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Tuesday, April 04, 2006
A Modest Question about Method
Posted by Robert Kraut on April 4, 2006 at 02:12 PM | Permalink
by Robert Kraut
Once again this weblog has taken a turn for the moribund. Perhaps some form of Spring sloth is at work. Here are some questions designed to prompt spirited methodological reflections.
Mathematician/logician Harvey Friedman offers the following observation:
The foundations of mathematics is, at least partly, a scientific study of mathematical practice. So what mathematicians actually do and actually say is of direct interest to the foundations of mathematics. [Foundations of Mathematics weblog at http://www.cs.nyu.edu/pipermail/fom/2006-April/010309.html]
One would think that aesthetic theory is, similarly, a study—perhaps “scientific,” depending upon what we take that to be—of artistic practice. Thus it is incumbent upon the aesthetic theorist to be concerned with what artists (and perhaps art critics) “actually do and actually say.”
But I have discerned, in my readings in the area, that aesthetic theorists are often woefully disinterested in what artists actually do and actually say; theorists frequently pay inadequate attention to the realities of artworld practice. They are quick to theorize; but often their theories are prompted by a narrow range of artistic data and suffer accordingly. If some aspect of artworld practice appears inconsistent with their theory, they tend to dismiss that aspect of artworld practice as irrelevant (example: if some theory of musical expressiveness grounded in late nineteenth century European music is prima facie inconsistent with work by Soundgarden or Tower of Power, the latter are dismissed as not worthy of the theorist’s attention and not relevant to the general inquiry).
If this is right, perhaps it is because academic theorists spend more time listening to classical music and less time listening to Industrial Metal, given the sociocultural realties of various artforms. Nevertheless I offer fellow bloggers (if there are any) some questions:
a) Do aesthetic theorists often pay less attention than they should to the realities of the artworld?
b) If so, how—precisely—has aesthetic theory suffered? Give some examples of aesthetic theories that are implausible in light of artistic data which the theorist has ignored and/or overlooked.
c) In certain intellectual domains theorists are not permitted to lose sight of relevant data: such myopia is met with contempt and rejection. If there is greater tolerance for this sort of infraction in aesthetic theory, why has the discipline evolved this way?
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Comments
Posted by: arthur | Apr 11, 2006 4:53:10 PM :
I am only familiar with theory as applied to film, but I think it may apply to aesthetics as a whole. I have found that a lot of academic film criticism confuses production decisions (budget limitations, etc) with creative decisions. The intentions of of the filmmaker is often disregarded. A certain philosopher with an interest in film has suggested that Harpo Marx communicating with a bicycle horn reflects a return to a trusting infantile state; I believe that a more likely explanation would be that honking noises are inherently funny, and the filmmakers know it. The two explanations are not mutually exclusive, but I believe that the latter is more likely to increase my understanding or appreciation of a film than the former.
I think that it is largely because of the notion of the death of the author which gives rise to what we see today. It essentially allows the theorist to dissociate the interpretation of a work from its economic/sociolgical context and its author's intentions. This may be what you mean by losing sight of the data, as most critical theories do not involve authorial intentions, etc.
Posted by: Brandon Cooke | Apr 17, 2006 7:47:20 PM :
I can hardly offer something as wonderfully rich and illuminating as the Human Paradigm's post [reference to deleted comment--eds.]; mine is a much humbler offering. I think that Robert is quite right to say that much philosophical aesthetics overlooks 'the action' both in art and art criticism, though I don't think the situation is quite as dire as he suggests.
One example that has become something of a battle cry in my work is philosophers' often tired examples of art critical metaphors. If I see another "Juliet is the sun" I think I might break something. While I understand the motivation for focusing on simple examples, it is clear to me that focusing on these exclusively has led to some very impoverished thought both about what art critics are doing, and what a plausible theory of metaphor should look like. This is quite a serious issue for our discipline, as it bears on issues of aesthetic judgment, the metaphysics of aesthetic properties, and the role of the imagination in the experience of art.
Also (and this may seem to pull in the opposite direction from Robert's comments), I've noticed that certain art forms, such as internet pieces, have enjoyed a nearly fetishistic role in the recent literature, which treats them as if they give rise to entirely new modes of experience, or challenge the very notion of the artist, or other such bombast. I have to say that I'm disturbed by aestheticians' complicity in the theorist's role of making quite a lot of trivial, even bad, art, seem both critically and philosophically important.
