Introduction. Sciences, Cf. Apel, The Erklären-Verstehen Controversy in the Philosophy of the Natural and Human. Not illustration of reality,

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1 Not illustration of reality, but to create images which are concentration of reality and a short-hand of sensation. Francis Bacon Introduction When art professionals artists, museum managers, art historians think about art works they primarily think about these in relation to their profession. However, when non-professionals think about art works, they primarily think about their experiences of art works whether these are from the past, present or future. In this context we hold what Richard Wollheim has named: the principle of acquaintance. According to this principle we may not judge works of art unless we have experienced them for ourselves. We may not, for instance, judge the painting that our brother saw the other day and which he liked a lot simply because we weren t there. Testimony does not count in the aesthetic domain. This is of major significance because in almost all other domains of knowledge and experience testimony is one of the legitimate devices used to gain the right to claim things. We may, for instance, claim to know that a hurricane is sweeping across the Pacific merely because we have been told about it on television or in the papers. Before elaborating this let us first look at the principle of acquaintance from the perspective of a rather simplified sketch of the sciences. Normally, observations are valued for their descriptive outcome, the testimony of which is a legitimate device for conveying knowledge claims, especially so in the domain of the natural sciences. In the humanities in general, however, observations have different values, most importantly because here both the reader and the observer form part of the material under investigation. 1 Psychology in general provides an illustrative example of this situation. We can take psychology as a science which provides a body of knowledge and which properly has a strong faith in straightforward scientific methodological demands aiming at describing the observations derived from controlled experiments and statistic comparisons. On this general level precise observational data are provided from a third-person perspective, and these data 1 Cf. Apel, The Erklären-Verstehen Controversy in the Philosophy of the Natural and Human Sciences,

2 Art and Experience Introduction to the Argument are in favourable circumstances universally valid. They can legitimately be used testimonially. The observational perspective involves an emancipation from individual perspectives, but to achieve this emancipation psychologists first had to reduce their subject to make it available as a source of observations from a third-person perspective. So the seemingly more straightforwardly scientific parts of psychology furnish descriptions from a third-person stance not because all events relevant for a person s psychology are accessible from such a perspective, but because psychologists have chosen it as their reference point in the first place. And one reason why psychologists chose this instead of a first-person perspective seems to lie in their motivation to have the scientific status of their discipline recognized. Evidently dubious theoretical support for this third-person stance can be found in the myth of the inaccessibility of the first-person perspective, and in the latter s consequential irrelevance for a science of the mind supposedly universally valid. Something else that goes against the theoretical relevance of first-person s reports is their singular idiosyncrasy. But however that comes out, psychology thus conceived as a general, scientific discipline does not ask exactly what experiences a Mrs. Wiggins may have had on some specific occasion, but instead researches the quantifiable opinions and testimonies of as many persons as possible. Obviously, in itself this ought to produce important insights into people s motivational considerations, but these insights are won at a cost. The questions asked are adjusted to realize the sought-for universality, or commensurability, of the individual answers given. Ultimately this approach may (and should) prove fertile for individual persons lives and beliefs. That is, only after some translation into one s personal perspective can generalized conclusions of scientific psychology be transformed into experientially relevant understanding. However, due to the original reduction of the subject matter to scientifically generalizable proportions, psychology contributes to a disdain of the individual, and experiential dimension of events. This is a true mark of science. Now I am not (foolishly) arguing against the legitimacy of this restrictive, scientific approach. Instead, I am arguing that if we may, alternatively, identify psychology s ultimate aim as the betterment of people s living processes, then the discipline of psychology is instrumental at best for its therapeutical sibling. It is the main concern of psychotherapy to understand and change an individual s experiential perspective on his own life and the world at large, rather than to create universalizable truths. Psychology as a whole, 2

