Artworks: Meaning, Definition, Value 9780271071756

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ROBERT STECKER

DEFINITION

MEANING VALUE

T H E PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS UNIVERSITY PARK, PENNSYLVANIA

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stecker, Robert, 1947Artworks : definition, meaning, value 1 Robert Stecker. P. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-271-01595-0 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 0-271-01596-9 (paper : alk. paper) 1. Art-Philosophy. 2. Art appreciation. I. Title. N71.S77 1996 701'.1 -dc20 96-362 CIP Copyright O 1997 The Pennsylvania State University All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA 16802-1003 It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper for the first printing of all clothbound books. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI 239.48-1992.

To my father and mother, Carl and Leona, and to Naseem, without whom nothing was written.

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Contents Preface INTRODUCTION PARTI. DEFINITION 1. WHYWE SHOULD LOOKFOR A DEFINITION OF ART 2. SIMPLE FUNCTIONALISM AND FUNCTIONALISM PERSE 3. HISTORICAL FUNCTIONALISM, OR THE FOUR-FACTOR THEORY 4. INSTITUTIONAL DEFINITIONS 5. HISTORICAL DEFINITIONS PART11. MEANING 6. OVERVIEW 7. INCOMPATIBLE INTERPRETATIONS 8. CRlTlCAL MONISMAND CRITICAL PLURALISM: How to Have Both 9. MEANING AND ~NTERPRETATION: The Role of Intention and Convention 10. HYPOTHETICAL INTENTIONS AND IMPLIED AUTHORS 1 1. PRAGMATISM AND ~NTERPRETATION

PART111. VALUE

References Index

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Preface This work offers a book-length treatment of the issues that have galvanized my thinking in the philosophy of art roughly since 1985. There have been three main issues: What is art? What is it to understand an artwork? What is the value of art? While I would deny that the philosophy of art is mainly a branch of value inquiry, I would claim that the very existence of this branch of philosophy depends on there being interesting answers to the last question. For unless art-or, rather, individual artworks-is of considerable value, it is not clear what would justify the expenditure of great energy in theorizing about aspects of art and its objects. The second question goes readily with this last one. To discover value in an artwork one must, in some sense, form an understanding of it. Since there is much debate, among both philosophers and critics of the arts, over what this involves and when an understanding of a work is legitimate or acceptable, here is an issue ripe for philosophical treatment as long as it illuminates, and adds something to, the already voluminous discussion. If there is anything in this book in which I take a hopefully not immodest satisfaction, it is my accomplishment of both these goals here. It seemed inevitable that these last two questions would demand from me an answer, though on the issue of value, the answers given here address preliminary matters or provide samples. It comes as much more of a surprise to me that I am able to offer an answer to the first question and especially an answer in the form of a definition. I did not approach the philosophy of art with the conviction that such an answer must be possible, and when one occurred to me, it seemed at the time a rather quixotic decision to put it forward and attempt to defend it. Though it neither entails nor is entailed by my answers to the other questions, it is nevertheless in spirit so much of a piece with those answers that it does strike me now as forming with them a single theoretical perspective. The traditional and highly general questions raised here may disturb for two reasons. First, there has been a tendency recently in the philosophy of art to focus on what Richard Wollheim calls "substantive aesthetics3'-the scrutiny of a specific art form in a way that in some sense meshes closely with the immediate concerns of artists and critics. But Wollheim, at least, main-

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Preface

tains that substantive aesthetics should be only a supplement and not a replacement for what he calls "general aestheticsm-which consists of the sort of issues just mentioned in the preceding paragraph (Wollheim 1987,7). This seems to me to be necessarily right because one cannot engage in substantive inquiry without raising the questions of general aesthetics unless one stops doing philosophy altogether. So one had better think about those general questions. (For an opposing view, see Kivy 1993). Second, one may be disturbed if one rejects traditional questions on philosophical grounds, a recurrent activity that is currently occurring under the label "postmodernism" (or "poststructuralism"). Here, I can only confess that I have not found in this body of thought compelling reason to abandon my favored questions, though I leave it open where the fault lies. Material in several of the chapters appeared previously in print in the form of journal articles. Chapter 3 is an expansion of a paper with the same title that appeared in the British Journal of Aesthetics 34 (July 1994). Chapter 4 borrows from two papers: "The End of an Institutional Definition of Art," British Journal of Aesthetics 26 (spring 1986), and "Defining Art: The Functionalisrn/Proceduralism Controversy," Southern Journal of Philosophy 30 (winter 1992). The final section of Chapter 5 borrows material from "Alien Objections to Historical Definitions of Art," British Journal of Aesthetics 36 (July 1996). Chapter 7 was previously published under the same title in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 50 (fall 1992). An earlier version of Chapter 8 appeared in the same journal (spring 1994) under the title "Art Interpretation." Chapters 9 and 10 are largely new, but both borrow some material from "The Role of Intention and Convention in Interpreting Artworks," Southern Journal of Philosophy 31 (winter 1993). Chapter 11 uses material from three papers: "Fish's Argument for the Relativity of Interpretive Truth," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 48 (summer 1990); "Pragmatism and Interpretation," Poetics Today 14 (spring 1993);and "Relativism About Interpretation," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 53 (winter 1995). Finally, Chapter 1 3 uses a few pages from "Expression of Emotion in (Some of) the Arts," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 42 (summer 1984). 1 thank the editors of these journals for permission to reprint this material. This work would not merely be worse but would not exist at all without the help of many people. For providing conditions enabling me to pursue my work in the philosophy of art, I am grateful to a number people going back to graduate school days. Patrick Maynard and Irving Singer introduced me to the philosophy of

Preface art as an academic discipline. Baruch Brody, Richard Cartwright, Jerry Katz, and especially Judith Thomson helped me to acquire skills and a cast of mind without which this book would not exist. Ho Wing Meng very kindly allowed me to take over his aesthetics course at the National University of Singapore, enabling me to develop my own ideas in this area under ideal conditions. The philosophy department at Central Michigan University has provided a setting most conducive to continuing my work. In developing, refining, and hopefully improving my thinking on the issues discussed here, I have received help from many others. I am very grateful to George Dickie for reading and replying in print to my criticism of his views about the definition of art and to Joseph Margolis for both discussion and published comment regarding our views about interpretation. My early work on interpretation has benefited from the comments of Fred Adams, Gary Fuller, and Jim McGrath, all from Central Michigan University, and those of David Carrier, Richard Shusterman, and Bruce Vermazen, who also provided very welcome encouragement. George Bailey, James Carney, Stephen Davies, Berys Gaut, Alan Goldman, Robert Howell, Jerrold Levinson, and William Tolhurst have provided very useful comments on individual chapters or papers that became incorporated into chapters. Tom Leddy has consistently provided useful discussion and correspondence on all aspects of my work. I have been especially helped by both the example of and ongoing discussion with Noel Carroll, James Carney, Stephen Davies, and Jerrold Levinson. Stephen Davies, Alan Goldman, Paisely Livingston, and Anita Silvers read the entire manuscript, and all offered extremely useful criticisms and suggestions. I am especially grateful to them. Finally, my family, Naseem, Sonia, and Nadia, have made my life one in which I could do this work. It would be wrong to speak of a debt here; it is something beyond that.

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There are, as I conceive the subject, four central questions that a philosophy of art needs to answer: (1)What is art? (2)What is it to understand a work of art? (3) What is the value of art? (4) What kind of entities are artworks? This book proposes and defends answers to the first three of these questions. Regarding the last question, it has little to add to what others have already said.' When necessary, it borrows from their work but makes no attempt to present a systematic ontology of art. There are, of course, many other questions that arise within the philosophy of art. Some of these are strictly parts of the larger questions raised above. For example, a host of questions about the interpretation of artworks fall under question 2. Are interpretations ever true (false)?Is there a single comprehensive true interpretation of artworks? Are there many acceptable interpretations of the same artwork? Are there incompatible acceptable interpretations of the same artwork? What is the meaning of an artwork? 1. On the ontology of artworks, I find particularly attractive the approach of Wollheim (1980) as refined by Levinson in the essays in Levinson 1990a.

Introduction What is the role of an artist's intention in interpreting artworks? All these questions and more need to be answered if we are to find out what it is to understand an artwork. However, there are other philosophical questions about art that do not so obviously fall under, or within, any of the four central questions. What is pictorial representation? What is musical expressiveness? What is fiction? How should we understand our emotional reactions to fictions?' Are these questions any less central than the ones I have already mentioned? There is no good answer that cuts across all philosophies of art. In my philosophy of art, the answer is "yes." The most fundamental understanding of art is prior to answers to the questions just raised. But this is not so in all philosophies of art. It is not so R. G. Collingwood's philosophy of art: in which an understanding of artistic (if not merely musical) expressiveness plays a fundamental role. In a more recent example, the notion of representation and fiction have a similar status in Kendall Walton's philosophy of art.4 It is important to note that different starting points in theories do not imply incompatibility of theories. Before turning to an outline of answers to my favored questions, let me spend a little more time explaining why those questions achieve the status they have in my thinking. There is a philosophy of art for the same reason that there is a philosophy of language. There would be no such thing as the philosophy of art if art, like language, was not believed to make a special and peculiarly important contribution to every culture and every civilization. It is part of being human that we speak a natural language, and it at least seems to some of us equally part of being human that we produce and enjoy artworks. A philosophy of art produced without cognizance of this purported value would not be worth knowing about. However, there is an important difference between art and language. There is much less controversy (which is not to say there is none at all) over the value of language compared to the value of art (ignoring such uses of language as those that produce literary artworks). For this reason, art's purported value not only makes reasonable and important 2. Though these questions may appear independent of my favored ones, in fact they are intimately interconnected. For example, one's understanding of interpretation has important implications for one's views about representation and expression and vice versa. I thank Berys Gaut for stressing this point to me. These implications receive limited treatment in Chapters 9 and 10. I hope to deal with them more extensively on another occasion. 3. See Collingwood 1938. 4. See Walton 1990.

Introduction the desire to better understand art, but what is valuable about art (question 3) must itself be a central question within that subject matter. Art might be less valuable than it is cracked up to be. Or its value might vary both in degree and in kind among different art forms and genres. Some part of the controversy over the actual value of art turns on uncertainty about the extension of the concept of art. This uncertainty is both considerable and multifaceted. Is art proper confined to the so-called fine arts (and in what do the fine arts consist in the late twentieth century)? If not, are there principles that determine which non-fine art items are artworks? Is the extension of art determined independently of its value or function, or do those notions figure in the very definition of art? Because these are very live and still disputed questions, I believe one must attempt to answer the question, what is art? (question 1). Finally, artworks are typically objects that can only be appreciated if understood. In this way, they differ from sunsets and some other beauties of nature. However, just as it is uncertain what the value and extension of art is, it is uncertain-indeed, very controversial-what an understanding of an artwork is or whether it is the same sort of thing across art forms. One cannot have a good grasp of the concept of art until one becomes clear about what counts as understanding artworks and what such understanding achieves. Hence the importance of question 2. Many other questions commonly asked within the philosophy of art, though not included in this list of central questions, become urgent within the framework these questions provide. For example, since art's representational and expressive properties contribute so much to the value of artworks and since the identification of these properties is so important in the understanding of artworks, questions about the nature of artistic expression and representation need answering. For similar reasons, so do questions about the nature of fiction and of our emotional and cognitive reactions to fiction. I am inclined to think that if there is a question worth asking in the philosophy of art, it is worth asking in the present framework.

This book is intended to offer a unified, if incomplete, philosophy of art-a theory of the nature and functions of art and of the practice of interpreting and appreciating it. On this theory, a definition of art, in terms of its evolving

4

Introduction

functions, is used to explain and justify current interpretive practices and motivate an investigation of artistic value. Artworks has three parts. Each part tries to answer one of the first three central questions discussed above. The proposed answers are placed within the context of an ongoing debate criticizing, but also explaining what can be learned from, alternative views. "Definitions" (Part I) is concerned with the question, what is art? It argues for an answer in terms of the functions of art. (This is done in Chapter 3). However, the definition given is very different from other functional definitions that have been offered. It does not define art in terms of one function or a handful of functions performed by artworks, such as expressing or communicating emotion, being formally significant, or producing aesthetic experience. I classify such proposals as versions of simple functionalism (the topic of Chapter 2). Such definitions invariably face counterexamples-of artworks not possessing the favored function or of nonartworks possessing it. Such definitions also face the charge of leaving no room for bad art. My favored definition avoids these problems. It claims (roughly) that an item is an artwork at time t if and only if it is in one of the central art forms at t and is intended to fulfill a function art has at t or it is an artifact that achieves excellence in fulfilling such a function. I want readers to see this definition as one option among a set of alternatives. Interesting alternatives to functionalism began to appear in the 1950s in the form of antiessentialist theories (discussed in Chapter 1). Antiessentialists claim that art has no fixed, unchanging essence and, on the most influential version of antiessentialism, that art cannot be defined in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. Later, institutional and historical theories (discussed in Chapters 4 and 5 respectively) appeared on the scene. Both types of theories define art in terms of relations artworks bear to other things. The defining (relational) properties of artworks, on these theories, are nonperceptual and, usually, nonfunctional. On institutional theories, art is defined as a status an object possesses in virtue of its position in a specific social practice. On historical theories, an object is an artwork in virtue of a relation it bears to earlier artworks, this relation varying in different historical theories. Although the chapters of Part I offer criticism of these alternatives, many of their insights have been incorporated into my own definition. I accept from all these theories the insight that art cannot be defined in terms of a single function. My functionalism reflects the antiessentialist idea that artistic functions evolve in an open-ended fashion so that there will be

Introduction

5

resemblance, rather than identity, between the valuable functions of art in one period and those in another. While I do not agree with the antiessentialists on the impossibility of defining art, we agree that there is no adequate definition providing nondisjunctive necessary conditions of arthood. With the institutional and historical theories, I accept the idea that, for an object to be art, it does not necessarily have to fulfill one of art's functions. Roughly, for works produced in central art forms, such as poetry, painting, and music, the intention to fulfill is enough. While institutional definitions of art are rejected here, institutional definitions of related notions, such as that of an art form, are provisionally endorsed. I feel most kinship with the historical approach, and my own definition has a distinctly historical aspect. Since the order of exposition of Part I is so different from that found in this Introduction, let me say a word about the former arrangement. Chapter 1 first tries to show that recent art practice, as well as puzzling features of the concept of art, sufficiently motivate an interest in defining art. It then turns to, and tries to deflect, the antiessentialist challenge to this project. Though others have done this before, the chapter focuses on aspects of the challenge neglected by earlier commentators. Chapter 2 examines and, when necessary, devises the most plausible simple functionalist proposals. In order to motivate my own considerably more complicated approach, it tries to explain why even the most plausible versions of simple functionalism are unsatisfactory. As already noted, Chapter 3 explains, and defends against many possible objections, my own functionalist definition. Finally, Chapters 4 and 5 examine competing institutional and historical theories. Although it is perhaps more common to clear the field before offering one's own view, these definitions are examined after presenting my own, because I regard them as important alternatives that deserve serious consideration. Though they are criticized, I do not want these alternatives to be regarded merely as obstacles to be cleared away in preparation for presenting the favored position. Part I1 answers the question, what is it to understand an artwork? Because we value art, we typically approach artworks in order to appreciate them, but this can be done in more than one way. Thus we may seek to appreciate a work as would a contemporary of its author, or we may seek to appreciate it in a way that makes it relevant to concerns or ways of thinking of our own time. Also, our appreciation may focus on different properties or functions of a work. Someone may approach a novel to become wrapped up in the imaginary world it presents or to read it as an expression of thought about the actual world, or both. Many of these ways of appreciating artworks are

6

Introduction

determined by functions standard for a given art form, although it is always possible to approach a work in an unusual way. The understanding we seek is one that will enable us to appreciate a work in a particular way. (However, it must be remembered that some works are disappointing, and it should not be a requirement on a proper understanding of a work that it maximize positive appreciation.) I think of our understanding of a work as the interpretation we give it. Because we appreciate and understand works in different ways, we interpret with different aims. Typically the aim with which we interpret is determined by the way in which we hope to appreciate a work, but there is one exception, and that is when we seek to understand some aspect of work for the sake of understanding alone. The standard of acceptability for interpretations is relative to aim. An interpretation that would be unacceptable if it were an attempt to understand the artist's intentions may be a perfectly acceptable attempt to make a work relevant to contemporary concerns. The recognition of this, along with the fact that people interpret with different aims, allows for the resolution of many traditional problems about interpretation. A good initial testing ground for the proposed framework is the issue whether there are incompatible acceptable interpretations of the same artwork (Chapter 7). The temptation to believe that there are is considerable because of the attractiveness of critical pluralism-the view that there are many noncombinable acceptable interpretations of the same work. However, especially for those like myself, who believe that interpretations often are either true or false, a satisfactory way of accommodating incompatible acceptable interpretations is not easy to find. On the framework presented here, the need for such accommodation is greatly reduced insofar as many apparently incompatible interpretations can be seen to be compatible when it is recognized that, because they are made with different aims, what each asserts can be true without coming into direct conflict with the others. Such compatible interpretations may still be noncombinable, coming, as they do, from interpretive projects with distinct aims. There are indeed some logically incompatible interpretations that are mutually acceptable, but only in the nonremarkable sense of being equally well justified. The main tenets of my views about art interpretation are set out in Chapters 8 and 9. The former is concerned with the debate between critical pluralism and critical monism, the view that there is a single correct comprehensive interpretation of each artwork. I argue that these views are compatible-indeed, both are true-and hence there need be no debate about which to accept. However, there are versions of both monism and

Introduction pluralism-extreme intentionalism, relativism, nondescriptivism-that are incompatible with pluralism or monism per se, and these versions are false if the views presented here are true. Arguments are offered against such versions in Chapters 8, 9, and 11. Chapter 9 investigates whether there is a good rationale for picking out, from the various interpretive projects that produce acceptable interpretations, one that can reasonably, if somewhat stipulatively, be said to identify the meaning of a work. After examining arguments against doing this, and looking at various candidates, I suggest that interpretations that identify what an artist intentionally does in a work, as well as what the artist does, even if not intentionally, in virtue of conventions in place at the time the work is created, give us the work's meaning. Whatever merit this proposal has, it must be emphasized that acceptable interpretations of artworks are not confined to those that identify a work's meaning in the sense just specified but also include interpretations that pursue very different interests. Hence, though this part is called "Meanings," the meanings in question are not confined to a work's meaning in the indicated sense. Chapter 10 examines the popular invocation of apparent, or implied, artists in literary theory and the philosophy of art. A work often gives the impression of being made by a certain type of artist-one who brings a particular perspective to the work, who has certain obsessions perhaps, certain emotional tendencies, certain intellectual concerns, and so forth. The artist that the work appears to have, or that we infer from various features of the work, may be quite different from (but, of course, may be very much like) the actual artist. Many who have theorized about art and literature have been much drawn to this notion and have put it to a multitude of uses in their accounts of interpretation, artistic expression, and style, among other things. Chapter 1 0 examines several attempts to use this notion to formulate an alternative account of artwork meaning. The thought I want to ward off is that, with the apparent artist in hand, reference to the actual artist drops out of, or becomes peripheral to, the interpretive enterprise in general and to the notion of work meaning in particular. Chapter 11 examines an alternative approach to art interpretation-the contemporary pragmatist approach defended in different versions by, among others, Stanley Fish, Joseph Margolis, Richard Rorty, and Richard Shusterman. Many of the conclusions reached here about interpretations-especially my endorsement of a plurality of interpretive aims-would be accepted by pragmatists. However, even the conclusions we share in common we reach by different routes. Two of the principles that guide contemporary

Introduction

pragmatist thinking are: (1)the correspondence theories of truth, objectivity, and knowledge are to be rejected, and (2) truth, objectivity, and knowledge are to be somehow construed in terms of agreement within a community. The main thrust of the chapter is directed against the second principle, which I think is seriously mistaken. (The first principle can mean so many different things that no general evaluation of it is possible.) Finally, Part 111 tries to understand artistic value in terms of the important functions of artworks. Neither a functional definition of art nor a functional account of artistic value implies that the value of art is instrumental rather than intrinsic. Nevertheless, it is the burden of Chapter 12 to argue that the value of art is instrumental through and through. Chapter 13 describes some preeminent, though by no means the only, functions of literary artworks. Having talked about particular answers found in the chapters that follow, let me say something, before closing this section, about the character of these answers. Good theories are often said to be simple and elegant (if elegance is distinct from simplicity). On this criterion, the views proposed here fare poorly. My theories of art, art interpretation, and artistic value are complex and inelegant sometimes to an extent that some might regard them as parodies of theories rather than theories per se. Regarding their qualifications as theories, I can only say that, while the answers given here are my best attempts to reach the truth about their subject matter (and in that sense are given with complete seriousness), they are also advanced with the realization that there is something quixotic about seriously hoping that one's attempts will be completely successful. Regarding the complexity and inelegance of my answers, I must confess to a deep-seated belief that many of the notions we start out examining in philosophy, such as the notions of art, of interpretation, of artistic value (artistic expressiveness can be added here), tend to collect together (but do so to some purpose) a motley of phenomena that are not amenable to a simple and uniform treatment. Hence, to me, a simple and elegant philosophical theory is automatically suspect.

The reader may have noted the absence of the word "aesthetic" in the preceding pages, a dogged persistence in referring to the "philosophy of art" rather than "aesthetics." I would like to offer an explanation even though this is not strictly necessary for understanding the chapters that follow.

Introduction I begin on an autobiographical note. In my early attempts to discover what other philosophers had to say about art, the preeminence of the aestheticthe aesthetic attitude, aesthetic experience, aesthetic qualities-that pervaded so much of the philosophical writing on art until fairly recently was a great stumbling block. Approaching a work with the aesthetic attitude or enjoying aesthetic experience, if one could make sense of these (to me) very artificial notions, seemed at best peripheral to the literature, drama, and painting that was at the center of my artistic interests. I also had a strong hunch the aesthetic would fare no better in discovering what was really important about art forms, like music, which I enjoyed but about which I knew less. It seemed to me that art was important because there was so much to learn from it (as I still believe), and the concentration on the aesthetic to the exclusion of all else seemed to make this insight inaccessible. It turns out that many others had a similar reaction. (One must mention George Dickie as a leader of the movement to put the aesthetic in its place.) Now that philosophy of art is no longer merely "aesthetics," I must admit that I can see a far more important place for something we can stipulatively call aesthetic experience than I did before. In fact, my current position is that the cognitive value of artworks-which had always been the most important one for me-is symbiotically related to their aesthetic value, and that aesthetic value pervades the realm of art more extensively than does cognitive value. (These ideas are developed in Chapter 13.) I hope this concession to the aesthetic is not simply the result of aging. Nevertheless, since this work is squarely concerned with art and not other objects sometimes included in aesthetic inquiry, such as nature, and since aesthetic value is only one kind of value for which artworks can be appreciated and not art's defining characteristic, "philosophy of art" is the best way to describe what takes place in these pages. "Aesthetics," of course, can be used as nothing more than a synonym of "philosophy of art," but it can also mean the study of the causes and nature of a certain sort of experience or have the connotation of a philosophy of art with a strong emphasis on the aesthetic. Because of this, its use in place of the "philosophy of art" has distinct disadvantages. Some claim that the disadvantage of speaking of the philosophy of art is that it makes the work produced under that label appear peripheral. I doubt that "aesthetics" has received such good press in our century as to alter this impression where it exists. There is, in fact, nothing peripheral in the concepts-interpretation, expression, representation, metaphor, work, art,

Introduction aesthetic-or the metaphysical, epistemological, or value theoretical issues philosophy of art investigates. The only way to alter the impression of being a peripheral part of the discipline is to write intrinsically interesting philosophy that makes connections with other parts of the discipline as well as other disciplines. I hope this book is a step in that direction.

It may seem rather surprising in these antiessentialist times, but the philosophical search for a definition of art is alive and well. Or perhaps, especially to some in neighboring disciplines, this fact may appear deplorably typical of the penchant of academic philosophy to beat dead horses in a determined effort to stay out of touch with the real concerns of the artworld.' (A triptych: The first panel shows a group of philosophers engrossed in beating a dead horse while artists crowd around vainly trying to catch the philosophers' attention. The second panel shows artists dejectedly walking away while philosophers continue to beat; in the distance a sympathetic group of art theorists approach. In the third panel artists happily commune with art theorists while philosophers continue with their original task in not so splendid isolation.) In any case, new definitions of art are produced almost as rapidly as new styles of artworks and art making. Whether the pursuit of a definition of art is surprising or predictable, let 1. The project of defining art seemed to have wide enough support as recently as 1994. However, since then I have noted the growing popularity of a new antiessentialism. The view attributed here to those in neighboring disciplines has become increasingly popular among philosophers of art. So "alive and well" may now be an exaggeration. This remark concerns trends and has nothing to do with the viability of the project I defend in this chapter.

DEFINITIONS

me begin, since I shall be in the thick of it for the first third of this book, by trying to explain what drives it and ward off various worries whether attempting to define art is a worthwhile project. I then conclude this chapter by saying something about the history of the discussion that shapes the current debate. Before going forward, it is necessary to take one step back. Just what is the project of defining art? Morris Weitz (1956), who has had an enormous influence on the subsequent discussion, specified it as the project of giving necessary and sufficient conditions for an item to be an artwork. If one thinks of what Weitz is requiring, in what used to be called the formal mode, that is, the issuing of a sentence of the form "A is an artwork if and only if C," one has the right to remain puzzled over the status of this biconditional. Does the right-hand side give the meaning of the left-hand side? Does the former analyze the latter? What sort of equivalence is being asserted by this sentence? However, in speaking of necessary and sufficient conditions, Weitz should not be taken as requiring that a definition be expressed by a certain kind of sentence but as telling us what any sentence giving such a definition must assert or say. It must assert conditions, jointly necessary and sufficient, for an item to be an artwork. This implies that it will tell us what is the extension of "art."2 It implies no more. In any case this is how I interpret Weitz's requirement on a definition of art and accept it as an adequate specification of the project of defining art.

Why should one be interested in defining art? To claim that such an interest is out of touch with the real concerns of the artworld is far from obvious. Two well-known aspects of the artworld are among the most powerful forces driving the search for a definition of art. First, the avant-garde art of the past one hundred years has made the nature of art increasingly puzzling. It has progressively stripped works of the marks by which items have customarily been recognized as art, while expanding the category of objects (and nonobjects) capable of art status. With regard to the category of objects, examples are legion. Found art has added unworked objects chosen by the 2. One philosopher who explicitly argues that a definition of art is mainly concerned to capture the extension of "artwork" is James Carney (1991b).

Why We Should Look for a Definition of Art

artist, often ordinary artifacts: snow shovels and can openers. Earth, bricks, scraps of cloth are the material of now famous recent works. There seems to be nothing that could not now be made over into an artwork. With regard to the stripping away of the traditional marks of art, the same thing is true. In some works, the contribution of the artist in shaping the final product is minimized (as in the found art just mentioned). In some, form seems to disappear (as it did in Carl Andre's Spill, in which hundreds of identical plastic blocks were thrown on a gallery floor). Some attempt to eliminate aesthetic quality. (Robert Morris issued a notarized statement withdrawing all aesthetic quality and content from a metal construction with the paradoxically evocative title Litanies.) An earlier example of such stripping away is nicely described by Leo Steinberg in writing about Matisse's Joy of Life: "One had always assumed that, faced with a figurative painting, one was entitled to look at the figures in it, that is, focus on them one by one. . . . But in this picture, if one looks at the figures distinctly, there is a curious lack of reward" (Steinberg 1973, 2 1 2 ) . ~ Second, artists in recent times seem to be especially interested in the nature of art, of particular art forms, of artistic media and materials, and often make these interests the subject matter of their artworks. Both Clement Greenberg and Arthur Danto, though in quite different ways, see the essence of modernism as a search for the nature of art.4 In fact, this is more true of some artists and movements than others, but fairly characterizes, among others, Kandinsky and Klee, the Dadaists, minimalism, and conceptual art. Both these aspects of the art of the past century have, if anything, forced the issue of the definition of art on anyone, including philosophers, who takes an interest in the artworld. However, these developments only bring into sharp relief something that was always true: the puzzling character of the concept of art. The concept is 3. A nice short list of avant-garde works with a specification of how they depart from traditional expectations is found in Fisher 1993, 121-30. Battcock 1973, from which the Steinberg essay is quoted in the text, is a good source for informative essays about the art of the 1960s, such as pop, minimalism, conceptual a n , and earthworks. My discussion here might suggest that I would accept anything offered up as art to be art. In fact, I would not. For example, a telegram from Robert Rauschenberg stating, "This is a portrait of Iris Clen if I say it is," strikes me as a dubious candidate, if candidate it be. 4. Greenberg seems roughly to think of the search as properly proceeding by the stripping away mentioned above. See Greenberg 1973, 66-77. Danto thinks this is a false lead. The search is properly pursued by the production of artworks indiscernible from various nonworks and other artwork. See Danto 1981.

DEFINITIONS

puzzling not in one way but in several. The problems that follow are not meant to be exhaustive. First, there is a difficulty about just which concept of art is the object of our interest, and about its origin and history. Historical anthologies in the philosophy of art standardly begin with Plato, and "the mimetic definition of art" is commonly associated with the writings of Plato and Aristotle. Yet the Greek word usually translated as "art," techne, is thought by no one to express "our" concept of art, else contemporary aestheticians would give much more attention to navigation and bridle making than they in fact do. Nevertheless, Plato seems to recognize a subgroup of techne, which he collects together in book 3 of the Republic in virtue of its importance to the education of the future guardians of the state, a subgroup that comes much closer in extension (though is by no means identical) to our concept. The items he mentions (at 401a) include poetry, painting, music, weaving and embroidery, architecture, and furniture of all kinds. Plato does not have a neat label for this subclass of technd, but the criterion by which he groups its members together refers to what we would regard as expressive, rather than representational, properties, namely, the fact that they have a character "akin to" the virtuous or vicious character traits of persons.5 Since the work of Paul Oskar Kristeller (1979), it is widely accepted that the concept of fine art was not fully formed until sometime in the eighteenth century. I would not dispute that, but I am not sure that even this concept is the object of contemporary definitions. Peter Kivy (1991) has argued that pure instrumental music was not considered among the fine arts, because it is not a representational art, implying that being such was (is?) a sine qua non of class membership. Rather it was classed among the decorative arts. Kristeller himself claims that the five major arts of painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and poetry form the irreducible nucleus of the modern system of the (fine) arts. By the late twentieth century, the number of art forms have multiplied many fold. That the original five constitute a central core is much less obvious, and being representational is clearly not a sine qua non of class membership. We could say that there is one concept, perhaps extending back to Plato's subclass of techne but at least back to the eighteenth-century system of the fine arts, which has undergone considerable change (if it makes sense to talk about a concept undergoing change) or, at least, about which our beliefs have considerably changed. However, I think it is better, and more in 5. I develop this point in Stecker 1992c.

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keeping with current tendencies of thought, to think of our concept as different from both Plato's and the eighteenth century's. The extension picked out by our concept is so very different, and recall that it is the extension of a term or concept that a definition is fashioned to pick out. The earlier concepts are linked to ours both causally and by similarities of content. For that reason we can think of them as predecessor concepts. How is our concept different from the eighteenth century's? The ways mentioned so far would be accepted by most everyone: our concept countenances the multiplication of art forms, the vast broadening of objects capable of achieving art status, the stripping away of traditional marks of arthood as necessary for art status. I would suggest other ways that might strike some (but hopefully not everyone) as more controversial or as fixing on, at best, borderline cases. The eighteenth century tended to think of the artist as a genius, obviously someone apart from the average human being. There is a strong tendency now to think of artistic activity (which is presumably, although not necessarily, activity tending to result in artworks or performances) as much more "democratically" spread throughout our society's population, beginning with children and children's art. Similarly, the fact that artworks are found in all societies and cultures (as far as I know) suggests that, although art is not a natural kind, art making is an activity natural to human beings, that (again) it takes a multitude of forms, that it need not be made just for the purpose of contemplation, enjoyment, or instruction, but can be found in objects with the most wide-ranging functions (from vessels for containing liquids to talismans that ward off evil spirits). (All these tendencies of thought may be muted, especially when theorists fix exclusively on the art of the avant-garde.) The discussion so far suggests that our current concept of art has a much broader extension than the eighteenth-century concept of fine art, though it is different again from the ancient Greek concept of technd. This raises two further, related problems, which need only be briefly stated here, since they are much more familiar than the problem just discussed. First, why do all the diverse things that are artworks and forms that are art forms fall under the concept of art? Second (the other side of the same coin), why do items that are not artworks but resemble them in various significant ways fail to fall under the concept? Why do the various items discussed above, from the talismans and ceramic vessels to the avant-garde pieces, fall under the concept of art, while fine cigars, wine, and food, as well as various skillful entertainments and advertising, are excluded (if they all are)?The concept of fine art seems to be in a very similar boat here. Though Kristeller is clear that

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"five major arts" form an irreducible nucleus, he also notes "other arts [in what sense of "art"?] are sometimes added to the scheme . . . : gardening, engraving and the decorative arts [the very things Kivy contrasts with the fine arts], the dance and the theatre, sometimes the opera, and finally eloquence and prose literature" (1979, 8). Clearly the borders of this concept too were uncertain, as would be the principle for drawing them. Of course, drawing the border between art and nonart just is the task of defining art. It is obviously a difficult task, but one motivated by very real puzzles felt by artists as well as philosophers. This section has presented four motivations for looking for a definition of art: (1) the puzzlement created by avant-garde artworks, in which many of the traditional marks of arthood are missing, (2) the interest within at least some of the modernist avant-garde in discovering the essence of art and in exploring, in multifaceted ways, the nature of art, (3) the fact that there are a number of different concepts of art (that "art" can be used to express a number of different concepts) that have emerged over the course of time and that it would be useful to identify one that is most adequate to cover the current state of the artworld and the history that has led up to it, and (4)the puzzlement, deeper than that produced by the avant-garde, about what makes a multiplicity of artworks and art forms fall under the (appropriate) concept of art and what makes closely resembling nonart items fail to fall under that concept. There is a much simpler way of trying to motivate the search for a definition. This is to say that the job of philosophy is to identify essences; hence, the job of the philosophy of art is to identify the essence of art.6 The problem with such a line is that it can only appeal to the already converted. The motivations offered above remain in place whether or not art has an essence. In fact, they would remain in place even if there was no good definition of art. However, a definition is the most straightforward way of resolving them.

A project can be well motivated and nevertheless fail. Even those most skeptical about the project of giving a definition of art understand much of 6 . Arthur Danto unabashedly offers this as his motivation most clearly in Danto 1993.

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the motivation for the project. They nevertheless doubt, or deny, it will succeed. While there are many today who shun the attempt to define art, there is relatively little theorizing about what makes this project likely to fail. (What there is I examine below in the section "New Doubts.") Unlike the situation today, the philosophy of art of roughly forty years ago was rife with such theorizing. A half dozen pieces from this period are the locus classicus for the study of doubts about defining art.' It is worth going back to these writings not only for the theoretical doubts they express but because of the very great influence they have had on subsequent attempts at giving a definition of art. If we look very closely at these writings, they not only contain arguments against attempting to define art but, perhaps inadvertently, provide interesting suggestions toward solving the problems they lay bare. The paper that has received more attention than any other on this issue is "The Role of Theory in Aesthetics," by Morris Weitz. I do not discuss here all the details of Weitz's argument against the possibility of a definition of art or the criticism that argument has received, both of which are much rehearsed and well known. Rather, I focus on aspects of Weitz's argument that have received little emphasis and perhaps have even been misconstrued. Weitz argues that there are no necessary and sufficient conditions by which art can be defined, because the concept of art is "open textured." Commentators and critics of this argument often focus on features special to art that they take to be Weitz's main reason for making this claim, for example, the fact that new art forms and new movements within existing art forms constantly arise to produce novel works of art. However, Weitz takes open texture to be a feature of most empirical concepts. (Weitz initially claims that all empirical concepts are open but later indicates that he recognizes some that are closed.) Hence, Weitz's main reason for claiming that the concept of art is open textured must have to do, not with something special about art, but with what it has in common with the majority of other empirical concepts. Weitz (1956, 31) is quite explicit about what this is: "A concept is open if its conditions are amendable and corrigible; i.e., if a situation . . . can be imagined or secured which would call for some sort of decision on our part to extend the use of the concept to cover this case." According to Weitz, if a concept has necessary and sufficient conditions, it is closed, but few concepts have such conditions. The only thing that separates the concept of 7. Below I focus on Weitz 1956 and Ziff 1953. Other influential pieces include Kennick 1958, Gallie 1956, Khatchadourian 1961, and Ziff 1951.

20

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art from many other empirical concepts is that artistic practices are repeatedly requiring us to make such decisions. With the concepts of many other activities, artifacts, and natural kinds, while we can imagine circumstances where, on Weitz's view, such decisions would be called for, we are actually required to make them much less frequently, if ever. The view of concepts on which Weitz bases his argument is not without plausibility. In recent times, but following a suggestion made by Hume (1888, 262), some philosophers have been attracted to treating identity concepts, such as personal identity and artifact identity, in a similar way. Hard cases (mostly imaginary for personal identity but often real for artifact identity), producing clashing intuitions, are sometimes said to be left indeterminate by our current identity concept. Only a decision t o extend the concept along certain lines could resolve such cases in determinate ways.8 What appears to be impressing the philosophers to whom I have just alluded is that we can know all the "facts" about a given case and still not resolve the question of identity (except with a decision). Weitz seems to have been impressed by something similar. He believes that no matter how much we now know (somehow) about some future object, it is possible that we are not in a position now to know whether it will turn out to be an artwork or not. It is intuitions about the indeterminacy of application of concepts (or predicates) in certain cases (absent certain decisions) that is driving Weitz's doubts about a definition of art. About this intuition we should ask two questions. First, does such indeterminacy show that there could not be a definition of art, that is, conditions jointly necessary and sufficient for an item being art? Second, should we accept the claim that there is such indeterminacy? Regarding the first question, it seems to me such indeterminacy does not imply the absence of necessary and sufficient conditions. Leibniz's law gives necessary and sufficient conditions for identity consistent with the existence of such indeterminacies. (If it is indeterminate whether A = B, then it is indeterminate whether every property had by A at a given time is had by B at that time.) If it is indeterminate now whether the concept of art applies to some item that will exist in the future, it could be because it is indeterminate (now) whether the conditions jointly necessary and sufficient for being art are met by that object. It may become determinate in the future, or it may 8. The best statement of this view is found in the writings of Derek Parfit on personal identity, particularly Parfit 1971 but also 1984.

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remain permanently indeterminate. When the latter situation obtains, we have a borderline case. Should we accept that there are indeterminacies about the application of the concept of art? It would not be surprising if there were indeterminaciesboth indeterminacies now about future central cases and permanent indeterminacies about borderline cases. However, it is at least possible that some apparent indeterminacies are really cases of insufficient knowledge. It may be that whether an item is an artwork depends on certain future decisions, for example, decisions of the arts community that a certain type of item can count as a candidate artwork. Such decisions may not be epistemically accessible to us now, but were we to know of them, we might know that the item in question is an artwork. When it is envisioned that we know all the "facts" about this item but do not know whether it is art, the fact that the relevant decision will be made may be a fact that was left out. It is interesting to compare Weitz's argument about the impossibility of defining art with an argument Paul Ziff gave a few years earlier on the impossibility of a single definition of art. Ziff's paper, "The Task of Defining a Work of Art," does not argue that there are no good definitions of art. Ziff actually offers a definition of "art" in the paper, though it is not a definition in Weitz's sense, since it only states a sufficient condition for being a work of art. I do not believe that Ziff rules out the possibility of a definition of "art" in Weitz's sense, though he does not show an interest in looking for one. What Ziff does deny is that any definition, even a perfectly good definition, gives us the last word about what art, or the work of art, is. For Ziff, a definition defines a "use" of the word "art," and the uses of "art" are manifold and varying. To illustrate the manifold and varying uses of "art," Ziff focuses on two kinds of cases. Ziff seems to think that claims about different art forms, such as painting and poetry, are different uses. Also, applying the word "art" to radically new styles within an art form is a new use. It is not surprising that Ziff dwells on the latter case. Such cases can easily be redescribed as cases where the application of the concept of art is extended, that is, cases that resemble earlier undisputed artworks in some significant ways and differ in other significant ways. These are precisely the cases that, according to Weitz, require a decision about the application of the concept. Ziff thinks of the question whether to give "art" a new "use" in precisely the same terms, as requiring a decision that, though not capable of truth or falsity, "can be reasonable or unreasonable, wise or unwise" (37). Thus, though Ziff has a terminology different from Weitz's, he is thinking of

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the issue of defining art in a similar way and comes to a similar conclusion, namely, that while there are definitions of "uses" of "art," there is no adequate definition of art per se. Ziff's argument is no more compelling than Weitz's. There may be conditions that tie the different "uses" of "art" together. After all, I assume that when we speak of the liberal arts, or of a bachelor of arts, or use "art" as a translation of techne, these are not merely different uses of "art"; we are employing different meanings of "art." So we need an account of what makes some uses of "art" fall under one meaning rather than another. This account may, or may not, be in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, but I find little in Ziff's paper to show it could not be. Ziff does assert that no definition can capture the many uses of "art" but also claims that it is possible to argue that the definition of one use describes the most reasonable use of the word at the current time. It seems to me that one can ask little more from a definition than that it define a concept currently in use. However, for Ziff (or the 1953 Ziff), uses of "art" change whenever artworks acquire new functions or social consequences or a novel art form is introduced. Especially in the light of today's rapidly changing artworld, but not only in that light, we need a definition of something more stable than Ziff's "uses."

The papers just discussed (among others) raise difficulties for the project of defining art but also suggest solutions to this problem (though that was not their intention). They have certainly influenced the formulation of later definitions. Weitz claimed that items fall under the concept of art in virtue of family resemblances rather than in virtue of necessary and sufficient conditions. It is well known what the chief problem is with this claim. It can be stated as a dilemma. If we do not further specify the relevant similarities, the suggestion is useless, since everything resembles everything else in countless ways. (The word "family" does not do the work it was intended to do in speaking of "family resemblances.") On the other hand, if we do specify relevant similarities, then we at least specify sufficient conditions, and if we can specify all the relevant similarities, necessary ones as well. If the "antiessentialist" papers of the fifties did no more than suggest (by

Why We Should Look for a Definition of Art way of reaction to them) that, in order to get a handle on the concept of art, we need to specify some relevant similarity shared by artworks, they would simply have caused an essentialist backlash of looking for a property common to all works of art. They did more than that. Many who read these papers took them to show that no intrinsic nonrelational perceptual property of works of art could provide the necessary conceptual glue. (This conclusion was strongly reinforced a decade or so later in the papers of Arthur Danto [1964, 19731, who argues for the existence of perceptually indiscernible items-one an artwork, one not.) They also contain definite hints about what sort of relational properties might do the trick. Ziff, for example, places great emphasis on two sorts of properties: functional and social. Thus, a definition of (a use) of "art" is reasonable "in the light of the characteristic social consequences and implications of something's being considered a work of art, and on the basis of what the functions, purposes, and aims of a work of art are or ought to be in our society" (Ziff 1953,45). It is true that Ziff, like Weitz, thinks a general definition of art (rather than a use of "art") impossible because of art's continually changing social implications and functions. But there are two rather obvious strategies for attempting to get around this problem. One is to find some overarching social or functional features of art that do not change. The other is to find a way in which social implications, functions, or other historically varying features of art are always related. That would open the possibility that items would be artworks in virtue of having features so related even though the features themselves were in continual flux. The idea, shared by Weitz and Ziff, that the concept (use) of art is constantly being extended in virtue of "family resemblances" or partial similarities particularly favors the second approach. What both seem to have in mind is that, beginning with an item or items that are uncontroversially artworks, we decide that other items are art in virtue of similarities with the paradigm cases. We have seen already that this proposal is not promising unless we can specify the field of relevant similarities. This is precisely what the second approach does, variants of which emphasize social, functional, intentional, or stylistic relations. While the first approach-that of finding an overarching feature common to artworks-is not without its defenders, especially among proponents of functional definitions of art, much of the innovative work in the past thirty years has taken the second approach.

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Thirty years of new attempts to define art have produced a new skepticism as promising definitions have been inundated by waves of criticisms and counterexamples. Some look back on these years and see what they take to be a familiar pattern of failure. While nothing like the powerful theoretical arguments found in the Wittgenstein-inspired antiessentialists of the 1950s has so far emerged from this newer pessimism, a few have tried to articulate new grounds to repudiate the project of defining art. I here examine a few of these. First, there is a kind of inductive argument suggested by the previous paragraph. Attempt 1 at definition failed; attempt 2 failed . . . ;attempt n failed; so we should expect attempt n + 1 to fail. Some replies: (a)One could say this about any topic of philosophy, yet many proponents of the inductive argument against definition would not carry it over to these other topics. (b) It should be doubted that any attempt is a complete failure; we learn something from it. (c) It is usually controversial whether the attempt was a failure at all. (d) Inductive arguments are not reliable unless they pick out nomological regularities. There is no reason to think the present argument does this. Second, it is sometimes said that the concept of art has become too fragmented to be captured in a single definition. This observation can be further specified in at least two different ways. One is to say that the concept of art that people employ differs in different contexts of appreciation and inquiry, as well as with the background of the user of the concept.9 The second (perhaps less radical) further specification is to think of art as a cluster concept. The idea here is that, instead of necessary and sufficient conditions that a definition would provide, we can only give criteria of arthood: a set of properties some unspecified number of which must be satisfied for something to be art, different combinations of property satisfaction being possible for different artworks. It can be added that for different individuals the properties in these sets may have different weights, and some properties may be more salient than others.'' 9. This view has been advanced by Alan Goldman in comments on a shorter version of Chapter 5 presented at the American Philosophical Association Pacific Division Meeting, San Francisco, March 29-31, 1995. A similar view was endorsed by William Tolhurst in conversation. 10. The cluster-concept view is defended by Berys Gaut in "'Art' as a Cluster Concept," forthcoming. I should add here that the theoretical disadvantages of cluster concepts remarked

Why We Should Look for a Definition of Art I would not quarrel with the idea that different individuals walk into museums, concert halls, and book stores with varying conceptions of art-that is, varying beliefs about which items should be counted as art, about which properties are most important in making this determination, and about what they are looking out for in these various venues-to the extent that they have art cognition and appreciation in mind. Such is the human condition, and something similar would be true in varying degrees of any concept no matter how mundane and uncontroversial. It is another matter how we should handle this fact when engaged in theorizing about some subject matter. The notion of a cluster concept is a bad theoretical tool. For one thing, cluster concepts are incredibly vague. To think of art as a cluster concept makes it permanently indeterminate which set of properties, at which weighting, suffice or are needed for an item to be an artwork. This means that hard questions cannot be settled. Second, the cluster view assumes that the obviously different conceptions people have can be molded into a single (cluster) concept. I see no reason to accept that. If I am right, a multiplicity of definitional conceptions will simply degenerate into a multiplicity of cluster concepts, which is no theoretical gain. More plausible (though possibly more radical) is the idea that there are different concepts of art employed in virtue of the context of appreciation and inquiry and that of individual background. For example, a sociologist and a philosopher may employ different concepts of art because the former may be concerned only to explain why items existing within certain institutions receive a certain status (art status), while a philosopher may wish to distinguish between being art and having art status, claiming that an item can have that status illegitimately or that there are artworks that lack art status. Of course, it is also true that even within a single kind of inquiry there are rival conceptions. I have already argued in the first section ("Motivation for Seeking a Definition of Art") that the fact that there are different conceptions of art is not something that makes the search for a definition futile but rather a good motivation to look for such a definition. Everyone involved with art, on below have largely been avoided by Gaut in a more recent version of his paper. In this later version, Gaut defines "cluster concept" in such a way that claiming art is a cluster concept is equivalent to claiming it is to be defined in terms of sufficient conditions that are disjunctively necessary. Since this is precisely my approach to defining art, I have no objection to thinking of art as a cluster concept in this sense.

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certainly everyone who theorizes about it, has some conception of it, even if one does not clearly articulate it. It is a reasonable philosophical task to make articulate conceptions of art and their implications, including the implied extension of art on a given conception. It is also a reasonable philosophical task to evaluate proposed conceptions (definitions) with respect to consistency, noncircularity, and various theoretical virtues, among which I would include the ability to cover the generally agreed-on extension of art; to handle hard cases in plausible ways; to make it possible that the judgment that something is art, even when made by an artist or an expert, be mistaken; to make sense of, and make sense against, the background of current, as well as past, art practices; to render understandable the ordinary person's doubt whether something is art. By testing conceptions in this way, one may come to approximate a definition one can endorse. It is theoretically possible for more than one definition to pass these tests equally well. There is a third, more political objection to the project of defining art. This is the claim that any attempt to define art necessarily is an instrument of repression, exclusion, or disenfranchisement.ll These are bad things; so to try to define art is a bad thing. Perhaps this sounds like a parody of an argument. In any case, it can be admitted that it has a grain of truth. Definitions have both excluded deserving items from the realm of art and trivialized or downgraded art itself. In the former category, definitions have sometimes justified the exclusion of popular arts, art outside standard art forms, the art of women and minorities, avant-garde experiments. In the latter category, Plato is often read as a disenfranchiser, though here the situation is at least quite complicated.12 A clearer example, to my mind, is those aesthetic definitions of art that seem to confine art's function to the provision of a refined pleasure having nothing to do with the rest of life. With this admitted, the obvious retort to the political objection to defining art is, first, that definitions need not be guilty of the faults just mentioned. Of course, definitions have to exclude something, or they would not be defini11. Richard Shusterman (1993) offers something like this argument. Shusterman realizes that definitions need not be bad in the way the argument claims, but seems to regard those that escape this charge as uninformative. That some definitions "disenfranchise" is noted by Danto (1986). 12. Plato does not disenfranchise through definition, because he does not offer a definition of art. He does sometimes pit poetry against philosophy in a contest to determine which is a true provider of knowledge. Here the former comes out clearly the loser in Plato's view. Plato is famous for speaking of the harmfulness of various art forms, especially poetry. But there are also passages where he points to art's having great value, including educational value.

Why We Should Look for a Definition of Art tions. However, recent definitions, for the most part, have not been stingy in either the items they include or the value they permit artworks to possess. They do not appear to be repressive forces. Second, even definitions that are bad in the way just described have value because they play an important role in the dialectic of coming to a better understanding of art. In this connection, it should be remembered that it is possible to sin in the other direction by including too much under the label "art." Finally, disenfranchising the activity by which one achieves the most general understanding of one's subject matter-the activity of trying to define it-seems as bad as any other sort of disenfranchising.

This is a good time to provide a brief survey of the dominant strategies for defining art that have emerged during the decades following the papers of Weitz and Ziff. The classification of definitions is one that has become fairly common, although alternative classifications are obviously possible. In subsequent chapters, we will look more closely at these strategies and at the specific definitions using them. The best-known attempts to define art in the past thirty years divide between them the two areas emphasized by Ziff: artistic functions and social consequences and implications. Among the former are renewed attempts to define art in terms of a single function (or short list of functions). Although it is arguable that theories of this type were the chief object of the antiessentialist papers we have been discussing, functionalist theory still has its defenders. Most frequently defended are aesthetic definitions of art, that is, attempts to define art in terms of aesthetic properties or the capacity to induce aesthetic experience.13 Other forms of functional definition of this type are expression theories and formalist theories of art.14 I defend what I regard as a functionalist definition of art, but one that is not stated in terms of a single function or a short list of functions. I accept 13. Among aesthetic definitions are Beardsley 1983, Eldridge 1985, Lind 1992, Schlesinger 1979, and Tolhurst 1984. Functional theories stated in terms of a short disjunction of functions are found in Gallie 1956 and Tartarkiewicz 1971. 14. Danto (1981)defends an expression theory. I know of no recent defenders of a formalist definition, but Noel Carroll (1986) makes remarks that would be of use in defending such a definition.

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Ziff's view that artistic functions are continually evolving, and yet claim that it is still possible to define art in terms of the functions items possess or are intended to possess. Institutional theories are the best-known and most influential attempts to define art in terms of social implications.1s The basic idea of such theories is that an item is a work of art in virtue of achieving a kind of social status or of occupying a position in a complex social practice. Such theories have now been around for over twenty years and have been the object of much criticism. Nevertheless, they are still the most widely accepted of theories. I am inclined to believe there is actually a sense of "art" that is successfully defined by an institutional definition, but it is not the sense of "art" we should be chiefly concerned with in the philosophy of art. Finally, there are historical definitions of art.16 No doubt there are many possible historical definitions, but among actual proposals, two variants are noteworthy. Some theories define art in virtue of historical relations among the intentions with which items are made. Others define art in terms of historical relations among styles. Such theories, though they have come into their own more recently than functional and institutional definitions, have considerable plausibility and are equally deserving of attention. Having presented this thumbnail sketch of three current approaches to defining art, I should point out that the division is somewhat misleading. I have characterized these approaches by what I take to be the dominant emphasis in specific definitions worthy of our attention. But the categories by which I have divided them easily seep into the domains of rival approaches. Institutional definitions can contain intentional and other historical elements. Historical approaches can have both institutional or functional elements. And at least my version of functionalism makes use of historical and intentional relations. The borders between these approaches are hardly airtight. Does it make a difference in our decisions about what is and what is not art if we adopt one of these definitions rather than another? Does such a choice also have implications for our understanding and appreciation of individual artworks? The answer to the first question is straightforward: of 15. Dickie's (1974, 1984) institutional definitions have received the most attention. See also Diffey 1969, 1973, 1977,1979, and Davies 1988a and 1991. 16. Levinson (1979, 1989,1993a) is the chief defender of intentional-historical definitions. Carroll (1988, 1993a, 1994) defends an intentional-historical a p p r ~ a c hto identifying art but denies that he is offering a definition. Carney (1991b, forthcoming) is the chief defender of a style-historical definition.

Why We Should Look for a Definition of Art course it makes a difference. As is emphasized in subsequent chapters, a functionalist will not automatically ascribe arthood to items that have been accorded the status of art (e.g., having been published, performed, or exhibited, written about by critics, respected by important members of the relevant segment of the artworld), whereas an institutionalist nearly always does. Also, a functionalist does not require that, for an item to be an artwork, it must stand in some specific historical relation to earlier works, whereas a historicist of course does. It may be easier to see that items fulfill various functions than to know that they stand in certain historical relations, so it may be easier for a functionalist to identify an item as art than it would be for a historicist. Functionalists have a much easier time recognizing art outside the (currently)central art forms than do institutionalists, because the institutions of art are closely linked to specific forms such as the visual arts, music, and literature. Finally, functionalists perhaps will have the easiest time (while the institutionalist probably has the hardest time) accounting for and making reasonable the doubts often expressed by the public about the legitimacy of various avant-garde and postmodern movements and individual works. The functionalist will predict that someone will accept something as an artwork if he or she believes it fulfills an artistic function, whereas it is often hard to see this is so with the works in question. Art looks quite different from the perspective of the different definitional approaches. It is harder to answer the question whether the choice of definition makes a difference to the understanding and appreciation of individual artworks. Since a definition (by its own lights at least) applies equally to all artworks, it should not say something specific about individual works that it does not have in common with every other. Furthermore, an institutionalist, for example, can interpret and find exactly the same valuable features in a given work as would a functionalist, though this will not follow from the institutional definition. I think the right thing to say is that a difference in definition does not entail a difference in understanding or appreciation, but this does not mean that such differences are unlikely to exist. I will not try to demonstrate this, but simply offer an anecdote where such a difference became evident. Recently, I told a friend about a wonderful evening my family enjoyed at a performance of the San Francisco Ballet. The friend, who defines art historically, replied that he never sees dance performances, because he knows nothing about the history of dance and, for that reason, cannot appreciate it. At that moment, I was grateful to be a functionalist, for I felt confident that I knew no more relevant history than my friend.

This chapter first makes explicit what I mean by "function" and a functionalist theory of art. It then considers some functionalist theories of the traditional sort that the antiessentialist papers discussed in the last chapter took as one of their main objects of criticism. All the theories examined here, however, postdate those antiessentialist papers (if only, in some cases, by being invented by me), though each theory is of a kind that had defenders prior to those papers. What all the theories to be discussed have in common is that they try to define art in terms of one function or a short list of functions. Hence my general label for such theories: simple functionalism. As in the last chapter, I try to avoid going over well-tramped territory. As a result, some of the better-known and highly worthy versions of some theories are neglected in favor of lesser-known, more recent variants. Although problems for these theories are presented, I do not try definitively to refute them and, in fact, also criticize some attempts at refutation. Rather, my intention is to motivate looking for a more complex theory such as the one presented in the next chapter.

Simple Functionalism and Functionalism Per Se

What is a functionalist definition of art? Different things can be meant here, and I mainly want to make clear what I mean against a background of alternatives. If what I mean by "functionalist" strikes some readers as departing from its proper sense, they are invited to suggest an alternative name for the definitions of art discussed below. The term "functionalism" has in recent years come to be associated with naturalist programs, especially "functiona1ism" in the philosophy of mind and, more relevantly, analyses of "function" made from the perspective of the philosophy of biology (Wright 1973, Boorse 1976). From the latter perspective, functions are typically taken to be causes, for example, causal contributions to goals (Boorse, 1976, 77-78). While the conception of artistic function advanced here is compatible with naturalism, it is different from that discussed in the philosophy of science literature. I am concerned exclusively with the functions of artifacts (in some suitably broad sense of "artifact"), and hence need not worry about the nonapplicability of my notion to the function of hearts or of species in ecosystems. When we speak of an artifact's having a function, we sometimes mean a purpose for which an artifact is made or used, whether or not it fulfills that purpose or even is able to; we sometimes mean an ability to fulfill a purpose; finally, we sometimes mean the fulfilling of a purpose. On my official use of "function," an artifact has a function F if, relative to a context, it has the present ability or capacity to fulfill a purpose, with which it is made or used, of F-ing or fulfills such a purpose. Functions meeting this characterization are the only ones that concern us, though not the only ones that there are. An artifact may have accidental functions-functions distinct from those it was intended to serve or those for which it is standardly used or which it officially has. A sculpture may be used as a doorstop and has then acquired a function of serving as a doorstop. On this account, not all functions are causes, for example, causal contributions to goals. Functions that are such causes typically are functions of parts of mechanisms. They contribute their share to a goal of the mechanism: that is their function. It is natural for philosophers of science to focus on such functions because it is those that will help explain the behavior of a mechanical system, whether it be an organism or an artifact. A mechanism as a whole can have a function, and sometimes that can be understood in terms of its causal contribution to a goal of a larger system, for example, the causal

DEFINITIONS

contribution of this car in getting me from one place to another. Functionalist theories of art are concerned with functions artworks have per se and not with functions of their parts. Some of these functions can be understood in terms of causal contributions: the function of art to give aesthetic experience or aesthetic pleasure. Other functions cannot be: the function of expressing a way of seeing or of being a certain kind of representation. Whether a way of seeing is expressed or something is represented-that is, whether a work has fulfilled these functions-is independent of any actual effect of the work. (It may not be independent of a capacity to cause others to understand that way of seeing by means of communicating it or to recognize a representation.) Because the notion of function is sometimes closely associated with making a causal contribution-being a means or part of a means-to a goal, functionalist theories of art may be thought to imply an instrumentalist theory of artistic value. Further, there is a good deal of sentiment that artworks are to be valued for their own sake-are intrinsically, rather than instrumentally, valuable. For those with this sentiment, the implication just mentioned tends to count against the plausibility of functionalist theories. However, if the argument of the preceding paragraph is correct, there is no such implication, because a function need not be a causal contribution to a goal. If a function of art is to express ways of seeing and if expressing a way of seeing is something intrinsically valuable (I do not say this is so), then there is a function we can attribute to artworks that is compatible with art's being intrinsically valuable. Of course, even if all functions were causal contributions to goals, that would not imply an instrumentalist theory of artistic value. Art might be definable in terms of its functions without those functions exhausting artistic value. However, functionalist theories have typically been offered in order to define art in terms of what is most valuable about it. So far I have been discussing function. Finally, let me say a word about when we have a functionalist definition of art. I count a definition functionalist if it attempts to define art in terms of functions of artworks, of art forms, or of genres or in terms of intentions to fulfill those functions. I now turn to the examination of some definitions of the simple functionalist variety.

Simple Functionalism and Functionalism Per Se

A thoroughgoing formalist (e.g., Clive Bell) holds, not one, but two central theses that are, nevertheless, logically independent of each other. One is a thesis about the evaluation of artworks; the other is about the nature or definition of them. The first thesis claims that, in evaluating artworks (qua art, as it is sometimes put), only the consideration of formal properties (or formal value) is relevant. Other, nonformally valuable properties a work happens to possess do not add to a work's artistic value. The second thesis claims that art is to be defined in terms of its formal (or formally valuable) features. There are very good reasons for rejecting the first formalist thesis, reasons based primarily on the obvious perversity of confining one's evaluation of many artworks to their formal properties. To claim the whole value of King Lear, The Magic Flute, or Guernica as artworks resides only in their formal virtues is about as reasonable as claiming that the whole value of culinary items (qua culinary items) resides in their nutritional virtues. Accepting such a claim also deprives one of the ability even to fully appreciate the formal properties themselves, because part of their effectiveness consists in their aptness, as means of representation or expression, to engender a work's nonformally valuable features, such as its psychological or moral insights. Is the second thesis any more plausible than the first? That question cannot be answered until we have a candidate definition. Some of the standard difficulties such a definition faces are as follows: (a) it is implausible to define artworks as things that possess formal features, since, on most accounts of what these feature are, most everything possesses them; (b) it may be a little more plausible to try to define artworks as those objects that possess formally valuable features, but the notion of formal value is notoriously difficult to define; (c) in any case, bad artworks may lack formally valuable features, (d)while some nonartworks, for example, beautiful automobiles, possess them. A formalist definition that escapes most of these difficulties was suggested to me by a 1986 Noel Carroll paper aimed at critiquing the first formalist thesis. (I commend this paper as such a critique. It should be made clear that Carroll did not express or intentionally suggest the definition stated below.) Carroll notes that formalists often urge that we should reject the claim that artworks are valuable (qua artworks) for possessing nonformal values, because artworks can be good without possessing such values, whereas no

DEFINITIONS

artwork can be good that is not formally good. While Carroll notes the fallacy of inferring that no works are valuable (qua artworks) in virtue of nonformal properties from the fact that some are not, he does seem to find it plausible to say that no artwork can be good without being formally good. It should be emphasized that Carroll at most asserts that this principle is plausible or intuitive, not that it is true. However, if that claim is true, the following definition could be offered: (F) A is an artwork if and only if A belongs to a kind such that something is a good of that kind only if it is formally good.

(F) avoids many of the pitfalls of other attempts at a formalist definition of art. On (F)there is no problem about there being bad works of art that fail to be formally valuable, just so long as they would have been good (artworks) only if they were formally good. There is also no problem about nonartwork items possessing formally valuable features. An automobile can be beautiful in virtue of possessing formally valuable features and yet not be an artwork if something can be a good car without being formally good. A fortiori, (F) does not imply that only artworks possess formal features. (F) does not avoid the problem of identifying formal features and formal value. That is, it would be incumbent on anyone who seriously proposed (F) also to propose a way of identifying these. However, this may not be an insuperable problem. While I do not wish to propose a solution here, a promising line of thought is found in the writings of Monroe Beardsley. The idea suggested by Beardsley is that formal value is a function of the complexity and intensity of an item's "regional qualities" and its overall unity. This suggestion is not worth much until we know more about the notions of complexity, intensity, unity, and regional quality. But perhaps these notions could be satisfactorily explicated. Rather than pursue the problem of identifying the formal, let me note two other problems that are fatal to this definition. The first concerns the idea of a kind such that something is a good of that kind only if it is formally good. (F) places a great deal of weight on this idea, and the idea of such a kind cannot bear it. Why does my computer not belong to this kind, if indeed it does not (and hence ought to be regarded a bad work of art, since it is not particularly valuable formally)? It is true that qua computer it is not good only if it is formally good, but no object belongs to just one kind. The issue is whether, besides belonging to the kind computer, it also belongs to the kind mentioned in (F). Intentions might be invoked here, but to no good -

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Simple Functionalism and Functionalism Per Se purpose. There are two distinct intentions that might be invoked, but neither does the trick. The intention that an item be considered for its formal goodness might be one with which many artifacts, including my computer, was designed and yet not entail that my computer is an artwork. On the other hand, the intention that a work be regarded as good only if formally good is probably not an intention with which all artworks are made. I conclude that the kind (F) tries to specify is itself too ill defined to define artwork. Finally, it just does not seem to be true of all artworks that they are artistically good only if formally good. Duchamp's readymades are a good counterexample here, as they are to many other definitions. These are not only artworks but very good ones, since they express so powerfully and originally attitudes and questions about art, the artwork, the artist, and the creative process. Once we reject the first formalist thesis, it is not hard to admit that the possession of such expressive power and originality are marks of good art. Yet the expressivity of the readymades does not result from their form (lines, shapes, and colors; intensity and complexity of regional qualities or overall unity), nor is their form invariably a source of considerable aesthetic pleasure. Hence "good only if formally good" is not an invariable rule in the evaluation of artworks.

Most contemporary attempts at defending simple functionalism offer aesthetic definitions of art, that is, define art in terms of the function of providing aesthetic experience or pleasure. To move from formalist definitions of art to aesthetic definitions is perhaps not to move a great distance, because there is an intuition that the properties of a work in virtue of which we aesthetically enjoy it either just are its formally valuable properties or are intimately bound up with them. Nevertheless, the overwhelming emphasis on the aesthetic requires that these definitions receive separate treatment. Before looking at some specific definitions in terms of the aesthetic, a preliminary comment about the notion of aesthetic experience is needed. Roger Scruton has remarked that "aesthetic" is a technical term, implying that there is no "ordinary" use of the term from which a proper understanding of its meaning can be extracted. I believe there is some truth in Scruton's remark. The term was introduced as a technical one (by Baumgarten, in the eighteenth century). Also, the many rival definitions of aesthetic experience

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hardly are adjudicable by holding them against an ordinary use of the term (as Scruton's remark predicts). On the other hand, the term is by now part of ordinary English, vague though it may be. More important, those who place great stock on the notion of aesthetic experience in their philosophy of art think there is a unique sort of intrinsically valuable experience denoted by the notion. Now, it is a little odd that a technical term needs to be introduced to do this job, since one would think ordinary language would provide a term to pick out such important experiences. It might also seem odd that there is so much disagreement about the nature of this unique and valuable experience. Reflections such as these have generated skepticism about the very notion of aesthetic experience. Overcoming such skepticism is one problem aesthetic definitions face. People who talk about such experiences are onto something important both about artworks (though they are by no means the only objects aesthetically enjoyed) and about human nature. However, there is no sort of experience that uniquely deserves to be called aesthetic-there is at best a cluster of equally deserving experience types. Most attempts at defining aesthetic experience somewhat stipulatively pick and choose from the cluster. An alternative would be forthrightly to treat the notion of aesthetic experience as a cluster concept. Even this, however, would have a somewhat stipulative air given the inevitable uncertainty about what does and does not belong within the cluster. (Sparshott [1982,467-681 expresses similar thoughts about the aesthetic.) The diversity of experiences covered by the concept of the aesthetic and the uncertainty about what is included in its range derive from the way the concept was originally introduced in the eighteenth century as the name of a discipline to study the human experience of art and of beauty, the sublime, and so forth. Not only are there diverse experiences of art, but beauty can be found almost anywhere-in nature, in art, in many other artifacts, in mathematics and science. To make the preceding reflections a bit more concrete, consider one way of generating a notion of aesthetic experience: focus on the appreciation of artworks. Sometimes we enjoy artworks for the expressive properties we perceive in them. Sometimes we enjoy artworks because they represent things in fascinating ways. Sometimes we enjoy artworks for the patterns we perceive in their organization. Though our enjoyment involves the perception of different properties in these cases, the cases have much in common. In all three cases, we are having enjoyable experiences that result from closely attending to the sensuous qualities of a work. Having such experiences also requires, commonly, the exercise of the imagination. The people

Simple Functionalism and Functionalism Per Se

37

and scenes we see in pictures, after all, are not literally there. Similarly, artworks do not literally have the emotion we hear or see in them. Finally, the experiences this attentive, imaginative perception give us are enjoyed for their own sake whatever further benefits they might bring. So we might try defining aesthetic experience as any experience enjoyed for its own sake and resulting from close and imaginative attention to the sensuous features of an object (artwork or not). This is a possible definition, but one of its drawbacks is that it excludes experiences that many would regard as aesthetic. They come in at least two classes. (1)Many enjoyable, sensuous experiences of both nature and art do not require an element of imagination: the enjoyment of a pretty flower, a gorgeous sunset, the shape of a ceramic bowl, the colors of a painting (which is not to say imagination could not enter the enjoyment of these things). (2) One extensive and important class of artworks, namely literature, creates considerable pressure to extend the notion of aesthetic experience beyond perceptual experience. Though one can enjoy the sound of words or their appearance on the page, the enjoyment of literature is not primarily perceptual. More important than the way words sound or look is the meaning they convey. What is typically conveyed is a "world" we contemplate with our imagination rather than with our senses. So the pressure is to extend the notion of aesthetic experience to the pleasurable experience of attending to imaginary states of affairs (or perhaps to any striking conceptualization, such as those also found in, among other places, mathematics and natural science). There is another possible drawback to the original definition. Not everyone agrees that all experience resulting from close attention to sensuous features of an object (with or without the exercise of the imagination) enjoyed for its own sake is aesthetic. Few wish to call sexual pleasure, which can sometimes fit this definition to a tee, aesthetic. Many do not wish to give that label to the enjoyment of fine food, wine, or (especially?)cigars. Those who feel this way sometimes try to solve this problem by confining perceptual aesthetic experience to the appreciation of sights and sounds. Others, with great obscurity when not involved in downright implausibility, try to exclude the unwanted pleasures by requiring that the perceiver be disinterested. (For an exposition of the problems here, see Dickie 1974, 113-35, and Sparshott 1982,469-70.) My hunch is that there will be unresolvable disagreement about which of the possible drawbacks just cited are real and, hence, the extent to which the original definition needs revision. I have the further hunch that there will be precisely the same diversity of reaction to proposed revisions. It is not that

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there are no desiderata we can agree on (see Levinson 1995 for one proposal about what these desiderata are); to define aesthetic experience as, for example, the painful experience of being eaten by a crocodile gets things completely wrong. However, if my hunches are right, the desiderata are not enough to determine a definition likely to evoke consensus among reasonable and knowledgeable people. Indeed, it is doubtful that there will be agreement about all desiderata. For me, it is basic to a good account of aesthetic experience that one can have such experiences of both art and nature independently of each other. For others (e.g., Clive Bell), this is not so. These considerations would explain why definitions of aesthetic experience are always to some extent stipulative. I would imagine that recognition of the stipulative character of definitions of aesthetic experience would dampen enthusiasm for defining art in such terms. At least, proponents of such definitions of art do not advertise their notions of aesthetic experience as being stipulative and, if anything, suggest otherwise. However, this character by no means implies that some such notion could not be used to define art. So let us finally turn to some aesthetic definitions of art. Let me first consider a definition that both is typical of attempts along these lines and exhibits the standard difficulties endemic to such attempts. I then turn to another definition, which makes a sophisticated attempt to solve all these problems. George Schlesinger (1979, 175) proposes: "A work of art is an artifact which under standard conditions provides its percipient with aesthetic experience." First, there are questions whether this definition provides either necessary or sufficient conditions for arthood. Consider first the problem of sufficiency. Many artifacts (or at least many of those marketed to the general public) are manufactured or crafted so that they are pleasing to the eye, possess a form suitable to or even expressive of their function, in short, are endowed with features that are, in ordinary parlance, aesthetic. This is even more true if we extend the notion of artifact, as Schlesinger must if his definition is to cover many art forms, to such things as advertisement, popular entertainment, and propaganda. (I wholly endorse this extended use of "artifact," by the way, but for a critique, see Davies 1991, 120-41.) While it is a mistake to assume that, because an item fails to belong to a standard art form, it is not an artwork, many of the artifacts just referred to are indeed nonartworks. Yet all these objects, in virtue of their aesthetic features, are capable of giving their percipients aesthetic experiences (if usually modest ones) under "standard conditions." (Schlesinger might no-

Simple Functionalism and Functionalism Per Se

39

tice and object to my insertion of "capable of" here, but I doubt that more than that could be claimed for the most exquisite artwork.) Hence the perfectly obvious existence of aesthetically interesting artifacts that are not artworks raises serious doubts about the sufficiency of the definition under consideration, as it does for many of its variants (Beardsley 1983, Tolhurst 1984). Next consider whether the definition gives us necessary conditions for arthood. Here many will claim that it has been relatively common, especially in this century, for artworks to be put forward that are intentionally without aesthetic interest, for example, many items of Dadaist and conceptual art. It is open to the proponent of an aesthetic definition either to argue that the apparent counterexamples are not artworks or to argue that they somehow fit the definition (the former being the more common response, the latter being the more promising in my opinion). However, neither option will be an easy one to argue. (I discuss below an attempt to argue the second line.) The next problem is one already mentioned in connection with formalist definitions and indeed is one of the standard problems for functionalism. It is the problem of bad art. The problem is that there are surely bad works of art, but it is not clear how Schlesinger's definition can recognize their existence. If a work gives aesthetic experience under "standard conditions," how can it be bad? If it fails to, how, on the definition, can it be art? A final problem is the problem of reference failure. This is not a problem for all aesthetic definitions, much less all functionalist ones, but it is a problem for Schlesinger's definition and others that do not make explicit the notion of aesthetic experience being employed. If I am right about the stipulative nature of notions of aesthetic experience, then unless one makes clear to which stipulative notion one is referring, one risks failing to refer to any specific kind of experience at all. There is no "natural kind" that the words pick out by default. Schlesinger (1979, 173) does offer a quasidefinition of "aesthetic experience," according to which it is the "set of species of experience essentially similar to members of a sample class." The problem, of course, is in the phrase "essentially similar." Mere similarity will not do the job, but "essentially" adds nothing until one stipulates in what essential similarity consists. (For a lengthier exposition of this problem from a Wittgensteinian angle, see Dempster 1985.) I do not claim that the above sampling of problems (one could mention more) is fatal to Schlesinger's aesthetic definition of art, although they render it unpromising. Without pursuing this further, I turn to another aesthetic definition that displays a keen awareness of these problems.

