Book Reviews Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jaac/article/72/2/201/5980498 by guest on 27 September 2021

danto, arthur c. What Is. Yale University Press, by, say, gender, class, ethnicity, or race). This univer- 2013, xii + 192 pp., $24.00 cloth, $15.00 paper. sal is “meaning,” the first criterion of Danto’s well- known definition of art as embodied meaning. Em- The significance of Arthur C. Danto’s What Art Is for bodiment, the second criterion, is an artifact of the the philosophy of art is visible in the title. After ad- artistic means that make the meaning internal to (and dressing the “what is art?” question for roughly fifty constitutive of) the (that is, the work and years, starting with “The Artworld” essay (Journal of its meaning share certain properties). The addition of Philosophy 61 [1964]: 571–584), he has now removed the third criterion, wakeful dreams (first introduced the question mark. As he was eighty-nine years old in this book), seems problematic when we are try- when this book was published, the tone is appropri- ing to make sense of the “beyond.” Although it may ately confident and conclusive, though also as poetic be universal that all humans dream, their individual and elusive as earlier works. We should be grateful dreams, typically inscrutable even to them, are hardly he has written such a book, even if in being grateful the model of something universally communicable. we also recognize it is his last. Yet this is precisely what Danto has in mind by wake- Early in Chapter 1, “Wakeful Dreams,” Danto ful dreams: a wakeful dream is universally communi- quotes from the opening stanza of Wallace Stevens’s cable through art, while its sleepy counterpart is not. poem “The Man with the Blue Guitar.” Several lis- Dreams can be illusory, of course, which Plato argued teners say that an artist playing a blue guitar when the was art’s ontological flaw, making it twice removed “day was green” cannot show “things as they are,” to from truth and confined to the world of mere ap- which the guitarist replies that “things as they are” pearance. So how can a comparison of art to dreams are “changed upon the blue guitar” (p. 10). Surpris- help Danto defend art, against Plato, as more than ingly, the listeners do not question whether the blue mere appearance? If being dreamlike is now a cri- guitar could or should change anything. They instead terion of art, then being dreamlike is part of what ask the guitarist to play a tune that, being “beyond us, enables art to play “of things as they are” by giving yet ourselves,” is “of things exactly as they are.” Their form and embodiment to universally communicable shift in understanding about the blue guitar reflects, meanings that may first appear as wakeful dreams. in a nutshell, the counterintuitive transformation of On this reading of Danto’s new criterion of art, the philosophy of art that has taken place over the dreams are the “creative principle” giving the blue course of its long and varied history. It is counter- guitar its power to create meanings “beyond us, yet intuitive because we typically expect the absence of ourselves” (p. 15). subjectivity, not its symbolic presence in the form of The metaphor of the blue guitar appears in vari- a blue guitar, to give us access to “things as they are.” ous guises in each chapter of What Art Is. Chapter For Danto, one of the tasks of the philosophy of art 2, “Restoration and Meaning,” concerns the restora- is to explain this transformation and, in his case at tion of Michelangelo’s on the ceiling of the least, to embrace it. Sistine Chapel (in the 1990s), specifically the prob- Stevens’s poem suggests agency and intention on lem that we need assurances that the cleaning would thepartoftheguitarist.Yetitalsoincludesatrans- never entail a loss of meaning. This problem is not a subjective dimension, because the tune played on the matter of , Danto insists, as it is not a matter of blue guitar is “beyond us, yet ourselves.” What is be- whether the cleaning would render Michelangelo’s yond us, yet still human and “of things as they are”? paintings more or less beautiful. For meaning is as The answer, for Danto, has to be something univer- distinct from taste and as it is from dirt. To ap- sal, something human but not tied to the identity of prehend meaning, we have to turn away from what we only particular individuals or groups (distinguished see, whether before or after the cleaning, and focus

The Journal of and 72:2 Spring 2014 C 2014 The American Society for Aesthetics 202 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism on what the paintings mean. Yet, by definition, this to be understood as a blue guitar that changes things meaning is embodied in the paintings. So in looking as they are seen (for example, by creating stills, us- for embodied meaning, where are we to look, hoping ing telescopic lenses) in order to show them as they to find something other than what we see? Danto pro- really are. Hence, while photography seemed to real- poses that we shift our focus to the narrative structure ize art’s essence as imitation, it actually changed our of the paintings, rendered all the more intelligible understanding of art, cunningly revealing its essence once they have been cleaned. We also have to shift as embodied meaning plus wakeful dreams (which our attention from seeing to creating, which brings change Danto clarifies by revisiting his favorite ex- us back to the blue guitar, as it is the artist’s tool for ample, ’s Brillo Boxes).

creating a narrative structure that, mediated by sen- In Chapter 5, “Kant and the Work of Art,” Danto, Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jaac/article/72/2/201/5980498 by guest on 27 September 2021 suous appearance, is able to play “of things as they in many ways a Hegelian, develops an alliance with are.” “The artist and the man [Michelangelo] told a . Danto even makes Kant seem like a story through the ceiling, and we have to natural ally because his (second) conception of art read the story to know how he painted the ceiling (not the one connected to aesthetic judgments of the way he did” (p. 73). While Danto provides a po- taste) is that “it consists of making meanings, which etic interpretation of Michelangelo’s paintings, one presupposes an overall human disposition not just of the pleasures of this text, his philosophical point to see things but to find meanings in what we see, is that “interpretation [“inferential art criticism” that even if we sometimes get it wrong” (p. 129). Like identifies meaning (p. 63)] should impose conditions Descartes, Kant would find the blue guitar accessi- on the cleaning process” (p. 59). ble; in fact, he might well have recognized the blue The blue guitar appears again in Chapter 3, “The guitar as a metaphor for how an artist (genius) makes Body in Philosophy and Art,” where the topic is the meaning. distinction between “the body as philosophically con- Kant’s second conception of art concerns spirit strued” and “the body as artists have come to think rather than taste, the creative power of the artist about it” (p. 79). While Rene´ Descartes was famously rather than our judgment of what she creates. Also, skeptical about the body because the senses deceive art does not promise merely to be “in good taste” but us and while the models of the body (as clock, steam to “transform viewers, opening them up to whole new engine, or computer) have changed immensely from systems of ideas” (p. 119). Danto makes his case for his time to the present, “the body as represented in these claims through an interpretation of Kant’s con- art would have been—would indeed be—entirely ac- cept of “aesthetic ideas,” that is, ideas “not abstractly cessible to him” (p. 90). In fact, Descartes “would grasped, but experienced through, and by means of, have no difficulty grasping what goes on in Picasso’s the senses” (p. 123). They are ideas because, like Blue Period paintings” (p. 90). For while our knowl- wakeful dreams, they “strive after something which edge of the body has changed greatly from Aristotle lies beyond the bounds of experience,” yet aesthetic, to the present, Danto claims that