3 Introduction to the Argument then, illustrates what I call the paradox of participatory observation. 2 In everyday life, this paradox is quite common. For instance, if one tries to compare the car one has just bought with the car exchanged for it, one may be incapable of remembering exactly what the old car was like at the moment of experiencing the feel of the new one. We cannot merely observe the differences between the two cars without driving them, but when doing so the obvious inaccessibility of the car that one is not driving springs to the fore. Memory and imagination are vital here, as they are for aesthetic matters in general. I shall not concern myself here with the technical, methodological and epistemological problems of the philosophy of science, but shall argue for the inescapability of this paradox with regard to the aesthetic domain. Concerning art basing your judgement on testimony may prove to be an instance of elitism, of an attempt to impress those you find important. So testimony is taboo but why? Is it as forbidden with regard to natural beauty as it is to artistic beauty? Are aesthetic values within and outside of art of the same nature? I used to think that (in the last analysis) they are but now I am not so sure anymore. When I (more or less sincerely let s rule out elitism) report having seen a beautiful painting at an exhibition of Max Ernst s oeuvre, I am practically inviting the person I am addressing to visit the exhibition and take a look at this painting. When, however, I report having heard a blackbird singing a beautiful song in my backyard this morning, and that it made me very cheerful, there is no sense in thinking that I am inviting people to visit my backyard and listen to the blackbird s song. For all I know the bird will be long gone. Perhaps in terms of aesthetic values there are important agreements between these two experiences of the 2 We can find in anthropological field work ample examples of this paradox, which has it that in order to adequately observe a (foreign) practice one must stop being an outsider to it, but must instead take part in it. However, such participation is at odds with the scientific, observational, goals in that one cannot observe to the full when participating, as participation involves losing oneself in the practice. In cultural anthropology this paradox has led to serious methodological and philosophical problems. Cf. Trigg, Understanding Social Science, 1985 and Davidson, Radical Interpretation, 1984 (1973). In psychology, we can think of the issue of so-called recovered memories. Some allege that recovered memories are constructions induced by a therapist in the analysand, rather than being memories of real events. Psycho-therapists, on the other hand, may claim to be able to establish the personal truth of recovered memories, not necessarily also their truth to the facts. They use clues supplied by the individual s behaviour and reports that perhaps do not admit of quantification. I think this problem concerns what I call, in Chapter 7, tertiary qualities. 3

4 Art and Experience Introduction to the Argument Ernst painting and of the bird s song. However, from the point of view of the principle of acquaintance there is an obvious difference between the two events. Is this difference merely a consequence of the lack of an intentional creativity in nature as has been argued in the past? Although I believe the artist s creativity has a role to play in our appreciation of a work of art, for now I see more importance in the specific characteristics of the subject and object of the two events. When I am in my backyard listening to the blackbird both I and the context are fully embodied. That is, we both address all my senses. I do so by moving about in my backyard and listening and watching intently, and the context does so by possessing qualities that are accessible to all my senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. As a consequence of this full embodiment change and movement are incorporated in the event, without any restrictions: in a moment the sun may disappear behind a cloud, an enormous van may park behind the hedge, spoiling my views; the blackbird may stop singing for whatever reason, or it may fly away, etc. An event of natural beauty is filled with its own transience. With the Ernst painting this situation is different altogether. First of all, we can go back and take another look at the painting; even if the exhibition is over the painting will still be on show somewhere. The second difference, however, is more important: a work of art this Ernst painting does not address all our senses. In fact, it addresses only one vision and all other sense modalities are kept on hold. Hearing, touching, smelling or tasting the painting does not increase our appreciation of it. Normally, in everyday life, our perception is embodied. This means that perception principally presupposes that each one of our senses is addressed to some extent. In art, however, our fully embodied sensuousness is addressed in truncated ways: at least one of our senses is left unaddressed by some specific art form. This means two things. First, works of art are made for repeated perception; secondly, they possess an (internal) intentional structure that somehow seeks to make up for their diminished addressing of our embodied perception. I know of seemingly obvious counter-examples to this thesis and in the following I will treat some of them. But let us not be fooled by whatever is introduced as a work of art: there is an abundance of creative nonsense out there. That the effects of works of art should intentionally exceed the senses they address can be corroborated easily. When we listen to music we are not merely taking in sounds, but re-enacting emotional dynamics, and sometimes these are even visualized. When we look at a painting, our eyes and mind introduce movement, change, and what is altogether absent in the work: What happened before the snap-shot was taken?, What happens outside the frame? What kind of person is depicted 4