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Richard Lind (1992, 124) proposes: "An 'artwork' is any creative arrangement of one or more media whose principal function is to communicate a significant aesthetic object." For better or worse, this definition bristles with technical uses of language and, for that reason, requires a decent amount of exposition. First a deflationary comment: by "media" Lind means anything publicly accessible, not merely the standard art media; by "communicate" Lind means roughly "present" or, in his words, "make available to intersubjective experience" (126). Given these meanings I am not sure the definition needs mention of "media," since "communicate" already implies public accessibility. Second, Lind does not flinch from defining "aesthetic object." It is anything "immediately given" in experience "whose formal relations are of sufficient interest . . . to motivate and satisfy a practical interest in the very process of making it intelligible" (121).' This is what I would regard as a stipulative definition of aesthetic object par excellence, although Lind regards it as the result of phenomenological analysis. Whichever it is, if Lind can make it serviceable, more power to him. Third, Lind requires that an artwork is not merely an aesthetic object but a "significant7' one. Again, what Lind means here is technical. The claim is not merely that the interest such work provokes must be of a high degree, but that any (or at least some-Lind appears to be ambivalent here) other meanings a work communicates must enhance, rather than detract from, aesthetic interest in the object. The requirement that communicating a significant aesthetic object must be a principal function of the work makes a similar demand: that other functions "cannot overshadow the aesthetic function" (125). Since this complex definition is formulated with a full understanding of the problems for aesthetic definitions cited above and with the intention to avoid each of them, it is interesting to inquire to what extent it succeeds. I argue that it is problematic that it solves any of them and pretty certain that it does not solve all. Let us begin with the problem of reference failure. In offering an explicit definition of aesthetic object, it might seem that at least this problem is avoided. However, there are two reasons for doubt. One involves crucial use of the idea of the immediately given in experience. This idea has suffered 1. In the quoted passage, Lind speaks of formal relations being of sufficient interest to perception. However, by "perception" Lind does not mean "sensory perception." In Lind's usage we can also perceive meanings, for example. This makes his use of "perception" so broad that I felt, barring elaborate explanations, that understanding the quoted passage would be enhanced by omitting the phrase "to perception."

Simple Functionalism and Functionalism Per Se hard times in the second half of this century. I confess to not knowing how to tell whether something is, or is not, immediately given in experience. The definition picks out a kind of object only on the problematic assumption that good sense can be made of this idea. Second, the definition also makes crucial use of an idea of formal relations possessed by an object and of an interest in these relations. Again, the definition picks out a kind of object only if these ideas can be clearly specified. I suggest below, in connection with other problems, that some of the things that Lind counts as aesthetic interest raise doubts about this. For this reason, let us pass onto the other problems. The second problem to be considered is the problem of sufficiency. Lind is aware that many artifacts other than artworks are of aesthetic interest and can afford aesthetic experience. Lind's requirement that communicating an aesthetic object be a principal function of artworks, and that the aesthetic object must be a significant one, is meant to rule out nonart artifacts. However, Lind's rather broad notion of what is immediately given in experience may open his definition to other counterexamples. Thus "meanings" no less than sensory data can be immediately given in experience. Now, consider a mathematical formula presenting a complex mathematical meaning. I am inclined to think (I obviously cannot be sure, given the qualms of the previous paragraph) that this formula could turn out to be an artwork on Lind's definition. Lind (rightly) asserts that a mathematical equation can be the object of aesthetic interest. It can also certainly be a creative arrangement of a medium in Lind's broad notion of media. The principal function of this arrangement could certainly be to communicate an aesthetic object (viz., the formula). Finally, the formula could be a significant aesthetic object both in the sense that it is highly rewarding to contemplate and in the sense that its other functions do not distract from aesthetic interest in the object. A natural objection to make here is that an interest in its truth is prior to and tends to distract from an aesthetic interest. However, this strikes me as wrong. The only way to determine the truth of the formula is to take a keen interest in the formal relations it possesses, and these, further, can continue to be of interest after the question of truth is settled. It would seem to be natural for an interest in truth and an aesthetic interest (as Lind defines it) to go hand in hand here. If these comments about mathematical formulas are correct, then that places in doubt the sufficiency of Lind's definition of artwork. Mathematical formulas surely are not artworks. Let us now consider whether the definition provides a necessary condition for being an artwork. Once again Lind is aware of the potential counterex-

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amples in the form of Dadaist and conceptual works, among others, that appear indifferent at best to the goal of promoting aesthetic interest. Unlike some other functionalists, Lind does not argue that these purported counterexamples are not artworks. Rather, he tries to explain how, appearances to the contrary, they fall under his definition. Here is how Lind (1992, 122) tries to handle Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q.: " A considerable aesthetic effect is produced by presenting his audience with a visual pattern associated with two incompatible meanings." One meaning is "a stale icon" of "'great' arty'-the Mona Lisa; the other is graffiti. "Visual and abstract attention scour the image for clues that will reconcile its conflicting meanings. In the process an entire visuaYconceptua1 complex comes aesthetically alive" (122). Lind is onto something here. Duchamp is not simply presenting ideas about art in works like L.H.O.O.Q. and Fountain. By tying those ideas to shocking or unlikely objects, they acquire great expressive power. In looking at or thinking about those works sympathetically, we do not just entertain or consider those ideas, we feel the force of them. We may imagine we are looking at art with the vision of someone who accepts those ideas or is fascinated by the questions they raise. This is clearly an experience not unlike aesthetic experience. Does it, however, imply that L.H.O.O.Q. is a significant aesthetic object in Lind's technical sense? That is not so clear. For one thing, Lind overemphasizes the role of visual experience in our dealings with this work. We are not dealing with a "visual pattern" but with a postcard (or a work made from a postcard). More important, in order to be a significant aesthetic object for Lind, we have to take primary interest in making sense of the formal relations it possesses. It is not clear to me that an interest in reconciling the conflicting meanings Lind finds in L.H.O.O.Q. is an interest in its formal, rather than semantic, properties. The notion of a formal property or relation, it seems to me, is being stretched beyond recognition. Finally, Lind does not escape the problem of bad art despite claims he makes to the contrary. The way Lind hopes to solve this problem is by distinguishing between fulfilling a function and fulfilling it well or badly. The function of artworks is to present a significant aesthetic object. Good artworks fulfill this function well; bad artworks fulfill it poorly. That sounds fine until one reflects that unless an item presents a significant aesthetic object, it is not an artwork at all. If the aesthetic object the item presents is significant, how badly can it be fulfilling its function? My answer would be: it must be fulfilling it pretty well. Lind's is the most sophisticated aesthetic definition of art that I have encountered. Once again, I do not claim that the problems raised constitute

Simple Functionalism and Functionalism Per Se a decisive refutation of it. However, they strongly suggest that, even with a perspicuously stipulated definition of the aesthetic, such a notion will be unable both to include all that is art and to exclude all that is not. Strains created from within the notion itself and by the nature of art are too great for the package to hold together.

If the views of my students are typical of the layman's conception of art, then the idea that art is, in some sense, expression still dominates popular thought. This is hardly true of contemporary philosophical thought. Expression theories were a popular target of attack for post-World War I1 aestheticians. Of late, they are little discussed pro or con, at least not under the traditional moniker: "expression theory of art." Nevertheless, there are two influential lines of thought about the nature of art in contemporary discussions that suggest that theories worthy of this name are not dead. One is found specifically in writings of Arthur Danto, especially in The Transfiguration of the Commonplace. The other is harder to associate with a particular figure, but, I suspect, might have a wider appeal. Before turning to these lines of thought, it will be useful to identify some of the things that are intended when the topic of expression, or expressiveness, in the arts is discussed. (This, unlike expression theories of art, is still a popular topic.) Put most schematically, when people speak of expression in the arts, one of four things is usually meant. One is artist's expression, which requires that a psychological state, usually an emotion or attitude, of the actual creator of the work in question be clarified, articulated, communicated, or in some other way made manifest in it. Second is the evocation or the tendency to evocation of a psychological state in the work's audience. I have always been puzzled why the expression of a state should be thought to consist in the evoking of it in an audience, since these are entirely different things. In any case, this view always has defenders, however decisive refutations of it seem to others. Third, for many today, the appropriate way to think of expression in art is as a property of a work independent of the psychological states of both artist and audience: the property of being expressive of something. This is thought of as an aesthetic or second-order perceptual property: abstract paintings and absolute music, among other artworks, like the faces of basset hounds, are expressive of sadness (sadness

DEFINITIONS

being the hands-down favorite example when speaking of expressive properties) in virtue of having a sad look rather than in virtue of being the manifestation or cause of anyone's psychological state. Finally, related in one way or another to all the above conceptions, is to think of artistic expression as the expression of an apparent or implied author, persona, of the work. What a work expresses, on this conception, are roughly the psychological states that appear to be manifested in its making.2 If Danto advances an expression theory of art, it is, like traditional expression theories, conceived in terms of the first notion of expression, artist's expression. This presents something of a paradox because Danto is quite explicit about the inadequacy of the older expression theories. The trouble with (the older) expression theory, according to Danto, is the predictable one of not being able to cover all the cases. "Each new movement . . . seemed to require some kind of theoretical understanding to which the language and psychology of the emotions seemed less and less adequate" (Danto 1986, 108). Hence the expression theory is "too thin by far to account for the rich profusion of artistic styles and genres" (109). The reference to the language of the emotions suggests a reason for this failure that is put more crudely but also more explicitly in the remark "I am certain that there is a great deal more to [cubism] than Braque and Picasso ventilating surprisingly congruent feelings toward guitars" (109). If one thinks that what expression theory claims is that artworks "ventilate" feelings and emotions that occur in the artist independently of "theoretical understanding," then expression theory is going to be inadequate to the great majority of artwork. No doubt this is pretty distant from what writers like R. G. Collingwood and Benedetto Croce had in mind when they spoke of the expression of emotion. However, since I wish to focus on Danto's theory and do not wish to tease out differences and similarities between his views and those of his most worthy predecessors, let us turn to the evidence that Danto himself accepts an expression theory. It is well known that Danto believes that all artworks have an interpretable meaning. An essential element in this meaning is the expression of an artist's attitude or way of seeing/conceiving by means of a metaphor (or 2. Stephen Davies pointed out to me that this formulation is ambiguous between two views: one that sees the expressiveness of a work as evidence of a state of mind in which it might have been produced; another that imagines the emotional life of the work to express the feelings of a hypothetical persona to be located in the work. I would count both views as instances of this fourth understanding of expression as long as the first does not collapse into the actual artist's expression.

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other trope). "What . . . is interesting and essential in art is the spontaneous ability the artist has of enabling us to see his way of seeing the world" (Danto 1981, 207, my italics). "It would not be an artwork if it failed to express [an attitude or way of seeing]" (165). "It is difficult to imagine an art that does not aim at . . . some transformation in or some affirmation of the way the world is viewed by those who experience it fully" (167). "To understand a work is to grasp the metaphor that is, I think, always there" (172). That this is Danto's considered view about the nature of art has already been clearly pointed out in Carroll 1990 and 1993b. In fact Carroll (1990, 113) does us the service of suggesting a definition of art that might be thought to emerge from the final chapter of The Transfiguration of the Commonplace: " X is a work of art if (1)x has a subject (2) about which it projects some attitude or point of view (3) by means of rhetorical ellipses which (4) employ some enthymematic material from the historico-theoretical artworld context, and which (5) engage audience participation in filling out the enthymematic gaps rhetorically posed by x." I am not at all sure Danto commits himself to necessary and sufficient conditions in The Transfiguration, and I am inclined to quibble with some of the items in Carroll's suggestion. Conditions 1-3 are fine (though "tropes" would be preferable to "ellipses"). I do not find a justification for (4) in chapter 7 of The Transfiguration despite all of Danto's allusions to the theoretical underpinnings of artwork^.^ Condition 5 is correct to the extent that there is surely an essential reference to the audience in Danto's conception of art. However, the crucial thing, as the quotations just cited indicate, is a capacity of the work to share the artists attitude or way of seeing with the work's audience, a capacity to communicate what the artist expresses. If this makes Danto sound rather like the Tolstoy of What Is Art? shorn of the latter's moralism and antielitism and endowed, of course, with considerably more philosophical sophistication, that may not be far from the truth. Though perhaps not proposing a definition, Danto seems to think of artworks as things possessing a meaning that expresses an attitude or way of 3. In Carroll 19931, condition 4 is modified to the more plausible "where the work in question and the interpretation thereof require an art-historical context" (80). Though more plausible, it should be noted that "require" in this clause is mighty vague. Such a context could be used in any number of ways. For example, we could see Word and Object, discussed below, against such a context in thinking of it as an artwork. Further, while it is no doubt true that Quine was not immersed in the literary scene of the fifties, it seems too much to require such direct immersion for the resulting item to be art.

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46

seeing of the artist and doing so in a certain characteristic way with the potential for a certain kind of uptake from the work's audience. At the least this makes the artist's expression a necessary condition for being a work of art. I do not want to press very hard the question of the sufficiency of this conception. Were it taken as giving sufficient conditions for arthood, many a philosophical work would more or less surprisingly fall into the ranks of literature (art). Take Word and Object. Surely it has a meaning that expresses the author's attitude or way of seeing the world and does so in considerable part by means of metaphors (such as Neurath's raft) with the potential for uptake by its audience, as many a graduate student, intoxicated (not too strong a word) by Quine's vision, has discovered. Perhaps this really does make Word and Object literature. Alternatively, if Danto wishes to block that claim, he might do so by further specifying requirements on artistic expression. This is suggested by a contrast he draws, in the essay "Philosophizing Literature," between "merely" expressing and "incarnating" ideas. Works of literature (artworks) incarnate ideas (Danto 1986, 178-80). Unfortunately, I have no good suggestion to make about what Danto means by "incarnate." Let us confine ourselves to the question of the necessity of artist's expression for being a work of art. Danto is thinking of the expression of the actual artist's attitudes or way of seeing. However, there is another way of thinking of artist's expression that I gauge to be currently more popular: as apparent artist's expression. "Of the various sorts of meaning a work of art can convey, only authorship is universal. . . Every artwork communicates a sense of the author's presence and intent. . . . The artist's unique style, concepts, technique, point of view and emotional attitude are an integral part of the experience of the work. . . . Of course, the creator who 'inhabits' the work is not the real, historical author but a dramatis persona supplied by the imagination" (Lind 1992, 127). Is it a necessary condition for being an artwork that it is the expression of either a real or apparent artist? Let us begin with the expression of actual artists. It is relatively uncontroversial that every work of art is the product of some sort of intentional activity, although even here there may be room for doubt if such things as art made by computers (rather than people using computers) are a possibility. But not every product of intentional activity is an expression of intention, that is, an attempted communication of the intention with which it is made. It is not obvious that every work of art is such an attempted communication. Even if all works of art express intentions, it is still far from clear that they always express the sort of attitudes or

.

Simple Functionalism and Functionalism Per Se ways of seeing that Danto claims for them. Can there not be (humble?) works of art, whether they be paintings or pots, that simply aspire to beauty without expressing an attitude? No doubt such works can only be made if their creators see the world in a certain way, but do those works necessarily express (attempt to communicate) that way of seeing? To some extent, it is hard to put forward or reject counterexamples without begging questions. So I leave it to the reader to check his or her intuitions against these questions. (See Dickie 1984, 17-27, for more forceful criticisms of Danto.) Regarding apparent artist's expression, it may always be possible to perceive a work as if it were made to be the expression of psychological states. However, more than this is implied by saying that a work of art is necessarily the expression of an apparent artist. For one could see anything as if it were made to be the expression of psychological states. What more is needed for this to be an interesting condition on arthood is one of two things. Either artworks are invariably made with the intention of being so perceived (interpreted), or it is an invariable convention that works of art ought to be so perceived (interpreted). It is hard for me to believe that either condition as a matter of fact holds. With these tentative doubts about recent expression theories, I would like to conclude my discussion of simple functionalism. Much more could be said both by way of exposition and criticism. (I say more about using the notion of apparent artists as an interpretive tool in Part 11.) However, my purpose is not to try to demonstrate that simple functionalism is a dead letter. I have tried to explain why I feel pessimistic even about the most plausible versions of this type of theory, but would encourage those who are more optimistic to pursue this line of thought. I now turn to a functionalist definition of art that is both different from and more defensible than those we have looked at in this chapter.

This chapter focuses on the brand of functionalism I am willing to espouse. I explain it and argue for its plausibility by defending it against objections. Before proceeding, an explanation of the title's two names for the definition is in order. The first nicely brings out the most important feature of the theory of art defended below-the functional but historically changing character of art. The second name nicely brings out that the theory does not define art only in terms of function but also in terms of the intention with which a work is made, the time at which it is made, and the art form or medium in which it is made.'

The two major competitors to functionalism are institutionalism and historicism2 Let me begin by situating the functionalist approach against the 1. Since I am not good at thinking of names, I owe the names in the chapter's title to others. James Carney suggested "Historical Functionalism";Fred Adams provided "Four-Factor Theory." 2. The leading proponent of institutional definitions is George Dickie (1974, 1984). Other

Historical Functionalism background of these competing approaches to defining art. These remarks summarize some crucial points made in the last two chapters. Functionalists reject the claim that the fact that an item is widely considered an artwork is conclusive evidence that it is art. A work can be issued with impeccable credentials, can be accorded the status of an art object, and yet not be one. It may be a hoax or simply a failed attempt at art making, but the artworld may accord the item a status it does not deserve. Functionalists deny such items are artworks, because, to be an artwork, they must fulfill (or at least be intended to fulfill) a function of art. By contrast, the idea of a failed attempt at art making that has been accorded the full status of an artwork does not make sense within the institutional approach to defining art. According to that approach, to be an artwork is simply to be properly situated within that in~titution.~ Functionalists also reject the claim that for something to be an artwork it is necessary that it be made with a certain intention or stand in some specified relation to earlier artworks. This distinguishes functionalism from intentional and historical approaches to defining art. Such historical situating is not necessary for arthood, because a work that fulfills to a significant degree important artistic functions is art, for a functionalist, whatever its historical situation. Functionalism suggests a way of thinking about art different from institutional and historical approaches. For a functionalist, the crucial property of artworks is not the fact that they are situated in a certain way institutionally or historically but that they are (or at least are attempts at) a certain kind of achievement important to human beings. Given the importance of this kind, it is not surprising that there are institutions of art and histories of art forms in which artistic functions develop. However, art making can occur defenders include T. J. Diffey (1991) and Stephen Davies (1991). Historical definitions are advanced by James Carney (1991b, 1994) and Jerrold Levinson (1979, 1989). Noel Carroll (1988, 1993a, 1994), though not offering a definition, gives a historical identification procedure. This list of citations is intended to be representative rather than exhaustive. 3. Stephen Davies has suggested to me that some institutional approaches can recognize failed attempts at art making that have been accorded the status of artworks. The artworld may believe that an individual artist has conferred art status on an object when he or she has not. For this to be a failed attempt at art making, the artist must have tried to confer status. I doubt that any institutional approach could deny that an attempt that has received such uptake from the artworld is an artwork. This is not to deny that status can be conferred by an individual artist without much of the artworld recognizing this or that a nonattempt at art making can be misconstrued as an attempt. In this latter case, whether the resulting item would be an artwork on an institutional approach depends on whether that approach condones nonartist members of the artworld conferring art status.

DEFINITIONS

outside the institutions of art, although, since these are informal institutions with vague boundaries, it will not always be clear when we have a case of noninstitutional art making. Most attempts to define art in the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries were functionalist. These include well-known expression, formalist, and aesthetic theories of art. Attempts to define art along one or another of these lines are not dead. However, the major contribution of the antiessentialist papers of Morris Weitz (1956) and others was to create the very widespread conviction, which holds to this day, that art will always elude definition in terms of one function or a handful of functions it performs. It remains one of the major objections to a functionalist approach to defining art that the functions of art can change over time and so no simple list of functions can do the trick. Another standard objection to the functionalist approach is that it seems to allow for no bad art or to confuse nonart with bad art. If a work has functionally important properties, how can it be bad? If it lacks such properties, how can it, for a functionalist, be art? But of course there are bad works of art, and if functionalism cannot account for them, so much the worse for that approach. Institutional and historical definitions of art are in part motivated by these objections to earlier functional definitions. A functionalist can learn from these alternative approaches. I now present a functional definition of art that does just this and thereby avoids both of the standard objections to functionalism.

Here is a somewhat simplified version of the definition. It will be revised and made more complicated as I consider objections to it. An item is a work of art at time t, where t is a time no earlier than the time at which the item is made, if and only if ( a )either it is in one of the central art forms at t and is made with the intention of fulfilling a function art has at t o r ( b )it is an artifact that achieves excellence in fulfilling such a function, whether or not it is in a central art form and whether or not it was intended to fulfill such a function. First, how does this definition meet the standard objections to functionalism? It should be obvious that it meets the first objection: that art cannot

Historical Functionalism be defined by a list of functions, because the functions of art change with time. The definition does not try to define the art of the past, present, and future with such a list. It avoids the second objection because, in acknowledging that the mere intention to fulfill a function can make an item art, it leaves plenty of room for bad art. A third objection, which might immediately occur to a reader, should be dealt with now. It might be thought that the definition is circular because "work of art" is defined in terms of "a function art has at t" and "central art form at t." However, this appearance of circularity is illusory. The reason is that, while we cannot say what art forms and art functions are for every t, we can, in principle, say what they are for any given past or present t. For such a specified time, we can replace the words "function of art" and "art form" with a disjunction of functions and forms. Such a recast definition will not even have the appearance of circularity. It is true that we will not be able to determine functions and forms without recognizing items as works of art, but no one thinks that we need a definition before such recognition is possible. Other, more serious objections to the definition are considered below. Before doing that, the definition needs to be explained and motivated. The definition can be explained by answering two questions: (a) Why are there two disjuncts, each sufficient, neither necessary, for arthood? ( 6 )Why does the first disjunct contain two conditions rather than just the first? (a) The two disjuncts of the definition reflect the fact that we have a "dual-track" (or, as we shall see below, a "multitrack") system for classifying items as art. On the one hand, there are certain central art forms in which the majority, and probably the most important instances, of artworks belong. At any given time, certain forms or media are the standard ones in which art is produced. Thus a present-day writer with literary aspirations will most likely write either poetry, novels, short stories, or drama. These are the standard literary art forms of the present. At any given time there is a finite list of such forms (which is not to say it is always crystal clear which forms belong on the list). The list of central art forms is not static. In the past four hundred years, many new art forms have become central, for example, opera, pure instrumental music, ballet, modern dance, the novel, the short story, photography, cinema. Perhaps others have dropped out. For example, the essay, an important literary form in the eighteenth century, is no longer so automatically considered literature or a literary work of art. The fact that the list of central art forms changes means not only that there are options

DEFINITIONS

available to artists now that were not available in the past, but that there were options earlier that are not available now. Many contemporary attempts to define art, but most especially institutional definitions, focus exclusively on art produced in central art forms. However, we also find works of art in various artifacts that are produced with more utilitarian (or more intellectual) functions than are possessed by standard art forms. There are carpets, porcelain, pieces of furniture, and so forth, that can be created with great imagination, beauty, and expressiveness. Many of these are exhibited in art museums. There are works of philosophy, history, biography, social and natural science that possess great literary virtues. Some of these are counted among the great literary works of a culture. There are different criteria for classifying an object as art depending on whether it is made in a central art form. The ones that are so made gain recognition as art much more easily. We could say they are on the fast track. Items that do not belong to central art forms may also be artworks but only if they achieve excellence in fulfilling one or more artistic functions. Hence, the second disjunct is needed to accommodate our practice of classifying items outside the central art forms as art. Of course, items made in those central forms that achieve excellence in fulfilling artistic functions are art for the same reason. (b)If an item belongs to a central art form, why is that not enough to make it art?4 Why does it have to be made with a certain intention (or achieve excellence in fulfilling a function)? The rejection of the idea that merely belonging to an art form is sufficient for arthood is part of the functionalist's denial that merely possessing the outer trappings of art by itself makes something an artwork. Of course, we can build functionalist notions into the very idea of an art form, in which case belonging to a form will be sufficient. I choose here to specify forms in terms of "outer trappings." I count any piece of verse a poem but do not count it a literary work of art unless it is made with the relevant intentions (or achieves excellence in fulfilling a function of literature). Requiring something more than being in an art form (or, alternatively, placing functionalist conditions on the notion of an art form) is needed to capture the intuition that there are failed attempts at art making. Most such failed attempts are recognizable as poems or paintings or whatnot, but we can intelligibly ask whether they are artworks. The intention condition specified in the first disjunct is a most liberal further condition 4. 1 am indebted to James Carney and George Bailey for raising this question.

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that will let in most, but not necessarily all, items intended to be artworks. (This latter intention is not the same as the one specified in the definition.) I sometimes think that the first disjunct of the definition ought to have another condition adding a further restriction on when an item belonging to a central art form is an artwork. This condition would state that the maker of the item in question not only must have certain intentions but must have sufficient competence in the form in question for the intentions to be taken seriously. There are pieces of verse that are written with artistic intentions but have no redeeming features whatsoever. There are similar items in other art forms. Also, there are very early works of even great artists (juvenilia) that, if they receive any attention, receive one of a different type from that received by the artist's more mature works. Some people react to such phenomena with the intuition that the items in question are not works of art. The further condition just stated would appeal to such an intuition. However, many people do not have this intuition, but rather the different one that these items are bad or, in the case of juvenilia, lesser artworks rather than not artworks at all. Because intuitions are at best divided about the kinds of cases just mentioned, this further condition for the first disjunct of the definition should not be insisted on, though my own inclination would be to include it. While on the topic of possible modification of the definition by way of additions to it, this is a good time to explain why a complete statement of the definition ought to have a third disjunct. One of my fundamental assumptions in advancing the definition is that artistic functions change over time. If this is so, then we can expect different sorts of items to be classified as artworks at different times. Given an item created at a time t, the definition as it has thus far been stated tells us whether or not it will be correctly classified as an artwork at t. However, a work from the past might now be classified as art (or nonart) according to (at least) two different principles. One principle is to apply to it the standards of our own day. Does it belong to a form that is currently among the central art forms? Was it intended to fulfill a function of art as those functions are presently recognized? Does it fulfill with excellence one of those functions? The other principle is to apply to it the standards of its own day. Does it belong to a form that was then among the central art forms? Was it intended to fulfill a function of art as those functions were then recognized? And so forth. It is an empirical question what we actually do in such cases, and whether what we do exhibits a consistent policy. What I am inclined to believe is that we tend to be maximally charitable by letting the item in if it meets the criteria of either

DEFINITIONS

principle. Thus items from the past are on a dual track, meaning they can be classified as art according to two different principles. A complete statement of the definition would note this by adding another disjunct. However, this addition is consigned to a footnote.' The definition is easier to grasp in its present form, and as long as the reader is aware that in principle it is incomplete, it will be useful to pretend otherwise.

The present definition avoids the standard objections to functionalism as well as problems of circularity that have plagued the best-known institutional definitions. However, it faces other objections. The most serious of these concern the notion of a function of art. One problem is that artworks, besides having artistic functions, have many "accidental" functions whose fulfillment has no bearing on whether an item is art.6 For example, I suppose it was one of the functions of art in the former Soviet Union to preserve the power of the Communist Party. Does the fact that an artifact does this with excellence entail that that item is an artwork? Surely not. If it did, the Gulags and mental hospitals in which political dissidents were incarcerated-perhaps even "performances" of the KGB-would come out artworks on the second disjunct of the definition. Similar absurd results derive from the function of art in the United States to provide a source of investment for the wealthy. Given that function, it looks like junk bonds were among the artworks of the '80s, since they are artifacts that performed this function with excellence. Is there a way of identifying artistic functions and distinguishing these from other functions artworks happen to have? Part of the solution to this problem I frankly borrow from Jerrold Levinson (1989, 24), whose own historical definition of art faces a similar problem. The problem with the 5. The definition can be revised as follows: Let C be the set of central art forms at time t; let D be the set of central art forms when a work is created; let F be the set of artistic functions at t; let G be the set of artistic functions when a work is created; then w is a work of art at t if and only if (a)w belongs to C and the maker of w intended to fulfill a function in F or (b)w belongs to D and the maker of w intended it to fulfill a function in G or (c)w is an artifact that achieves excellence in fulfilling a function in F. For a statement of a definition that incorporates all the revisions suggested here, see Stecker 1990a. 6. 1 owe this point to James Carney.

Historical Functionalism function of preserving the power of the Communist Party is not that this could not be an artistic function,' but it is an incomplete specification of an artistic function. It is like saying that a function of art is to convey meaning, and since my Wordperfect user's manual (unlike my printer's user's manual) conveys meaning with excellence, it is a work of art. Socialist realist paintings had the functioll (I suppose) of preserving the power of the Communist Party by pictorially representing scenes from working-class life that express socialist ideals. This function it does not share with Gulags, mental hospitals, or the acts of the KGB. So the way to solve part of the problem is to allow as legitimate only relatively complete specifications of artistic functions. While requiring relatively complete specifications of functions may head off some counterexamples, it will not head off others. This is because it is a fact about artifacts, including artworks, that they can serve all sorts of functions besides those intended or standard for them. Thus a sculpture might function as someone's doorstop without being a doorstop becoming a function of art. This would be so even if it became fashionable to use sculptures as doorstops. Here, it is not that the specification of function is incomplete. Rather it is truly irrelevant to an item's being art. What we need to complete the solution to this problem is the notion of a set of functions standard or correctly recognized for a central art form (or subform, genre, etc.). Being a doorstop is not a standard or correctly recognized function of sculpture per se any more than being a paper weight is such a function of hammers. It is just possible (if only barely) that a subgenre of doorstop sculpture might arise, in which case being a doorstop would have become an incomplete specification, rather than the nonspecification it is now, of a function standard or correctly recognized for (some) sculptures. I would be inclined to say that what is true (now) of being a doorstop is also true of providing a source of investment. Though it became fashionable to use art as a source of investment, this is not a function standard or correctly recognized for any particular art form. The way the notion of a function standard or correctly recognized for a central art form helps us out with the present objection is this: When we are trying to figure out whether an item is an artwork, whether or not it is made 7. I am sure many will rebel at this claim. I am willing to entertain it because I recognize that much art has ideological, ritual, or ceremonial functions that seem to me intrinsic to them. However, for those who still rebel, I offer them free use of my second strategy for meeting the problem of accidental functions stated below.

DEFINITIONS

in a central art form, the relevant functions to consider are just those standard or correctly recognized for central art forms and not other functions artworks happen to be used for. The objection does force us to revise the definition in order to make explicit which functions are relevant to arthood. We can do so as follows: let C be the set of central art forms at time t; let F be the set of functions standard or correctly recognized for forms belonging to C; then w is a work of art at t, where t is a time no earlier than the time at which w is made, if and only if ( a )w has a form that is a member of C and the maker of w intended it to fulfill a function in F or (6) w is an artifact that achieves excellence in fulfilling a function in F. Even this reformulation is not adequate. Will the fulfilling of any function of central art forms make any item belonging to one of these forms an artwork? Probably not, because standard functions are likely not shared across all art forms.' For example, being a beautiful representation might suffice, at least during certain periods, to make a painting an artwork but might not suffice to make a work of music, of architecture, or of pottery an artwork. Hence, functions need to be coordinated with their appropriate art forms. Some functions might be specific to a single art form or even a single genre, while others, such as certain aesthetic, expressive, and representional functions, might apply to most, or at least many, art forms. The needed revision concerns clause ( a )and can be expressed as follows:

( a ) w has form c, which is a member of C, and the maker of w intended it to fulfill a subset of functions f, . . . f, of F such that f, . . . f, are functions of c There is a second objection to defining art in terms of functions. It too raises a question about the sufficiency of the second disjunct. It seems plausible to suppose that among the correctly recognized functions of art are experience-causing functions, for example, the function of causing aesthetic experience. Now, suppose that there is a pill that causes a high degree of aesthetic experience when ingested. It would appear to be an artwork on the definition just given, because it is an artifact that apparently fulfills a function of art with excellence. But surely pills are not artworks, at least not 8. I owe this point to Stephen Davies.

Historical Functionalism by causing experiences in this way. Hence, being an artifact that fulfills a function of art with excellence is not sufficient for being art.9 It is useful to begin a response to this objection by asking why we are so sure that the aesthetic-experience pill is not an artwork. It could not simply be because pills do not belong to a central art form at t, if it is true that there is art outside the central art forms. The answer is that the pill is not the object of the aesthetic experience, and only items that are both the causes and the objects of that kind of experience are artworks. Thus imagine one way the pill might work. Upon taking it, the pill causes a hallucination that resembles a beautiful sunset or a beautiful painting, and at the same time disposes one to focus on and take pleasure in the hallucination. It is the hallucination that is the object of this experience (which is not to imply that the hallucination is an artwork, since it is disqualified for other reasons). In ordinary aesthetic experience, a trained eye and (perhaps) the coffee one has recently drunk may play the same role as the pill (insofar as they focus one's attention) without making those things artworks. The pill is the wrong sort of cause, which shows that causing aesthetic experience is an incomplete specification of the relevant function.

Another objection to even the very liberal functionalism that I maintain is founded on the intuition that it is inconsistent with the practices of the modern and "postmodern" artworld. Thus George Bailey has suggested that "[tlhe only way to accommodate how the arts community works at present is to recognize that in this community something is art if and only if people adopt the appropriate normative attitude toward it."lo It is true that the best way to explain some of the behavior that takes place in today's artworld requires attributing to members of it a belief that resembles Bailey's biconditional: something is art if and only if people adopt the appropriate normative attitude toward it. This belief is evinced sometimes in the kind of items produced by artists, sometimes in the way they are 9. I owe this objection t o Stan Godlovich. 10. In comments on my "Defining Art: The Functionalism/Proceduralism Controversy" presented at the national meeting of the American Society of Aesthetics, Philadelphia, 1992. I am indebted to Bailey for his comments.

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judged. A functionalist cannot defuse institutionalist intuitions by denying the existence and influence of this belief. What has to be shown is that it is not constitutive of arthood. Let me admit at the start that I cannot show this in the sense of demonstrating it. It is equally nondemonstrable that such a belief is constitutive of arthood. What I can do is give the reasons that persuade me to doubt that this belief reveals something important about the nature of art. It should first be pointed out that the fact that the belief is widespread does not imply that it is true. To defend an institutional theory of art (or Bailey's biconditional) by citing such a fact would be akin to the well-known fallacy of inferring ethical relativism from the fact that moral beliefs differ in different cultures. What would be needed to defend ethical relativism is an argument that the moral truth (not merely moral belief) depends on people adopting some appropriate normative attitude toward a set of ethical propositions. Similarly, what is needed to defend the biconditional is an argument for its truth, not merely its wide acceptance. It is, in fact, quite common for artists to put forward theories of art that, while they may illuminate their own work (and certainly their own intentions), do not illuminate the nature of art. Such a "theory," often expressed in an artist's manifesto, serves as a heuristic device to generate a body of work. I would suggest that this is precisely the status of the biconditional. It may be very useful in generating a body of work, some of which is very creative. It does not follow, without begging the question against the functionalist, that every item thus generated is an artwork. How can we tell whether the biconditional (or some other institutional definition) is best seen as functioning within the artworld as a heuristic device or as a real definition? One indication that it functions in the former way is that the artworld by no means monolithically endorses it. Alongside this conception of art, one finds put forward many other, sometimes incompatible "working theories." Many of these theories are functional in character. "What is the function, or the nature of art? . . . a work of art is a kind of proposition presented within the context of art as a comment on art" (Kosuth 1973, 81-82). The idea that art is a kind of exploration of art itself, of its materials, of the environment, or of relations among people, the environment, and things is a frequently sounded theme from artists of the 1970s and 1980s-the heyday of institutional theories of art. The distinction between the function and nature of art is at best blurred, if it is not explicitly denied, as it is in the above quotation. As should be expected, there

Historical Functionalism is little agreement about what "the" function or nature of art is, even within a single movement like conceptual art. To sum up: to understand how the "arts community" works today, one has to understand that the biconditional we have been discussing is widely accepted (just as, to understand much moral discourse today, one has to understand that subjectivist and relativist views are widely accepted). However, this does not entail that the biconditional-or rather some suitable elaboration of it-actually defines what art is (any more than the wide acceptance of subjectivism or relativism entails that one of these is the metaethical truth). For the purposes of understanding the arts community, knowing that the biconditional is widely held does all the work. In fact, treating the biconditional merely as widely held, rather than true, leads to a better understanding of the arts community because it makes it easier to see how other, incompatible working theories can be held alongside the biconditional. This is not meant as a refutation of an institutional definition of art. (I have tried to do that elsewhere.)" It is merely meant to show that the particular institutionalist intuition with which we began should not be given much weight.

A further problem for the definition, also connected with institutionalist concerns, deals with the specification of central art forms. How do we determine which forms are central art forms? I noted above (in "A Definition of Art") that we do not need to be already in possession of a definition of art to recognize a central art form. However, this does not tell us why something is a central art form. Although I have rejected an institutional definition of art, I would be inclined to accept an institutional account (with a strong historical component) of central art forms: what makes something a central art form is its achieving a status in the artworld; that is, items in those forms tend to be most readily presented in certain settings to certain audiences and to be received by those audiences in certain ways. My accepting an institutional account of central art forms leaves me open to a pair of related objections. ( a )If we can give an institutional account of central art forms, 11. In Stecker 1986 and 1992a, and in Chapter 4 of this book.

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then we have available a good institutional definition of art: namely, w is a work of art if and only if w belongs to a central art form. We have no need for a more complex functional definition. (6) If (on the other hand) institutional definitions of art fail, we have no good reason to think an institutional account of central art forms will succeed. (a) I think this is basically correct: if we can give an institutional account of central art forms, we can give an institutional definition of "art." Of course, this does not mean that a more complex functional definition is not needed. For one thing, the sense (or reference) of "art" that emerges from the cited institutional definition is not the one that people are interested in when they set out to define art or to wonder what art is or whether some item is art. When people wonder whether something is art, they are usually not wondering, for example, whether it is a painting and whether painting is a central art form. It is not surprising that no proponent of institutional definitions has proposed this particular variant. Second, if it is true that art (in the sense in which we are interested when we wonder whether something is art) occurs outside the central art forms, the proffered institutional definition does not cover the extension of "art" in that sense. (b) The short way with this objection is to distinguish the boring institutional definition of "art" just noted from interesting institutional definitions. I, among others, have argued that proffered interesting institutional definitions fail, but that has no bearing on the possibility of an institutional account of central art forms if such an account only entails the boring type of institutional definition of art. However, this short way with the objection is less than fully satisfying because it ignores a crucial question. Do some objections to interesting institutional definitions apply just as well to an institutional account of central art forms? I am thinking of one objection in particular. To date, institutional definitions of art have not exhibited the resources to distinguish artworld systems, practices, audiences, and the like, from nonartworld systems, practices, audiences, and the like. Is there any reason to think the resources exist to distinguish, in institutional terms, central art forms from other things? I do not know. This is a question for sociologists or anthropologists of art. If there are distinguishing marks of art institutions, practices, or forms, they are empirically discovered marks. If there are really no such marks, we have to give up on the whole idea of an artworld or of art institutions. Since the nonexistence of art institutions does seem highly unlikely, I am willing to

Historical Functionalism leave the matter of finding resources to distinguish central art forms in the hands of the social scientists. Before closing this section, let me look at objection (b) from a somewhat different angle. For some, (6) may reraise the question of the circularity of the definition that I tried to dispel above (in "A Definition of Art"). They may reason that, while it is fine to let sociologists tell us what are the central art forms in a given society at a given time, sociologists can only do this by first knowing what items are artworks. To do that they will need a definition of art, and so it will be circular to define art in terms of central art forms. What is wrong with this reasoning is the idea that one needs a definition of art to have a working knowledge of (or an ability to recognize) which items are artworks. Once we remember that this is a mistake, the specter of circularity should disappear.

Many people think that art is in some sense essentially public. It can be objected that my definition of art flouts a relevant publicity condition. Consider a piece of music or a poem that is composed in the head of a composer or poet. Let us suppose it is a poem, to avoid complicating matters with a performance requirement, which might be thought to apply to music and is not quite the same as a publicity requirement. Before the poem can be committed to writing, the poet dies. It may be claimed that the piece is in a central art form (i.e., poetry), and we can suppose that it was intended to fulfill a function of art. However, if art is necessarily public, the poetry is not an artwork despite satisfying the definition.12 When I originally formulated the definition, I assumed that art forms themselves were necessarily public, hence guaranteeing the publicity of artworks. Perhaps I was thinking too much of forms like painting, which are such that it is impossible for paintings to exist in the head. However, the objection is correct when it accuses the definition of allowing items such as the poem mentioned above to be artworks. There are two ways of answering the objection. First, if it is really true that nothing is an artwork that is not public, it would be easy enough to add a clause to the first disjunct of the definition, saying just that. Second, one can 12. I am indebted to Stan Godlovich for raising this issue.

DEFINITIONS

deny the publicity requirement proposed in the objection. I do not now see why each artwork has to be public in the relevant way. People once believed that Mozart actually composed many pieces before he wrote them down, and though that belief turned out to be inaccurate, it does not seem to be incoherent. It is quite plausible to suppose that some poets compose in their heads before putting pen to paper. Everyday language behaves in a similar way. Some sentences are "uttered" only in some person's head; they are never spoken aloud or inscribed on paper. I am happy to think that what is true for utterances can be true for poems. The objection goes wrong in advancing too strong a publicity requirement. No doubt, there is a sense in which both language and art are necessarily public. Both utterances of sentences and artworks are presented in publicly accessible media. In virtue of these media, all utterances or artworks are of a kind such that there is a means of making them public. This sort of publicity does not raise a problem for the definition.

Artworks fulfill artistic functions in virtue of possessing artistically valuable properties. This section considers two objections to functionalism that claim that it is incompatible with a proper understanding of artistic properties. According to Stephen Davies (1991, 66-69), an item acquires artistic properties, which enable it to fulfill a function of art, only in virtue of acquiring art status. For Davies, this means that possession of the relevant properties depends on the item's being art. Hence, the item could not be art in virtue of possessing those properties. Hence functionalism is false. What make the crucial premise of the argument plausible, according to Davies, are Dantoesque cases of visually indiscernible objects, one of which is an artwork, one of which is not. Thus consider Fountain and a similar urinal that happens to be inverted a la Fountain by vandals. Only Fountain raises questions about the nature of art and art making, refers to the history and techniques of sculpture, and so on. It is possession of these properties that justifies the claim that Fountain fulfills important artistic functions, and it has these properties, according to Davies, in virtue of having art status. According to Davies, what is true of Fountain is true of other works of art. This objection is not convincing. The functionalist can accept the idea that many functionally important properties of a piece depend on the artist's

Historical Functionalism acting within the context of an artworld, using its traditions and conventions. Only in this way could Duchamp have given Fountain the semantic properties mentioned in the preceding paragraph. However, according to the functionalist, none of this yet implies that a piece that has acquired properties in this way is an artwork. It is an artwork if the acquisition of those properties in that context enables it to fulfill a function of art so that it merits the label "work of art." If it does merit that label, it becomes a work of art just when it acquires the functionally important properties. There is no question of the arthood being prior to the properties or vice versa.13 James Carney (n.d.) raises a similar objection to functionalism, though his is confined to a special case: the case of the isolated artist. The isolated artist by definition works outside an established artworld (either because he works before one existed or because he somehow works independently of it). Hence, there is no artworld context to which to appeal to fix artistic properties. Carney suggests that this implies that there is nothing to which one can appeal to fix those properties; that is, such properties are only determinate in some artworld context or other. In the absence of having some determinate artistic properties, the items produced by isolated artists cannot be artworks. On the other hand, Carney believes that the second disjunct of the definition implies that there are artworks of isolated artists. Hence, functionalism seems to imply that there both are and are not such artworks. In reply, it should first be said that if Carney is right, artistic properties can only be determinately fixed against the background of some artworld context, and if this implies that the items produced by an isolated individual do not have such properties at the time they are produced, the definition would not imply that they are artworks. For the definition says that they are artworks only if they fulfill a function of art, and lacking artistic properties, they cannot do this. It is true that functionalists, including myself, have defended the possibility of isolated artists, but that position is not essential to functionalism per se. On the other hand, it is by no means clear to me that artistic properties can only be determined within an artworld context. Consider a carving of a leopard made by an isolated individual. I do not think it controversial that we can correctly perceive that it represents a leopard. Could we not also correctly perceive that it represents the leopard in such a way that it displays both the grace and power of the beast? Finally, 13. Davies is aware of, in fact states, this reply to his objection to functionalism. I have argued elsewhere that he has no adequate rejoinder to it. See Stecker 1992a, 148-49.

DEFINITIONS

could it not be correctly appreciated as expressing the fear a big cat can inspire? One thing that would verify that the sculpture had the relevant properties is the fact that the isolated individual intended that it have them and made a carving that can be seen as having them. If this is correct, then Carney is wrong in claiming that only in an artworld context does an item have determinate artistic properties.

Some may have long felt I am ignoring a crucial distinction. I am concerned, they might say, with what deserves to be called art, and this should be distinguished from what is correctly described or classified as art (Carney n.d.). It is not as popular today as it once was to cast this complaint in terms of a descriptive and an evaluative sense of "art," but the complaint itself is still alive and well and deserves to be addressed. However, it can be addressed briefly. The functionalist is not ignoring the distinction made in the last paragraph. The functionalist is denying it. To be an artwork is to be a certain kind of achievement (or at least something so intended) and so must deserve its classification as art if the classification is going to be made correctly. This is one of the fundamental functionalist intuitions. I am not sure how to argue for it, but it is begging the question just to deny it.14

A final objection concerns the possibility of functionless art. If such art is possible, art cannot be defined functionally.1s Most of what is called "nonfunctional" art is art that aims only at imparting some immediate experience, usually of pleasure or aesthetic satisfaction. However, this is precisely the sort of thing I do count as a function, indeed, one of the functions par excellence of artworks. Can we 14. For more on the classificatory character of functional definitions, see Stecker 1986,131, and Oppy 1993. 15. This objection was raised by Noel Carroll.

Historical Functionalism imagine a work presented with the aim of serving no function whatsoever? At first sight, this seems just the sort of thing that might happen in today's artworld. However, if such a work is going to succeed as art, it is hard to imagine the purported pointlessness of the object's not having a point. The object's apparent pointlessness is likely to be making a point about art, the artworld, or the artist, among other possibilities. If so, the claim to functionlessness will be fraught with paradox. The moral is that truly functionless art is much harder to imagine than might be supposed. Since I do not argue for "the fundamental functionalist intuition" mentioned above, I have not given a positive argument for the definition proposed here. Why should anyone accept it? My answer would be: If it works better, stands up to objections better, than its rivals and functions effectively as part of a plausible philosophy of art, it gains in plausibility. So, though its acceptability remains to be seen, I hope what I have said makes it a serious contender if such there be among philosophical definitions of art.

Stephen Davies, in his fine book Definitions of Art (1991), proposes that the attempt to define art during the past forty years can perspicuously be seen as a debate between functionalists and proceduralists. Later, he qualifies this claim in recognition of the fact that historical definitions provide an important third option in the debate, though an option not wholly independent of the first two.' The view Davies calls proceduralism is more commonly known as institutionalism (pace Davies, who would claim that the latter is a species of the former). Davies thinks that an institutional definition provides the best answer to the question, what is art? In this chapter, I argue against this, but I also want to make clear what is attractive about institutional definitions.

Proceduralism is not an entirely clear doctrine. Davies never formally specifies when a definition is procedural. Part of the problem is that, if we 1 . An earlier statement of the central argument of the book is found in two papers, Davies 1988a and 1990.

Institutional Definitions take the notion of procedure literally, it covers so much ground. Any sequence of actions could be a procedure. Fortunately, it is clear that Davies is interested in a special subset of procedures: those that confer a status on an object. What Davies emphasizes about status conferral is that a procedure can successfully accomplish this even when the usual point of conferring that status is not present. As Davies notes, the point of giving knighthoods is to recognize outstanding achievement, but as long as one has been properly so dubbed, one is a knight whether the achievement exists or not. Similarly, there are typical functions that artworks fulfill, but Davies claims that, as long as an item has acquired art status by an authoritative procedure, it is a work of art whether or not it fulfills one of these functions. The potential agents and mechanisms of status conferral vary among different institutional theories. On T. J. Diffey's version (1969), conferral of full-blooded arthood requires audience uptake ("some sort of process of public judgment") as well as an offering from an artist. Davies does not think such uptake is, in general, necessary for arthood. For the most part, it is the artist who has the authority to confer art status. At one point, in fact, Davies (1991, 87) defines artist as someone with such authority. However, his considered view seems to be that other agents of the artworld, such as museum directors, may sometimes have status-conferring authority as well (1991, 89). The most famous examples of procedural definitions of art are the institutional definitions proposed by George Dickie. O n Dickie's best-known definition, there are two necessary conditions that are jointly sufficient for an item to be a work of art. First, the item must be an artifact. Second, a set of aspects of the item has had conferred upon it a status (candidate for appreciation) by a person or persons acting in behalf of an institution (the artworld) (Dickie 1974). The persons in question are always artists for Dickie, although he seems to think of museum directors as occupying the artist's role if they confer art status on a chimpanzee's painting. On a more recent definition, the artifactuality condition stays put, while the second condition is changed to require that the item be of a kind created to be presented to an artworld public (Dickie 1984). In presenting his later definition, Dickie claims to have moved away from the idea that art status is conferred. He now regards status conferral as requiring formal institutional procedures that tend not to be among the informal practices of the artworld. I think Dickie comes to this conclusion because he originally associated conferring art status with an individual acting on behalf of the institution of art, as a bishop might act on behalf of

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the church or an officer of a university might act on behalf of the university. Dickie has always thought of status as conferred in behalf of something such as an organization. It is atypical at best for an item to acquire the status of an artwork by the formal pronouncement of an individual duly authorized to do so. This mistaken model of how art status is conferred has misled Dickie into believing that the whole idea that art status is conferred is wrong. However, there is no reason to think that a status cannot be conferred informally, as when members of an organization acquire a certain standing in it in virtue of their actions and the attitudes of other members that their actions have evoked. Their actions and the attitudes of others have conferred on them a status that is never formally conferred. Thus, in an academic community, an individual can informally acquire the status of a recognized expert or of a leader in a field of research. So I see no harm in continuing to think of status conferral as the chief mechanism by which items become artworks according to institutionalists. On the other hand, I do see harm-for the idea that art can be institutionally defined-in giving up the idea of status conferral. Dickie wishes to replace the idea of status conferral with the idea of a social framework constituted by a set of roles. The essential roles are that of artist and that of an artworld public. However, to be an artist one simply must possess the concept of art, that is, be acquainted with some artworks and (roughly) make things with the intention that they be art. To be a member of an artworld public one must be prepared in some degree to understand some (kind of) artworks. Do these qualities constitute social roles? Do these roles constitute an institution? There are people who are acquainted with some works of philosophy and write or utter things that they intend to be philosophy. There are others prepared in some degree to understand these writings or utterances. In saying this I have specified neither a pair of social roles (except in the minimal sense that these roles could only have come to exist in a society) nor an institution. The academic discipline of philosophy may be, or imply the existence of, an institution, but I was not just now referring to the discipline. It follows that the framework consisting of the pair of roles artistlpublic does not specify an institution. Something more would be needed to do that. Most other proponents of the institutional approach assume the addition of another relevant item as the status-conferring aspect of a role. It might be interesting for those drawn to the institutional approach to explore other social aspects of roles existing within institutions to see if there really is some

Institutional Definitions

viable alternative to this approach. To my knowledge, this line of thought has not been pursued beyond the point Dickie has taken it.2 I now turn to some specific institutional definitions both to examine how the basic idea of an institutional theory gets worked out in detail and to criticize those definitions.

This section critically examines George Dickie's most recent attempt to define art as it is presented in The Art Circle. I select this definition because it is the only one that Dickie is now willing to defend and that he still thinks is defensible. In what follows, I ignore the question, raised above, whether it is really an institutional definition. I argue for three claims: First, if we consider the letter of Dickie's new account, it fails to distinguish works of art from many other artifacts. 2. One exception to this claim is found in a recent Ph.D. dissertation by David Graves (1994).Graves characterizes art institutions more in terms of "constitutive rules" than roles. In investigating artworld rule systems, he takes matters considerably beyond the point where Dickie takes them. Thus he suggests rules constituting art forms such as painting ("mediumbased institutions"); artistic ideologies such as expressionism, realism, or naturalism ("bigtheory institutions"); and particular art movements such as synthetic cubism, action painting, or pointillism ("working-theory institutions"). I think this detailed work promises to be marvelously useful in such matters as interpreting artworks. I am more skeptical that it is ultimately helpful in defining art. First, Graves's most general framework, the necessary and sufficient conditions an item must meet to be an artwork, is, with minor modification, identical with Dickie's most recent view. Hence, it inherits all of the problems, discussed below, of Dickie's view. Graves's attempt to meet these problems is valiant, but I would judge it no more successful than Dickie's. Second, I am inclined to think that Graves conflates institutional rules with (what are probably) other things, such as styles. Though it is counterintuitive to call these institutions, I am sure Graves could find rules specific to and constitutive of the work of an individual painter, of an individual painting, or, for that matter, of my last fishing trip. Also worthy of mention here is recent work by George Bailey (forthcoming a, forthcoming b). Bailey thinks that being an artwork is a matter of having art status, and this is socially bestowed when an item is the focus of a network of rights and responsibilities for the right reasons. One has the right reasons when one believes (not necessarily truly) that certain art-theoretical properties or art-historical narratives apply to the item. I find this proposal interesting, but not so far sufficiently worked out (to my knowledge). The sort of rights and responsibilities specified by Bailey as partly constitutive of artworks would apply equally, as far as I can see, to such things as works of philosophy, writings on history, scientific theories. Perhaps what would distinguish artworks are the right reasons for possessing these rights and responsibilities. However, so far (again to my knowledge) Bailey has not attempted fully to mark those off.

DEFINITIONS

Second, if we consider its spirit, the new account turns out to be closer to the approach of those who claim that art cannot be defined than to Dickie's own earlier approach. Third, Dickie fails to show that existing in an institutional framework is a necessary condition for being art. Dickie's original project centered on giving a definition of "work of art." While his new account contains something resembling a definition of "work of art," Dickie no longer claims that the main point of his present project is to formulate and defend such a definition. Rather, the main point now is to give "the leanest possible description" of "the essential framework of art" (1984, 82) and to argue that works of art can only exist within this framework. The description is summed up in a set of five definitions:

1. An artist is a person who participates with understanding in the making of a work of art. 2. A work of art is an artifact of a kind created to be presented to an artworld public. 3. A public is a set of persons whose members are prepared in some degree to understand an object that is presented to them. 4. The artworld is the totality of artworld systems. 5. An artworld system is a framework for the presentation of a work of art by an artist to an artworld public. (1984, 80-82) The most glaring feature of this set of definitions is the circularity of the set. Artist is defined in terms of work of art, and that in turn is defined in terms of artworld public. To find out what an artworld public is we look to the definitions of public and the artworld. The artworld is defined in terms of artworld systems, and it in turn is defined in terms of artist, work of art, and once again artworld public. Dickie readily acknowledges the circularity of the set of definitions but denies that this poses a problem. I return to this issue later in the section. There is a preliminary problem that should be dealt with first. Dickie is not altogether clear about what his definitions are definitions of. When he introduces his definitions, he usually suggests they are definitions of words or expressions, for example, "I shall begin with the definition of the term 'artist' " (1984, 80). Also, in his discussion of circularity, Dickie speaks exclusively of the definition of words. However, the definitions themselves never mention words. Taken literally, they appear to be attempts to tell us what an artist is, what a work of art is, and so forth. The definitions them-

Institutional Definitions selves suggest that Dickie is more concerned with the nature of art than with the meaning of certain expressions. Dickie does sometimes describe what he is doing in these terms. He tells us he is trying "to describe the conditions necessary for a particular activity or practice . . . the enterprise of art" (1984, I l l ) . Dickie may think that the nature of art is revealed in the meaning of certain words. However, he does not argue that this is so, and it does not seem obvious that it is. I believe Dickie is mainly concerned with the nature of art. In any case, that is my concern, and so the question I want to answer is, how well do Dickie's definitions of what an artist is, what a work of art is, and the like, reveal the nature of art? We may now return to the circularity of the set of definitions 1-5. Almost everybody, both those sympathetic and those hostile to the institutional approach, find unfortunate the tight circle presented in these definitions. Dickie, however, claimed that the inflected nature of art requires a circular definition, and appears unmoved by subsequent criticism. Dickie offers two characterizations of an inflected concept, one more metaphorical, one more literal. The more metaphorical characterization tells us that an inflected concept is a member of a set of concepts that "bend in upon themselves, presupposing and supporting one another" (1984, 84). The more literal characterization tells us that "no member of this set can be understood apart from all the other concepts in the set" (1984, 84). Now, it seems clear to me that if a concept is inflected according to the literal characterization, it does not follow that the concept can only be defined circularly. To see this, consider a pair of terms alnon-a (e.g., "bachelor"/"nonbachelor"). I take it that one of these terms cannot be understood apart from the other, but that is no reason to think that at least one member of the pair cannot be noncircularly defined. Now, perhaps the literal characterization does not really capture what Dickie has in mind by an inflected concept. However, the more metaphorical characterization is of little help here because it is obviously difficult to assess its logical implications. Suppose we say that an inflected concept is simply one that can only be defined circularly. In that case, we might as well say that it cannot be defined at all (more on this below). Dickie points out that the main reason that circularity may seem to be a problem is that it renders the set of definitions uninformative. Dickie appears to be of two minds about this problem. On the one hand, he says that an informative definition is not needed. On the other hand, he says "there is a sense in which the definitions are informative; if they accurately

DEFINITIONS

reflect the nature of art and the relations which hold among the various elements of the artworld" (1984, 82). The set of definitions does give us information. It tells us that works of art are artifacts, are typically made for some public, and so the "enterprise of art" has a role for makers of certain artifacts, for a public they are made for, and for others who facilitate the presentation of the artifacts to the public. The only important notion found in Dickie's definitions that I may seem to have left out is that of artworld system. But in fact that notion has already been captured by pointing out that, given that works of art are typically made for a public, art production creates roles not only for producers but also for consumers and intermediaries. Certainly, these are facts about art as we know it, but does reporting these tell us anything about the nature of art? Granting that works of art are necessarily artifacts, it remains true that many other artifacts exist within systems in which producers' products are presented to consumers via facilitators. Unless artworld systems can be distinguished from nonartartifact presentation systems, the framework Dickie gives us tells us no more than that art resembles many other kinds of artifacts. It is true that Dickie tells us in the discussion a little about some artworld systems that everyone recognizes as such (or at least as arts or art forms), for example, painting, the theater. But what Dickie claims cannot be done is to give a principled way of distinguishing artworld systems from systems that exist to present artifacts that are not art to a public. "What has to be accepted is the 'arbitrariness7 of being an artworld system" (1984,77). This seems to me to be an admission that there simply is no such thing as the nature of art-at least nothing that is sufficient for being art. So the set of definitions do not reflect a nature. Against this, it may be said that Dickie gives us a definition of art much like his old definition even though the new one is part of a specification of a broader framework. The new definition also states two conditions: (a)being an artifact; (b) being something of a kind created to be presented to an artworld public. Dickie claims these two conditions are sufficient for defining art. I have been arguing, however, that these conditions are unilluminating. If the distinctions between artworld systems and nonartworld systems for presenting artifacts is arbitrary, then the expression "artworld public" in condition 6 is no more informative than "public." This uninformativeness is guaranteed by the circularity of definitions 1-s.~ 3. Graves (1994)tries to defend Dickie on the matter of circularity and informativeness. He

Institutional Definitions Two additional criticisms of Dickie's new definition of art can now be noted. First, Dickie's definition of public is so vague that it is not clear who would be excluded from an artworld public. Dickie's discussion of the public sometimes suggests that a public for a particular artworld system possesses a good deal of specialized knowledge of the system, but in other places he emphasizes that even very small children have a basic understanding of the institution of art that may suffice to satisfy the definition of the public. In reply to this complaint, Dickie says, "[Allthough there is much in the content of sophisticated art that small children cannot comprehend, they have no difficulty understanding the general idea of art and enjoying works with content that interests them. Artworld publics . . include a wide range of competencies" (Dickie 1989,214). The general drift of this remark, I take it, is that, while some who belong to an artworld public have specialized knowledge, this is not essential for membership. But notice: this provides very little clarification of my initial puzzlement. Given the competency of small children, shall we say (as seems true) that they are prepared to some degree to understand many an art form, or even all art forms, that they by no means yet appreciate? Are they then, along with everyone else, members of the artworld public for these forms. If so, then the artworld public just is the public (from small children on up). If not, then the problem of specifying membership in an artworld public persists. Second, there are problems with the expression "kind created to be presented." Is there really such a kind? Dickie tells us what he does not mean by the expression. It does not mean that every instance of the kind is presented or is even intended for presentation. It does not refer to subcategories of art like the novel or sculpture. It does not mean that instances of the kind are typically presented, because whether that is so for works of art is an empirical question about how many make it to a public. It does not mean a kind whose instances are typically, though not invariably, made with the intention that they be presented. Dickie has offered the following to

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has two different lines of thought, and I am not sure of their compatibility. On one line, Graves, like Dickie, admits the circularity but claims it is both unavoidable and informative. What is informative is its form instead of its content. However, since the form of the definition would be shared with other artifact presentation systems, I do not see how form could be sufficiently informative. The second line says that the definition creates a spiral (and not a circle?) that is informative when we follow it out. Graves is referring to the rules for hierarchical subinstitutions discussed in note 2 above. Appealing to the spiral requires that the subinstitution rules are "generated" by the more general rules, ultimately by the basic rules (Dickie's five definitions). However, I cannot see how this generation occurs. I think the lower-level rules are informative without the highest-level ones being so.

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clarify the notion. "Works of art are a kind of thing created for presentation. In some cases they are . . . presented, and in some cases they are not. . . . Someone may create a work intending to present it. . In this case there are two intentions-an intention to create a kind of thing to be presented and an intention to present it. Someone might create a work intending not to present it. In this case there are also two intentions-the intention to create a kind of thing to be presented and an intention not to present it" (1989, 215). I gather from this that what is definitive of being a kind created to be presented is a certain intention on the part of the creator, namely, the intention to create a kind of thing to be presented. As might be expected from someone who balks at circular definitions, I do not find this illuminating. Not understanding which kind was being referred to in the first place, I understand no better the intention to create an object belonging to such a kind. Given the obscurity of the notion of "artworld public" and "kind created to be presented," Dickie's definition of work of art may tell us only that such works are artifacts. Even if the definition tells us a bit more than this, the fact that Dickie gives no way of distinguishing between artworld and nonartworld systems guarantees that the definition fails to distinguish art from many other artifacts. If that is so, it does not give an illuminating sufficient condition for being art.

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Dickie claims that institutional facts about art reveal a sufficient condition for being art, while at the same time he insists that the institution cannot be distinguished from other systems in an informative, noncircular, nonarbitrary way. I have argued that if the second claim is true, the first should be recognized as unilluminating. If that is so, the question arises whether there is a more attractive way of viewing Dickie's present account of art. I argue in this section that, although Dickie would not acknowledge it, he is best construed as holding a position similar to one that he once opposed, namely, that the project of defining art is misconceived. The starting point is Dickie's response to his claim that the distinction between artworld systems and nonartworld systems is arbitrary. He responds to this claim by asking whether it renders his account circular, admitting that it does but claiming that this is not a defect. Circularity undermines the informativeness of the account, but "virtually everyone can recognize some things as works of art, know how some works of art are made, and the like. Thus no one needs a definition of 'works of art' which

Institutional Definitions would inform them about which things are works of art" (1984, 79). The inference from the fact that we all recognize some things as works of art to the conclusion that we do not need an informative definition strikes me as shaky. Are there not other things we are uncertain are works of art, ranging from avant-garde experiments to exquisite pieces of furniture? Might one not look to a definition to resolve the uncertainty? More important than this is understanding the way Dickie is relying on the common ability to recognize art. Since nothing that can be spelled out in a definition distinguishes in an informative way art from nonart, it appears to be our recognitional ability itself that maintains the distinction, the brute fact that we do classify in a certain way: in particular, whatever practice deems an artworld system is an artworld system (apparently), at least within the constraint that the objects presented in the system are artifacts. Theory can only reflect this practice.4 Since the practice is not based on crucial similarities that distinguish artworld systems from nonartworld systems, theory cannot do this by stating a principle of classification. Nor can theory reflect practice by stating a definitive list of artworld systems, since practice is constantly evolving new systems. All theory can do is reflect what Dickie calls the "inflected nature of art," that is, resign itself to giving an uninformative circular definition. Except for calling the end product of theory a definition, the views just expressed strikingly resemble the views of the "antidefinitionists." For example, Dickie's reason why no informative definition is necessary strikingly resembles some antidefinitionist arguments why no definition is necessary, notably William Kennick's warehouse argument (1958). Kennick claimed that, if placed in a warehouse full of objects, we would all be able to distinguish the artworks from the nonartworks. So we do not need a definition that tells us how to do this. Though Dickie would rightly claim that we need more background knowledge than would be provided by the warehouse, his point is essentially similar to Kennick's. Both agree that an (informative) definition is not needed, because we already know how to 4. Dickie tells us that philosophical definitions are attempts to make explicit "what we already in some sense know" (1984, 79). However in one place he seems to deny that this amounts to saying that theory follows practice: "[A] philosopher . . should look to the actual practices of artists, the sayings of critics, and so on. It does not follow that a philosopher must take seriously everything the denizens of the artworld do. . . . just because something is treated as a thing of a certain type (art) by someone (art critics) does not necessarily mean that something is a thing of that kind" (60).This remark is made in the context of a dispute with T. Binkley over the artifactuality condition. When Dickie does not perceive the condition to be violated, he does, I believe, defer to the practice of critics and artists.

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classify, and that, if one were needed, it would not be forthcoming. (Kennick thinks this is directly true of art, while for Dickie, we might say, it is indirectly true of art because it is directly true of artworld systems.) The concept of art that emerges from Dickie's account resembles Weitz's open concept. Which things turn out to be art is a function of practice, not a function of statable conditions for arthood. It does have to be admitted that the concept of art on Dickie's view is not as wide open as it is on Weitz's. There are two necessary conditions for being art on Dickie's view, even if it has been placed in doubt that they are jointly sufficient. One condition is artifactuality. The other is being made within an institutional framework. I now want to consider whether this second condition is necessary for being art. Dickie gives two arguments for the view that art can only exist within an institutional framework. One argument tries to refute the possibility of a "romantic" artist-one who works completely outside the f r a m e ~ o r kThe .~ other is based on the possibility of visually indistinguishable objects only one of which is a work of art. To prove the impossibility of a romantic artist, Dickie asks us to imagine a primitive society in which no framework such as Dickie has described exists. Suppose an individual in that society creates a representation (of an animal, say, carved out of wood). Here is why, according to Dickie, the object is not a work of art: "While the creator of the representation would certainly recognize the object as a representation, he would not have any cognitive structure into which to fit it so as to understand it as art. Someone might make the mistake of identifying art with representation. . . Once this temptation is put aside, we can see that the creator of the representation cannot recognize his creation as art and that, therefore, it cannot be art" (1984,55). I agree with Dickie that the individual would have no concept of art. I would have thought, however, that it is the inference from this fact to the conclusion that the carving is not a work of art that Dickie would take pains to defend. Instead, he simply makes the inference. But why must someone who makes art be able to understand it as art? If Dickie's institutional account is true, we would have a reason, but the point of the argument

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5. The possibility of a romantic artist (i.e., of an individual creating artworks outside an institutional framework) was first presented as a criticism of the institutional theory by Beardsley (1976). For a more complete set of references to those who have employed this criticism, see Davies 1991, 101-2.

Institutional Definitions is to show the account true, not to presuppose it. Dickie does not give us any other reason to accept the inference. Suppose the carving is of a leopard and the carver succeeds not just in producing a representation that is recognizable as a big cat (if not a leopard) but in putting into it something of his own attitude toward leopards: someone looking at the carving can feel something of the fearsomeness of a leopard. I agree with Dickie that being a representation is neither necessary nor sufficient for being art, but being a representation like this is a much better reason for calling something art. (This is not, however, to identify art with expressive representation or with anything else.) That the carving has such expressive power is a much better reason for exhibiting it in an art museum than is knowledge that it was created in a certain institutional framework. So I am inclined to reject Dickie's inference. Dickie (1989,216) has replied that such a leopard carving is not the kind of representation he was imagining and that it would have to be made at a much later point in a society's history than would his imagined representation. I am puzzled by this reply, which I take to be a quasi-empirical claim about the development of representational figures in early human societies. The claim seems to be that representations with expressive power will appear only after a period of "cruder" nonexpressive representation. I do feel, however, that this reply does not address my point that we can imagine this carving being made without imagining that its creator recognized it as art (or intended to create a kind of thing to be presented to an artworld public). Yet that would not dissuade us from classifying it as art. Is it possible for an inhabitant of modern society to create art outside an artworld framework? Because of the vagueness of the notion of artworld framework, it is much harder to answer this question. However, examples may be found in some unusual works in what are typically nonart media, such as fashion or furniture. (Dickie seems to approve of Walton's [1977,751 exclusion of the fashion world from the artworld, and I assume that furniture would go the same way.) Occasionally people may produce objects in these media that transcend the uses to which the media are usually put. The objects possess a value typical of values we seek in works of art; for example, they have great aesthetic interest, or they seem to embody or express a whole way of life.6 Though the works possess these values and perhaps were intended to, it does not follow that their makers intended them - -

6 . A discussion of what it is for an artifact to embody a way of life is found in Scruton 1979, 237-56.

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to be works of art. Perhaps their makers are capable of thinking of them as art, but that surely is not sufficient for being in an artworld framework. They were not made for an artworld public (insofar as we can make sense of that notion). By hypothesis, they were not produced within an artworld system. But it does not seem completely far-fetched to claim that they are works of art. Dickie's other argument for the necessity of an artworld framework is based on the existence of visually indistinguishable pairs, only one of which is a work of art. Examples of such pairs are Warhol's Brillo Box and an ordinary Brillo box, the painting Polish Rider and an accidentally produced object that looks just like it, Duchamp's Fountain and a similar urinal produced by the same manufacturer. What these pairs show, according to Dickie (1984, 62), is that (1)"it is not the visible characteristics of an object alone which make it a work of art" and (2) "a work of art must be enmeshed in some sort of framework . . . which is responsible for its being a work of art." Since I am ready to admit that artifactuality is a necessary condition for being art, I would grant (1).Does the existence of such pairs show ( 2 ) ?I do not think so. First, it is not obvious that all the pairs are to be treated in the same way. The Polish Rider pair is the easiest to handle. Since the look-alike is accidentally produced, it is not an artifact. Nothing more is needed to explain why it is not art. With Fountain, I would be inclined to say that it is art because Duchamp was able to use his particular urinal to give immediacy and force to certain questions about art. The other urinal does nothing like this. Now, I would admit that Duchamp could not have used his urinal to raise questions about art if he was not working within (or manipulating) a framework such as Dickie describes. If Brillo Box is a work of art, this is in part due to its existing in such a framework. However, it is hard to see that a conclusion about the necessity of such a framework for all art follows. All that follows is that certain things would not be works of art if they had not come into existence inside this framework. The conclusion that Dickie needs-that nothing outside the framework is a work of art-clearly does not follow.'

