Page 46 - Studio International - January 1970

M. Quinton trans. (Mind, Vol. 65, 1956, categorical complexity: the concept `...of a mismanaged sequence never comes up for
p. 296 & p. 311.) art' or 'art...'2 is as operable when works of the count—it's not even a matter of throwing
This might look like an arm's-length-away art (etc.) are only talked of nominally—i.e., it out. Clarification on this level is taxono-
attempt to get to a respectable multiple when they are thought of as merely having an mically— or if you like the long-range 8 by 75
object theory. Keeping `Occam's Razor' in intentional structure and as only indirectly term, ontologically—revealing. That indicates
mind, one will only engage in entity multi- referred to (Sunnybank, Terry Atkinson's something else, namely that constructual and
plication as necessary. essays, etc.) as it is when they are regarded as conceptual edifices are isomorphic with
If it is a matter of history at all, then it is pretty clear cut extensional entities. One may taxonomic ones.
more than a simple Taine-like one that some well take the 'formalists' to task for an in- It is conceivable, in terms of category, that it
critics, particularly the so-called 'formalists', sistance on a reistic, physicalistic 'object' be operationally significant that to say of some-
are guilty (in their 'analytical' maunderings) commitment, which, so far, seems to disclose thing that it is 7 ft by 40 ft is to say no more
of uttering zeugmas (or, at least, some kind a species of creeping essentialism.3 than that it is 6 ft by 20 ft, or that it is spatially
of category mistakes). It might be that they There is a danger, as was mentioned earlier, extended. It may be all right to say of a
just make intentionally biased semantic errors, of having too many objects, or at least, of Noland that it is a member of the class art
i.e. not just mistakes in the counting of class admitting and introducing obscure entities : objects, or works of art, but there may be
members. but the problem evaporates somewhat when some categorical errors to be made if one
The assumption that there are 'effective' it is remembered that there is no bar on one's wants to reconcile this with a significant set
decisions as to categorical commitment is using all sorts of non-logical postulates4 to of constructs (corresponding to a theory),
central to most constructual edifices: in a characterize them. Neither is there any bar categorically, when that set of constructs
sense, it adds a 'practical' significance to on the assumption of academic notions like categorically excludes it. And this, irrespective
theoretical, historical and evaluative thinking. that of the `endeictic', etc. of whether it sounds like the sophisticates'
Also, it adds a significance to a position's Ad Reinhardt's dictums (which is perhaps the primer of T. E. Hulme.
categorical commitment, which it otherwise locus classicus of a lot of mutually irreconcilable The class of operationally significant art
would lack. The determination of (at least theories) must be one of the few genuine objects is restricted to those entities — to the
`pseudo') virtual `practicabilities'1 includes tautologies of natural language :6 it seems odd class of entities — which, with respect to a
the determination of categorically informed that it's treated as a revelation. corpus of theory, etc., can mistakenly be said
as well as 'empirical' possibilities. (`Empirical' No-one can proceed to vituperate another's to be art objects.
is used here legitimately insofar as one is faced categories until it is revealed what are his This is not just a way of holding off, or of
at times with things to observe and interpret.) criteria for individuation and identity, or circumlocuting prerogative questions, neither
One's evaluation of constructual possibilities until it has been determined whether or not is the matter just one of pleading for language
presupposes that some of them are cate- such considerations as identity, etc., do come strata: the assertion is, rather, that constructs,
gorically 'practicable'. up for the count or not. And allowing two etc., and evaluative procedures are not
In, as it were, sticking together operational things to be members of the same class, (e.g. examined by the inspection of one paradigm
significance thinking to constructual, histori- art objects) does not entail having the same of significance. Echoing Frege, one has some
cal, etc., thinking, the assumption that there categorical commitment to both. action but little interaction. q
are categorically appropriate bases for some- One does not, as a linguistic agent, just learn
thing's (or assertion's) getting some opera- to apply a term ostensibly: as Professor NOTES
tional significance, ipso facto adds operational Quinton pointed out, in a purely ostensive 1 Practicabilities' is intended to convey something
like 'operationally & theoretically significant possibili-
significance to the application of theories or situation, there would be hardly any in-
ties'.
construct edifices. There has been little telligible distinction to be made between co- 2 Fill in, for the former, 'work of ...', for the latter,
analysis of the relation between ad hoc extensiveness and synonymy: definition itself `... object', etc.
categorical thinking and its theoretical con- would be a problem.? 3 A sort of weakened 'essentialism' may well be accep-
volutions. One of the difficulties, met half It is not just a matter of appealing to the table where it is viewed as a sort of operationalism. And
the upshot of this might be that no corpus of art
submerged, is a notion of indistinguishability obviousness of an equivocation when a
constructs, etc., can deny, or be denied by Joseph
(qua categories) which is not transitive. description is misused (i.e., here, `confused'—
Kosuth's 'analyticity' metaphor.
Preferences, on the other hand, may be re- applied to two things of different types in the 4 Dave Bainbridge suggested something like what
garded as transitive—not just attached to an same sentence.) It is pretty obvious that for a follows in some early 'Notes on MI'.
ideal transitivized notion, but there is a concept to be regarded as operable then it 5 Quoted by, among others, Joseph Kosuth in a recent
article.
problem of identity. must have some range of application in the
Something informative usually lurks in apparent
Many art imperatives and dicta are extension- appropriate context. If every hypothesis etc.
`tautology' in natural language.
ally based; more seriously, a lot of critics and which employed or applied it were a category It would be helpful when a sort of operationalism
artists are disposed to take seriously mere mistake, then apart from just syntactical (`different operations define different concepts', cf.
assertions of class membership which disguise application, it would not be considered as of Pap, Semantics & Necessary Truth, etc.) is revealed that it
be noted for what it is: 'sculpture of the 70's' ideology
specious operationism. The point is that the any cognitive value.
disguises it in a flabby dialectic.
ontological-categorical status of a work of art Pedantic category confusions aren't con- 7 A. M. Quinton (in P. A. S. Vol. 64,1963-4, p. 54) has
may vary mutatis mutandis with the onto- sistent or inconsistent, although, again, they noted that, 'It is not inconceivable that ostensively
categorical commitment of significant (qLa ? may retain some syntactic operability. What learnt terms with the same extension should differ in
art) operations and theorizing; hence, one is appropriate in the context of art-objects, meaning . . . a learner might connect two such co-
extensive terms with different recurrent aspects or
has the 'range' of (loosely) 'application' of etc., is some procedure of clarification...a
features of the common stock of situations with which
`work of art'. procedure which might well disclose the
they were correlated'.
There isn't much of a problem created by the multiple complexity of the situation in which
upshots of this : it doesn't matter if one can't a notion of a priority which is not just couched
helpfully sort works of art into the same in terms of qualitative analogy might be
substitution class (or semantic category). significant. One would have to have some Joseph Kosuth became American Editor of Art-
Language in August 1969. His contribution to the
Neither is it particularly unhelpful if works theory of category correctness. In the present
Press is already strong and considerable. The broad
of art be treated as virtual entities only. But context, one has not the choice of dealing notions extrapolated here count as significantly in
virtuality does not alone inform one of with violations (there are usually two)—here, his case.