5 Introduction to the Argument here and what is she going through? These are questions that we readily introduce while appreciating a work of art. It is our imagination which seeks their answers. Thus, I will argue, it is imagination which makes up for the reduced address of sense modalities by art. This implication of imagination explains why we should all go and see for ourselves it is what explains the principle of acquaintance. The imagination brings in idiosyncrasies: it introduces into the work of art the transient, ever changing, fully embodied, narratively understood personality of the beholding subject. This is a sketch of the theory I present in this study. First, though, allow me to elaborate my strategy. In Part I, I present a survey of the cognitivist theses that predominate the analytical approach to art. In the first chapter I address Nelson Goodman s extensionalist nominalist neglect of art s experiential dimension, and argue where he went wrong in his accounts of representation, exemplification, and aesthetic difference. Actually, his account of aesthetic difference launches Chapter 2, which discusses the socalled aesthetic properties that aesthetic judgements may or may not be about. In Chapter 3, I will go into our ideas about art and address Dickie s institutional conception of art. I propose an alternative characterization of art which puts the artist s material and aesthetic choices at the core of the concept, and which understands the institutional procedures as being on a general, contingent level only. The institutional procedures adhere to the introduction of artistic techniques, not to that of individual works of art, and as such they should obey aesthetic considerations. This first, surveying part is then followed by a look at the history of modern aesthetics, and at those two aestheticians who have (Kant) or should have (Baumgarten) set the pace of subsequent aesthetic discussions. The return to Kant is motivated by his adherence to a subjectivism which explicitly honours the principle of acquaintance. The return to one of his immediate predecessors is motivated by puzzles pertaining to Kant s theory of art. In particular, I find considerations in Baumgarten s science of the perfection of sense knowledge that explain art s moral relevance in a way highly compatible with if not instructive for the point of view I have just outlined, of art trying to make up for its truncated address of embodied perception by animating the imagination. This historical interruption functions as the impetus for the last part where I introduce notions that are necessary to develop my intuitions into an adequate theory of art and its appreciation. These notions are tertiary qualities, intimation, and art s threefoldness. Further explication of these terms is given in Chapters 7 and 8. I have added to the text a glossary of the main terms I use. This may come in handy, as I 5

6 Art and Experience Introduction to the Argument do not repeat my terminological specifications each time I employ a certain term. In conclusion to this introduction I want to express a word of thanks to all those who contributed generously to my argument. Most notably, I want to thank Paul Crowther for commenting on all parts of the argument. Then there are those who have been with me from the very beginning: professor Willem van Reijen who provided me with all the philosophical latitude I could possible wish for, and professors Maarten van Nierop, J.J.A. Mooy, K.J. Schuhmann, and John Neubauer, and dr. Anthony Savile, who provided comments on various parts of the study. I am also most grateful to those who commented on individual papers and chapters Ruth Lorand, Malgosia Askanas, and professors Pat Matthews, Richard Wollheim, Eddy Zemach, and Graham McFee and to those in the audience of the yearly conferences organized by Richard Woodfield, for the British Society of Aesthetics. Without exception the discussions during these conferences were very stimulating. I want to thank the department of philosophy of Utrecht University for providing me with a study room and the most advanced Macintosh computers and those who made their use more pleasing, Freek Wiedijk, Karst Koymans, Arno Wouters and Han Baltussen. And, last but not least, my thanks go to the institution that made it all happen financially: the Foundation for Philosophy and Theology (SFT), which is subsidized by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). 6