Subsequent to the publication of The Art Circle the most sustained and sophisticated defense of an institutional definition of art is that offered 7 . Jeffrey Wieand (1994) makes a somewhat similar point at greater length.

Institutional Definitions by Davies in Definitions of Art. For this reason it deserves careful scrutiny. Davies favors procedural definitions of art because, like other institutionalists, he thinks of arthood as a status. Davies takes as conclusive evidence that an item is a work of art that the item is widely considered or treated as art. Thus, on the proceduralist view, controversial pieces, like readymades, and other "hard cases" are obviously artworks because "they are created by artists . . . ;they are discussed by critics; they are presented in the context of the artworld as objects of appreciation; they are discussed by art historians." So, "such pieces are held undoubtedly to be artworks" (1991, 41). Although the above is conclusive evidence for Davies that an item is an artwork, it is not what makes it art, nor is such wide recognition a necessary condition for being art. Although Davies accepts the idea that being art consists in having an institutional status, he does not accept any of the institutional definitions of art that have so far received expression. In particular, he rejects Dickie's definitions. His first and main complaint against Dickie's definitions is that they appear to give every member of the artworld equal authority to make art. This undermines the idea that the artworld is a social institution, according to Davies (1991, 85), because "such institutions are structured according to differences in roles and the authority that accompanies such roles." Second, Davies thinks that Dickie's account is insufficiently historical. Because of this, in that account, the contingent shape of our current artworld, including its comparatively democratic pattern of authority, falsely appears to be a necessary feature of artworlds. Finally, Davies agrees with a number of earlier critics that the acknowledged circularity of Dickie's definitions makes them unacceptable. How does Davies propose to make good the deficiencies he sees in Dickie's institutionalism? First, we need to take seriously what is implied by asserting that the artworld is a social institution, namely, that it is structured by various roles and the status-conferring authority that accompanies a role.8 Everyone cannot have the same authority or occupy the same role. "There are institutional limits to the procedures, occasions and contexts by and in which art status may be conferred, [and] on who can do the conferringW(1991,87). Yet Davies is ready to admit, though with some uncertainty, that the artworld as it presently exists may be as democratic as Dickie's account has it. What he insists on is that this was not always so, that the 8. This suggestion is criticized by Graham Oppy (1991).

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current, highly democratic state of affairs is a recent, post-Dada development. This admission requires amending Davies's first complaint against Dickie. Apparently an institution of art can exist, and art status can be conferred, even if everyone (potentially) occupies the role of an artist within which there are few differences in authority. The criticism now appears to be that this can only be so if the present institution emerged from one that in the past had more differentiated and more exclusive lines of authority. Earlier I suggested that the framework consisting of the pair of roles artistlpublic does not indicate an institution unless something more is supplied. What needs to be supplied, according to Davies, is either more structured lines of authority within roles or a history in which such structure previously existed. Davies points the way to what he claims would be a better procedural definition, but he does not actually give one. Nevertheless, Davies's view suggests both necessary and sufficient conditions for an item's being a work of art, though conditions that are surprisingly "thin" given Davies's allusions to differentiated roles, history, and rules. For an item to become an artwork at time t, on Davies's view, it is both necessary and sufficient that someone with the appropriate authority confers art status on the item at t. (An interesting question that institutionalists have not addressed to my knowledge is whether, and by what procedures, an item can lose art status.) There are problems both with the necessity and sufficiency of this condition. First, regarding the sufficiency of the definition, I cannot help wondering whether the institution of art can sustain an artwork-identifying role (even if it once had that role) if it has come to have as democratic (i.e., unstructured) a nature as Dickie and, to a lesser extent, Davies suggest. Interestingly, Davies associates the democratic "structure" of roles in the current artworld with Danto's "end of art" thesis, though without committing himself to that thesis. I regard it as an attractive feature of functional definitions that they provide a structured way to make judgments of arthood that is not provided by the institution under a Dickiean reading of it. Second, the problem of hard cases also raises questions about the sufficiency of Davies's definition. The problem is to explain what it is about pieces like Fountain that makes them hard cases. The functionalist has no problem doing this. What makes them hard is that it is hard to know whether they are art. On the one hand, they are created by serious and important artists who, we take it, are up to something artistically significant (or at least something intended to be artistically significant). On the other,

Institutional Definitions

they are created in highly unconventional ways, and it is not easy to see their significance. Despite the fact that hard cases obviously meet Davies's proceduralist criteria for arthood, people tend to react to such cases with uncertainty about their status as art and about what makes them artworks if they are. This is why hard cases raise doubts about the sufficiency of Davies's conditions. To avoid this problem, a proceduralist must offer an alternative account of what makes pieces like Fountain hard cases. Davies (1991,40) proposes that what makes them hard cases is that they create a tension between "the point of the concept of art and actual instances of art." Even if we grant this tension, it is still not clear what is the question about these cases that is hard to answer. On the one hand, they clearly are artworks. On the other, on Davies's proposal, they are also clearly bad artworks. For the tension implies that they fulfill no important function of art. Indeed, Davies (1991, 41) suggests that they are counterproductive and "undermine the point of art." This, by the way, seems to be the wrong evaluation of these works. Some of them, such as Duchamp's readymades, are important artworks. That suggests they must have considerable merit and, hence, fulfill an important artistic function. A better proceduralist proposal might go like this: what makes an item a hard case is that it redirects appreciation from artistic functions we have come habitually to look for in artworks to a different artistic function. The case is hard because, although, as proceduralists, we recognize the item as an artwork, we do not know how to appreciate it, and because the case requires that we abandon ingrained habits in order to appreciate it. (Notice that an only slightly modified version of this proposal would be highly congenial to a functi~nalist.)~ The problem with a proceduralist using this proposal is that with many hard cases the redirection of appreciation seems to involve first putting into doubt the arthood of the item in question. Thus Duchamp, with the readymades, can express in a very forceful way many questions about the nature of art. These questions arise because, confronted with these objects, 9. I have been taken to task for suggesting this as a move a proceduralist might make, because, in making reference to art functions, the move sounds like a functionalist strategy. Not so. The proceduralist can try to explain the hardness of hard cases not in terms of the status of the objects in question but in terms of the difficulty of finding their point. Davies (1991, 40) makes a suggestion, already mentioned above, very like this one. "Hard cases will be hard not because their status is in doubt, but rather because they set up a tension between the point of the concept art and actual instances of art."

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one wonders whether an object of this sort, created in this way, can be an artwork. But if it is a foregone conclusion that it is, the whole process is aborted. So cases like Fountain suggest that status conferral does not suffice to make something an artwork.'' Third, the problem of the isolated (romantic)artist calls into question the necessity of Davies's condition for arthood. As we saw in our discussion of Dickie, the problem of the isolated artist is one of the standard objections to institutional definitions of art. The objection claims that a person with no contact with an artworld could produce works of art; in other words, something may be an artwork even though it does not meet Davies's condition. Davies's first line of defense against this objection is to claim that such an individual might create artworks because he or she constitutes an artworld made up of a single person. The idea is that the individual in question occupies the various roles that constitute an artworld-artist, audience, critic. This proposal strikes me as desperate. All that role occupancy could amount to in such a case is one person making something, enjoying it, and also perhaps criticizing it. If that is all it takes for an institution to exist, then every practice is an institution (a view Davies would resist). Davies (1991, 104) sums up the problem by admitting that the proposal "attenuates the notion of an institution near to the point of vanishing." He adds that in regarding what the isolated individual produces as art, "the notion of art . . . is stretched almost beyond recognition" (104), but he does not point out that this is so only from a procedural, not from a functional, point of view.'' Since, according to Davies, the idea of an isolated artist stretches the notion of art almost beyond recognition, it is surprising that Davies does not, with Dickie, emphasize more a second line of defense, namely, denying that such a person can create art. Davies (1991, 103) calls this second line of defense "counterintuitive." Nevertheless, Davies does give an argument for this line of defense. The creation of art, he claims, involves rule following. 10. Davies has suggested to me in correspondence that the proceduralist can say that "part of the hardness" of Duchamp's cases comes from doubts about their status as artworks. This would be fleshed out as doubt about the sufficiency of the radical procedures used in these cases to confer art status. This suggestion strikes me as an improvement over what Davies says in his book, but still problematic. There may have been this doubt about Duchamp's procedures in 1915, but there can hardly be doubt about their efficacy today. Yet readymades are still treated as hard cases. 11. For further criticism of this proposal, see Oppy 1991.

Institutional Definitions An isolated individual would be incapable of formulating any rules on which art making depends. So such an individual could not create art.12 Again, this argument is not particularly convincing. First, many aestheticians (e.g., Kant, Croce, Collingwood) have denied that art making essentially involves rule following. So the first premise of the argument is far from obvious. Second, until it is clearer what rules need to be followed to make art, it is an open question whether an isolated artist could follow them. I suspect that what is behind the argument is the idea that an isolated individual could not make artworks because an isolated individual would not have the concept of art. ("It could be denied that such a person could produce art on the ground that such a person could have no conception of his products as artworks" [Davies 1991, 1031.) Recall that this is precisely Dickie's argument against the possibility of such an artist. Again, it needs to be emphasized that it is not clear why one needs a conception of art to produce art. After all, it is now widely believed that our concept of a fine art was not fully developed until the early eighteenth century, yet few believe there was no art making until then. Davies mentions a third line of defense, which is his favored one. It claims that the works of an isolated individual are art only from the retrospective point of view of an artworld. The point is to give the proceduralist a way to acknowledge our intuition that we regard the individual's work as art, if the first line of defense fails. However, the third line of defense puts the cart before the horse. If the artworld now regards such works as art, it is surely because of their functional properties. Present recognition, therefore, gives as much, if not more, support to the functionalist point of view. Despite the failure of Davies's replies, I do not think that the case of the isolated artist is a knockdown objection to proceduralism. Those who advance the case usually appeal to the functional properties of the individual's hypothetical output. The proceduralist of course denies that possession of such properties is sufficient to make an item art. Even Davies admits that such a denial is counterintuitive. Nevertheless, the proceduralist can, and needs to, bite the bullet here. What the objection does show is that functionalist intuitions are not easily shaken off. 12. Davies's argument is actually more complicated than I have represented it. The argument has two presuppositions that I have not stated: ( I )that the first strategy for handling the isolated artist fails, and (2)that a "Kripkensteinian"account of rule following holds true. I take (1) for granted, since I have already dismissed the first strategy. However, (2)seems to me far too controversial to be of use in making a convincing case. Worse, Davies rejects that account of rule following. See Davies 1988b.

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Let me finally mention that it is not clear that Davies escapes the circularity problem that has plagued Dickie's definitions. As I have formulated Davies's view, artwork is defined in terms of the notion of conferring art status. The question of circularity for Davies is whether the notion of art status can be understood independently of the concept of artwork. Davies is aware of this problem, and he suggests it can be solved by providing "an account of the structure and historical basis of the artworld as distinct from those other . . . structured . . . institutions and [doing] so without reference to the character of any particular artworks." Recall that this was just what was lacking in Dickie's "inflected" definition. Davies thinks the task can be accomplished by once again "characterizing the role of art maker . . . in terms of the limits of authority that define that role . . and the social conditions that determine those limits" (1991, 112). One way of realizing this strategy would be first to define art institution independently of artist and artwork, then define art maker as someone given the authority by an art institution to confer a certain status (art status) on objects, and finally define artwork as above. However, this is not a promising strategy, because a general definition of art institution independent of artwork is not likely to be forthcoming. The limits of authority that define the role of artist will likely be different for different art forms or genres, for different historical periods, and for different cultures or societies. I have no idea how one could extrapolate from these to form a general concept of art institution independent of art forms and artworks. These facts necessitate a more piecemeal approach. A definition of art might simply have a place for a variable for artworld systems (to use Dickie's term). Thus we might revise the original definition as follows: An item i becomes an artwork at t if and only if someone with appropriate authority in an artworld system s confers art status on i at t. A proponent of this definition could claim that, for any past or present t, "artworld system" can be replaced by a list of such systems and "art status" can be replaced by the art historians'/sociologists' account of status acquisition for a system at a given time. This definition is no worse off with regard to circularity than the definition I offered in Chapter 3. Even if circularity is avoided and the three previous problems noted above circumvented, this definition is not home free. Let me note two additional problems. First, notice that functional or other not obviously institutional conditions might be part (even the main part) of the art historiansy/ sociologists' account of an item's status acquisition in a system at a given time. That the authority of a role will play an important part in the account

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Institutional Definitions is at best an unconfirmed hypothesis. Second, if I am right that items belonging to nonartworld systems can be artworks, the "only if" part of the definition must be incorrect. Thus, even if we are clear that the fashion world does not belong on a list of current artworld systems (rather than merely not belong on a list of central art forms), it is still possible for an individual fashion design to be an artwork. I do not know what can account for this as well as a functional theory. Do the criticisms presented here as well as those of many others show that there is no satisfactory way to define art institutionally? I hope the tone of my criticisms already makes it clear I do not believe that is a foregone conclusion. In fact, the last definition discussed seems to me to have some promise as well as problems. There are intuitions, both positive and negative, that support an institutional approach. The positive intuition is that art is a status that is conferred by a social mechanism. The negative intuition is that there is a significant amount of art that neither fulfills nor is intended to fulfill functions of art, assuming that it is at all possible to specify such functions in today's confusing art scene. These are intuitions that well up very little in my breast, but it would be wrong to suppose that no one finds them appealing. If institutionalists want to make good on these intuitions, what they now need to do is what most philosophers hate to do: do, or find, research that shows that the social mechanisms actually exist, that there really are lines of authority and rules for their exercise. They also have to do something else that is more philosophically appealing but harder, that is, convince people like myself that the exercise of authority actually makes something art. Good luck.

This chapter focuses on the adequacy of historical definitions of art. While such theories hold more promise than institutional theories, I argue that they have their own share of problems. Proponents of historical definitions are in one way the true heirs of the Weitzian understanding of art as a classificatory concept. Like Weitz, proponents of this approach claim that items are correctly classified as artworks in virtue of strands of similarities to earlier artworks. There is no one property, at least no one perceptible or functional property, that all artworks share. Unlike Weitz, however, proponents of the historical approach attempt to specify relevant similarities, in this way avoiding the most glaring failing of the earlier strands-of-similarity hypothesis. Historical definitions uniformly face another problem in common with Weitz's view, namely, the problem of "first art." First art is conceived of as the set of earliest artworks. It seems that both the Weitzian view and historical views must assume the existence of first art, else it is not clear how the process of later works achieving arthood by relevantly resembling earlier ones could get started. However, the first ones cannot be artworks because of a similarity they bear to an earlier artwork, there being, by hypothesis, no such thing. So

Historical Definitions historical definitions have to offer a special and distinct accounting for first artworks, minus which they would be a counterexample to the theory. The definitions I am calling historical here share a two-step form-hinted at in the preceding paragraph-despite differing on particulars. One step specifies a relation that an item must bear to earlier artworks if it is art. The other step specifies what makes first art art. Thus, the definitions to be discussed below are essentially historical in a way that my historical functionalism (Chapter 3) is not. My definition is "historical" to the extent that it allows a set of central art forms and art functions that evolve over time to determine which items are artworks at any time. Nevertheless, this is not a historical definition as characterized in the preceding paragraph, because it does not define later artworks in terms of a relation they bear to earlier ones, and it does not need to give a special accounting of first art. It might have happened, as a matter of logical possibility, that the functions of art remained totally static, resisting even the smallest degree of change or evolution. The historical aspect (i.e., the time indexing and the "dual track" for past artworks) of the definition I propose would then be unnecessary, but the definition itself would still hold intact. On the other hand, to eliminate the historical aspect of the definitions to be discussed in this chapter is to eliminate those definitions.' By my reckoning, there are two main versions of the historical approach currently at large. One is the intentional-historical approach proposed and doggedly defended by Jerrold Levinson (1979, 1989, 1993a). The other is the style-historical approach proposed by James Carney (1991b, 1994). Discussion of these is the main substance of this chapter. I also discuss a proposal by Noel Carroll (1988, 1993a, 1994) about how one can identify artworks by means of historical narratives. Since this is not a proposed definition, it is not a proposed historical definition. Nevertheless it deserves some recognition in this chapter because it has been both associated with and influential upon the development of historical definitions (particularly the style-historical view). It is worth asking if and where it fits in the debate about defining art.

1. However, this difference between historical functionalism and the views discussed below should not be exaggerated. These views might also still be true in the static artworld imagined above. They would just be pointless. That could also be said of my kind of functionalism. Simple functionalism would be the most informative definition and would be viable in a static artworld.

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Jerrold Levinson offers the following definition: "An artwork is a thing (item, object, entity) that has been seriously intended for regard-as-a-workof-art, i.e., regard in any way pre-existing artworks are or were correctly regarded" (1989,21).~ Let us begin the examination of this definition with a few words by way of explication. First, from what was just said above, the definition appears incomplete, giving no account of first art. Levinson proposes several ways of dealing with this problem, which I discuss below, but for the time being matters will be less cluttered if we ignore first art. Second, though the definition itself does not make this explicit, Levinson's discussion makes it clear that the definition is intended to offer both necessary and sufficient conditions for any item subsequent to first art being art.3 Third, Levinson takes some pains to indicate that there are two distinct ways of intending something for regard-as-a-work-of-art. One way is intrinsic, the other is relational. A way of intending something for regard-as-awork-of-art is intrinsic if one "directly intend[s] his object for a complex of regards . . . such as: {with close attention to form, . . . with awareness of symbolism) without having in mind . . . any particular past artworks, genres, movements, or traditions" (Levinson 1989, 21, my italics). With respect to the intrinsic way of intending, only relatively complete ways of regarding are to be allowed. The relational way of intending something for regard consists in directly intending that an object be regarded in some way that past artwork is or was correctly regarded without having in mind any set of regards intrinsically characterized. This way of putting things has the unfortunate consequence that Levinson leaves unnamed and unarticulated a third way of intending something for regard-as-a-work-of-art in which one has in mind both ways of regard, intrinsic and relational. I henceforth take 2. This definition differs in some ways from the one offered in Levinson's original paper (1979). The most significant difference is the absence of a proprietary-right condition-a condition requiring that the artist have a right to transform material into art. However, this condition does resurface. 3. I say this because Levinson defends his definition against charges that he fails to provide such conditions. However, there are some passages that cut the other way, where he expresses doubts that there are real necessary and sufficient conditions of arthood (e.g., Levinson 1989, 23).

Historical Definitions the relational mode of intention to include, rather than exclude, as it does according to Levinson's original exposition, this third way. (Only then, by the way, would Levinson be right to claim that the relational mode of intending is the dominant one today and, in general, the more common one. I would think that what one might call the purely relational and purely intrinsic modes of intending would both be rare.) Finally, I take it that appearances of circularity in the definition are only that-appearances. References to earlier works of art and regards-as-worksof-art (to which, Levinson notes, the relevant regards have to be restricted) can be eliminated by enumeration of past artworks and correct regards. Let us now turn to first art and Levinson's proposals for incorporating it into his conception of art. Levinson (1990a, 21 n. 13) initially proposed that these items can simply be stipulated artworks. He now realizes that this introduces an arbitrariness into his conception of art that the main definition successfully avoids, and, for this reason, proposes a rather complicated replacement. He begins with something provisionally called ur-art, the product of the "earliest discoverable mimetic activity" (1993a, 421). Paleolithic cave painting might be an instance of t h k 4 With the notion of ur-art in hand, Levinson offers a pair of main alternatives for defining first art, within one of which another pair of alternatives is presented. One alternative is to define first art as those items that immediately follow ur-art and are made with intentional reference to it much in the way that later art is made with intentional reference to earlier art. This alternative has the advantage of offering a definition of first art quite similar, though not identical, in form to the definition of the rest of art. However, it has a disadvantage that weighs heavier in my mind. If the definition of first art is to escape arbitrariness, some explanation must be offered why ur-art is ur-art, and not ur-something else. Doing this, I predict, will explain why ur-art is art-which is precisely what is accomplished by the second alternative. The first approach really just passes the buck to the second, differing from it only in refusing to call ur-art art. So I turn to the second, now more promising approach. This approach identifies first art with ur-art. Levinson offers two reasons for making this identification. One is that "it is the ultimate causal source and intentional reference of later activities we take as paradigmatically art." Alternatively, "it seems aimed at, or concerned with many of the same effects and values, that later paradigmatic art has enshrined" (1993a, 421). I think 4. However, it is, in fact, likely that Paleolithic painting is not first art, much less ur-art. See Davis 1994.

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we might as well count these two reasons as providing a disjunctive sufficient condition for a very early item being art. I think that this final proposal is the best Levinson has offered to date regarding first art. It avoids the arbitrariness of his initial proposal and the buck-passing of the alternative discussed above. I am no doubt also attracted to it because it is the proposal that comes closest to the functional one I favor, for, as Levinson notes, it is the "manifest fashioning and expressive impact" of early painted and sculpted figures that is the evidence of the intentions and causal powers to which his definition makes reference. I still, however, prefer a functional account of the arthood of the early items under discussion, for such an account seems less problematic in a number of ways. First, Levinson's reference to first art as being the ultimate causal source of paradigmatic art seems just wrong. A causal source of art need not be art-or ur-art. The actual causal sources of art no doubt go back and back and back indefinitely. But second, to claim a causal and intentional connection also seems to be pretty speculative because it is hard to know which, if any, later art was in fact influenced by these items and whether any made intentional reference to them. Similarly speculative is Levinson's identification of the aim and concerns with which they "seem7' to be made. Levinson is quite right to say "seem," but that only underlines that we really have no idea of the actual intentions of the makers of these items. No doubt they were deliberately fashioned, but whether they were done so with an eye to aesthetic appeal or expressive power, or whether these characteristics are quite adventitious results of very different intentions, is unknowable. It is certainly not obvious that all artistically functional properties must be intentionally imparted, aesthetic appeal and expressive power being two prime candidates for properties that need not be. For this reason, it seems to me that we are on much firmer ground in regarding these objects as art in virtue of their functional success rather than in virtue of intentions with which they may or may not have been made or in virtue of causal connections that may or may not have existed. Having made my pitch for the preferability of a functional account of (at least) first art, let us turn to the main part of the definition concerning all subsequent art. This has already received a great deal of attention by way of proposed objections, more, I think, than any definition since Dickie's institutional ones. It would be tedious to rehearse every single objection here, especially since one would also have to rehearse the replies that Levinson has taken pains to offer to virtually all comers. It may, however, be

Historical Definitions a service to present some of the best objections offered to date as well as some that are, I hope, new. Against the sufficiency of the definition, James Carney (1994, n.d.) has pointed out that in 1915 Duchamp tried to transform the Woolworth Building into a readymade, though, everyone agrees, without success. The point is that Levinson's definition, as stated above, implies, incorrectly, that the attempt was successful. In response to this apparent counterexample, Levinson invokes a condition, explicit in an earlier (1979) version of his definition, though not explicit in the 1989 version I have been working with here. This is known as the proprietary-right condition, which states that an artist must own an object if one is to "artify" it. This condition itself has been the object of several counterexamples-graffiti art, paintings and sculptures made from stolen materials, works of architecture and other commissioned works never owned by the artist, many instances of conceptual art. Levinson's current position is to restrict the proprietary-right condition precisely to found artlreadymades where it is of use against Carney's counterexample: Duchamp failed with the Woolworth Building because he did not own it. Two complaints might be made against this reply. First, it might be regarded as ad hoc to employ such a grossly restricted proprietary-right condition.' Levinson has tried to ward off this complaint by pointing out that the appropriationist nature of found art makes the condition apt precisely for such cases. Second, Carney has suggested that ownership itself would not suffice to lend success to Duchamp's project vis-a-vis the Woolworth Building. He suggests that even if an aspiring follower of Duchamp buys the Sears Tower and pronounces it a readymade, doing all this with the right intentions, that still would not guarantee the tower's transfiguration (minus, for example, any sort of artworld uptake). Here Levinson can only insist that the building has become an artwork, though that strikes me as insufficient to assuage doubts. One can also think of other possible examples here. There is Danto's (imaginary) example of Cezanne's painted tie, which could not be a work of art (in 1890) whatever Cezanne's intentions. Carroll (1993a) and I (1990a) have claimed that certain art forms whither away, so 5. In a personal communication, Levinson suggests that the proprietary right should be broadly construed as a right to transform materials or determine their identity conceptually. He also suggests that this applies mainly to readymades. However, some of the counterexamples mentioned in the text still seem to apply. It is not clear how a sculptor has the right to transform stolen marble even though in doing so he makes a sculpture.

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that intentions (purely referential) to create works to be regarded like those will not be art producing. A second counterexample is owing to Crispin Sartwell (1990). The example concerns a forgery of a Rembrandt self-portrait. The forger is able to replace the original with the forgery in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, intending that the forgery be regarded "in all the ways the self-portrait has been correctly regarded." It seems to follow, on Levinson's definition, that it is an artwork, but Sartwell thinks that is a mistake, the forgery being a "slavish imitation of an extant work" (1990, 157). Oppy (1992) suggests that the forgery is an artwork, but that is too idiosyncratic a judgment to be convincing. Levinson, instead, argues that it fails to be an artwork for failing to be intended to be regarded in all the requisite ways. For example, the Rembrandt was intended to be seen against a background of its near predecessors, but is the forgery intended to be seen against a background of its near predecessors? No, it is intended to be seen against the background of the Rembrandt's near predecessors. One problem with this reply is that it depends on a particular resolution to what is currently a controversial issue in the philosophy of mind and language: the individuation of propositional attitudes. Not everyone would agree that Rembrandt's intention that his work be seen against a background of its near predecessors is different from his intention that his work be seen against the background of the painting's near predecessors. If the intention expressed by using the pronoun is not different from the intention expressed with "painting," if the two intentions are not different, an intention has not been specified that the forger could not have. However, the main problem with the reply is that it is not necessary on Levinson's definition, for the forgery to be art, that it be intended for regard in all the ways the self-portrait was intended. Though this is how Sartwell specified the forger's intention, he need not have. All that should be needed is that the forger intended a goodly number of the same regards, else whatever conceptual problem the forger's intentions face would be faced by the intentions of proper artists. If the forger cannot intend a sufficiently complete set of regards, no one else could either.6 6. It is helpful to remember here Levinson's distinction between relational and intrinsic intentions. If I intend a work for regard as the Rembrandt self-portrait is or was correctly regarded, no specific set of intrinsic regards is referred to as such, and there is no requirement of relative completeness. So there should be no problem about my intending my work for regard in the ways the Rembrandt is correctly regarded. But surely I would be in the same fix as the forger if I hoped my painting would be correctly regarded in every way the Rembrandt is.

Historical Definitions Levinson (1990b, 232) also proposes an alternative reply that amounts to amending his definition: "[Flor cases of relational . . . artmaking, what is required is not simply that an agent intend an object for regard as some past art is correctly regarded, but that he intend it to be correct that his object be regarded in these ways." This alteration, adequate though it may be to handle forgery, suggests another type of counterexample. Call this the case of the stupid relational intention. Imagine someone who brings to our attention a thumb-sized piece of leather cut to a circular shape and who announces her intention that it be regarded as a minimalist sculpture. The individual can identify some instances of minimalist work, but she can say nothing more about her intention, nor about minimalist art, nor point to one minimalist work she has in mind more than another. I suppose, nevertheless, that she has an art-constituting intention according to Levinson's definition. In this kind of case, if not in others, "intentions are cheap" (Oppy 1992, 155) and do not guarantee success. I have so far been discussing possible counterexamples to the sufficiency of past art-regarding intentions for arthood. Though I think all these examples are worth taking seriously and all may require some modification of the intentional-historical definition, I am inclined to think that some account along intentional lines will provide a sufficient condition for an item's being art. After all, historical functionalism also holds that there is such an intentional sufficient condition, and one not so different from Levinson's. It is quite a different matter when it comes to the necessity of such backward-looking intentions. It is here that the historical view most sharply differs from any sort of functionalism. So I now turn to purported counterexamples to the necessity of such intentions for arthood in a slightly less charitable frame of mind. Let us begin with correct regard. Others (Beardsley 1982; Davies 1991) have questioned what this notion amounts to. I would not do that. However, I can think of cases where it is pretty clear that we end up with an artwork, but it is not so clear that the intention with which the work was made meets the requisite characterization. Consider young Jim who has fallen in love with the oeuvre of William Blake. Jim is inspired to write his own poetry, which he intends for regard in the way he thinks Blake's poetry is correctly regarded, based on his interpretation of Blake. In particular he intends his poetry for regard for possession of what he thinks of as Blakean x , Blakean

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y, and Blakean z. Fortunately, Jim has real talent, and his poems are quite good, being vivid, particularized, highly evocative expressions of experience. Unfortunately, Jim has no ability as yet in the arena of literary interpretation, and he has done nothing but misinterpret Blake. (As Joseph Margolis [I9801 says: whether or not there are true interpretations, there are certainly false ones, and Jim's are among the false ones.) There is no such thing as Blakean x, y, or z. Jim's poems can correctly be regarded in ways past artworks were correctly regarded, but Jim did not intend his work to be regarded in those ways. Of the ways in which he did intend his poetry to be regarded, no past artwork was ever correctly regarded. We can generalize this point by saying that objects with artistically valuable properties can sometimes adventitiously result from intentions that aim at something else, and, hence, need not satisfy Levinson's definition. Indeed, as was pointed out in the discussion of first art, they can result from intentions that are not artistic at all.' One can set out with a utilitarian aim-to write a chronicle or make a pot-and end up with something more than one intended. At least sometimes the result is an artwork. In an earlier version of this objection (Stecker 1990a), I emphasized the fact that for much remote art we have little knowledge of the makers' actual intentions (as I also did just now in the discussion of first art). This way of putting the matter may give the impression that the objection is primarily epistemic; if, for an object to be art, we require that it be made with certain intentions, we will sometimes be unable to determine whether it is art, and this inability to know should be regarded as a theoretical drawback. Levinson (1993a, 414) is quite right to admit that we would sometimes lack knowledge, but denies this poses a problem for his view. However, I do not have in mind this sort of epistemic objection. Rather, the objection is that, in some cases, even when we do not know whether an object is made with the kind of intentions Levinson requires, we do know that the object is an artwork because we can determine that it is from its functional succes~.~ There are two ways in which Levinson envisions recapturing artworks 7. As discussed with regard to the institutional theory, artworks can be made without their maker conceiving of them as art (as Levinson readily admits). However, they can also be made, if the text is correct, without intending them to be aesthetically pleasing, expressive, and the like. 8. Carney (n.d.)also suggests cases where an item is art but was not made with the requisite intentions. He mentions such cases as graffiti art and some Los Angeles billboards that were appropriated by mainstream art rather than offered as such.

Historical Definitions that are not made with the requisite intention^.^ One way is to say they are art in a secondary sense according to which something is art if it is the outcome of a certain sort of creative process, of a class of impulses identified as artistic (Levinson 1989, 30; 1990b, 234). So Jim may have intended his poetry to be regarded as earlier works would be incorrectly regarded, but nevertheless his poetry was plausibly the result of artistic impulses. And a remote potter may have intended only dinnerware, but inarticulate aesthetic impulses may have caused what was not intended: a work of art. Since this is not a developed proposal-no particular processes or impulses are identified by Levinson-one can only comment on it tentatively. Basically, there are three worries. First, since art making is not the only creative human activity, I wonder whether it is possible to distinguish the products of these different activities by the creative process or impulses that produced them. This we cannot know until we have some actual canr'.'d 1 ates. Second, unless the capacity to have these impulses is hardwired into the human brain-a possibility I by no means dismiss-it will again become highly speculative what sort of impulses or processes underlie the work of remote artists and, in general, whether there is a common way of characterizing these impulses. Finally, if one is to permit alternative routes to (or senses of) arthood, I am unclear why one should permit traveling there by means of creative processes but forbid doing so by means of functional success. Levinson's alternative suggestion for recapturing art that is not made with the appropriate backward-looking intentions is that it is possible, though anomalous, for an artworld community to "appropriate" certain objects and "project them" for artistic regard. For this to be done, however, the work must at least (a) be "inordinately valuable" as art, (b) be unsuited to other employment, and (c) be something we could scarcely help taking as art (Levinson 1989, 30). Note that on this suggestion functional success finally has a role to play as a necessary condition for the bestowal of arthood on an object by means of its appropriation and projection by an artworld community. That is the claim made by condition a. I am not sure that the other two conditions add very much to (a). It seems to me that (b) should be dropped because any 9. These were presented in a reply (Levinson 1990b) to a piece by Kolack (1990).Kolack's example is Franz Kafka, who, he claims, did not intend his writings for appropriate regard, because he requested that they be destroyed. I agree with Levinson that, in this particular case, it is plausible to suppose that there were the relevant intentions.

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object is likely to be suited (i.e., able) to fulfill many different functions. And (c) could be taken as a stylistic variant of (a),that is, we could scarcely help taking the item as art because of its functional excellence or inordinate artistic value. Or, the idea could be that the item is in a central art form, in which case (c) and (a) would differ. The question that comes to my mind is, given that an object is intentionally made (is an artifact), has inordinate artistic value, and (possibly) is in a central art form, why is that not sufficient for it to be art? Why would appropriation and projection by an artworld community also be necessary? The best answer I can think of is that, absent the appropriate backwardlooking intentions of its maker, the object would not possess the artistic value in question (or be in a central art form, if it is in one) without the appropriation and projection. Though this is the best answer I can think of, I am inclined to think it unsatisfactory because it faces the following dilemma. The dilemma arises from the question why the artworld community appropriates the object and projects it for artistic regard. On the one hand, it may do so because it perceives as already there in the object potential inordinate artistic value that only needs appropriation and projection to bring out. For example, the community may perceive in a pot a beautiful form that only needs appropriation and the projection of a regard for this form as other unquestioned artworks are regarded for this formal beauty to become an actual artistic value. The trouble with saying this is that the distinction needed here between actual and potential artistic value is not obviously a real distinction. Why is the artworld community not merely bringing attention to, rather than creating, the relevant artistic value? On the other hand, one might say that, by projecting the object for regard, by treating it as art of a certain type, the community actually adds functional properties to this object, properties of a formal, expressive, or representational nature. The trouble with saying this is that it undoes the strong constraints Levinson wishes to place on this variety of art making. For the community now has the power to take any object and, by projecting it as a certain type of art, bestow on it inordinate aesthetic value. That is what many artists attempt to do today. The community is now simply acting as a communal artist. In addition, this line of thought may undermine a distinction Levinson both needs and rightly insists upon: namely, that between regarding something as art and regarding something as if it is art. Is there a clear difference between a community's saying, "From now on, regard this as a certain type of art," and its saying, "From now on, regard this as if it were a certain type of art"?

Historical Definitions There is a different answer that could be given to my original question, why is appropriation and projection needed, over and above functional success, for an object to be art? The answer is that it gives the object a necessary social status: namely, art status. This, of course, is the answer of the institutionalist. To accept it, Levinson would have to acknowledge, in addition to a functional-success requirement embodied in condition a above, an institutional requirement on this type of art making. The question would obviously arise why this institutional requirement would not hold across the board. I take it Levinson would not embrace this answer. To sum up, Levinson does seem to acknowledge the possibility of art being made without the intentions his definition requires. He proposes two ways of accounting for such art: a creative-process "sense" of "art" and an appropriationlprojection account. Both accounts raise problems. The latter has a functional-success condition. Neither account is clearly superior to saying that for such an item to be art, it is sufficient that it be an artifact that fulfills with excellence an appropriate function of art. Let me conclude the discussion of the intentional-historical definition of art by attempting to state a version of the definition that results from the various qualifications and additions made in the face of objections, and then briefly commenting on the plausibility of the result. The definition looks something like this:

0 is an artwork if and only if (i) 0 is a thing that has been seriously intended for regard-as-a-work-of-art, that is, 0 has been intended for a relatively complete set of regards intrinsically characterized that match up with ways earlier artworks were or are correctly regarded, or 0 has been relationally intended for regard as some particular past artwork is or was correctly regarded and, in the case of such relational intending, 0 also is correctly so regarded, and (possibly) the maker of 0 has a proprietary right over 0; OR (ii) 0 is first art, that is, O is an ultimate causal source and intentional reference of later activities that are paradigmatically art, or 0 is aimed at many of the same effects and values of later paradigmatic art; OR (iii) 0 arises from artistic processes or impulses within the mind of 0's creator; OR (iv) 0 is appropriated and projected by an artworld community for artistic regard under conditions a, 6, and c, as cited above. I think one can see that the elegant definition first proposed has gradually taken on a much more Gothic appearance. This, in itself, may put some off,

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but those who recall the Introduction will understand that it only encourages me to believe there is something right here. Inelegant complexity is not, of course, a standard of correctness all by itself, but, in my view, it never hurts when it comes to philosophical definitions. I think the definition can be improved, and even simplified, by recognizing a functional aspect to our concept of art, something the definition just begins to do in any case with condition iv. However, given a greater recognition of this aspect, conditions ii-iv could be eliminated in favor of a single functionalist sufficient condition along the lines suggested by the second disjunct of the historical-functional definition proposed in Chapter 3. Having said that, let me conclude by saying that, were I convinced that functionalism is unworkable, something along intentional-historical lines would be my own default position.

James Carney proposes an alternative historical approach to defining art. The crucial notion that replaces intending something for regard in Carney's definition is the notion of an (art) style feature. Putting matters at their simplest, on this view

0 is an artwork if and only if either (i) 0 is an artifact that is historically connected, along one or more specific dimensions, to general style features of previous artworks, OR (ii) 0 is first art.'' For Carney, style features are characteristic features of artworks that constitute the means by which they represent, express, or exemplify, that is, the means by which they bear artistic content and aesthetic features. In the 10. Carney seems not to have settled on a single preferred formulation of his definition. Other versions include the following: An object is an artwork if and only if (a) "[ilt can be linked by those suitably informed, along one or more various, specific dimensions, to a past or present general style exhibited by prior artworks" (1991b) or (6) "it bears the right stylistic relation to earlier artworks, i.e., the object is a repetition, amplification, repudiation, and so on of earlier artworks" (n.d.). Notice that the style connection cited in (a) is episternically defined. Sometimes, however, Carney thinks of the connection as causal. The character of the connection referred to in (6) and in the definition stated in the text is neutral between these readings. Notice also that sometimes Carney requires that styles be connected; elsewhere the connection is set out in terms of style features.

Historical Definitions visual arts (from which Carney takes most of his examples), such means would consist, for example, in the characteristic use of color, of structure and form, of brushstroke technique, of symbols, of recurrent themes, of a favored subject matter, of borrowings or other relations to earlier styles, of influence or other relations to later styles. A work may be historically connected to style features of earlier work in an open-ended variety of ways that includes being a repetition, copy, amplification, elaboration, extension, reanimation, expansion, distillation, reinterpretation, distortion, subversion, or repudiation of those style features. Style features get collected together to characterize the work of an individual artist (individual style) or a group of artists (general style). An additional constraint on something being a style feature is that it be explanatorily useful in distinguishing between styles and in identifying characteristic artistic content within a style. Thus, being made in the medium of paint would probably not be a style feature, because, given the fact that so many styles share this feature in common, it would have little explanatory power. However, to a lesser degree than being made with paint, many style features will be shared in common by distinct (art) styles. This is to be expected. It is presumably the fact that a style feature can be detached from one individual or general style and incorporated into another that permits the linkages by which Carney hopes to define art. However, this also raises a problem for the style-historical approach. The problem raises doubts about the sufficiency of the definition. If art style features are detachable from a given style, then it is not clear why nonartworks cannot incorporate art style features. When this happens, Carney's definition implies that these objects are artworks, whereas, by hypothesis, they are not. There are many different kinds of examples of nonartworks bearing (art) style features. There are mechanical copies of paintings. There are forgeries. There is the incorporation of actual artworks or style features of artworks in advertising. There is a similar incorporation in all sorts of commercial products from furniture to appliances to wallpaper. There is the adaptation of art style features to styles of self-presentation or personal behavior. There is the derivative use of architectural styles in mass-produced buildings. Finally, failed attempts at art making do not necessarily lack style features (in fact, they may necessarily have them), but by definition they are not artworks. For example, it is not clear how a failed readymade, like the Woolworth-Building-designated-as-a-ready differs in style from any other readymade. Carney (1991b, n.d.) suggests several ways of dealing with this problem.

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One way is deny that the purported counterexamples are cases of nonart. This may work in a few of the cases cited above, for example, some instances of commercial art. It is implausible for most of the examples: the massproduced buildings, one's styles of self-presentation, wallpaper, and so forth. A second strategy is to distinguish art proper from "dependent art (mass culture)." The problem here is how this is a strategy to save a style theory, for the distinction here is not being drawn in terms of historical connections between style features. It is not being denied that the "dependent art" has those features. It is being drawn in some other way, such as in terms of the functions those features are serving (functionalism), the audience they are aimed at (institutionalism-cum-intentionalism), the intention with which they are used (intentionalism simpliciter). A third strategy is to claim that borrowings may be too "thin" to constitute the sharing of style features. Thus a Sunlight detergent ad, in using Benday dots, borrows something from Lichtenstein's paintings but not enough to constitute a reiteration of Lichtenstein's style. There are three problems here. One is that, while this may eliminate some counterexamples, it does not eliminate many others. Mechanical reproductions, mass-produced buildings, and forgeries may reiterate style features hook, line and sinker. Second, reiteration is by no means the only way a style feature can historically connect artworks. Consider the adaptation of a style. If one's style of verbal self-presentation is adapted from the style of one's favorite novelists, that may be as creative and rich an adaptation as that by another author in writing novels. The difference is not between thinner and thicker instantiations of style features but simply that the latter is an intra-artworld adaptation and the former is not. A third problem concerns the extent of stylefeature connectedness needed to distinguish art from nonart. The Sunlight detergent ad did appropriate some style features of Lichtenstein's paintings. It did not appropriate Lichtenstein's individual style. However, stylistic borrowings among artists are also commonly borrowings of style features, not of complete individual styles. So again drawing lines looks difficult. Carney's last strategy is to distinguish having a style from exhibiting one. Artworks exhibit styles, nonartworks merely have them. What is the difference? "The basis cannot rest on the features. . . A condition for the successful exhibiting of features, in contrast to merely having one, is presenting aesthetic features [as] things worthy of aesthetic appreciation in and of themselves" (Carney, n.d.). Again, there are problems with this reply. First, it straightforwardly acknowledges that the style-historical definition does not supply a sufficient condition for arthood. A further condition is

.

Historical Definitions needed concerning the way the style features function or are intended to function, namely, as means of presenting aesthetic features that are worthy of attention for their own sake. Second, even with this addition, the definition does not supply a sufficient condition for arthood. Photographic reproductions of paintings are made, commonly, so that the aesthetic features of the reproductions (features that they share with the paintings) can be appreciated in and of themselves. I do not think it should be surprising that style connectedness (to invent a name for the relation Carney has in mind) fails to provide a sufficient condition for being art, especially if style is understood as the vehicle for conveying artistic content and aesthetic features. One of the reasons art is valuable is that we can take something from it to enhance the world of "real things" with aesthetic features that the world otherwise would not have. We also take away from art, as Nelson Goodman emphasizes, new ways of thinking and expressing ourselves. Given that this is one of the functions of art, "leakage" of style features from art to nonart should be expected. Let me now turn to another problem, distinct from but not unrelated to the one just discussed. This problem is a bit hard to define because it crops up in a number of distinct contexts. The best place to begin is the way Carney proposes to deal with first art. As with all historical theories, first art poses a problem for the style-historical approach: it is not art for the same reason other, subsequent items are, but at the same time historical theories seem to need first art. They do so because, without first art, there is no explanation why "second" art is art, and without that, there is no explanation why "third" art is art and so on. Without first art the historical process cannot get going. Carney cannot deal with first art in the way a functionalist would or in terms of the intentions with which such works are (or seem to be) made, without compromising the historical but nonintentional character of his approach. He proposes (Carney 1994) dealing with the problem by adapting a suggestion of Davies discussed in Chapter 4. The suggestion is that at the time of creation the items in question are not art. They become art retroactively when they are linked to art styles to which they are causally and culturally related. The problem with saying this is that it does not permit first art to fulfill the function for which it is needed on a historical definition: the function of providing initial artworks to which later ones can be appropriately related. Suppose, for example, first art precedes Paleolithic cave painting, and

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suppose that the latter is causally related to the former. Does that give us any reason to suppose that the cave painting is art on the style-historical view. No, because it is not so far related to an earlier art style. So-called first art does not get a style until it is retroactively made art (say in the twentieth century). Before that it is an "object-unstyled" (Carney 1994, 120). Carney also uses "retroactivity" to solve problems that arise in some other contexts. One is the problem of "radical repudiation," by which a new kind of art takes nothing from previous art styles. Though Carney sometimes suggests that repudiation is itself a way of being related to previous art styles, he is willing to entertain the idea of such a new, completely unconnected kind of art, and even suggests that the original readymades might be examples of such art. The way he proposes dealing with such cases is to say they acquire a style and become art at a later date when they can be causally and culturally linked to a subsequent art style. In the case of readymades, the link is to conceptual art. For the readymades, at least, this suggestion is extremely implausible. Since style is the vehicle of other artistic features, it implies that readymades simply had no artistic features until fifty or sixty years after they came into existence. This is dubious on two counts. It makes inexplicable the fact that Duchamp and others had a good deal to say about the artistic (and antiartistic) character of readymades long before the existence of conceptual art. It also makes inexplicable how readymades could get causally and culturally linked to later art if they lacked artistic features. Finally, there is Mid-life art. Mid-life artworks are objects that are made in one or another art form, or make use of art forms in their making, but are not recognized as art-indeed, for Carney, are not art-at their inception. They become artworks by being adopted into historical practices at some later date and thereby are given a niche in the history of art. Examples of Mid-life art are some Los Angeles billboards, graffiti art, and (less plausibly to my mind) folk art. Again, there is an implausibility in this treatment of Mid-life art. The implausibility is in supposing that these objects have no style features (related to earlier styles) at their creation. The very fact that these objects are or make use of art forms gives the lie to this claim. This suffices, on the style-historical view, to make these objects artworks at the time they are made. What is true is that some among the style features of these works cannot be identified or cannot be seen to be significant until connections with later artworks are established.

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I have been arguing that, for various reasons, it is unsatisfactory to account for first art, the art of radical repudiation, and Mid-life art by means of the strategy of retroactivity. This criticism is most serious in the case of first art because a historical definition must find a satisfactory account of first art if it is to get off the ground. I do not, however, think this poses an insuperable problem for the style-historical theory. There is an alternative, unified way of handling these cases that avoids the problems raised by retroaction. The alternative strategy is to say that in all these cases the objects in question are artworks, and have styles, at the time they are made. In the case of Mid-life art and the art of radical repudiation many of the style features of these works cannot be recognized or seen as significant until they are linked to later works. But they have all these features from their inception. In the case of first art, none of its style features can be identified, or seen as significant qua style features, until linked to later artworks. However, first art too is art at its inception and has all its style features at that time. This proposal does require a modification in the style-historical definition of art because not all artworks will be linked to earlier styles. In particular, first art will only be linked to later styles. However, it is to be expected that first art will require a different handling than other artworks on a historical approach. The great advantage this proposal has is that it explains why the relevant objects are not artistically and aesthetically "blank" before they are linked to later styles and, hence, also explains why they can have the historical and cultural causal influence ascribed to them. This is what the retroactivity strategy cannot explain. It is worth noting that Carney (1994, 120) supplies just the principle to implement the suggestion I am making: "If there is a historical and cultural causal link between an earlier style S1 and a later style S2, then the style feature[s] of S1 can be, in part, explained in terms of the style features of S2." Notice that while this principle is applicable according to the suggestion I have just made, it is not applicable if the retroactivity strategy is accepted. For in that case, there is no earlier S1, since the works in question have no style at all until the link with later artworks is made. There is one final objection to the style-historical theory that I wish briefly to consider. This is the charge that the theory is circular. The problem is not that "artwork at time t" is defined in terms of "artwork prior to t," because it should by now be familiar that this creates only an apparent circularity. The problem is that the notion of an (art) style feature presupposes the notion of an artwork in an ineliminable way. We can only identify something

DEFINITIONS

as an art style feature if it is already established that it is a feature of an artwork.'' This objection can also be met. As we noted above, many nonartworks can have art style features, and it should even be expected that this will happen. If this is correct, having an art style feature does not presuppose being an artwork. Hence, there is no circularity in defining artworks in terms of art style features. However, the circularity objection does suggest a dilemma for the style-historical approach, and noting that dilemma will be a good way to conclude the discussion of this theory. Call the initial problem I posed for this definition the leakage problem because it claims that art style features regularly "leak" into nonart. Circularity is avoided precisely because leakage exists. The only plausible way to escape the leakage problem is to define it away, as Carney attempts to do in the fourth strategy cited above. There he distinguishes between having and exhibiting an art style feature and stipulates that only artworks exhibit art style features. Such a stipulation escapes the leakage problem only by falling prey to the circularity problem. For now exhibiting an art style feature does presuppose being an artwork, and we cannot establish that something exhibits an art style feature until we establish that it is an artwork. Either way, I believe there is a fatal flaw in the style-historical approach.

I now briefly situate a proposal of Noel Carroll's (1988,1993a, 1994)within the debate about the nature of art that has been the concern of Part I in general and particularly of the last three chapters. Carroll points out that the question, what is art? can be understood in a variety of ways. One understanding-the one that is dominant both in this book and, as Carroll points out, in recent philosophy of art-takes the question as a request for a real definition in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions of arthood. (Carroll takes a real definition as giving necessary conditions that are jointly sufficient. On this specification, not all the definitions I have considered, including my own historical functionalism, are real definitions.) A second understanding is to take the question as asking 11. This objection has been pressed by Levinson (1993a, 420-21).

Historical Definitions whether art has an essence-that is, whether there are necessary features of art that illuminate art practices. A final understanding is to take the question as asking, how do we identify, recognize, or establish something to be a work of art? We can take this understanding as asking for a sufficient condition of arthood that can serve as a criterion to enable us to find out whether an item is an artwork. Carroll is concerned with the last understanding of the question, what is art? In focusing on this understanding rather than the first or the second, I believe he is motivated by three considerations. First, the desire for a procedure for identifying an item as art has become increasingly pressing in "the age of the avant-garde," the period of the past one hundred years, which "has consistently and intentionally produced objects and performances that challenge settled conceptions about what one is likely to encounter on a visit to a gallery, a theater, or a concert hall" (Carroll 1994, 5 ) . Second, Carroll thinks that it is this pressing need for an identification procedure that has motivated many of the proposed real definitions of the present century, from Bell and Collingwood to Dickie and ~ i f f e ~That . ' ~ is, the response to the need was something (a) more than was required by the need but (b) less serviceable in satisfying the need than a straightforward identification procedure because real definitions are not easily used as practical tests. Third, Carroll holds a modest skepticism about the likelihood of discovering either a satisfactory real definition or essential properties shared by all artworks. This skepticism is modest in the sense that he does not rule out the possibility of finding such a definition or such properties as did the antiessentialists of the 1950s. The history of past failure, rather, encourages him to look for a task more likely to succeed. Before turning to Carroll's identification procedure let me register two qualms that are themselves quite modest. First, it would be an overstatement to claim that the only motivation for seeking real definitions in this century is the uncertainty generated by avant-garde art. In Chapter 1, I tried to set out a more capacious set of motivations. This qualm is modest because I do not say that Carroll does claim that this uncertainty is the only motivation. I only claim that his emphasis on the avant-garde might mislead others into so believing. Second, I have the sense that the felt need to distinguish real art 12. Carroll is ambivalent about Bell and Collingwood. Sometimes he suggests they offer a real definition in response to the problem created by avant-garde art. Elsewhere he suggests they do not offer a real definition at all but are looking for necessary features of artworks that illuminate art practices.

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from counterfeit, or the puzzlement whether the latest avant-garde experiment is art, is on the wane. One hundred years of sensibility shaking of the common art lover in the BMW325i has finally brought that individual close to a state of general acceptance of the artworld's offerings, if not always to a state of enthusiastic appreciation. This qualm is also modest because (a)it does not apply to much of the period Carroll is speaking of and ( b ) ,given my own functionalist leanings, I think that at least initial puzzlement and suspicion may be healthier attitudes toward the contemporary artworld than bland general acceptance. Carroll's proposal is that we can identify items as art by supplying a narrative that explains how those works came to be made. In particular, "an adequate identifying narrative establishes that a work in question emerged in a recognizable way from an acknowledged artworld context through an intelligible process of assessment, resolution and action" (Carroll 1994,27). I find this proposal reasonable, though clearly in need of refinements to distinguish, for example, those responses to artworld problems that result in works of art from those that result in other things: acts of criticism, catalogues of art exhibits, all sorts of personal actions and reactions. Carroll has in fact been working on such refinements (see, e.g., Carroll 1994, 29-31). The important insight here is that, in resolving hard cases, what is needed is reasons rather than reference to authority. These reasons typically consist in showing that works are made with aims that connect them with artworld practices, tackle problems that arise in an artworld context, have functions important within those practices. The main point I want to make about Carroll's procedure is that, if it is offered in hope of bypassing the need for a real definition of art, that hope will not be realized. To answer the crucial question, when is an identifying narrative successful? One needs a theory of what art is. Supplying such a theory will amount to supplying a real definition or at least a part of one that specifies a sufficient condition for narrative success. To see this, consider someone uncertain of the arthood of some recent offering, say a Chris Burden canine assassination. It would be easy to produce a narrative that makes Burden's assessments, resolutions, and choices intelligible in his art-historical context. However, does making these things intelligible automatically convince the skeptic that the piece in question is art. In my experience, no. The skeptic can say, "I can see why Burden did those things, what he was reacting to, what his point was. I just don't think doing those things is creating art." To settle this, one needs a theory of what art is. I believe that implicit in Carroll's view is a partial theory, one I agree with.

Historical Definitions It is that certain contextually situated aims, certain art-regarding intentions, suffice to make something art. That is continuous with views both Levinson and I hold. Since Carroll (1988) has indicated that he would give a functional account of remote art, I suspect historical functionalism is the theory that best fits his identification procedure. That, however, is for Carroll to determine.

Before concluding, we should consider a final objection to historical definitions that also raises questions about the adequacy of Carroll's identification procedure. The objection has been presented in different forms by Gregory Currie and Stephen Davies. Currie asks us to imagine that we discover a lost Martian civilization in which there are "artifacts like some of the radically innovative works of our present century." These objects were thought about and used in much the same way we think about and use our art. Hence, "they ought to count as art7' (Currie 1993a, 116). However, these objects predate modern art; in fact, we can suppose (which is more than Currie asks us to do) that they predate human art. Hence they do not stand in either the appropriate stylistic or intentional relations to (our) previous artworks (or ur-artworks). Hence the historical approach appears to give the wrong answer about the Martian artifacts. There are a number of responses that a proponent of historical definitions can make to this objection (some of which Currie considers). One response is to say that, although the Martian artifacts do not stand in an appropriate relation to previous human artworks (there being none), they do stand in certain relations to future human artifacts similar to (despite their much greater sophistication) the relations in which human first art stands to later art. Given this, historicists can adopt the strategies they used with regard to first art to deal with Martian art-these being somewhat different for Carney and Levinson. (Carney would rely on retroaction, and Levinson would hypothesize Martian intentions similar to our art-making ones). These responses may not be completely satisfactory, but no really new problem would be raised. Currie complains that this solution would render the Martians unable to know that their artifacts were art, and this would give them much to complain of. But why should they complain that they cannot apply our

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concept of art to their art. They would no more be able to do this than would ancient Egyptians or Greeks be able to apply our concept to their art. The Martians will have their own concepts (possibly very similar to ours), which will serve them very well, thank you. Against this response to Currie's complaint, it might be replied that the issue is whether the Martians possess not only art but the same concept of art as we possess. If it is to be supposed that they might possess the same concept of art as we do, the proponent of a historical definition would suggest that they must think of currently created artifacts as standing in a historical relation to prior artifacts. This suggests a different response that one can make to Currie's problem. One can say that although the Martian "modern" art does not stand in an appropriate relation to previous human art, it does stand in such a relation to previous Martian art. After all, there is not just one artistic tradition even among humans, and hence there is no reason to think there is a common set of ur-artworks from which all later art derives. So Martian "modern" art is art in virtue of its relation to previous Martian art, and ultimately to Martian ur-art. This response, though reasonable, does raise a new problem, which is precisely the point of Davies's version of the objection. Davies begins with the point just made: that artworks arise within many different traditions that may well have had independent origins. Davies admits that historical definitions explain how something is an artwork by relating it to a given tradition. However, he claims that such definitions will be incomplete "until a basis is provided for distinguishing art traditions from other historically continuous cultural processes or practices" (Davies forthcoming). (This claim could also be raised regarding Carroll's identification procedure.) If there are (or might be) different art traditions, and if something is an artwork only in relation to some of these (rather than any or all), then the explanation of why something is an artwork, according to Davies, will not be complete without some account of what makes something an art tradition. Does the historical approach have the resources to accomplish this? Levinson might appeal to common intentions across traditions, but, as argued above, the supposition of common intentions would find their basis in what is already sufficient to do the job-art functions common across traditions-or would find no basis at all. (Carroll appears willing to appeal to such functions.) It is worth adding that this problem also applies to the institutional approach. It too is incomplete until it explains why the different art institutions that exist in different traditions are art institutions. This it cannot do by pointing

Historical Definitions out that they are artifact presentation systems or that they contain certain patterns of authority. Nonart institutions contain these things too. Again, appeal to art functions seems to be the most likely answer. An institutionalist might claim that different art traditions serve similar functions at their inception and for some time afterward, while insisting that the institutional structures are likely to come increasingly into prominence as artworks appear that fail to fulfill traditional functions. Even if institutionalists can take this line, it commits them to a functionalist sufficient condition for being an artwork, just as the intentional-historicist turns out to be. Though I have offered a number of criticisms of historical definitions of art in this chapter, I have also expressed a sense of affinity with parts of those definitions as well as with Carroll's identification procedure. Perhaps the most important thing to emerge from the discussion of these theories as well as the historical functionalism offered in Chapter 3 is a real alternative both to the institutional approach to defining art and to simple functionalism. Art is not a status bestowed by an authority. It is also not the pursuit of a single, unique function or value, or even a small set of values. It is, rather, as Carroll suggests, a set of evolving practices defined by an evolving set of aims (intentional-historicism), the evolving means for realizing those aims (stylehistoricism), and the successful realization of those aims (historical functionalism). The synthetic conception of the alternative stated in the previous sentence is not meant to present the ultimately correct definition of art, in which differences between former rivals are finally resolved. Rather, it presents the most promising material from which that definition might emerge, if it has not already. However, the final objection just considered, as well as others discussed in this chapter, suggests that it will not emerge unless artistic functions are given their due.

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Unlike the issue of defining art, about which there is one basic questionnamely, what is art?-the issue of interpreting art raises a confusing multiplicity of crisscrossing questions. Hence, this overview is provided to give the reader a guide to the problems about interpretation that need solving and the way they get taken up and resolved in the chapters that follow. There is one question that can be given a quick answer and that concerns the way in which "interpretation" is used in the following pages. It is confined to critical interpretations of artworks, leaving to one side interpretations that are given in performances of artworks. It is the name I give to any kind of assignment of meaning or significance to artworks.' (There may 1. Even the most permissive view about the scope of "interpretation" requires some qualification of the claims made in this paragraph. Thus, typically the assignment of lexical meaning to the words of a literary work is not part of the (literary) interpretation of it. The same goes for the assignment of literal sentence meaning. Even here there are exceptions, especially when there is uncertainty about the correct assignment of lexical or sentence meaning, or when the choice of assignment significantly affects the overall meaning of a work. If we were to seek a narrower notion of "interpretation," we would have to deal somehow with the fact that we are guided by two potentially conflicting criteria. We tend to speak of interpretation where the claims being made are uncertain. However, we also do so with claims that speak to the overall meaning, point, or significance of a work (or passage).

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be other things that get done in giving critical interpretation, but the main concern here is with such assignments.) This includes assignments of a paradigmatically "interpretive" nature, such as those regarding King Lear's state of mind at various points in Shakespeare's play or the significance of the background in the Mona Lisa. It also, however, includes seemingly obvious, "descriptive" assignments such as that Lear is a man or that the Mona Lisa represents a woman. Some prefer to use "interpretation" with a narrower scope, allowing that only certain assignments of meaning to artworks are interpretations. I have sympathy for such an approach, but do not adopt it for a couple of reasons. First, "descriptive" assignments sometimes unpredictably turn into "interpretive" claims (as in recent suggestions that the Mona Lisa is really a self-portrait and that the figure represented in the painting has many masculine characteristics). Second, the wide-scope notion of interpretation seems to me to be getting more and more firmly established both among critics of the arts (including literature) and among the general public. I think it futile to argue over the boundaries of interpretation between meaninglsignificance assignments. It is more productive to accept this tendency and to distinguish between kinds of interpretations. Such distinctions will be drawn in Chapters 7, 8, and 9. We have gotten into the habit of looking for many meanings in individual works of art, among other places. This habit gives rise to a number of problems about the various relations among different interpretations of the same work, and about the strategies, or critical theories, that generate these interpretations. Are different interpretations of the same work simply smaller parts of one large interpretation, so that in principle, if not in practice, we can assign to each work one interpretation? Or are some interpretations of a given work irreducibly "noncombinable"? The first alternative is associated with a view called critical monism, the second with critical pluralism. If we are to make progress with these questions, we need some further distinctions. First, there are a whole class of interpretations-unacceptable ones-that we do not have to worry about, because, being in some way defective, no one expects them to cohere or combine with their acceptable cousins. Hence, the questions of the previous paragraph really concern acceptable interpretations and not interpretations per se. Next, we should ask whether an interpretation is always either true or false, and whether acceptable interpretations are always true. My answer is that some interpretations have truth values, while others do not, and among acceptable interpretations, only some are true. (The reader will find an attempt to justify this classification in Chapter 8.)

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One explanation, which has lately achieved some popularity, why acceptable interpretations of a given work do not combine into a single, comprehensive interpretation is that it is not uncommon for them to be strictly incompatible. It is with the question, are there incompatible acceptable interpretations of the same artwork? that in Chapter 7 I begin my investigation of interpretation of the arts. I argue that acceptable interpretations may turn out to be incompatible only in two cases: where they are epistemically equally acceptable, that is, equally well justified, and we are unable to determine which is true; or where at least one of a pair of acceptable interpretations lacks truth value. Elsewhere, either the appearance of incompatibility or the appearance of mutual acceptability is an illusion. Having mapped the extent to which incompatibility among interpretations of a work can account for plurality among its acceptable interpretations, I turn in Chapter 8 to the bearing of this on critical monism and critical pluralism. It argues that these views, which at first appear to be completely at odds, are actually mutually compatible and that both are true. What monists correctly see is that, like all truths, interpretive truth is additive, that one true interpretive statement can always be conjoined with or disjoined from another to add to the fabric of interpretive truths about a work. What pluralists correctly see is that not all acceptable interpretations aim at being part of the fabric of interpretive truths and that, even among true interpretations, natural divisions arise according to the aim and point of view with which they are made. This endorsement of critical pluralism should not be construed as a belated admission of the existence of more incompatible acceptable interpretations than is countenanced in Chapter 7. Noncombinability should not be confused with, and usually results from something other than, incompatibility. However, this resolution of the debate between monists and pluralists raises as many questions as it answers. What makes an interpretation acceptable? Do acceptable interpretations need to recover the artist's intention? May they? Do they need to situate the work in its historical context? Do they need to identify (part of) the meaning of a work? Is there even such a thing as the meaning of a work, and, if so, in what does it consist? Does the acceptability of an interpretation vary with the interpreter's aims, point of view, and the norms of the interpretive community? My most sustained attempt to answer these questions is found in Chapters 8 and 9. A central theme of Chapter 8 is that acceptability varies with the aim of the interpreter and that there are many legitimate aims with which we interpret. For this reason, the answer to all the above questions that ask if an

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acceptable interpretation needs to do such and such is no. Recovering the artist's intention is one aim that can generate acceptable interpretations, but others include maximizing aesthetic enjoyment, making a work relevant to a new audience, attempting to see the work through the eyes of its original or an ideal audience. Some of these aims require the making of truth claims, and evaluating such interpretations for acceptability involves determining the correctness of these claims. With other aims, dispensing with statement making is to some extent possible, and hence the acceptability of such interpretations turns much less on their truth. Chapter 9 focuses on the notion of the meaning of an artwork. With admitted reluctance and explicit qualification, it tries to defend the idea that there is such a thing as the meaning of an artwork. I argue that meaning should be identified with what the artist does in the work in virtue of his or her intentions and historical context, but continue to take pains to remind the reader that identifying this meaning does not exhaust the acceptable interpretations of a work. A word about my terminology in discussing the meaning of artworks may avoid confusion later. My most general term for this is work meaning. In Chapter 9, I argue that work meaning-what an artist does in a work in virtue of his or her intentions and historical context-is the utterance meaning of the work. Chapter 8 follows several other writers (Levinson 1992a; Tolhurst 1979) in contrasting utterance meaning with utterer's meaning, or intended meaning. However, it is part of the argument of Chapter 9 that this contrast needs to be softened because, on the view presented here, unlike those just cited, utterance meaning is to be characterized in part in terms of utterer's meaning. Chapter 10 critically examines some of the most promising (to my mind) alternative accounts of work meaning, and Chapter 11 spells out and critiques some approaches to interpretation that attempt to dispense with the notion of the meaning of a work. Finally, in addition to the questions dealt with in the chapters that follow, some of the main alternatives to the view presented here should be mentioned. With so many questions clamoring for answers, the possibilities of classification are almost endless. However, first and foremost, I like to contrast my view with three others. Proponents of these views I call relativists, antidescriptivists, and maximizers. Relativists typically admit that it is right to speak of interpretations as truth valued or, at least, having truthlike values. They differ from me in claiming, for one reason or another, that many true interpretations of a single work are essentially "nonconverg-

Overview ing," hence not part of a single web of truths about a work. They also differ from me in denying that a subset of true interpretations identify the meaning of a work tout court. Antidescriptivists deny that interpretations are ever truth-valued. Hence the fact that an interpretation is acceptable has nothing to do with its being true (since it never is). The incompatibility of acceptable interpretations of the same work is a nonissue for antidescriptivists. The idea that there is such a thing as the meaning of a work also is a nonstarter in this framework. Maximizers, in theory, come in two varieties: value maximizers and intelligibility maximizers. Value maximizers believe the point of interpreting works of art is to maximize the appreciation of them. Intelligibility maximizers claim that the point is to maximize the intelligibility of the work. Actual theorists in the maximizing vein present a mixed view but commonly emphasize one of its two poles. The way I differ from maximizers is simple; what they regard as the point of interpretation I regard as one among the many aims with which we interpret. There is another more general difference between the three views just discussed and my view. All of them accept a version of pluralism incompatible with monism. Hence, all deny what I would claim is one of the fundamental truths about interpretation: the compatibility of monism and pluralism. All three views receive respectful criticism in the chapters that follow. Chapter 11 is devoted to criticizing some versions of relativism associated with contemporary pragmatism, and one section of Chapter 8 gives a more general critique of relativism. Antidescriptivists receive attention in another section of the same chapter. Some maximizing views receive criticism in Chapter 9. Balance suggests mention of two monist views, incompatible with pluralism, that I would also reject. Call these extreme intentionalism and extreme conventionalism. The former claims that the meaning of a work is identical with the intention with which it was made. The latter claims that some set of conventions uniquely determines the meaning of a work. Both views also assert that a defining feature of interpretation is a claim to identify (part of) the meaning of a work. Extreme intentionalism receives some criticism in Chapter 9; extreme conventionalism is critiqued in Chapter 1 0 . ~ 2. The most likely candidates for proponents of extreme intentionalism are Knapp and Michaels (198Sa). It is worth noting that two other famous intentionalists, E. D. Hirsch and P. D. Juhl, do not hold the extreme view. Rather, they believe that the meaning of a work is a function of both intention and various conventions in place when the work was produced, a view 1 would endorse, though in a version probably different from theirs. Monroe Beardsley is

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One final approach to interpretation should be mentioned because it cuts straight across the views discussed so far. This approach claims that in interpreting works of art we are attempting to identify the "intentions" or other "psychological states," or doings, not of the actual artist, but of an apparent, implied, postulated, or hypothetical artist. Variants of this view can be either pluralist or monist or, like my own view, compatibilist in character. They can permit or prohibit incompatible interpretations of the same work. They can be relativist or nonrelativist, antidescriptivist or descriptivist, maximizing or nonmaximizing, and so forth. Their distinctive feature is the claim that, rather than assert that the actual artist intended or did something (in a work), interpretations assert that a constructed, hypothetical, or apparent "artist" intended or did something in a work. This view has a considerable following. Though I ultimately wish to reject it, I also want to investigate the sources of its attractiveness. It is the primary focus of the alternative accounts of work meaning discussed in Chapter 10. Finally, something should be said to the reader who has noted with puzzlement or annoyance that, while discussing a number of possibly not very well known views about interpretation in this overview, the most influential, and perhaps most controversial, positions have been ignored. Thus I have said nothing about structuralism or semiotics; Marxist, psychoanalytic, or feminist criticism; deconstruction or reader-response theory; and so forth. I, of course, plead guilty, but offer this explanation. I try to understand the interpretation of a work as an assignment of meaning or significance to it with one or another of many possible aims or purposes in mind. The labels just mentioned do not for the most part pick out individual aims or purposes. Hence, there are quite a number of different interpretive projects that would legitimately fall under the label feminist or psychoanalytic criticism (as well as projects that are not interpretive at all). So while I have a niche for many of the interpretive projects that fall under those labels, they do not, it seems to me, provide the most perspicuous categories for my particular theoretical project.

the most likely candidate for a proponent of extreme conventionalism (see, e.g., Beardsley 1982).

Two interpretations of Henry James's famous novella, The Turn of the Screw, have by now become standard. One claims that the story's chief protagonist, the governess, sees, and engages in a struggle with, real ghosts. The other claims that the "ghosts" are a projection of the governess's mind. Many different elaborations and variations on these two interpretive claims have emerged over the years, but most interpretations of the novella can be classified as adhering to one or another of these basic claims. What is noteworthy for the purposes of this chapter is that the claims look incompatible. To say that the governess projects "ghosts" seems to rule out that she sees ghosts and vice versa. Further, some claim that James's work can be as well and as plausibly read in terms of one interpretation as the other. This may tempt one to suppose that there are two incompatible interpretations of The Turn of the Screw, and that both are acceptable or even true. Similarly, Watteau's painting Embarkation on the Isle of Cythera can be seen according to two interpretations. The passengers depicted in the painting are either departing for or departing from the isle. Again, the interpretations seem incompatible, since one appears to rule out the other, yet both might be acceptable.' 1. The possible ambiguity of Watteau's painting is discussed in Graselli 1984. The situation is made more complicated by the fact that there are two versions of the painting (or two

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Ten years ago, philosophers tried to find ways to avoid saying that there are incompatible acceptable, or true, interpretations.2 This is no longer so. Philosophers now seem happy to admit the existence of such things. Here are two quotations that express the current mood: "Incompatible interpretations may be equally acceptable" (Goldman 1990,207). "[Ilt is possible for criticism to legitimately tolerate incompatible (genuinely and not seemingly incompatible) interpretations for a single work" (Barnes 1988, 2). In this chapter, I am concerned with two theses. One is the thesis that there are, or could be, incompatible interpretations of the same work of art, all of which are true. The other is that there are or could be incompatible interpretations of the same work, all of which are acceptable. I argue that we ought flatly to reject the first of these views. About the second, we have to distinguish different assertions that can be made by this claim. Some of these are true but uninteresting. Others are interesting but false.

