It was at least ten years ago when I blustered here that art, and anything else is meaningless. So I think I was an ally of Cheerskep's thinkingfor at least as long as he's been whacking that poor dead horse. Where I err, too much, is slipping into cultural use of language and skipping the all too obvious step (that can be safely skipped by reasonably well-informed people) by not noting that meaning is indeed a mind opearation and not something intinsic to things and notions that classify things. We can assume, quite often, that we do not need to insert the cavat that meaning is not mind independent whenever we utter or write a sentence.
Now, I'll repeat it, when we say Art History we are consciously or unconsciously employing a term, in fact a rather novel term that has a limited and rather narrow application in academia. As a term it does not guyarantee any identity of art. It has no meaning. I tried to reiterate how that term came about through people like Vasari and Winklemen (and others). That term has entered the everyday discourse and thus has been stretched and reshaped to become a general noun phrase, applicable to an infinite variety of stuff that can be gathered under its flexible umbrella. Of course the term means nothing except as a cue to perform this or than mental function that may or may not apply in some circumstances, depending on explicated context. Quite frankly, it's a sideline issue to be constantly reminded of the obvious. It is not an error to skip explanatory and limiting language when passing from a term to what that term is or was devised to bing to mind, including some intricate reasoning, recollecting, inventing, imagining mental fiunctions. It's almost like being stopped in the midst of talking to recite the physiological functions of one's throat muscle and blood as necessary to continued talking. To be constantly sidetracked by an unnecessary and really pedantic exercise in linguistics -- not properly aesthetics, by the way, is becoming insufferable. Yes, all speech is sound and all written words are marks, all of them meaningless and subject to infinite interpretations or implementations. But it so happens that culture relies on habituating its participants to a more or less structured range of interpretations and implementations which are essential to communication. When the habits are established it's a shortcut mode of communication to say such and such 'means' such and such. Doing that saves time. It works; it's the Pavloffian part of civilization. WC ________________________________ From: Tom McCormack <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, December 5, 2013 11:01 AM Subject: Re: comment invited Kate and William are far beyond me in realizing and articulating the evolving styles in visual art. As usual, in my efforts to be a philosopher of language and related ontology, I'm deeply interested in the way aestheticians' language REIFIES things. What do I have in mind with 'reify' there? Think of it this way. When William writes, "The History of Art in its most recognized use denotes an > academic discipline..." his phrasing is in effect assuming the existence of three different "entities": A "The History", a "discipline", and the action-entity "denoting". We'd all recognize the distinction between a TERM and a THING it's often used to label. Where I balk is at the assumption that a term actually DOES anything. It's our MINDS that are acting, not the term. We label; the term does not. If someone says "salt" to you, all that initially enters your mind is a sound. What follows in your consciousness is then a function of your memory inventory, your retrieving mechanism, and your mosaicking mind. Say "salt" to a Tibetan, and he'll receive the same sound you would. But everything thereafter that arises in the Tibetan's mind will be different from what arises in yours. We assume the printed scription 'salt' carries out an action we call "means". But word-sounds never "mean", ever. The act of "meaning" that we attribute to sounds, and scribbles and gestures and ruins, is imaginary, a delusion. In aesthetics, this mistaken assumption that sounds and scribbles "mean" wreaks a befuddling effect beginning with the scription 'art', coupled with 'is'. See William's phrases (below), "one did not need to know what was art but simply...", and "If the form fit, it's art, even if it was recognized in something previously unclassified as art." That's simply Winkleman's fiat about when to use the sound "art". But I could utter comparable fiats about the sounds "miracle", "sins", "souls", the hexing of "curses", the ongoing activity of a "lucky man's" "luck". That doesn't mean there are any such "real world" entities -- only notional ones. My position is that the sound-scribble 'art' does not DENOTE anything. I claim Kripke is harmfully wrong in his belief that a sound can carry out an action of denoting, referring, meaning, designating, picking out. All such alleged activity is by our various brains, and what arises in a given brain depends on the person's experience, memorizing apparatus, and personal reconfiguring. Think of sounds as the OCCASIONS but not the intrinsic CAUSES of what finally arises in a given person's consciousness. > On Dec 5, 2013, at 9:38 AM, [email protected] wrote: > ? ?I agree that "The History of Art" ?can be described ?as having among > others a methodology which is the classification of style. I would like to see > how you apply this to historical accounts ?before ?Winckelmann. The shifting > of styles from Italy to Northern Europe was described ?by artists-Durer ?for > ?one, and Simon Vouet made a great success ?bringing the ?Italian style to the > French. Le Brun ?was honored for his development of an appropriate style for > the French Court ,both he and the court were aware of the evolution of Louis > XIV style. Diderot remarked extensively on the changes both in physical style > and in emotional and absorptive ?style in French painting. Dutch style changed > ?greatly during the seventeenth century,from Van Mander to Sandrart is a leap > > > Earlier, William wrote: > Again, the term The History of Art in its most recognized use denotes an > academic discipline with a long practiced methodology -- the classification of > style -- and now several newer methodologies revolving around interpretations > of culture. Using the term beyond its original narrow context leaves it open > to any interpretation, usually popular and therefore unsubstantiated by a > consistent method, more or less. Actually, by implementing the original > methodology, invented by Winkleman in the 18C, one did not need to know what > was art but simply looked for specific attributes of form. If the form fit, > it's art, even if it was recognized in something previously unclassified as > art. Of course, Winkleman;'s notion of proper form was based on antique Greek > art and that excluded a lot of 'form' but that was untroubling until the later > 19C and has become increasingly troublesome since the mid 20C. Now that > canon of form is discredited and various new > criteria can determine art, past and present. > WC