(It seems only fitting to signal my return to this blog with a curmudgeon's post.)
Posted by: Robert Kraut | Apr 18, 2006 10:47:29 AM :
Brandon Cooke thinks the situation is not “quite as dire” as I suggest; perhaps he is right. But his “Juliet is the sun” example--with which I deeply sympathize--is a reminder that some theorists don’t have a lot of data to draw upon. I doubt that this situation would be tolerated in other regions of theorizing; but here I might be wrong and that’s one question I was trying to raise.
I don’t know anything about the “internet pieces” to which Brandon refers, but there are important decisions to make here about the role of such work in guiding and constraining one’s theories. Similar decisions had to be made about work by Duchamp, Cage, Tinguely, John Zorn, or any other controversial artforms that strain at the envelope. What Brandon calls “aestheticians’ complicity” in “making quite a lot of trivial, even bad art seem both critically and philosophically important” might, ironically enough, be a move in precisely the right direction toward accommodating artworld realities rather than disenfranchising them.
I find Arthur’s suggestion—that the “death of the author” plays a role in the tendency to dissociate a work “from its economic/sociological context and its author’s intentions”—to the point. But that theme is consistent with theorists’ nevertheless keeping a close eye on various artworld realities: how audiences react to the work, how critics contextualize the work, etc. Even if artistic creations are torn loose from their causal etiologies (not a good thing to do, but let that pass) and even if “intentionalist” accounts of artistic meaning and value are rejected, there is still plenty of artworld data that theorists tend to ignore. The question is whether some aspect of aesthetic theory makes it OK for them to ignore it, or whether much aesthetic theory is simply bad theory.
Posted by: jon D. Sanford | Dec 22, 2007 10:32:52 PM :
Speaking as an Artist who has read a little aesthetic theory. Much more than my artist associates.
It is only fair that you don't pay any more attention to us than we do to you.
It may be time for a forum intended to open a dialogue.
on the other hand visual art is the last refuge of the illiterate.
Posted by: Jerome Langguth | Dec 31, 2007 2:34:06 PM :
Robert Kraut’s recently published book Artworld Metaphysics contains a rich array of provocative and useful thoughts about art, music, and the nature of aesthetic theory. This book is one of two new works in the philosophy of music written by practicing jazz musicians. Andy Hamilton’s Aesthetics & Music covers similar ground, and, though Kraut and Hamilton seem to differ on the nature and scope of aesthetics, Hamilton’s book makes a wonderful complement (and sometimes foil) to Kraut. Since Professor Kraut has been a frequent contributor to this blog (see above), I thought that I would post some of my initial responses here in the hopes of getting a discussion going. The following remarks are meant as prompts for discussion only. I am still working my way through the book and suspect that at least some of my worries are addressed later on.
Aesthetics and Art Criticism
Kraut seems to believe that it is a clear methodological error for a philosopher of art to “lapse” into art criticism. But where (exactly) are we to draw our methodological line, and, more importantly, why is it so crucial that we do so? Is aesthetics to be purged of all evaluative commentary? Why would that be desirable? Are artists’ theories about their own practice not also “aesthetic” theories? How, for example, should the practicing aesthetician interested in the philosophy of music regard the theoretical pronouncements of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Ornette Coleman, or Steve Lacy? Are these theories part of the data to be accounted for, proper aesthetic theories, or perhaps both?
The job of aesthetics, for Kraut, is completely distinct from that of the “art critic.” The critic tells us whether particular works or good or bad, or provides evaluative commentaries on artists and art-movements, but such concerns form no part of the task of aesthetics. Instead, they are part of the data set aesthetics is meant to explain. As Kraut succinctly puts the point, aesthetics demands that we take the standpoint of a neutral observer rather than that of the participant or critic. Constructing aesthetic theories is (or should be) more like surveying a landscape than staking out a place in the territory. Kraut urges us to accept an analogy with the philosophy of physics or the philosophy of math. In both there is a (more or less) clear distinction to be drawn between practice (being a mathematician) and theory (thinking in a deep way about what it is that mathematicians are up to).