Before turning to the two theses, I owe the reader a word about when I count interpretations incompatible and when I do not. Let me approach this indirectly by inquiring about the occasions on which an interpretation of a work of art is likely to be sought and the point of seeking it on these occasions. One obvious occasion is when one finds one does not understand a work, and the point of seeking an interpretation is to satisfy the desire to make sense of it.3 I want to suggest two different ways a desire for understanding can be satisfied. One is the way we normally (I suppose) approach products of intentional human action, whether they be utterances or artifacts. We figure out what the actual maker of the thing was (successful in) trying to do in making it. (There is no guarantee that the paintings on the embarkation with the same title). Is one a departure for Cythera, the other a departure from it? 2. These include Monroe Beardsley (1970, 238-61), Susan Feagin (1982), Peter Jones (1975),Joseph Margolis (1980, 107-64), and Robert Mathews (1977). 3. This is oversimplified. Typically, a desire for a better appreciation of the work accompanies the desire for understanding. While it would be wrong to ignore the place the desire for appreciation has in motivating interpretations, I would not go along with the claim that the whole point of interpretation in the arts is to maximize appreciation. It should also be mentioned here that I am not claiming that the only time one is interpreting a work is when one feels one does not understand it.

Incompatible Interpretations attempt was successful, but we initially work on the assumption that it was.) Such interpretations are historical explanations: to put it oversimply, they explain the product in terms of the intentions with which it is made. Such explanations require the making of statements about the maker, the maker's historical context, and, of course, the work. The second way a desire for understanding can be satisfied is to seek an understanding of the work: a way of reading (seeing, hearing) the work that makes sense of its different parts as parts of a whole. One is satisfied if one finds a way to make sense of something that did not before make sense (and, it should probably be added, if one finds that this way heightens aesthetic appreciation). Interpretations that seek to satisfy the desire for understanding in this second way can, but need not, dispense with statement making. They can be expressed as imaginative fictions, as prescriptions, as reports of personal experience. They can also be expressed by making statements, by saying something about the work. One can assert that a work can be taken in a certain way, or, to put it as Stephen Davies ( 1 9 8 8 ~does ) (see below), that a meaning can be put upon a work.4 I argue below that many of the most likely candidates for incompatible acceptable interpretations turn out to be compatible when we carefully attend to what they each are asserting. If one interpretation of King Lear asserts that good sense can be made of King Lear by taking Lear to be senile, it is not incompatible with another interpretation that asserts that good sense can be made of the play by taking Lear to be in full control of his faculties. It may be possible that the play can be made good sense of in both ways, so both interpretations could be true at the very same time. Also compatible with the former interpretation would be one that asserts that the play actually represents Lear as fully in control of his faculties. Again, these interpretations are compatible because they both could be truly asserted together. It can be true that the play does represent Lear in a certain way and that it can be made good sense of by taking Lear to be represented in a different way. A pair of interpretations are compatible if and only if they could be true of the same work at the same time. They are incompatible if and only if they could not be. Ideally, we might hope to have different names for these rather different ways of satisfying the desire for understanding, but the fact is that critical practice of both the formal academic sort and the informal sort of ordinary 4. Why would critics make such weak claims? Precisely because their aim is to find ways of understanding works that heighten appreciation.

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art lovers not only uses the same name for both ways but does not always segregate them even in the same interpretations. Furthermore, artists increasingly invite the conflation by producing artworks intended to invite different understandings.

I am not sure that anyone holds the view that there could be two incompatible interpretations of the same work, both of which are true. Anyone who did claim this would necessarily be mistaken. The reason is completely straightforward. If two interpretations are incompatible, they make mutually contradictory statements. If both interpretations are true, then both the mutually contradictory statements they make are true. That means that a contradiction is true, and contradictions are never true.5 Nevertheless, the claims some people make about interpreting literary works could be taken to assert that both of two incompatible interpretations could be true. Thus Stephen Davies ( 1 9 8 8 ~ claims ) that there are true "contrary interpretations" of the same work. I am not sure what Davies intends by "contrary interpretations," but when we closely examine what he says about interpretation, it fortunately turns out that his view does not imply that there could be true incompatible interpretations. According to Davies (1988c, 295-96), when we interpret a literary work, "we are interested in discovering the meanings that could be put upon [it]. . . . And it can be true that this meaning can be put upon it and true that that meaning can be put upon it, despite the fact that this meaning and that meaning are contradictory or contraries." Davies is right. This is because what each interpretation asserts could be true together, and hence, the interpretations are compatible with each other. To say that a certain meaning can be put upon a sequence of words is quite compatible with the assertion that a 5. There are defenders of true contradictions. The preeminent defense is Priest 1987. Priest's position on contradiction is defended in Parsons 1990. It is beyond the scope of this book to evaluate dialetheism. 1 think what Priest shows is that it is harder than had been supposed to demonstrate, to the satisfaction of those who doubt, that there are no true contradictions. I do not think he gives a single good reason to believe that there are true contradictions. So I think it is still safe to accept the standard view that there are no true contradictions. In any case, when philosophers of literature or of art argue that there are incompatible acceptable interpretations, they typically do not rest their case on the merits of dialethic logic.

Incompatible Interpretations contrary meaning can also be put upon it. "You'll be lucky if you can get Sue to work for YOU'' (borrowed from a student's essay) could have put upon it the meaning "You will be lucky if you can hire Sue" (since she is an excellent worker much in demand) and the meaning "You will be lucky if you can get any work at all out of Sue" (since she is incredibly lazy). The two interpretations are compatible, since what one asserts is that this meaning can be put upon the sequence, while the other asserts that that meaning can be put upon it. There is no problem in asserting the conjunction of the two interpretations: that this meaning and that meaning can be put upon the sequence. If there is a complaint about Davies paper, it is not about his view that there are true contrary (and contradictory) interpretations, but about the way he chooses to express it; in speaking this way he is misleading, since the interpretations he has in mind are not literally contrary or contradictory any more than they are literally incompatible. (One could also complain about Davies's conception of what one does when one interprets a work of art, but that is not at issue here.)

We can rule out the possibility of genuinely incompatible true interpretations. The view has exactly the same plausibility as the view that there are true contradictions. There is no similar easy way of dealing with the view that there are incompatible acceptable interpretations (IAIs) of literary works. The reason is that, in asserting this, no logical principle is violated. The view that there are IAIs is a coherent possibility. Nevertheless, some attempts to show that there are IAIs are nonstarters for logical reasons. An example is Pettersson 1986. Pettersson claims at the beginning of his paper that he will show that there are IAIs of literary works. But he soon eliminates the possibility of doing this by claiming that interpretations of literature lack truth value; they can be evaluated as plausible or implausible but not as true or false. There are two problems here for the claim that there are IAIs. First and most straightforwardly, there is no incompatibility in asserting that p and not-p are both plausible interpretations of a given work (as Margolis, the originator of the view Pettersson is relying on, recognized). Second, to have interestingly incompatible interpretations, we need inter-

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pretations with truth values. The point here is both subtler and more complex than the previous point. Statements lacking truth values may be, strictly speaking, incompatible. (They may, just in case they could have had truth values.) Thus, accept for the sake of example a Strawsonian analysis of "The king of France is bald." On this analysis, the sentence has a false presupposition (viz., that there is someone who is the present king of France), and for this reason, the statements made by this sentence and its negation have no truth value. Nevertheless, it remains true that the two statements could not be true together, and so are, strictly speaking, incompatible. However, no one who understands that these statements lack truth value is going to be interested in asserting them. If interpretive statements are as a class neither true nor false, no one who understands the nature of this class of statements is going to be interested in asserting them. (They may be interested in asserting something else, for example, that two such incompatible interpretations are each plausible, rewarding to contemplate, or lend coherence to a work.) Now, the existence of incompatible statements (interpretations) is something we should accept. Furthermore, we can easily agree that it can be rewarding to contemplate incompatible statements. If "acceptable" means "rewarding to contemplate," there are certainly IAIs. That, however, should not be surprising, nor is it particularly interesting. What would be interesting is the existence of asserted IAIs. Incompatible truth-valueless interpretations do not give grounds for believing in this possibility. We also cannot establish that there are IAIs by claiming that works are indeterminate with respect to certain features. Suppose there is just no fact of the matter about whether a certain poem is ironic. (The author never formed a clear intention about this, and the poem could be taken either way.) Then the assertions that the poem either is or is not ironic will both be false (or without truth value), whereas assertions like "The poem can be construed as ironic, can be profitably read as ironic," might be both true and compatible with statements that the poem can be construed (profitably read) as nonironic.

ARGUMENTS FOR IAIs Here is one argument I have encountered for asserted IAIs. Interpretations are incompatible if they ascribe contradictory properties to the same object.

Incompatible Interpretations There are musical works such that the same passage can be acceptably interpreted as light and delicate and as forceful. There are literary works such that the same passage can be acceptably interpreted as meaning p and not-p (depending, for example, if it is interpreted as ironic or not). Hence there are 1 ~ 1 s . ~ This argument could appear to gain plausibility from an equivocation. Where the first premise defines incompatible interpretation as ascribing contradictory properties to a work, I read this as saying that two interpretations are incompatible if one asserts that a work w has F and the other asserts that w has a property whose possession implies that w does not have F. Hence, the interpretations are mutually contradictory, and both cannot be truly asserted of the work. However, the second premise can be true-a work can be interpreted as having contradictory properties-without satisfying the definition of "incompatible interpretation" stated in the first premise. This would be so, for example, if the work was indeterminate with respect to these properties and the properties were merely imputed to the work. So if the argument is to work, we need to tighten up its second premise. It has to be true, for example, that there are acceptable interpretations of passages of music, one of which asserts that the passage is light and delicate, one of which asserts that the passage is forceful, and a passage's having one of these properties implies that it lacks the other. If there are such mutually acceptable interpretations, it could not be because both interpretations are true. If both were true, we would not merely have an IAI but true incompatible interpretations, that is, a true contradiction, and we are not going to suppose we have that. So their mutual acceptability would have to turn on something else. One thing it could turn on is that each interpretation is equally well justified. I discuss this possibility below, but we will see that it deprives the claim that there are IAIs of much of its interest. I can think of only one other thing the mutual acceptability of these interpretations could turn on. Since this is the basis of an independent argument for IAIs, I abandon the present argument and turn to this new one. 6. See Goldman 1990, 208, for one version of this argument. I have closely followed his formulation. It is appropriate to raise here the following question: in order for there to be IAIs, to whom must two incompatible interpretations be acceptable: to one person at a given time; to that person at different times; to two or more different people? I do not have any nonarbitrary answer to this question. The difficulty in giving a nonarbitrary answer may be a problem for proponents of arguments like Goldman's. I do not think the omission of an answer affects my argument below.

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Here is the new way of arguing that there are (asserted) IAIs. An interpretation is acceptable if it satisfies a legitimate criterion of acceptability. There is a plurality of legitimate criteria of acceptability. The truth of an interpretation is only one among the legitimate criteria of acceptability. So the truth of an interpretation is not necessary for its acceptability. Hence, there can be an interpretation that asserts p and another that asserts not-p, and they both can be acceptable. Annette Barnes (1988, 79-80) advocates an argument like this one: "[Tlhe satisfaction of conflicting criteria of interpretive acceptability may make each of two incompatible interpretations acceptable. While only one of the two incompatible interpretations can be true, the other can make the most sense of the work, or make the work a more significant or successful work." Truth, making the work aesthetically significant, and making the work relevant to a contemporary audience are among the potentially conflicting legitimate criteria of acceptability, according to Barnes. In evaluating this argument, let us first ask how these criteria of acceptability work. Do they work in a way that makes them potentially conflicting? In her book, Barnes does not say just when satisfaction of criteria of acceptability makes an interpretation acceptable. She does indicate that satisfaction of a single criterion is, in general, neither necessary nor sufficient for acceptability. However, satisfaction of a single criterion is sufficient on an occasion where the interpreter's whole aim in interpreting a work is to satisfy that condition.' So imagine an interpretation produced by an interpreter whose aim is to make the work as aesthetically significant as possible. Such an interpreter still might take different attitudes to this task. This is because, to pursue an interpretive aim, one must accept certain constraints on, or rules about, how one is to proceed. Someone who accepts very strong constraints on admissible evidence might be said to have an aim redescribable as producing an aesthetically significant interpretation compatible with the truth about the work.8 Such an interpretation obviously could not be incompatible with a true interpretation and still be acceptable. Someone who accepts very weak constraints might be said to be aiming at producing, not an assertible 7. Barnes made this last claim in personal correspondence. 8. Some readers may feel uncomfortable with "the truth" about a work. All I mean by the truth is the conjunction of true statements about the work. Barnes is committed to the existence of true statements, including interpretive statements, about a work, and I agree with her.

Incompatible Interpretations interpretation, but, perhaps, an imaginative fiction, or a report of personal experience. Again, such an interpretation would not be incompatible with a true interpretation. (More precisely, such an interpreter would not be asserting an interpretation incompatible with a true one.) One problem with thinking of an intermediate case is that it is hard to imagine someone asserting an interpretation without imagining that someone as aiming at a true interpretation. Surely, an interpretation asserted, though known to be false, would not be acceptable. Of course, it would be all too common for someone to fail in part of his aim (the part about producing a true interpretation) and still produce an interpretation that makes the work aesthetically significant. However, given that the interpreter has failed to achieve part of his aim, it is not clear that his interpretation is acceptable if there exists a true interpretation with which it is incompatible. We are perhaps most likely to consider such an interpretation acceptable if it is not known which interpretations of a given work are true. But since this kind of case is very common, it is very tempting to say: "What's the problem? Of course there are IAIs!" It is not only tempting to say this, but it would be wrong to resist the temptation. It is true, not just for literary interpretations but for plausible competing claims of all kinds, that, if one is no better justified than another, both are equally good candidates for acceptance. They are both acceptable in the sense that either could, for all we know, be true. This acceptability has nothing to do with competing criteria, but simply with our epistemic position. So we are no closer to vindicating Barnes's argument. We have vindicated the claim that there are asserted IAIs, but in a way that does not set interpretations apart from other truth claims. What we have vindicated is still not very interesting. Let us return to the argument from multiple criteria of acceptability. Consider an interpretation that gives more weight to aesthetic significance than to truth. It is nevertheless an interpretation, which makes assertions about its object, rather than an imaginative fiction or an expression of personal experience. If we are to take seriously the idea that it gives more weight to one criterion than another, we should be able to assume that the truth in this case is known. There is evidence that, in American Gothic, Grant Wood depicted a man and his daughter rather than a man and his wife. Let us suppose that he really depicted a man and his daughter. Barnes suggests that, given this, to interpret the painting as representing a man and his daughter would be a true

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interpretation, while to interpret it as representing a man and his wife would be false but might give the painting more significance. (I am not inclined to agree with the last claim, but let us suppose it is so for the sake of argument.) What is the best account of what the second interpretation of the painting is asserting (assuming it is asserting something)? One thing it could be asserting is simply that the painting represents a man and his wife. But if the critic knows, or if it has become generally known to experts, that this claim is false, it is hard to believe that a responsible critic would wish to assert this.9 This is especially so when he could begin his interpretation with much less problematic claims, claims that in fact are true. Thus he could claim that the painting can easily be taken to represent a man and his wife, or that a natural way of seeing the painting is as a picture of a man and his wife. Now the interpretation is unproblematically acceptable, but it is also true and compatible with the truth about what the painting represents. I think this is a better account of what acceptable interpretations like the second one are asserting. Can we identify a flaw in the argument from multiple criteria of acceptability? As I originally stated the argument, the first premise says that satisfying a criterion of acceptability is sufficient for an interpretation's acceptability. If criteria of acceptability are such things as truth and making the work aesthetically significant, that premise is neither true nor endorsed by Barnes. No weaker premise will allow us to reach the conclusion that there are asserted IAIs justified by satisfying different criteria of acceptability. The reason is that to assert p is to assert that p is true, so that no one can acceptably assert an interpretation without making reaching the truth part of his aim. Acceptable interpretations can be offered without being asserted, as would be the case if each interpretation lacked truth value. Two or more interpretations can be asserted without its being determinate which is better justified. Each of the interpretations may be acceptable, but this is so because of our epistemic position, not in virtue of their satisfying different criteria of acceptability. However, to assert an interpretation because of the significance it gives to a work even though it is known to be false or is patently less justified (from the point of view of truth) than another is not acceptable. Such an interpretation would only be acceptable if it was offered nonassertively (e.g., as an imaginative fiction) or if it turned out to assert something 9. It might be objected that one is not interpreting at all if one knows these things. Barnes claims that one can be interpreting for others. I think such knowledge does not rule out one's interpreting even for oneself.

Incompatible Interpretations compatible with the truth (e.g., to assert that a way of making sense of the work is . . . ).

So far, I have been discussing the possibility of IAIs under a single sense of "incompatibility": incompatibility as logical inconsistency. (Call this logical incompatibility.) Someone may wonder whether this is the only, much less the best, way to understand the claim that there are IAIs. Before concluding, I will explain why I think my way of understanding "incompatibility" gives us the best, if not the only, construal of this claim. First, it seems to me that "incompatibility," like "inconsistency" and "contradiction," is standardly used as a logical notion. If one uses "contradiction" to mean something other than "statement implying a proposition p and a proposition not-p," one had better make a special effort to say what one does mean, or one misleads one's reader. The same goes for "incompatible." At least among the writers discussed in this chapter, I do not see a special effort to distance themselves from the logical notion of incompatibility. So I take it that they are concerned with the same notion I, so far, have been using. However, it might be said that the basic sense of "incompatible" has to do with one thing excluding or "not getting along with" another (as when people talk of incompatibility as a ground for divorce). In the realm of interpretation, cannot one interpretation exclude another for nonlogical reasons? Here is one way two interpretations might be thought to exclude one another for nonlogical reasons. Interpretations sometimes give us a way of "seeing" a work as a coherent whole. Two interpretations are incompatible, it might be said, if seeing the work in terms of one interpretation makes it impossible to see the work in terms of the other at the same time. (Call this seeing-as incompatibility.) Let us examine this notion of incompatible interpretation in stages: first, as it applies to art forms, such as painting, where we can literally see the work according to an interpretation. Second, we can try to extend it to other art forms, like literature, where the seeing is not literal. American Gothic can be interpreted as representing a man and his daughter and as representing a man and his (nonincestuous) wife. I suppose

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that when we see the painting as representing a man and his daughter, we cannot see it as representing a man and his wife, and vice versa, just as when we see the duck-rabbit as a duck, we cannot see it as a rabbit, and vice versa. So the two interpretations of American Gothic are, on the above suggestion, incompatible. So are the two interpretations of the duck-rabbit: that it represents a duck, that it represents a rabbit. There is no doubt that, for paintings at least, seeing-as incompatibility gives us a coherent alternative definition of incompatible interpretations, but I do not think it gives very intuitive results. For example, the interpretations "it represents a duck" and "it represents a rabbit" given for the duck-rabbit are more plausibly regarded as compatible. This is because both are true and also because a full understanding of the duck-rabbit recognizes that it is an intentionally ambiguous figure capable of representing duck or rabbit. We make better sense of the figure if we conjoin the two interpretations even though we can only see the figure according to one interpretation at a time. With regard to American Gothic, the situation is more complicated. On the definition of incompatibility we are considering, both of the following pairs of interpretations come out incompatible, whereas I think it plausible to regard only the first pair as incompatible:

1. It represents a man and his daughter (and not a man and his wife); it represents a man and his wife (and not a man and his daughter). 2. It can be seen as representing a man and his daughter; it can be seen as representing a man and his wife. Since one cannot see American Gothic according to one member of each pair while seeing it according to the other, both pairs are seeing-as incompatible. This blurs an important difference between these pairs, namely, that while the pairs in (1)cannot be true together, the pairs in (2) can. Furthermore, this is a difference that we usually note by using the concept of (logical) incompatibility. So it seems to me that substituting seeing-as incompatibility for logical incompatibility not only makes our discrimination of incompatible interpretations less intuitive, it also makes them less subtle. If we turn now to the interpretation of literature, the implications of the criterion under consideration get worse. The problem is that it is not clear that any interpretations of literature are seeing-as incompatible. Works of literature are taken in over a more or less extended period of time. This enables us to read a work according to two or more interpretations, even

Incompatible Interpretations logically incompatible interpretations, at one go. Thus a natural way to test the two interpretations of The Turn of the Screw, cited at the beginning of this chapter, is to read the work according to both interpretations and see if each interpretation renders individual passages and the story as a whole with equal coherence. If we can do this, even logically incompatible interpretations will turn out compatible under the new criterion of compatibility. This is again surely counterintuitive. None of this shows we cannot use the new criterion of compatibility instead of or side by side with the notion of logical compatibility. However, I do not see the advantage of doing so. We are better off just using one notion, the notion of logical compatibility. Let me sum up. There are incompatible interpretations. There can be incompatible interpretations without truth values. But incompatible interpretations without truth values are not asserted. They can only be contemplated, and when we are merely contemplating incompatibilities, there is no need to choose which one to accept. There are also incompatible interpretations with truth values. Pairs of apparently incompatible acceptable interpretations are either ( 1 ) cases in which one member of the pair or both lack truth value and are not asserted, or (2)cases in which both members of the pair are asserted but turn out to be compatible when we understand what each asserts, or (3) cases in which the pairs are asserted and are really incompatible but their acceptability turns on our epistemic position with regard to them. There are different criteria of acceptability for interpretations. However, when the criterion of truth is operative, it restricts more severely than might be imagined which interpretations are acceptable. For the notion of incompatibility used in this chapter-logical incompatibility-others can be substituted. But we will be able to distinguish between interpretations in subtler and more intuitive ways if we stick with logical incompatibility. How do these results bear on our original examples, about which we have been largely silent so far? I confine my comments to Watteau's painting, letting the reader carry them over to James's novella. The interpretations of Watteau's painting that take it to represent either a departure for or a departure from are clearly seeing-as incompatible, but are they logically incompatible? That depends on what they assert. Many things that could be asserted here are compatible. This would be so where one critic asserts that good sense can be made of the painting by taking it to represent a departure

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for the isle and another critic asserts that good sense can be made by taking it to represent a departure from the isle. It would also be so where one critic asserts that the painting actually represents a departure for the isle, while another critic asserts that it actually represents a departure from the isle, if the painting is ambiguous in the way of the duck-rabbit. If the painting is ambiguous, it represents both kinds of departure, and both critics are right. In all these cases, interpretations that appear incompatible turn out to be compatible. A critic who claims that the painting unambiguously represents a departure for the isle asserts something incompatible with a critic who claims that the painting unambiguously represents a departure from it. If we could rule out that the painting represents ambiguously, then it might turn out that the claim of one critic would be as well justified as the claim of the other, and in that sense we would have incompatible acceptable interpretations of the painting. Finally, one interpretation of the painting might offer a fictional account of what is happening to the passengers according to which they are departing from the isle. Another interpretation might offer a fictional account in which the passengers are departing for it. These accounts may contain incompatible propositions. They may be rewarding to contemplate both in connection with the painting and in their own right.

How to Have Both

In the "Overview" (Chapter 6), 1 mentioned that we have acquired the habit of looking for multiple interpretations of individual works of art and literature. We can account for this habit, in part, by the existence of incompatible acceptable interpretations of the same work. However, many think that the source of multiplicity is much deeper than the highly restricted account of IAIs given in Chapter 7. For many, to regard something as an object of interpretation signifies an uncertainty we feel about the nature or "meaning" of the object. It also sometimes signifies that (like matters of taste) there are many ways to look at that thing, no one of which is objectively right. Whatever interpretation actually is, these associations with uncertainty, multiplicity of perspective, and lack of objective rightness have recently been preeminent. Bearing this in mind, it is not surprising that there is considerable debate over the nature of interpretation itself, part of which involves the question whether the common associations are really part of the concept. Can questions of interpretation ever be given correct answers? Need there always be a multiplicity of equally good answers? Must we always be in a state of uncertainty about these answers? In this chapter, I argue ( a )that some questions about the interpretation of artworks not only can have correct answers but a single, comprehensive,

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correct answer, but (b) that this does not undermine the intuition that it is appropriate to bring to art a multiplicity of perspectives that produces many equally good, equally acceptable interpretations of the same work that cannot be synthesized into a single comprehensive interpretation. I argue that (a)and (6) are compatible and try to give reasons to accept both as true.

CRITICAL PLURALISM AND CRITICAL MONISM Critical pluralism is the view that there are many acceptable interpretations of many artworks that cannot be conjoined into a single correct interpretation.' Critical pluralism is a philosophical doctrine about interpretation that reformulates those common associations from which we started. Because it states that there are many acceptable interpretations of many artworks, critical pluralism affirms the idea that it is appropriate to bring a multiplicity of perspectives to the interpretation of a work. Furthermore, critical pluralism promotes the idea that there are unacceptable interpretations of a work (else there would be nothing with which to contrast acceptable interpretations), and, hence, can account for the uncertainty we feel about interpretive matters. Finally, critical pluralism denies that the search for a single correct interpretation is what interpretation is all about. At the very least, interpreters can have other legitimate aims. It might also seem that critical pluralism denies critical monism. Critical monism is the view that there is a single, comprehensive, true (correct) interpretation for each work of art. (A true, comprehensive interpretation of a work is one that is true, conjoins all true interpretations of the work, and comprehends the whole work.12 1. Some recent defenses of pluralism include Fish 1980, Jones 1975, Margolis 1980, and Goldman 1990. Robert Kraut (1991) criticizes some arguments for critical pluralism but also attempts a plausible rendering of this view. Critical pluralism comes in different versions. For a specification of these and further references, see the second section below, "Some Versions of Critical Pluralism Incompatible with Critical Monism." It may appear that a critical pluralist is committed to the view that there are incompatible acceptable interpretations. A pluralist might hold this view, but need not. What a pluralist must claim is that the guiding aim of interpretation is not a single, comprehensive, correct interpretation of each artwork and, hence, that some acceptable interpretations are better left uncombined with other acceptable ones. The reason for this need not be the (logical) incompatibility of the interpretations. 2. Among the best defenses of critical monism are Beardsley 1970, Juhl1980, and Nehamas 1981. As with pluralism, monism has different versions, some of which are discussed in the

Critical Monism and Critical Pluralism

Perhaps a full endorsement of the associations with which we began would lead to a denial of critical monism. Furthermore, there are many versions of critical pluralism that are incompatible with critical monism. I evaluate some of these in the next section. What I want to show now is that critical pluralism per se is compatible with critical monism. One can consistently hold both views. Later, I argue that (when critical monism is slightly modified) one should hold both views. The reason why critical pluralism and critical monism are compatible turns on the distinction between truth, or correctness, and acceptability. It is important to realize that the notions of correctness and acceptability are not the same. To evaluate an interpretation for correctness and to evaluate it for acceptability are two different ways of assessing interpretations. To say that an interpretation is incorrect is to say it is untrue. Some interpretations may be unacceptable because they are untrue. But there are other reasons why interpretations can be u n a ~ c e ~ t a b lAn e . ~interpretation can be unacceptable because, though it only makes true statements, it does not explain what puzzles us about a work. It gets bogged down in matters we regard as trivial rather than get to the heart of the matter. Or, it may be unacceptable (to us) because it just is not doing what we want an interpretation of a particular work to do. We may have heard that such and such is a great work of art, but we have never been able to appreciate it. What we may be looking for is an interpretation that will enable us to do this. An interpretation that does not do this just will not do the job; it will not be an acceptable interpretation relative to our purposes. Whether an interpretation is acceptable varies according to the aim of those who produce or receive it. It varies depending on what it is for. (For the sake of brevity, I confine myself to the interpreter's aim in what follows.) The correctness of an interpretation does not vary in this way. What is needed to show that critical pluralism and critical monism are compatible is a logically possible scenario in which the defining conditions of both views are satisfied. So, for the sake of demonstrating the compatibility of these positions, let us suppose that some interpretations really are correct (true) and that others are incorrect (false). To make this plausible, consider one interpretive project that Richard Wollheim (1980, 185-201) third section below, "Should We Accept Critical Monism?" which should be seen for further references. 3. For more on the idea that there are different criteria of acceptability, see Barnes 1988, 42-62, and the discussion of her views In Chapter 7.

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has dubbed "retrieval." Retrieval is the project of understanding a work as the product, for the most part, of design by its historical creator. This involves attempting to understand the writer's intentions and the vicissitudes they undergo. It involves as well understanding background conditions such as "aesthetic norms, innovations in the medium, rules of decorum, ideological or scientific world views, . . systems of symbolism, the state of the tradition" (1980, 200-201) current when the artist made the work. It is plausible that retrievals (this project as a whole or one of its proper parts), if they are possible at all, make factual claims. If so, such interpretations are true or false and are to be assessed as such. This is not to say they are the only interpretations that can be assessed for truth. Now here, in a nutshell, is the scenario. We shall suppose that all correct interpretations about a given work are conjoinable into a single true interpretation, thus satisfying the defining conditions of critical monism. This assumption, by the way, is not implausible, because it is a law of standard logic that the conjunction of true propositions is itself a true proposition. It can still be true that there are other acceptable interpretations, interpretations that are not true. Such interpretations are acceptable because they satisfy criteria of acceptability that have nothing to do with the truth of these interpretations. Such interpretations may aim at enhancing the aesthetic value of a work, or at making the work more relevant to the interpreter's contemporaries, or at just offering an interesting way of reading the work. (In general, such interpretations aim at enhancing appreciation of a work.) It should not be supposed such interpretations proceed without any ground rules at all. To be acceptable, they must be consistent with some facts about the work. For example, it would not be acceptable, in the case of literary works, to ask readers to suppose that the words of a work were different from those actually constituting the text of a work. (On the other hand, it might be acceptable to attach unusual meanings to certain words in a text, for example, archaic or obsolete meanings, or to argue that a particular copy of a work does not contain the correct text.) However, the purpose of these ground rules is not to lead to true interpretations but to interpretations that are of the work in question and that will enhance appreciation of it. These acceptable but not true interpretations are not necessarily false. I prefer to think of them as neither true nor false. I think of some of these interpretations as asking us to imagine the work in certain ways, for example, as the product of an apparent author or from the point of view of

.

Critical Monism and Critical Pluralism a system of beliefs, a "myth," an ideology, of contemporary interest. Such interpretations ask us to understand a fiction in terms of a further fiction. Let me flesh this idea out with an illustration. In 1964, Jan Kott published a collection of essays entitled Shakespeare Our Contemporary. In these essays, Kott interpreted many of Shakespeare's plays in such a way as to suggest resemblances, both thematic and stylistic, with contemporary theater. Thus in one of the best-known of the essays, Kott suggested that we think of King Lear as an instance of theater of the absurd, comparing it with the plays of Samuel Beckett. Now, it may be that Kott was asserting, in these interpretations, that the plays actually represent characters and situations in these modern ways, that they really have the themes Kott finds, perhaps even that Shakespeare intended all this. Kott himself is not explicit about his own intentions. However, this is not how Martin Esslin takes Kott's essays. In the introduction to the essays, Esslin makes it clear that he takes Kott to be aiming at giving us a way of reading the plays-a way of imagining the characters and the scenes in which they are represented-that makes the plays especially relevant to a contemporary audience. "Great works of art have an autonomous existence, independent of the intention and personality of their creators and independent also of the circumstances of the time of their creation. . . . The writing of . . . literary criticism can . . . be understood as an attempt to find in the past, aspects of human experience that can shed light on the meaning of our own times" (Esslin 1964, xi). The question of the truth of these interpretations does not seem to arise for Esslin. Relative to such an aim, Kott's interpretation of King Lear is not only acceptable but highly successful. We can now complete the demonstration of the compatibility of critical pluralism and critical monism. It is possible that there are true interpretations of literary works and that all such true interpretations can be conjoined into a single, comprehensive, true interpretation. Still, there could be other acceptable interpretations of the same work that are not true. They are either false or, as I have suggested, neither true nor false. Conjoining a false interpretation with a true one cannot result in a truth, let alone a true interpretation. Similarly, if we can make sense of a conjunction of a true interpretation with truth-valueless ones, such a "conjunction" would not be true. I suspect that it would frequently not make much sense. So the truth of critical pluralism is preserved even on the assumption that critical monism is true. There are (or could be) many acceptable interpretations of the same literary

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work that are not conjoinable into a single correct interpretation even though all the true interpretations of that work are so conjoinable. Critical monism is compatible with critical pluralism. There is an alternative way to defend the compatibility of critical pluralism and critical monism, although it requires a revision of these views. On this revision, Monism is restricted to interpretive truths about the meaning, or core content, of a work (and presupposes the existence of such). Then it follows that there could be acceptable or even true interpretations that are no part of a comprehensive interpretation of a work's meaning. Hence this alternative demonstration does not presuppose a distinction between acceptable interpretations that have truth and those that lack it. In the section entitled "Should We Accept Critical Monism?" I say more about this way of showing pluralism and monism to be compatible.

Although critical pluralism per se is compatible with critical monism, most proponents of pluralism reject monism. They are not being inconsistent. They hold versions of critical pluralism incompatible with critical monism. It is the purpose of this section to set out some of these versions of critical pluralism and evaluate their plausibility. I am concerned with two general strategies for rejecting monism. The first admits that there are true interpretations but claims, for one reason or another, that not all true interpretations can be conjoined into a more comprehensive true interpretation. I call proponents of this strategy relativists. The second strategy denies that there are true interpretations. I call proponents of this strategy antidescriptivists. There is also a third approach to the interpretation of artworks critical of monism. This view admits that there are true interpretations but denies that the criteria of acceptability are such that, when we conjoin true (acceptable) interpretations, the result is always an acceptable interpretation. This last strategy does not so much deny that critical monism could be true. It rejects monism as a legitimate aim of literary criticism. I call proponents of this strategy value maximizers because their rejection of critical monism is typically motivated by the belief that the legitimate aim of literary interpretation is

Critical Monism and Critical Pluralism

I do not discuss this view here, in part some sort of value ma~imization.~ because it does not challenge the truth of critical monism, in part because I have some sympathy with the idea that monism is unlikely to give literary criticism a viable aim. My reasons, which are different from the value maximizer's, are given in the section entitled "Should We Accept Critical Monism?"

Let us first consider a proposal by Nelson Goodman and Katherine Elgin (1968, 49-65) that appears to support a relativist position. They propose that we think of a literary work as a text: a fixed syntactic sequence in a particular language. Then, just as very short "texts," like the single word "cape," can have more than one meaning, so can long texts like War and Peace. An interpretation sets out one of the many meanings a text (can)have. Hence there are as many different true interpretations of a given work as there are correct assignments of meaning to the text identical with the work. Faced with this proposal, one might first wonder whether it is right to identify works with texts. One might think of a work as essentially a thing that has an author or something that is essentially tied to the historical context from which it emerged. If "cape" is a text, if any syntactic sequence is a text, then texts are not things that are essentially tied to authors or historical contexts. But it is not necessary to pursue this debate here. Even if we think of works in this bloodless and indeterminate way, it does not imply the relativist position that there are many true interpretations but they are not combinable into a single, comprehensive, true interpretation. Just as it is true to say that "cape" can mean a certain kind of land mass and it is true to say that "cape" can mean a certain kind of outer garment, it is also true to assert the conjunction of these truths. If we can assign meanings to War and Peace (i.e., the syntactic sequence that constitutes the text) the way we do to "cape," we can again truly assert the conjunction of these assignments. Notice that this is true even when the propositions mentioned in one assignment of meaning contradicts propositions mentioned in another assignment of meaning. Though the propositions contradict each other, the assignments of meaning are perfectly consistent, since these assignments do not assert the truth of these propositions but only that a text can mean 4. Two of the more careful arguments for value maximization are found in Goldman 1990 and Davies 1991, 181 -206. I criticize the Goldman argument in Stecker 1991.

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or express them. I suppose one can stipulate that, while an assignment of meaning is an interpretation, a conjunction of assignments of meaning for the same sequence is not. But that seems pretty arbitrary. After all, a conjunction of assignments of meaning is an assignment of meaning(s). So this view seems to fit quite comfortably within critical monism. If we are to find support for relativism, we must look elsewhere. When we interpret a work, we interact with it. The literary work offers up to us a text produced by a certain individual in a particular historical context. We come to the work with certain beliefs or assumptions, reading according to certain conventions or rules. Many of the people I am calling relativists are particularly impressed by the contribution to a work's interpretation that we bring to the work. They claim that the truth of an interpretation is relative to the beliefs or assumptions, conventions or rules, that we bring to readings If we apply different conventions of reading to the same work, we get results that look incompatible: based on these conventions and the evidence, interpretation p is true; based on those conventions and the evidence, not-p is true. In fact, these interpretations are not incompatible, since they are both true at the same time, but it is not clear how they can be combined into a single interpretation. Some illustrations of interpretations based on different assumptions or conventions of reading will help us both to become clearer about what the relativist is claiming and to evaluate this claim. A famous Freudian interpretation of Hamlet claims that Hamlet's hesitation to revenge his father's murder is explained by the "fact" that Hamlet suffered from an Oedipus complex. That is (put crudely), Hamlet subconsciously desired to do just what his uncle Claudius did do, and he is held back from revenge by his subconscious guilt about this. Opposed to this interpretation are many other "explanations" of Hamlet's hesitation. One among the many alternatives is the claim that Hamlet does not vacillate. The only thing that stands in the way of avenging his father's death is his scrupulous honesty. "Ghosts," after all, are not the most reliable sources of information. Hamlet must ascertain the facts, and once he does this, he does not hesitate, or rather he would not, except that various unfortunate events beyond his control postpone action. The Freudian interpreter is bringing the following "assumptions" to interpreting the play: first, that there are such things as the Oedipus complex 5. One version of this argument is found in Fish 1980. I criticize Fish's version of the argument in Stecker 1990b and in Chapter 11.

Critical Monism and Critical Pluralism and they are among the fundamental motivators of human behavior; second, that this was as true in Shakespeare's day as it is now; third, that artists are capable of expressing such truths in their works even though these truths are not fully articulated until hundreds of years later in psychoanalytic theory. The proponent of the alternative interpretation may simply lack these assumptions and operate with a different set, which I shall leave unarticulated. Relativism, as I have described it, is committed to the claim that these interpretations are to be (and can only be) evaluated as true or false relative to the assumptions from which they start. In this example, at least, this claim is implausible. It is true that one interpreter may take for granted propositions that the other does not. But the assumptions are not held arbitrarily and are not immune to criticism. Freudians may not defend the propositions I have labeled "assumptions" when interpreting a text like Hamlet, but they do so at length elsewhere. Furthermore, there is no lack of criticism of these Freudian claims. So there is no reason why both Freudians and their opponents cannot (re)evaluate Freudian assumptions as part of the evaluation of the Freudian interpretation of Hamlet. If this is possible, there is no reason why we cannot regard the Freudian interpretation and the rival, mentioned above, as competing, possibly incompatible alternatives. One interpretation does not exist in a conceptual universe unavailable to the other. A relativist might reply that I have chosen the wrong kinds of assumptions in the preceding paragraph. The Freudian at least supposes that his assumptions are empirically testable. But critics make assumptions of a more normative character that are not empirical. These, it might be claimed, must simply be accepted or rejected, and interpretations based on such normative assumptions can only be evaluated relative to them. For example, some schools of criticism (e.g., New Criticism) seem to hold that an interpretation exhibiting a greater unity or coherence in a work is to be preferred to one that exhibits a comparatively lesser coherence or unity in that work. Other schools of criticism (e.g., deconstruction) might omit this requirement or even replace it with the requirement of a certain degree of incoherence or disunity in a work, so that an interpretation that exhibits some degree of disunity in a work should be preferred to one that does not. It might be thought just inappropriate to bring New Critical standards to a deconstructive interpretation and vice versa. However, barring the implausible supposition that this difference between New Criticism and deconstruction is a matter of sheer personal preference,

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it is unclear why the appropriateness of these standards cannot be evaluated. The first question that needs asking concerns the purpose of placing these requirements on interpretations. Is it being claimed that following the preferred requirement makes it more likely that the interpretation will be true? Or is it being claimed that following the preferred requirement makes an interpretation better for reasons independent of its truth? For example, a New Critic could plausibly claim that interpreting a work in such a way as to attribute to it great coherence and unity will enhance appreciation of the work. I am only concerned with the first kind of claim for these requirements below. Deconstructionists, as far as I can make out, believe that there is something about the nature of language, or of writing, that makes incoherence or disunity in a given text very likely. More commonsensically, someone could support the New Critical position by pointing out that most writers would want to produce a coherent and unified work, and the very good writers that critics usually talk about have the skill to accomplish this. Notice these positions no longer look so different in epistemic status from the Freudian position discussed above. Proponents of the respective positions have reasons to support their views, and both parties can examine and evaluate these reasons. So far, I have argued that there is no need, nor is it desirable, to confine ourselves to making assessments of the truth of interpretations only relative to the assumptions or conventions of reading accepted by those who produce the interpretation. We need not stop with the question, Taking these assumptions for granted, is the interpretation (likely) to be true? We can ask for a justification of the assumptions (conventions), and this can be presented in a way accessible to those who share the assumptions and to those who do not. The relativist still need not admit defeat. He could admit that we can always ask for the justification of competing assumptions, conventions, or rules. What the relativist will deny is that nonarbitrary answers will always be forthcoming. It is when they are not that we are forced to accept relativism with regard to the competing assumptions, conventions, or rules. A recent discussion, by Kendall Walton (1990, 138-87), of the principles that determine what is fictional in a work might be taken to support relativism (a proposition is fictional in a work if the proposition is true in the world of the work). How do we decide what is fictional in a work of literature? Sometimes we seem to decide as follows: given that we already know that a set of propositions p, . . . p, are fictional in the work, we infer

Critical Monism and Critical Pluralism that q is also fictional because we would infer q if we believed that p, . . . p, were true in the real world. For example, we assume that fictional people have psychological traits because real people have psychological traits. When we decide this way, we use the reality principle. Very often, however, we do not use the reality principle. Sometimes we decide that q is fictional in a work because it was mutually believed by the author and his contemporary audience that q follows from pl . . . p, and because p, . . . p, is fictional in the work. When we decide this way, we use the mutual belief principle. Sometimes we use neither principle. The fact that certain fictional truths are salient in various ways leads us to make inferences that violate both principles. How do these facts help out the relativist? It is often an interpretive question whether a proposition is fictional in a work. We have just seen that there are different rules (principles) we can follow in trying to answer this question. Often these rules yield different results, and different interpreters might opt for different rules in such cases. We can certainly ask, which rule should we follow? But Walton's discussion suggests that there will not always be grounds for choosing one rule over another. Following different rules has advantages and disadvantages that (might)pretty much balance out. In such a case, is it not plausible to say that the truth of these different interpretations is relative to the rules that generate them? These considerations do not force us to accept relativism. Walton himself suggests the view that if we have equally legitimate grounds for using different rules, and if using these different rules yields incompatible results concerning what is fictional in a work, then there is no fact of the matter about what is fictional in the work. Rather than say the truth is relative, Walton suggests the truth is, in these cases, indeterminate. Another possibility-the one I favor-is that the truth is multiple without its being relative. That is, using different rules may indeed result in different true interpretations. But when we understand the aims of these different interpretations and precisely what they assert, their collective acceptance does not require accepting relativism. One interpretation may aim at retrieval and make assertions about what the author successfully intended to do in a work. (Here we would expect an interpreter to use the mutual belief principle modified by salient facts about the work.) Other interpreters may be asserting no more than that the text of a work can have a certain meaning. Even if some of the propositions that compose this meaning are incompatible with the propositions that compose the retrievalist's interpretation, the

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assertions of these two interpreters are not incompatible. (A work can be successfully intended to mean, in part, p, and at the same time, the text of the work can be construable as meaning n ~ t - p . ) ~ We can conclude that relativism still is not established. One might wonder, however, if the indeterminacy that Walton suggests sometimes holds is not a pervasive fact about interpretations. We now turn to a discussion of this possibility.

As an alternative to saying that there are many true interpretations of a work but that some of these are not combinable into a more comprehensive true interpretation (relativism), one can take the seemingly simpler line that there just are no true interpretations. This view obviously does not face the problem of explaining why pairs of true interpretations cannot be conjoined to make another true interpretation. However, it has its own explaining to do. First, it has to explain why interpretations are never true. Second, it has to tell us how we should think of interpretations if we are not to think of them as true. In this chapter's first section, we already pointed out a general strategy for accomplishing the second of these explanatory tasks. There, we distinguished between true and acceptable interpretations. The antidescriptivist is going to propose that we think of interpretations as acceptable or unacceptable in ways that do not presuppose their being true. There are any number of possible ways of filling out this claim. Some claim that, though interpretations do not have the bivalent truth values true and false, they do have truthlike values. For example, it is sometimes claimed that interpretations can be evaluated for plausibility even though they cannot be evaluated for truth.' Some claim that interpretations should be treated as prescriptions, which are incapable of truth or falsity, rather than as statements. Some suggest that interpretations are fictions, thus having the same status as the (fictional) works being interpreted. Since we should admit that interpretations can be acceptable without 6. For a more fully worked-out version of this suggestion, see Chapter 7 . 7 . This is frequently expressed in the writings of Joseph Margolis. For the idea that the criterion for acceptability of interpretations is plausibility, see Margolis 1980. More recently, Margolis has moved to the idea that interpretations have nonbivalent truth conditions (e.g., Margolis 1991).

Critical Monism and Critical Pluralism

being true (and without having a [bivalent] truth value), the crucial question is why we should suppose interpretations of literature and art are never true. There are a number of arguments for this conclusion that fail because they presuppose a one-sided or oversimple conception of literary interpretation. Robert Mathews (1977) argues that interpretations of literature are typically neither true nor false because they are typically underdetermined by all possible evidence capable of establishing their truth. Let us assume that such underdetermination implies that literary interpretations lack truth value. Why does Mathews say that these interpretations are underdetermined? His first premise is that external evidence (facts external to the work) is irrelevant to determining the truth of interpretations. Mathews's second premise is that critics typically know all the relevant internal evidence in support of their interpretations. Mathews's final premise is that it is a conceptual truth that interpretations are not known to be true at the time they are proposed. It follows that, since interpreters of literary works know all the relevant evidence in favor of their interpretations, and since this is insufficient to give them knowledge that their interpretations are true, the evidence for these interpretations underdetermines their truth. I doubt that any of Mathews's premises is true. Mathews offers no justification for the first premise. What he does do is identify "external evidence" with evidence regarding an author's intention and then deny that "art-critical questions" are ever properly construed as about such intentions. This, however, simply legislates what an "art-critical question" is, and does so contrary to the practice of many critics. Certainly, one thing that could be understood by the expression "the meaning of a work" is what the author successfully intended in it. Furthermore, the distinction between internal and external evidence (if it can be made out at all) cuts across the distinction between meanings intended and those not intended by an author. Assuming the internauexternal distinction holds, there are both kinds of evidence for both kinds of meaning. There can be plenty of internal evidence of intended meaning. On the other hand, passages of a work can mean things not in virtue of an author's intent but in virtue of facts external to the works, such as linguistic or literary conventions, or in virtue of myths, ideologies, perspectives interpreters bring to works. Mathews's second premise is equally questionable. Literary works are neither simple nor transparent. They may not even be unchanging in ways relevant to their interpretation. It is not at all evident that a critic will ever discover all the relevant evidence for an interpretation even if this is confined to internal evidence.

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Finally, I see no reason to accept the conceptual claim made by the last premise. I can interpret a work for myself or for others. When I do the latter, I may have knowledge my audience lacks. Even when I interpret for myself, knowledge of my interpretation is not (conceptually) impossible. Commonly, when I set out to interpret a work, I do not know which interpretation is true. However, by the time I am ready to offer my interpretation to others, I may be certain of it. I am still interpreting the work. A similar criticism can be made of other proposals. According to Torsten Pettersson (1986), interpretations typically concern what he calls the "implications" of the words of a work-the point a speaker, narrator, or character has in using those words or the attitudes expressed in using them. Pettersson claims that once we understand that the object of interpretation is discovering a coherent set of implications of the words of a work, we will see that, while interpretations are plausible or implausible, they are not true or false. This is because the number of implications for a given sequence of words is open-ended, indefinable. Consider such a simple sentence as "The bus is coming." This could be used to advise someone to run to the bus stop, or to get his change ready and stand in line, or to stop playing in the street, or to indicate a certain time (since the bus always passes at a certain time), or a thousand other things. When actual people use sentences, we can often narrow the implications of their words to a single consistent set by taking into account the context and the speaker's intentions. But in a poem or novel, the speakers are fictional, and "context forms no fixed frame of reference; it consists of a great number of possible implications"(Pettersson 1986, 153). Pettersson is certainly correct if, in assigning implications to a text, we try to imagine the point of the lines of a work divorced from the writer's acts, intentions, and historical context. Since the writer is disregarded and the speaker is fictitious, there is no one taken into account by this mode of interpretation who actually uses the words of the text to make a point or express an attitude. Hence, interpretations of this type are neither true nor false, and interpretations that seem at odds with each other can both be accepted. Two interpretations are equally plausible just in case they are equally compatible with the verbal meaning of the text, and the sets of implications they assign to the words of the text are of equal coherence and detail. Pettersson's claim is correct only for a certain type of interpretation. He shows that interpretations of this type are neither true nor false. Unfortu-

Critical Monism and Critical Pluralism nately, like Mathews, he fails to show that all interpretations are of this type. We have already seen reason to doubt this. If we ask what the point of the historical writer was in assigning words to a speaker, we have fixed a context in which we can expect our interpretations to have a determinate truth value whether or not we are able to find out what this truth value is. Here is one last argument for antidescriptivism: "Characters and events may be described differently in different interpretations, but these differences will constitute conflicts only if those characters and events are assumed to exist. . . . If one refuses to reify these entities, and hence refuses to construe interpretations as more complete description, one must look for another way to construe the nature of the interpretive enterprise" (Feagin 1982, 136). So, for example, "Lear is senile" and "Lear is in complete control of his faculties" appear to be incompatible statements, but they are not, according to this argument. For there to be genuine incompatibility, there must be someone the statements are about. However, there is no such person as Lear, so these are not really descriptions or statements capable of truth or falsehood, and there is no incompatibility. Though this argument does not have the flaw of the previous two, I still find it unconvincing. Let us grant that interpretive statements capable of truth and falsity cannot be about fictional entities, since there are no such entities for them to be about. It hardly follows that there is nothing for them to be about. A very plausible candidate would be the work itself. Thus consider the statements "Lear is a man" and "Lear is a woman." These statements, though they would not usually be classified as interpretive, should be in the same boat as "Lear is senile." This ignores the fact that the two sentences are, respectively, being used to say something obviously true and obviously false. It is true that, despite appearances, they are not about Lear. Rather, they are convenient, though slightly elliptical, ways of talking about the play King Lear. A less elliptical version of the same statement would be "The play King Lear represents a man and represents him as being named Lear" (where "represents a man" does not imply there is a man represented). If interpretive statements are about works rather than characters, then the problem of finding the referent of such statements disappears, and the argument we are considering collapses. So I conclude that antidescriptivists have not given us good reasons to deny that there are interpretive truths.

MEANINGS

We have just examined and rejected a number of pluralist positions incompatible with critical monism. This, however, hardly makes it obvious that we should accept critical monism. Should we? Before critical monism stands a chance of deserving acceptance, it needs to be qualified. Critical monism says that there is a single comprehensive true interpretation for each work. Now, it is completely implausible to suppose that anyone will ever state such an interpretation. For one thing, it may not be composed of a finite set of statements. For another, the whole interpretive truth about a work may not be available at any given time. But even if such an interpretation is finite and available to an interpreter, it is unlikely that anyone would be interested in presenting the unwieldy mass that such an interpretation would inevitably consist of. Given all this, it is a bit rash to say that there exists such an interpretation. Also, there is no compelling need to give pride of place to the logical operation of conjunction. Though all true statements are conjoinable, that may not be the best way to hook up a pair of true interpretations into a more comprehensive true interpretation. If a work is intentionally ambiguous between reading p and reading q, a comprehensive interpretation of the work may more perspicuously portray the work as expressing p or q rather than p and q. If The Turn of the Screw were intentionally ambiguous, it still would not represent the governess as battling with ghosts and having hallucinations (or, at least this is a misleading way of putting the matter, since it suggests she is having hallucinations while battling ghosts). It is better to say that the novella might be correctly read either as representing the governess as battling ghosts or as representing the governess as having hallucinations. What a proponent of critical monism should assert is that less comprehensive correct interpretations can always be joined (in some way) to form a more comprehensive correct interpretation. I argue that, so qualified, critical monism is true. However, there are more and less interesting versions of critical monism. The more interesting versions see monism as articulating and guiding a single coherent interpretive project-the project of discerning the basic content, or the meaning, of a work. These versions of monism see correct interpretations as being of a piece-all of them making claims about a work's basic content, or meaning, in some favored unitary sense. The less interesting versions of monism do

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not make these ambitious claims. According to these less interesting versions, various correct interpretations need not be all of a piece. They are not all making claims about the basic content of a work in a unitary sense of content. Hence the joining of various correct interpretations of a work into a maximally comprehensive interpretation may not be anyone's interpretive project. The interpretations to be joined may be too heterogeneous to be worth the trouble. Though I would like to defend a more interesting version of critical monism, I argue only for the less interesting version in this chapter. After defending monism in its less interesting form, I point to some problems with the more interesting versions and suggest, but hold off defending, a way around them. That defense is reserved for Chapter 9. The argument for critical monism is simply this: Once we have qualified monism as above, the rejection of relativism and antidescriptivism takes us a long way toward seeing the truth of monism. We know antidescriptivism is false, because there are interpretive statements with truth values. I cannot prove that relativism is false, but we have found no compelling reason to accept it, because the purported facts that motivate relativism either are not facts at all or can be handled in nonrelativistic ways. Given that, we have no compelling reason to deny that all true interpretive statements about a work can be joined (in fact, conjoined) to yield a truth. It may be doubted that the unwieldy mass that thus results is still an interpretation. We can admit that it would be very unlike most, or even all, interpretations we actually come across. Nevertheless, such a "junction" (i.e., a conjunction or disjunction) of statements would have many of the properties common to run-of-the-mill interpretations. If one could stay awake and alert while trying to take it in, the "junction" would shed a very special light on the work. It would present as complete an array of understandings true of the work as is possessed at the point of its production. (This is not to say that in actuality we typically know which understandings of a work are true.) This would give a knowledge of (what is commonly called) the work's meaning and enable us t o appreciate the work better. Anyone could learn something about the work from the junction of statements, since we can assume no one is the sole author of the less comprehensive interpretations that compose it. Since these are all marks of interpretation, we have good reason to assert that our junction of statements, our collection of interpretations, is an interpretation. If, for any work, we can have something that is an interpretation of it, that

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is true, and that is (as) comprehensive (as possible), it follows that critical monism is true. So much for critical monism per se. Let us now turn to the more interesting and ambitious versions of critical monism. These interesting versions, as mentioned above, presuppose the idea that there is such a thing as the meaning, or basic content, of a work and then claim that a comprehensive true interpretation of a work would be the most complete statement of what this meaning, or content, is. Sometimes accompanying this claim is the further claim that there is such a thing as nonbasic "content," or significance, which is contrasted with basic content, or meaning, and discovery of which is the object of some interpretations. Statements of nonbasic content are not statements true of the work (either because they lack truth value or because they are true of something else). Hence they form no part of the comprehensive interpretive truth about the work. If the picture presented by ambitious critical monism were true, it would fit extremely well with the theses defended in this chapter. It would imply that critical monism is true, compatible with critical pluralism, and it would also give a way of seeing how critical pluralism is also true, since there would be perfectly legitimate interpretations of a work's significance that are no part of the comprehensive true interpretation of the work. If we are to begin to evaluate ambitious critical monism, it will be helpful to put some specific versions of it on the table. I am aware of three versions that are currently going concerns. I call them actual intenti~nalism,~ hypothetical intenti~nalism,~ and con~entionalism.'~ ("Retrieval," used above to refer to an instance of critical monism, most closely resembles actual intentionalism among the three alternatives here presented. However, I think it is better construed along the lines of a fourth view presented below under the label U). Actual intentionalism is the view that the meaning of a work is what its actual creator successfully intended to do in it. Hypothetical intentionalism is the view that the meaning of a work is what an ideal reader (receiver) would hypothesize as the intention with which it was created. Conventionalism is the view that the meaning of a work is the set of meanings that can be put upon the work based solely on the linguistic, cultural, and artistic conventions operative at the time the work was 8. Two well-known defenses of actual intentionalism are Juhl 1980 and Hirsch 1967. A more recent but more provisional defense of actual intentionalism is found in Iseminger 1992. 9. For an elaboration and defense of hypothetical intentionalism, see Tolhurst 1979 and Levinson 1992a. 10. The classic defense of conventionalism is found in Beardsley 1970.

Critical Monism and Critical Pluralism produced. Hypothetical intentionalism is intended to be intermediate between actual intentionalism and conventionalism. In fact, hypothetical intentionalism becomes identical to conventionalism if it restricts the evidence permitted to be used by the ideal reader to the facts conventionalism deems relevant to interpreting works. In practice, hypothetical intentionalists recognize a broader sphere of evidence that also includes some facts about the actual creator and facts about the context of creation other than facts about operative conventions. Hypothetical intentionalism would become practically indistinguishable from actual intentionalism if it placed no restrictions on which facts about the actual creator are relevant. Hence, it tries to avoid admitting as evidence all such facts. One problem for all three views, at least as versions of critical monism, is that the interpretive truth about a work extends beyond the domain of truths recognized by any of them. Thus it is an interpretive truth about Blake's preface to Milton that the "dark, Satanic Mills" it mentions can, with great effect, be anachronistically read as referring to the textile mills of the industrial revolution. Proponents of any of the three views just mentioned would point out that this is not part of the poem's meaning. It is rather part of the work's significance. It is nevertheless true that to construe the reference of "dark, Satanic Mills" anachronistically is to interpret the poem, to do so in a way that accomplishes one legitimate aim of interpretationenhanced appreciation-and to do so without saying anything false about the poem. (It does not claim that the poem refers to or represents such industrial mills, much less that Blake intended to do so.) In fact, it says something true about the poem (viz., that it can be understood in this way) as long as the anachronistic nature of the interpretation is freely admitted. Of course, if we admit this one interpretive truth about Blake's poem, we will be forced to admit countless interpretive truths about artworks that are not encompassed by actual intentionalism, hypothetical intentionalism, or conventionalism. A proponent of ambitious critical monism can try to meet the above argument either by denying that the anachronistic interpretation is true of Blake's poem or by further revising critical monism. One might argue for the first line by claiming that Blake's poem is partly identified by its meaning and that this meaning excludes the purported significance being attributed to it. This argument should be rejected because we have already seen that one can consistently assert both that a work means or represents one thing and that it can profitably be taken (construed, imagined) in some other way. For this reason, the proponent of ambitious critical monism is best advised to adopt

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the second strategy. The revision makes critical monism a thesis, not about the whole set of interpretive truths about a work, but about the meaning or basic content of the work. The claim now is that any true interpretation of a work's meaning, or basic content, can be joined to any other true interpretation of the work's meaning to form a more comprehensive true interpretation. (Given this reformulation of critical monism, we might also want to reformulate critical pluralism to say that there are acceptable, even true, interpretations of a given work that cannot be joined to other acceptable interpretations of the work's meaning to form a more comprehensive interpretation.) Since we already have reason to believe that all true interpretations of a work can be joined, there is no reason to deny that a subset of such interpretation about a work's meaning can be. The problem with the proposal is with its claim that such a subset identifies the meaning, or basic content, of a work. Can we make good sense of the notion of a work's meaning, or basic content? I am not sure. Let us call the meaning actual intentionalism is after utterer's meaning on the analogy of the content a speaker intends to convey when he or she utters a sentence on a given occasion. Utterer's meaning is what we are most commonly seeking to understand in ordinary conversational contexts. That is, we usually want to know the message a speaker is trying to communicate to us rather than what the speaker's words literally say. It is also plausible that utterer's meaning is at least part of what we seek when we read nonliterary pieces of writing that try to inform us of facts or to enlighten us in some way. For example, I hope you will be trying to figure out what I am intending to say in this book and charitably interpret it to that end. I hope I do the same when I read philosophical pieces. Can we say that the meaning of a literary work and perhaps other artworks is their utterer's meaning? Some claim that artworks have an independence from their creators that would not exist on this construal of the meaning of a work. However, this claim would need some independent argument before it would constitute a non-question-begging objection to identifying utterer's meaning with artwork meaning. A more straightforward objection to such an identification is that artworks, like any other "utterances," can have unintended meanings. One reason this is so is that intentions can fail to be realized. When they do, in the case of utterance making, something gets "said," but something other than what was intended to be said. A second reason is that an utterance can have content beyond what is intended. For example, an utterance can contain an unintended pun.

Critical Monism and Critical Pluralism So even if actual intentionalism confines itself to intentions that are successfully realized in a work, it does not tell the whole story about the work's meaning. The work has meaning (utterance meaning) not identical to its author's intended meaning (utterer's meaning). Hypothetical intentionalism and conventionalism attempt to specify the analog of utterance meaning for artworks and in doing so claim the meaning of the work is specified. It is an interesting question which of these views, if either, has the best claim to capturing the relevant notion of utterance meaning. The answer, however, is not needed for our purpose (though it is taken up in Chapters 9 and 10). The main problem with hypothetical intentionalism and conventionalism is with the claim they both make that identifying the utterance meaning of the work specifies the whole meaning of the work. The reason this is a problem is that utterer's meaning seems to me to have just as good a claim to being part of the meaning of the work (where this is confined to what an author successfully intends to do in a work). Many authors of literary works obviously have something to "say" in them no less than do philosophers, historians, or, for that matter, writers of handbooks. The interpretive project of figuring what this is, is as legitimate and as central as the project of figuring out utterance meaning1' Hence, while it is likely that the two kinds of meaning will to some extent coincide, to the extent that the statements of utterance meaning leave unspecified part of the utterer's meaning, they leave unspecified part of the meaning of the work. It is likely that the statements of utterance meaning will leave out part of the utterer's meaning, at least if hypothetical intentionalism or conventionalism is the correct account of the former, because both exclude evidence about an author's intentions that would help determine the latter kind of meaning. If the preceding remarks are acceptable, the next obvious suggestion is to identify the meaning of a work with the union of utterer's meaning and utterance meaning. (Let us call this the unified view, or U.) The idea is that the meaning of a work is to be identified with what its creator does, both intentionally and unintentionally, within the historical context in which the work is created. What the author does, typically unintentionally, relative to other contexts is to be segregated from this and treated as the significance of the work. Thus, that Blake refers to England is part of the meaning of the preface to Milton whether or not Blake intended to do so (though he clearly 11. The legitimacy and centrality of utterer's meaning in art interpretation is defended by Noel Carroll (1992).

MEANINGS

did so intend), whereas that he created a poem that can be taken to refer to the textile mills of the industrial revolution is part of its significance. I think this is a promising suggestion. However, there are two sources of resistance to it. First, proponents of actual intentionalism, hypothetical intentionalism, and conventionalism will regard this notion of "meaning" as an ad hoc admixture with little, if any, more coherence than the result of joining together all the interpretive truths about the work. Second, others will object to distinguishing two classes of interpretive truths about a work: a first-class set of truths that has the privilege of rendering the work's meaning, and a distinctively second-class set that is relegated to creating additional significance for the work. These others would argue that such a distinction is ultimately arbitrary.12 The two sources of resistance are two sides of a single coin because both are claiming that U lacks sufficient internal coherence adequately to distinguish interpretive truths about meaning from other interpretive truths. I conclude that the most that can be established for now is an unambitious version of critical monism.

I have argued that critical monism is compatible with critical pluralism and that critical monism, though not necessarily an ambitious version of it, is true. I have not argued directly for the truth of critical pluralism. This is in part because pluralism is now widely accepted (so it is less in need of independent argument), in part for reasons of space. Let me conclude, however, with a set of considerations that emerge from the preceding section and that provide some support for critical pluralism. Suppose that only a less interesting version of critical monism is true. Then, while that does not establish the letter of critical pluralism, it supports the spirit of it. This is so because, given the multifarious points of view from which people can produce true partial interpretations of a work, even if we ignore the possibility of acceptable interpretations that lack truth value, an attempt to synthesize all these partial interpretations into a single comprehensive one is an unlikely interpretive project. Everyone's best strategy will be to continue to pursue partial truth. This vindicates at least the pluralist belief that the pursuit of a comprehensive truth is not what literary and art criticism is about. On the other hand, suppose a more ambitious version of critical monism, such as U, is true. Then, it was argued above, an attempt to formulate the comprehensive truth about the meaning of a work would be a 12. One argument along these lines in found in Stout 1982. This argument receives a detailed discussion in Chapter 9.

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reasonable interpretive project. However, it was also argued that the truth reached by many interpretations about the work's significance would fall completely outside this project. They would form no part of the comprehensive truth about a work's meaning. Yet they would be acceptable interpretations of the work. Hence, in this case, not only the spirit but the letter of pluralism would be vindicated. Finally, if I am mistaken about the truth of monism, pluralism would surely be true. It is plausible to believe critical pluralism whether or not critical monism is true and whether an ambitious or unambitious version of monism is true. So, while I have not tried to prove that pluralism is true, we can see that we have much reason to believe that it is.

The Role of Intention and Convention

The last chapter raised the question whether we can identify a concept of basic content, or meaning, true of appropriate artworks, and a coherent, unified interpretive project of trying t o discover that meaning. It mentioned doubts about the viability of such a project and the concept of meaning on which it is based. Let us call the purported property of works that this concept is supposed to cover work meaning. This chapter investigates the question whether those doubts, as well as others that have been proffered, can be answered. I suggested in the last chapter that, if there is a viable notion of work meaning, it is probably best captured by the unified view, or U (work meaning = the union of successful utterer's meaning and utterance meaning). However, I argue here that successful utterer's meaning is actually part of a correct understanding of utterance meaning. Hence, the relation of the former to the latter will turn out to be more like inclusion. The chapter proceeds by first considering some general arguments against the idea that there is such a thing as the meaning of a work. It then clarifies the notions of (successful) utterer's meaning and utterance meaning and finally tries to solve the problems for U raised in the last chapter. One caveat that should be entered now is that, as far as I can see, there is

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nothing that common usage requires us to call work meaning. Furthermore, it is implausible that there could be hard facts here other than facts about usage. So the most a proposal about work meaning can do is pick out an interpretive project interestingly distinct from other interpretive projects and recommend that what this project discovers about works is worthy of bearing the title "work meaning."

Among the ways of resisting the proposal that work meaning is to be identified with utterer's or utterance meaning, let me begin by focusing on two. One way is to deny that artworks are bearers of this type of meaning. The other way is to deny that discovering this type of meaning is an aim of interpretation. Those who push this second response tend to contrast understanding a work with appreciating or maximizing its value and claim that the object of interpretation has the latter, rather than the former, goal.1 S. H. Olsen (1982), who is concerned with literary works, advances both types of objection to the idea that an important aim in interpreting these 1. One other, obvious source of resistance to the identification of work meaning with utterance meaning is the idea that something else is to be identified with work meaning. I briefly discuss some alternative analogies in the second section below, "A Pragmatic Objection to Work Meaning." Here let me mention the idea that every acceptable interpretation identifies part of the meaning of a work. Call this the inclusive view of work meaning. I find this view unattractive for a number of reasons. First, it undermines what I take to be a central insight about interpretation, namely, that it is pursued with a number of different aims. If all interpretations are attempting to identify part of a work's meaning, then all interpretations have a common aim. Second, the idea that a work means all that it can be acceptably interpreted as conveying may imply contradictions or, at least, that a work's meaning is far less coherent than might initially be thought. For seemingly incompatible interpretations are acceptable for a given work in many instances (as shown in Chapters 7 and 8). If each of these interpretations truly asserts part of the meaning of a work, it is not clear that this will not imply either a true contradiction or, at least, that works are so multiple in their meaning as to be barely coherent. Third, I suggested in Chapter 7 that many seemingly incompatible interpretations are generated by assertions such as "If we look at work w from point of view p, it can reasonably be taken to represent F." Or more simply: "A way of understanding w is as representing F." Interpretive statements of this kind are not plausibly construed as identifying part of the meaning of w . To do that, they would have to truly assert that w represents F. Finally, if a proponent of the inclusive view were to deny all the above claims, I would still suggest that there would be little point in talking about work meaning rather than merely acceptable interpretation. For it would make no difference that I can see whether we choose to employ the label "work meaning" in this broad and heteronomous way or just dispense with it altogether.

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works is acquiring an understanding of their meaning. According to Olsen, literary works are not the sort of object that is a bearer of meaning (including utterer's or utterance meaning), or, at least, it is "distinctly odd" to think of them that way. Olsen also objects that to think of critical interpretation as a search for meaning or correct understanding distorts and blocks a proper understanding of the nature of that activity. In other words, even if works are bearers of meaning, that meaning is not what critics are looking for when they interpret. Olsen's first objection might strike someone as itself distinctly odd, since literary works are so commonly spoken of as possessors of meaning, and, among art forms, they are the form most ripe for such treatment. On the other hand, if Olsen can make a convincing case that it is inappropriate to talk of the meaning of works of literature, then it is very likely to be equally inappropriate for other art forms. So Olsen has chosen the most challenging but potentially the most important target, and his arguments should be taken seriously. According to Olsen, there are three main types of theories of work meaning, each of which thinks of a literary work as analogous to a linguistic object. Autonomy theories think of a work as an extended metaphor. Semiotic theories think of a work as a system of sentences or other abstract structural types. Intentionalist theories think of works as utterances. (Olsen's classification is different from and cuts across my own. All the theories I discussed in Chapter 8 treat works as utterances, but they are not all intentionalist. Neither classification is exhaustive.) One problem with ascribing meaning to works, according to Olsen, is that while there is a clear point to asking for the meaning of metaphors, sentences, and utterances, there is no clear point to asking for the meaning of a work such as Macbetb. Olsen points out that a class faced, on an exam, with the question, What is the meaning of Macbeth? might fairly complain that they do not understand what sort of answer is required. There would be some justice in this complaint because (a), as Olsen has just pointed out, there are different theories of work meaning that would require different answers to the question, and ( 6 )on any theory an adequate answer would be of sufficient length and complexity as to be beyond the scope of an examination question. However, each of the theories Olsen discusses (like the proposals I have discussed in Chapter 8) does give a point to the request. So I cannot see how Olsen's claim that there is no point t o asking for the meaning of a work is, as it stands, other than question begging. Olsen presents a second problem for ascribing meaning to works, which is

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that, while metaphors, sentences, and utterances have "meaning-producing" features, which enable us to explain their meaning, works do not. "Of the elements . . . constituting a literary work, only a very few . . can naturally be said to have meaning. It is odd to talk of the meaning of characters, situations, actions, settings, rhymes, rhythm, stanza form" (Olsen 1982,17). Furthermore, Olsen claims features that specifically make utterances meaningful are absent in the case of works. "To understand an utterance, it is necessary to refer it back to the larger nonlinguistic context of behavior, circumstances and presuppositions into which it is introduced" (1982, 18). In the case of works, "genre conventions" replace facts about the situation of utterance. These claims are not convincing. Literary works, like sentences and utterances, are (and are not merely analogous to) linguistic objects. Though critics talk about character, action, setting, and so on, these are not names of elements that actually compose works as do words, sentences (lines), and paragraphs (stanzas). Rather they are among what is represented by a work in virtue of the linguistic elements that do compose it. If there is such a thing as determining the meaning of a work, this would partly involve determining which characters, actions, and settings it represents. Rhyme, rhythm, and stanza form are properties of works, but it is not hard to see how they contribute to work meaning. In general, they help fix "genre conventions" appropriate to understanding a work. In specific cases they can make additional contributions. If apparently grave matters are "spoken of" in singsong rhyme and we know this is not the result of incompetence, we can be sure that these matters are not to be understood in a straightforward way. The claim that works are not to be treated as analogous to utterances, because genre conventions replace context of utterance, is also not very convincing. First, even if true, it does not show that works do not have "meaning-producing elements," only that they have different ones than ordinary, conversational utterances. Second, it does not show that works are not to be treated as utterances, but only that for understanding these types of utterances somewhat different conventions need be brought to bear than would be used in ordinary conversation. Third, genre conventions are part of the context of utterance, but it is unlikely that they are the only features of that context relevant to understanding works. Many other facts about the time and place in which the work originated are equally relevant. Here is an example that Olsen himself gives concerning Aeschylus's Agamemnon. When Agamemnon returns home after the sack of Troy, Clytemnestra rolls out a "purple" carpet for him to walk on. But the Greek word that gets

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translated "purple" apparently referred to a brownish-red color-the color of congealed blood. So out of the house of Atreus curls a long stream of blood. The carpet becomes a much more powerful symbol when we understand the true reference of "purple." (The reference of "purple," or its Greek cognate, is a conventional matter, not a matter of genre but of linguistic convention.) I think we can conclude that Olsen fails to show that literary works do not have meaning in the way that sentences or utterances do, and so his first objection to work meaning fails. Let us now turn to his second objection: that the idea that a central aim of critical interpretation is to discover work meaning distorts and blocks a proper understanding of critical activity. We can outline Olsen's argument this way. If discovering work meaning were a (or the) central aim of critical interpretation, then what critics would be essentially doing when they give interpretations would be attempting to understand works. This is a value-neutral activity, one that is independent of aesthetic enjoyment or appreciation. However, this is not what critics are doing when they give interpretations. What they are trying to do is apprehend or discriminate aesthetically valuable features of the work. Critical interpretations "define" an experience of apprehending these features, an appreciative experience. Hence discovering work meaning is not a central aim of critical interpretation.2 Before evaluating this argument, two preliminary comments are in order. First, it should be clear that Olsen is now making a very different claim than he did when arguing that literary works as such are not bearers of meaning. Even if they are bearers of meaning, discovering that meaning may not be what literary interpretation is primarily concerned with. I would agree, in fact, that not all the types of meaning possessed by literary works are objects of literary interpretation. In particular, though literary works are composed of sentences, understanding sentence meaning is usually preliminary to, rather than part of, interpreting a work. However, I claim understanding utterance meaning is part of interpreting a work. Second, Olsen sometimes says that critical interpretations are not merely ways of understanding works, or that they go beyond the understanding of 2 . It should be noted that, in formulating this argument, I am using "interpretation" in a way that Olsen possibly would not. His favored term for the thing I am calling interpretation here is "description." "Interpretation"seems to be reserved for the discrimination of individual aesthetically relevant features. However, Olsen also uses the expression "interpretive description," which leaves me wondering whether he would be willing to substitute one term for the other.

