Page 45 - Studio International - January 1970

intelligendi for a thing— that's no way to treat drag all that up and the questions could be NOTES
Byzantium and it certainly doesn't corres- regarded as ones of substance, though 1 `Formalizability is not an additional requirement over
and above the coherence and extensibility of a set of
pond to acknowledged priorities. secondary. (And that even when they are, so
beliefs or constructs.' Notes on MI, (Michael Baldwin)
The notion of ontological priority which the to speak, 'built in'.)
Art-Language, Vol 1, 1969.
`physical'10 domain mummifies, renders the It seems that Morris's and Levine's stock 2 Being counterfeit is one way of being defective. Cf.
recent work, for that domain, prerogatively transactions, etc., face the maunderings of Air Show notes and introduction to Art-Language.
problematic. It has been an appropriate priority. These transactions and Frameworks 3 i.e. the view that 'What is Art' ? is a mistaken question
since people correctly pick-out works of art...etc. This
position with respect to theory loadings and may be distinguished from the purveyances
is not to say that the work is neutral in this respect.
theories that such questions as those perusal- of 'ideas' (sic) (brief sentences—presumably
4 The chronological and quasi polemical tone of this
informed ones lack cognitive content. statements about possible [and actual] ob- writing does not derive from a desire to tell anyone
The assertion that one is engaged in a servational situations [dye markers, slit what the art of the seventies will be, or should be like—
viciously essentialistic discipline does not trenches, etc.]. And it doesn't seem to alter the it is not a piece of historicism. But it seems that in
allowing the work a little historicity, one's attitude is a
imply that seemingly exclusive alternatives constructual exegesis when the possibility is
lot ruder than that which would be informed by the
are analytically irreconcilable: apparent realized). Yet it seems that both Morris and view that the 'possession of an idea (or concept) is
attachment to a principle doesn't make that e.g. Weiner are paying lip service at least to merely a cultural phenomenon, it's what you do with it
principle sound. the domain of 'perusal' : it remains an open that matters (i.e. it's aesthetic when employed in the
The French Army doesn't get a trivial courtesy question where the stock certificate stands (or aesthetic domain)'. This view seems odd—it seems to
stand up for the view that there is no more to an
title, neither does it seem to invite 'external' where the publicly-exhibited stock certificate
hypothesis than what follows as a matter of course once
questions. In the first place, it was standardly stands) in the 'aesthetic object' network which it is confirmed.
classified as a work of art, but it may be hard a 'transaction' informs. 5 It does look like this, and anyone who seriously
to preserve, or rather, it may have been hard `Nominal perusal' is not obviously mor- disputes it will have to show that people want per-
to preserve some of the formal properties of phologically sanctified, and even if it were, it sisting material particulars just to be aesthetically prior
to other types.
identity qua art object. It isn't yet a case of would be attached to higher genera than e.g.
i.e. identity through space and time. The remark
amelioration in the salvage situation : the the mirrors (1965-66) (plain and transparent could be made in the context of any theorising in the
identificatory complexities arise out of its colour-coated ones on sites, etc.) or the glaze aesthetic domain.
apparent 'artificiality' as a continuant. It paintings (1966) (diluted plastic varnish 7 Where a thing is all one whatever might be specified
turns out that it remains one thing whatever spread into and faded out on rather gently as parts, etc., see below.
8 Is this how the nominalist-essentialist contrast
one specifies as 'parts' or elements. convoluted walls).
becomes intelligible ? (In the aesthetic domain anyway ?)