human nature as de- and thus wakeful and embodied, because “we have picted in painting has not changed “from Homer and to use what does lie within experience in order to Euripides, or from Poussin or early Picasso” (p. 91). present them” (p. 124). It is not a stretch, for Danto, to Moreover, the artistic body conveyed through the link this account of Kant’s aesthetic ideas to his own blue guitar reliably (though not infallibly) orients us definition of art as embodied meaning (plus wakeful in the world—a truth even Descartes would acknowl- dreams): works of art embody aesthetic ideas, that edge, Danto provocatively believes. is, wakeful dreams and meanings (pp. 128–129). In In Chapter 4, “The End of the Contest: The turn, this link enables Danto to offer a new inter- Paragone Between Painting and Photography,” pretation of Kant’s contemporary relevance. He is Danto analyzes how photography altered our under- typically connected to modern and contemporary art standing of the essence of art. When photography through formalism (by, for example, Clement Green- was invented in the nineteenth century, it was first berg) because he seemed to privilege form in his un- to be the pencil of nature, a neutral tool derstanding of art, just as modern art has privileged capturing visual truth, showing “how things really form (over, say, function). According to Danto’s ac- look.” However, as camera lenses were developed, count of Kant, however, it is spirit’s power to embody photography also established “optical truth,” instead aesthetic ideas that defines all art, not just modern showing “things as they are” (for example, Edward art: ideas made incarnate are the “great secret of Muybridge’s photographs of galloping horses). This art” (p. 131). In this light, the formalism associated shift of truth in photography might make some ques- with Kant seems impoverished as a definition or phi- tion whether there is any truth in art at all, but Danto losophy of art, because the concept of form in for- suggests that the problem is not truth but the link malism is more a matter of , and style does not between truth and the visual, the optical, or anything touch the philosophy of art. Danto thus finds his own tied to the eye. Rather, the photographic camera has predecessor in Kant, who is connected not only to Book Reviews 203 contemporary art but also to “art of every historical At the same time, Danto redefines aesthetics period, ours included as a matter of course” (p. 119). (relative to his own earlier conceptions of it) to Chapter 6, “The Future of Aesthetics” (the only make it compatible with his essentialist definition one previously published), was prompted by the re- of art: aesthetics is “the way things show them- cent return of aesthetics within art history and other selves, together with the reasons for preferring art-related disciplines. Danto claims that art history one way of showing itself to another” (p. 136). In has been impacted by “theory” (“a body of decon- this light, aesthetics concerns the sensuous modes structivist strategies”) over the last few decades, dur- of embodiment that give appearance to mean- ing which time art history abandoned aesthetics; it ings (plus wakeful dreams). The cognitive dimen-

has returned to aesthetics now that theory has waned. sion here—“reasons for preferring one way of Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jaac/article/72/2/201/5980498 by guest on 27 September 2021 By contrast, philosophy has been immune to theory showing itself to another”—is a way to emphasize during this same period (because it had already de- (the Hegelian point) that the choice of means of em- constructed itself through and bodiment (wakeful) has to be made relative to the others), and it did not abandon aesthetics because of meaning being embodied (dreams). If this redefini- theory (though it may have done so for other rea- tion of aesthetics seems like a narrowing of aesthet- sons). Finally, philosophy is not impacted by the re- ics to Danto’s definition of art, it also connects him, turn of aesthetics in art history and related fields. perhaps unwittingly, to the more capacious view of I find this narrative rather puzzling because the aesthetics whose return promoted this chapter, sug- theory Danto points to was inspired by gesting that the rediscovery of aesthetics might have (, Michel Foucault, Jacques Der- had a bearing on Danto’s philosophy of art after all. rida, and so on) who explicitly applied so-called the- The blue guitar speaks to the human condition: ory to philosophy itself. So philosophy was not im- “So that’s life, then: things as they are? It picks its mune to theory, itself a kind of philosophy. In addi- way on the blue guitar.” While it may invoke fla- tion, when Danto discusses the importance (for his menco, the suffering voice of the human condition, philosophy of art) of understanding that art is inde- the blue guitar also embodies a poetic sense of dig- pendent of beauty, as some art is not beautiful, and nity, giving meaning to the very human condition that that beauty is independent of art (and aesthetics), as has engendered its tunes. The blue guitar also seems it is a value for life, he credits Heidegger for these to reflect Danto’s views of life and the value of art, very insights (p. 154). Is this credit not a concession which are beautifully expressed in What Art Is.For to the theory to which Danto says (his) philosophy he was always quick, in wit and intelligence, to speak (of art) has been immune? to the human condition and believed that art is the I understand, however, that the ultimate goal of model of transfiguration, which, combined Danto’s narrative is to take the return of aesthet- with philosophy, is also a path to understanding. Per- ics as an opportunity to clarify that, while he has haps more than his definition of art, such insights will never been interested in aesthetics, his reasons have be his legacy in the philosophy of art, now that he has had nothing to do with theory, and his own return succumbed to the saddest kind of fate ever to echo to aesthetics has nothing to do with the waning of from the blue guitar. theory (see The Abuse of Beauty: Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art [Chicago: Open Court, 2003]). All along, he has argued that aesthetics cannot help us MICHAEL KELLY with the definition of art, his primary concern. Danto Department of Philosophy always associated aesthetics with beauty, so once he University of North Carolina at Charlotte realized that beauty was not part of the essence of art, he concluded that aesthetics could not help us discover that essence, and he also associated ‘aes- davies, stephen. The Artful Species: Aesthetics, Art, thetic’ with ‘perceptual,’ so once he realized that and Evolution. Oxford University Press, 2012, 301 the essence of art is nonperceptual, he similarly con- pp., $45.00 cloth. cluded that art was essentially nonaesthetic. All this tells (reminds) us much more about Danto’s defi- The Artful Species examines various ways the aes- nition of art than it does about aesthetics, the his- thetic, art, and the individual might be related tory of which he does not seem to remember well. to the evolution of human beings. It is carefully For if he did, he would know that for a long time researched, clearly written, meticulously argued, aesthetics has been about more than beauty, as his packed with information, filled with wonderful ex- own interpretation of Kant confirms (Chapter 4), and amples expertly described, and informed by what is about more than the perceptual, as his own quotes clearly a passion for the subject. The first part intro- from C. S. Peirce should convince him (pp. 152– duces concepts that are central to the debate (art, the 153). aesthetic, evolution), and the next two parts explore 204 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism debates over evolution and the aesthetic (Part II) ically grounded,” but that only one—where our re- and evolution and art (Part III). With regard to aes- sponses to animals are indicators of the character thetic behaviors, Davies believes that the best case of the environment—is likely to be “directly” adap- for their being adaptive can be made with respect to tive (p. 79). It is questionable, however, whether all human beauty. With respect to art behaviors, though six of these approaches qualify as aesthetic, such as he is suspicious of any theory about art’s origins, he “reading the minds and characters” of other animals endorses the idea that they are deeply rooted in our (p. 79), or where “the animal’s color, form or move- human nature and in our biological selves and that ment automatically triggers our sensory biases in a they “signal fitness” with respect to such qualities positive fashion” (p. 80), which sounds like a sensory

