagueness or uncertainty
Rather:
“ the certainty
of many different, and essential, conditions each of which is equal to the
others, all expressed in a single profound painting, profound because it is so
faithfully representative of so much.”
“Vermeer,
where very nearly all is implicit. As
with forms and objects in Cubist art, the brain of the spectator is the chosen
place of the birth of many situations in Vermeer's paintings, each one of which
has equal validity with the others. The true solution remains 'forever
unknown': because there is no true solution, there is no correct answer.”
“Situational constancy is a subject that
neurology has not yet studied, indeed the problem itself has not been
addressed. We have hardly begun to understand the simpler kinds of constancy,
of form or colour for example, and it is not
surprising that neurologists should not have even thought of studying so
complex a subject, in which there are so many elements.”[5]
3. Relative Repleteness-
Science tends to be attenuated. That is, Science’s symbolic images like graphs or diagrams function via sharply circumscribed set of relevant details (distinguished from irrelevant details) with narrowly defined interpretations.
It very clear what each mark is
supposed to mean and anything else is known to be irrelevant to the image as a
scientific symbol.
Art- many details all which are relevant or might be relevant to the interpretation. While in principle every difference COULD matter, it is not the case that every difference DOES in fact matter.
This is more a difference in degree. An irregularity in the paper may be relevant to the operation of the symbol (qua symbol) in a line drawing which is irrelevant to an EKG (qua symbol).
4.
Exemplification-
Through exemplification the object/event points to some properties of itself and affords epistemic access to them.
It may take a huge amount of stage setting to bring out these properties (science will often do the same). There may be elaborate orchestrations needed to reveal otherwise overlooked or unseen properties.
Artworks can both literally and metaphorically exemplify. An artwork metaphorically exemplifies when a quality when is does not literally possess them (as when we say that a painting is sad or a piece of music is joyful).
These features are metaphorically exemplified, or expressed. For Goodman, a work of art expresses something when it metaphorically exemplifies it. This symbolic relation is conventional (of course) and is not “absolute, universal, or immutable.” Exemplification and expression are relative to established use.
This focus on the capacity of art to literally and metaphorically exemplify allows Goodman assert the referential qualities of even “non-representational” art. A poem, for instance, is not just a representational symbol, for what it exemplifies is as important to its artistic value as what it represents.
Accordingly, Goodman claims that the goal of a translator must be “maximal preservation of what the original exemplifies” as well as of what it says.
5. Multiple or
Complex Reference-
There is an ambiguity in that the symbol performs several (multiple) interrelated and interacting (complex) referential functions.
8. Alarming Consequences for Science
Science works, in part, because it is NOT (infinitely) precise. It is arbitrarily precise. Art, on the other hand, because it is tolerant of disagreement, leaves room for greater precision.
Science values inter-subjective agreement. Infinite refinement would be anathema to scientific theory/theorizing. But science is not exact because it has exhausted infinite possible refinement. Rather, the only way to achieve inter-subjective agreement is to limit precision. Science can always increase precision, but it can never achieve anything approaching “maximal precision.”