Meaning and Interpretation works in defining appreciative experience of the works. If Olsen were only claiming this, his argument, if correct, would merely establish the very weak conclusion that the discovery of work meaning is not the whole story about critical interpretation. This would leave entirely untouched the idea that the discovery of work meaning is a central aim of critical interpretation. However, Olsen sometimes claims (what he needs to make his case), that critical interpretations are just different from attempts to understand. "The undergraduate's description and the professor's description of Agamemnon represent different levels of appreciation of the play rather than attempts to understand it" (Olsen 1983, 43, my italics). What we need to find out is whether there is good reason to accept this stronger claim. What is characteristic of critical interpretation, according to Olsen, is the apprehension or discrimination of aesthetically valuable features of a work. Is the discrimination of such features really something distinct from understanding a work? At least part of the reason that Olsen is tempted to think it is stems from his claim that understanding is value-neutral and independent of aesthetic enjoyment. Olsen is right that understanding is independent of aesthetic enjoyment, if we take this to say that understanding does not entail enjoyment. One can understand and not enjoy. In fact, there seem to be a number of possibilities here. Consider what "the professor" does with the purple carpet in Agamemnon. He links the carpet "to other elements in the play, to Thyestes' children, the sacrifice of Iphegenia, Agamemnon's imminent death. He provides a rationale for the scene by placing the carpet as part of a meaningful pattern" (Olsen 1983, 44). It is possible that someone could notice these links and simply be unaware that they would tend to enhance appreciation of the play, though this is extremely unlikely given the kind of training that usually underlies the ability to recognize such patterns. Still, I do not think it is impossible to suppose one could program a computer to "recognize" such patterns without supposing that the computer "enjoys" the play. Still more likely, someone could notice the links, recognize that they would have a tendency to enhance appreciation, but not be moved to better enjoyment of the play. For any number of reasons, this someone may be left cold. Since the professor's description of the carpet scene is, for Olsen, a paradigm of critical interpretation, and since it has precisely the characteristic that Olsen ascribes to understanding, namely, the characteristic of not entailing appreciation, we can conclude that Olsen does not show that the description is not an attempt to understand the play. However, most typically, one would look for a rationale for the carpet

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scene in order better to appreciate the play, and here it is easy to see a very real dependence between appreciation and, at least, having an understanding of the place of the carpet in the play. If the carpet seems an insignificant object, and if the argument whether Agamemnon should walk on it seems pointless or silly, then one has formed an understanding of the play in which there is a dead space at its very center. Anyone who realizes that plays are things made to be bearers of artistic value would have to hypothesize that this understanding is unlikely to be correct or adequate and would look for a better one, one in which the carpet and the argument have a significant role to play. Positive appreciation would hinge on finding such an understanding (though finding it, as we have seen, does not entail positive appreciation). Hence, we can see that discriminating aesthetically significant features of works is not distinct from understanding those works (though such discrimination does not guarantee appreciation). Hence, contrary to Olsen, (forming an) understanding of works is a necessary step in appreciating them and, therefore, a central aim of critical interpretation. Finally, it should be said that, though Olsen is right that we are commonly interested in better appreciating works when we set out to interpret them, there is nothing illegitimate, from an art-critical point of view, in simply wanting to understand them. This has become a critical necessity at least since the nineteenth century, when it became common for artists to produce self-consciously difficult or obscure works. It has always been a critical necessity for works that are hard to understand because they were produced in a distant time or place or in an alien culture. However, I see no reason why it is not an art-critical option for any work.

Jeffrey Stout (1982)proposes a pragmatic argument against work meaning. His conclusion is that we can better discuss works and their interpretations by eliminating reference to work meaning than by trying to fix on a property of works to serve as referent. The argument that leads to this conclusion is this: "Work meaning" is a theoretical term, and theoretical terms should serve interests and purposes. There are in fact several different interests and purposes with which we interpret works. There are no defensible criteria for resolving disputes (that are actual and ongoing, not merely hypothetical) about which one of these interests is an interest in work meaning rather than

Meaning and Interpretation a different property of works. Hence, there are no rational grounds for selecting one interpretive enterprise as that which discovers work meaning. Furthermore, while different interpretive enterprises are represented as rival accounts of work meaning, they appear incompatible. When they are represented as being concerned with distinct properties of works (as they in fact are), this a priori incompatibility vanishes. The various interpretive enterprises can coexist and pursue whatever legitimate purposes they have. In this way we avoid irresolvable and unnecessary debate and let all pursue their legitimate interests and purposes. Hence we are better off eliminating reference to work meaning. There is much that I agree with here and that is continuous with the problems for work meaning raised in the last chapter. I agree that there are different interests with which we interpret artworks and that a theoretical perspective that lacks room for the pursuit of all legitimate interests is inadequate. The crucial premise in the argument is the claim that there are no rational grounds for selecting one interpretive enterprise as that which is interested in work meaning. It is here that I am not sure I agree with Stout. Since "meaning" is an equivocal notion implying different properties for different objects relative to different contexts, one cannot begin to locate the "basic content" of a literary work (on which class of works Stout, like Olsen, focuses) until one decides what kind of object it is and knows something about the context in which interpretations are given. The view that I have been urging is that literary works are to be thought of on the analogy with utterances. If we construe "utterance" broadly to be "that which is uttered, whether spoken or written" (as my Webster's New TwentiethCentury Dictionary has it), the view is that literary works are utterances. The meanings we look for in utterances should guide us in figuring out the meanings that we look for in works. However, there is a danger in proceeding this way, namely, that there are no end of things that we interpret besides artworks and that might be thought to provide the pertinent analogy for what we do when we interpret artworks. So the question can easily arise whether the analogy with interpreting utterances is better than the analogy with interpreting dreams, or with a performer's interpretation of a score or text, or with translation, or with assigning a semantics to a formal system.3 There is no reason why someone cannot be guided by any of these 3. Stuart Hampshire (1979) recommends the analogy with dreams and with performances. David Cooper (1991)recommends the analogy with translation. The "analogy"with utterances

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analogies (which are not intended to be exhaustive) in interpreting artworks. I see no reason why any of them could not provide the basis for interesting acceptable interpretive proposals. However, each of these alternative analogies has defects that seem to bar them from claiming to give us an understanding of the basic content of artworks. Perhaps this is most clear with the last suggestion. A formal system can be assigned many different semantics. There is no semantics already there in the system waiting to be discovered. Hence, whatever assignment one makes will be no more basic, will have no deeper rationale, than another. If we think of the interpretation of artworks on this analogy, it simply would not make sense to suppose that a work has a basic content, and so this analogy could not provide an alternative understanding of such a content. If one takes this analogy very seriously, it could suggest that it is just implausible to suppose there is such a thing as the basic content of a work, because there is no content to be discovered in it. But this suggestion is implausible. The remaining analogies do not rule out a priori the idea that works might have a basic content. The analogy with translation clearly does not even rule out that one should think of a work as analogous to an utterance. Its problem is that it conflates criticism, which paradigmatically, if not invariably, is a matter of making statements about artworks, with something else. A translation of a sentence, or utterance, from a foreign to a home language is not a statement about the foreign-language item; it is not about the item at all. It is the issuance of an equivalent (or otherwise suitable) expression in the home language. I do not see how one can get around the fact that this is not what critics typically do. A similar problem arises about performance interpretation. It too is not a statement-making activity, and so is fundamentally different from critical interpretation. There are a number of problems with the dream analogy. Dreams, unlike literary (art) works, are not made with conscious intentions. The most serious problem with the analogy is that using the interpretation of dreams as a model for art interpretation is a case of trying to understand the obscure with the more obscure. The best way to evaluate the aptness of the proposal that artworks are to be thought of as utterances is to inquire about the occasions on which an interpretation of an artwork is likely to be sought and the point of seeking it on those occasions. In Chapter 7, I suggested that one obvious occasion is when one finds one does not understand a work and the point of seeking an is endorsed by Stanley Fish (1980); it underlies most New Critical interpretive practice as well as the views of intentionalists.

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interpretation is to satisfy the desire to make sense of it. (This is not to deny that we interpret works even in the absence of a sense of puzzlement about them, but the point of doing so might well be the same on these occasions.) Chapter 7 also suggested two different ways a desire for understanding can be satisfied. One is the way we normally (I suppose) approach products of intentional action, whether they be utterances or artifacts. We try to understand the work as the product of the intentional action of the agent in a specific social/cultural/historical context. Because it is all too easy to focus on one or another aspect of this complex historical framework, this approach easily ramifies into several subapproaches that can even be perceived as antithetical to each other. One can focus exclusively on the intentions of the artist. One is an intentionalist if one claims that this is the sole determinant of work meaning. One can focus on a number of different aspects of the context. For example, one can focus on the linguistic, cultural, and artistic conventions that in part determine the artist's intentions, in part are the vehicle through which they are made public, and in part are an independent determiner of meaning. One can focus on the social setting and tradition from which the work arose. One can try to focus on "deeper" hidden causes of the artist's intention or context, which I take to be the object of some psychoanalytic and Marxist criticism, though I believe most attempts of this sort are far too speculative to be on a firm footing. My point is that as long as these subapproaches avoid becoming "isms" that claim exclusive rights to the story about work meaning, they are not merely complementary but part of the same project of acquiring the correct historical understanding of the work. The second way a desire for understanding can be satisfied is to seek an understanding of the work: a way of making sense of its different parts as parts of a whole. One is satisfied if one makes sense of something that did not before make sense (and, it should probably be added, if one finds that this way heightens aesthetic appreciation). An understanding need not be historical. It also need not be strictly asserted to be true of the work. It can be expressed as an imaginative fiction, as a prescription, as a report of personal experience. It can also be expressed in a more assertive mode. One can assert that a work can be taken in a certain way, that a meaning can be put upon a work. Some psychoanalytic interpretations are, I believe, offered (or received) in this spirit, not as revealing the hidden etiology of the work but as providing an interesting way of looking at it. I have argued in Chapter 8 that the second way of satisfying the desire to make sense of a work can produce interpretations as acceptable as the first

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way. However, my proposal is that work meaning should be associated with the first way, the way of seeking a correct historical understanding of the work. When we try to understand the meaning of an utterance, we do not settle for just any understanding of it that turns up; we do not settle for just anything that could be meant by it. To see this (if it needs seeing), recall our discussion of an utterance of "The bus is coming" in the previous chapter. In the abstract, we can think of many things that someone could mean to convey by uttering this sentence. For example, one might be advising someone to run to the bus stop or, in different circumstances, to get out of the way! Clearly, if one wants to know what an utterance means or what the utterer is trying to convey, it does not suffice to acquire an understanding of what might be meant in some imaginable circumstance. One needs to know what is meant on the actual occasion of use. What I am suggesting we mark off as work meaning is the same sort of thing, what I have referred to as the correct historical understanding of the work. I can now give my reply to Stout. Although we do interpret with different interests and purposes (e.g., looking for an understanding of a work and looking for the correct historical understanding of it), the sort of meaning we look for in utterances provides a rationale for identifying work meaning with what is discovered by the second of these interpretive projects. So there is something we have good reason to call work meaning, and identifying it looks to be an important interpretive project. If this is correct, Stout's argument has been answered. This answer, however, is only as good as two crucial claims embedded in it: first, that there is such a thing as the correct historical understanding of an artwork and that it (at least in part) consists in identifying the work's utterer's or utterance meaning and, second, that we at least sometimes try to arrive at a correct historical understanding when we interpret works. I hope something has already been said to make these claims plausible, but more needs to be done. The notion of the correct historical understanding, or meaning, of a work needs to be spelled out in much more detail, and further objections need to be answered. I first turn to the task of clarification.

In replying to Stout, I identified a project of trying to find the correct historical understanding of a work and suggested that we identify work

Meaning and Interpretation meaning with such an understanding. However, on closer scrutiny it appears that not everything that is included in a historical understanding of a work is part of work meaning. Intuitively, there is a distinction between a historical explanation of a work and an account of its meaning. The first answers the question why a given work came into existence with the specific properties it possesses. The second answers the question what a work means. Speaking of a correct historical understanding of a work blurs this distinction. Forming such an understanding of a work could have many aspects. Some of these aspects are explanatory. Thus some psychoanalytic interpretations try to provide part of an understanding of a -work by explaining properties of a work in terms of psychoanalytic causes. The same could be said about attempts to place works in relation to the society, culture, or traditions from which it sprang. Other aspects identify meaning properties of works. Identifying what was intended by the opening paragraph of a novel identifies part of the novel's utterer's meaning. Identifying literary conventions applicable to the novel may help identify part of the novel's utterance meaning. If we could neatly distinguish meaning-identifying features of a historical understanding from explanatory features, my initial blurring of the two types of features could easily be remedied. But there is no such neat distinction. Certain conventions applicable to a novel and intentions with which it is made form part of the historical explanation of the existence and properties of the novel even though they also help to identify utterance and utterer's meaning. So the very same features of a historical understanding of a novel may be explanatory and meaning identifying. The distinction we need is not between explanatory and meaning-identifying features of a historical understanding of a work, but concerns which explanatory features fail to be meaning identifying. For example, if we want to know the utterer's meaning of a novel, we will want to know what the author intended in writing those words that constitute the work. We will want to know how the author intended those words to be understood, or what he or she intended to communicate with them. However, we will not necessarily need to know that the author intended to become famous by writing those words, important as this information may be in explaining why the work came to exist. The best way to determine the part of a historical understanding of a work relevant to identifying work meaning is to proceed with the clarification of the notion of utterance meaning. Utterance meaning specifies what someone says or conveys by using

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certain words on a particular occasion in a particular context. "Says or conveys" is used broadly to denote not just what is stated or asserted but what is asked, commanded, or advised, what is supposed or contemplated, what is imagined or made believe, and so forth. Otherwise, the notion of utterance meaning will just not cover many utterances. "Says or conveys" is also used broadly in another way. As is noted again below, utterance meaning is to be distinguished not only from utterer's meaning but also from literal word-sequence meaning. So if a word sequence is being used ironically or metaphorically, what is said or conveyed by the utterance made by so using the word sequence is ironic or metaphorical. If the point of using a word sequence is to imply or conversationally implicate something, what is said or conveyed by the utterance is, in part, this implication or implicature of it. The reason that we have to construe utterance meaning broadly in this second way is that only by doing so does it cover what people are looking for when they interpret works.4 The remainder of this chapter, following a brief digression, develops a modest and qualified intentionalist account of utterance meaning and answers objections to it. Before undertaking this, let me say something more general about the intentional interpretation of artworks.

Anti-intentionalism-the view the artist's actual intention is irrelevant to the interpretations of artworks-is in decline. Many philosophers interested in the nature of interpretation in the arts recognize that a t least one legitimate approach to interpreting a work of art is to figure out what its author intended to do in it.' Nevertheless, there is still a good deal of uneasiness, not to say hostility, with intentional interpretation. There is no unique intentionalist thesis that is the constant object of defense by the friends of intention and the constant object of attack by its 4. Given this broad sense of utterance meaning, which includes content traditionally segregated under such labels as "semantic" and "pragmatic," it may be useful to distinguish different levels of utterance meaning. One "schema" indicating such levels is found in Bach and Harnish 1979, 76 - 77. 5. See Dutton 1987, Rorty 198Sb, Shusterrnan 1988b, and Barnes 1988. This is a sampling of many pieces that could have been cited.

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enemies. Instead, there are several theses about the role of intention in interpreting artworks, some of which are defensible and some not. Much of the debate, though not all, has concerned the role of intention in constituting or determining artwork meaning. The debate between Monroe Beardsley and E. D. Hirsch has made famous the identity thesis: (1)what an artwork means is identical to what the artist intended to do in creating it.6 Few, including Hirsch, would accept (1) in its unqualified form. It has to be admitted that intentions can fail, and failed intentions cannot be or determine the meaning of a work. It also has to be admitted (as Hirsch would) that meaning is in part determined conventionally7 (something that the identity thesis does not strictly deny but certainly does not make plain). A more plausible intentional thesis about artwork meaning would be this: (2) part of what an artwork means is what the artist successfully intended to do in creating it; or (2') part of what determines what an artwork means is what the artist successfully intended to do in creating it. (Theses [2] and [2'] assume that all artworks are created by artists. If that is not so, they only hold when their presupposition holds.) I discuss problems with the identity thesis and present a qualified defense of (2) below. However, the debate over the relevance of intention to the interpretation of artworks does not have to be cast in terms of meaning. More easily defended than (2) or (2') is the thesis (3) that a legitimate aim or project in interpreting an artwork (and not merely in writing an artist's biography) is determining what the artist intended t o do in creating it. Some may react to (3) by thinking that while it is defensible, it is of little interest. On the contrary, it seems to me that (3) is really the heart of the matter; the thesis that friends of intention should most care to defend. If others find it acceptable, the debate over the role of intention in art interpretation should be regarded as largely resolved. Let me explain. It is quite common and perfectly natural to take an interest in works of art as the productions of their creators. We want to know what the artist was doing-communicating, expressing, representing-in the work. We want to explain the work as the artist's work. In reading or contemplating it, we want, as Noel Carroll puts it, to enter into a conversation with the artist. "When we read a literary text or contemplate a painting, we enter into a 6. It is Beardsley (1970,17) who dubbed this the identity thesis. The relevant work of Hirsch is Hirsch 1967. 7. This is clearest in literary works whose meaning depends on the literal meaning of their words and sentences.

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relationship with its creator that is roughly analogous to conversation. Obviously it is not as interactive as ordinary conversation, . . but just as an ordinary conversation gives us a stake in understanding our interlocutor, so does interaction with an artwork. . . A fulfilling conversation requires that we have the conviction of having grasped what our interlocutor . . . intended to say" (Carroll 1992). As Carroll indicates at the end of the passage just quoted, the kind of interest (or rather set of interests) indicated in the last paragraph essentially involves an acceptance of thesis 3. To know what an artist is doing in a work is typically to know what he is intentionally doing (i.e., to know what he successfully intended). To explain the work as his work is to understand it as the product of intentional human agency (though one that is fallible, that relies on various conventions, and that works within one or more traditions). To enter into "a conversation" with a work is not only to want to know what its maker "says" but what he intended to say, even when such intentions fail or are imperfectly realized. When we are involved in a conversation, we are interested in what our interlocutor intends to say as much as, if not more than, what she does say. This is why the concern with intention in thesis 3 is not restricted to successful intentions. Thesis 3 implies that identifying utterance meaning is not all there is to a historically correct understanding of a work, even when that understanding is restricted to interpretive matters. Despite the fact that the interests just described are both natural and common, almost the whole of the theory of art and literary criticism, and a major thrust of philosophical aesthetics, since World War I1 (not to mention much theory before that) have directed interpreters of art away from the pursuit of these interests, if not actually entailed their rejection. This is true of New Criticism, reader-response theory, structuralism, poststructuralism/ deconstruction, and, within philosophical aesthetics, the emphasis on the autonomy of art and on aesthetic experience and its maximization. The recent and widespread acceptance of intentional interpretation by pluralists and pragmatistss is, I believe, a reaction to this tendency by way of recognizing the legitimacy of the interests I have been discussing. It is an acceptance of thesis 3. What remains more controversial is thesis 2. I now turn to that.

.

.

8. See Rorty 1985b and Shusterman 1988b.

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As mentioned in the last chapter, to establish the nonidentity of utterance meaning and intention, anti-intentionalists point out that artworks can have unintended rneaninp9 One reason this is so is that intentions can fail to be realized. When this happens, something is done or said, but something other than what was intended to be done or said. This happens, for example, when I say, "That's an elm," meaning to point out an oak, or when I say, "That's a contradiction," meaning to point out a tension in someone's thinking that falls well short of strict contradiction.1° A second reason that a work can have unintended meaning is that it can have content beyond what was intended. For example, a work can contain a pun or have an implication not intended by its maker. Call this the problem of unintended meaning. We can avoid attributing to works what an artist unsuccessfully intends to do in it by stipulating that only what an artist successfully intends (i.e., intentionally does) is part of what a work means. However, this leaves untouched the fact that a work can have unintended meanings. The problem of unintended meaning establishes at least that what a work means is not exhausted by what its creator successfully intends. Anti-intentionalists try to establish more than the nonidentity of utterance meaning and intention. They argue that artist's intention is no part of utterance meaning. Intentionalists have to accept the constraint that intended meanings of pieces of writing are limited by conventional, literal meanings of the sentences that compose them. However, it is argued that intentionalists have no coherent way of spelling out the relation between intention and convention as joint determinants of meaning.'' The simplest model would claim that literal sentence (or word-sequence) meanings lay down a set of finite possibilities, and intentions merely determine which possibility is realized. This model is attractive to some intentionalists in 9. This is an objection that Beardsley has consistently pressed (from Wimsatt and Beardsley 1946 to Beardsley 1982) against an intentional approach. 10. Daniel Nathan (1992, 187) claims that this admission capitulates to the view that intentions play no role in determining work meaning. I fail to see why this is so. First, even if one were to admit that there are special cases where intentions play no role, this would not imply they never do. Second, it is rarely, if ever, the case that intentions play no role in determining meaning. If I say, "That's an elm," meaning to point out an oak but mixing up the names, my demonstrative intention is still crucial to fixing the meaning of the utterance even though I say something other that what I intend. 11. The anti-intentionalist argument that follows is borrowed from Nathan 1992, 186-88.

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explaining the phenomenon of the ambiguous sentence.12 The sentence "Flying planes can be dangerous" has exactly two literal meanings, and what some intentionalists claim is that the literal meaning of an utterance of this sentence on an occasion of use is determined simply by the intention of the speaker to mean one of the sentence's two possible meanings on that occasion. Anti-intentionalists argue that even in this most plausible case the model is deficient, and when we extend it to other cases, it is completely unworkable. The anti-intentionalist claim regarding the ambiguous sentence is that it is context, rather than intention, that determines the right meaning assignment. It is contextual clues that determine which meaning assignment is correct. It seems to me that the simple intentionalist model and the antiintentionalist's contextual model for identifying the meaning of an utterance of an ambiguous sentence are both wrong. The former is mistaken because it ignores the need for an "uptake" (success) condition in a reasonable account of utterance meaning. The contextualist account is mistaken because it overestimates the extent to which context can determine utterance meaning if we ignore the utterer's psychological state. Consider a trainer pilot who, walking to the cockpit of a plane on the occasion of a trainee's maiden flight, utters, "Flying planes can be dangerous." The context makes it likely that he means that the act of flying a plane can be dangerous. However, the trainer is (unfortunately!) hallucinating a squadron of very low flying planes and intends to say that those sorts of objects-flying planescan be dangerous. Now, if the trainee knew of the trainer's psychological state, there is no doubt that he would understand the trainer's utterance to have the latter meaning, and do so correctly despite what (external) context would suggest. If the trainee could not know of the trainer's psychological state, then that would not make it the case that the utterance had the former meaning. It would either still have the latter meaning or, because of lack of uptake, inherit the ambiguity of the sentence uttered. It does not seem right to say flat out that the utterance means that piloting planes can be dangerous, even if this is the most reasonable way (due to lack of knowledge) for the trainee to take those words. There are other cases where it is clearer that the simple intentionalist model of intention-convention interaction is inadequate. Consider the case of irony. Here, it is not the case that a sentence has two literal meanings: one 12. Gary Iseminger (1992, 84-87) is attracted to this model.

Meaning and Interpretation ironic, the other nonironic, the former being the negation of the latter. The irony case cannot be construed as an ambiguity case. The same goes for many other uses of language. If I say, "The bus is coming," in order to warn the children playing in the street to get out of the way, what I intend to convey is more than the meaning of the sentence I utter. On another occasion, I may utter the same sentence in order to get the children to line up at the bus stop. This does not imply that the sentence "The bus is coming" is ambiguous between "Get out of the way" and "Line up at the bus stop." The sentence has neither meaning, despite the fact that either one could be conveyed on a given occasion of use. These cases show that the simple model of the way in which linguistic conventions interact with intentions to determine utterance meaning is inadequate. They do not show that utterer's intentions have no (conceptual) role in determining utterance meaning. A more adequate view might claim that an utterance means whatever its utterer successfully intends (i.e., intentionally does) in uttering it, and success will hinge on correctly employing conventions and exploiting the context of utterance. An anti-intentionalist will reply that meaning can be explained in terms of convention and context independently of actual intentions. However, we have already found reason to doubt that claim in the example of the trainer pilot's utterance. Reference to an intention is essential to fix utterance meaning. (In the next chapter we will examine various proposals to use hypothetical, rather than actual, intentions to do this job.)

I have suggested that the basic content of a work should be understood as (analogous to) utterance meaning. I call this content "work meaning." The discussion so far has suggested that what an artist successfully intends in a work is part of its work meaning. However, not all work meaning is intended. It is plausible that much unintended meaning can be accounted for by the conventions, linguistic, cultural, and artistic, in place at the time a work is created. For example, it is plausible that part of the meaning of a work is that it puns on a certain word (even if no pun was consciously intended) in virtue of linguistic conventions about word meaning and artistic conventions that puns are artistically significant and common features of works in the genre in question. It is possible for authors to cancel such

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conventional implications. It is also possible for conventions to leave the work open to several different interpretations. In such cases, part of the meaning of the work is that it is thus open if the artist does not succeed in closing off some of those possibilities. We have, then, a rough account, though by no means a precise analysis, of work meaning. Work meaning is whatever artistic content a work possesses in virtue of (i) what the artist successfully intended to do and (ii) conventions, linguistic, cultural, and artistic, in place at the time the work was created that are not canceled by what the artist successfully intended to do. Since what an artist successfully intends to do is equivalent to what he intentionally does, the idea behind this account is that work meaning is to be understood in terms of certain things the artist does in virtue of his intentions and historical context. Included in those things are the following: what an artist represents, expresses, symbolizes, portrays, suggests, manifests, conveys, satirizes, and creates (or instantiates) in the way of other aesthetic properties his work possesses.13 To eliminate some of the roughness from this account, something more should be done ( a )to distinguish successful from unsuccessful intentions to convey artistic content, (6)to explain how conventions impose unintended content, (c) to determine whether there are any other sources of work meaning. Although I attempt something along these lines, I warn in advance that the attempt falls far short of an analysis in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. Afterward, we need (d) to answer objections to the account.

One place to look for enlightenment on the matter of successful versus unsuccessful intentions is Gricean accounts of speaker's (utterer's) meaning. A Gricean account will tell us that a successful intention will need to have considerable complexity-will necessarily comprise several subintentions. 13. This sketch of a notion of artistic acts productive of artistic content is loosely borrowed from Levinson (1990a, 182-84). Levinson distinguishes several different categories of artistic content reference to which my sketch eliminates. Completely absent from my list are Levinson's "artistic properties." These are relational properties, such as originality, that do not strike me as part of a work's content. Also, Levinson's list refers directly to kinds of artistic content rather than acts productive of them.

Meaning and Interpretation These will consist at least in the intentions that an actual or potential audience will (would) recognize that the work has certain features, recognize that it is intended to have those features, recognize that its having those features is a reason to think the work means such and such, and recognize that it is intended to be such a reason.14 It is still controversial just what these intentions are and whether they can be regimented into a strict analysis of utterer's meaning.15 However, the Gricean account will at best provide necessary conditions of utterance meaning (i.e., successful speaker's meaning). In addition to the complex set of intentions, we need the uptake conditions mentioned above. The actual or potential audience must be able to recognize the features in question and recognize them as reasons to believe the utterance means such and such. I find it more plausible to express this condition in terms of what a potential audience could recognize rather than in terms of what an actual audience either does or could recognize. I prefer speaking of a potential audience because I think it wrong to assume there must be an actual audience. I prefer speaking of what it could recognize (under certain conditions), because particular attempts at recognition are fallible in ways that do not imply unsuccessful communicative intentions. To make this a bit more concrete, let us take a particular kind of work meaning, for example, a painting representing an f, and let us ask how the account, as thus far related, explains an instance of a work having this meaning. Let us consider a painting discussed in Chapter 7, American Gothic. The painting uncontroversially represents two people, one male, one female. It (purportedly) represents a farmer and his daughter. The painting represents these things only if Wood intended to represent these things, intended the painting to have features that constitute reasons to think it represents these things, intended a (properly backgrounded) potential audience to recognize this intention, and so on. It is pretty clear that Wood not only had these 14. The sources of the Gricean view are Grice 1957, 1968, and 1969. Perhaps its most sophisticated elaboration is that offered in Schiffer 1972. Currie (1990)endorses a Gricean view of "communicative acts" and argues it can be successfully employed in analyzing "fictive communication," an (actual) author's act of fiction making. 15. Schiffer (1987,245-49) has summarized the various objections to a Gricean analysis of speaker's meaning. The objections arrayed against such an analysis are serious and are not lightly to be dismissed. However, it is beyond the scope of this book to deal with them. Perhaps my most general reaction is that even if they show there is no neat set of necessary and sufficient conditions for a speaker's meaning that p, the Gricean view still provides a useful understanding of this and an account of central cases. Though the notion of speaker's meaning is, like most others, ragged around the edges, it would be folly to suppose that there is no such notion as that which Grice was trying to identify or that it has no useful employment.

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intentions with regard to representing two people of different sexes, but that they were successful; the painting unquestionably represents two people, one male, one female. (This is the kind of fact about a work that is often deemed descriptive, and not interpretive, because of its obviousness. But it is clearly part of the work meaning.) Assuming Wood had the relevant intentions with regard to representing a man and his daughter, it is not so obvious that they were successful. If the way the painting has commonly come to be viewed (as representing a man and his wife) is a good indication, the intentions will not, without some prior knowledge, receive uptake just from looking at the painting. But this is true of many representational features of many paintings (e.g., whom a portrait represents). If the (purported) fact that Wood intended to represent a man and his daughter was common knowledge, then, since there is no difficulty in seeing a man and his daughter in the painting, there would be no difficulty in the intention's receiving uptake from a properly backgrounded audience. But this is not common knowledge. (It would complicate matters if it were to become such.) One basis for saying that Wood not only meant to represent a man and his daughter, but actually did so, would exist if Wood had made this representational intention sufficiently plain (relative to the conventions of the genre) at the time of presentation of the work or could have expected it to be plain. What does the painting represent if Wood's (purported) intention to represent a man and his daughter is not successful? One thing one could say (in addition to "two people") is that it represents what we commonly take it to represent: a man and his wife. However, that we have gotten into the habit of taking the painting this way and that a man and his wife can be seen in the painting are not sufficient reasons to say flat out that this is what the painting represents. The fact that the painting makes good aesthetic sense seen this way also does not settle the question, even when this is added to the previous considerations. The painting makes good aesthetic sense when seen as representing a man and his daughter; a man and his daughter can be seen in the painting; and though not as customary, it is a fresher way of seeing the painting. There are no cultural or artistic conventions that force a choice here. So I think one has to say one of two things (if Wood's purported intention was unsuccessful). On the matter of the relationship between the two people represented in the painting, it either represents indeterminately or represents ambiguously. I think this much is represented: the two people, of different sexes, are closely related (by blood or wedlock) and have long lived together in a hard (or, possibly, merely dull) life that has molded their

Meaning and Interpretation bodies, faces, and attitudes into a common grim (or, possibly, merely staid and somewhat sour) demeanor. If we can say no more, the painting is indeterminate about the precise relationship (of blood or wedlock). If the painting represents ambiguously, we can say a bit more: these are either husband and wife or father and daughter (or brother and sister). It is worth noting, though this digresses somewhat from matters at hand, that if the meaning of the work is indeterminate or ambiguous in the way just indicated, we are unlikely to end our interpretation with the identification of this meaning. There will be a strong tendency to take matters further, and one is likely to do so in roughly one of two directions. One can "enter into a conversation with the artist," that is, try to figure out what the artist intended to do in the painting (figure out the utterer's meaning) and see the painting in that light. Or, as we are equally well entitled, simply look for an understanding of the painting that is more determinate and that promotes appreciation. Of course, there are many directions one can go if one takes the second tack.

The main reason communicative conventions exist is to enable potential communicators to make public what they intend to communicate. But conventions can take on a life of their own. So, for example, in certain genres or periods of poetry, certain words have sets of fairly standard associations, words like "white," "red," "rose," "mandrake," "unicorn," and so on. So, barring the deliberate intervention of the poet, when these words get used in a context that makes the conventional associations appropriate, the conventional associations are in force, making their use in interpreting the poem's meaning appropriate.16 One might say that someone who writes poetry in such a genre or period tacitly intends these associations because they are part of the stuff from which such poems are made. What is true of poetry is true of other art forms. How such conventions operate is the job of historians and critics of the arts to determine.

16. Graham Hough (1976) tries to make a case that this is precisely how various associations enter into the meaning of Donne's "Goe,and catche a falling starre." I discuss this example in more detail in Chapter 10.

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Honesty requires that I say that I suspect there are other determinants of work meaning.17Some of these are art-form specific. Thus in photography, it seems, the causal source of the photograph, the object photographed, always enters into the meaning of the photograph in ways it does not in painting or literature. Of course, it is part of the meaning of a painted portrait that it is of its sitter. However, a painting intended to be a fictional representation is not of the model used in making it. A photograph intended to be a fictional representation, nevertheless, is a photograph of the model (actor). Besides art-form-specific variations on work meaning, there is a type of question, applied to fiction across art forms, that might suggest another source of work meaning.18 Consider the following claim: Juliet's blood is composed of molecules. Is this claim part of the work meaning of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet? On one line of reasoning, it is natural to ascribe such content: in watching (or reading) the play, we are to make believe that there is a human being named Juliet; human beings have blood flowing in their veins; blood is composed of molecules; so Juliet's blood is composed of molecules. On the other hand, the following reasoning cuts the other way: Shakespeare and his contemporaries had no inkling of the molecular composition of blood. They believed that blood was composed (in part) of humors. So we should make believe that Juliet's blood is not composed of molecules but of humors. My view is that neither reasoning cuts much ice. It may be that there are actual references in Romeo and Juliet to the humoral composition of Juliet's blood that are not to be taken metaphorically. That would be good reason to deny that, in the play, Juliet's blood is composed of molecules. Barring that, I think we are permitted to conceive of Juliet's blood in either way (though there are semantic problems with trying to conceive of "humoral" blood, not to mention with trying to identify the content of a claim using a vacuous singular term like " ~ u l i e t " ) .We ~ ~ are not even required to raise the question. 17. I am grateful to Robert Howell for urging me to think about this issue in his comments on a part of this chapter presented at the American Society for Aesthetics, Eastern Division Meeting, College Park, Md., April 5 - 6 , 1994. 18. The notion of what is true in a work of fiction is discussed insightfully by Byrne (1993), Currie (1990), Lewis (1978), and Walton (1990), as well as many others. 19. My proposal about how these semantic problems should be handled is offered in Stecker, ~ d a m sand i Fuller forthcoming.

Meaning and Interpretation This leaves open how we determine what is true in a work of fiction. I think the broad notion of utterance meaning (conceived as successful intention plus operative conventions) is adequate for determining this kind of content, but it would take us too far afield to argue for this here.

Epistemic Worries Briefly Considered The problem with intentional interpretation most commonly raised by rank-and-file critics concerns the accessibility of intentions. This objection carries over to the present account of work meaning. While it does not identify work meaning with intended meaning, it does make reference to actual intentions of artists. How can we know what the artist intended? This question sometimes takes the form How can we know what is going on in the artist's mind while the artist is creating a work? Put this way, the question does seem rather daunting. No one can observe the inner workings of the artist's mind, and while artists sometimes leave evidence of their thoughts in the form of letters, diaries, recorded conversations, this evidence is often unreliable and invariably fragmentary. However, the problem of recovering the artist's intention is easily blown out of proportion. We are actually quite adept at figuring out the intentions with which people do and make things. This is no accident. This is our standard procedure for understanding the behavior of our fellow human beings. To understand any conversation, we must understand what our interlocutor means by his words. To recognize any artifact, we must understand what it is for. We succeed in doing this not only with familiar people and objects. Archaeologists use the same procedure with the artifacts of long-dead, newly discovered civilizations. We do this, of course, not by peering into the minds of either the living or the dead. Archaeologists do it by consciously formulating hypotheses about the point of a certain artifact. We do the same thing, but usually unconsciously and automatically, in understanding conversations. We can equally well formulate such hypotheses about the point of poems, paintings, and piano concertos. Some of these will obviously be true (Shakespeare intended Hamlet to be a tragedy); others may always be debatable (Shakespeare intended to represent Hamlet as irresolute). However, this simply reflects the fact that we never have a perfect understanding of the behavior of our fellow human beings.

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Interpretive Aims A second objection claims that the conception of work meaning presented here is at odds with the chief aim of interpretation: maximizing enjoyable aesthetic experience. This harks back to Olsen's claim that interpretations are so closely tied to appreciation they are not meaning identifying at all. The claim now, however, is that, given this aim, a different account of work meaning is appropriate. Stephen Davies (1982; 1988c; 1991, 181-206) has recently advanced a version of this objection. Davies (1991, 204) claims that our interest in maximizing enjoyable aesthetic experience is best promoted by "permitting a range of [acceptable] interpretations that might be sustained by the [artistic] utterance." The account of work meaning offered here unduly restricts the range of acceptable interpretations, according to the objection. Davies thinks that the task of interpretation is to determine the meanings a work can bear relative to the linguistic, cultural, and artistic conventions in place at the time the work is created. Rather than a vice, the indeterminate character of conventional meaning is a virtue because it allows us to "put upon" a work several different interpretations. It should be obvious by now how I would answer this objection. First, it should be noted that the range of acceptable interpretations compatible with my account of work meaning is no more restricted than it is on Davies's view. So the goal of maximizing enjoyable aesthetic experience is not hindered for those who wish to pursue it. Second, however, I would deny that there is one dominant aim of interpretation, such as maximizing positive aesthetic experience. That is just one aim among others.

Autonomy A third objection claims that the present account of work meaning fails to preserve the idea that artworks have a degree of independence from their authors. I would reply, first, that the account does provide a measure of autonomy for artwork. Meaning is not wholly determined by intention, but also by operative conventions. Furthermore, it is legitimate in interpreting works to look for all kinds of unintended significance possessed by these works. Second, to assume that works have still more autonomy than this is question begging. Because these replies are available, I doubt that this objection carries much weight.

Meaning and Interpretation

Circularity Talking about successful intention, as I have been doing, raises red flags. Jerrold Levinson (1992a, 252) argues that such a strategy is problematic "because there is no way of cashing out what such success amounts to without an independent notion of what a work means." The point is this. Suppose we have solid evidence that an artist had a certain intention in writing a work. We still seem to need some further criteria (evidence) in deciding whether this intention is or is not successfully realized in a work. However, from the fact that further criteria or evidence is needed, it does not strictly follow that we need an independent notion of work meaning. The further criteria, or evidence, need not amount to an independent notion of work meaning. Here is an example. One of the things we may include in our notion of a painting's "meaning" is the representational content of the painting, that is, what the painting represents. One notion of pictorial representation is this (absent a number of needed refinements): a painting represents an f if and only if the artist intended to represent an f and an f can be seen in the painting.20 This conception of pictorial representation is consonant with the approach to work meaning defended here. It tells one how to determine that an intention is successful but not in a way that gives a notion of work meaning (representation) independent of artist's intention. Levinson would not be satisfied with this reply. According to Levinson, the proposed account of representation is circular because the notion of representation appears both in definiens and definiendum. Levinson would claim that the intention to represent has not been given a coherent sense unless one can supply an independent notion of what it is to represente2* These criticisms are reasonable. However, they do not show either that the proposed account of representation is mistaken or that a correct account must dispense with reference to actual intentions. What they show is that the account cannot be fundamental, that for the account to be successful the relevant intention must be specifiable without mention of representation. Levinson has actually pointed out how this can be done. Instead of speaking of intending to represent an f, one can speak of intending that (properly backgrounded) viewers see f i n the painting. Such an intention is successful 20. The proposal about representation is based on Richard Wollheim's "seeing-in" account of pictorial representation. See Wollheim 1987 for his most extended discussion of seeing-in. 21. Levinson presented this criticism in comments on a shorter version of this chapter presented at the American Society for Aesthetics National Meeting, Santa Barbara, Calif., October 29-30, 1993.

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if such viewers could see an f i n the painting, in which case the painting would represent an f. Why not simply say that a painting represents an f if a properly backgrounded spectator could see an f in it? Taken on its own merits this proposed account of representation is unsatisfactory. The reason is that being properly backgrounded does not in itself place any restrictions whatsoever on what one can see in a picture. I may know that a painting containing something resembling the ambiguous duck-rabbit figure comes from a duckless but rabbit-infested land and still be able to see a duck in the picture. It is only when the information one has in virtue of being properly backgrounded is used to formulate a hypothesis about what the artist has intended or done in the picture that it restricts interpretations of what is represented.

Comprehensiveness It might be claimed that the present account of work meaning does well enough for literary interpretation and for the "literary" aspects of an art form like painting (e.g., the representational content of American Gothic), but it fairs poorly when we turn to interpreting nonliterary art forms, especially with regard to their more formal features. There is a grain of truth to this charge, and it consists in the fact that interpretations, if there be any, that restrict themselves to formal aspects of a work are not aptly described as ascribing a meaning to a work. They are not literally concerned with work meaning, and yet they may be just as central to a given work's interpretation. So it appears that the account of work meaning offered here simply leaves out a central feature of the interpretive enterprise, especially in art forms such as painting and music. If this appearance reflected interpretive reality, it would not pose a great problem for the view offered here, save for pointing out an aspect of the interpretive enterprise to which I have given scant attention. Surely a view that champions the multiplicity of interpretive aims would have no difficulty admitting the existence of the one mooted in the previous paragraph, if there is good reason to do so. However, I am not yet convinced that there is good reason. The line between form and content is notoriously hard to draw. It is even harder to offer an interpretation of a painting that confines itself to the determination of formal qualities. Such a determination is usually preliminary to, or often not easily detachable from, something further, namely, an attempt to deter-

Meaning and Interpretation mine the point of making a painting with those formal qualities. When we realize this, it turns out that the nature of disputes in which form plays a preeminent role is not essentially different, or clearly separable, from the nature of disputes about content. Consider the long-standing dispute over the "formal" character of Cezanne's mature painting and its relation to impressionism. Cezanne's paintings after 1880 have certain characteristic formal qualities. There is his use of color: "The pattern of contrasting warm and cool hues . . . defines Cezanne's most mature technique. . . . The artist allows the chromatic range of local color to extend to far distant hues-his green foliage often moves in the direction of red and violet . . . he made his background area as colorful as his foregrounds as if without any . . .cause in nature to do so" (Shiff 1984,212). There is the flatness of planes within the pictorial surface. There is the use of "line" (shape, outline) that is not found in impressionist painting. There is a consequently greater "solidity" of figure in comparison with the impressionists. However, the interpretive controversy is not about the presence of these formal qualities in Cezanne's painting, though not all critics give equal recognition to all of them. It concerns what these qualities are for. No doubt they can and have been taken to serve many purposes, and it might enhance appreciation to mark off any of these. But the real dispute is not over how the combination of formal features can be taken but with what Cezanne was aiming at with them and what he accomplished. Were those aims (achievements) primarily compositional, so that the actual subject matter of the paintings is of little importance (as Roger Fry thought)? Do they point to a reality behind appearances (as Fry also thought)? Is Cezanne's project (achievement) of a piece with the impressionists (as Shiff argues), despite the differences in form noted above? Is Cezanne attempting to capture (succeeding in capturing) an impression, that amalgam of outer reality and subjective experience? No doubt, these questions are grossly oversimplified, offering alternatives in a fashion that is too exclusive, abstract, and monolithic. However, they illustrate that the interpretive issue is still what the painter does in his historical setting. Interpretation may not stop there, but there is where it typically starts.22 22. Another fascinating illustration of this is found in a collection of essays and discussions about the cubism of Braque and Picasso (Zelevansky 1992). Here is a group of art historians from a representative range of critical schools-from Theodore Reff to Rosalind Krauss-yet they seem to be in surprising agreement that the interpretive issue is what these painters do in their historical setting. One illustration: Krauss claims that an interpretation of a 1913 Picasso papier collt., Au Bon Marchk, offered by Edward Fry is wrong. The reason Krauss gives is this:

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It is now time to tie up some loose ends and conclude. In the last chapter, I distinguished between work meaning and utterance meaning. Such a distinction had the advantage of leaving open just what work meaning consists in and of specifically leaving open whether work meaning and utterance meaning of an artwork are identical. I was anxious that successful utterer's meaning not be excluded from work meaning even if it turns out to be excluded from the account of utterance meaning, as conventionalism and hypothetical intentionalism would have it. However, given the account of utterance meaning of artworks that we now have, which incorporates successful utterer's meaning, there is no point in holding on to the distinction between work meaning and utterance meaning. We can now affirm Levinson's intuition that "art making . . . is closely analogous to a speech act, i.e., it is an act of communication in the broad sense. . . . As such its products . . . should have the same sort of meaning that the products . . . of speech acts-i.e., utterances-centrally have, namely utterance meaning" (1992a, 225). The utterance meaning of a work is embedded in the correct historical understanding of the work. As pointed out in the section entitled "Explanation and Meaning," not everything that is part of such an understanding is part of a work's meaning. Meaning-identifying features identify the artistic content of a work. Other aspects of a historical understanding of a work may (or may not) help in doing this but do not, in themselves, do it. Thus, to know that an author intended to become famous by writing a work does not tell us, in itself, anything about its artistic content. To know (if it were possible) that Shakespeare's Oedipus complex is part of the cause of his writing Hamlet in the way he did, again, does not, in itself, tell us anything about the artistic content of Hamlet. Discovering the utterance meaning of a work is a huge project. And it is part of something more huge. Is it worth marking off this project from other interpretive projects as the attempt to discover a work's meaning? As already mentioned, some critics of work meaning claim that there is no sharp line between a work's meaning and its significance, a distinction relied on by "I can't imagine that the clipping with the woman represents a real woman behind a table. It doesn't relate to anything that happens in the rest of Picasso's collages in 1912 through 1914 or 1915" (81).

Meaning and Interpretation proponents of meaning from Hirsch to Levinson. We have now suggested a line, if not a sharp one and certainly not one everyone will be happy with. We also have to admit that it is unlikely that anyone will look for, and certain that no one will succeed in finding, a comprehensive identification of work meaning. It does seem possible for critics to attempt to give more and more comprehensive accounts, one critic adding to the work of another. However, the mood of literary (art) criticism has not tended in this direction. These considerations suggest that literary critics are not likely, at present, to buy into the idea that a work's meaning is to be uniquely identified with its utterance meaning. Nevertheless, a distinction can be worth making even when it is not sharp. (The baldtnot bald distinction works well enough despite its vagueness.) It can also be worth making when it is not in vogue. I do think that it is worth distinguishing what an artist does in a work, in a broad (so that it includes more than what he intentionally does) but not overly broad sense, from various things we find it worthwhile to impute to the work. It does seem worthwhile to distinguish the most blatantly anachronistic imputations from attributions based on what the artist successfully intended to do and what he did (perhaps unintentionally) in virtue of conventions in place at the time he created the artwork. That is the distinction that marks off the project of discovering utterance meaning. I leave it to the reader to decide whether such meaning is the meaning of an artwork. Whatever the reader decides, I think the account offered here is important because, at the very least, it picks out one very important interpretive aim.

~YPOTHETICAL NTENTIONS AND MPLIED AUTHORS

In Chapter 8, we distinguished between two different accounts of work meaning as utterance meaning. According to conventionalism (C), utterance meaning is the set of meanings that can be put upon the work based solely on the linguistic, cultural, and artistic conventions operative at the time the work was produced. According to hypothetical intentionalism (HI), utterance meaning is what an intended or ideal reader would hypothesize as the intention with which a work is created. Chapter 9 ignored these views in order to develop an alternative. (Let us continue to call this view the unified view, or U, though the view has been considerably modified since it was first introduced in Chapter 8.) This chapter returns to C and HI. It will try to dispose of C fairly quickly and then concentrate on views that attempt to spell out work meaning in terms of hypothetical intentions, as well as cousins to this view that invoke a notion of an apparent, implied, postulated, or virtual artist to do the same job.

Hypothetical Intentions and Implied Authors

The first thing we should note about C is that, as a general theory of utterance meaning, it fails miserably when we construe utterance meaning in the broad way specified in Chapter 9. Most of the determinants of the various things that can be said or conveyed by uttering, "The bus is coming," are contextually inferred rather than conventionally fixed. So the only justification for C is that (utterance) meaning is distinctively otherwise in the case of literary and other artworks than it is for "ordinary" utterances. We encountered an argument for this in the previous chapter: that the distinctive aim of artworks (or of artwork interpretation) implies that they have a distinctive kind of meaning. However, we saw in considering this view that special aims like enhancing appreciation can be accommodated within a common account of meaning for artworks and ordinary utterances. Leaving the special-aim argument to one side, it is true that, in the case of complex literary writings and other artworks, we would expect conventions to play a much larger role in determining what they say. But there is no reason to think that they play such a large role as to exclude everything else. As one proponent of HI argues (Levinson 1992a, 247), C's account of work meaning is inadequate because "two writers writing in the same time and place may still end up saying different things" in virtue of contextual features that C does not take into account. According to C, the only determinants of utterance meaning are the various conventions in place at the time of the work's origin. This leaves out much else that is equally relevant: the writer's gender, national or ethnic origin, influences, public persona, previous writings, well-known beliefs or worldview. Appeal only to the conventions governing an utterance falls short of fully specifying what is conveyed by an artwork. The only way to enrich C sufficiently to make it plausible is to bring in a quite different class of conventions: conventions governing (and in place at the time of) interpretation rather than creation. Once we do that, we can, in principle, get a view that conventionally (!) requires searching out actual intentions, hypothetical intentions, and nonconventional contextual features, that is, a view that loses the distinctiveness and purity of the conventionalism we have been criticizing. (A relativistic version of this latter kind of conventionalism that plausibly turns on the fact that conventions of interpretation are diverse and changeable is criticized in Chapter 11.) However promising this "impure" version of conventionalism might be,

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concerning the version initially under discussion, namely C, I think we can conclude that it is not the correct account of utterance meaning.

The individual commonly credited with the idea that utterance meaning is captured by HI is William Tolhurst (1979). Tolhurst was mainly concerned to distinguish utterance meaning from utterer's meaning and word-sequence (sentence) meaning and to argue that work meaning (or textual meaning, as Tolhurst called it) should be identified with utterance meaning. Tolhurst's rationale for claiming that utterance meaning is captured by HI is as follows: We want to distinguish utterance meaning from word-sequence meaning because utterances may differ in meaning, while word-sequence (and, hence, word-sequence meaning) remains unchanged. We are motivated to distinguish between utterer's meaning and utterance meaning because a member of an utterance's "intended audience could be justified in understanding [it] as an attempt to fulfill an intention other than the one the utterer in fact had" (Tolhurst 1 9 7 9 , l l ) . So the proposal is that utterance meaning just is what a member of an intended audience would be justified in understanding to be intended by the utterance. In a more recent version of HI, Jerrold Levinson offers a modification of Tolhurst's proposal. Levinson agrees with Tolhurst that the meaning of a work is expressed by a complex intention that an audience would be most justified in ascribing to the creator of the work. But which audience? For Tolhurst it is the artist's intended audience, and this leaves a residue of actual intention in constituting work meaning. Levinson is not in principle against such a residue,' but he thinks this one is better eliminated. In place of the intended audience, Levinson (1992a, 229) suggests we substitute an ideal (or appropriate) audience to be specified by "what can be seen, from the work itself, as incontrovertibly required for textual understanding." ("Seen by whom?" one may ask. It would be unfortunate, for obvious reasons, if the answer is "An ideal audience." "Any member of an actual, properly 1. Levinson distinguishes between categorial and semantic intentions and claims that correctly identifying the former, but not the latter, is essential to interpreting a work correctly. Semantic intentions are intentions to say or convey something. Categorial intentions are intentions to produce a work in a certain category, such as the naturalistic novel.

Hypothetical Intentions and Implied Authors backgrounded audience" would avoid circularity, but it is not clear that we would not have to idealize that individual to get a plausible view. I return to the audience below.) Levinson is also more specific than was Tolhurst in indicating what makes an ascription of a hypothetical intention most justified. The audience is guided by two considerations of unequal weight, according to Levinson (1992a, 224-25): "Principally, a 'best' attribution is one that is epistemically best-that has the most likelihood of being correct given the total evidence available. . . . Secondarily, a 'best' attribution . . . might involve, in accord with a principle of critical charity, choosing a construal which makes a work artistically better, where there is room for choice." The idea is that an ideal interpreter looks for the epistemically best-justified attribution of intention, but if there is a tie among two or more hypotheses, or, perhaps, if hypotheses come very close to being equally well justified, the one that makes the work aesthetically better is the attribution of choice. Tolhurst and Levinson, if I understand them correctly, claim that work meaning is captured by the attribution of a hypothetical intention, but it is a hypothetical attribution to a real person, the actual artist(s)who created the artwork in question. It is certainly not an attribution "to" a fictional character, even in those cases where the artwork is a work of fiction. The views mentioned below differ from Tolhurst's and Levinson's in precisely this respect. According to Alexander Nehamas (1981, 1987), the object of critical understanding is the postulated author, an agent hypothesized to explain the features of a text. Nehamas is explicit in distinguishing the postulated author from the historical writer. He also sometimes calls the former a character, but not in the sense that he or she is in the work. Rather, the postulated author is a hypothesis, based on the total available evidence, to explain the agency that produced the text. He or she is a character only in the sense (as far as I can make out) that the postulated individual the evidence allows us to construct may not (wholly) coincide with the actual writer. For this reason, the intentions attributed to the postulated author resemble Levinson's hypothetical intentions except that Nehamas is more lenient with regard to what counts as admissible evidence. Anything that could be relevant to understanding the actual artist's intentions and frame of mind is admissible for Nehamas, but not, as we shall see, for Levinson (or Tolhurst). Because of Nehamas's conception of the relevant evidence, it has always seemed to me that talk of a postulated author is directly translatable (pace Nehamas) into talk of hypotheses about the actual artist. Of course, even if based on the best

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evidence, these hypotheses may not be true (at least if intentional realism is true). So Nehamas's position comes down to the idea that the best hypotheses about what the actual artist is doing in a work provide the correct interpretation of the work even if those hypotheses were to turn out false. Again, this is not so different from the views of Tolhurst and Levinson except for the significant difference in evidential base. Finally, we should note Gregory Currie's fictional author, the idea of which also provides a broad interpretive principle, though one that identifies, for Currie, what is "true in a work" of fiction rather than what I have called work meaning.2 The fictional author is a character in a much more full-blooded sense than is the postulated author. Fictional authors, as their name suggests, are characters in works of fiction-according to Currie, in each and every work of fiction, literary, dramatic, pictorial, cinematic, and so forth. The fictional author is a character who tells the story of the work as known fact. According to Currie, we always make believe that we encounter a fictional work through such a teller (or, I suppose, presenter, in the case of visual works). "As reader, our make-believe is that we are reading a narrative written by a reliable, historically situated agent (the fictional author) who wants to impart certain information. . . . Because the teller . . . is a fictional construction, he has no private beliefs, no belief that could not be reasonably inferred from text plus background. His beliefs are not discovered by a reading but constructed by it" (Currie 1990, 80). Currie's proposal is roughly that a proposition is true in a fiction if it is reasonable to infer from text plus background that the fictional author of the story believes that proposition. To eliminate the roughness from this exposition, what needs to be added is that text plus background may permit us to infer quite different groups of beliefs belonging to the fictional author that form distinct interpretations of the fiction. A proposition p is true in a fiction relative to such an interpretation i just in case i specifies a set of propositions of which p is a member and it is reasonable to infer from text plus back-

...

2. Currie conceives of what is true in a story as the object of one kind of interpretation, what he calls narrative interpretation. The intuitive idea is that it is part of a fiction that certain propositions are factual, for example, that certain people, places, events exist and have such and such properties, that the people do certain things for certain motives, and that certain laws of nature hold or fail to hold. As noted in the text, Currie identifies what is true in a story with the beliefs that an informed reader would attribute to the fictional author of the story. It should be obvious, as Currie notes, that much interpretation, such as attempts to identify symbolic significance, a message, or a moral in stories, falls outside narrative interpretation, or "story meaning," as Currie sometimes also calls it.

Hypothetical Intentions and Implied Authors ground that the fictional author believes i. Strictly speaking, for Currie, truth in fiction is always relative to an interpretation i.3

Having set out some versions of HI, I turn now to the question of what attracts people to this view, since it obviously has an allure for a number of theorists. There are a number of quite different motivations for such a view, not all of which move each proponent of HI.

As noted in Chapter 9, there is a long history of institutional hostility to interpreting for actual intentions. The idea of an intentional fallacy is the most obvious manifestation of this hostility. And yet, even the authors of "The Intentional Fallacy" came to realize that it is impossible to take literature simply as being (e.g., as a set of aesthetic qualities on display), and not meaning. Furthermore, the meaning in question is not the abstract meaning of a sentence in a language but always someone's meaning. To accommodate this intuition, the anti-intentionalist needs to distance this someone from the actual artist. The strategies of seeking out hypothetical or fictionalized intentions or authors is an ingenious distancing strategy. Instead of asking what the intention is with which the work is really made, we can ask, With what intention does the work appear to be made?4We can ask this question with or without situating the work within its historical context, -

-

3. In this section, I have set out some views that make use of the notion of a hypothetical intention or of a hypothetical artist, views that meet two further conditions: (1) each view provides a self-standing principle for determining a work's basic content or meaning, and (2) this principle obviates a need to refer to the actual semantic intentions of the historical artist. Many others make use of a variant of the hypothetical artist, but not in a way that meets these two conditions. Wayne Booth (1961) was one of the first to talk about the "implied author," a notion he elaborates in Booth 1979. Though he regards reference to several types of implied author as constituting important interpretive principles, these do not satisfy conditions 1 or 2. The same goes for Kendall Walton's (1979) use of the notion of an apparent artist, H. L. Hix's (1990)use of various notions of a created author, and Jenefer Robinson's (1985)use of a variant of the implied author. 4. Walton (1979) explores in considerable detail the utility of asking this question, though without suggesting doing so will meet the two conditions set out in note 3 above.

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and in case we do so situate it, we can do so in varying degrees of detail. But however detailed the situating, we are not concerned with the actual psychology of the artist. We are concerned with what might be conceived of as an unusually complex expressive (aesthetic) quality of the work. As such, interpretive inquiry is firmly rooted in text, not artist, thereby vindicating the idea that artworks are independent of their creators. It is interesting that Monroe Beardsley moved toward a version of HI in his later writings on interpretations, in his doctrine that literary works represent (rather than perform) illocutionary acts and that the aim of interpretations of these works is to discover (and is pretty much confined to discovering) which such acts are represented by characters and implied speakers. One might say Beardsley is thinking of interpretation as identifying (implicitly) represented intentions. Of more recent (and more full-blooded) exponents of HI, Nathan (1992) and (to a lesser degree) Levinson seem motivated by the considerations just set

The doctrine I have in mind in speaking of instrumentalism is that there is no gap between what is entailed by the best evidence about work meaning and the interpretive truth about the meaning of a work. If our best evidence about a work w is e, and e entails interpretation i, then it follows that i is (part of) the meaning of w. This stands in contrast with realism about work meaning, which implies the truth about work meaning might diverge from our best interpretations. Currie (1990,102) is both explicit and admirably clear in setting out this motivation for HI: "I can make nothing of the idea that the truth about a fictional story might be beyond the reach of our best interpretive methods. By holding certain patterns of rational inference to be constitutive of what is true in a story, we close the gap between evidence and truth, and the possibility of a best supported but incorrect interpretation disappears. In literary interpretation, there is no truth beyond ascertainable t r ~ t h . " ~ 5. Does the title of Levinson's (1992a)piece defending HI, "Intention and Interpretation: A Last Look," only appear to allude to Beardsley's (1982) last essay on this subject: "Intentions and Interpretations: A Fallacy Revisited"? 6. Currie (199313)moves away from the idea that interpretations aim at truth though they still aim at hypothesizing intentions "commensurate with the text" (419). This version of instrumentalism claims that interpretations aim at maximizing a text's intelligibility rather than at truth.

Hypothetical Intentions and Implied Authors There is a question whether the instrumentalist ideal, as Currie sets it out, is in fact realized by the interpretive strategies proposed within HI. I will postpone answering this question until we begin a critical examination of this view. For the time being, let us focus on another question: why one would find instrumentalism attractive with respect to work meaning. One answer is that one finds instrumentalism attractive all the way down, as Richard Rorty might put it. But that is not the answer that most proponents of HI would give. Currie (1990, 105), for example, disclaims instrumentalism regarding "the truth about the world." If one is not an instrumentalist in general, why should one be an instrumentalist about work meaning? Here I find proponents of HI less explicit than they might be. However, there are two considerations that help to answer this question. One is a familiar consideration from earlier chapters: the problem of unintended meanings. The other consideration is grounded in receptionoriented theories of meaning.

I begin with the second consideration because I simply want to mention it only to set it aside. I do this because, despite the potential relevance to our topic, such theories raise questions far too large to pursue here. What I have in mind by reception-oriented theories of meaning are views embodied in Quine's writings (1960) about radical translation, Davidson's (1983) on radical interpretation, and Dennett's (1987) on the intentional stance. I do not mean to imply that these writers hold identical views, for they certainly do not. However, their views do have something in common, which is what is of relevance here, namely, that the ultimate facts about the meaning (or intentional content) of an utterance are constituted by what a third party is able to understand by it on the basis of clearly circumscribed evidence or on the basis of adopting a certain point of view toward it. Such views do not imply instrumentalism all the way down, but they do imply an instrumentalism that goes considerably deeper than instrumentalism about work meaning for fiction. They are instrumentalist about meaning (and intentional content) in general, for on them, information about meaning is exhausted by a certain kind of evidence. Instrumentalism about (utterance) meaning in general would of course imply instrumentalism about work meaning. However, I do not find in the HI literature direct appeal to such views as those of Quine, Davidson, or

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Dennett. So, I turn (with a sigh of relief) to the other consideration mentioned above, to which there is direct appeal.

We have already acknowledged that intentions to say or do something can fail, and when they fail in creating a (fictional)artwork, it is not the case that those works convey or do nothing, but that they convey or do something not identical to what was intended. How does this fact underwrite either instrumentalism about work meaning or HI directly? Again, Currie (1993b, 418) is most explicit in presenting an answer: "[Rlealism fails in interpretation because it fails to accommodate . . . the centrality of the text. In interpretation, we make inferences to narrative intentions so as to illuminate and render coherent the text we have before us. It is possible for an author to be moved by certain narrative intentions, but fail to give proper effect to them. . . . When that happens . . . the realist's path . . . will not . . . illuminate and make coherent the text we have. . . . her intentional hypothesizing serves rather to interpret another, hypothetical work: the work that would have been written had the author's narrative intentions gone well." (Notice the neat inversion here. By interpreting for actual intentions, we end up interpreting a hypothetical and nonexistent work; by interpreting for hypothetical and quite possibly nonexistent intentions, we end up interpreting the real work.) Currie is concerned in this passage, not with literary interpretation in general, but with what he calls "narrative interpretation," which determines what is true in a story. A narrative intention is an intention that a proposition p be true in a story. Currie claims in the passage that the aim of such interpretations is to render a text (maximally) coherent (with regard, presumably, to the story told in the text).7 Given all this, Currie seems (for I do not find the argument crystal clear) to be arguing along these lines: 1. A narrative interpretation of a text is determined by a set of narrative intentions. 2. The aim of narrative interpretation is to render a text maximally coherent with regard to what is true in the story it tells. 7 . Currie actually thinks that maximizing a text's coherence or intelligibility is only one of the goals of narrative interpretation. Another is maximizing value-relevance.

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3. Actual narrative intentions are not always realized in a text. 4. The set of all actual narrative intentions with which a text is produced does (may) not determine the story actually told in a text, but a story that would have been told had all those intentions been perfectly realized. 5. Hence, the actual narrative intentions do (may) not render a text maximally coherent and do not determine the story told in a text. 6. Hence, the narrative intentions that determine an interpretation, which renders a text maximally coherent, are hypothetical intentions. The problem with this argument is to be found in premises 1and 2. Let us begin with the second premise. Is the aim of narrative interpretation to render maximally coherent what is true in a story? I would have no trouble saying that this is sometimes the aim of narrative interpretations. However, such interpretations are usually part of a larger interpretive project, not, typically, something pursued for its own sake. Indeed, I suspect there are very few critics who try to set out even a large number of the indefinitely many propositions true in a story. Rather, one indicates those propositions true in a story needed to clear up puzzles and pursue one's larger interpretive aims. So it is plausible that one's aims with regard to narrative interpretation will be subservient to the aims of one's larger interpretive project. We have seen, over and over again, that there are many such larger interpretive projects and that it is up for grabs which, if any, determine work meaning. Someone who is attempting to maximize aesthetic appreciation of a work may find congenial the goal of finding a maximally coherent story. Someone who is attempting to understand the work as the product of the actual artist's agency (e.g., as an expression of the artist's thought) may not seek maximal coherence and hence not identify a maximally coherent hypothetical work but read the actual work as imperfectly coherent. Just which narrative interpretations are constitutive of (part of) a work's meaning is, as I say, up for grabs. They might be interpretations that assign maximally coherent stories to works, or they might not be. Regarding the first premise, I do not mean, in questioning its truth, to imply that narrative intentions ought to play no role in determining a narrative interpretation. I would be the last to claim that. What I would claim is that they are not the only determinants, and that is why actual intentions can fail to be realized. So someone who recognizes that intentions can fail and that there are unintended meanings need not suppose that the (correct) narrative interpretation is determined by a set of hypothetical intentions. It could be determined by a complex interplay between successful

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actual intention, conventions in force when the work is created, and perhaps other things as well.

Appeal to hypothetical intentions (or implied artists) is not the only way to account for unintended meanings. However, it could be argued that it is the simplest or most elegant way of doing this. This is so because, on HI, work meaning is determined by a single principle, namely, the best hypothesis about what an artist intended to do in a work. Alternatives, such as the one offered by me, present a much messier mix of principles.

We have now before us some versions of HI and some motivations for holding this view. I have already commented on some of these motivations, in particular, Currie's argument in the section titled "Unintended Meanings" above. It is now time to evaluate HI more systematically as an account of work meaning.

Let me begin by segregating the principle of interpretation embodied in Currie's fictional author from the views of Tolhurst, Levinson, and Nehamas, and of Currie himself in a more recent (1993b) discussion of this topic. The fictional author is purportedly a character in all fictions across all media who tells (or presents) a story as fact. One determines what is true in a story by determining what beliefs it would be reasonable to attribute to its fictional author on the basis of text plus background. I find the assumption that all stories are to be read as having such a teller both counterintuitive and unnecessary. When we watch a play, we do of course understand we are being presented with a fiction, and we go on to pretend that we are witnessing events represented in the fiction. But do we also pretend that there is an unseen author-character who is presenting these events as fact, rather than pretend that we directly witness them? In my own case, I do not. When

Hypothetical Intentions and Implied Authors we read a novel, such as The Good Soldier or Notes from the Underground, do we pretend that someone is telling us as fact that someone (else) is telling us a story? In my experience, no. In such stories we do not suppose a second, fully reliable narrator, speaker, or teller (pace Currie [1990, 124-251, who claims that is precisely what we pretend in reading the novel Pale Fire). Rather, we understand that we are engaged with a literary genre in which we have to figure out what is happening in the story by taking into account implausibilities in the narrator's words and defects in his character, implausibilities and defects arranged by someone who stands outside the storythe author, actual or postulated. The most important things to take into account are hypotheses about the intentions of this external author in arranging that the story is told in just this way. Even if no one reads with a fictional author in mind and no creator of fiction ever intended us to do so, it still might be true that the supposition of a fictional author provides an effective technique for determining what is true in a story. This claim has been criticized effectively by othem8 However, even if true, there is another problem with Currie's interpretive principle. By Currie's own admission, the invocation of a fictional author to determine what is true in a story "allows no ready generalization to cover other aspects" of the interpretive enterprise, such as identifying a work's "underlying aesthetic and moral vision" (1990, 117). The link between narrative intentions and broader artistic purpose is much more easily made on other versions of HI. This speaks to the superiority of those versions. In a more recent paper on interpretation (1993b), Currie himself has shifted from talk about beliefs of fictional authors to talk about intentions of hypothetical authors. So henceforth I will be concerned with views framed in those terms.

If work meaning is identified by a set of hypothetical intentions, how are these to be determined? The answer is that they are the intentions that a certain sort of audience would discover based on a certain sort of evidence. This raises the questions, what sort of audience? what sort of evidence? In this section I address the first question; in the next, the second. Tolhurst suggests that the reader is a member of the work's intended audience. Levinson suggests that the reader in question is an ideal reader. 8. See Byrne 1993 and Conter 1991.

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Nehamas's view would be closer to Levinson's here. Each suggestion has its strengths and weaknesses. Assuming it is true, as teachers of composition tell us it is, that authors usually have an intended audience in mind when they write, Tolhurst's suggestion fixes for most works a class of relevant readers. But it is not clear that it does so in a satisfactory way. For some authors, the intended audience is confined to themselves. For others it is an inner circle of like-minded writers or artists. For others, it is their literate contemporaries. For others, it is a posterity that extends indefinitely into the future. And so forth. The meaning of a given work will depend, on this view, on the possibly idiosyncratic intention of its actual author. It is counterintuitive that meaning really varies merely as a result of variation in the audience intended. (Of course, it is quite possible that a different work would have been written had a different audience been intended, and that the different intent would create a work with a different meaning.) Also, we sometimes think that, even if a writer is addressing his or her contemporaries, later generations of readers can discover facts about the work's meaning not available to the intended audience. Finally, even if all these problems can be overcome, a theoretically interesting intended audience will inevitably be an idealized one. This is because actual members of an intended audience will have all sorts of lapses and failings that are irrelevant to identifying work meaning. So Tolhurst's proposal about the relevant audience turns out to be a variant of Levinson's. The notion of an ideal audience is, obviously, a normative one. To determine who an ideal audience is, it is necessary to determine what an ideal audience ought to do. Levinson is as specific as one could hope for about this. An ideal audience takes stock of a work's internal structure and relevant context of creation and draws a conclusion about the complex intention with which the work was created. Despite this specificity about the ideal audience, Levinson's version of HI is far from fixing meaning in a univocal way. The meaning HI ascribes to a work is going to vary according to what we take the evidence for intention attribution to be and according to the assumptions an ideal audience brings to a work. As Stanley Fish and others have emphasized, the same evidence is going to lead readers to different conclusions if those readers bring with them different assumptions. For example, in order to use a body of evidence to make an attribution of intention, one needs to rely on (assume) some sort of psychological theory. In different periods, different sets of assumptions (e.g., different assumed psychological theories) will be epistemically best. Hence, the meaning of a work will be different in different periods. (This result might be congenial to some but is unacceptable to Levinson.) In the

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same period, different sets of assumptions may be equally epistemically good. Hence even in the same period a work will have different meanings relative to assumptions of different ideal audiences. So far, I have pointed out that meaning is relative to the hypotheses of the ideal audience and that a proponent of HI may have to accept a multiplicity of such audiences. Hence, a proponent of HI may be committed to relativism about meaning. This is not in itself a criticism of HI. Some would welcome the result, though others, including Levinson, would not. There are, perhaps, ways of avoiding this relativism. Synchronic relativism can be avoided by stipulating that the ideal audience take into account all equally good assumptions. Synchronic and diachronic relativism can be avoided by stipulating that the ideal audience only make true assumptions. One could also identify the ideal audience more in the spirit of Tolhurst's proposal, as an ideal contemporary of the artist. These stipulations would pose a problem for those who are motivated to accept HI because they accept instrumentalism about work meaning. All of these stipulations limit the epistemic accessibility of the ideal audience to actual interpreters. Hence, they permit a gap between evidence and truth, the existence of which is denied by the instrumentalist. However, HI does not entail instrumentalism, and so not all proponents of HI necessarily face this problem. And perhaps those who are motivated by instrumentalism would be inclined to accept the relativism that the stipulations are designed to avoid.9 At this point it should be acknowledged that the conception of work meaning proposed in Chapter 8 (U) faces a similar problem in identifying the right potential audience of a work. The potential audience is a kind of ideal audience, and U has to answer the question, which kind? Since U is in no way committed to instrumentalism, it does not need to worry whether we have all the evidence available to a potential audience. But a proponent of U, like one of HI, needs to settle on and identify such an audience. I conclude that it is at least not proven that the ideal audience poses an insuperable problem for HI, and if it does, it may equally pose a problem for U.