as intelligence, , and emotionality (pp. 185– rather than an aesthetic pleasure. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jaac/article/72/2/201/5980498 by guest on 27 September 2021 186). Chapter 6 addresses what is likely the most famil- The key concepts and theoretical options in this iar evolutionary theory of the origins of our (alleged) debate are notoriously complex and contested, and current landscape preferences, the “savanna hypoth- Davies does an admirable job of streamlining the esis,” which holds that finding a savanna environment discussion to what is both manageable and signifi- beautiful and being drawn to it was adaptive because cant. Nevertheless, some of these choices are apt to such an environment provided what our evolving raise questions. For example, one might like to see hominid ancestors needed (food, water, shelter) to more discussion of multilevel selection theory and in survive and reproduce. Davies’s discussion of the particular group selection, the view that adaptations weaknesses of this hypothesis strikes me as devas- may provide benefits to groups rather than (just) tating. First, it is unclear that humans do currently to individuals within groups. In addition, he chooses share such aesthetic preferences with respect to land- to couch the discussion in terms of the evolutionary scape. Second, “it is not clear that there was a stable, significance of various art behaviors—behaviors in- single, physical environment to which our primor- volved in the production and reception of the arts— dial ancestors adapted. But even if there were, our rather than heritable features or traits of an indi- ignorance of the social environment that our prede- vidual. When the subject is structural properties of cessors shaped for themselves, and of how this af- the body, such as an opposable thumb, the behav- fected their relative fitness, makes it impossible in iors it enables may be fairly clearly linked to the most cases to determine what was adaptive and what heritable physical trait. But where a mental capacity not . . . [since] for our species, the social environment or ability is concerned—general intelligence, creativ- is even more crucial to our survival and success than ity, emotionality—the link between the heritable trait the physical one” (p. 97). There is a lesson here for and the associated behaviors is complicated in ways any theory of the origins of our aesthetic or artistic that merit more extended attention. behaviors. It is drawn from gene–culture coevolu- One of the book’s many strengths is the separation tion, roughly, the view that culture can affect what of some important questions about the origins and genetic traits will enhance reproductive success, just roles of the aesthetic from the origins and roles of the as genetic traits can affect culture. Whether a trait arts. In Chapter 1, Davies identifies appreciation as enhances fitness—that is, whether it increases one’s aesthetic when directed at aesthetic properties, which potential to produce more offspring who themselves fall roughly into two categories, the beautiful and the will reproduce—depends on the social as well as the sublime (or awesome; pp. 9–10). Aesthetic pleasure natural environment. is thus not equivalent to sensory or perceptual plea- Davies argues that a more attractive alternative sure (or displeasure). That nonhuman animals expe- to the savanna hypothesis is the variability-selection rience many sensory pleasures is uncontroversial, but hypothesis. Environmental instability during the era whether they take pleasure in something’s beauty is when we evolved made behavioral innovation, vari- much more dubious. He also argues that the aesthetic ety, and sensitivity to the potential in different envi- extends beyond a Kantian notion of “form” and that ronments more adaptive than attractions to a partic- it can take functionality into account (p. 20). ular type of landscape such as a savanna. Abilities to Part II builds on his account of the aesthetic and appreciate and enjoy, and hence to be attracted to consists of three chapters addressing our appreci- and function within, a multiplicity of environments, ation of nonhuman animals (Chapter 5), aesthetic whichever of which we happen to be born or migrate preferences with respect to landscapes (Chapter 6), into, would thus confer greater fitness than habitat- and the aesthetics of human beauty (Chapter 7). specific preferences. Chapter 5 is innovative and opens up a new do- In Chapter 7, Davies rejects evolutionary psychol- main for aesthetic inquiry. Davies documents key ogists’ almost exclusive focus on “youthful female features of our ancient and continuing relationships sexual attractiveness” as the evolutionarily relevant with nonhuman animals. He proposes that six “aes- fact about human beauty (p. 102). I was struck by thetic approaches to animals” appear to be “biolog- the statistic that about two-thirds of our prehuman Book Reviews 205

European ancestors died before the age of twenty has acquired the function of providing a space for (p. 107). The greater reproductive success of males decoration or imagery. who were attracted to very young females would be Nevertheless, some of Davies’s criticisms of span- predictable provided that the older the child when drel theories make it sound as though something can- its mother dies, the more likely it would have been not “be” a spandrel if it originated as one but comes for the child to survive. The question is, of course, to have adaptive significance at a later time. The am- why such genetic predispositions would persist even biguity (see the definition of a spandrel on p. 45) after life expectancies increased. Davies proposes a at times appears unfairly to stack the deck against more expansive account of human beauty involving art-as-spandrel theories, abetted by the frequent cou-

assessments of “character, intellect, and spirituality,” pling of such words as ‘meaningless’ with ‘spandrel.’ Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jaac/article/72/2/201/5980498 by guest on 27 September 2021 an account that is not confined to physical beauty and Consider: “Spandrels can be confidently identified as not centered on the perspective of the male of the such only after the possibility that they are adapta- species (p. 116). Even our sense of physical beauty, tions is tested and defeated” (p. 144). The possibility he argues, “is abstracted from the process of mate that they were adaptations of course needs to be ad- selection” (p. 116). dressed if the theory is that they originated as span- Part III moves on to evolutionary theories of drels, but whether they are adaptations is another art. Individual chapters address whether art behav- question. In a separate argument, Davies claims con- iors in general are adaptive (Chapter 8); whether fusingly that if arguments for art as adaptation are they are spandrels, that is, nonadaptive by-products “questionable and speculative, arguments for the art- of adaptive behaviors (Chapter 9) or technologies, as-spandrel model will inherit these same qualities inventions of culture that are transmitted through because they must follow the same path” (p. 144). cultural practices rather than through genetic in- But the spandrel view does not go down the same heritance (Chapter 10); and whether particular art path as arguments for the adaptiveness of art behav- forms, such as music or literature, are adaptive iors; it goes down the same path as arguments for the (Chapter 11). adaptiveness of the