A source of mystery has been the view that The identification complexities of Oxfordshire `To come up for the count', here, does not mean `to be
much of the work (and this might, on the and The French Army (to which rather ex- countable'.
basis of 'correspondence', apply to Bain- clusive theories attach) (see above) do not 9 It should be underlined that this is a remark upon
bridge's Crane) does not and cannot conform make them formally vague—`vagueness' is not what was of interest, not one on what was the general
case.
to the morphological criteria which inform `difficult' to pick out persistently. And a
10 This term was so used by Carl Andre in a lecture at
the individuative practices of the aesthetic predeliction for a modest sense of 'object' is Coventry, England.
domain. These allow a thing to be picked out nothing to do with a predeliction for 'specific 11 'The question arises what it is we are calling an
correctly: there is no discernible basis for objects', or for that matter, a predeliction for object. I regard a regular definition as impossible since
we have here something too simple (and one might add,
holding cut for morphological criteria or prin- `objects' anyone has any interest in identifying.
too general) to admit of logical analysis'.—`Function
ciples. One can only echo Frege's remark11 `Coming up for the count' does not imply a
& Concept' in Geach & Black, The Philosophical
and argue that in some contexts of application, consistent systematically unambiguous use of Writings of Gottlob Frege, p. 32.
`art' might be pushed into the space before `real'. The Air Show, Frameworks, etc., inform 12 See J. Passmore 'The Dreariness of Aesthetics'
`object'. one that classification had been taken (Article) in Elton (Ed.) Aesthetics & Language, Blackwell,
The most unpropitious drawback of the seriously: and an upshot of this is that identity Oxford.
13 Cf. Pears, 'Time, Truth and Inference' (Article) in
theoretical and constructual array has been got squeezed, or 'worked out' (denied) as one
Flew (Ed.) Essays in Conceptual Analysis, MacMillan,
that it has been critically draped with some of the formal properties of the aesthetic London.
of the dreariest old vestments of aesthetics.12 domain. (A discussion, on general lines, on the 14 On Prof. Quine's view, the ontologist is only a kind
In order to dissect the lumped-together ag- part that identity does play in aesthetic of world taxonomist.
gregate of 'conceptual art', what's required is theory has yet to be started.) (It may be
some isolation, or better, sorting out of the significant that what became assertively
points of locution of problematic questions; interesting in the Heat Show was the 'tem-
i.e. 'outside' ones. perature' (in an operationist way).
On the intemperate essentialistic view, Rau- The argument that the way Sunnybank counts STATUS AND PRIORITY II
schenberg's Portrait of Iris Clert, etc., gets is just circularly—mutatis mutandis as the `It makes no difference to the thought whether
classified with no more priority than does my corpus of criticism and theory counts it—is I use the word 'horse' or 'steed' or 'cart-
pencil, for all its (their) general semantic poised between inside (cognitive) and outside horse' or 'mare'. The assertive force does not
gothicisms. And even if these works are looked (not cognitive in content) ranges of assertion. extend over that in which the words differ...
at as the queerest of pathetic fallacies, the Notwithstanding this, the dispositions of the it is just as important to neglect distinctions
swearings of notaries remain classificatorily critics, etc., with respect to the work might that do not touch the heart of the matter as to
redundant. well be probabilified. And that would be a make distinctions which concern what is
Events, processes, transactions and 'life pragmatical exercise, sorting out presystematic essential....
histories', etc., come up for the count in locutions via preference. `Thoughts are by no means unreal, but their
Frameworks (1967) ; problematic prerogations It is only arguably the special business of the reality is of quite a different kind from that of
were those of status rather than aesthetic or artist to be involved in long range taxonomy.14 things. And their effect is brought about by an
ontological priority. (It remains to be settled A theory to load the 'seeing' implies strictures act of the thinker without which they would
what it is one does with a victory; e.g. when and constraints on the critic's (etc.) range be ineffective, at least, as far as we can see.
it is asserted that it is only a 'logical shadow' of and constitution no more or less rigorous, And yet the thinker does not create them, but
something's being won.13) though, possibly, canonical, than does the must take them as they are.' —Gottlob Frege,
Sunnybank has disposed those who want to corpus which informs everyday 'seeing'. `The Thought: a Logical Inquiry'; A.M. &