Page 38 - Studio International - April 1972

Some post-war status. of values which obtains or can be applied in the
It may be that we are compelled to
usual one—because variables can be restricted
American work acknowledge different senses of 'ideology'. to playing the role of a notational cross-
Professor Quine calls it a `bad word'.3 In some reference device which leaves the domain-
and Art-Language: circumstances, the word `ideology' is the reference function to be absorbed by quantifiers.
modern equivalent of the Greek word 'mythos'. Thus it can be held that existence isn't always
ideological Cultural anthropology misses the point insofar a univocal concept, even when it's regarded
as it interprets the word 'myth' as implying solely with reference to quantification.
responsiveness `symbolic interpretation' solely of natural Professor Quine's dictum that to be is to be the
phenomena—whatever they are. Index- value of a variable (ontological criterion) appears
Terry Atkinson relations-of-resources-of-expression (`patterns in a problematic light when on the
Michael Baldwin of ideas') are not peripherally linguistic, but, programme-map. Domain reference function
pace Wollheim, importantly so. The principle is at least shifted from variables to quantifiers
of determinate organization, to the exclusion (`There is ...', 'For all ...', etc.) in the presence
of 'excessive' disorder— which is characteristic of alternative modes of existential
of linguistic structure, as well as of analogic quantification. It is at best a matter of
change—has a corresponding feature in indexed convention based on assumed technical
cultural behaviour. convenience. Single quantifier systems with a
Given a theory or context of activity, one monolithic mode of reference are generally
can ask questions about its ontology. We can assumed—and not in response to any absolute
also ask about its ideology. Ontology does not requirements necessarily imposed by the
stand in one-to-one correspondence to ideology. inherent nature of the conceptual objects (or
Thus consider a reistic art-commitment: its etc.) of a theory (or, possibly, 'activity').
ontology perhaps exhausts reistic things. It may The point is that historical /reistic work may
be ideologically odd: the range of severally be accorded, or may reach no more than,
expressible ideas includes individual ideas of ideological status since the constitutive capacity
certain things, but no 'notation' is adequate to (propositional attitudes) instantiated in the (an)
the separate specification of each item. Also, Art-Language programme map are essentially
the ideology does have ideas, or a theory treated in terms of modality. Our quantification,
of limits in an extensional context which in relation to the 'reistic', crosses points-of-
don't have any ontological correlatives in reference. We can still be involved in a form
the range of the variables of quantification of individuation in virtue of a not-too-hard-to-
of the theory. We might say that quantification sustain 'Trans World Heir Lines' (Kaplan)
which crosses index, or point-of-reference theory.4 It's best to think of modern art as quite
contexts, is a measure of ideology; ontology is a heuristic. One-dimensional ontic alternativeness
census of the factitious. Two theories can have relations aren't much good.
the same ontology and different ideologies (e.g. If what one has presupposed is that painting /
two theories of real numbers may agree sculpture constitutes a logically prior condition
ontologically, but may still differ ideologically of the 'modern tradition', and one is then faced
in that one theory is expressible in a language with the question of whether this essentialist
into which some sentences referring to real ontification of painting /sculpture is the basis
The notion of continuity (even in the sense of numbers are translatable, others not. Tarski of the modern tradition being 'interesting'. If
contradiction)1 with regard to the relation of proved the completeness of a certain elementary ontification is essential to the modern tradition
some parts of the Art-Language programme map theory of real numbers. But it's known that being 'interesting' then painting /sculpture
and some preceding post-war American work Godel's incompleteness theorem for whole becomes a super-structure, and thus immune
is simply a heuristic device. That is to say that numbers would make it impossible if Tarski's to enquiry in any fundamental sense; it even
our understanding the constitutive facts of theory were translatable into the notation of the becomes beyond law. A context, or corpus of
some 'fifties' and 'sixties' work has had a elementary theory as normal.) propositions is 'interesting' in a particular sense
multiple input value. But such an area of work The ideology of a theory can be said to ask (so, an assertion is 'interesting' in that sense)
is a part, not the whole of, the heuristic, and what ideas are expressible in the language of the insofar as it has 'content' and 'range'. That is,
to suggest that the input from this work was theory, or in behaviour: no ontology is involved. one is committed qua assertor to that which
the only, or the dominant, input would be But Professor Quine drops this (does it seem implies the relevant proposition, and to that
misleading. For example, in teaching we have too much like 'Origins of Class Consciousness' which it implies. This is a sense of 'interesting'
tried not to presuppose painting and sculpture, stuff ?): such work as would fall under assertion which transcends the normal sense of
nor, in some of the more ramified theories, the `ideology', outside the 'bad' sense, consists in assertion as a biographical transaction. It makes
higher generic category of 'object-making'. To the theory of definability. But this needn't the assertion that p, the assertion of that
have presupposed these activities would have foul up ideological status. This is related to the which p implies. Another locution for
been to practice a kind of essentialism, and idea of necessity in an essential way. This may `interesting' would be 'theoretically
this in itself would seem to run counter to the be a measure, independent of quantification, discriminating'.
intuitive direction of inquiry suggested to these of ideology, or ideological status. One is not `Interest' is much more intuitive—is
writers in the germane American work. And committed to the facticity or 'existence' of expressly connected with a phenomenological
perhaps a more serious broader point: one is items accorded ideological status—only to their sense of intentionality—but here we still have
wilfully and arbitrarily limiting one's defence, perhaps, as necessary. the concept of 'reliable structure'. And also,
understanding.2 Suppose, for example, one is Existence as relativized to general certain autonomy theses can be got rid of.
prepared to presuppose painting and sculpture, quantification is not a univocal and `Interest' may be seen as establishing a relation
then the essentialist notification (reification) of monolithic concept: the relationship between of intentional commitment. Intuitionist
painting becomes the basis of its ideological variable notation and a corresponding domain mathematics did 'imply' the teleology of the
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