traits or behaviors of which art In Chapter 8, Davies criticizes theories that at- behaviors are alleged to be by-products (and he at tempt to explain the adaptive potential of the arts least tentatively concludes that there are some such as a whole, singling out for extended attention Geof- traits; see p. 185). frey Miller’s view of art as a kind of sexual display and Another issue is that some art behaviors are char- Ellen Dissanayake’s view that art is a way of “making acterized as “by-products” (by Davies as well as by special.” Unlike Part II, which builds on his defini- those whose views he discusses) when they are ex- tion of the aesthetic, Part III does not establish a link pressions or manifestations of more general under- between his definition of art (pp. 28–29) to debates lying, supposedly adaptive traits or combinations of over the possible evolutionary significance of art or traits, such as creativity, general intelligence, and de- the individual arts. Further, though he endorses the sire for status (pp. 123–124). A behavior that is an importance of creativity in the arts toward the end expression of an underlying adaptive trait or capac- of Chapter 2 and creativity shows up briefly in Chap- ity, when the trait expresses itself in other types of ter 12, where he explains his own views, the role of behaviors as well, would not seem to be merely ad- creativity is unmotivated by his definition of art. He ventitious, to arise merely by chance. Perhaps chance does make it clear, however, that he favors a broadly is supposed to arise in its expressing a particular com- inclusive conception of art. bination of traits or capacities, in which case we need Chapter 9 considers whether art and individual to examine specifically whether the traits or capac- arts—music and literature are the main candidates— ities are or are not likely to be adaptive in combi- are spandrels, by-products or “adventitious side- nation. Dissanayake, in any case, holds that art is effects of adaptations without adaptive significance an expression of a single adaptive trait, “making spe- in themselves” (p. 45). Classic examples of spandrels cial.” What is adaptive also needs to be heritable, and are the whiteness of bone and the redness of blood, Davies mentions that some traits are easily heritable by-products of their chemical composition. Central individually but not in the combinations required for to his critique is the fact that a behavior may have extremely high levels of talent, as with a Mozart. originated as a by-product but not remained as one But perhaps the combinations are heritable at lower because it came to have adaptive functions of its levels, accounting for what Davies argues is, among own. It may also have originated for one adaptive humans, a virtually universal low level of ability in purpose and come to acquire another over time. The at least one art form. In any case, such complications architectural metaphor itself endorses the distinction with the concept of a spandrel merit discussion. between origin and later function, since a spandrel, Davies says that ideally a theory will “identify the triangular surface created by the juxtaposition an evolutionarily significant function performed not of two arches, originated as a geometrical fact, but only by all the arts but also by only the arts” (p. 123, 206 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism original emphasis). Yet he on occasion seems too especially prehistorically (p. 145)? At what age are quick to discount what contributions a theory might such behaviors manifested; in particular, of what sig- make even if it does not satisfy the ideal. Granted, an nificance is “signaling fitness” if the alleged universal account that proposes that an adaptive trait is man- behaviors do not enhance reproductive success? And ifested by many types of behaviors does not explain should the concept of art include the wide range of the evolutionary potential of art alone, but it does not activities that he allows? represent the behavior as a meaningless by-product The relationship between aesthetics, art, and evo- either. Davies’s commitment to the biological root- lution is a fascinating subject, and relevant scientific edness rather than evolutionary adaptativeness of literature on the topic is vast and growing. We can

the arts (see p. 187) seems to depend in part on this expect it to attract increased attention in the com- Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jaac/article/72/2/201/5980498 by guest on 27 September 2021 point (a view that, incidentally, does not seem to fit ing years. To organize and streamline the debates in into what he describes as the only options available such a clear, rational manner is a major achievement. [pp. 45, 184]). He also writes that the best storyteller’s Davies’s examination of important issues in these on- fitness must be comparatively higher than that of the going debates is both thoughtful and engaging and “best hunter, cook, dancer, or comic” (p. 166). To the incites a virtually irresistible urge to position oneself contrary, members of each type could have a role or within them. status in the community, and attractiveness to at least some mates, that is greater than some other types but SUSAN L. FEAGIN not greater than all other types. Department of Philosophy Chapter 10 focuses primarily on Aniruddh D. Pa- Temple University tel’s view that music is a transformational technology, analogous to fire. The longest chapter, Chapter 11, is dedicated to theories that individual art forms are schellekens, elisabeth and peter goldie,eds.The adaptations. The primary target here is literary Dar- Aesthetic Mind: Philosophy and Psychology.Ox- winism, the view that the creation and consumption ford University Press, 2011, 455 pp., $99.00 cloth. of narrative fiction “was adaptive for our prehistoric ancestors and that it remains so for us” (p. 165). Sev- Aestheticians have long been empirically minded, eral possible functions of narrative fiction are con- at least with respect to acknowledging actual prac- sidered: as a means of mate attraction, as contribut- tices of making, appreciating, and criticizing art. ing to group survival, and as thought experiments Often, then, what philosophers mean when they or opportunities to work through scenarios without self-describe as “empirically minded” is that their experiencing the harms of an actual situation or mis- approach is somehow importantly rooted in the em- judgment. The chapter concludes with a critique of pirical sciences, and, in this context, it is the behav- music as a factor in sexual selection and of Ian Cross’s ioral and brain sciences inclusive of psychology, neu- theory that music integrates information across dif- roscience, sociology, and evolutionary theory. The ferent cognitive domains and has group benefits. Aesthetic Mind is a collection of this kind, with contri- In Chapter 12, Davies throws his own hat into the butions by philosophers who are empirically minded ring, summarizing where he stands based on what he in this sense plus practitioners in the relevant empir- sees as the current state of the evidence. On his view, ical sciences plus a few skeptics for good measure. art “gives direct and immediate expression” to traits This is a large collection, containing 25 newly com- that are adaptive, traits and dispositions like “intel- missioned entries. The collection, though, should be ligence, imagination, humor, sociality, emotionality, engaged and valued as a whole, as driving an im- inventiveness, curiosity” (p. 185). Because art behav- portant but simple polemic: philosophical aesthetics iors are “costly to sustain, they signal fitness” (p. 185). can gain from empirical scientific and correlative in- Moreover, they are virtually universal; practitioners terdisciplinary work on the mind, and our theories are “normal,” and nonpractitioners are less fit. The are impoverished to the degree that they fail to ac- variety of behaviors for different art forms, along knowledge this lesson. One might ask, who, in to- with varying degrees of expertise, serve as “multi- day’s academic world of interdisciplinary everything, faceted