9. In this regard, it is interesting that Currie (1993b)moves to a more relativistic position, one emphatically rejected in Currie 1990.

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Artwork meaning, according to HI, is also relative to a conception of relevant evidence. Unlike some conventionalists, Levinson, Nehamas, and Tolhurst agree that "author-based" contextual factors should be taken into consideration. Given this, it would be natural to suppose that they would accept the view that whatever is relevant evidence for an intention attribution in nonliterary contexts is evidence in literary contexts as well. However, for Levinson and Tolhurst this is in fact not their view. Rather, as Levinson (1992a, 251) puts it, "the answer lies somewhere between narrowing such scope . . . to nothing more than language and century of composition and widening it . . . so far as to encompass the expressed intentions of the author to mean such and such." For Tolhurst, the reason for some restriction is straightforward. The intended audience will not typically have available private diaries, though it may have available other direct pronouncements, such as published interviews. What evidence is available to the intended audience determines what evidence is relevant. However, trying to fix the evidence available to an intended audience is extremely complicated. If the intended audience is or includes the artist, that seems to let in all direct pronouncements. If the intended audience includes future generations and if the artist composed private diaries and wrote letters with an eye to posthumous publication (which seems to be fairly common in the last two centuries), that seems to let in those diaries and letters. One reason Levinson has for excluding direct pronouncements of intention as relevant evidence of intention is that he believes that it is not part of the game of writing and offering literature to readers. Against this is the fact that some writers and critics do not "play the game" according to Levinson's rules. Authorial pronouncements (or other remarks in letters, interviews, prefaces, diaries, etc.) obviously exist, or the question of their relevance would not arise. Not all critics studiously ignore such remarks. It could be said that such writers and critics are not playing the game properly, but it strikes me as much more likely, given the informal and fluid nature of the practice of making and receiving artworks, that the game is not fixed in the way Levinson assumes. A second reason Levinson has been for disallowing extratextual expression of intention or authorial interpretations as evidence available to ideal readers is the fear that the work will be jettisoned in favor of these more

Hypothetical Intentions and Implied Authors direct ways of arriving at an intention attribution. (Recall Currie's remarks about the centrality of the text in the section titled "Unintended Meanings" above.) However, such fears are baseless. Admitting such evidence does not change the fact that the object of interpretation is still the work. More important, neither authorial expressions of intention nor authorial interpretations always outweigh other evidence. This is so for a host of reasons. (a) Authors often are not sincere or entirely serious when expressing intentions. ( 6 ) Intentions change or develop in the course of creating a work. So what might have been an accurate expression of something an artist initially planned may not be an accurate expression of something the artist intentionally did in the work. (c) Complex intentions are just hard to express accurately, and the work is probably the artist's best and most successful attempt to do so. Other attempts are, by comparison, summary and for that reason are likely to be distorting or at best incomplete. (d) Retrospective expressions may be colored by the artist's current concerns or rendered inaccurate by forgetfulness or lack of interest in old work. We should conclude that, unless ideal readers are identified as the artist's contemporaries, a cutoff point excluding the extratextual expression of intention is not well motivated. Such expression obviously is evidence of intention! Actual critics use it. And if we were really trying to formulate the epistemically best hypothesis about an author's intention, we would not ignore such expression. The elimination of a cutoff point for relevant evidence has a striking consequence. If there is no cutoff point, then any practical difference between HI and actual intentionalism (AI) evaporates. Though they have different views about what work meaning consists in, their hypotheses should always converge. They will be using (if there is no cutoff point) the same evidence to formulate the best hypothesis about artist's intention. If they agree about the evidence, approach the work with the same background theories (other than HI and AI), they will formulate the same hypotheses. It might be suggested that this overlooks the fact that, for HI (at least on Levinson's view), the best hypothesis is not a purely epistemic matter but has another component. This latter component, recall, consists in the rule that when alternative hypotheses are equally epistemically convincing, one chooses that which makes the work artistically better. However, I doubt that this component of HI really differentiates the hypotheses it issues from those of AI. The component simply consists in the adoption of a principle of charity equally open (some would say equally necessary) for a proponent of A1 to adopt.

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If HI and A1 give the same results, is there any reason to favor one over the other? We know that A1 is inadequate because of the problem of unintended meanings. However, as we shall presently see, HI does not give a complete solution to that problem.

It is not at all clear that HI does not also face a problem with unintended meanings. In some cases where a work contains unintended meaning, an ideal reader may be justified in advancing the hypothesis that the meaning was intended, and hence, in such cases, HI would give the correct result that the work has the meaning in question. However, there will be other cases where it is known or plausible to suppose that the author did not intend a certain meaning (the author did not intend a pun or did not intend to say that p ) and yet the work contains the pun or says that p. In these cases, HI does no better than AI, and hence, HI also fails to solve the problem of unintended meaning. Levinson proposes three ways of meeting this argument for the inadequacy of HI. The first way is to acknowledge that there are meanings not captured by HI but to claim that they are secondary or noncentral. However, without further explanation "secondary" has not been given a content other than "meaning not captured by HI." More important, it is not clear why various unintended meanings of works should be considered secondary, since they can be of exactly the same type as, and can cohere extremely well with, intended meanings. Clearly, unless "secondary" can be given further content, this way of meeting the argument will not be effective.'' The second strategy is to broaden the notion of author's intended meaning. The broadened notion seems to be this. Some meanings discernible in a work are not explicitly intended, but can be said to be implicitly intended in virtue of the (equally implicit) acceptance of conventions of use and inter10. In comments on a shorter version of this chapter presented at the American Society for Aesthetics National Meeting, Santa Barbara, Calif., October 29-30, 1993, Levinson made some suggestions about how to specify secondary meanings: (a)they cannot be assigned until primary meanings at least provisionally are assigned; (6)they must cohere with primary meanings; (c) they cannot themselves figure as the core of an interpretation.These suggestions are useful (though [c] seems to me to require further clarification). What they do not show is that all unintended meanings are secondary in the sense now specified.

Hypothetical Intentions and Implied Authors pretation by authors upon entering the literary domain. This strategy would extend the ground covered by HI, but it can be adopted to the same affect by AI, which can also recognize a class of implicitly (but actually) intended meanings. So the second strategy does not give HI any advantage over AI. (This, by the way, seems to be true of the first strategy as well. If HI can exclude certain meanings as secondary, so can AI.) The last strategy is to distinguish perspectives on a work accessible to its author (even in the broadened sense just specified) and "perspectives justified with respect to a given historically positioned work although not accessible to its author" (Levinson 1992a, 231). While this distinction may be worth making, it is beyond me how it helps establish the adequacy of HI, for recognition of the second perspective is just a way of recognizing unintended meanings. We can conclude that HI fails to give complete accounts of work meaning and would need some sort of supplementation to be adequate. This undermines to some extent the motivation for adopting HI, that it is the most simple or elegant theory in virtue of being able to identify work meaning with a single principle. Before proceeding further let us take stock of where we stand. I have raised a number of problems for HI that indicate that this view will have to be further elaborated (with respect to the ideal audience), modified (with respect to admissible evidence for hypothetical intentions), and supplemented (with respect to unintended meaning). None of these problems are, as they stand, fatal to HI. However, they do undermine some of the motivations for holding HI. When the ideal audience is adequately specified, it is not clear that HI will satisfy instrumentalist intuitions. When admissible evidence is properly specified, it is not clear that work meaning is more autonomous under HI than it would be under a reasonable version of AI. And when HI is supplemented to fully account for unintended meanings, it may not, as just pointed out, appear as simple or elegant as it initially did. To make further progress, I now attempt to locate the crucial difference between HI and U and test our intuitions with regard to this difference.

The view of work meaning proposed in Chapter 9 (U), despite the fact that it makes reference to actual intentions, also refers to hypotheses about intentions. For something to be part of a work's utterance meaning, rather

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than merely the utterer's meaning, a potential audience would have to be able to recognize the utterer's intention, that is, be able correctly to hypothesize the existence of that intention. Furthermore, actual interpreters formulate hypotheses that attempt to identify the relevant intentions correctly, at least when interpreting for work meaning. (I have indicated above that these will be the same hypotheses as those formulated from within HI, as long as background assumptions are shared.) This essential reference to hypotheses about intentions, both in formulating a concept of work meaning and in describing what actual interpreters (need to) do in looking for work meaning, raises the question whether U is equivalent to a version of HI. The answer is no. The crucial difference between the two views is that on any version of HI the best hypothesis about the artist's intention, what an ideal audience is most justified in inferring regarding that intention, is, by definition, a correct identification of work meaning, even when those hypotheses are false. On U, though reference is made to what an ideal audience would infer regarding artist's intention, this does not automatically identify work meaning. It merely provides a standard for identifying successful intentions. Where intentions are not successfully realized, the intention that a potential audience would mistakenly ascribe to the artist is not necessarily a correct identification of work meaning. According to U, meaning is identified by its causes, not by what is epistemically accessible to an audience. The meaning that is produced by the artist's intention to the extent that it succeeds (and even failed intentions usually are not complete failures),'' by conventions in place, and possibly by other factors may not be the same as the meaning that would be identified as an intention an ideal audience would ascribe to the artist. Let me give an example, at this point, that suggests the difference between HI and U really makes a difference. Talking about the first stanza of Donne's "Goe, and catche a falling starre," Graham Hough (1976, 230) claims that "it is quite impossible to regard the detailed imagery of this passage as 'intended' in the same sense as the general illocutionary act of satirizing . . . was intended. . . . Such images come from we know not where-from miscellaneous reading, from a common cultural stock, from private associations. They are suggested by the exigencies of rhyme or an 11. For example, if I say, "I'll meet you by the bank," intending to convey that I will meet you by the river's bank but failing to disambiguate "bank," I have most likely still managed to convey part of what I intended, namely, that I will meet you at a place that can be called a "bank."

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accidental occurrence in the outer world. . . . they are afterwards written down . . . , but if we are on that account to describe them as intentional I think we are stretching the concept." Here are the associations that Hough has in mind with one of the images, that of the mandrake root: with having the appearance of a human being but not being one; with its being a soporific, an aphrodisiac, and a fertility charm; with its being tempting but against nature to try to get it with child, hence with perverse sexuality; with the legend that it shrieks if pulled apart and whoever hears the shriek will die, hence with the sinister and dangerous. Now, I am somewhat dubious that Hough's point here is well taken, for it is not so clear that both of the following are true, while both need to be for Hough to be right: (1)that the associations with mandrake root contribute to the meaning of the poem and (2) that they were not intended by Donne. It is not at all clear to me that Donne's capacious mind was not capable of awareness of all these well enough known associations and of ultimately settling on the image in part because of this awareness (and because he was aware that others would be aware of them, be aware that he intended them to be aware of them, and so forth). What might more likely be true is that the longer the list of associations, the less likely it is that a poet would consciously intend all of them. However, suppose Hough is right (and if he is not, then perhaps this example could be replaced with another). Then not all the associations of mandrake root enter into the meaning of the poem by way of Donne's actual intention. However, Hough's reasoning should also militate against justifying the hypothesis that Donne intended the associations. If it is implausible, as Hough claims, that Donne intended them, one would not be justified in hypothesizing that he did. This might not be so were the intentions ascribed not only by an ideal audience but to an ideal author, but that is not my understanding of HI. U, however, can explain how these associations enter into the meaning of the poem by invoking the conventions of metaphysical poetry, the fact that associations were common, public knowledge, and so forth. If the above is right, U has more explanatory power than, and hence is not equivalent to, either HI or AI. Further, this would demonstrate not only a difference between U and HI but a superiority of the former over the latter.

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By way of further testing U and HI, let us consider the competing accounts that they might offer of expression (e.g., expression of emotion) in the arts. That a work is expressive of a psychological state is one of the things that I counted as part of work meaning in Chapter 9. It may be thought that expression is independent of actual intentions and is, at least, not primarily conventional. If that is so, U would have few, if any, resources to account for expression, while HI would have a plausible account. Hence expression poses a significant challenge for U in comparison with HI. If HI'S apparent superiority in accounting for artistic expression were to turn out to be real, this would not necessarily indicate the overall superiority of HI over U. It might indicate a more complicated situation in which HI best accounts for some aspects of work meaning, while U best accounts for others. However, before jumping to any conclusions at all, we should carefully look at accounts of expression proponents of U and HI might offer, and assess their relative merits. First, let me offer a preliminary comment about such phenomena as a lyric poem being expressive of a certain sort of grief, a passage of music being expressive of gloom and despair, a painting being expressive of anxietyinduced terror. I have argued elsewhere that, although these appear to be three instances of the same sort of thing, expressive phenomena differ considerably across the arts (Stecker 1984).12 Thus, in lyric poetry, expression tends to consist, in large part, in the "articulation" of the cognitive aspects of an emotional state-the beliefs, desires, perceptions, and so on, that are partly constitutive of or accompany such a state-whereas expression in music must necessarily be located, for the most part, elsewhere. Despite the diversity of expressive phenomena in the arts, let me suggest a two-step identification procedure for determining what a work expresses, a procedure that might be acceptable to proponents of both U and HI (though each would spell out at least the second step in different ways). The first step in this procedure consists in apprehension as of an emotional state or quality,13 as when one hears despair in a passage of music, sees unbearable 12. Levinson (1996)also suggests that "express"is not univocal across the arts. For more on what it is to articulate an emotion, see the third section of Chapter 13, "Emotion-Centered Value." 13. I speak of "apprehensionas of an emotional state," despite the clumsiness of this phrase, in an attempt to find a locution that ( a )cuts across the cognition of expressive phenomena in the arts and ( b )indicates that one experiences as if one perceived something bearing an emotional

Hypothetical Intentions and Implied Authors anxiety in the arrangement of lines in a painting, or infers the grief-stricken state of a speaker of a lyric poem. The second step consists in attributing the expression of the state or quality apprehended to the work or passage as a whole. There are at least two reasons why the second step is essential in identifying what a work expresses or is expressive of. For one thing, a work or passage can represent an emotional state without that state being identified with the work, whereas such identification seems to be required in the cases of expression. Thus a poem or painting can represent an angry man (a man in a state of anger) without being expressive of anger. (The work might express, among other things, amusement at, repulsion from, or sympathetic understanding of such anger.) Second, just as one can see things in paintings that the painting does not represent, one can see, hear, or infer emotional states or qualities in works that they do not express. The fact, that one hears despair in a passage of music does not, by itself, guarantee that the passage expresses despair.14 What an account of expression in the arts needs to spell out is, first, what apprehension as of an emotional (psychological) state comes to1' and, state, while one really does not-the object of cognition, the artwork, being incapable of such a state. Thus one sees anxiety in a painting, hears the music as sad, and reasons about what is said in a poem as if one were inferring someone's psychological state. 14. I would also deny that seeing, hearing, or in some other way noticing a certain phenomenal quality in a work that is aptly named with an emotion word establishes that the work expresses or is expressive of the emotion also named by that word. Thus, to take a favorite example, one can hear the sadness of a passage of music where this amounts to hearing a certain phenomenal quality of the music, what Stephen Davies (1994, 221) calls "an emotion characteristic in appearance." It is currently popular to suppose the expression comes to no more than possession of such a characteristic. Davies (1980, 1994) and Kivy (1980) advance such a view with respect to music. Beardsley (1958), Bouwsma (1950), and Tormey (1971) advanced earlier versions of the view across the arts. This is not the place for an elahorate criticism of this view, but it is worth indicating that it seems inadequate as an account of expression. A weeping willow tree has a sad look, but it does not express sadness, nor is it expressive of sadness. It merely has a certain look, aptly described by the adjective "sad." Expression has to do with psychological states and not (merely) phenomenal qualities. Phenomenal qualities may be employed by artworks to indicate psychological states, but this requires something more than mere possession of the phenomenal qualities. Similar criticisms have previously been advanced in Vermazen 1986, Robinson 1994, and Ridley 1995. Davies is sensitive to this problem, but it is not clear to me how he finally resolves it. 15. What is sometimes a very plausible alternative to the views discussed below (of Levinson and Vermazen) is the view that apprehension as of an emotional state consists in the perception of the sort of phenomenal quality discussed in note 14 above. Thus the apprehension of sadness in a passage of music is plausibly nothing more than the perception of a phenomenal quality, aptly labeled "sad," possessed by the music. What is important to remember is that appeal to such qualities is insufficient to give a complete account of expression.

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second, what it is to attribute the expression of the state to the work. Using the notion of a work's utterer, or persona-a variant, but not an equivalent, of a work's apparent artist-proponents of HI (Levinson 1996, Vermazen 1986) have made interesting, if controversial, suggestions. Vermazen (attempting to handle both issues at once) claims that "an object expresses a mental property if and only if the object is evidence that the imagined utterer of the object has that mental property" (1986,207). This proposal explains those cases of apprehension as of an emotional state that have the form of inferences that an imagined producer of an object (e.g., an imagined utterer of a poem) is in that state. As Levinson has noted, it does not so obviously explain those cases of apprehension, more characteristic of nonverbal arts such as music, of a more perceptual nature, as when we hear or see emotion in the object. When we hear sadness in a passage of music (or hear the music as sad), it is not so clear that we infer from the music or take it as evidence that an imagined utterer of it is sad. Levinson suggests that hearing an emotion e in a passage of music consists in the music's being heard by a listener as the expression sui generis of e by an indefinite agent-the music's persona. Levinson suggests that e is expressed by the passage of music if it is heard, in the contexts both of the piece of music itself and of the music's historical setting, by an appropriately backgrounded listener. The advantage of views like Levinson's and Vermazen's is that they offer a way of making intelligible puzzling phenomena like hearing an emotion in music (e.g., hearing sadness in the music or hearing the music as sad). One might be inclined to think that when someone claims to hear such and such in a passage, he or she is claiming that the passage sounds like such and such. (So, if one hears bells in a passage, this is because the passage has a bell-like sound.) However, it is not intelligible to say (literally) that a passage sounds like the emotion of sadness. What is intelligible to say is that the music sounds like someone's expression of sadness or that it might furnish evidence that someone is sad.16 There is, however, a disadvantage to this attempt at making hearing emotion in music intelligible. This is that while the explanation is more intelligible than the phenomena, it is far less readily acknowledged than the phenomena. That is, many who are willing to say that they hear emotion in music are not willing to say that they hear (abstract) music as having a persona or utterer. The idea that musical pieces are to be heard as uttered does not have the inevitability it has in the case of poetry. 16. This reasoning is borrowed from Levinson 1996, 116.

Hypothetical Intentions and Implied Authors When we recognize this, it becomes easier to remember that hearing something in music is not always the result of the music sounding like that thing. We hear various properties of the sea in Debussy's La Mer, not always because the music sounds like the sea, but because we recognize structures that bear a resemblance (but not a resemblance in sound) to properties of sea change. So far I have been noting pros and cons of the idea the we hear emotion in music in virtue of hearing the music as an expressive utterance.'' I propose to leave this issue unsettled, mainly because I am not sure what is the correct way of settling it. Let us proceed by assuming for the sake of argument that this account is correct (though this is by no means obvious) and that suitable variants can be supplied for other art forms. To settle what expression in an artwork is, we need now to decide when a work expresses emotions (and other psychological states) we perceive or infer in them, that is, when it is correct to attribute the expression of the state to the work. Vermazen does not distinguish taking a passage as evidence that its imagined utterer is in a psychological state and the passage's expressing that state. However, not all such takings, not even all such acceptable takings, entail that the passage expresses the state. This would depend on the aims, as well as the correctness, of the interpretation. A significance-seeking interpretive project that is willing to accept anachronism could easily and acceptably take a passage as evidence for a psychological state that the passage does not express. Levinson requires more. A musical passage expresses an emotional state if it is readily and aptly heard as someone's expression of that state by a properly backgrounded listener who hears the passage in the context of the whole work and its historical setting. This, though a distinct improvement over Vermazen's suggestion, still is not enough. Nothing in the properties of such hearing specified by Levinson rules it out as a case of misperception. For me, at least, it is easier to see this by shifting to another art form: lyric poetry. Recall the well-known and oft-rehearsed debate, originally between Cleanth Brooks (1951,736) and F. W. Bateson (1950,33, 80-81), over the interpretation of Wordsworth's "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal." The debate is easily seen as one about the emotional state expressed by the poem. 17. Assuming, on my view, that work meaning is a species of utterance meaning, one may wonder, what is the bearing of the claim that we do not hear music as an utterance? The answer is little or none: we can interpret the music as the composer's "utterance" even if we do not hear the music as an utterance (of the music's persona). To do so is simply to ask what the composer intended in writing the music, whether the intention was successful, and so forth.

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Bateson construes the state as one that is far more accepting of a loved one's death than Brooks's interpretation has it. Both critics are properly backgrounded and are looking at the poem in its historical context, and both interpretations are apt and unforced. It is possible that the poem is ambiguous or indeterminate on the matter debated by these critics (and many others who joined in the fray), but it is also possible that one (or both) of these critics is mistaken in the interpretation offered. I am sure parallels can be found in musical interpretation. Whether this criticism is ultimately to be accepted depends on how one construes the force of "apt," "readily," "properly backgrounded," and "contextually situated." Bateson's interpretation of "A Slumber" is to me apt and unforced. If one approaches the poem with Wordsworth's pantheism foremost in one's mind, one can easily read the poem in Bateson's terms (making the interpretation "unforced" and plausible) and, in doing so, provide a way of appreciating the poem as a whole. The interpretation is quite apt for this purpose. Bateson contextually situates his interpretation with respect to the work as a whole because he uses it to explain many aspects of the poem. He is clearly "historically backgrounded" and uses this in emphasizing Wordsworth's pantheism. However, despite (to my mind) meeting Levinson's criteria, I still think Bateson's interpretation, not just might be mistaken, but is mistaken. Briefly, I believe this because there are at least two features of "A Slumber" that Bateson's interpretation does not adequately account for. In the first stanza, the speaker takes himself to task for some failure in himself with respect to Lucy when she was alive ("A Slumber did my spirit seal, / . . . She seemed a thing that could not feel / The touch of earthly years"). For what is the speaker taking himself to task? However we finally wish to express it, it has something to do with a blindness to Lucy's mortality, a blindness that a pantheistic conception of the world might promote but hardly justify in the context of the speaker's self-reproach. Second, the choice of such hard, lifeless, and impenetrable things as rocks and stones to accompany Lucy's diurnal course hardly seems the right choice if one wishes to convey a reassuring pantheistic message. (See Chapter 13 for the poem itself [page 2991 and a fuller interpretation.) It might now be replied that, if I am right in my assessment of Bateson's interpretation, it turns out that it was after all not apt and unforced or not adequately contextually situated. If one says this, one is packing more requirements into these terms than I did in the preceding paragraph. One is requiring that the interpreter adequately account for everything relevant to the interpretation of the poem, whether it be within the text or part of the

Hypothetical Intentions and Implied Authors historical background. Relevant to the interpretation in what sense? Relevant to the most justified attribution of intention to Wordsworth possible for an ideal audience. That seems to me to take matters well beyond the meaning of Levinson's original words. It follows that we should say that aptly hearing, seeing, or inferring an emotional state in a work of art, even when the work is received in its proper context by a properly backgrounded individual, does not entail, when this requirement is taken in its more ordinary sense, that the work express that emotional state. What more is needed? A proponent of HI could say that an ideal audience member would hypothesize that the creator of the work intended such hearing, seeing, or inferring. A proponent of U could say that the creator of the work actually did intend such seeing, hearing, or inferring or that conventions in place at the time the work was created require such seeing, hearing, or inferring. There are a number of things worth noticing at this point. First, only when the proponent of HI is pushed to refer to hypothesized intentions of artists do we get an account of expression in a canonical HIist vein. Second, the proponent of U can as readily as the proponent of HI make use of the insights, if such they be, of Vermazen and Levinson about the imagined persona or utterer of a work in offering an account of expression. Third, it may be the case that the appropriateness of trying to determine what a work expresses, strictly speaking, is variable from medium to medium or work to work. Thus it may be that in the case of many musical works it is not worth trying to go beyond talk about what a properly backgrounded listener hears in a work. In such cases, it is more proper to speak (to use Kendall Walton's idiom) of the expression's occurring in the game-world of the listener than in the work as such. Finally, it should be noted that once we are pushed to refer to intentions, hypothetical or actual, in accounting for expression in art, rather than merely referring to utterers or personas, HI and U are on a much more equal footing. Each account of expression now faces the same pros and cons mentioned in the preceding sections regarding work meaning in general. Though that does not imply that U is clearly superior here, it does establish that, contrary to intuitions mentioned at the beginning of the section, it is by no means out of the running as a plausible account of expression.18 18. Suppose we reject the persona account of apprehension and replace it with the phenomenal-qualityaccount mentioned in note 14 above. We would still need a story to explain

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In this chapter I have primarily been concerned to evaluate alternatives to U as proposals about work meaning. I have argued that conventionalism is clearly inadequate, but most of the chapter has focused on hypothetical intentionalism. I have not offered a decisive refutation of this view but pointed out various problems with it, problems that undermine some of the motivations for holding it. I have also argued that U has more explanatory power than HI and that the former can hold its own even with regard to aspects of work meaning where HI initially appeared superior. Perhaps the reader may wonder whether the various problems and complexities discussed in this chapter make the whole notion of work meaning, rather than a specific account of it, less attractive. I am not sure that a reader would not be right so to wonder. However, in the next chapter, I look at some views about interpretation that dispense with work meaning and argue that they are unacceptable.

how such quality possession figures in expression. The rough HIist story would be that w expresses e when an ideal audience is justified in inferring that the artist (composer) used the possession of phenomenal property p to indicate e. The rough Uist story is that the actual artist (composer) successfully intended p to indicate e or that conventions in place at the time of w's creation indicate this.

This chapter examines some conceptions of the interpretive enterprise that have recently been associated with the name "pragmatism."1 All these conceptions share with my view an acceptance of critical pluralism. A number, if not all, share with it an emphasis on the idea that there are a multiplicity of interpretive aims. They differ from my view in rejecting critical monism and being unsympathetic to the idea that there is such a thing as the meaning of a work (which, we have seen, is a condition of ambitious critical monism). (Recall Stout's pragmatic argument against work meaning at the beginning of Chapter 8.) There is enough agreement between pragmatist views and my own to make it worthwhile to explore and argue over the differences. There are several guiding principles that are shared among contemporary pragmatists: (1)Correspondence theories of truth, objectivity, and knowledge are to be rejected. (2) Truth, objectivity, and knowledge are to be construed, somehow, in terms of agreement within a community.2 (3) Objects of 1. I am concerned here with what currently goes under the name "pragmatism." I am not concerned with its similarity to the pragmatism of Peirce, James, and Dewey. 2. Although principle 1 is clearly held by virtually everyone associated with contemporary

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inquiry, including objects of interpretation, are, at least in part, constructed by inquiry (interpretation) itself. Sometimes, pragmatism is said to imply the view that a theory of interpretation is impossible or, at least, not a live option. Sometimes, we are given a pragmatist theory of interpretation.3 I first examine an argument proposed by Richard Rorty against theory and argue not only that it fails but that Rorty proposes a theory of interpretation of precisely the sort he argues against. I then consider the pragmatist theories of interpretive truth and knowledge of Richard Shusterman, Joseph Margolis, and Stanley Fish. I argue that they all face serious objections.

Richard Rorty claims that it is a pointless exercise to search for a theory of interpretation. If we think of a theory of interpretation as telling us what an interpretation of an artwork once and for all is, describing its immutable nature, then it seems clear how principles 1 and 2 rule out the possibility of theory. To suppose that a theory could plausibly capture the immutable nature of interpretation, we would have to take seriously the idea that the sentences of the theory could enter into a relation of correspondence with this nature, and principle 1 rules out taking this idea seriously. Furthermore, pragmatism (Rorty, Putnam, Goodman, Shusterman, Fish, etc.), principle 2 may seem more problematic. Thus Rorty declares in a number of places that he holds no positive theory of truth, and that may seem to show he does not accept (2). However, he equally often makes statements that I would count as expressing adherence to principle 2. Thus Rorty (1989, 37) holds the view that "there is nothing to be said about truth . . . apart from descriptions of familiar procedures of justification which a given society-ours-uses in one or another area of inquiry." "The hardness of facts is simply . . . the hardness of previous agreements within a community" (Rorty 1985b, 3). 3. Other arguments against the possibility of theory associated with the name "pragmatism" are found in Knapp and Michaels 1985a and Fish 1985.1 discuss Fish's paper in the fifth section below, "Fish's Argument for the Relativity of Interpretive Truth," and in Stecker 1990b. Knapp and Michaels do not give a pragmatist argument in my sense, since it in no way relies on principles 1 , 2 , and 3. Rather, their argument relies on an essentialism that is antithetical to the pragmatism of Rorty and Shusterman. Their argument, in my opinion, borders on the silly. Thus, in arguing against literary "theory," they assume a highly controversial theory within the philosophy of language. That is not eliminating theory but substituting a preferred theory for others. For extended criticism of Knapp and Michaels from a pragmatist point of view, see Rorty 1985a and Shusterman 1992,95-100.

Pragmatism and Interpretation principle 2 seems to rule out the possibility that interpretation has an immutable nature, since it claims that whatever is true, or can objectively be said, is a function of community agreement, and what communities agree about regarding interpretation is subject to considerable change. Instead of giving theories, Rorty says that we should tell stories whose purpose is to persuade us that certain ways of thinking ("v~cabularies")~ are beneficial or useful, while others are harmful or, at least, not useful. However, Rorty himself has not told any such stories about the theory of interpretation. Rather, he too presents a theory (though one that certainly would benefit from greater elaboration). If he has indeed done this, either Rorty has violated pragmatist principles 1 or 2, or there is something wrong with the argument that those principles exclude the possibility of a theory of interpretation. I argue that the latter claim states the truth of the matter. But first, what is Rorty's theory of interpretation? In "Texts and Lumps," Rorty argues that a Hirschean view about validity in interpretation can be reconciled with a "Dewey-Wittgenstein-Davidson-Kuhn [i.e., Rorty's] sort of pragmatism" (1985b, 8). As it turns out, this reconciliation is only accomplished by a radical modification of Hirsch's view, a modification that can be identified with Rorty's own theory. Rorty calls his view "Text-Lump Parallelism." Texts (things people say or write) and lumps ("things you would bring for analysis to a natural scientist") are compared on five levels.

1. The phonetic-graphic features of texts are compared with the sensory appearance and location of lumps. 2. The text's author's overt intention, expressed as he or she would express it, is compared with the real essence of lumps. 3. The author's intention, as expressed in terms available to a contemporary critic but not available to the original author, is compared with what the appropriate sector of normal science would say about a lump. 4. The text as described by a revolutionary critic is compared with the lump as described by a revolutionary scientist. 5. Finally, the role of the text in a discussion of something other than the text is compared with the role of a lump in someone's view of something other than the science to which the lump has been assigned. 4. Martin Steinman (1988) takes Rorty to task for using "vocabulary" in a highly idiosyncratic way. I believe one can substitute "way of thinkingn wherever Rorty uses "vocabulary" without significant change in sense.

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At first glance, Text-Lump Parallelism appears to approximate a Hirschean view. For an author's intention, expressed as the author would express it, is compared to the real essence of lumps and so appears to be given a privileged position. Furthermore, this privileged position appears to survive pragmatist skepticism about real essences, for while Rorty denies that level 2 is an operative category for lumps, he claims that it would be overhasty to dismiss it in the case of texts. "For there obviously is something called 'the author's intention' which we can and do use to give sense to level [2] in the case of texts" (Rorty 1985b, 10). However, this privileged position, not surprisingly, turns out to be illusory. In comparing the author's original intention to the essence of lumps, Rorty does not mean to imply that the author's original intention constitutes the real essence of texts. (In fact, why Rorty pairs off these items at level 2 remains somewhat mysterious to me. I suppose the reason may lie in the fact that Hirsch and others have thought that the essence of textual meaning lies in such intentions.) Rorty rejects Hirsch's distinction between meaning and significance and claims that levels 2-5 equally specify meanings texts have ("four possible meanings of meaning") with none prior to or necessary for any of the others. (1 think this rings untrue especially at level 5. If I say, for example, that the antiessentialist world as sketched by Rorty is akin to the looking-glass world of Alice, I am not ascribing a new meaning to Through the Looking Glass. If anything, I am presupposing a certain understanding of that work.) What this implies is a view that can fairly be called a theory of interpretation, but one that is not particularly Hirschean. On this theory, it is okay to talk about meanings works have but not about the meaning of a work. It is okay to interpret in terms of the author's intention, but it is not okay to claim that this exhausts a work's meaning. It is okay to give various revisionary interpretations in quite other terms. An interpretation is objective if it can secure agreement among members of the relevant critical community or establish a new critical community. Objectivity can occur at any of the levels 2-5.' Rorty's theory does what we would expect any theory to do. It excludes various alternative theoretical options (e.g., ambitious critical monism of 5. Shusterman (1992, 100-106) gives a rather different picture of Rorty's theory of interpretation. According to Shusterman, Rorty's view is skewed in favor of revolutionary interpretations. If Shusterman merely means that Rorty finds in these interpretations special value that others lack, he is probably right. However, if he means to ascribe to Rorty the view that interpretations at levels 2 and 3 are not legitimate, I would not agree.

Pragmatism and Interpretation both the intentionalist and nonintentionalist kind). It guides critical practice by suggesting that certain practices are legitimate (e.g., looking for meaning in texts at any of the levels 2 - 5 ) , while others are not legitimate (looking for the meaning of a text). It gives us a criterion to distinguish acceptable from unacceptable interpretations (though not one that can be applied a priori, independently of critical practice). If one has certain expectations of a theory, then one might still be disinclined to accept that Rorty has given us theory. For example, if one expects a theory to close off in advance (a priori) which items are interpretations or are acceptable interpretations, then what Rorty gives us is not a theory. However, a theory can instead imply that this cannot be done, because it may explain how an item's status as an interpretation or an acceptable interpretation will vary with certain features of context in ways that leave the status of possible future items indeterminate in the present. Or, if one expects theory to tell the practitioner exactly what to do with a work, one would again deny that Rorty gives us a theory. However, a theory can fail to be action guiding in this way, both because it offers a number of possibilities (or even open-ended possibilities) to the practitioner and because it may be silent about how to implement the goals of the theory. That I am willing to count as theories statements that violate these expectations might be taken to indicate that I have moved away from a "Plato-Kant conception7' of theory that is the real object of Rorty's attack on theory. Of course, if the fulfillment of those expectations is required by that conception, I have. This just goes to show that one can discover new ways to theorize, just as one can discover new ways to do anything else.6 If Rorty gives us a theory, does this mean that he has violated his own pragmatist principles? I do not think so. On Rorty's theory, principle 2 surely is not violated. The objectivity, acceptability, and truth of interpretations are matters of community agreement, according to the theory. Since this is so, it is equally obvious that principle 1 is not violated. Finally, nothing has been said to impugn principle 3. The mistaken premise in Rorty's argument against theory is that a theory of interpretation tells us what an interpretation once and for all is. It is equally a theoretical claim to assert that there is no such thing as what an interpretation once and for all is. This is not to say 6. I am indebted to J. Wesley Robbins for helpful suggestions about what Rorty is and is not attacking with regard to theory. Robbins would distinguish between giving a theory of interpretation and having definite things to say about what people are or should be doing when they interpret. I think it is inevitable that one will at least presuppose a theory in doing the latter.

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that there are no necessary truths about interpretation. Rorty's theory gives us several of these. It implies that, even if critics are temporarily interested in a single aim, it is false that only interpretations pursuing that aim are correct or legitimate. For if the community were to become fragmented in its aims, there could be nothing in theory wrong with this. The theory implies the truth of critical pluralism and the falsity of critical monism. In most ways, this theory is congenial with my own. I agree that there are many meanings that acceptable interpretations can assign to works and that it is not fixed once and for all which interpretations these are. Of course, I am inclined to disagree with Rorty's denial that there is such a thing as the meaning of a work, which can be set off against other acceptable meaning assignments, but I am not hard and fast on that issue. The more significant differences concern metaphysical issues about work identity and epistemic issues about the role of community agreement in confirming interpretations, which issues are discussed in the following sections.

In the previous section, I emphasized Rorty's view on acceptable interpretation, that is, his views about which meaning assignments to texts are acceptable and his denial that there is a privileged subset of these that constitute the meaning of the text. While I find most of this congenial, I now turn to underlying motivations for this view that I find largely uncongenial. One might think that the core pragmatist argument on why there is a plurality of acceptable approaches to assigning meaning to texts (Rorty's levels 2-5) would turn on the value for the interpreters of those approaches. Such an argument could employ the idea emphasized in Chapter 8 that we interpret with different aims, any number of which can lead to valuable results for those who pursue them. (These considerations are also central to Stout's argument discussed in Chapter 9.) It would be wrong to deny that Rorty and other pragmatists ignore such considerations. Here is one passage where Rorty alludes to them: "For now one is debating what purposes are worth bothering to fulfill . . . rather than the purposes the nature of humanity or reality obliges us to have" (1991, 79-80). However, the pragmatist's main arguments emphasize metaphysical and epistemic considerations, surprising as that may seem for those who claim to have shifted ground away from traditional philosophical approaches to issues. Thus,

Pragmatism and Interpretation immediately following the passage just quoted is this: "For anti-essentialists, all possible purposes compete with one another on equal terms" (Rorty 1991, 80, my italics). Rorty's route to a multiplicity of interpretive aims is a metaphysical doctrine, antiessentialism. Antiessentialism is a form of reductionism. Human minds are conceived of as mechanisms for "reweaving webs" of beliefs and desires and causing movement in muscles. The idea that inquiry is a matter of finding out something about the nature of objects outside this web is rejected in favor of the view that inquiry is a matter of an organism achieving an equilibrium state in virtue of certain internal adjustments. The idea that items in the web represent something in or outside the web is also rejected, although it is not so clear what is the preferred antiessentialist alternative here. It has something to do with the fact that the idea that there are objects beyond the web is not rejected. These objects figure in the causal processes that alter belief-desire webs (though not in virtue of beliefs and desires representing these objects). It hardly needs mentioning that these objects do not have essential natures, do not have some properties that are essential, as opposed to others that are accidental. The view that Rorty calls antiessentialism provides a direct argument for including levels 2-5 among acceptable meaning assignments. "Suppose we are anti-essentialists all the way. Then we shall say that all inquiry is interpretation, that all thought is recontextualization. . . . We shall not grant a useful contrast between topics about which there is objective truth and topics about which there is not" (Rorty 1991,70-71). Rorty means to deny a contrast between interpretation and a more objective way of understanding something, such as scientific explanation, but his point applies equally to those, like myself, who would draw a similar distinction within the domain of interpretation itself. Recontextualization is described by Rorty as the "reweaving" of the web of beliefs and desires that constitute a human mind. The goal of recontextualization, recall, is not finding out the nature of something outside the web but achieving an equilibrium state for the reweaving mechanism upset by the introduction of new beliefsf perceptionsfdesires. What appear to be distinct interpretive projectsidentifying intentions in the vocabulary of the artist, doing so in a new, theoretical vocabulary, giving a revisionary reading-are simply doing the same thing in different degrees: recontextualizing. One is as acceptable as the other as long as it achieves the goal of the mechanism: equilibrium. I said I found the metaphysical underpinnings of pragmatist views about interpretation uncongenial. Let me take a moment to hold up Rorty's views

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set out in the previous two paragraphs as an example. First, to conceive human minds as reweaving mechanisms seems to reduce our community with other people and with objects to a set of purely causal relations. We are never acquainted with another person or object, much less able to represent them to some degree of adequacy. "You do not find out anything about an object at all-you just find out about how your web of beliefs and desires can be rewoven" (Rorty 1991, 69).' Second, thinking gets reduced to a single activity: reweaving. Third, there seems little room for a debate about what purposes are worth fulfilling, the debate for which Rorty earlier desired to clear a space, because the single intellectual activity of human minds, reweaving, has but one goal: equilibrium. Perhaps Rorty can reintroduce the variety-in our contacts with the world, in our mental activity, in our goals and purposes-that the present "vocabulary" drains away. But why write oneself into a corner where one has to reintroduce these things? From a pragmatic point of view (rather than a metaphysician's), it is bad policy. There is another problem with the reweaving/recontextualizationvocabulary. We appear to lose the object of interpretation, or at least a common object for different reweaving to be about. If one was truly committed to the grand reduction implied by "antiessentialism," one might be willing to sweep this objection aside too. Not all pragmatists, including Rorty, at least sometimes, are willing to do this. However, a clearer attempt at coping with this issue is found in another exponent of pragmatism, though he borrows heavily from Rorty. So I turn to him. Richard Shusterman is a pragmatist who does not combine pragmatism with an attack on theory. He thinks of his pragmatism as giving him a theory to be argued for against rival nonpragmatist theories. I will first draw some parallels between Shusterman's views on interpretation and Rorty's, and then return to the issue of identifying a common object of interpretation. Shusterman, like Rorty, rejects the idea that there is such a thing as the meaning of a text ("an independent semantic object" [Shusterman 1988b, 4031). In fact, Shusterman claims that all theories that presuppose that a work possesses "fixed, determinate, descriptive, properties" (403) are untenable. He believes that these claims are a consequence of the rejection of correspondence theory of truth and objectivity. Shusterman holds a critical pluralism similar to Rorty's. Like Rorty, 7. It should be pointed out that the quoted passage is "uttered" by an imaginary objector rather than Rorty himself. However, Rorty goes on to accept the objector's point.

Pragmatism and Interpretation Shusterman accepts the traditional strategy of identifying authorial intention as one way of making sense of texts. But there are many ways of making sense of texts. In fact, according to Shusterman (1988b, 403), "their number is legion." Shusterman improves on Rorty's account of the status of these ways of making sense of texts. Rorty appears to equate intentionalist interpretation with normal critical practice (on the model of Kuhnian normal science) and revisionary interpretation with revolutionary practice. Shusterman sees that there need be nothing revolutionary about revisionary interpretation. By now it is part of normal practice. Let us now return to the problem of specifying a common object of interpretation. One objection to a pragmatist account of interpretation claims that without an objective meaning with which to identify the work, there is no adequate way to individuate it (Knapp and Michaels 1985b, 468). A more general objection is that, unless one can attribute some "fixed, determinate" properties to an object, there is no object. Since a pragmatist, or at least Shusterman, rejects both the idea that there is such a thing as the meaning of a work and the idea that there are "fixed, determinate properties" of a work, it is far from clear that on this picture there is a work, an object to be interpreted. Shusterman begins his reply by correctly pointing out that the demand for a common object of interpretation is a purely formal one-it is a demand for something we can all refer to in our talk, but this leaves open its character. In an initial attempt to meet this formal requirement, Shusterman (1988b, 408), following Rorty, suggests that "since the only way to identify an object is by talking about it, objects can be reduced to ways of talking." A way of talking, apparently, is a set of propositions using "the relevant term" that elicits agreement in the appropriate critical community. One purported advantage of the proposal is that we can "reach agreement about our objects of interpretation without there being a fixed and determinate object" for us to agree upon. A further purported advantage is that we can explain how "the identity of the work can change significantly over time" without having to worry whether "given such a change it really is the same work" (409). I find this proposal baffling. What are we to make of the initial claim that "since the only way to identify an object is by talking about it, objects can be reduced to ways of talking"? Is it plausible to infer from the fact that the only way to identify an a is by doing b that a can be reduced to b-ing? Surely not. Surely, for example, the crude instrumentalism has been discredited that claims that, since the only way to identify certain substances is by perform-

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ing certain tests, those substances can be reduced to the operation of performing those tests. Similarly, it does not follow from the fact that the only way to identify certain intentional actions is by first identifying certain bodily movements, that intentional action can be reduced to bodily movement. Whatever the merits of such a reduction, this would be a bad argument for it. So even if it is true that the only way to identify objects is by talking about them, it hardly follows that objects can be reduced to ways of talking. Second, only a little thought reveals that the purported advantages of the reduction are illusory. One purported advantage is that the reduction allows us to get along without presupposing the existence of "fixed and determinate" objects. But why are ways of talking not such objects? A way of talking is a set of propositions that elicit agreement, and propositions are, for pragmatists, linguistic objects: sentences. A text is also a linguistic object, though one usually distinguished from what is said about it. Still, texts and ways of talking, both being linguistic objects, are not radically different sorts of objects. To understand either, we must understand what they mean, and there is no reason to think that we have more direct access to the meaning of what is said about ways of talking than to the meaning of texts. In ways of talking, the pragmatist has simply introduced another independent object. He has passed the buck, not solved a problem. (The same could be said, by the way, about webs of beliefs and desires.) There is also a problem about how to make sense of the favored pragmatist object, a way of talking-a set of propositions. Such propositions will contain singular terms, including singular terms standardly construed as referring to the text. If we construe these propositions in the standard way, then adverting to ways of talking hardly eliminates the text as an independent object. If pragmatists do not construe singular terms in the standard way, they owe us an account of how to construe propositions containing singular terms. Certainly there are alternatives to the standard one, but they all make commitments, that the pragmatist hopes to avoid, to some independent object or other. (The same can be said, once again, about webs of beliefs and desires. They too contain references to objects, as well as predications purported t o be true of those objects, that have to be explained or explained away.) Finally, the nature of the proposed reduction is never made very clear. Is the claim that there is a strict numerical identity between an object and a way of talking? Or is a different claim being made, perhaps the claim that we should eliminate talk about texts in favor of talk about ways of talking? This unclarity is exemplified in the second purported advantage of the reduc-

Pragmatism and Interpretation tion-that it solves problems about the identity of the text. If a text were strictly identical with a way of talking, then whenever a distinct way of talking arises (either in place of an old way of talking or while it still persists), the logic of identity requires us to say that a new text comes into existence. However, instead of suggesting that this is what happens, Shusterman makes the thoroughly mysterious claim that the reduction can explain how the work's identity can change over time. What is mysterious is how something, however conceived, can persist through a change in identity. It is not surprising, then, that Shusterman goes on to suggest that we should not worry whether, given such a change, it really is the same work. However, to say that implies that we also should not take very seriously even the formal requirement that there be a common object of interpretation that critics are agreeing and disagreeing about. Since it was the formal requirement that the reduction was initially taken to satisfy, we can conclude that at this point the project has completely failed. I think we can see why it failed. To satisfy even the formal requirement, some common object or other that critics are talking about must be individuated. What makes the requirement formal is simply that the nature of the object is left open. The object can be individuated by semantic criteria, syntactic criteria, or in relation to other objects, such as ways of talking. But the pragmatist is loathe to identify any such object, because that brings along with it the idea that critical statements are true just in case they correspond to facts about this object. As we know, a fundamental principle of contemporary pragmatism denies this. More recently, Shusterman has offered a revised account of work identity. This new account is geared more to rendering coherent the constructivist, rather than antiessentialist, tendencies within contemporary pragmatism. That is, the account is aimed at demonstrating that it is coherent to speak of a single object with changing content or meaning. "Agreement about referential identity can be secured by agreeing about a certain minimum number of identifying descriptions. . . . [W]e can [then] . . . distinguish between change in the object interpreted and change of the object interpreted," although we need not assume that there is always a definite answer to "the question whether or not it really is the same work" (Shusterman 1992, 94, Shusterman's italics).' A number of things are worth noticing about this suggestion. First, there is no longer a trace of Rorty's ways of talking or his belief-desire webs in the 8. Michael Krausz (1993b, 121-22) presents a similar view.

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new account. The Rortian approach has been jettisoned. Second, the account is for the most part compatible with essentialism. Thus the idea that we can distinguish between change in an object and change of an object comes straight out of Aristotle. Nevertheless, I use the qualifier "for the most part" because Shusterman still has his wayward moments. Thus, at the end of the passage just quoted, the emphasis on "really7' suggests not merely that there will be some borderline cases where it is indeterminate whether there is a change in the work or a change of work, but, in general, that questions of identity are not real questions. Third, despite this wavering, Shusterman's account might even entail that a work have some essential properties, depending on how Shusterman fleshes out the notion of "a minimum number of identifying descriptions." Finally, it should be noted how sketchy this account is. Shusterman tells us nothing about what the crucial minima of identifying descriptions might look like. Reference to them is a promissory note that needs to be cashed in.9 One final comment about the account is that Shusterman is overly optimistic about what it buys for him. It does not "explain . . . how a work's meaning can change significantly over time" (Shusterman 1992,94). It merely renders that possibility coherent, assuming that the promissory notes can be cashed in. How meaning change actually occurs requires significant further explanation. The explanation cannot simply consist in noting that new meaning assignments are attributed to works. For one thing, the idea that attributing a meaning can bring it about that a work has a meaning sounds like magic. For another, any reasonable theory must distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable attributions.

It is in Shusterman's discussions of interpretive knowledge that he comes closest to giving an account of the distinction between an acceptable and an 9. Both Shusterman, in the passage just quoted, and Krausz, in the passage cited in note 8 above, assume that the right theory of meaning for singular terms referring to works is a cluster (of descriptions) theory. However, theories of meaning of this type have come in for severe criticism. The locus classicus of such criticisms is Kripke 1973. Shusterrnan and Krausz do not look into a currently popular alternative account of the meaning of singular terms, namely, a direct-reference theory according to which the meaning of a singular term is the object it names. I recommend such a theory at the end of this chapter.

Pragmatism and Interpretation unacceptable meaning attribution and, hence, indirectly, of meaning change. In place of the idea that knowledge of a text consists of propositional knowledge of fixed, determinate descriptive properties, Shusterman (1988b, 407) suggests that "interpretive knowledge of a literary work may be seen . . . as a performed ability to respond to the literary work in ways . . . conforming to a range of acceptable . . . response." One purported consequence of this view is that one can have "interpretive" knowledge of a text without giving a true interpretation of it. Since knowledge is a "performed ability," interpretations that lack truth value (or lack the truth value true) can still evince knowledge of a text. Call this the performance model of interpretive knowledge. On the performance model, interpretive knowledge is the acquisition and exercise of a skill, a species of knowing how. It might be compared to knowledge of calligraphy, where knowledge consists in the ability, demonstrated through its exercise, to do wonderful things in the way of forming letters or characters with brush and ink. This is not an adequate conception of the knowledge of works provided by critical interpretation. The main reason is that it does not explain how interpretive knowledge is of a given work, even if it is exercised with respect to that work. Critical interpretations make statements. Statements are always about something or other, critical statements being about an object of interpretation. Hence, unlike other performances, such as doing calligraphy, playing a piece of music (in which the music is interpreted, but not critically interpreted),10 or riding a bicycle, the knowledge involved in critical interpretation is knowledge of statements: knowledge that p. Knowledge that p is standardly understood as equivalent to knowledge that p is true. The performance conception of interpretive knowledge is no more adequate for Shusterman's purposes than it is adequate simpliciter. Consider the "twofold principle" that informs "our most established and respected practices of literary interpretation. . . . it aims at . . [I] constituting a wealth of meaningful features into a coherent whole . . . [2] which exceeds the limits of the work itself . . . by explaining and placing them in a larger context" (Shusterman 1992, 92). Notice that implicit in this "twofold" principle is something that approximates to Hirsch's distinction between meaning and significance. That is, we have the meaningful features-of the work surely-that are given a coherence that "exceeds the limit of the

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10. Jerrold Levinson (1993b) authoritatively spells out the relevant differences between critical and performance interpretation.

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work" by being given significance in virtue of being placed in a larger context. Crucial to this conception is the idea that there are meaningful features to be predicated-truly predicated, presumably-of the work. So in the end Shusterman has to give an account of true interpretation compatible with his pragmatist principles or give a better explanation of how we can dispense with truth. Shusterman in fact explores both options. The first option is to replace the correspondence theory of truth with an account of truth (factuality, objectivity) in terms of agreement. Let us not worry about the precise statement of the account. Shusterman considers two closely related objections against the possibility of any such account. The first objection is the "Moorean argument" that we can always ask whether a "rationally and consensually endorsed judgment is really true" (Shusterman 1988c, 55). Or, to put the point another way, as Shusterman does in another place (1988a, 214), it must be possible for firmly entrenched, community-endorsed judgments to be wrong if we want our calling them "right" to have a sense distinct from "currently accepted" (as we surely do). The second objection is that since we find conflicting judgments, each gaining agreement in its respective community, the pragmatist view implies "either that conflicting judgments are true or [that] no judgments are objective" (Shusterman 1988c, 55). Shusterman's response to these objections is to move away from the idea that truth or objectivity can be defined straightforwardly as what is acceptable in a given community. In place of the view that truth is a matter of what is acceptable in a community, Shusterman, in different places, makes two somewhat different proposals. One is to think of truth as something like idealized rational acceptability, that is, to think of truth as what results from the (never-ending) process of widening the circle of agreement (1988c, 55). The trouble with this proposal, given the pragmatist's rejection of an object to which truth conforms, is that it is unclear what basis he has for believing that such ever-widening agreement is either possible or desirable. The alternative proposal is to give up talking about true interpretation (Shusterman 1988a, 214). We can still think of interpretations as being acceptable for all sorts of reasons other than their being true. The advantage of talking about acceptability, instead of truth, is that it is always true that no matter how highly acceptable are the interpretations we currently possess, an even more highly acceptable one may be given in the future. Just as it is an option for the pragmatist to give up the idea that there is a common object of interpretation, it is an option to give up the idea that there

Pragmatism and Interpretation are true interpretations. By taking this option, the pragmatist ducks the Moorean argument, but at least two problems remain. First, dropping truth in favor of acceptability leaves untouched the problem of conflicting interpretive judgments. Given that there are well-entrenched community-endorsed conflicting judgments of acceptability, can we hope for rational resolutions to such conflicts, or are all such judgments of acceptability equally objective, or are no conflicting judgments of acceptability objective? I do not claim that this is an insoluble problem for the pragmatist, but I do claim that a detailed, satisfactory resolution is yet to be spelled out. The second, more serious problem is that the idea of an acceptable interpretation cannot do everything that the idea of a true interpretation can do, and some claims that the pragmatist wants to make about interpretation require the latter idea. Consider the claim, made by both Rorty and Shusterman, that searching for the author's intention is one legitimate approach to interpretation. Part of what is being claimed is merely that the intentional approach is one acceptable approach among others. However, unless we really believe that there was an intention, had by the author of the work, intentional interpretation becomes a pointless exercise. Given that belief, we cannot equate the rightness of an intentional interpretation with its acceptability according to certain currently used standards (e.g., standards of evidence). For here, the Moorean argument reasserts itself. We can have excellent evidence according to currently accepted standards and still be wrong about the author's intention. Furthermore, unless we regard the meeting of standards as giving good reasons to believe we have actually found out something about the author's intention (i.e., we have found out certain truths) it is not clear why these standards should be called standards of evidence. In short, the claim that intentionalist interpretation is a legitimate approach is coherent only if such interpretation has truth value. Shusterman fails to offer a successful account of interpretive knowledge. Such knowledge cannot be adequately understood as a kind of performance competence or in terms of idealized acceptability, at least as Shusterman lightly sketches it.

A pragmatist account of interpretive knowledge-an account of what it is to know something about a work by interpreting it-is constrained by the

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three principles, accepted by contemporary pragmatists, stated at the beginning of this chapter. Rejection of a correspondence conception of knowledge implies (at least for pragmatists) that interpretive knowledge is not simply a matter of discovering properties the work determinately had all along. The acceptance of a constructivist conception of the work implies that somehow interpretation itself is productive of meanings a work has. Finally, community-based agreement must play a role in the story of meaning construction. I turn now to two further attempts to account for, within the specified constraints, the nature of interpretive statements and our knowledge of them. In this section, I am concerned with a proposal of Joseph Margolis, and in the next, one offered by Stanley Fish. Before proceeding with Margolis's views, it should be made clear that I am looking at only a fragment of a much larger philosophical system. As such, my criticisms are open to the charge that they address an incompletely specified target, that they overlook a justification found elsewhere in the system, or that they presuppose propositions elsewhere disposed of. I can only say in advance that I believe that the views I discuss are independent of those I leave untouched.'' Margolis's proposal is that interpretive judgments are to be understood within a many-valued, rather than a bivalent, logic. In particular, although some such judgments are false, others are never true but rather are affirmed by such "truthlike predicates" as "plausible," "reasonable," and "apt." The purported advantages of buying into this proposal are several. First, it remains feasible to regard interpretations as asserted and as making truth(like) claims. Hence, it gives due recognition to the fact that critical interpretation is a statement-making activity and that interpretive knowledge is, in large part, knowledge of such statements. A second, closely related advantage is that it recognizes that interpretations are typically or commonly to be evaluated as truth(1ike) claims and that introducing other criteria of acceptability cannot replace this kind of assessment. Third, it countenances the existence of "incompatible" acceptable interpretations. Such interpretations are incompatible in the sense that, were they asserted in a bivalent framework, they could not be true together, and that, even in the manyvalued framework in which they are actually asserted, they remain "nonconverging." They are acceptable, indeed truth(like),in being plausible, apt, 11. Stephen Davies (1995) has, for example, convincingly shown that Margolis's ontology of art is compatible with bivalence.

Pragmatism and Interpretation and so forth. Finally, the picture of interpretive statement making, assessment, and knowledge provided by Margolis's proposal is consistent with the pragmatist principles that purportedly ought to constrain an account of these things. Denying that interpretations bear the truth value true is consistent with a rejection of a correspondence theory of truth (knowledge, objectivity) and, equally, is permissive of the idea that the meaning of a work is constructed by the putting forward of plausible or apt interpretations. (Community-based agreement operates at a more abstract level in Margolis's theory and is not relevant to the present proposal.) In addition to these purported advantages (some of which are to be challenged below), Margolis regards his proposal as extremely intuitive-at least once we recognize that there are asserted acceptable interpretations that cannot be true together in a bivalent framework, and that many-valued logics are viable and coherent. "I regard [the proposal] as an extraordinarily obvious . . . inference-a thesis, in fact, that I cannot for the life of me see why anyone would deny or resist" (Margolis 1995, 3). Margolis's proposal is not as intuitively appealing and obvious to me as it is to him. I now start to set out my reservations. First, while it may be reasonable to suggest that the logic of interpretation is many-valued, at least two tasks have to be performed to make this claim good. To date, I have not noticed that anyone has performed either one. The first task is to provide the logic in question, so that we can examine it and decide whether it is worth giving up bivalence in its favor. Second-and this makes fulfillment of the first task all the more pressing-a case has to be made that just this logic makes sense when given a real-world application like the interpretation of artworks. To say that many-valued logics are viable and need not be incoherent does not show this. To say that such a logic is coherent means merely that it is a consistent formal system. It does not mean that we understand what we are doing when we apply it to interpretive statements. I, for one, do not yet understand what interpretive statements in such a system come to. Provide the system and make explicit how it is being applied, and I may then understand. Second, Margolis's suggestion that terms like "plausible" and "apt" are among the truth(1ike) values of the system is not encouraging. It is not entirely clear what is meant by a truth(1ike) predicate, but, to me, "plausible" and "apt" do not look to be truth values at all. "Plausible" is an epistemic predicate. It means something like "possibly true relative to a body of evidence," or "reasonable." To say something is apt is to say it is fitting, appropriate, suitable to the occasion. The problem with taking apt as a

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truth(1ike) value is that such appropriateness can be completely separate from truth (or truthlikeness) even when the candidate for aptness is a statement or assertion. Aptness is relative to aim in a way truth is not. Finally, it is not so clear to me that the proposal really has all its purported advantages. Margolis thinks it especially important that the proposal should account for the existence of asserted incompatible acceptable interpretations. It is not clear, however, that it actually accomplishes this. Let us see what happens when we evaluate interpretations for plausibility (or as plausibility claims). Consider the two famous interpretive approaches to The Turn of the Screw: that the governess battles real ghosts (R); that the governess hallucinates the ghosts or is otherwise deluded into believing in their existence (H). There are two different ways that H and R could figure in evaluations of plausibility. First, we could simply ask whether each proposition is plausible relative to a (presumably common) body of evidence. Notice, whatever the result of this evaluation, we do not end up with incompatibilities, for the evaluation does not license the joint assertion of H and R simpliciter but the assertions (given one result) that it is plausible that H and that it is plausible that R, both of which are straightforwardly true. The evaluation has justified acceptable but not incompatible propositions, propositions that are capable of being asserted and jointly true in a bivalent framework. The other way to evaluate H and R is to evaluate them, not merely for plausibility per se, but for greater or equal plausibility. That is, instead of merely asking whether each is plausible relative to a body of evidence, we can ask whether the evidence makes one more plausible than another. Possible results would be that H is more plausible than R, R is more plausible than H, H and R are equal in plausibility. Interestingly, even systems of many-valued logic do not countenance the joint assertion of these incompatible propositions. Hence, they do not give a result different from standard, bivalent logic for these cases.12 Whatever system of logic we use, the joint assertion of these statements is not acceptable. The upshot of the discussion is that the supposition that interpretations are evaluated within a many-valued logic does not help explain the possibility of acceptable incompatible interpretations at least in the case of plausibility evaluations. The same result is easily established for aptness evaluations and reasonableness evaluations. Hence this particular purported advantage of Margolis's proposal is illusory. The previous discussion equally 12. Strictly speaking, the joint assertion of these claims would take a "low" truth value in a many-valued logic, as Davies (1995) points out.

Pragmatism and Interpretation shows that assertions of plausibility, aptness, and so forth, regarding incompatible interpretive statements can be made within standard, bivalent logic. Hence, there is no need to shift to a many-valued logic in order to regard critical interpretation as a statement-making activity, to take interpretations as assertions, or to regard interpretive knowledge as primarily knowledge of statements. It remains an open question whether we should take interpretations as asserting only plausibility, aptness, and so forth, or whether we should take them as asserting unvarnished truth. Equally open are the questions whether meanings asserted in interpretations are constructed by the interpretive process and, if they are, what the role of community is in this process. I suggested above that Margolis's proposal is consistent with a constructivist view, but I now have to add that it does not make it more plausible or explain how constructions succeed.

The strategy of rejecting bivalence is the basis of a view Margolis calls robust relativism. In this section, I turn to a version of a more standard relativism proposed by Stanley Fish. What I call standard relativism claims that there is no such thing as an interpretation that is true simpliciter. It claims that interpretations are only true relative to the norms or conventions of an interpretive community, a conceptual scheme, a set of assumptions or "axiom," and so forth. Fish's literary theory rests on an insight that finds one of its clearest expressions in a sentence half-quoted from J. L. Austin: " 'What we have to study is not the sentence' in its pure unattached form but the issuing of an utterance in a situation by a human being" (Fish 1980, 231). What Fish is claiming here is that the study of literature is the study of utterance meaning, a claim I obviously applaud. However, while I understand utterance meaning in completely realistic terms, Fish's treatment of it is relativistic and contructivistic. According to Fish, interpretations are correct or incorrect, but only relative to a set of interpretive assumptions, assumptions shared among members of an interpretive community. The authority of these assumptions rests on the fact that the community accepts them or operates in accordance

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with them. They are not immune to criticism, but criticism can only be put forward on the basis of other assumptions that receive authority based on community agreement. The role of such agreement in giving authority to assumptions is not eliminable. Finally, these assumptions are not to be viewed as strategies or hypotheses used for discovering increasingly adequate interpretations of independently existing works. For Fish, there is no such thing as an independently existing work. Interpretations, and the assumptions on which they are based, create the object of, and evidence for, interpretations. Fish wears his commitment to pragmatist principles on his sleeve. Equally direct-and admirable for its directness-is his attempt to argue for these commitments. In examining Fish's arguments for a relativistic and constructivist conception of interpretation and its objects, I point out, first, that all of Fish's controversial theses have one sense in which they are relatively innocuous and another in which they are quite radical and, second, that the genuinely radical theses do not follow from their premises.

There is nothing worrying about the view that (1)utterances of the same sentences in different situations have different meanings. This view is relativistic insofar as utterance meaning depends on various contextual considerations. But this relativism is not the type anyone fears. It is compatible, for example, with there being a uniquely correct interpretation for each utterance. It is compatible with denying that there are many, sometimes incompatible, equally legitimate interpretations of an utterance that result from different, equally legitimate interpretive assumptions about the situation. It is compatible with claiming that the situation determines a single correct set of interpretive assumptions. Fish also holds the view that (2)there is no single stable basis of agreement that determines an utterance's meaning. Its meaning is relative to interpretive assumptions, the correctness of which cannot be adjudicated. He seems to think that this second view somehow finds support in or is a consequence of the first. In many places, Fish argues for a position that corresponds to the first, more innocuous view. The student who utters, "Is there a text in this class?" is asking a quite definite question. The teacher she addresses it to at first misunderstands its meaning, and then understands it. When Mr. Newlin

Pragmatism and Interpretation raises his hand in Fish's classroom, his gesture means that he wants to ask a question, not that he wants to go to the bathroom or that he is pointing to the sky, though in other situations the same gesture might have those meanings. Fish acknowledges, indeed exaggerates, the determinateness of utterance meaning. "Listeners always know what speech act is being performed . because in any set of circumstances the illocutionary force a sentence may have will already have been determined" (Fish 1980,292; see also 277 and 307). What is the reasoning that leads from this first view to the second, less innocuous one?13 In the essay Is There a Text in This Class? the move is made not as the result of an argument but by a subtle shift in the reference of the word "situation." Consider the following: "[Tlhe possibility of a context, or institution specific norm surely rules out the possibility of a norm whose validity is recognized by everyone no matter what his situation" (Fish 1980, 3 19). Fish originally supported such a non-context-specific norm (though the mention of context, institution, or situation in the statement of the norm may seem paradoxical), namely, that the meaning of an utterance is a function of the situation (context, institution) in which it is made. Anyone, whatever their situation, can try to follow this norm. What Fish is now suggesting is not that one interprets an utterance within its situation rather than a sentence in its pure unattached form, but that whenever one interprets, one is doing so from one's own situation. True or false, this is a completely new thought. Fish makes a similar shift when he talks about interpretive assumptions. Sometimes Fish talks as if the interpretive assumptions are imposed by the institution or situation within which the utterance is delivered, as if it were an objective feature of the overall context of utterance. It is not simply an assumption we impose on Mr. Newlin's hand raising that it signifies the intention to ask a question. It is a convention of classroom conduct in institutions of higher learning (and that is how Fish describes it). On the other hand, whenever Fish talks about interpretive assumptions in connection with literature, he shifts from claiming that the assumptions come from the situation of utterance (the writer's situation) to claiming that the assumptions come from the critic's situation. Has Fish simply made a mistake, conflating two quite different views

..

13. Gerald Graff (1988) notes Fish's tendency to shift between claiming that meaning is determinate in context and claiming that it is relative to interpretive assumptions.

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without being aware of doing so? The evidence of Is There a Text in This Class? suggests that he is prone to such a conflation. However, since the shift is most commonly made in connection with literary interpretation, it is worth asking whether there is a difference between Mr. Newlin's classmates interpreting his gesture and a critic interpreting a literary work. One difference is that Mr. Newlin and his classmates are part of the same situation, so it might be thought that the interpretive situation and the situation of utterance are identical. On the other hand, the situation of poets writing their poems is typically not the same as the critic interpreting the poem. When the situation of utterance and the situation of reception split apart, perhaps interpreters have no choice but to use interpretive assumptions from their situation. The literary critic is always such an interpreter. However, there is no single set of assumptions that constrains all critics at a given time. Furthermore, sets of assumptions change with time. Hence, the truth of relativism.14 Fish never explicitly distinguishes between interpretive situations in this way. At best, such a distinction is implicit in his practice (as a theorist rather than a critic). One explanation of the difference might be a view about the accessibility of intention. When Mr. Newlin raises his hand to seek permission to speak, his intention to do this is a product of the same institutional conventions that produce the interpretive assumptions of his classmates. It is easy to imagine a situation where this ceases to be the case. Mr. Newlin might be an extraordinarily precocious eleven-year-old university freshman who raises his hand to seek permission to go the bathroom. The interpretation of this situation would differ from the original one in two ways. First, Mr. Newlin's intention would no longer be transparent. His classmates would probably mistake his intention. This, however, does not mean that his intention is not accessible. Mr. Newlin could clear up matters quite easily. Second, even after Mr. Newlin's intention is known, there could be a controversy about what Mr. Newlin's hand raising meant. One side would maintain that the hand raising still had the conventional meaning of requesting permission to speak. This position would distinguish utterer's meaning from utterance meaning and would claim that Mr. Newlin was requesting permission to speak even though he did not intend to. The other side would claim that Mr. Newlin's hand raising meant that he wanted to go to the bathroom. This position would claim that Mr. Newlin's intention determines the meaning of his gesture. 14. Margolis (1989, 249) makes a similar point.

Pragmatism and Interpretation When we turn to the interpretation of such things as literature or law, not only are there subcommunities endorsing different interpretive assumptions (such as the ones just mentioned for interpreting Mr. Newlin's gesture), but Fish appears to believe that intentions themselves are not accessible. Thus, about the legal reasoning in Riggs v. Palmer, Fish (1980, 281) comments: "This would seem to suggest that one need only recover the maker's intention to arrive at the correct literal reading; but the documents . . . that would give us that intention are no more available to a literal reading (are no more uninterpreted) than the literal reading it would yield. However one specifies what is in the statute-whether by some theory of strict constructionism or by some construction of the original intention-that specification will have the same status as the specification of what is in Samson Agonistes or of what PRIVATE MEMBERS ONLY means. It can always be made, but as the situation and the purposes which inform them change, it will have to be made again." The passage seems to give an argument for the inaccessibility of intention. However it conflates two quite different points without arguing for either. The first point has to do with the accessibility of intention. Fish points out that evidence for the intention of the maker of a law (or of a literary work) will come in the form of further pieces of writing that will also need interpretation. Beginning with "however," the passage shifts to the second point. The principles by which one interprets a law (or a literary work) will vary with the situation and purpose of the interpreter. Fish is right about part of the second point. People can interpret with different purposes. One person might be interested in the conventional meaning of the eleven-year-old Mr. Newlin's gesture; another with Mr. Newlin's meaning (intention). But in referring to the interpreter's situation, Fish makes a shift from the utterer's situation that we have been trying to justify. The justification might be thought to be found in the first point. But the first point does not show that the intentions of legislators or writers are inaccessible. That the evidence is also in need of interpretation does not show that the evidence never clearly supports a particular hypothesis. The correct interpretation may be obvious. When the eleven-year-old Mr. Newlin explains, "In raising my hand, I intended to request permission to go to the bathroom, not permission to speak," his words need interpretation just as much as the original gesture. Furthermore, they could be interpreted in many ways. Nevertheless, they could also make utterly obvious what Mr. Newlin meant by his gesture. So could evidence about legislators and writers.