One might reasonably doubt, however, that such a distinction can (or should) be upheld in the case of aesthetics. Andy Hamilton, taking a broader view of “aesthetics”, complains of precisely the opposite state of affairs. For Hamilton, too few philosophers attempt to “unify philosophical aesthetics and the analysis, criticism and history of art.” Hamilton urges the opposite of Kraut’s model:
…it is not quite right to say that aesthetics is simply a sub-discipline of philosophy, like ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind and philosophy of science. I think it had a broader remit, and that writers in aesthetics should bring to bear as much critical awareness and practical knowledge of the arts as possible.
I’m not sure that Kraut actually disagrees, as part of what I am enjoying about Artworld Metaphysics is precisely his own “critical awareness and practical knowledge”, especially of jazz. Throughout the book, Kraut brings his own experience as a practicing jazz musician to bear on the various aesthetic theories he examines. On the matter of music and emotion, Kraut is skeptical at least in part because of his detailed practitioner’s knowledge of what it’s like to perform the music (and because of his modernist leanings as a player?). Perhaps not coincidentally, Hamilton, who is a jazz pianist, also regards the alleged connections between music and emotion as “overstated” (though he doesn’t go quite as far in this direction as Kraut, in that he doesn’t deny that some music does express emotions). And though the main thrust of his chapter on jazz and aesthetic theory is not straightforwardly “critical”, Kraut’s own critical allegiances are apparent in the chapter on music and emotion. He is clearly not as engaged by the widespread artworld intuition about music expressing emotions as he is towards artworld theories regarding music as a language (though these are not unrelated ways of talking). Why is the claim that music has “nothing to do with the emotions”, which Kraut endorses, any different from the claim that music “is not in any sense a language”, which he labels a “methodological error”? Both might be part of critical discourse, but they are also doing philosophical work. Why is it so bad to find them together?
Kraut speaks of aesthetic theory as like compiling a dictionary or catalogue of artworld norms and practices, and as resembling semantic theory, etc. But why not think of even “non-practitioner” aestheticians as already in the artworld just by virtue of their characteristic obsessions with, responses to, and overall experience of art? Of course, some of them will also be in the philosophy world. Maybe the distinction between artworld practice and reflecting about that practice is not a matter of moving from artworld practice to theory about that practice conceived of as a vantage point removed from it; perhaps it is more a matter of degrees of abstraction in the questions we choose, in our various artworld and philosophy world roles, to pursue.
Kraut uses the example of a jazz musician during “playback” to capture the movement in theoretical stance between practitioner and theorist, which is a fascinating metaphor for aesthetic theorizing. But this doesn’t seem to work as an image of the kind of theoretical distancing Kraut wants. Isn’t the musician during playback still working in the artworld? Granted, the stance taken on the work in this case involves “distancing” oneself from the performance situation, but such distancing seems to me to be part of what it is to be an artworld practitioner of this specific kind. Charles Mingus listening to a playback of The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady is just as fully immersed in the artworld as he was when he was involved in performing the music included on the record, or so it seems to me. Just as “editing” is a part of writing, set design a part of film and theater, and so on, playback is part of the art-practice of a recording jazz musician. So why not see “aesthetics”, in the broad sense of the term, as constituted by a (very abstract) set of concerns generated by art and the broader perceptual matters traditionally addressed by its philosophical wing, engaged in by artists, critics, art-historians, and philosophers. Analytic philosophers will approach these questions with their characteristic rigor and their traditional set of questions. For better or worse, their questions and methods will not be the only ones. Other schools of philosophy will adopt other methodological strategies. Artists, critics, and historians will bring their specific disciplinary standards and methods to bear on the questions as well. I don’t see why this situation should make anyone anxious, or lead to the disparagement of the philosophical study of art.
Posted by: Derek Allan | Feb 28, 2008 9:26:15 PM :
The following comment on Robert Kraut's 'A Modest Question about Method' is about two years after the event, but part of what he says reminded me of a comment by Denis Dutton in an article in JAAC (I think) not that long ago. It read in part: "aesthetics at the outset of the twenty-first century finds itself in a paradoxical, not to say bizarre, situation. On the one hand, scholars and aesthetes have accessible to them – in libraries, in museums, on the Internet, first-hand via travel – a wider perspective on artistic history across cultures and through history than ever before… Against this vast availability, how odd that philosophical speculation about art has been inclined toward endless analysis of an infinitesimally small class of cases, prominently featuring Duchamp’s readymades, or boundary-testing objects such as Sherry Levine’s appropriated photographs and John Cage’s 4’33”."
I happen to disagree with much of Dutton's philosophy of art, but I think this particular point is very well taken.