markers” of our types and degrees of fitness. resists this claim? In fact, there remain quite a few The allegedly universal, costly behaviors involve “a detractors and even some of them authors for this modest level of experience in some arts as a creator very collection. or performer, a high knowledge and appreciation of The co-editors for the volume, Elisabeth some other arts, and average competence across a Schellekens and the late Peter Goldie, selected an ex- spread of yet more” (p. 185). Davies’s account in- ceptional cast of contributors. Many of the philoso- evitably raises questions of its own. For example, is phers on board will be usual suspects (but no less a “high knowledge and appreciation” of some arts, excellent ones). The selection of empirical scientists which comes at such a great cost, virtually universal, is perhaps more daring, including psychologists and Book Reviews 207 neuroscientists as one would expect, but also en- version of the method of lesion studies central to tries from researchers in primatology, anthropology, cognitive neuropsychology: to infer what some neu- medicine, and computer science. This collection is ral structure does in cognitive, perceptual, and motor no exception to the first-rate organizational acumen activity, study patients with neural damage and see of Schellekens and Goldie, who, both together and what those patients cannot do. Thus, one identifies separately, have enabled strong cross-disciplinary re- proper function by identifying malfunction as traced search on conceptual art, emotion, and empathy. This back to a damaged physiological structure. The trou- was one of Peter Goldie’s most consistent contribu- ble arises in Zaidel’s choice of patient: Zaidel focuses tions to the profession. He will be missed for this on eminent artists who have suffered substantial neu-

command and, more personally, for his charm and ral damage but who are also, most of them, dead. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jaac/article/72/2/201/5980498 by guest on 27 September 2021 friendship. Accordingly, Zaidel’s task is largely one of careful There is a range of good papers from philosophers detective work, piecing together disparate patches of and scientists both, all of them clearly taking an (often very outmoded) medical records and coupling empirical line on some philosophical problem: these with recorded facts about changes in the artists’ anthropology/evolutionary theory and the aesthetic abilities, stylistic approach and method, and over- (Currie; Rolls), emotion and aesthetic value (J. all cognitive and motor capacity. From here, Zaidel Prinz; R. Cowie), cognitivist accounts of imagination draws inferences about neural correlates of Artistic (Meskin and Weinberg) and its criticism (Stock), ability (again, with a capital ‘A’). Although a fasci- neuroscience and pictures (Rollins), and psychology nating investigative attempt, it should be clear how and pictures (Freeman; Matravers), among others. this method will, at best, underdetermine any precise There are some familiar subject sections on em- thesis about art or artists (let alone Art or Artists). pirically minded aesthetics, “Emotion in Aesthetic Frigg and Howard also question the top-down ap- Experience,” “Imagination and Make-Believe,” and proach that is common to Zaidel’s work and many “Fiction and Empathy,” and some truly ground- others. This approach takes for granted that we breaking ones: “The Psychology of the Aesthetic,” have a firm understanding of the personal-level phe- “Beauty and Universality,” and “Music, Dance, nomenon (be it painting a still life or visually per- and Expressivity.” What is most surprising—and ceiving a bowl of fruit), and we then collate and in- this is a virtue of the editorship—are the more or terpret data concerning low-level phenomena (pat- less skeptical contributions to the volume and how terns of neural activity, individual neural cell firings, they serve (probably in some unintended ways) subpersonal attentional response) to provide some the message of the volume (as it was characterized model or explanation of the preconceived personal- above). These contributions are often set side by side level phenomenon. Thus, the metaphor: the analysis with an opposing empirical proponent, so the reader works from the top and then down. The authors note only need flip a handful of pages to consider the that the choice of top-down approach for Zaidel is relevant contrast class. Stephen Davies provides sensible given her focus on Art and Artists. But the compelling reasons for caution about the purported worry, which partly generalizes from the first worry, success of cross-cultural studies of musical ex- is that this choice is misguided for any empirical pressiveness. Roman Frigg and Catherine Howard approach to aesthetics. The methods employed by criticize the neuropsychological approach to artistic Zaidel and others will, at the very most, deliver plau- achievement. And Peter Lamarque argues that sible hypotheses about capacities for fine-motor con- psychology offers no important insight into literary trol, color and shape , perspectival under- criticism. These last two entries are considered in standing, and the like, but nothing about what makes turn. the minds of Artists relatively special. And this could In “Fact and Fiction in the Neuropsychology of be so for somewhat trivial reasons: by the lights of Art,” Frigg and Howard challenge recent attempts at many, many contemporary theorists, Art is partially “neuroaesthetics,” focusing primarily on the work of constituted by social structures and conventions. It is Dahlia Zaidel but also mentioning related work by not a purely psychological phenomenon. V. S. Ramachandran and Semir Zeki. (Zaidel con- The fix? Frigg and Howard suggest that empir- tributes a chapter that immediately precedes Frigg ical researchers should abandon the focus on Art, and Howard’s.) Frigg and Howard claim that the consider a bottom-up approach, and employ the choice of Art with a capital ‘A’ as explanandum is most updated neuroscientific technologies. Regard- “a dead end for neuroaesthetics” (p. 65). What moti- ing the first prescription, the author’s point is well vates this bold claim? taken but perhaps overstated. Zaidel’s method is Frigg and Howard’s central critiques are method- certainly questionable, but even if questions about ological. Zaidel’s goal is to identify neural correlates Art are not answered just by empirical investigation for the mental processes of artists whose work has (which seems right), it does not seem unreasonable been received into the Artworld. Zaidel employs a to have Art as (part of) the ultimate explanandum 208 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism while meanwhile acknowledging more tractable ex- minor compared to ones contained in “On Keep- plananda like those listed above: fine-motor control ing Psychology out of Literary Criticism,” by Peter for brush strokes, cognition of perspective, and so on. Lamarque. The title should already give away the Frigg and Howard might then retort with their second gag. But for clarity, here are a few articulations of prescription: abandon assumptions about the top- Lamarque’s negative thesis: “Empirical facts about level phenomenon—Art—and instead work from the the psychological states of actual people and empiri- bottom up. The thought, it seems, is something like cal theories about such states will not illuminate what this: work out neural-level theories of various per- is of value in individual works of literature” (p. 299). ceptual and motor capacities and only then begin to And later he states of cognitive scientific research, “I