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What ultimately justifies the relativistic move from utterer's situation to interpreter's situation is a view Fish holds about evidence. According to Fish (1980,272), evidence "is always a function of what it is evidence for and is never independently available." Fish believes this shows that interpretationindependent facts are never available. Hence, for Fish, the shift from the utterer's situation (never accessible in itself) to the interpreter's situation is necessary. There is a relatively innocuous sense in which there are no interpretationindependent facts, namely, that the discovery of any fact requires interpretation of data. But Fish means to claim something more radical. He claims that facts are created by interpretations. Similarly, the claim that evidence is a function of interpretation has a more and a less radical reading. The less radical reading is that the interpretation dictates the kind of thing that will count as evidence for it. For example, an interpretation that claims to recover an author's intention requires evidence of intention. Fish sometimes speaks as if this is his view: "[Ilnterpretation determines what will count as evidence for it" (1980, 272, my italics). But Fish's argument relies on the more radical reading, namely, that interpretations create their own evidence. This is brought out by Fish's claim that evidence for an interpretation is not available independently of an interpretation. I think I know why Fish is tempted to make this more radical claim. Consider the occurrence of the word "forest" in "The Tyger," by William Blake. Rival incompatible interpretations cite the occurrence of this word as evidence for each interpretation. How can the same word, the same bit of evidence, be evidence for incompatible readings? Fish's answer is that the evidence only appears to be the same. The way we perceive the word, the content we assign to it, is a function of the interpretation. Thus, Kathleen Raine (1968) interprets the poem as inspired by cabalistic writing. Interpreted that way, "forest" takes on a symbolic significance of a fallen world. E. D. Hirsch interprets the poem as celebrating the "holiness of tygerness." Now "forest" will be perceived in an entirely different way. To Hirsch, it suggests "tall straight forms." Similarly, according to Fish, if one hypothesizes a typological reading of Milton's Samson Agonistes, the absence of explicit reference to Christ is evidence of implicit typological reference: "Once [a typological] characterization of Milton's intention has been specified, the text will immediately assume the shape Madsen proceeds to describe" (1980, 233).

Pragmatism and Interpretation It is possible that Fish's account of evidence describes some attempts by critics to justify their interpretations. Such attempts are unsound. No doubt, once one is aware of an interpretation of a text, it is often easy to read it in terms of that interpretation. But that is not evidence in favor of the interpretation. In the case of Samson Agonistes, we can read the work according to Madsen's interpretation because the absence of explicit reference to Christ is compatible with a typological interpretation. However, this absence of reference to Christ is not positive evidence for the interpretation either before or after the interpretation has been given. Evidence for Madsen's interpretation would give us positive reason to believe that Madsen's characterization of Milton's intention is the true one. Such evidence is not a function of what it is evidence for, and if it is available at all, it is available independently of the interpretation. The same is true of the debate between Raine and Hirsch. The fact that one can find a significance in individual words that accords with an interpretation shows at best that the occurrence of the word is compatible with the interpretation. Since both Raine and Hirsch aim at recovering Blake's intention, evidence for these interpretations would have to show that the significance an interpretation gives to the words of the poem is the significance Blake intended. The fragment of Hirsch's argument that Fish reports fails to do this. Raine makes two evidential claims that, if true, do support her interpretation: that "The Tyger" is inspired by certain cabalistic writings; that Blake always uses "forest" to refer to a fallen world. These are the right sort of claims to support her interpretation. If true, they would go a long way toward establishing Blake's intention. They can be debated independently of any commitment to, or even knowledge of, Raine's interpretation of "The Tyger." In the face of similar criticism by John Reichert, Fish (1980,296) replies that "standards of right and wrong, [of what counts as evidence], do not exist apart from assumptions but follow from them." It is important to see that this is a retreat from Fish's more to Fish's less radical claim about evidence. This is not the claim that interpretations create their own evidence. It is not the claim that evidence is unavailable independently of an interpretation. It is simply the claim, which I would accept without reservation, that looking for evidence for an interpretation is risky. Not only might the evidence not turn up or go against the interpretation, but in searching for evidence, one will make assumptions about when one has it or what constitutes it. Some of these assumptions may be questionable or even false. However, one's assumptions may be true! This is a possibility that Fish does

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nothing to rule out, though he does not take it seriously, because he is overly impressed with the fact that one never knows whether all one's assumptions are true. But this lack of knowledge is simply part of the riskiness of the interpretive enterprise.''

I finally consider Fish's attempt to take the sting out of relativism. This attempt is based on two claims: (i) that relativism is a theoretical position that has no practical consequences; (ii)that relativism is severely constrained by the authority of interpretive communities. (i) According to Fish's theory, critical activity constitutes its objects (Fish 1980,355). (This claim, which can only be based on his prior claim that we have no interpretation-independent access to the objects of interpretation, does not, in fact, follow from the prior claim. But this is one move of Fish's that I will not dwell on.) A consequence of this is that an interpretation cannot be more or less adequate to an independently existing work. There is no such thing as progress in criticism if progress is defined as the production of increasingly accurate interpretations of a given work (366). An interpretation can be more or less adequate to the assumptions or rules on which it is based. Furthermore, these assumptions can be criticized in the light of other assumptions (Fish 1980, 360). However, since such criticisms have their own set of underlying assumptions, such critiques do not bring about progress, only change (361). This is Fish's theory, his relativism. Why does Fish think this theory has no consequences for critical practice? In particular, why does this theory not have the consequence that we ought to become skeptical of the truth of our interpretations because the best interpretations arising from one set of assumptions are no better justified than incompatible interpretations arising from other assumptions? In Is There a Text in This Class? Fish gives a very simple answer to this question: since we must believe something, it is impossible to distance ourselves from our beliefs sufficiently to become skeptical of them (1980, 360-61). Since we often draw conclusions from beliefs, propositions held to be true, our drawing of conclusions will feel like progress. In a later essay "Consequences," Fish gives a more complicated answer. It 15. For further criticism of Fish's views about evidence, see Barnes 1988, 86-95.

Pragmatism and Interpretation is not just that we forget theory whenever we engage in practice (though Fish continues to maintain this) (1985, 450). Fish now claims that his antifoundational theory does not have any skeptical consequences. It is simply a theory about how we acquire beliefs. We acquire them against a background of beliefs and assumptions. The claim that beliefs so acquired are unjustified or arbitrary or are not knowledge is not a part of antifoundationalism. Neither of these answers is satisfactory. The first is unsatisfactory because it does not imply the conclusion Fish needs. It may be true that we always must believe something, but we can still be skeptical about our interpretations. Anyone who believes Fish's theory and, unlike Fish, believes that it has skeptical consequences can stop believing his interpretations and still believe something (Fish's theory). Fish assumes that when one engages in a "practical" activity like criticism, it is one's theoretical beliefs that will be given up in favor of beliefs one acquires in the course of immersing oneself in actual practice. However, this is an unjustified assumption. Some will do this; some will not.16 Fish's more complicated response is also unsatisfactory. It is unsatisfactory because it is disingenuous. Certainly, Fish says something about how we acquire beliefs. However, as Fish admits at the end of "Consequences," what he says severely limits the sort of justification of which interpretations are capable. The question is, should these limitations, if we accept them, make us skeptical of our interpretations? Yes, they should. Suppose I believe, as a result of correctly applying the assumptions of my critical community, that Satan is the hero of Paradise Lost. Suppose another critic (whether or not he is my contemporary does not matter), as a result of correctly applying the assumptions of his critical community, believes that Satan is not the hero of Paradise Lost. On Fish's view, each belief is as well justified as an interpretive belief can be. Now suppose I add this theoretical belief to my stock of beliefs. I now believe (1)Satan is the hero of Paradise Lost; (2) my belief that Satan is the hero of Paradise Lost is a consequence of a set of assumptions that are ultimately no better justified than another set of assumptions that imply that Satan is not the hero of Paradise Lost. If I believe (2),then I am bound to admit that I am no better justified in believing 16. Fish (1985) sharply distinguishes between beliefs and theories. Beliefs have consequences; theories do not. But beliefs can be theoretical-pertaining to assumptions underlying certain practices, to the relation of evidence to interpretation, in short, to the stuff of theory. If Fish likes, we can say that beliefs, including theoretical beliefs, have consequences, but theories, when unincorporated into systems of belief, do not. That reduces the issue to less than a quibble.

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(1)than someone else is in believing, on the basis of no more, but no less, arbitrary assumptions, that Satan is not the hero of Paradise Lost. Furthermore, I cannot become more justified in believing (1)than I already am. If this is not a good reason to suspend my belief in (I),it is hard to know what is. 17 Even if I am wrong that Fish's theory implies skepticism, it still has consequences. After denying this for twenty pages in "Consequences," Fish finally admits it. Someone who accepts his theory, Fish says, would likely stop looking for certain kinds of justification. This is precisely the sort of guidance of practice by theory that Fish tried to deny. (ii)Fish likes to point out that his theory does not have the consequence of extreme subjectivism. It is not the individual critic who invents standards that are no better or worse than the next critic's. There are shared standards, common strategies of reading. These are provided by sets of institutional assumptions (Fish 1980, 367). There are two reasons why I would not find the existence of institutional assumptions comforting, were I to accept Fish's theory. First, I worry that my assumptions are arbitrary: not justified or justifiable or better justified than the assumptions of critics I disagree with. I find no comfort in the fact that my arbitrary assumptions come from an institution rather than from myself. Second, while Fish never doubts that we (critics of like mind) do share the same institutional assumptions, his theory should make him doubt it. Even if we grant that there is an institution issuing assumptions about how to interpret texts, we have no more direct access to these assumptions than to poems or utterance meanings. Individuals approach this institution with their own idiosyncrasies and views, with prior sets of assumptions transmitted by other institutions and practices. To grasp the assumptions of the institution of criticism, one interprets them in light of the beliefs, assumptions, and special interests one already has. It is quite likely that these are different for each person. Hence, each person's interpretation of the assumptions of criticism is likely to be different. Fish has not escaped extreme subjectivism after all. This section has looked in considerable detail at Fish's arguments. It has 17. Peter Kivy (1989) makes a different, though related, criticism of Fish's claim that his theory has no practical consequences. A difference between Kivy and me is that he regards Fish's theory as giving a noncognitive model of interpretation, while I try to preserve what I take to be Fish's intention to give a cognitive model. I agree with Kivy that there is much reason to think that Fish cannot give such a model consistently.

Pragmatism and Interpretation done so because Fish not only holds with complete explicitness the three principles common among contemporary pragmatists, but he is also more explicit than most in offering arguments for them. I do not claim that the principles are false. Rather, I have argued that Fish's arguments fail to justify the principles, and in the particular form in which Fish holds them, they have skeptical and extreme subjectivist consequences.

Pragmatists often suggest (and I have followed them in this) that what gets the pragmatist ball rolling is the rejection of the correspondence theory of truth. Here I briefly consider what the pragmatist is rejecting and whether the pragmatist has good reason to reject it. It would be nice if pragmatists gave us a precise statement of the correspondence theory that they are attacking, but this, in fact, never happens. Rather, there are a number of objects of criticism that, unfortunately, are not clearly distinguished. I confine myself here to pointing out two of these objects: for one, criticism is quite justified; for the other, it is much more problematic. Sometimes what the pragmatist criticizes under the label "correspondence theory of truth" is the logical atomist's analysis of this correspondence. According to logical atomism, truth consists in a one-one correspondence of a proposition's constituents to those of a fact. The problem is that, while this might work for "the cat is on the mat," it does not work for "the cat is not on the mat," "cats are carnivorous," and countless other truths.'' However, the demise of the logical atomist's analysis of truth does not imply that cats (or texts) are not "independent objects" belonging to an "objective order or reality" (Shusterman 1988c, 54) or that the fact that the cat is not on the mat (since it is sitting in a tree eating a goldfinch) is not part of that order. The claim that the idea of such an independent order is "unworkable" (Shusterman 1988c, 54) is a quite different object of criticism. The general line of argument against this idea is that (a) we could have no access to such an independent realm and, hence ( b ) ,either it is senseless to claim it exists or it is useless to do so, since it could not be what our thoughts are about. 18. The logical atomist's analysis of correspondence seems to be the object of criticism in Rorty 1982, 162-63.

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Why would someone accept (a)?Theline is this: we do not have access to independent objects but only to objects-as-we-conceive-them. (This is sometimes equated with the linguistic representation of objects.) Now, it is no doubt true that nothing can be an object of thought for a human being unless it is thought of in terms of concepts that human beings use. But this is a trivial truth. Why should this be a reason to believe that we are not sometimes talking about independent objects, that is, objects that would exist, about which there would be various truths, whether or not we so conceived them? Of course we cannot conjure up an object stripped bare of all the ways we conceive it (of all we believe true of it), compare it to the object as we do conceive it, and see if there is a match. Though pragmatists sometimes claim that this is what believing in independent objects presupposes, no one has ever claimed that this is the path to knowledge of the truth. The claim that there are independent objects is not an epistemology, a theory about how we come to know about them. A realist about independent objects can agree with pragmatists in referring to special disciplines, when the question of how we know arises. Or the realist can argue that epistemology has more interesting things to say than Rorty would lead us to believe. This is a separate question that I will not pursue here. What I have argued is that thought is necessarily about some object or other. It is simply part of the nature of certain objects, as we conceive them (e-g., cats), that they are independent of human beings; it is part of the nature of others (works of art) that, while they would not exist unless some human being created them, they exist independently of other humans (critics) and the communities to which they belong. This is not to deny that many properties that these objects have depend for their existence on various relations in which these objects stand to interpreting human beings and their communities.

Throughout this long chapter, I have criticized various proposals and arguments that require us to abandon some aspect of the commonsense realism that I have just been defending. Thus, I criticized views of Rorty and Shusterman that make problematic the identity of the object of interpretation, Shusterman's attempt to understand interpretive knowledge as a species of knowing how or, with Fish, in terms of the shifting norms of

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interpretive communities, and finally Margolis's proposal that we abandon the attempt to understand interpretive statements within the framework of bivalent logic. At the start of the second section, I suggested that what should lie at the core of a pragmatist account of interpretation is that it ensure the legitimacy of, at least, all interpretations that are of positive value for interpreters. Just as William James once claimed that what is true is what is good in the way of belief, a pragmatist about interpretation should claim that acceptability of an interpretation is what is good in the way of meaning ascription. I would like to conclude by suggesting that pragmatism can more firmly establish this core point if it can be coherently made within the confines of commonsense realism. It can then be made without the encumbering distraction of the paradoxes that we have so far uncovered. I hope that the preceding chapters on interpretation have already done most of the work in advancing such a realistic pragmatism. The main point to be extracted from them that is relevant to our present concern is that the acceptability of an interpretation is relative to the aim with which it is advanced or received, and there are numerous candidates for reasonable interpretive aims. Sometimes we aim at understanding a work as the product of the intentional activity of the historically situated artist. Sometimes we aim merely at finding an understanding of a work, one that makes sense of its parts, as parts of a whole, in a way that promotes appreciation. Sometimes we aim at maximizing the aesthetic value of the work or a particular encounter with it. Sometimes we aim at making the work relevant to a particular audience. Some interpretations even aim at creating a work in collaboration with the original artist. There is one issue that I have not addressed that a successful realistic pragmatism must deal with. It concerns the identity of the work, a topic that has come up several times in this chapter. A realist about such objects who claims that there are many acceptable interpretations of a given work must be careful to explain how all these can be of that work. Before closing, I will sketch a realist answer to that question. The answer has two steps. First, one needs a criterion for individuating a work. Second, one has to show how the kind of pluralism of aims and interpretations endorsed here (and that a pragmatist needs to endorse) is compatible with that criterion. There are several possible criteria of identity, the details of which would vary with different kinds of art objects. One can identify a literary work with a syntactic string and a meaning determined by the historical context in which the string is issued. Were we to use a criterion like this for paintings, we would have to substitute a physical object for the

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syntactic string. Alternatively, one can identify a literary work with a syntactic string "put together" by a writer or writers at a given time. (A painting would be a physical object created by an artist or artists at a given time.) I lean toward a criterion like this latter one (understanding that it is being very roughly sketched here). However, the former criterion, as well as other possibilities, would also be serviceable. Why is it that an interpretation is of a given work individuated in one of the two ways just sketched? The answer is that in each case the intentional object of a meaning assignment is that work (e.g., the object individuated by a syntactic string put together by a writer at a given time), but what is asserted of that object, if anything is asserted, varies a lot depending on the particular interpretive project. Notice that I do not distinguish between the intentional object of interpretation and the object of interpretation simpliciter. The former is individuated purely referentially as whatever is the latter. About this object, different interpreters with different aims will say or do different kinds of things. Some interpreters will make claims about the utterance meaning (or historically correct understanding) of this object. Others will claim that such and such is a way of understanding it. Others will use the object or some of its features to create a new work. And so on. While in principle one can distinguish different interpretive claims people can make with their different truth conditions, and can further distinguish interpretive claims from other interpretive doings, it can easily be imagined that, in practice, people will not always be explicit, or clear in their own minds, about the claims they are making, nor will they always avoid making a mixed bag of claims. Thus, there will be plenty of room for interpreting interpretations.19

19. I think the picture just sketched also gives us a handle on the claim that pervades pragmatist discussions of interpretation: that meanings of works are constructed. There is nothing constructed about the utterance meaning of a work. However, once one moves away from this interpretive project, then it is easier to see an element of meaning creation in interpretation. The assignment of meanings follows from features of the work and particular perspectives of interpreters.

Someone, like myself, who understands the nature of art in terms of its multiple functions, and the interpretation of artworks in term of its multiple aims, ought to identify some of those functions (as some aims of interpretation were identified in Part 11) and say something about the value of those functions and aims. This final part of the book makes a tentative start at fulfilling this obligation. Though I regard nothing between these covers as a final word, this part is intended to be the book's most exploratory section. This chapter deals with preliminary matters. In it I lay out general questions that a theory of artistic value ought to answer, examine some proposed answers, and make some suggestions of my own. The questions raised in this chapter concern a number of issues regarding the relation of function to value; whether artworks are intrinsically or instrumentally valuable; what makes a function artistically valuable; whether art-historical value is a species of artistic value. I also distinguish a theory of artistic value from theories of art evaluation and theories about the meaning and cognitive status of value judgments about artworks. The most important question for a theory of artistic value, namely, what is especially valuable in works of literature, music, painting, and so forth? will not be addressed until the next chapter (and then only with partial answers about one art form).

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Artworks typically fulfill various functions. Many artworks possess what we can call artistic value, or value-as-an-artwork. (Later we shall ask what makes something an artistic value, or, to put matters slightly differently, why a property contributes to something's artistic value.) Let us for the time being ignore obviously ( ? ) nonartistic functions like serving as a doorstop or being a good investment and confine the inquiry to functions standard or correctly recognized for art forms. How is being an artistic function related to being an artistic value (or being a property that contributes to something's artistic value) ? The correct answer to this overly vague question is "in countless ways," but let us count some of those ways that may either help our inquiry along or, at least, help us avoid forming misconceptions about it. First, even for functions standard or correctly recognized for an art form, fulfilling such a function does not entail that a work be artistically valuable or even have an artistically valuable property. It is well enough known that properties that have a tendency to make a work artistically valuable may have that tendency canceled by the way they interact with other properties of a work.' Thus humor, while generally a valuable property of works (in virtue of fulfilling one or another valuable function), may be so placed in a particular artwork as to be completely inappropriate on that occasion. It will then undermine, rather than add to, the overall value of the work. However, the more fundamental point here, which may be equally plain, is that there is nothing in the nature of a function that entails that its fulfillment be in any way of positive value. This is clear when we move away from art functions and consider the functions of such things as devices of torture or gladiatorial combat. One of the main functions of devices of torture-to inflict pain efficiently in controllable increments-is hardly something we would call good. It may, of course, be a means to something that is sometimes good, for example, the extraction of information. But there are many occasions when the fulfillment of the cited function of torture devices has no good consequences whatsoever-similarly for some functions of gladiatorial combat, and similarly for some functions of art. For example, it may be a function of an artwork to shock its audience. This, unlike inflicting pain in controllable increments, need not be a bad thing. However, on certain occasions, with 1. This point is nicely brought out in Dickie 1988.

Artistic Value regard to certain matters, it may have no positive value whatsoever; it may even be a thoroughly bad thing. Second, the property of fulfilling a valuable function is not the only kind of valuable property artworks have. Being well organized (to mention a property beloved of aestheticians of the early analytic t r a d i t i ~ n )may ~ certainly contribute to the value of an artwork, as it does to most anything that is composed, but it is not a function of an artwork to be well organized. Susan Feagin suggests that there is another sort of valuable property artworks possess that is distinct from their valuable functions. She distinguishes between functions of works and benefits that result from appreciating works (or from developing a capacity to appreciate them) (Feagin 1994, 67). This is a distinction that is less obvious than the one just drawn, so let me take a moment to explore and evaluate it. As I have paraphrased the distinction, there are a number of things that may puzzle. ( a )Is reference being made to properties of works in talking about the benefits of appreciating them, or developing the capacity to appreciate them? Indirectly, yes. The benefits are not properties of works (even when it is a function of a work to bestow them). However, it is a property of works that they have a tendency to bestow such benefits, whether or not it is a function of the work to do so, and this would be a property that would contribute to the value of the work. (6) There is an obvious distinction between function and benefit even when it is a function of a work to bestow that benefit. The function to bestow it is one thing, the benefit another, as can be seen from the fact that a work may have the function of bestowing a benefit without anyone benefiting. Could this be all Feagin has in mind? No, she has in mind benefits other than those it is a function of the work to bestow. (c) Finally, and most important, are there such benefits? Yes; but as Feagin says, the distinction is fluid, and it is hard to know when to draw it. Let us begin with a fanciful example. Suppose developing and exercising the capacity to appreciate artworks lowers people's cholesterol levels by some quirk of physiology, though no one knows this. Is it a function of artworks, via their appreciation, to bestow this benefit? On some accounts of "functions," the answer is yes; for example, if a function is any causal contribution 2. Ziff (1979) repeatedly mentions the property of disorganization as a bad-making feature of artworks (e.g., "no painting is good because it is disorganized, and many are bad primarily because they are disorganized" [ 6 6 9 ] ) .I take unity to be a property closely related to organization.

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to a goal (Boorse 1976) and one of the goals of the human organism is good health. Notice that it would not sound odd, given our fanciful supposition, to say that appreciating artworks functions to lower cholesterol. However, on the account of function given in Chapter 2, functions are (basically) present capacities to realize some purpose, and purposes always belong to someone. Hence, in order to have a function on this account, a work has to be made or used with a certain purpose. On this account of "function," in the present case we have a benefit without function, for this is a benefit that it is no one's purpose to bestow or receive in the specified way. However, if this quirky fact did become known and people started developing and exercising the capacity to appreciate artworks to lower their cholesterol, then the function of lowering cholesterol would be one artworks had acquired. It would not be regarded as an artistic function, and the benefit would not be regarded as artistically valuable, but that is a different matter. There may be a number of benefits realistically ascribable to artworks and their appreciation that, like lowering cholesterol, it is not their function to bestow. Monroe Beardsley thought that developing and exercising a capacity to appreciate artworks promoted overall mental health. For those who do not intend, or intentionally use, artworks for this purpose, this would be a benefit that it is not one of the functions of artworks to provide. Hence, I agree with Feagin that there are benefits artworks provide (via their appreciation) that are not among their functions to provide. The ability to provide these benefits would be included among the properties that contribute to a work's value. Before leaving this topic, however, it might be worth pointing out that I would not draw the line between benefits that it is a work's function to provide and other benefits where Feagin appears to draw it. (I say "appears" because her remarks are quite sketchy on this matter.) Feagin (1994, 66) says, "[Tlhose benefits come to provide reasons for [taking an interest in artworks] which conflict with a specification of a work's function. This seems to me exactly what has happened with much theoretical writing about the arts, which sees arts in terms of their epistemic (social, moral, political) role^."^ Since, in the cases Feagin is envisaging here, people are actually 3. Feagin actually says "roles and functions" in this passage, appearing to retract or undermine her point that the items listed are not functions of artworks. The confusion might derive from the fact that Feagin distinguishes not only between functions and benefits but within functions, those proper to art (functions a work is supposed to have) and those not proper to art but that works happen to have. The epistemic functions of art and those like them would presumably be functions in the latter sense.

Artistic Value using artworks for epistemic, social, moral, and political purposes, for me these are functions the works possess as long as they have the present capacity t o serve those purposes. So far I have made two negative points about the relation between function and value. The first is that fulfilling a function of art may not always be valuable. The second is that art's valuable functions do not exhaust its valuable properties. The third and last point, however, is that the chief value of artworks resides in fulfilling their valuable functions. This strongly suggests that the chief value of artworks is a kind of instrumental value. Those who might object to this claim could do so on two grounds. Some might object to the idea that the chief value of a work lies in fulfilling valuable functions, whether or not they conceive of the chief value as instrumental. Others may object to the idea that the chief value of artworks is instrumental. Among those who would take the first line would be someone who claimed that the chief value of artworks lies in benefits it is not among their functions to bestow. This does not strike me as a completely implausible claim, but I will not pursue it here, mainly because I doubt that we have much knowledge, or even plausible beliefs, about what are the unintended benefits of artworks. Let me instead focus on the objection to the idea that the chief value of artworks is instrumental. But before looking at the objections, we should look at the ways different kinds of value are distinguished.

Instrumental value is standardly contrasted with intrinsic value. The instrumental value of something consists in its being a means to one or more other things one values (or one or more things of value), in its usefulness for acquiring or achieving these other things. Something has intrinsic value if it is valued "for its own sake," not valued merely for other things it helps one to attain. It remains to be seen how clearly this line distinguishes two kinds of value. In the meantime, let us note that some people want to speak of a third species of value that it is tempting to think of as intermediate between instrumental and intrinsic value, though it is not clear, given the way that these were distinguished, that there is really room for an intermediary. Something is inherently valuable, according to William Frankena (1963, 65-66), if the experience of contemplating it is intrinsically valuable. It is

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interesting that Frankena formulates the notion of inherent value with particular reference to "works of art and things of natural beauty." What is interesting here is that, on the one hand, instead of being a new and distinct kind of value, inherent value looks like a variety of instrumental value, that is, something valued because it is a means to something else that is (intrinsically) valued, in this case a valued (valuable) experience. On the other hand, there is an evident felt need on Frankena's part, and on the part of many others, to mark off this variety of instrumental value. We need to explore the motivations for such a move if we are to do justice to artistic value. However, before pursuing that issue, let us begin thinking about artistic value simply in terms of the pair instrumental/intrinsic. Is there a case to be made that artworks have intrinsic, rather than instrumental, value? If art has intrinsic value, it must lie in its properties, either properties that indicate functions or those that do not. (I will confine the discussion to functions. However, similar points can be made about properties that do not directly indicate functions, like being well organized and being elegant.) Artworks have many functions: providing aesthetic experience or pleasure, offering ways of seeing, presenting vivid descriptions and representations of almost any aspect of life, giving one an insider's perspective on states of mind and systems of value other than one's own, serving up puzzles, alternative "realities," fantasies, and so forth. (These items, obviously not exhaustive, are not intended to be mutually exclusive either.) There is a straightforward, no-nonsense way of taking the value of all these functions as instrumental, as naming things we get from our interactions with artworks: we have the pleasurable experience; we acquire a new way of seeing; we vividly experience aspects of life described or represented; and so forth. However, a vivid description is not just a means to a vivid experience. It is something we admire in the work in which it is found. A way of seeing is not just something we acquire from a work. We acquire it by noticing how it is exhibited in the work, and this exhibiting of a way of seeing is also something we admire in works. For example, we admire the way of seeing that Vermeer exhibited in his paintings, a way of seeing that consists, in part, of having a sharp eye for the distribution of light, shade, and color, including the color of shadows, without this overwhelming the sharp outline of objects, and, in part, of noticing, too, how much of what we represent to ourselves in sight is itself a representation of one kind or another, including the way posture and face represent character and other states of mind. Given that we admire these things in works, should we say that we value them for themselves or even

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that the works having these features are intrinsically valued for having them? Some do not hesitate to answer yes. As Stephen Davies (1987,316)says of the appreciation of music: "[Tlhe pleasure that may come from appreciating a musical work for itself can be characterized only through a description of features apprehended and appreciated in the musical work. . . . There is no incompatibility in allowing that an aesthetic interest in a musical work . . . is an interest in it both for itself and as a possible means to a pleasurable experience, so long as it is realized that the pleasure to which the music is supposedly the means is a pleasure taken in and integrally bound to the individuality of the musical work." Because we admire the particular features of music that we take pleasure in, and because the pleasurable experience can only be adequately characterized through a description of those features, Davies holds that we value the musical work for itself. The work has both intrinsic and instrumental value, on this view, since our interest is in the work both "for itself and as a possible means to a pleasurable experience." I am more inclined to hesitate in drawing the conclusion that we value artworks for themselves. That the features of works and our appreciation are integrally bound up cuts both ways. What we admire in the work is integrally bound to the experiences and other good things (such as insights and ways of seeing) we get from the work. (Is this the same claim as Davies makes, that our pleasurable experiences of works are integrally bound to their specific features, or the converse of his claim? Is "integrally bound up with" symmetrical?)This suggests to me that the value of the features and of the works that have them is bound to the value of what they are a means to. This in turn suggests to me that the value of the features and of the works that have them is not intrinsic. Even if the work is the unique, indispensable means to this experience, its value would not be intrinsic if it lay only in being such a means. It is true that matters are particularly tricky when pleasure enters the picture, as those who have attempted to dissuade students from fallacious arguments for hedonism know very well. That we value the pleasure or enjoyment something brings does not mean we do not value the thing in question for itself (and this is at least part of Davies's point). There are those who jog for exercise (even when they hate every minute of it) and those who, as we say, enjoy jogging for its own sake. For the latter, the value of jogging does not seem merely instrumental in the way it is for those who do it only because it promotes a better-functioning heart. The appreciation of artworks is something I value for itself. I would be the last to say that it is really the

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pleasure that I value for itself rather than the appreciation. However, I am not so sure about the artworks themselves. What can at least be said is that Davies does not give a sufficient condition for saying that we value artworks for their own sake (for themselves, intrinsically). The condition is that an adequate description of the pleasurable experience requires mention of the particular features of the work apprehended and appreciated. That condition is satisfied by many things we regard as having merely instrumental value. I used to smoke Havana cigars and enjoyed doing so very much. My enjoyment could not be adequately described without mentioning particular features of cigars apprehended and appreciated. Let me hasten to add that no two hand-rolled Havanas provided quite the same experience. Did I value those cigars for themselves? It is not clear to me that I did. (I consumed them after all.) I still enjoy fishing. It is the activity that is enjoyable, not merely catching fish. Integral to the activity are various instruments, including fishing rods. I could not adequately describe what is enjoyable about a particular fishing experience without mentioning features of the fishing rod apprehended and appreciated on that occasion. Do I value the fishing rod for itself? Though I do not consume it, it is still not clear that I do. I also like my bed very much. It is involved in many enjoyable experiences that I have. If I were to say what was enjoyable about those experiences, though my bed would figure less prominently than did a Julieta no. 3 and a particular fishing rod in the previous two examples, a complete specification would require mentioning features of my bed apprehended and appreciated on that occasion. I am sure I do not value my bed for itself. One might try to lay down a stronger condition for saying that we value something for its own sake, a condition that artworks (purportedly) meet but that beds, fishing rods, and perhaps even fine cigars do not meet. The claim would be that while features of both beds and artworks need to be mentioned in adequately describing valuable experiences had in connection with them, only the individual artworks (not merely some features of them) are indispensable in bringing about those experiences. My bed, on the other hand, could be replaced by another bed with similar features. There in fact seems to be a real uneasiness among aestheticians about the dispensability of artworks in bringing about the valuable things that they currently accomplish. Thus Malcom Budd (1985, 29-30) says, "[Ilf music is valued as a means to an independently specifiable end, . . . then it must be possible that there should be other, and perhaps better, means for achieving what music aims at; so that music could be dispensed with and replaced." In

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Budd's mind, the fact that the end (function) of music purportedly cannot be specified without mentioning music (or be achieved by nonmusical means) is tied to the intrinsiclinstrumental distinction. For Budd, dispensability would imply that music's value is instrumental, while indispensability implies that it is intrinsic. There are a number of ambiguities in Budd's condition that need sorting out before it can be evaluated. First, in the passage quoted, Budd is speaking of the value of music in general, rather than of individual works. The claim is that musical value cannot be achieved (specified) nonmusically. We, however, have been concerned with the value of individual works. Would Budd also say that their value can only be achieved (specified) by the individual work, not merely by some of its features that might be transferable to other works? There are passages that indicate he would (Budd 1985, 175). Second, there is the achievedlspecified ambiguity already indicated within the parentheses embedded in my exposition of Budd's condition. There is a difference between saying that A is the unique means to B (i.e., B can only be achieved by means of A), and saying that the value of B can only be expressed by using language that makes reference to A (i.e., the value of B is only specifiable in terms of A). Budd makes both types of claims with regard to the value of musical experience, and it is unclear whether he wishes to make both claims or simply does not notice that there are two distinct claims here. Further, if the former, it is unclear how (he thinks that) the two claims are logically related. I take it that if the value of B can only be specified in terms of A, and if A is a means to B, then A is (or is involved in) the unique means to B, but A's being a unique means to B does not entail the specifiability claim. The two claims, all by themselves, are logically independent of each other. Having pointed out these ambiguities, let me now say what I think Budd wants to claim. Music is valuable in virtue of valuable experiences we have when listening to it. It is a means to these experiences. However, the value of these experiences can only be adequately specified by reference to the musical piece in question (not merely by reference to some of its features). Hence, the piece is a unique means t o the experience. Hence, the piece is intrinsically valued (or has intrinsic value). In response to these claims, the first thing I would want to say is that, although Budd is entitled to use "intrinsic" any way he wants, if we stick to the way of drawing the intrinsiclinstrumental distinction stated at the beginning of this section, musical value still falls on the instrumental side of

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the divide. This is because it is still valued as a means (to an experience), though a means with special characteristics. However, especially for those not wedded to a particular way of drawing the intrinsic/instrumental distinction, but also because it is interesting in itself, let us take a moment to explore the indispensability claims that Budd makes. Is reference to the music indispensable to describing what is valuable about the experience of it? Is the music a unique means to this valuable experience? Do these claims fail to apply to fine cigars, fishing rods, and beds? First, consider music as such rather than particular pieces of music. Although some of what we value in music (e.g., insight into emotions, cognitive expansions, the perception of integration)4can be acquired as well or better by other things, it is plausible that nothing but music (short of experiences induced by fantastic pills or cunning neurological interventions) can produce the total set of enjoyable experiences characteristic of that art form. But notice this is equally true of fine cigars, fishing rods, and beds. If any one were to attempt to give a detailed specification of the pleasures of smoking a fine cigar, of fishing with a rod (as opposed to a net, handline, or spear), or lying in a comfortable and capacious bed, one would be more than hard put to avoid reference to those objects. It might seem that when we turn to individuals, we can separate the intrinsically valuable sheep (artworks) from the merely instrumentally valuable goats. Although each Julieta no. 3 that I used to smoke was unique and provided a unique experience, I would not have mourned if a whole shipment of those cigars were lost at sea, as long as there were plenty of others to take its place. At least once we are in the realm of great artworks, not only are the rewards of each different, but we would mourn the loss of even one. The enjoyment of one cigar is not quite the same as the enjoyment of another, but the pleasure one provides is an adequate replacement for another. Even if I do not care whether I hear Mozart's Symphony no. 40 or no. 39 on a particular occasion, not only are the rewards of each symphony different, but the loss of either would be a terrible thing. However, the comparison in the last paragraph is not a fair one. A symphony is a type. So is the Julieta no. 3. The disappearance of that type of 4. These items are borrowed from Levinson 1992b, 304. Levinson takes what I regard as a very reasonable attitude toward the indispensability issue. While noting that reference to works will commonly be indispensable in a complete specification of satisfactions they provide, he also allows that the conceivability of other things providing the same satisfactions is not germane as long as one's appreciation is proper to the art form.

Artistic Value cigar would be an irreplaceable loss to those with a fondness for it, even if not a terrible one. On the other hand, the thought of the loss of a single performance of Mozart's Symphony no. 40, even a fine one, does not fill me with much more dismay than the loss of a shipment of my favorite cigars. There are other performances that, while they do not provide the same experience, are adequate replacements. Having pointed out, both for artworks and cigars (and, one could add, fishing rods and beds), the common indispensable need to make reference to the relevant object in giving a detailed specification of the rewarding experience it provides, let me now admit that, despite this, I would consider jettisoning my currently favorite cigar (were I still to smoke them), fishing rod, or bed for a superior product. Superiority here would not be specified in terms of a detailed description of an enjoyable experience, but in more general, functional, not object-specific terms. We would not do this with great works of art. However, with them, the idea of a product superior to them does not apply. Still, something like the replacement of a fishing rod for an improved model does occur in some of our choices vis-8-vis artworks. I may read the work of a novelist for the first time, get what uniquely work-specific rewards I can, but never seek out other writings of that individual, because, basically, I think I can find a better product elsewhere. "Better product" here, as with fishing rods, is specified in general, not object-specific, functional terms. It is time to sum up, draw conclusions, and thereby give a modicum of order to these reflections. There are many features of works of art that we admire, but this admiration is contingent upon and bound up with the valuable experiences and other valuable things we get from these features. This makes the value of these features, and thereby the value of artworks, instrumental rather than intrinsic because we are valuing the features, and the works, not for themselves but for what they help to bring about. However, we cannot adequately describe the valuable experiences we get from works without making reference to those features of works that we apprehend and appreciate in the experience. This is by no means unique to artworks, but is not true of everything that has instrumental value. Consider the bolts that hold together airplanes. These bolts have considerable instrumental value; no one looks forward to being in a plane that flies apart in midair (or anywhere). However, one does not have to experience these bolts at all to appreciate them. Their value lies in holding planes togetherperiod. Certain features are causally efficacious in doing this, but we do not have to apprehend and appreciate those features to appreciate the bolts. Let

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us extend Frankena's notion of inherent value to include the class of things that we value, in part at least, because of the valuable experiences they help bring about in us, which experiences cannot be adequately described without mentioning features of these objects apprehended and appreciated in those experiences. Inherent value is a species of instrumental value (on this understanding of it) that captures some of what is sometimes meant by saying that the value of artworks is not merely instrumental. It is not the same sort of instrumental value that bolts have. Artworks, when valuable as artworks, have inherent value. Finally, another issue that cropped up in the above discussion is whether reference to individual works, rather than to some of their features, is indispensable in specifying the valuable experiences had in connection with them. Again, the answer is yes, but I suggested that this is by no means unique to artworks, but is true of many things that we regard as having instrumental (albeit inherent) value. Let me add that, while I have emphasized the valuable experience of artworks in the above discussion, I would not claim that providing such experience is the only valuable function of art. These other valuable functions, as well as much of what is valuable in the experience of artworks, are best expressed in terms of general functions that do not make reference to particular works or, often, particular art forms. When we want to convey some of what is most valuable about works in an art form-characteristic artistic values-it is necessary to make reference to these general functions.

I have claimed so far that what is chiefly valuable in artworks is functions they fulfill and that this is instrumental value, albeit often of the inherent variety. However, we have also seen that not every function fulfilled by artworks need be valuable and that not every valuable function of an artwork contributes to its artistic value. What makes a function an artistic function and a value an artistic value? In Chapter 3, I proposed that artistic functions are completely specified functions standard or correctly recognized for central art forms. At the very least, this answer cries out for explication: what makes a function standard or correctly recognized for an art form? Further, if "correctly recognized" is taken to mean nothing more than that it is truly noted that works in a form

Artistic Value fulfill a function, then every function that artworks are known to fulfill will be an artistic function. The cholesterol-lowering example precludes us from saying that even functions that are typically fulfilled by works in an art form are necessarily artistic functions. For even if people came to know of this capacity and used works in the relevant form to lower their cholesterol levels, that would not make lowering cholesterol, or even lowering cholesterol by appreciating paintings, an artistic function. Similar results were already pointed out in Chapter 3 with regard to using artworks as a source of investment, which has become fairly typical for paintings, sculptures, and other works of visual art. A tempting approach to carving out a realm of valuable artistic functions (functions standard or correctly recognized for central art forms) is to look for a set of functions unique to art. However, it is also tempting to take as a datum that artistic functions are to be identified, at least to a considerable extent, with those that simple functionalist theories have traditionally touted, such as providing aesthetic experience (as stipulatively defined in one way or another); providing various cognitive benefits; expressing or educating the emotions; expressing attitudes (or ways of seeing) toward countless areas of human experience; enlivening, making vital, spreading awareness, sometimes of a shocking or painful kind, of some of these areas. (Once again, this is a partial list of not necessarily mutually exclusive items.) These two temptations are incompatible. Artworks are not the exclusive fulfillers of any of the above-mentioned functions or of likely substitutes for them. The most common current reaction to this dilemma has been to resist the temptation to say that there are functions or valuable properties unique to art. One exception to this tendency, however, is found in the recent work of David Graves (1994). Graves is an institutionalist whose innovation is to extend the institutional approach to the interpretation and evaluation of artworks.' Graves's idea is that the institution of art and its numerous subinstitutions are constituted by rules. These rules not only (purportedly) determine which items are artworks, but also determine principles of interpretation and, what is relevant for our purposes, principles of artistic value. According to Graves, the subinstitutions ("artworld systems") of art include not only such things as painting, poetry, and music but also color-field painting, action painting, abstract expressionism, expressionism, to name one group of related systems; German romantic landscape painting, land5. See Chapter 4, note 3, for an indication of, and comment on, how Graves attempts to defend Dickie's institutional definition of art.

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scape painting, romanticism, to name another. These are not all the same kinds of artworld institutions, but they all are artworld institutions that contribute to the generation of "principles of artistic value." Something is an artistic value only if a principle of artistic value derived from an artworld institution says it is. Hence artistic value invariably comes from within the artworld, for Graves, and is unique to artworks. Graves thinks that there are two different kinds of artistic value. (Graves also mentions a third kind of artistic value, called package value, but I find that notion even more elusive than the two set out below. He at one point suggests package value is art-historical value, which is discussed below.) "Intrasystematic rightness" derives from rules constitutive of a particular "working-theory institution" like color-field painting or fauvism (as well as requirements of the medium of painting per se). As far as I can tell, to have this kind of value (in a moderate degree) is to be a decent example of a color field or fauvist work. On the other hand, to be a splendid example of a fauvist work, it is probably not enough (Graves could be clearer here) to have a high degree of "intrasystematic rightness." A work would (I suspect) also need to have artistic goodness that comes from compliance with "intersystematic" value principles, that is, principles from other artworld institutions appropriately related to the working-theory institution of the work in question. These would include institutions under which the working-theory institution is subsumed, for example, in the case of color-field painting, abstract expressionism and expressionism per se. It would also include precursor institutions, such as cubism and figurative expressionism, and any subsequently developed institutions appropriately related (whatever that might consist in). What do principles of artistic value look like? That is a bit hard to say, because Graves likes to flesh out his views with flowcharts that substitute labels (noun phrases) for principles (propositions). However, the principles appear to require such things as satisfying formal constraints and expressing thematic ideas characteristic of particular styles. Graves also values (as is indicated by the principles of intersystematic value) hookups with formal and thematic material from earlier and later styles. Thus, Caspar David Friedrich's Sea of Ice is to be valued for its highly successful expression of various themes from romanticism (German romanticism in particular), such as the hostility of nature and inconsequentiality of man, by the use of various formal means. I dwell on Graves's proposal because I think it contains valuable insights. However, I do not think it is satisfactory as it stands. A theory of artistic

Artistic Value value is satisfactory only if it meets two basic requirements: it must explain why the properties it picks out as the artistic values are (a)artistic properties and ( 6 )valuable properties. Graves's theory does a good job explaining why the properties he picks out are artistic properties, assuming that principles of the kind he has in mind can be generated by "romanticism," "abstract expressionism," and so forth. (I do not think, by the way, that the generation of these principles hinges on the denotations of these expressions being rule-constituted institutions. Much the same results can be obtained by thinking of the denotations as styles, such as those conceived by James Carney.)6 Graves's theory is unconvincing in explaining why the properties in question are valuable, and this is especially so if one thinks that it is one of the obligations of a philosophy of art to address the issue whether art has the high value and cultural significance often assumed for it. The problem is illuminated by one of Graves's favorite analogies: the analogy of games. The attractions of the analogy are obvious; games, such as baseball, are the most plausible candidates for rule-constituted activities, and the rules seem to generate certain principles of "value." Given that winning is "good" and losing "bad," then things that contribute to winning would also be good, and things that contribute to losing would also be bad. Hence, in baseball, hitting a home run is good, as is striking out a batter and making a double play. On the other hand, allowing a home run, striking out, and hitting into a double play are not things to cheer about (except for fans of the opposing side). However, these goods and bads, internal to baseball, do not tell us anything directly about the value of baseball or of (playing/ watching) particular games. To do that one would have to discover the functional value of baseball, something the goods internal to it do not directly indicate. Only when we consider what needs or desires are satisfied by baseball, or what benefits and harms it bestows on the participants and spectators of the game, can we discover the value of baseball or of (playing/ watching) particular games. What is true of baseball is true of art, at least in this instance. That a "rule" internal to an artworld "system," genre, or style instructs an artist to do something, or even that doing that is good in the system, does not imply that doing that has any real value. (Recall instruments of torture and gladiatorial contests and now think of them as belonging to social institutions.) If successfully expressing the immensity of hostile nature or the insignificance of man makes the paintings of Friedrich objects of value, part 6. See Carney 1991a and the discussion of Carney in Chapter 5.

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of the explanation must lie outside the artworld, in the fears or fascinations of human beings (even if it turned out that those fears or fascinations were, in part, generated by art institutions). It is not that goods internal to artworld systems have no role here-it is often the role of providing a means to an important end-but what role they play cannot be properly judged from a perspective internal to that system or to the artworld itself. Hence, if artistic value is real value, it cannot consist simply in the satisfaction of certain normative requirements internal to art. Still, I said there is something to be learned from Graves, so let me now try to say what that is. It is not hard to find functions artworks fulfill that bestow benefits on human beings, that satisfy needs and desires. These are indications that art has real value. However, we are not inclined to say that every function, valuable in this way, that artworks fulfill is an artistic function and is an indicator of artistic value. We are not inclined to say this, for example, of fulfilling the function of being a good investment. What we can learn from Graves is a method for distinguishing artistic from nonartistic functions of artworks. (The value of these functions has to be determined independently.) The expressive functions of German romantic landscape painting are clearly artistic. It is something at which artists aimed and for which critics look out, something for which enabling formal means were developed or adapted, something intrinsic to the genre. Functions that are so embedded in genres, styles, or other systems are artistic functions. It will probably not always be clear-cut where to draw the line here, but that is to be expected.' When so embedded, the functions are still artistic functions even if not unique to art. It is only required that (certain) artworks are particularly well suited to fulfill them. Thus we have rough-and-ready means for determining functions standard or correctly recognized for central art forms.

I pointed out above that not all artistic value consists in an artwork's functioning in a valuable way. In this connection, I have mentioned benefits it is no one's purpose to bestow or receive. However, this is not the only way 7. Particularly helpful in drawing lines would be art-practice narratives as envisioned by Noel Carroll (1988, 1993a, 1994). Such a narrative would be a particular style of art history, an exemplary instance of which is Baxandall 1985.

Artistic Value that artworks possess artistic value other than that of functioning in a valuable way. As mentioned in the section before the last, many properties of artworks (sometimes called "aesthetic properties") that we value are not functions per se. Thus the grace and unity of a musical work are properties we value, but being graceful is not a function of that work. Nevertheless, it is not hard to see that such properties, while not themselves functions, contribute to the successful functioning of the work. It was the burden of the section before the last to argue for the claim that the value of such properties consists in their contribution to such functioning. If that argument was successful, the existence of such properties does not threaten the claim that the chief value of art lies in the fulfillment of valuable functions. Other properties that are sometimes valued are not so easily seen as functional. These are properties that contribute to what is sometimes called art-historical value. It is said that artworks derive part of their value from influencing other works, being a precursor, originator, or culmination of a style, by being, in short, historically linked in numerous ways to earlier and later works.' It would appear that these links are factual matters that do not depend on the works' bestowing benefits on anyone, certainly not ordinary appreciators of those works. So if this is a kind of value artworks possess, the link between function and value would be cleanly severed. As might be expected, a little further scrutiny reveals that the severing is not as clean as it initially appears to be. A work may have historical value, including art-historical value, because of benefits (in the form of clues, hypotheses, or knowledge) historians can derive from it. An example of such historical value would be knowledge about aspects of a historical period, such as the way people dressed, that might be derivable from paintings. Similarly, an art historian may find considerable value in the fact that a work is an early example of a style. Such benefits may (or may not) have little to do with the artistic appreciation of those works, but the value in question is as functional as can be. That a work is a prime example of a style in the throws of exhaustion is an important historical fact that may make the work of value to historians, but it is not likely to add any positive value to the work considered as art. These considerations show that not every historically significant link a work has with others adds to the value of the work considered as art. Does art-historical value ever add to the value of work considered as art? Some might wish to dig in their heels and argue for a sharp distinction between 8. See Goldman 1993 for an instance of this view.

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artistic value and art-historical value, claiming that the latter never contributes to the former. Consider originality, which is often considered artistically valuable but is also an art-historical property, being relative to prior events in the artworld. Someone might argue against the artistic value of originality as follows: A work is original if and only if it is new with respect to some property p and p is an artistically valuable property. However, what then gives artistic value to the work is p, not the originality per ~ eI am . ~inclined to resist this argument. If a work initiates a new, valuable style, expresses new, valuable ideas, or exhibits a new, valuable way of seeing, I will, of course, appreciate it for its style, its ideas, its way of seeing. However, first, I do not see why I could not also appreciate it for initiating these things, that is, for its originality. And second, it seems pretty clear that unoriginal expression of the same style, ideas, or way of seeing is much less worthy of appreciation. The fact that a way of seeing, for example, is new and fresh is often an important part of the explanation of why we value it. This implies either that it is misleading sharply to distinguish the artistically valuable property p and the newness of its expression or that we cannot determine the value of a work having such a property wholly apart from the newness of its expression. As so often happens when we evaluate complex objects, a just evaluation results only when we notice how several properties interact. We can conclude that art-historical value can contribute to artistic value, but since we have previously concluded that it does not always so contribute, two questions remain: (a) When does art-historical value contribute to artistic value? (6) Does this contribution undermine the claim that the chief value of art is functional? With regard to (a), my suggestion is that arthistorical value contributes to artistic value just when, as in the case of originality but not in the case of being an instance of a style in the throws of exhaustion, it contributes to the artistically valuable functioning of the work or when it illuminates, that is, gives us a more adequate cognitive access to, the artistically valuable functioning of the work. An art-historical property that would be valuable in the second way is the property of being the culmination of a style. Knowledge that a work was an instance of such a culmination would help identify standard or correctly recognized functions of such works and would guide us to look for their superior fulfillment. It is pretty obvious, if this suggestion is correct, that the answer to (6) is that the contribution of art-historical value to artistic value does not undermine the claim that the chief value of art is functional. 9. See Vermazen 1991 for a more elaborate and sophisticated argument along these lines.

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A discussion of artistic value should be distinguished from two other topics closely associated with it: the topic of evaluating art and the topic of the meaning and cognitive status of value/evaluative judgments about art. Of course, these three topics are likely to overlap at various points, and each has implications for the other two, but the main focus of each is different. This section explains why each is a different topic, and indicates what implications the view of artistic value set out here has for the other two topics. The main focus of our discussion of artistic value has been to determine what such value consists in and what type of value that is. The view presented here is that the chief, though not the only, value of artworks lies in functions they fulfill. An artistic function is valuable if its fulfillment implies the capacity of a work to bestow benefits on an audience. So conceived, artistic value is instrumental value, but often of the inherent variety. Alternative views about artistic value will claim that it consists in something other than the fulfillment of certain functions, or will classify it as something other than instrumental value, or will do both. The main focus of the topic of artistic evaluation is at least two different types of judgments about works of art, easily confused though these are. When one says that a work is great, good, beautiful, artistically fine or excellent, poor, or mediocre, one is concerned with the overall degree of value a work possesses. When one says that a work is a fine example of a style, exhibits skillful draughtsmanship, furthers the goals of an artistic movement, displays goods internal to its genre, one may be doing one of two things. One may be making a judgment of degree of value of a more local, as opposed to an overall, kind. Or one may be judging that a work satisfies certain normative requirements to a certain degree. Judgments of the latter type do not entail that the work in question have any degree of (positive) value whatsoever. The degree of value would depend on the value of fulfilling those norms. (Although Graves is wrong to claim that satisfying internal norms is the key to understanding artistic value, he is right in thinking that artworks are evaluated with regard to the satisfaction of such norms.) Theories of artistic value obviously have a bearing on one type of judgment with which theories of artistic evaluation are concerned. These, of course, are judgments of degree of value, either local or overall. Theories of

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value provide some basic information that theories of evaluation need in order to discuss judgments of degree of value. As already noted, theories of value provide information (or at least hypotheses) about the sort of thing artistic values are, and try to identify those values. (This latter task is the topic of the next chapter.) A theory of artistic evaluation must make a decision on these matters before it can do its job, namely, provide criteria for identifying degrees of artistic value. Theories of artistic value do not, however, have a bearing on the other type of judgment with which theories of evaluation are concerned: judgments whether artworks satisfy various norms. Unless one's interest in evaluating artwork is confined to the latter sort of judgment, one cannot develop a theory of evaluation without a theory of value. From this perspective, it looks like a theory of value is part of a theory of evaluation (and I have no objection to such an alternative classification). However, one can want to know about artistic value without taking a theoretical interest in criteria for determining degrees of it, that is, in evaluation per se. Hence it is important to distinguish the two kinds of theories (or two parts of a single theory, if one prefers).'0 The topic of the meaning and cognitive status both of judgments regarding artistic value and of evaluative judgments about artworks occupies territory in the philosophy of art that is covered by metaethics within ethical theory. The concern here is with what such judgments say or what attitudes they express, whether such judgments are subjective or objective (in some suitable sense of these terms), whether they can be evaluated for truth, whether such evaluation for truth is relative to groups or cultures, whether there are ways of resolving disputes about value and evaluation-procedures for justifying one view over another, whether such procedures are relative to groups or cultures. One's meta-axiological views (as I call positions on this topic) have important implications for one's views about artistic value and about the evaluation of artworks. Consider the sentence "Artworks are valuable for their capacity to provide aesthetic experience." According to an emotivist, this sentence asserts nothing (beyond the fact that artworks have the 10. One can offer a theory of evaluation at a very abstract level on which it is not necessary to identify the particular sort of values that are relevant to artworks' evaluation qua artworks. Dickie's (1988) matrix approach to evaluation (inspired by earlier work of Vermazen's [1975]) functions at such an abstract level. Here, a theory of artistic value enters the picture when one tries to use the abstract evaluation procedure actually to evaluate artworks. For then one has to plug in the right values.

Artistic Value capacity to provide aesthetic experience); according to a (simple) subjectivist, it asserts something about artworks (that they have the relevant capacity) and something about the utterer of the sentence on an occasion of use (that the utterer approves of or commends this capacity); and according to an objectivist, the sentence asserts something about artworks-period. The fact that proponents of these different meta-axiological views accept the same sentence "about" artistic value does not mean they (take themselves to) accept the same views "about" artistic value, for on their differing accounts, the same sentence does not express the same views. The same applies to evaluative judgments. By the same token, one's views about artistic value and evaluation have implications for one's meta-axiological views, though, of course, the sentences one accepts do not have such clear implications. Thus, on the view endorsed here, someone who judges that artworks are valuable for their capacity to provide aesthetic experience is claiming something about artworks and their audience by making reference to a property of artworks and its potential effects on the audience of those works, namely, that works have the relevant capacity and that the realization of this capacity bestows a real benefit on those who receive it. On the other hand, the judgment neither asserts nor expresses the judge's own attitude toward this state of affairs. The judge, for example, might be Ivan, the leader of an evil extraterrestrial force who has been given the task of depriving humans of all that is valuable. Ivan has no personal feelings toward humans; he is just resolved to do his duty with regard to them. Ivan will then look on the judgment with neutral objectivity, neither approving nor disapproving of this beneficent effect of artworks, and proceed to attempt to deprive humans of that effect. (Much the same will happen with evaluative judgments. The judgment that something is a great artwork would give Ivan special incentive to deprive human beings of its benefits.) On the other hand, had Ivan hated human's and all that is of value in their lives, he would take a con attitude toward artworks and their beneficial effects on us. So far I have focused on views (relatively crude ones for the purpose of basic exposition) about the meaning of axiological judgments about artworks. However, meta-axiology also covers issues concerning the epistemology of value judgments, at least when the theory of meaning in hand allows epistemological issues to arise. These issues concern the sort of reasons or evidence that is appropriate to supporting value judgments, the extent to which these provide objective justification for such judgments, and the extent to which reasons or justification ought to be relativized to cultures,

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groups, or individuals. One might also wonder here if there is an identifiable class of reliable judgments regarding either value in artworks or their evaluation. (One can construe Hume as attempting to identify such a class in "Of the Standard of Taste.") In general, theories of artistic value have fewer implications for these epistemological issues than they have for issues about meaning. However, theories of artistic value are useful in narrowing down the relevant sort of judgment of value for which one is seeking reasons, justification, or reliability. That one is chiefly trying to determine what functions are instrumentally valuable in the sense of bestowing real benefits on audiences does not settle these epistemological issues, but gives them sharper focus. One would expect reciprocal benefits from axiological epistemology when a theory of artistic value attempts to identify specific artistic values. The reader has permission to construe the remarks at the end of this chapter's third section ("Artistic Value") as a thumbnail sketch of a theory of evidence for determining artistic functions, though falling short of telling us the value of these functions. It is beyond the scope of this book (not to mention my present ability), to offer a theory of artistic evaluation or of artistic meta-axiology. I turn rather to attempting to specify some valuable functions of some types of artworks. While I d o not take it for granted that everything I say is valuable is so, supporting arguments rely on readers' agreement that certain things just are valuable for human beings.

This chapter tries to fulfill the obligation, derived from my definition of artwork, to pick out some of the valuable functions of art. This is the most onerous task of the book, but not because artistic functions are hard to find. It is the hardest topic about which to say something that is both true and nontrivial, but neither pretentious nor trite. It is also hard to avoid the appearance that one is just making pronouncements. Whenever possible, I seek safety by putting up a barricade composed of the views of others before venturing my own. This provides, I hope, a context of disagreement and debate in which the views presented here can be seen as participating. The discussion focuses on the value of literature, that being the art I know best. The reader should not suppose that the valuable functions ascribed to literature can be straightforwardly carried over to other art forms. My purpose is to offer a sample, not a paradigm. Genres and styles typically have their own specific aims, as, of course, do individual works. When one is involved in the appreciation or evaluation of artworks, it is not merely desirable but essential to know what these are, in a way that one's experience of the work be informed by this knowledge.' 1. This holds most clearly, and to the greatest extent, for appreciation in the light of

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However, the concern here is with functions fulfilled by literary works that cut across many genres, styles, and individuals-the stuff from which simple functionalist theories of art are made. I discuss four functions of literary works, functions that are very roughly indicated by the following labels: aesthetic, cognitive, emotion-centered, and interpretation-centered. Literature has traditionally (though, notoriously, not invariably) been valued with respect to the first two functions, which used to be captured (not quite accurately by our lights) by speaking of the pleasure and instruction it affords. The latter two functions have appeared on center stage more recently. The emotion-centered function has to do with the benefits that accrue from art's focus, direct or indirect, on emotional life, a focus that includes, but is by no means confined to, emotional expression. The interpretation-centered function is of the most recent vintage. It concerns the value we place on objects that not only allow but invite multiple construals and the exercise of creativity in audience as well as author.

It was noted in Chapter 2 that the term "aesthetic" has the double disadvantage of being a technical expression, having been introduced into philosophy in the eighteenth century, but lacking the chief virtue of technical terms: a clear and generally agreed-upon meaning. Even when we speak more specifically of aesthetic experience or aesthetic value, there is no agreement about what these are. "Aesthetic value" is frequently used to refer to whatever is valuable about art, that is, as a synonym of "artistic value." However, that indiscriminate use of the term would serve us badly here, where the purpose is to pick out several distinct artistically valuable functions. I take for granted that aesthetic value resides in some sort of pleasure or enjoyment we get from objects (both artworks and other objects). Where there is pleasure or enjoyment, there is always a pleasurable or enjoyable experience. In the case of aesthetic value, this is distinctively an enjoyable historically correct interpretations. It still holds, but more erratically and to a lesser extent, when works are used as props (to use Walton's useful phrase) in other sorts of appreciative games. It seems to me that a just evaluation of the work needs to be based on the former sort of appreciation.

The Value of Literature experience taken in and directed toward (not merely caused by) an object. Hence, accounts of aesthetic value may focus either more on an experience or more on an object, but an adequate account cannot neglect either. I shall initially take aesthetic value to consist in the pleasure or enjoyment we get from things (both artworks and other things) in virtue of the aesthetic (hence object-directed) experience they give us. At the end of this section, this specification receives some refinement. What is most pressing initially is to give some substance to the specification by pinning down a notion of aesthetic experience or pleasure. Ultimately, this will require a certain amount of stipulation because of the technical but equivocal nature of the aesthetic. However, before resorting to stipulation, we can narrow the field a bit by examining some standing proposals. One traditional account of aesthetic pleasure characterizes it as pleasure taken in a perceptual experience of an object, an experience in which the object's formal features (however defined) are foregrounded and in which the spectator is disinterested at least in the sense that he or she contemplates the object for its own sake and not for some ulterior practical purpose.2 This traditional characterization has received much criticism and justly so.3 Not all aesthetic experience is primarily perceptual, the aesthetic experience of literature being a case in point. In the case of the aesthetic experience of artworks, representational features can be just as important as formal ones. Finally, since artworks typically have more than one valuable function, their spectators need not be disinterested in the sense just specified. It may be that in some sense they contemplate the work for its own sake (or for the sake of appreciatively experiencing it), but it does not follow that one does not have other, more or less practical purposes made possible by art's other valuable functions. Given these inadequacies, it is not surprising that various alternative conceptions of aesthetic experience or pleasure have appeared. An alternative offered by Kendall Walton (1993,499-510) that is instructively distant from the one just sketched proposes that aesthetic pleasure is pleasure that has two components: (a) pleasure taken in an object and (b) pleasure taken in one's admiration or positive evaluation of that ~ b j e c tOn . ~ this account, 2. For a more detailed summary of the tradition and its derivation from Kant, see Levinson 1993c. In the above characterization, Kant's view that aesthetic experience or judgment is nonconceptual is omitted because it is too implausible to bear scrutiny. 3. For critiques of this traditional notion of aesthetic experience, see Dickie 1974 and Sparshott 1982. 4. Walton (1993,508) eventually qualifies this to the following: "[Plleasure taken is not just

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what is distinctive about aesthetic pleasure (and presumably the aesthetic experience of an object, if one wishes t o speak of aesthetic experience as well as aesthetic pleasure) is the second component-the pleasure taken in one's positive evaluation of an object. The account is quite unspecific regarding the first component, regarding the sort of pleasure one takes in the object itself. I do not doubt that there is such a thing as pleasure taken in the positive evaluation of an object, though this is perhaps a pleasure that is apt to go unnoticed. I do not find it, however, a likely candidate for the distinctive component of aesthetic pleasure. Consider the following: "[Tlhe owner of a hoe . . . might . . . appreciate and admire how marvelously suited the hoe . . . is to its task. This gives her a certain enjoyment in using the tool (and perhaps just in owning it). . . It seems not unreasonable to describe this enjoyment as 'aesthetic' appreciation" (Walton 1993, 505). Well, if not unreasonable (for one may choose to use a word in any way one likes so long as one makes plain what that use is), it does strike me as idiosyncratic to so designate this appreciation of the hoe, at least if all that one admires is the tool's efficient hoeing. One is then admiring the hoe as one can admire the bolts that hold together airplanes. Imagine that you have just landed in Tokyo after a fourteen-hour flight from New York. You think of the bolts that have held together the 747 you are in, and admire their efficiency in keeping the plane in one piece after this and so many previous flights. This gives you a certain pleasure. I have not the slightest inclination to call this aesthetic pleasure, because it is so distant from what is typically so called. One never lays eyes on the bolts; one never contemplates any of their peculiar qualities. Similarly one may never really notice the hoe (as opposed to its efficient hoeing). It would be a different matter if one took pleasure in the way the look of the hoe, or a certain design and arrangement of parts, was suggestive of its good hoeing (though I think it important that the suggestion is not illusory). However, notice that now it is a certain way of experiencing the object, rather than one's judgment about it, that is distinctive of one's pleasure. My first reaction to Walton's suggestion is that, instead of characterizing aesthetic pleasure, it plausibly characterizes appreciation of any kind, aesthetic or not. The hoe owner clearly appreciates her hoe even if the appreciation is not aptly called aesthetic. However, on reflection, one can

.

in an object . . . , but in an attitude one has toward an object admiration or something else."

. . . , the

attitude being

The Value of Literature also doubt the proposal's plausibility as an account of appreciation. Appreciation does not require a judgment of value, though it is perfectly natural for such a judgment to accompany appreciation, and furthermore, the latter provides all the reasons one needs for a judgment of value. One appreciates a hoe if one notices its good hoe-making qualities (without necessarily judging them to be such) and takes pleasure in using it to fulfill its proper function. One need not actually judge that it is a marvelous hoe. Similarly, one appreciates a poem if one notices various features that make it a good poem and, in the process, takes pleasure in the poem. One need not actually judge it a good poem. So Walton's proposed way of defining aesthetic pleasure covers too many instances where the pleasure is normally not thought of as aesthetic (as when one takes pleasure in thinking one's hoe marvelous because of its efficiency) and leaves out others where the pleasure is aesthetic (as when one appreciates a poem in certain ways without making any judgment of value). Aesthetic pleasure is more object directed (as opposed to attitude directed) than this proposal has it, and, like appreciation, does not require a judgment of value. It would be possible to explore many more proposals that either are variations on the traditional one already stated or are revisionary concept i o n ~ Let . ~ us instead work our way from the simpler kinds of perceptual aesthetic pleasures, easily captured by the traditional conception, to complex ones more typical of the appreciation of visual art to a conception of the aesthetic appreciation of literary works. One important subset of aesthetic experiences consists in the pleasurable experience of appearances enjoyed for their own sake (or for the sake of the enjoyable experience itself) as they present themselves to the senses. We can distinguish three sorts appearances. There are phenomenal appearances: those that result from the joint operation of the properties of the object, the conditions of the subject, and background conditions. The purple appearance of a mountain range at dusk would be an example of a phenomenal appearance. In contrast to this there is a thing's true appearance: the properties that appear when we veridically perceive an object. Examples of this would be the vermilion color of a sports car or of a cloak in a painting. (Some objects may lack a true appearance, for example, a mountain range.) Another kind of appearance is mentioned when 5. For references to recent attempts to state accounts of the traditional sort, see Chapter 2's third section, "Aesthetic Definitions." Another revisionary account is proposed in Feagin 1994, 51-69.

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we say that a car looks fast or that a weeping willow looks sad. I do not know of a good name for this kind of appearance. We could call it characteristic appearance because the appearance brings out, or expresses, a character the object is supposed or seems to have. We can enjoy noticing all three kinds of appearances just for the sake of doing so, and hence we can have aesthetic experiences involving each. However, when it comes to the aesthetic experience of artworks, we are not usually interested in their phenomenal appearance. For example, while we can take considerable pleasure in noticing the precise appearance that a mountain happens to present to one from this vantage point, during this season, on this particular day, at this hour, one is not so interested in just any phenomenal appearance a painting happens to present, for example, one in which glare is the most prominent feature. Rather we are interested in a painting's true appearance (as we move about to eliminate glare, among other things) and characteristic appearance. This is not to imply, however, that it is always unproblematic what a painting's true appearance is or that there are no exceptions to this rule. The things that most clearly have a true appearance in a painting are low-level perceptual features: a patch of cerulean (which happens to represent a lake) or a complex shape (which happens to represent an arm). We can certainly take pleasure in noticing these things, a pleasure to which I would not want to deny the title "aesthetic." However, far more typical of aesthetic enjoyment of paintings is the experience of noticing the interaction of these low-level perceptual features with both representational ones (including representations of phenomenal appearances) and matters of larger formal design. It is then that those low-level features take on characteristic appearances (e.g., the arm-representing shape becomes not only complex but dynamic). Our interest in a painting's represented world, and the form that embodies it, is hardly limited to the way it arises from lower-level features. The contemplation of these forms and meanings takes the aesthetic experience of painting well beyond the enjoyable noticing of appearances.6 This is so much more true of the aesthetic experience of literature. Such experience does involve attending to appearances: the sound of words; the rhythm of lines, sentences, stanzas, and paragraphs; the appearance of a 6. Levinson ( 1 9 9 3 ~suggests ) the following definition of aesthetic pleasure: pleasure derived from "apprehensionof and reflection on an object's individual character and content, both for itself and in relation to its structural base on which it rests." The previous paragraph reflects the importance an object's "structural base" can have in aesthetic experience. I am not convinced it must be attended to in such experiences.

The Value of Literature poem on paper. (There can be other aesthetic payoffs in appearances presented by some physical realizations of literary works, as when one encounters a work in a fine edition where one can appreciate the font in which the work is printed, the look and feel of the paper, and so forth.) However, this leaves out the most important object of aesthetic experience in most works of literature: what the work presents to the imagination rather than the senses. Recognizing that the appearances interact with and contribute to the meaning presented to the imagination, I nevertheless call the latter the core aesthetic experience of literature. It is this core experience that I will try to illuminate. Consider "Spring," a song that occurs (along with "Winter") at the end of Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost. When Daisies pied and violets blue And lady-smocks all silver-white And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo: 0 words of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear! When Shepherds pipe on oaten straws, And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks, When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws, And maidens bleach their summer smocks, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo: 0 words of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear. I choose this "song" because the locus of one's appreciation is likely to be enjoyment in the scene it presents to the imagination, embodied in the sounds and rhythms of the words employed to do this, rather than a profound cognitive or emotional significance that one arguably might find in other literary works. Except for the (to married men) irritating and apparently enormous abundance of cuckoos, the scene is an idyllically pretty one.

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The first stanza presents a splash of colors: blue, silver white, yellow, pied, which is to say variegated with spots of different color. "Pied" describes not only the daisies in the meadow but the spring meadow itself, which the poem's opening lays out before us. There could hardly be a closer parallel between what the poem presents to the imagination and what a painting, say a landscape by Pissarro, might present to the eye. What happens next, in the refrain, is different. Cuckoos sing on every tree. This is not an accurately described spring scene. In its hardly subtle suggestion of adultery, the cuckoos mean something beyond themselves. We cannot fail to notice this, since Shakespeare makes it so explicit, but once we do so, we look back to the first stanza and forward to the next, expecting to find something more than descriptions of flowers and birds, merry ploughmen and shepherds, and maidens. One thing one finds, in contrast to cuckoos and adultery, is the whiteness of lady's smocks (both in the flowers of stanza 1 and the maidens of stanza 2). The contrast is surely there, but what is not is some commitment in the poem to a particular way of construing the contrast. It could be construed as ironic, but it need not be. The poem is too lighthearted to be more than suggestive. Here are two more things the poem suggests to me. The contrast between the adultery-announcing cuckoos and the virginal smocks suggests the emotional and sexual tumult that spring so easily induces. The other idea suggested to me is metamorphosis. The cuckoo-buds of the first stanza are followed by (transformed into) cuckoo birds. The silver white lady-smocks become real summer smocks bleached white by maidens. Finally, is there a suggestion of virginal natures becoming adulterous ones? In any case, whether or not Shakespeare intended it, emotional tumult and metamorphosis of many kinds are typical of spring. Taken in its totality, what the poem presents to the imagination is a partial but vivid conception of spring. The description of birds, flowers, and people gives the conception an element one can visualize. The hyperbolic refrain about the cuckoos mocking married men gives the conception at least a little more depth and makes it considerably more suggestive. The core aesthetic experience of the poem consists in taking in or contemplating the poem's conception of spring for the sake of the enjoyment one gets from doing so. This can be generalized into an account of the core aesthetic experience of any literary work: it consists in the taking in or contemplating, for the sake of the enjoyment one gets from doing so, the conceptions the work presents to the imagination. To conceive something is simply to think of it as having certain properties.

