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An Ethics of Engaging with Art: from Criticism to Conversation

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An Ethics of Engaging with Art: from Criticism to Conversation AN ETHICS OF ENGAGING WITH ART: FROM CRITICISM TO CONVERSATION A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by Jeremy Daniel Millington December 2016 Examining Committee Members: Joseph Margolis, Advisory Chair, Philosophy Susan Feagin, Philosophy David Wolfsdorf, Philosophy Ian Verstegen, External Member, University of Pennsylvania ii ABSTRACT The dissertation addresses the question, How should we engage with art? The thesis is that a practice of engaging with art ought to be sensitive with and to a work of art, and conversation better suits sensitivity than criticism. Conversation does not merely mean a conversation we may have about art. Instead, the project proposes that we treat artworks as conversational partners. The construction of the thesis involves three philosophical streams coming together. The first is a survey of prominent philosophical studies of criticism from the late 1930s to the 1960s—a watershed period for the philosophy of criticism—through to contemporary views that bear the legacy of that period, summarized and exemplified in Noël Carroll’s philosophy of criticism. Second, the project contrasts the orthodox view with competing accounts, including those of visual art criticism from the late 1980s and 90s, the critical theory of Terry Eagleton, and the “philosophical criticism” of Stanley Cavell. The third stream consists of testing criticism (and conversation) against the criterion of sensitivity. Taken together, this approach looks at engagement in a more general way than what studies on criticism or other familiar practices tend to countenance. Writers and works that exemplify conversation, such as Wendell Berry, The Philadelphia Story (Cukor 1940), and Mary Poppins (Stevenson 1964) help explicate and uncover limits to conversation as well as what procures it. The project culminates by circling back to the criterion of sensitivity, looking at conversation’s advantages in cultivating a suitably sensitive practice of engaging with art. The primary, substantive claim for conversation as the basis for an iii ethics of engaging with art is that conversation encourages a process of coming to an understanding with a work, where our prejudices and judgments are subject to the claims a work may make upon me at any given moment, without ceding to either the finality of judgment or the incompleteness of understanding provoked by over-familiarity, incessant talk, ‘talking at’ or ‘past,’ or silence. In the shift from criticism to conversation, we gain a clearer, more equitable understanding of what a work is doing. We curtail prejudice and evaluative bias; we respond more sensitively to the context for engaging with art; and, we ask more questions. Is this a setting where criticism is warranted or useful? Who are my interlocutors? What do they have to say? iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There is always a question of how deep to go in acknowledging what brings a work to life, knowing I can never measure the full debt I owe to so many people. I’ll start by thanking my philosophical interlocutors. Joseph Margolis has been an immensely supportive advisor, offering wise counsel and sharp scrutiny where needed most, and sparkling conversation without fail. David Wolfsdorf and Susan Feagin have offered many detailed, thoughtful comments throughout the life of the project, for which it unquestionably improved. My external examiner, Ian Verstegen, has been a friendly advocate throughout and a useful link to a broader world of art and critical practices. In helping push me along this path before I realized I was on it, I thank George Wilson, Dallas Willard, and Andrew Klevan. As an incomparable source of intellectual and spiritual stimulation, for his willingness to respond to an unsolicited letter, and because my work—in the richest sense of the term—will never be the same, Wendell Berry deserves singular praise. For their contributions to the growth of the dissertation in a variety of capacities, personal and professional, I thank John Dyck, Jeff Ulrich, and Filipe De Sousa; the “man night” group; the community at City Church Philadelphia; my housemates at 4914, Jessie, Joel, Brooke, and Matt. Lastly, I acknowledge the deepest of debts: to my brothers, my grandmother, and my parents, without whom my capacity and love for art and conversation would never have taken hold. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iv INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. vi CHAPTER 1: SURVEYING THE CRITICAL LANDSCAPE.............................................................1 2: CRITICAL BOUNDARIES: POLITICS, MORALITY, AND THE LANGUAGE OF CRITICISM .....................40 3: CRITICISM’S WARRANT: SENSITIVITY ...............................................................81 4: A CONVERSATIONAL PRIMER ............................................................................117 5: CONVERSATIONAL PRAXIS .................................................................................150 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................196 FILMOGRAPHY .............................................................................................................202 vi INTRODUCTION At the broadest level, this project addresses the question, How should we engage with art? I answer this in terms of what criticism has to offer in comparison to conversation filtered through the lens of sensitivity, where sensitivity functions as an ethical condition for engaging with art. My thesis is that a practice of engaging with art ought to be sensitive with and to a work of art, and conversation better suits sensitivity than criticism. By conversation, I do not merely mean a conversation we may have about art. I propose instead a practice that treats artworks as conversational partners. To state what may be obvious, this will require some play with the idea of conversation.1 1. Invoking the idea of “play” will justifiably invite numerous questions for any philosophical project, but especially for one in the philosophy of art. I will not devote serious attention to explicating its wide-ranging usages and philosophical heritage. Some of Gadamer’s remarks on play may be useful, however. See Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, Second Rev. Ed., trans. Joel Winsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York: Continuum, 2004), 101-134. Consider Gadamer’s observation that “the mode of being of play is not such that, for the game to be played, there must be a subject who is behaving playfully” (103). Though I invoke play as a way to philosophically improvise on the idea of a conversation, the notion of play also has indicative connections to conversation itself. I note this because one temptation may be to suppose that my project encourages or requires those engaging with a work of art to pretend or imagine that they are participating in a game, a conversational game, at the expense of some more real or natural or ordinary way of engaging with art, which I do not take to be the case. One of the advantages of play lies in what Gadamer describes as its “medial” or relational, “to- and-fro” character: “the cat at play chooses the ball of wool because it responds to play, and ball games will be with us forever because the ball is freely mobile in every direction, appearing to do surprising things of its own accord” (106). This is an excellent starting point for how readily we can adopt play as a suitable characteristic of our engagement with art, so far as art shares the flexibility and freedoms, and then some, of a wool ball. vii The project generates a host of problems that will need some resolution. The question—how should we engage with art?—needs clarification. What do I mean by the terms ‘should,’ ‘engage’, and ‘art’ (and ‘we’)? Why ‘engage’? Why ‘should’? My answer to the primary question also involves explicating three complex, versatile terms— criticism, sensitivity, and conversation. Criticism plays a staggeringly broad, contentious, and varied role in human social and intellectual practice, extending well beyond the boundaries of the artworld, while sensitivity and conversation each play dynamic roles in philosophy and ordinary speech, though no major role in the philosophy of art, so far as I know. How do I propose to navigate these obstacles? Let’s start by looking at criticism. In the world of art, criticism is everywhere. There are journals, panel discussions, books, popular and professional practices, television shows, and ordinary dialogue all built around criticism. Film critic A.O. Scott recently published a book distilling the virtues of a critical life, titling an accompanying commentary culled from the book, “Everybody’s a Critic. And That’s How It Should Be.”2 Scott’s title is perhaps more aspirational than descriptive. He remarks that in our popular discourse, “we are more likely to seek affirmation than challenge. … We graze, 2. A.O. Scott, “Everybody’s a Critic. And That’s How It Should Be,” The New York Times, January 30, 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/sunday-review/everybodys-a- critic-and-thats-how-it-should-be.html. See also, A.O. Scott, Better Living Through Criticism: How
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