formulate a and artistic activity. don’t think it has anything to contribute to literary Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jaac/article/72/2/201/5980498 by guest on 27 September 2021 But here, to conclude with a comment about the criticism, to the analysis and appreciation of particu- final prescription, the authors are overly sanguine lar literary works. The theories themselves are neu- about the latest in neuroscientific understanding. tral as to literary value and apply equally to fictional They write, for example, “the functioning of the vi- narratives of all kinds” (p. 311). In fact, Lamarque’s sual cortex and the eye itself have been studied exten- stance is grounded in a critique of cognitivist theo- sively, which can lead to studies that help us under- ries of emotion and their alleged failure to answer stand the physical (and emotional) response we feel normative questions about the arts, but as the above when looking at certain colours, or certain shades, quotations (and chapter title) should suggest, he gen- or certain oblique lines” (p. 66). Sounds like big eralizes to the (non)import of psychology/cognitive promise; why should we believe it? Earlier the au- science to studies of literature. Upon quick reflec- thors write, “Current neuroscience has evolved to tion, one might think of analogies that undermine the point where we understand in great detail the Lamarque’s claim. For instance, theories of human structures of various regions of the brain and the in- physiology are neutral with respect to the values of terconnections between them. In fact, we now have fine food and wine. But surely we should be cautious a very detailed map of the brain telling us even how about inferring from this neutrality that such theories individual columns . . . work and in which functions have nothing to offer to our understanding of these of the brain they are involved” (p. 58). On one inter- pleasures. Perhaps psychology and literary value are pretation, this is true. For example, neuroscience has different in this regard, but absent some reason fur- identified neural regions that correlate to representa- ther to the value neutrality of science, the inference tion in distinct sense modalities and, for some modal- is too fast. ities, fine details about processing in those structures Lamarque’s chapter is an important and unex- (for example, visual processing in the ventral stream pected inclusion in this volume. In it there is both versus the dorsal stream). But on another interpreta- a lesson and an expression of a persistent, skeptical tion, and in this dialectical context, this is a very odd overreaction among philosophers. The lesson can be statement from philosophers to neuroscientists, not learned, and the skepticism averted, by making the least since it vastly overstates just how much current following distinction. neuroscience takes as “fact” about neural–mental mappings. For example, the neurosciences have yet (Weak) Empirical science is insufficient to answer all philo- to achieve a clear understanding of how distal fea- sophical questions about literature and literary criticism. tures of the environment are successfully picked up and bound into a cohesive perceptual experience. (Strong) Empirical science offers no answers to or insight When one acknowledges the further confounding on questions about literature and literary criticism. fact that we pick up information from distinct sense modalities—where cross-modal studies are in a rela- Lamarque successfully makes a case for the Weak tive stage of infancy—one realizes just how far neu- thesis. And the caution that arises from observing this roscience has to go. So while a nice promise, using a thesis is well heeded, most especially when some of bottom-up approach to successfully build up a theory the very “neuroaestheticians” criticized by (or iden- of art or artistic activity would require a mapping of tical with) various authors in this volume are insuffi- neural structure and function far more robust than ciently sensitive to it (instead offering a “grand the- anything to date. In this light, Zaidel (who again, it is ory” of art or a “science of art” that fails to address worth emphasizing, is a working neuroscientist) may the normative and metaphysical concerns of philoso- have had good reason for some of her methodological phers). But there is no clear step from the Weak to choices. the Strong thesis. Counterexamples abound in this Theoretical cross talk notwithstanding, Frigg and very volume. The Lamarque chapter is flanked by Howard offer an important line of criticism of em- two apparent examples. In “Enacting the Other . . . ,” pirical (so-called neuroaesthetic) theories of the David Miall surveys and interprets recent empirical arts. And any overstatement in their analysis is research that suggests that embodiment and sensory Book Reviews 209 imagery play important roles in linguistic compre- from an ‘is’; but he also claimed that “ought” implies hension and, accordingly, responses to literary texts. “can.” In “Mirroring Fictional Others,” Zanna Clay and An exemplary feature of The Aesthetic Mind is Marco Iacoboni survey neuroscientific research on that it provides numerous counterexamples to the mirror neural activity and its contribution to explain- alarmist Strong thesis in the form of art-specific ar- ing empathetic response to fictional narratives and guments and analyses, an overarching polemic, and, characters. One can acknowledge the insights of these perhaps unwittingly, explicit sounders of the alarm. chapters and consistently maintain the Weak thesis. Given the strengths and variety of its contributors, The move to the Strong thesis, by contrast, is alarmist. the volume should contribute to the task of calming

Lamarque should not be unduly criticized here, the nerves of aestheticians still unwilling to let empir- Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jaac/article/72/2/201/5980498 by guest on 27 September 2021 since he is not the only aesthetician sounding such ical scientific data into philosophical aesthetics. And alarms. In “Moving in Concert: Dance and Music,” with any luck, taking art and artistic activity as a spe- Noel¨ Carroll and Margaret Moore identify a more cial case study, the volume will go one step further to general alarmist culprit: George Dickie famously calm the more general alarmism. gave an emphatic ‘No’ in answer to the question posed by his “Is Psychology Relevant to Aesthetics?” (Philosophical Review 71 [1962]: 285–302). Dickie’s DUSTIN STOKES arguments, Carroll and Moore argue, are insufficient Department of Philosophy to their task. As they note, one can see this by sim- University of Utah ply acknowledging that any aesthetic theory (at least any theory that is partly about mental phenomena), at the very least, must be constrained and informed brady, emily. The Sublime in Modern Philosophy: by the best sciences of the mind. And one can go fur- Aesthetics, Ethics, and Nature. Cambridge Univer- ther to show how this is done for a particular artistic sity Press, 2013, xii + 227 pp., 4 b&w illus., $90.00 form. Arguably, chapters by Miall and Clay and Ia- cloth. coboni do this for literature; Carroll and Moore, and D. Davies as well, do this for music and dance. Of the three great aesthetic concepts that domi- Generalizing one step further, there remain nated discussions of taste in the eighteenth century, philosophers today who commit to a general version “the sublime” has perhaps the most curious his- of the Strong thesis: tory. Its close relative “the picturesque” rose and fell with alarming speed in the decades between Gilpin’s Three Essays (composed in the 1770s) and (Stronggen) Empirical science offers no answers to or insight on philosophical questions. Wordsworth’s musings above Tintern Abbey (1798), and “the beautiful” endures as a perennial favorite, long-lived and as familiar in contemporary contexts When stated so baldly, Stronggen may have few as it was mutatis mutandis in the Ancient world. The explicit defenders. But one can still find today philo- sublime, by contrast, occupies a middle place be- sophical analysis that betrays this tacit commitment. tween these two: unlike the picturesque, its emer- And it is worth noting the philosophical history that gence (in Longinus) and movement (through the may motivate it. Moritz Schlick and others argued eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) were glacial that metaphysical questions are to be exorcised from enough to leave an indelible trace in the collective philosophical inquiry, and all remaining “genuine” consciousness of the tradition, but one not so deep questions