On Jul 8, 2009, at 12:03 AM, William Conger wrote:
I regard the truth dependent and truth independent distinctions as erroneous. An object is subject to both distinctions and requires a judge-perceiver who always lacks some information and therefore must guess, or go with unreliable information, pretending it is complete. The judge-perceiver is essentially forced to make determinations according to beliefs. I even believe that our beliefs precede our determinations to the extent that aesthetic judgments are a-priori and even scientific judgments are a-priori, mainly. And besides, since cognition is always metaphorical, any knowledge or judgment is make-believe, a fiction, a story, a script. I claim that Michael has already decided what is truth dependent and truth independent before he engages in the make believe process of judgment. He presents various conditions for each category a-priori and then finds what he is looking for.
How do you handle this question of "is it art"? When you stand before some object, do you know a-priori that it is or is not a WoA? or if that statement ('is a WoA') isn't appropriate, how do you react when you perceive or confront any object? You must make categorical judgments ("art or non-art," "door or non-door," etc.).
For me, I stand in front of it and decide first "true" or "doesn't apply." Then I move on to "art or non-art." In an art museum or gallery, most of that has been made easy for me. In a private residence or office, it's almost as easy, and it's accomplished by various institutional mechanisms (frames, on walls, labels, etc.).
Now that I think about it, there are very few occasions when one will stand in front of eight square canvases of red paint and, as with Danto, contemplate them. Doesn't happen very often at all. Those are frontier arguments, problems of borders, which rarely are so ambiguous and unprepared for that we have to fall back on our wiles and other devices.
If you see a pile of leaves in the middle of a gallery, you are already prepared to see them as an artwork installed in the room--your a priori judgment. But if you see a similar pile of leaves on the sidewalk outside the museum or gallery, you may well think of them as just plain ol' leaves, and sweep them away. Truth conditions: are they "really are just a pile of leaves" to be sweept away, or are they "not just a pile of leaves, but something else," to be viewed differently.?
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady [email protected] http://considerthepreposition.blogspot.com/