The Value of Literature Among our conceptions are some that are not the conceptions of something, for example, conceptions of round squares and golden mountains. Here we just think of a set of properties, and the conception might be expressed by an open sentence "X is F . " ~These two types of conceptions do not exhaust those it is possible to find in literary and other works. A work can present relational conceptions (where two or more things are thought of as related in a certain way) or general conceptions (where some or all things within a domain are thought of as possessing a property or as being related to other things in a certain way). For each propositional form, there is a type of conception, and within a type, individual conceptions can be expressed by either open or closed sentences. In the latter case (where a conception is expressed by a closed sentence), a conception is the same thing as a proposition. Any piece of writing, literary or not, presents conceptions in this sense, although, as is often pointed out, not typically for the sake of their enjoyable contemplation. Nevertheless, wherever such conceptions are presented, aesthetic enjoyment is possible, though it is more likely in some forms of writing than others. This is true even in the nonliterary domain. It does not strike me as so unusual to enjoy contemplating a conception of black holes presented in an article in Nature, and furthermore to enjoy the contemplation for its own sake rather than for the sake of what the article was primarily intended to deliver-knowledge about black holes. The same could happen with the conception of a vacuum cleaner presented in an article in Consumer Reports, but it is less likely to occur. Literary works, as is also often pointed out, are commonly, if not invariably, designed for such contemplation. Fictional literary works tend to present both sorts of conceptions mentioned above: conceptions that are of something and conceptions that are not. A lyric poem that presents a conception of a fictional someone's grief (which is a conception of the latter sort) may imply or suggest a conception of grief (which is a conception of the former sort). A novel whose fictional characters inhabit nineteenth-century Russia presents a conception of nineteenth-century ~ussia.' We now have before us an account of the core aesthetic experience of a literary work (and, more generally, of a piece of writing). However, some ways of experiencing writing that others have regarded as aesthetic and 7. For elaboration on this idea, see Adams and Stecker 1994. 8. The remarks in this chapter about conceptions in fiction fall well short of a theory about the nature of fiction. My hope is that they can be easily incorporated into an adequate theory.

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central to the reading of literature appear not to be covered by this conception. Let me mention two whose omission might strike the reader as serious. First, the conception of aesthetic experience of literary works presented here seems to emphasize representational content over more formal aspects of a work. Others (e.g., Beardsley 1977,328; Olsen 1987) have pointed out the possibilities and importance of attending to these latter features. One can attend to the shape of a novel's plot, the way complications are developed and worked out, the way it moves from episode to episode, or from one point of view to another, or from image to image or symbol to symbol to form a pattern. Though I have not explicitly focused on this aspect of reading, I regard it as implicit in my account because it is crucial to attend to things like this to understand and appreciate properly the conceptions presented in literary works. Thus, in attempting to understand the conception of spring presented in Shakespeare's song, we note the symbolic significance of the cuckoos and that the use of the same words to refer to different things suggests springlike metamorphosis. To take a different but well-known example, one cannot appreciate the conception of society presented in Dickens's Little Dorrit without noting the imagery of the prison house that recurs throughout the novel.9 Though formal features are typically the vehicle for the expression of content (conceptions), they can be noted while paying little attention to the conception they express. One can enjoy doing this for its own sake. I would not deny that this is aesthetic enjoyment any more than I would deny that enjoying the sound of words and the rhythm of lines in a poem is aesthetic. What I deny is that such enjoyment is, typically, adequate to the work that is their object. The reason they are inadequate is that they, typically, leave out too many important features of the writing. However, a piece of writing might present conceptions simply as a vehicle for displaying its formal properties. Similarly, a work might present certain conceptions as a vehicle for displaying sounds and rhythms. In these exceptional cases, the claim I have just made would not be true. Second, I have left out a reader's emotional reactions to a work. Instead, I have spoken of contemplation, a seemingly unemotional stance. If "contemplation" implies lack of emotional response, it is the wrong word to characterize the aesthetic experience of literature. What I intend is to leave 9. See Trilling 1953 and Olsen 1987. Olsen fully understands the role of formal features in expressing literary content (conceptions).

The Value of Literature open a strongly emotional response without requiring it. "Emotion-centered" value is discussed below along with its relation to aesthetic and cognitive value. Having presented a conception of the aesthetic experience (or aesthetic enjoyment) of a literary work, we need to explain when this accrues to the work's aesthetic value. The first thing that has to be realized is that aesthetic enjoyment will always be mediated by an understanding or interpretation of the literary work. Given this, some proposals will be unreasonable, for example, that all instances of aesthetically enjoying a work add to its value. When enjoyment is based on gross misunderstanding, the work deserves no credit for the enjoyment. However, there are a number of reasonable proposals among which it is hard to choose. One generic proposal is that the aesthetic value of a work resides in its capacity to produce aesthetic enjoyment in those who understand it. This has at least two plausible sub-versions. The more restrictive one counts only those whose enjoyment is based on a historically correct understanding of the work. In favor of this, one could say that enjoyment so derived is enjoyment for which the work is most responsible. The more expansive sub-version of the proposal counts those whose enjoyment is based on any acceptable interpretation. In favor of this, on could say that, although many of these interpretations were not intended by the work's author or fully justified by the work's historical circumstances, the work should receive credit for provoking any interpretation that produces aesthetic enjoyment as long as it is an acceptable or legitimate one, since any such interpretation must meet some work-relative constraints. The difference between these versions lies in the degree of responsibility of the work for the enjoyment. A different suggestion requires not only proper understanding of the work but propriety in taking aesthetic pleasure in it. An example of a work that might lack such propriety is Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will in virtue of the moral reprehensibility of the work.'' My own view favors the more expansive version of the first proposal. It seems more plausible to grant that even morally reprehensible works might have aesthetic value, though it can be overwhelmed by their moral disvalue, than to deny that they have any aesthetic value at all. A proponent of the propriety view has suggested that humor provides a good model here (Walton 1993, 506). It is at least a good model for bringing out different intuitions. The propriety theorist claims that something that makes us laugh 10. Walton (1993, 506) advances this suggestion along with the example.

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is nevertheless not funny if we should not laugh because it is in bad taste or morally questionable. My intuition is that the item is funny all right, but it may still be a bad joke (witticism, etc.). Perhaps only people with a certain sensibility or sensitivity should be counted in deciding whether a joke is funny. Such people will not be made to laugh at many jokes in bad taste, with the exception of the really funny ones! Regarding the choice between the more expansive and more restrictive versions of the first proposal, I admit to some uncertainty about which is the better choice. My preference for the more expansive version is based on the thought that a work is to some extent responsible for even the most revisionary acceptable interpretations of it and hence deserves some of the credit for whatever enjoyment then ensues. However one should apportion aesthetic value to literary works, such value is not the only one we assign to the conceptions presented in those works. Many people think that these conceptions often have cognitive value. We now try to understand what this cognitive value consists in.

In the previous paragraph, I suggested that the cognitive value of literature resides in the cognitive value of the conceptions it presents. This, if accepted without qualification, certainly narrows down the possible sources of cognitive value in literary works, though not the cognitive functions those conceptions might fulfill. It may well be thought to narrow them down too much, since a social practice as important, complex, and containing such a multiplicity of genres as literature is unlikely to have just one source of cognitive value. Let this be granted. It is, nevertheless, true that so much of what is most perceptive in discussions of what we learn from literature, from ancient times to the present day, has focused on things very like what I am calling conceptions that it is unlikely that they do not have a special importance. It is one of our tasks to find out what this importance is. Before we proceed further, an explanation should be provided why there is a problem about specifying the cognitive value of literary works. As mentioned above, any piece of writing presents conceptions, but we are not particularly puzzled by the potential cognitive value of an article in Nature or in Consumer Reports. Although the class of literary works is by no means identical to the class of fictional works (since some fiction is not a part of

The Value of Literature literature and not all works of literature are works of fiction), the problem of understanding the cognitive value of literature can be reduced to the problem of understanding the cognitive value of fiction. Nonfictional literary works, such as In Rerum Natura or An Essay on Man, can be cognitively valuable in ways just like other nonfictional writing. They can uncontroversially make statements that are true, plausible, well supported by reasons or evidence. They can state laws of nature or other important generalizations. They can state arguments effectively criticizing alternative positions. The ability to possess these cognitively valuable traits hinges on the discursive function of statement making. Where writing has this as a primary function, statements are made, conceptions are asserted and are supported, by reasons, evidence, or argument. In fiction, sentences are not typically used to make statements that will receive evidential or argumentative support. The primary function of fiction is not the discursive function just mentioned. It is more like the function of presenting conceptions to the imagination. Hence, if fictional literature characteristically has cognitive value, its basis lies in something other than statement making, other than asserting conceptions and defending them with reasons or evidence. The reason this creates a problem is that the cognitive value of writing is traditionally located in the activities I have just associated with the discursive function of statement making. If we can solve this problem and identify cognitively valuable traits that fiction possesses, it is likely to turn out that nonfictional literature also has these traits. To avoid confusion, we should admit that statements (asserted conceptions) may occur within works of fiction. In War and Peace, whole chapters are devoted to expounding a theory of historical change. This can also happen on a smaller scale; an author can introduce or conclude a work with a statement of his own, as Tolstoy might be interpreted as doing in the famous opening sentence of Anna Karenina and Hardy is sometimes taken to task for doing at the end of Tess of the D'Urbervilles. (The alternative interpretation is that a fictional authorlnarrator is making these statements, in which case it is part the fiction that they are made; they are fictionally made, but not necessarily literally made in fact.) It might be suggested that, when statements occur within a work of fiction, this often functions to make explicit what is already implicit. This is precisely the grounds on which Hardy is criticized regarding the final sentence of Tess. The claim is that Hardy had already made his point clearly enough within the action of the novel, and to make it explicit spoils the effect. This implies that the statement was already implicit in Tess, not made by any one of the earlier sentences but

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expressed by a larger collection of them. If this is so when an author makes a statement explicit, it could just as easily be so when an author does not. This suggestion is not mistaken; novels and other fictional works can be vehicles for making assertions, whether implicit or explicit.ll However, by itself, it will not illuminate very much the cognitive value of fictional works. This is because, when a work of fiction does assert something, such assertion will not typically function in the same way as it does in a discursive work. It functions not as something to be proved or supported by evidence (at least not proved or supported by evidence within the work), but somehow in connection with the work's function of presenting conceptions to the imagination. The understanding of the cognitive role of statements or assertions in fiction is subservient to understanding how the presentation of conceptions to the imagination can play a cognitive role. Fiction is not a purely literary phenomenon, but something that pervades everyday life and nonliterary writing. This claim would not be accepted by all theories of fiction. However, it is a central feature of some (such as Walton 1990). A weaker way of putting my point here would be to say that fiction has roots in and important similarities to certain forms of everyday thought and behavior. This point was stressed by Aristotle (Poetics 1448b) and could be accepted by those who would deny that some of the examples given below are examples of fiction. The reason fiction pervades everyday life and nonliterary writing has mainly to do with the cognitive value of presenting conceptions to the imagination. We commonly find fictions in the imaginary examples that crop up in philosophy, and something very like fiction in everyday decision making. Such fictions are simpler than the elaborate ones found in novels and stories, and the role they play in thinking is easier to pinpoint. So these are the fictions we should look at first. The imaginary examples that philosophers employ are little fictions. Such examples are often employed in the process of arguing for or against a position. How do examples function in arguing against a moral theory, such as act utilitarianism? We invent imaginary situations and point out what we think the theory tells us to do in those situations. We try to invent situations where the theory tells us that an action is morally permissible (required, prohibited), where we think it is not permissible (required, prohibited), or vice versa. What we accomplish with such examples is controversial. They cannot 11. See Walton, 1990, 77-81 for a good discussion of this and related points.

The Value of Literature establish all by themselves that a theory is false. However, the use of such examples accomplishes a t least two things. First, it gets us to conceive of the consequences of the theory vividly, something we may not otherwise fully appreciate, even when we know of these consequences. (I assume the example's representation of the implications of a theory is accurate.) We are confronted, as it were, with what it means to act and evaluate actions on the basis of this theory. Second, it reveals to us something about ourselves: how, at least initially, we feel about the consequences and the theory that implies them. These reactions can come as a surprise. When I teach the problem of abortion, I like to use an example I call "the burning test-tube-baby laboratory example." A fire suddenly breaks out in a test-tube-baby laboratory in which there are three living things: a doctor, a lab assistant with a broken leg, and an embryo in a test tube. The doctor can save the lab assistant or the embryo but not both. This example helps people vividly to conceive the consequences of the view that an embryo has a right to life equal to any person, and to see how they feel initially about these consequences. This makes an important contribution in thinking about the question whether an embryo has such a right, even though it does not give an answer to this question. Imaginary examples make this contribution better than most other things, though they can be replaced with real examples. The use of fictions, or, if one balks at the use of that word, of imaginings fulfilling the same function as that cited above for fictions, is also common in everyday thought about what to do. When we are trying to make a decision, we often need vividly to conceive our options and their supposed consequences and to see how we feel about these once vividly conceived. We often project our possible futures, in line with the live options, in the form of scenarios-more or less elaborate fictions or imaginings. It is easy, but important not to, overestimate what such fictions can give us. "This is how humans most often choose, by visualizing things; . . . imagination acted out the scene and led to a decision" (Glidden 1991,125). Just as philosophical examples do not answer-or even by themselves supply arguments for answers to-philosophical problems, fictional scenarios do not tell us what we should do.'* Rather, they allow us to see what our options (might) involve in detail, make us aware of relevant consider12. I am not attributing this oversimple view to Glidden, who I think insightful in noticing the importance of imaginative projection in deliberation and its similarity to a cognitive value of literary fiction. He does admit "reasons enter in" (1991,125) but seems to want to resist the notion that they do so in anything like the way they would in formal reasoning. He leaves unclear how they do.

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ations we might otherwise overlook, make us feel the force of these, or relative lack of force. Fictions, like the philosophical examples and imaginary scenarios just mentioned, are framed by questions, assertions, and predictions that make their cognitive role pretty obvious and allow them to feed into discursive reasoning (even if we do not always explicitly set such reasoning out for ourselves). In novels and short stories, there is often no such explicit framework to announce the cognitive role of the fiction. Nevertheless, many literary works have a cognitive role similar to the examples discussed so far. Here is a literary example. Laurence Sterne's Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy can be read as exploring one conception of a good human being: one who is always ready to feel what others feel and goes about with this aim chiefly in mind. How does Sterne do this? First, by embodying this conception in a character who does not perfectly realize this ideal but who is subject to errors and confusions to be expected in fallible human beings. Sterne then imaginesand shows us what he imagines in a series episodes-what happens to this character as he meets people belonging to foreign lands. In these episodes we are shown Sterne's conception of the pleasures of such a life (I place this first because it is emphasized most), the frustrations encountered, the incongruities misunderstanding creates, the way sympathetic impulses may conflict, and even be confused, with impulses of a very different nature-hostile, lustful, springing from prejudice. What Sterne is doing is in many ways similar to what a philosopher using imaginary examples is doing, but there are also important differences. Both are trying to show us, using examples in one case, a novel in another, what is involved in following a moral theory or ideal, show us in a way that makes it alive to the imagination, though in one case in its stark simplicity, in another in great detail. A difference that seems unimportant to me is that the moral philosopher is explicit about his or her aims, while Sterne leaves us to figure out what he is doing. A difference that is important, but not to be pursued here, because it is already well explored by others, is the difference in detail of representation.13 Another important difference is that the philosopher goes on to supply an argument for or against the theory or ideal, often against a background of alternatives. Sterne does not supply any argument. What he does do is show us how someone of intelligence could value that sort of life, which may in turn effect what we value, or at least 13. See Nussbaum 1990.

The Value of Literature make what we value, what we believe we ought to value, clearer to us. This comes from the vivid conceptions that fictions like Sentimental Journey give us, and from what we learn about ourselves when we see how we react to these conceptions. We may very likely want to do more with conceptions we discover in literature than to judge whether they possess an initial plausibility and to find out how we initially react to them. We are likely to want to come to a more considered evaluation of them. This is where what Martha Nussbaum, following Richard Wollheim, calls commentary becomes essential. One function of commentary is to set up an interpretive framework of questions and assertions that are often not explicit in fictional literature. But it also has an evaluative function. "I believe that we have made progress in understanding when we have set three opposed views of love and its knowledge beside one another. . . . it is . . . philosophical criticism that has set up this confrontation, clarified the oppositions, moved us from an unarticulated sympathy with this or that story to a reflective grasp of our own sympathies" (Nussbaum 1990,282-83). In its simplest terms, commentary evaluates the truth or plausibility of the conceptions encountered in fiction. It evaluates whether represented consequences would be (are) actual consequences, whether a conception is internally coherent, whether a conception oversimplifies or distorts its object. Hence the conceptions found in fictional literature (but not only there) have cognitive value not only in giving us new conceptions, in presenting them vividly to the imagination so we get a real sense of what it is to accept them or live according to them, in giving us information about ourselves when we see how we react to them, but also in promoting the kind of commentary we have been speaking of-a philosophical or some other sort of investigation into their truth. In the preceding discussion of the cognitive value of the conceptions presented in literature, I, like many others who have contributed to the discussion of this issue, have concentrated on examples centering on issues about value and other broadly ethical issues. I feel somewhat guilty about this because it at least gives the false impression that this is the main subject matter about which literature presents conceptions of cognitive significance. It obviously is an important subject matter, but hardly to the exclusion of many others that fall outside ethics. Conceptions concerning self-knowledge and our knowledge of others, the emotions, the springs of action, the nature of perception, of personal identity, of free will or determinism, of society, of time-to mention just a few additional common themes-equally abound.

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It is often asked of the conceptions found in fiction whether their turning out to be true adds to the value of the fiction in which they are found. It is perfectly reasonable to suppose that writers frequently aim at presenting conceptions that are true, and equally reasonable to attempt to evaluate such conceptions for truth. Such considerations might strongly tempt us to say that the truth of conceptions presented in literary works significantly adds to the cognitive value of those works. However, I have my doubts. It is interesting that this question is asked less often of works of philosophy than of works of fiction (at least in my experience). Perhaps this is because we take it for granted that philosophical work is more valuable for asserting truths. But again, this not so clear. We may highly value a work of philosophy (or criticism) that makes "instructive" mistakes: that sets out a position with great clarity and force (though it may ultimately be false), that amasses persuasive reasons to accept it (though they may ultimately be flawed), that foresees subtle objections and finds plausible replies (though they may ultimately fail). Such a work puts us in the best position to find out the truth, and that is more important than whether the position it defends is true. So with conceptions as they are presented in fictions. If they are rich and plausible enough to promote fruitful commentary (in Nussbaum's sense), then they will be effective instruments to help us find the truth, and that is more important than whether they possess the truth. Thus, though conceptions of love and its knowledge that we find in Proust may turn out to be deeply flawed (if Nussbaum is right about them), in promoting this kind of commentary there is much to be learned from them. It could still be insisted that truth, in itself, is still to be preferred to falsity, in itself. So a work that contains a truth on a certain topic is in value that much ahead of one containing a falsehood on the same topic. This can be admitted, while insisting that this is unlikely to be among the chief virtues of fictional literature. For such writing, it is far more important to help us along in our search for understanding about issues important to us than to express the truth.14 There is, however, one other factor to be taken into account before leaving this topic. It might be suggested that it is less common and less appropriate to take to the reading of literature the kind of critical attitude standard in reading philosophy. The former, it might be said, requires a more sympathetic attitude, and this can best be maintained where we believe the work is presenting us with insights (hence truths) rather than falsehoods. Further, if 14. I am indebted to Berys Gaut for helpful discussion on this topic.

The Value of Literature that belief is going to be cognitively efficacious, it had better be true. Hence the truth of a conception found in literature not only adds to its value but does so in a very significant way. I would resist this argument. I am uncertain that a sympathetic attitude is more appropriate to literature than a critical attitude, but even if this is true while reading a fictional work, it need not continue to be true when we begin the evaluative part of commentary. It is there that a critical attitude is essential, hence hardly inappropriate. This completes the main exposition of my view of the cognitive value of literature.'' Obviously, in the relatively brief space allotted here, we cannot consider how this view stands relative to the many other accounts of such value. Within such accounts one is likely to find useful supplementation as well as alternatives to the view presented here. What should be done, however, is to point out that the position presented here belongs to a long and widely shared tradition. Having done that, I will consider a recently proposed alternative view and some objections. The tradition to which the view presented here belongs begins no later than Aristotle, who claims that poetry is more philosophical than history, "since its statements are more of the nature of universals . [such as] what such or such a kind of man will probably or necessarily say or do" (Poetics 1451b). Aristotle is saying precisely that poetry, tragedy in particular, presents conceptions of what men of certain types say or do. The main difference from my view is that Aristotle appears to be committed to supposing that poetry, or tragedy, is concerned with a more specific range of conceptions than anything I have said would suggest. The view is widely shared among many contemporary thinkers. I have already referred to the work of Martha Nussbaum on literature as moral philosophy. Nussbaum (1990, 140) initially approached novels like James's Golden Bowl as virtually autonomous works of moral philosophy that not only exemplify a conception of heightened moral discrimination (as Nussbaum interprets the novel) but provide something akin to an argument for superiority of this conception over simpler ones. However, as early as her second paper on The Golden Bowl, the emphasis shifts to the conception of

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15. I am not claiming that the cognitive function of literature identified here is the only way literary works can have cognitive value or that these other ways have gone unnoticed. See Novitz 1987, 119-20, for an excellent list of ways fictional literature can be cognitively valuable. See Lamarque and Olsen 1994 for a detailed attempt to distinguish between and critically evaluate attempts to locate the cognitive value of literature in the truths and other conceptions it contains.

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moral attention that the novel presents, leaving it more to commentary to set beside this one "other conceptions of moral attention and explain its differences from them" (1990, 161). The idea that a work presents a conception to be evaluated within commentary becomes even clearer when she turns to works with which she is in less deep sympathy, such as those of Proust and Beckett. (For others who seem to me to share this view, see Wilson 1983; Beardsmore 1973; Phillips 1982; Eldridge 1989; Novitz 1987; Glidden 1991; to mention a few of many others who could be cited.) An interesting example of the pervasiveness of the view presented here occurs in a recent debate between Bernard Harrison and Richard Gaskin. Gaskin defends a view of the cognitive value of literature that has a strong resemblance to Aristotle's (and hence to the one presented here). Fictional literature makes reference to universals and expresses truths, or at least plausibilities, with respect to them. (Gaskin differs from me in his emphasis on the truth of conceptions found in literature.) Harrison claims to be offering a different model of cognitive significance according to which, literature brings us news about our language rather than the world. However, when we inquire what Harrison's alternative amounts to, it turns out to be a variant of Gaskin's view! "A language has to elaborate a system of categories in terms of which its speakers frame the judgements it puts up for assessment." Speakers tend to find the categories they use "comfortable and congenial." In uncritically accepting these categories we often err, and one of the cognitive functions of literature is to "deliver us" from such errors (Harrison 1994, 179-80). A moment's reflection may lead us to suspect that Harrison's "categories" are of a piece with my conceptions and might subsume some of Gaskin's claims about universals. This suspicion is born out as soon as Harrison supplies us with an example. In King Lear, Shakespeare "puts our everyday notion of daughterly virtue under strain" in developing the character of Cordelia (Harrison 1994, 180). There is nothing particularly language regarding about this. Shakespeare presents, via the character of Cordelia, a conception of daughterly virtue that, according to Harrison, offers an alternative to our everyday notions. Though I am not sure Harrison is right about Cordelia, this is precisely the kind of job one would expect conceptions presented in literature to do on the views offered by Gaskin and myself. Of course, language can become one of the things about which a literary work might offer conceptions: language might be portrayed as a surgical tool, as a constant source of ambiguity and misunderstanding, as a bludgeon destroying possibilities of finer perceptual or spiritual discrimination, as an

The Value of Literature agent of cultural bonding. But these represent one kind among the many conceptions to be found in literary works. Instead of citing further variants of the view endorsed here, let us turn to a genuine alternative. According to Lamarque and Olsen (1994), literary value is not to be located in the usefulness or truth of the conceptions, found in literature, about ourselves, our language, and our world. It is to be found in something internal to the works themselves. They nevertheless want to claim that this value is humanistic and cognitive. Their argument begins with the claim that literature is a social practice in which works are written, presented, and read for the sake of achieving a characteristic form of appreciation. "One central, characteristic purpose defined by the literary practice . . . is to develop in depth, through subject and form, a theme which is . . . central to human concerns and which can therefore be recognized as of more or less universal interest. Appreciation, and consequent evaluation of the individual literary work is a matter of eliciting and supporting the identification and development of a 'perennial theme"' (Lamarque and Olsen 1994, 450). Notice that the concern of appreciation and evaluation remains firmly within the work on this view. It is no part of the practice of literary evaluation to ask whether the conceptions developed with regard to some thematic material are useful in thinking about the actual world. Consider, with Lamarque and Olsen, Arnold Bennett's Anna of Five Towns. This novel "organizes a described universe in such a way that the reader who applies concepts like 'freedom of the will', 'determinism' . . . in the appreciation of the work, will come to see how, in that universe, human beings are controlled by external forces. . There is no similar order in the real world that will make these concepts meaningful in this way. . . . [Sleeing life in terms of art, is an optional extra that is only sometimes useful and mostly does not occur" (454-55). For Lamarque and Olsen, the characteristic way of appreciating a literary work is to see, in detail, how one or more themes organize a fictional universe-the universe of the literary work. This clearly requires cognition-of the work in question. It has a humanistic aspect insofar as the theme is of "perennial" interest. However, the appreciative experience of the work that one achieves by this scrutiny is aesthetic in character, indeed very similar to my characterization of the core aesthetic experience of literature. Lamarque and Olsen would also so characterize it.16 Lamarque and Olsen admit that we can appreciate works because conceptions found in them are

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16. This is how Olsen (1987) repeatedly characterizes it in his earlier work.

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useful in thinking about the world, but they insist that this is not literary appreciation and does not indicate a literary value. It is no part of the practice of literary appreciation; it applies to some works but not others; "it is an optional extra . . . and mostly does not occur." Is this an adequate conception of literary value-cognitive or otherwise? One problem with it, if the conception of art and its functions presented here is on the right track, is that it relies on a far too monolithic conception of the practice of literature and literary value. When one remembers that there are several different literary forms and many genres within each form, it becomes implausible that one simple model of literary practice or of literary appreciation is going to be adequate across the board. There are genres, such as the realistic novel, not to mention its predecessors and successors, that were pursued with fairly explicit cognitive goals by their practitioners. It is not clear why those goals, assuming they can be rendered coherent, should not help define appropriate literary practice with respect to those genres. Again, within a practice as complex, variable, and necessarily sensitive to the individual creative works under scrutiny, it again seems implausible to ignore individual aims of writers who often have cognitive ambitions beyond what Lamarque and Olsen allow as properly literary. However, I also doubt that an adequate conception of a good literary work, in terms of thematic development, will be possible absent recognition of a cognitive dimension such as that offered here. As Lamarque and Olsen recognize, "perennial" themes can easily be found in all sorts of fiction that they refuse to call literary or to assign literary value: television soap operas, romance novels, perhaps even the fantasies of the National Enquirer. Thus it is not hard to see Dynasty (if I remember back aright) as presenting greed and the desire for domination as pervasive and powerful sources of human motivation that constantly interfere with the desire for satisfying personal relationships. This theme can be seen to organize every scene and every episode. It is not enough for a theme to be intricately interwoven with a subject for a work to possess significant value. As Lamarque and Olsen themselves say, what are needed are demands on our "intellectual, emotional or moral nature. . For literature like philosophy challenges the reader to make his own construction, to . reach deeper insight into the great themes"; although they add, "though this insight is 'literary"' (1994,455), I cannot see how judgments of value can avoid assessing the quality of thought expressed by a work's conceptions. This will typically take one beyond the work to the world. (Unlike Lamarque and Olsen, however, I

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The Value of Literature would not claim that the artistic evaluation of a work should only or always center on the development of a work's theme.) Finally, I suspect that emphasis on theme actually blinds Lamarque and Olsen to some of the more significant instances of cognitively valuable insight found in some of the works they discuss. Take Anna of the Five Towns. Perhaps it has a "freedom of the wilYdeterminism theme" (Lamarque and Olsen 1994,452). However, I doubt that it would add much to the philosophical debate on that issue. Nevertheless, does possession of the theme vindicate Lamarque and Olsen's view that one should concentrate on the way this theme is developed within the novel? Not at all. For quite apart from the question whether the characters of this novel ultimately have or lack free will in some strict sense, the novel forcefully illustrates a quite different point, namely, that there are social settings that are so narrow and inward looking-the perceived options of those living within these settings are so reduced-that it matters little whether they in fact have free will (the ability freely to choose from options) or not. As Anna perhaps too clearly shows, in such settings violence and brutality may appear to be unexceptional behavior, and people willingly, and completely unnecessarily, sacrifice their happiness because they cannot conceive of an alternative. Perhaps I have identified another theme, but if so it is one about which Anna has something important to say that has, if anything, too straightforward an application beyond the novel. The writing and reading of poems and plays, novels and short stories, is no doubt part of a cultural practice. However, Lamarque and Olsen's account of the value of this practice is plausible only if it is a uniform practice, with a single dominant aim, that runs parallel to but only incidentally contributes to other cultural practices, such as philosophy, and similarly only incidentally touches on the project of understanding the world or of the good or bad ways of living in it. Such a view, I would suggest, would make it impossible to provide a plausible account of the creative aims of Dante and Milton, Pope and Swift, Blake and Wordsworth, Balzac and Zola, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, Austen and Eliot, Keller and Stifter, Woolf and Lawrence, and so many others. I turn now to some objections to the view that cognitive value is an important aspect of the artistic value of literature. Some argue that, in placing too much emphasis in a literary work's cognitive value, we make it more dispensable and replaceable than we take artworks to be. It may seem that once the cognitive value of a work is uncovered, we no longer need the work itself. We can, as it were, carry off

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the conceptions we have found in it, leaving the work behind. Furthermore, we might well find these conceptions elsewhere, in which case we would not need the work in the first place. As an objection to thinking of the cognitive value of literary works as an important part of their value, these claims would be misplaced in several ways. First, even if such works were as dispensable and replaceable with respect to their cognitive value as this objection suggests, they might still be important for it. Things can be very worthwhile for doing an important job well, even if other things do it too. But it is all too probable that, while replacements are possible, they are rare, unlikely, or less accessible than the work in question. Most important, however, the account of the cognitive value of fiction given here makes the objection less likely to hold at all. A good part of such cognitive value resides in the detailed and vivid way a conception is presented to the imagination, and this is not detachable from the work. (Notice that this source of a work's cognitive value is precisely the same as the source of a work's aesthetic value, namely, the contemplation of the detailed and vivid way a conception is presented to the imagination.) Also, when works of fiction present conceptions on important matters and do so in fascinating detail, it would be no more surprising to return to these works and reevaluate the conceptions they present than to return to philosophical works and reevaluate them. A second objection goes back to Plato. A literary work might deal with any aspect of human experience or with any subject, metaphysical, psychological, or historical, of interest to human beings. What gives writers expertise on all, or any, of these matters? If the answer is nothing, as it appears to be, why should we suppose such works to have cognitive value? If novels and poems were primarily offered up as reference works, or attempts to establish the truth of the conceptions found in them, this objection would be unanswerable. However, as our proposed conception of the cognitive value of literature emphasizes, such works do not typically have these cognitive functions. Literature's cognitive function resides in the intellectual benefits, discussed earlier, of presenting vivid and detailed conceptions to the imagination. This, of course, is just the kind of thing that writers are good at, and hence, their works are just where one would expect to go to receive these benefits. This is all that needs to be said to answer this objection, but there is one other thing that can be said. This is that many writers are unusually perceptive, have unusual insight into the issues that concern them. This is in part a consequence of the close attention that a writer must give to an issue and to the subject matter used to explore that

The Value of Literature issue in order to do his or her job well. Perceptiveness and insight are not substitutes for good methodology in attempting to arrive at the truth, but neither can such a methodology stand in for perceptiveness and insight. Some people have these more than others, and when we encounter those that do, we should pay attention to them without supposing that they automatically offer up the truth. A final objection to the cognitive significance of literature is that, when we paraphrase the conceptions found therein, those that might be serious candidates for truth usually turn out t o be familiar truths about which we do not need literature to inform us. The answer to this objection is again twofold. First, it should be said that very often this is not true. The conception of lust found in Shakespeare's sonnet 129 is not likely to be easily extracted from the man on the Clapham omnibus or from more conventional condemnations found in religious texts. The same goes for the conception of human reason found in Swift. The conception of the Law, with its endless interpretability, with its connections to religious practice and social regulation, to authority and bureaucracy, is unique to Kafka. Second, when one remembers that the cognitive function of literature, at least the one emphasized here, derives from the benefits of presenting conceptions to the imagination, then it can be seen that this can be worthwhile even with familiar truths. Such truth can state important or terrible facts about people's lives-such as those expressed in Anna of the Five Towns-facts that have to be brought home to us over and over again.

Emotions or emotion-related concepts enter into our interaction with literature at a number of junctures. Literary works both express, or are expressive of, emotions and attitudes and describe emotions and attitudes. In both instances, such works are better placed than those of any other art form to articulate the intentional content of emotions, which is, according to many recent philosophical accounts, most crucial to their individuation. In addition to the articulating of emotions, works of literature evoke emotional reactions in us. The fact that we react emotionally is in a sense a contingent fact because it is possible profitably to read works of literature without so reacting. However, there is also a sense in which it is not contingent, because

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many works are designed to elicit such reactions, and someone who never had them would be a seriously flawed reader.17 Our concern is the value of these junctures between literature and emotion. In trying to locate this, let us begin with the phenomenon I have called articulation and spend a moment on the sort of thing that gets articulated. It is not necessary to advance a full-fledged theory about the nature of the emotions to appreciate the crucial role that intentional or propositional content plays in characterizing and understanding the emotions we feel. It is very plausible that, for a wide range of emotions, the intentional component is essential and determines what kind of emotion is being suffered. It is essential to grief that one believe one has suffered a loss. Notice that, in putting the matter this way, I appear to be referring only to the intentional content of a single belief: that I have suffered a loss. In fact, this hides a more complex intentional state, which can, somewhat artificially, be broken down as follows: I believe something has happened, for example, that so and so has died. In thinking of this as a loss, I put a value on it: it is a bad thing; I also, perhaps, express a preference: it is something I wish had not happened. Of course, this is still absurdly simple and black and white, but at least it begins to reveal that there is not just one attitude-belief-to one proposition involved here. There may be some states commonly thought of as emotions (although they are sometimes distinguished by being called moods) that lack the essential intentional component that grief clearly has. Examples would be sadness and joy because one can be in these states without feeling sad or joyful about one particular thing. Yet it is hard to imagine human sadness or joy in the complete absence of sad or joyful thoughts. So even here there is an intentional component. I have spoken so far of intentional content as a component of an emotion. There is likely to be a whole galaxy of intentional states associated with an emotion not only as components but as causes and effects, it being sometimes unclear which is which. One will perceive the world differently; one will have various memories and fantasies; one will form various intentions. 17. There are large bodies of work on expression in the arts and on puzzles surrounding emotional reactions to fictional characters and situations. See Chapter 2 and Chapter 10 for references to and discussion of views regarding expression of emotion in the arts. On the nature of emotional reactions to fiction, see Boruah 1988; Currie 1990, 188-216; Lamarque 1981, 1991; Neil 1991; Novitz 1987, 73-88; Radford 1975; and Walton 1990, 240-89-to mention only a selected number of the many contributors on this issue. It would take me too far afield to become embroiled in these controversies here even though they may be relevant to the question about the nature of emotion-centered value in literature.

The Value of Literature One also may have deceptive thoughts misidentifying the cause or object of the emotion, or even misidentifying the emotion itself, as when one thinks one is indignant, when one is really envious. Whether components or not, all these associated intentional states, even the deceptive ones, say something about the character of one's particular emotion, though something not always accessible to introspection. Call the intentional content of these various states associated with an emotion, including those that are components, intentional ingredients of the emotion. Not only do some intentional ingredients largely determine the kind of emotion one is having, they are also among the most important things that distinguish the character of different individual emotional states even within a single kind. It is tempting to contrast the expression of emotion with the expression of thought. The contrast is perspicuous to the extent that many things we call the expression of emotion, many things that betray or reveal that someone is in an emotional state of a certain kind, such as a facial expression, a posture, various sorts of nonverbal behavior, are not expressions of thought and do not reveal the intentional content of the emotion. (We can often infer this content when we combine these indications with contextual clues.) However, one way to express an emotion is to express its intentional content or some of the ingredients of this content. When one expresses one's emotion by expressing its intentional content, one is expressing, whatever else one does, one's thoughts. In doing this, one informs one's audience about the particular character of one's emotion to a far greater extent than a facial expression or a posture or most nonverbal behavior could. One characteristic way that emotions are expressed in literature is by expressing their intentional ingredients. The clearest, though by no means the only, cases of this are found in lyric poetry, which seems to be a form designed precisely for this purpose. I do not mean that poets writing in this form (necessarily)express the intentional ingredients of their own emotions. The poem may (and is standardly taken to) represent the fictional expression of an imaginary speaker. What is typically true is that the thoughts such speakers express should be taken t o be intentional ingredients of the speaker's emotion. Consider Shakespeare's sonnet 129, which begins: The expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action; and till action, lust Is murderous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;

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Enjoyed no sooner than despised straight; Past reason hunted; and no sooner had, Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait, . .

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This is an expression of thought. It could, I suppose, be taken as simply a disquisition on lust, but that would be the wrong way to construe it. It should be construed as an expression of a speaker, an expression of disgust at his own feelings and behavior perhaps, but, in any case, one that shows forth an emotion-charged attitude. The articulation of emotions and attitudes was a central fascination of literary critics and philosophers of art from the late nineteenth century to roughly the middle of the twentieth. It was sometimes perceived as the locus of value in poetry, as a criterion to distinguish the good from the bad (and, of course, famously, as a basis for defining art, though this is not our concern here). I. A. Richards, in the Principles of Literary Criticism, distinguishes good poetry from bad poetry by the adequacy with which emotions and attitudes are expressed. Inadequacy is defined as expression in terms of stock, conventional, and stereotyped responses. Adequacy, by contrast, is truth to experience, the avoidance of the falsifying (pre)conceptionsimposed by the stock responses, by the conventional words. "The losses incurred by these artificial fixations of attitudes is evident. Through them the average adult is worse, not better adjusted, to the possibilities of his existence than the child. He is even in the most important things functionally unable to face facts: do what he will he is only able to face fictions, fictions projected by his own stock responses" (Richards 1949, 203).ls Something very similar to this was valued by F. R. Leavis (1968) in his attempts to assess the fineness of expression in various poems. The more the expression was tied to a freshly observed and particularized experience, the finer it was for Leavis. Richards presents his view about the distinction between good and bad poetry as a modification of the views Tolstoy presented in What Is Art? Tolstoy, of course, also finds the value of art in the expression ("communication") of emotion and, on the "formal" side, puts down three criteria for evaluating a good artwork: (a) the "individuality" of the feeling transmitted, 18. I cannot help noting in this dismal election year of 1994, if possible a new nadir in American politics, that where every Democrat is characterized by his or her opponent as nothing more or less than a "tax-and-spend liberal" and a despicable scoundrel and every Republican is characterized by his or her opponent as nothing more or less than a purveyor of "trickle-down economics" and a despicable scoundrel, there is a ring of truth in Richards's remark.

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(b)the clearness with which the feeling is transmitted, and (c)the sincerity of the artist. "Individuality" in Richards is equated with avoidance of the stock response, but he adds here, sensing a strain between the particularity and the shareability of content, that the experience about which one expresses emotions or attitudes ought to be "in the main path of humanity and accessible to all men if they are sufficiently finely developed in normal directions" (1949, 188). Richards endorses but has little to add to Tolstoy's "clearness." (This is perhaps what distinguishes him most from the ambiguity-loving critics of the next generation.) It is interesting what happens to "sincerity." It becomes "wholeness of mind . . . the free participation in the evocation of experience of all impulses . . without suppressions or restrictions" (189). Perhaps the most famous proponent of expression as the articulation of intentional ingredients is R. G. Collingwood, who wholeheartedly agrees with Richards on the importance of avoiding "suppressions and restrictions" and on the idea that expression individualizes. Although Collingwood's conception of expression is complex and difficult to render wholly coherent, what is certainly true is that for him expression of an emotion is a matter of becoming clearer about the nature or character of what one is feeling. Collingwood's initial account of this sort of expression makes it precisely an instance of articulating intentional content: "This activity has something to do with the thing we call language: he expresses himself by speaking. It also has something to do with consciousness: the emotion expressed is an emotion of whose nature the person who feels it is no longer unconscious" (1938, 109-10). Although Collingwood sharply distinguishes expression from description, what he has in mind might be better captured by contrasting naming and articulating. Calling an emotion "remorse" names it but does not inform us of its intentional ingredients. That is done by articulation. The articulation of intentional ingredients of emotions can just as effectively occur in a descriptive, rather than an expressive, mode. This happens, for example, in the first chapter of Anna Karenina. There we learn of the thoughts, memories, wishes, and so forth, of Stephen Oblonsky, which are the intentional ingredients of the emotion he feels upon waking up from a particularly pleasant dream and then remembering the rift that took place with his wife three days before. Oblonsky, for the most part, does not express these thoughts. Rather, we are informed of them, and, by implication, the emotion, by the narrator. But the conception we form of this emotion has the same immediacy, freshness, and detail as articulation in the expressive mode. Needless to say, what Tolstoy does with Oblonsky's emotion in the opening

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chapter of Anna Karenina he does at much greater length and with much greater power with the main characters: Anna and Levin. Writers like Richards and Collingwood see poetry (art)as the chief vehicle for the adequate articulation of emotions and attitudes. "[Tlhe poet is a man who can solve for himself the problem of expressing [emotion], whereas the audience can express it only when the poet has shown them how'' (Collingwood 1938, 118). If the claim is that only poetry (literature, art) can do this, it is no doubt an exaggeration (on conventional, rather than Collingwoodian, conceptions of these things). However, that this is a characteristic function of literature is a fair claim. Why is this function valuable? Richards and Collingwood emphasize its cognitive value. One acquires knowledge (or a heightened capacity to acquire knowledge) of one's emotions. One sheds, or questions, falsifying preconceptions. This function is also seen as having an ethical dimension. (This receives greater emphasis in Tolstoy and Leavis.) In Richards and Collingwood, the ethical dimension is closely connected to the cognitive one. One is more likely honestly to evaluate one's emotions, attitudes, and the experiences had in connection with them because one has a capacity to understand them better and to refrain from falsifying or expurgating them. One is less likely to fall into self-deception, into a "corrupt" consciousness, as Collingwood calls it. These claims of Richards and Collingwood are hard to spell out clearly and are hard to evaluate. How can a fictional emotion be adequately articulated? How do we know when it is? How can fictional emotions shed light on the real emotions of the audience? (The same questions arise, by the way, if we substitute the poet's emotions for fictional emotions.) I do not say that these and other questions cannot answered. I would attempt to answer the first question by saying that a fictional emotion is adequately articulated when its articulation adequately serves its artistic purpose. There is no one purpose articulation always has. (This already diverges from Collingwood, for whom expression per se is art's only purpose.) I would answer the second question by saying one can only find out whether an articulation is adequate by engaging in the risky business of interpretation. I would at least begin to answer the last question by talking about, as I did in this chapter's second section, the cognitive benefits of presenting conceptions, here conceptions of emotions and attitudes, to the imagination. I will not, however, pursue these answers further here. I certainly do not claim they go very far in evaluating the claims of the previous paragraph. Instead, let me mention a different and easier-to-establish benefit to be

The Value of Literature derived from the phenomena of articulation of emotion in literature. Though it is a different benefit, it pushes in a direction similar to those mentioned by Richards and Collingwood. Consider the great number of poems expressive of grief. Each poem expresses, through an articulation of intentional ingredients (though not only through this), a different kind of grief, a different (possible) instance of grief, a partially different conception of grief. At the least, one acquires a flexibility (to borrow a term from Susan Feagin) in one's understanding of the possible forms such an emotion can take. One can go on to evaluate as better or worse various expressions or representations of such an emotion, but just acquiring this conceptual flexibility is an important advance. What is true of grief is equally true of countless other emotions and attitudes, both of the relatively standard, "well-known" variety and of others of different character: the subterranean, the perverse, the ambivalent, the self-deceiving, the unnamed. To picture what I have in mind, let us briefly examine two poems presenting two different kinds of grief and two partially different conceptions of grief: Wordsworth's much discussed "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal" and Tennyson's "Break, Break, Break." I choose this pair, in part, because they have previously been offered as contrasting approaches to the same subject in a well-known Scrutiny discussion by F. R. Leavis, and it is worth pointing out how Leavis and I disagree about the way in which these poems differ. Wordsworth's poem, if one needs to be reminded, goes as follows:

A slumber did my spirit seal; I had no human fears: She seemed a thing that could not feel The touch of earthly years. No motion has she now, no force; She neither hears nor sees; Roll'd round in earth's diurnal course With rocks, and stones, and trees.

I hope it requires little explication to see how this poem can be taken as the expression of intentional ingredients of the speaker's grief. The first stanza focuses on the speaker as he recalls (what I take to be) an earlier failing in himself to be alive to human fears. (Notice the past tense of this stanza and the shift to the present tense of the next, emphasized by the "now" in its first line. "She seemed a thing" refers to the speaker's state of mind, but state of

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mind when? Not at the time of speaking, because Lucy is now dead and "touched by earthly years." So it must be an earlier state of mind.) Focusing squarely on the dead Lucy and her current situation, the second stanza, no matter how one interprets it, whether as allaying those fears or as despair at their worst outcome, demonstrates that the previous failing no longer holds. The first two stanzas give the gist of Tennyson's poem: Break, break, break, On thy cold grey stone, 0 Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me.

0 well for the fisherman's boy, That shouts with his sister at play! 0 well for the sailor lad, That sings in his boat on the bay! The speaker of this poem cannot find words to express directly "the thoughts that arise in me." So it might seem that if emotion is expressed in the poem, as it clearly is, it is not expressed by articulating intentional ingredients. This is Leavis's conclusion when he says that the poem offers emotion "directly," by spilling it out on the page, as it were, rather than articulating it. This is where I disagree with Leavis. Intentional ingredients of the speaker's emotion are expressed in the poem, and it is largely through them that the emotion is expressed. The intentional ingredients of the emotion expressed in Tennyson's poem consist in the attitudes toward objects the speaker sees around him. He sees the sea breaking against rocks, the fisherman's boy playing with his sister, a sailor singing, stately ships going to the harbor. Toward all but the first, his attitude is expressed by the words "0 well," meaning that he can no longer share in these felicitous happenings or that it is well for those engaged in them in contrast to what is the case with him. The breaking of the waves he encourages or commands because he sees his own life monotonously breaking against his loss. Though these two poems both express grief, they express very different emotions. In "A Slumber," a failing is perceived and overcome by focusing on the object of grief and her situation. In "Break, Break, Break," though the speaker hardly mentions himself, he seems obsessed with his own misery. Everything he sees is seen through the eyes of self-pity. Though he hardly mentions himself, he also hardly mentions the lost loved one. The grief of "A

The Value of Literature Slumber" looks to be a finer emotion, as Leavis concluded, though not for the reason he offers. That does not mean, however, that "A Slumber" is the more valuable poem in the respect we are examining. Appreciating what is less than wholly admirable in the emotion expressed in "Break, Break, Break" can be just as valuable as appreciating what is more admirable in the emotion expressed in "A Slumber" (just as instructively mistaken conceptions can be as valuable as true ones). As noted above, literature not only expresses emotions and attitudes; we react with emotion to literature. This too is something we value. I am sure there is not just one way such emotional reactions can be valuable. The experience of such emotional reactions, even those with a negative character, tends to be enjoyable when the usual real-world consequences of having them are absent. There is also what is often an intenser pleasure when the emotional reaction is achieved through empathetic identification with a character in a fiction.19 However, I want to dwell on another way such reactions are valuable that dovetails nicely with what has been said about emotional expression. I spoke above of conceptual flexibility, borrowing the idea of acquiring a mental flexibility from Susan Feagin. Feagin actually formulates her idea-an idea of affective flexibility-in connection with our emotional reactions to literature and other arts (Feagin 1994). I take it, however, that such flexibility is not confined to our reactions to artworks. It consists in a capacity to adapt affectively to many different situations with a variety of emotional responses rather than be stuck in a single affective "gear," and even, for a given situation, to "try out" different affective responses. In "real life" this kind of experimental approach to one's emotional life may sometimes be appropriate and opportune, though it may sometimes border on the monstrous, the alienated, or the neurotic. The important thing, when strong, clear emotional reactions are called for, is, as Richards suggested, to have the ability to respond adequately to the situation at hand, and that is unlikely to happen if those responses cannot transcend the clichks of one's culture. Affective flexibility is a capacity that underlies that ability.10 In encounters with works of literature, unlike certain real life situations, experimentation in one's responses is never inappropriate. Hence, such encounters are the perfect testing ground to develop an affective 19. I adapt these from Levinson 1990a, 306-35. Other rewards mentioned in his paper about emotional reactions to music can be carried over with suitable adaptation to literature. 20. The difference between a capacity and an ability, according to Feagin, is that the former is an underlying condition that allows one to acquire, acquire more easily, or perfect the latter. Abilities are present powers to do things.

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flexibility that goes hand in hand with the development of a conceptual flexibility with regard to the emotions, that is, the ability to conceive of different emotional responses to situations, whether or not those responses go by the same name. The message of the previous paragraph is that emotional responses to works of literature tend to develop a certain capacity, affective flexibility. What is the good of that? One good, already alluded to, is the instrumental good of giving one the ability to respond better in real-life situations. It is probably also true that the more one develops this capacity, the more one can enjoy a greater range of works of art and literature. That would also be a good thing. Feagin, however, emphasizes another good, the intrinsic good of developing one's (worthwhile) capacities. What is true of the value of affective flexibility would be equally true of the value of conceptual flexibility I spoke of earlier.21

Mercifully, the last kind of valuable function of literature on our agenda can be exhibited much more swiftly. Especially in our soon-to-be-concluded century, literature has come to be valued precisely in virtue of the fact that it invites, indeed requires, interpretation. This is puzzling because all sorts of things require interpretation, including all sorts of nonliterary writing, without it being thought these things are more valuable in virtue of this fact. So why should the interpretability of literature give it special value? Those who take this line about the value of literature usually have in mind the more revisionary types of interpretation discussed and defended as sometimes acceptable in Part 11. The basic idea here is that literature, like other forms of writing, not only invites us to figure out what someone else (the author) is doing in a work, but, unlike other forms of writing, invites us to give a work significance. It invites us to be creative, to participate in 21. These two capacities are obviously closely related. One could think of conceptual flexibility with regard to emotions as the cognitive aspect or necessary condition of affective flexibility. However, I take it that one could have (or enhance) the former without (enhancing) the latter. It should also be noted-what is probably already evident-that much of what I call emotion-centered value is cognitive in nature, is indeed in many instances a special case of the cognitive value described in the section above, "Cognitive Value of Literature."

The Value of Literature creating (completing) a work. Literature is not only an object of interpretation; it is an object for interpretation. Literature is commonly praised for being inexhaustible. One thing this could mean is that it invites an indefinite number of such significance-finding interpretations. I think there is something correct about this claim about literature's value, but it is easy to misunderstand what it is. The fact that a work of literature can be interpreted in indefinitely many ways is a fact that is completely uninteresting. As many have noted, the same is true of any use of language or any piece of behavior w h a t ~ o e v e r . ~ ~ What is interesting is not that we can detach a work of literature from its author's intentions and its historical location and look at it in a quite different light, but that this has come to be taken (by many of us at least) as an appropriate perspective from which to view these works. When we talk to other people, or read Consumer Reports or Nature, it would never occur to us to adopt this perspective, unless, in a flight of fancy, we were suddenly moved to treat the speech or writing before us as literature and probably as fiction. If it is appropriate to do this with literature, what makes it so? In part, the answer is that this is how the practice, the established practice, of our interpretive community has evolved. That, however, cannot be the whole answer, because, if the evolution is without justification, we could look at it as a malformation or an aberration of the practice, to be excised rather than admired. Fortunately, there is a justification to complete the explanation of appropriateness. The justification is that the practice of giving revisionary interpretations is a natural extension of the activity authors and readers engage in anyway. An author of a literary work presents or suggests conceptions that are vivid, fresh, richly described or expressed, and so forth. A reader contemplates these conceptions, seeking the aesthetic, cognitive, and emotioncentered values already discussed. As we have seen, a work like Shakespeare's "Spring" can be suggestive while leaving it to some extent to the reader's imagination what it suggests. This is perhaps the clearest way that a work invites significance seeking. However, even when an interpretation is produced by ignoring an author's intentions or a work's historical location-by a highly selective reading or by viewing a work through a framework of ideas quite different from the author's-and even when the author may not invite these interpretations, they could be said to be invited by the 22. For an especially useful account of why this is so, see Kripke 1982.

VALUES

very enterprise of imaginative writing. This is because these interpretations too help to conceive things vividly, freshly, and so forth. The value of revisionary interpretations is to create yet more of the aesthetic, cognitive and emotion-centered value that it is among the typical functions of literary works to deliver. This, in itself, is not a new kind of value. However, it is an additional valuable function of literature to lend itself to these new interpretations.

Conclusion Part I argued that artworks are to be defined as items that fulfill an evolving set of functions, or as items that are at least intended to do so if the works in question belong to central art forms. Part I1 explored the possibilities of assigning meaning or significance to artifacts with this sort of character. We saw that the possibilities are various and extend well beyond identifying the meaning (conceived as utterance meaning) of a work. This is true of both intentional and revisionary types of interpretation. However, we also saw that something reasonably, if not mandatorily, called work meaning could be identified. We have in Part 111come to understand some of the ways in which function and artistic value are related, and in Chapter 13 have identified some functions of one large art form-literature. We have seen how these functions are valuable and why they are part of the value of literature. It would be good now to go on to other art forms and to see where valuable functions are shared and where they are not. That, however, is a project for another work. Is there something that unifies the three parts just outlined? They are not unified by the fact that the conclusions of one part entail or are entailed by the conclusions of another, for there is no such entailment. The parts are unified by the fact that each answers a central question in the philosophy of art not only in a consistent way but in a common spirit or as part of a common vision. As evidence for this perhaps dangerously vague claim, recall the main idea behind the second clause of the definition of art stated in Chapter 3: that any artifact, even ones outside the central art forms, that fulfills with excellence a function of art is art. Do I have to say that? Why not confine art to the standard art forms and avoid a disjunctive definition? I do have to add that second disjunct if the project of trying to understand art as an essentially functional notion is to be pursued seriously. Similarly, it is the thought that art is to be understood primarily in terms of its functions, and that these functions are plural and changeable, that prompts the central idea of Part 11: that people interpret with different legitimate aims. It also prompts the closely related idea that the acceptability of an interpretation is relative

Conclusion

to its (legitimate) aim. It hardly needs saying how this functional conception of art motivates crucial junctures in Part 111. Perhaps it is appropriate to end with this thought. If the reader is at all inclined to go along with the ideas presented here, it is worth remembering that artifacts can acquire functions (and meanings) either by being made for certain purposes or by being used for them. With most artifacts there is no question which of these two modes of function acquisition has pride of place: it is the first (which does not mean that there is always something amiss when the second mode is in use). If it has come to pass that we have decided to give ourselves more leeway with artworks, we should still respect, with regard to them, that first mode of function acquisition.

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Index Adams, Fred, 48n. 1, 17811. 19,277n. 7 Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 159-62 aesthetic, 270 core experience of literature, 275-79 definition of art, 27, 38-43 experience, 35-38,270-75 pleasure, 270-75 value. See value: aesthetic aesthetics, ix-x compared to philosophy of art, 8-10 affective flexibility, 301-2 Andre, Carl, Spill, 15 antidescriptivism, 117, 144-47 anti-essentialism, 4, 18-22, 219-20, 223 anti-intentionalism, 168, 171-72, 191-92 appearances, 273-75 appreciation, 5-6,249-50,253-54, 263-64,269,272-73,289-91 and meaning, 120n. 3, 121, 160-62, 180 Aristotle, 16, 282, 287 art forms, central, 52-53, 59-61, 258-59 art status, 25,29, 67-68, 79-80, 97 artist apparent (implied, postulated), 7, 189,207-11 fictional, 190, 196-97 isolated, 82-3 romantic, 76 artistic properties, 62-64 value. See value: artistic See also functions: artistic artworld, 95 institutions, 259-60 publics and systems, 70, 73, 84 audience ideal, 188, 197-99

intended, 188, 197-98 uptake, 67, 175 Austin, J. L., 231 author. See artist autonomy, 180 avant-garde art, 14-15, 18 Bach, Kent, 16811.4 bad art, problem of, 33, 39,42 Bailey, George, 52n. 4, 57, 69n. 2 Barnes, Annette, 120,126,128,135n. 3, 168n.5,238n. 15 Bateson, F. W., 209-10 Battcock, Gregory, 15n. 3 Baxandall, Michael, 262n. 7 Beardsley, Monroe, 27n. 13, 34, 39, 76n. 5, 117n. 2, 120n. 2, 134n. 2, 15On. 10, 169, 171n. 9, 192, 207n. 14,250,278 Beardsmore, R. W., 288 Beckett, Samuel, 137 Bell, Clive, 33, 38, 105n. 12 benefits of art, 249-50 Bennett, Arnold, Anna of Five Towns, 291 Binkley, Timothy, 75n. 4 bivalence, 144, 228-31 Blake, William "Preface to Milton," 151, 153 "Tyger," 236-37 Boorse, Christopher, 31, 250 Booth, Wayne, 191n. 3 Boruah, Bijoy, 294n. 17 Bouwsma, 0. K., 207n. 14 Brooks, Cleanth, 209-10 Budd, Malcolm, 254-55 Burden, Chris, 106 Byrne, Alex, 17811. 18, 197n. 8 Carney, James, 14n. 2,2811. 16,48nn. 1 and 2, 52n. 4,54n. 6, 63-64, 87, 91,94n. 8,98-104,107-8,261

Index Carroll, Noel, 27n. 14, 2811. 16, 3334,45,48n. 2, 64n. 15, 87, 91, 104-9,153n. 11,169,262n. 7 Ckzanne, Paul, 183 cluster concepts, 25, 224n. 9 Collingwood, R. G., 2,44, 105n. 12, 297-99 conceptual flexibility, 299, 302 Conter, David, 197n. 8 constructivism, 223 conventionalism, 117, 150-51, 153, 186-88 convention, 173-74, 177 Cooper, David, 163n. 3 correspondence theory of truth, 8,213, 220,241-42 critical monism, 114-15, 134, 148-55, 213,218 ambitious, 148, 150-54 compatibility with pluralism, 135-38 unambitious, 149 critical pluralism, 114-15, 134-35, 138-48,154-55,213,218 anti-descriptivist versions, 138, 144-47 relativistic versions, 138, 139-44 Croce, Benedetto, 44 Currie, Gregory, 107-8, 17511. 14, 17811. 18,190-97,199n. 9,201, 294n. 1 7 lgn.6, 23, 27n. 147 DantO, Arthur, 43-47,80,91 Davidson, Donald, 193 Davies, Stephen, 2811. 5, 38,48n. 2, 49n. 3.56n. 8.62. 63n. 13. 66-67. 76n. 5; 78-84, 101,107-8, 121, l22-23, 4, lgO, 207n. 14, 22811. 11,230n. 12,253-54 Davis, Whitney, 89n. 4 Debussy, Claude, La Mer, 209 definition of art, 3-5 descriptive/evaluative, 64 inductive argument against, 24 motivation for, 14-1 8 ~oliticalargument against, 24 See also aesthetic definition, expression theory, formalism, functionalism, historical definition,

'

institutional definition, mimetic definition Dempster, Douglas, 39 Dennett, Daniel, 193 Dewey, John, 213n. 1 Dickens, Charles, Little Dorrit, 278 Dickie, George, 9, 28n. 15, 37, 47, 48n. 2,67-78,79-80,248n. 1, 259n. 5,266n. 10,271n. 3 Diffey, T. J., 2811. 15, 4811. 2, 67 direct reference, 224n. 9 Donne, John, "Goe and catche a falling star," 204-5 Duchamp, Marcel, 102 Fountain, 35, 42, 62, 78, 80-82 L.H.O.O.Q., 42 and the Woolworth Building, 91 duck-rabbit, 130, 132, 182 Dutton, Denis, 16811. 5 Dynasty, 290 Eldridge, Richard, 27n. 13,288 Elgin, Katherine, 139 emotion, 279-80 in appearance, 207n. 14 articulation of, 293-98 intentional content of, 294-95 and moods, 294 Esslin, Martin, 137 evidence, 145, 151, 192-93, 198,200201,235-38,267-68 expression, accounts of, 43-44 and interpretation, 206-12 in literature, 295-301 in music, 207n. 14,208-9 theory, 43-47 family resemblance, 22 Feagin, Susan, 120n. 2, 147,249-50, 273n. 5,299,301-2 fiction, 190 cognitive role of, 281-85 conceptions found in, 276-78, 281-87 in everyday thought, 283-84 in philosophy, 282-83 statements in, 281-82 fine art, 16-17 first art. See historical definitions and first art

Index Fish, Stanley, 7, 134n. 1, 140n. 5, 163n. 3,198,214,231-42 Fisher, John, l5n. 3 form, 183-84 formalism, 33-35 fragmentation of art, 24-25 Frankena, William, 251-52, 258 Friedrich, Caspar David, Sea of Ice, 260 Fry, Edward, 183n. 22 Fry, Roger, 183 functionalism, 4-5, 27, 29, 31-32 compared with institutional and historical definitions, 48-50 historical, 48, 50-65, 104, 107 objections to, 50, 51,54, 56, 58, 5960, 61, 62, 64 simple, 30, 33-47 functions, 31-32,248-51, 305-6 artistic, 54-57, 252, 258-59 past, 53-54 standard, 55-56 Fuller, Gary, 17811. 19 Gallie, W. B., 19n. 7, 27n. 13 Gaskin, Richard, 288 Gaut, Berys, 2n. 2,24n. 10, 286n. 14 German romantic landscape painting, 259-60 Gliddon, David, 283, 288 Godlovich, Stan, 57, 61 Goldman, Alan, 24n. 9, 120, 125n. 6, 134n. 1, 139n. 4,263n. 8 The Good Soldier, 197 Goodman, Nelson, 101, 139, 213n. 2 Graff, Gerald, 233n. 13 Graselli, Margaret, 119n. 1 Graves, David, 69n. 2, 72n. 3,259-62, 265 Greenberg, Clement, 1 5 Grice, Paul, 174-75 Hampshire, Stuart, 163n. 3 Hardy, Thomas, Tess of the D'Urberuilles, 281-82 Harnish, Robert, 16811. 4 Harrison, Bernard, 288 Hirsch, E. D., 117n. 2, 15On. 8, 169, 185,215-16,225,236-37 historical definitions, 4-5, 28, 86-109

and first art, 86-87, 89-90, 101-3, 107 intentional-historical version, 88-98 style-historical version, 98-104 See also artist, isolated, proprietary right condition, regard-as-a-workof-art, ur-art historical identification procedure, 104-7 historical narratives, 106, 262n. 7 historical understanding, 164-68 Hix, H. L., 191x1. 3 Hough, Graham, 204-5 Howell, Robert, 17811. 1 7 Hume, David, 20, 268 identity, of artifacts and persons, 20 of works, 218,221-24,243-44 identity thesis, 169, 171-73 impressionism, 183 institutional definitions of art, 4-5, 28-29,48-50,66-84,108-9 and anti-essentialism, 74-76 circularity of, 70, 71, 84 and hard cases, 80-82 inflected version, 70-76 informativeness of, 71-72 instrumentalism, 32, 192-96,221 intention actual, 168-70, 179, 191,216 hypothetical, 191 and meaning, 145,169,234-35 stupid, 93 successful, 171, 174-77, 181-82 intentionalism actual, 150-53,201-3 extreme, 117 hypothetical, 150-51, 153, 186, 188-212 interpretation, 1-2, 6-8, 113-244 acceptable, 115, 123-29, 135, 144, 227,230,243 and appreciation, 160-62 deconstructivist, 141-42, 170 definition of, 113-14, 120-22 Freudian, 140-41 incompatible, 115, 119-32 intentional, 168-73, 179 maximizing, 117, 139, 180 narrative, 190, 194-96

Index interpretation (continued) New Critical, 141-42, 170 nonconverging, 228 performance, 22511. 10 revisionary, 221, 302-4 true, 115, 122-23,127-28,134-38, 139-43,152,226-27 truth-valued, 144-47, 229-30 See also antidescriptivism, conventionalism, intention, intentionalism, critical monism, critical pluralism, historical understanding, meaning, pragmatism, relativism, retrieval, significance irterpretive aims, 115-16, 168-69,180,185, 243 assumptions, 140-42, 232-35 communities, 231, 240 knowledge, 225,228 Iseminger, Gary, 15On. 8, 172n. 12 James, Henry Golden Bowl, 287 Turn of the Screw, 119, 131,230 James, William, 213n. 1, 243 Jones, Peter, 120n. 2, 134n. 1 Juhl, P. D., 117n. 2, 134n. 2, 15On. 8 Kafka, Franz, 95n. 9, 293 Kant, Immanuel, 271n. 2 Kennick, William, 19n. 7 Khatchadourian, Haig, 19n. 7 kinds created to be presented, 73-74 Kivy, Peter, 16, 18,207n. 14,240n. 1 7 Knapp, Steven, 117n. 2, 214n. 3, 221 Kolack, Daniel, 95n. 9 Kosuth, Joseph, 58 Kott, Jan, 137 Krauss, Rosalind, 183n. 22 Krausz, Michael, 223n. 8, 224n. 9 Kraut, Robert, 134n. 1 Kripke, Saul, 224n. 9, 303n. 22 Kristeller, Paul, 16, 1 7 Lamarque, Peter, 287n. 15, 289-91, 294n. 1 7 Leavis, F. R., 296, 298,299-300 Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, 114 Levinson, Jerrold, In. 1, 28n. 16, 38, 4811. 2, 54, 87, 88-98, 104n. 11,

107-8,116,150n. 9, 174n. 13, 181, 184,185,187,188-90, 192, 196-202,206n. 12,207n. 15, 208-11,22511. 10,256n. 4, 271n. 2,274n. 6,30111. 19 Lewis, David, 17811. 18 Lichtenstein, Roy, 100 Lind, Richard, 27n. 13,40-42,46 literature, 158-62, 269-304 logical atomism, 241 lyric poetry, 206, 295 many-valued logic, 228-31 Margolis, Joseph, 94, 120n. 2, 134n. 1, 144n. 7,214,228-31,234n. 14, 243 Mathews, Robert, 120n. 2, 123, 145 Mattisse, Henri, Joy of Life, 15 meaning, 7, 150-55, 156-85, 169, 171-73,216 assignments, 113-14, 139-40, 218, 224 convention-determined, 177 inclusive view, 157n. 1 pragmatic arguments against, 162-66 reception-oriented theories of, 193-94 and significance, 150, 153-54, 180, 184,225 unified view, 153-54, 156, 187, 203-12 unintended, 152, 171, 173-74, 194-96 utterance, 116, 153, 158-59, 163, 167-68,172-73,184,186-89, 231-34 uttererk, 116, 152-53, 171, 174, 177, 188 word sequence, 171, 188 work, 116,156-57,162-68,17385,186-91,195,212 meta-axiology, 266-68 Michaels, Walter Benn. See Knapp, Steven Mid-life art, 102-3 Milton, John Paradise Lost, 239 Samson Agonistes, 236-37 mimetic definition of art, 16 Moorean argument, 226-27 Morris, Robert, Litanies, 1 5

Index Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 256 The Magic Flute, 33 mutual belief principle, 143 Nathan, Daniel, 17111. 10, 192 Nehamas, Alexander, 134n. 2, 189-90, 196,198,200 Neil, Alex, 294n. 1 7 normative requirements, 265 Notes from the Underground, 197 Novitz, David, 287n. 15, 288, 294n. 1 7 Nussbaum, Martha, 284n. 13, 285-88 Olsen, S. H., 157-62, 180, 278, 287n. 15,289-91 open texture, 19 Oppy, Graham, 64n. 13,79n. 8, 82n. 11, 92, 93 originality, 264 Pale Fire, 197 Parfit, Derek, 20n. 8 Parsons, Terence, 122n. 5 Peirce, Charles, 213n. 1 Pettersson, Torsten, 123, 146 Phillips, D. Z., 288 philosophy of art, 1-3, 8-10, 305 Picasso, Pablo Au Bon Marchk, 183n. 22 Guernica, 33 pictorial representation, 181-82 Plato, 16-17, 292 postmodernism, x pragmatism, 7-8, 170,213-44 principles of, 21 3-14 realistic, 243 Priest, Graham, 122n. 5 proceduralism, 66-69 proprietary right condition, 88n. 2,91 Putnam, Hilary, 214n. 2

Quine, W. V. O., 4511. 3,46, 193 Radford, Colin, 294n. 1 7 radical repudiation, 102-3 Raine, Kathleen, 236-37 Rauschenberg, Robert, 15n. 3 reality principle, 143 recontextualization, 21 9-20

Reff, Theodore, 183n. 22 regard-as-a-work-of-art, 88-89, 92-97 Reichert, John, 237 relativism, 116, 138, 139-44, 231-38 defusing, 238-41 retrieval, 136, 143, 150 retroactivity, 101-3 Richards, I. A., 296-99, 301 Ridley, Aaron, 207n. 14 ~iefenstahl,Leni, Triumph of the Will, 279 Robbins, J. Wesley, 217n. 6 Robinson, Jenefer, 19111. 3, 207n. 14 Rorty, Richard, 7, 16811. 5, 170n. 8, 193,214-21,241n. 18,242 Sartwell, Crispin, 92 Schiffer, Stephen, l75nn. 14 and 15 Schlesinger, George, 38-39 Scruton, Roger, 35, 77n. 6 Shakespeare, William Hamlet, 140-41 King Lear, 137,147,288 Romeo and Juliet, 178 Sonnet 129,293,295-96 "Spring," 275-76, 303 Shiff, Richard, 183 Shusterman, Richard, 7, 26n. 11, 168n. 5, 170n. 8, 214,216n. 5, 220-27,241,242 socialist realist painting, 55 social roles, 68, 79-80 Sparshott, Francis, 36, 37, 271n. 3 status conferral, 67-68, 79-80, 84 Stecker, Robert, 16n. 5,54n. 5,63n. 13, 64n. 14, 91, 94, 139n. 4, 140n. 5, 17811. 19,206,214n. 3,277n. 7 Steinberg, Leo, 15 Steinman, Martin, 215n. 4 Sterne, Laurence, A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, 284-85 Stout, Jeffrey, 154, 162-63, 166,213, 218 style features, 98-99 leakage of, 101, 104 Swift, Jonathan, 293 Tartarkiewicz, Wladyslaw, 27n. 13 techne, 16

Index Tennyson, Alfred Lord, "Break, Break, Break," 299-301 Text-Lump Parallelism, 215-16 Through the Looking Glass, 216 Tolhurst, William, 24n. 9, 27n. 13, 39, 116,150n. 9,188-90, 196-98, 200 Tormey, Alan, 207n. 14 Tolstoy, Leo, 296-98 Anna Karenina, 281,297-98 War and Peace, 28 1 torture, 248 Trillicg, Lionel, 27811. 9 truth in fiction, 179 truth-like values, 144 ur-art, 89 value aesthetic, 270-80 artistic, 2-3, 8, 247,252, 258-62 art-historical, 263-64 cognitive, 280-93 degree of, 265 emotion-centered, 298-302 and evaluation, 265-66 and functions, 248-51 inherent, 251-52,258 interpretation-centered, 302-4 intrinsiclinstrumental, 8, 32, 251-58 judgments, 265-68

of literature, 269-304 nonfunctional, 249-51, 262-64 Vermazen Bruce, 207n. 14,208-9, 211,264n. 9,266n. 10 Vermeer, Jan, 252 Walton, Kendall, 2, 77, 142-44, 191nn. 3 and 4,211,269n. 1, 271-73,279,282,294n. 17 Warhol, Andy, Brillo Box, 78 Watteau, Antoine, Embarkation on the Isle o f Cythera, 119, 131-32 Weitz, Morris, 14, 19-21, 22, 23, 50, 86 Wieand, Jeffrey, 78n. 7 Wilson, Katherine, 288 Wimsatt, William, 17111. 9 Wollheim, Richard, In. 1, 135, 181n.20,285 Wood, Grant, American Gothic, 12728,129-30,175-77 Wordsworth, William, "A Slumber," 209-10,299-301 Wright, Larry, 31 Yanal, Robert Zelevansky, Lynn, 183n. 22 Ziff, Paul, 19n. 7, 21-22, 23,27-28, 249n. 2