handed over to science. Philosophers can (as that cut by beauty) to prevent its virtual dis- hang around insofar as they are useful for concep- appearance when philosophy took its analytic turn tual mop-up work. And a few decades later, W. V. in the early decades of the twentieth century. Post O. Quine argued that epistemological questions, at Wittgenstein, as a philosophical concept the sublime least those worth asking, will be answered by psy- has struggled for recognition, but that fact testifies at chological science. Positivism and like once to its enduring presence, whether acknowledged this gets philosophers’ backs up. But beyond that grudgingly by its detractors, who deride it as old and reasonable caution, the principled response is not to tired, or celebrated, in recent times, as capable of replace the positivist’s “All” with a denialist “None.” good service yet. In her timely and engaging book, Instead, the appropriate response is to maintain that Emily Brady commits herself unequivocally to this philosophical questions—many of them normative— latter , proposing to “reassess” the past history remain philosophical, and this is compatible with of the sublime and “reclaim” its “central meaning” empirical constraints on answers to those questions. for the present (p. 3). Hume, foundational to the positivist and natural- Anyone involved in the business of reclaiming and ist both, claimed that an ‘ought’ cannot be derived reassessing something from a tradition for a tradition 210 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism has important choices to make, and Brady makes hers ing in sophistication, “depth and originality” (p. 66) admirably clear from the outset: that the “main terri- the contributions of his predecessors. While read- tory” of the sublime “is the natural world” (p. 7) and ers of Burke and Allison might contest such claims, that its “core meaning” is an “empirical” one con- they make sense at least when placed in the context cerning external “features” or “qualities” possessed of Brady’s emerging narrative where Kant, it tran- only by natural objects that overwhelm individuals spires, can deliver what Addison and others could and evoke violent feelings such as wonder and fear. not: the first full appreciation of “nature widely un- The sublime requires some affective response on the derstood,” the revelation that the “core meaning” part of the subject, but it is not, on this view, primar- of the sublime is “tied mainly to nature,” and the

ily “self-regarding,” so that phenomena experienced insight that it involves a metaphysical element in Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jaac/article/72/2/201/5980498 by guest on 27 September 2021 as and called sublime are not really sublime at all or the form of a “distinctive aesthetic-moral relation- at least not in any “original” sense. This bold con- ship between humans and the natural environment” tention has the benefit of laying a solid foundation (p. 3). on which the argument of the book is constructed, Kant might seem an unlikely candidate for cham- and it enables Brady to lead the reader confidently pioning an empirical sublime given that he under- on a well-chartered course from the conceptual de- stands the concept to be connected intimately with lineation of the sublime in Part I (“The Historical the supersensible “in us,” natural objects being the Sublime”) through its application in Part II to various trigger for feelings related to our moral vocation so “topics” intended to “restore the sublime in contem- that only through a “subreption” does respect for porary philosophy” (“The Contemporary Sublime”). nature substitute for respect for ourselves. Brady ac- Brady’s narrative is clear and crafted, and readers will knowledges this as Kant’s official position, but inge- find some delightful twists and turns on the way: in- niously works the parallel with beauty to claim him ter alia, a creative reading of Kant, a surprising and for her side. In the Kantian sublime, there are “qual- insightful elucidation of the problem of , and ities which give the impression of formlessness,” she a persuasive case for appreciating the sublime as a urges, so that natural objects stand in a “causal” rela- resource for articulating and enriching the human tion with imagination; “negative pleasure” (the ana- relationship with the natural world. logue of “positive pleasure” in the case of beauty) To declare so confidently up front that the sublime is then aroused because “features of natural objects has a “core meaning,” however, and to announce fur- (giving an impression of formlessness) . . . engage ther that it might be reduced to and exhausted by imagination, both expanding and maintaining its ac- the idea of “qualities” in “nature” will strike some tivity” (pp. 79–80). Whether Kant would concede readers as a touch premature. For, armed with pre- vastness, massiveness, magnitude, force, and things emptive notion of a “core meaning,” Brady tends to threatening as “qualities” of natural objects in this view the tradition from Longinus to Muir with a par- sense remains an open question, as does the status tially blinkered eye, representing it as an unbroken of the appeal to beauty, since Kant finds subreption line moving ever nearer to realizing what the sub- there too; isolating “qualities” in objects does not lime really is and was all along. This results in some change the fact that sublimity is soundly in the sub- selective reading to support the reconstruction. Thus, ject rather than in the object as such. from a survey of British eighteenth-century writers Brady clearly considers the matter to be otherwise, (the subject of Chapter 1), Brady extracts a “general however, and takes the fruit of her labors on to Chap- understanding of the sublime as an aesthetic response ter 4, where she proceeds to solidify the point by way to qualities of greatness, with an intense imagina- of Kant’s nineteenth-century successors at home and tive and emotional character” (p. 46), a conclusion abroad. She finds the natural sublime in Schiller’s valid as far as it goes, but inevitably obscuring de- appreciation of nature as an “autonomous and un- tails and eliding differences as if every contribution constrained force which enable humans to discover from Shaftesbury onward were of one flavor. The their own sense of freedom” (p. 92) and in Schopen- corollary is then to focus less on the substance of re- hauer’s suggestion that “natural forces elevate . . . spective views than to rummage in each for hints of [the] subject to a place of greater understanding” the “core meaning”—Addison’s move from style to by putting them in a state of “will-less contempla- external objects, Baillie and Gerard’s remarks on the tion” (p. 94). In the British Romantics, likewise, she natural world, Kames’s reference to “wild” nature— discovers an intimate relationship between the self giving the impression that each is a primitive expres- and natural world and (in Wordsworth specifically) sion of an emerging form, stepping stones to some an occasion for “opening out the imagination toward higher stage. That higher stage, as one soon learns in self-transformation” (p. 105). In the “wilderness aes- Chapters 2 and 3, is Kant, the first thinker, in Brady’s thetic” of Muir, finally, Brady isolates an understand- estimation, to make the sublime a “distinctive and ing of the sublime “continuous with earlier views,” meaningful aesthetic category” (p. 47) and exceed- both the “natural qualities” she finds nascent in the Book Reviews 211 eighteenth century and the metaphysical moment in and ugliness is fascinating. None should be confused Kant, manifest as recognition and respect for “his- with sublimity, however, since they fail to give an tory and power . . . beyond the human” (p. 113). impression of infinity, wild disorder, or astonish- With Muir one feels the genuine presence of the em- ment nor do they overwhelm or evoke transforma- pirical sublime for the first time, but whether one tive states of being that are the purview of sublimity has reached it in quite the way Brady’s reconstructed alone. At the same time, they do constitute expe- “conceptual history” claims remains open for debate. riences “related” to the sublime, Brady insists, and Though the reading of Kant plays a major role as such contain “a kind of edifying value in terms at various junctures, in a significant way, the vari- of developing our emotional responses to a range of

ous topics that occupy Part II of the book are in- environments and, also, increasing the scope of our Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jaac/article/72/2/201/5980498 by guest on 27 September 2021 dependent of the historical story told in Part I, and multi-sensory and imaginative engagement with na- if one simply accepts “the sublime” and “the natu- ture” (p. 180): discomfort, distance, and a complex ral sublime” as synonymous—that the “original sub- way of attending to diversity in nature as when we lime is the sublime as paradigmatically understood” come to value a carcass because we understand it as (p. 119)—there is a good deal to be learned from part of an ecological whole. Brady’s various discussions. In Chapter 5, she consid- Brady carries this point about the value of “diffi- ers whether art can be sublime, a suggestion she re- cult” aesthetic categories into the final and perhaps jects unequivocally by appealing to the nonexistence most powerful part of her narrative where she em- of those very qualities that account for the sublimity barks on “revitalizing the natural sublime as an en- of natural objects. Works of art can be profound— vironmental sublime” (p. 183). Arguments for see- they can “present” the sublime by referencing some- ing the sublime as “outmoded,” she observes, fall thing beyond themselves—but they lack the scale, into three groups: that over time nature has grown formlessness, and disorder required to evoke feelings less fearful (the historical argument); that it is no of vulnerability and a sense of one’s self being part of longer a sine qua non of transcendental states (the a larger whole. There are possible exceptions where metaphysical argument); and that the sublime is self- these qualities appear to be present, such as architec- and human-regarding and posits nature as an “alien ture and especially works of “land art,” which “bring ‘other’” (the anthropocentric argument). Brady un- attention to the greatness of nature by engaging di- dermines the first by emphasizing that there are still rectly with it” (p. 146). The latter are always site spe- wild spaces (as well as their analogues in rural places cific, however, and the former are more likely cases and built environments) and the second by show- of awe combined with interest or wonder at feats of ing that at the heart of the sublime there remains technological prowess. Chapter 6 then shifts readers an ineliminable “aesthetic transcendence occurring to consider the sublime in light of a “paradox” more through metaphysical imagination” (p. 193). The an- often associated with the observation (going back to thropocentric argument fails, finally, because in the Aristotle’s remarks on tragedy in the Poetics)that sublime the subject feels the mystery and wonder we take pleasure in the painful emotions evoked by of something beyond its grasp and becomes part of works of art. Attempts to dissolve the paradox typi- it, a mere “ingredient in the landscape, feeling in- cally appeal to the claim that negative emotions are significant, overwhelmed, and humbled by nature” “converted” into positive ones through the liveliness (p. 199). In the final analysis, Brady urges, the sublime of artistic (the Conversion Theory) is more accurately described as an occasion for self- or propose that negative emotions are really pre- knowledge and a point at which an ethical attitude to served so that the attendant pleasure is explicable as the environment might be developed: the cultivation a meta-response to them (the Meta-Response The- of moral feeling through exercising our capacities, ory). Brady neither rejects nor accepts either solu- a reassessment of our destructive relationship with tion unequivocally but tends (with the aid of Kant) the environment (through humiliation and humility), to the latter view: painful emotions are pleasurable in and a feeling of respect for nature and recognition of themselves, she urges, and pleasure arises from be- our place in and relation to it. Not only will those al- ing moved by features of the work. When affected ready sympathetic to Brady’s point of view find much by sublime features of nature, Brady then infers, “we here to bolster their position, but those naysayers to feel genuinely fearful, anxious, and so on, yet we are whom she directs her reassessment might also find nonetheless attracted to the very features of the sub- reason to pause and reconsider. For we all continue to lime object that cause painful emotions” (p. 158). “gawp” at things of great size and power and in doing In Chapter 7, Brady turns to the related issue of so recognize an experience—one tinged with edgi- “negative aesthetic categories,” each of which has ness and risk—different in kind from feelings that a dominant character that can mix and overlap with arise when viewing landscapes or cooing at furry baby the sublime: grandeur has great scale, the picturesque animals (p. 2). Every reader, in short, should find depends on irregularity, “terrible beauty” can shock, much food for thought in Brady’s project and in her 212 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism far-reaching conclusions, to discover in them, as in able because issues of indistinguishability are not the experience of sublimity itself, an occasion for self- broached.) reflection. Then Berthold and Magda will be confronting “two conceptually-distinct kinds of artistic perfor- mances” (p. 19), with two (or ultimately three: see TIMOTHY M. COSTELLOE below) justifications for an event’s inclusion here: Department of Philosophy College of William & Mary (1) “The performance may itself be an artwork, what the performer does being the artis-

tic vehicle whose observable features directly Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jaac/article/72/2/201/5980498 by guest on 27 September 2021 davies, david. Philosophy of the Performing Arts. articulate . . . the representational, expressive Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, x + 231 pp., and formal features that make up the artistic $91.95 cloth, $36.95 paper. content of the work” (p. 18)—these are called “performance-works” (p. 19). Berthold and Magda are reading a book on the phi- (2) “The performance may play an essential part in losophy of performing art in a series “designed to pro- the appreciation of something else that is an art- vide a comprehensive but flexible [collection of] . . . work” (p. 18)— here, “a performable work ... concise texts addressing . . . fundamental general [is instantiated in] a work-performance” (p. 18), questions about art” (p. ii). They are surprised to these last being “the performances through find that descriptions of their “nights-out” attend- which it is appreciated” (p. 18). ing performances feature for discussion, amidst a rich diet of appropriate examples, and that sur- Initially, in Part 1, classical music provides the prise becomes pleasant with the recognition that model for the work–performance relationship for they are appearing in a work by David Davies: performable works: hence the so-called “Classical a book of the very highest , insightful, in- Paradigm” (p. 19), on which “performances are of formative, and thought-provoking—and also well performable works and play a necessary part in researched. their appreciation” (p. 87). Overall, the text first When Berthold and Magda attended this or that raises those philosophical questions this model gen- art-event involving performance, were they con- erates “both ontological (e.g., what is a performable fronting the performing arts? In reply, a distinctive work and what is the work performance relation?) view of artistic appreciation (centrally, the appreci- and epistemological (e.g., how do performances con- ation of artworks) is introduced: in order that “an tribute to the appreciation of performable works?)” event counts as ‘an artistic performance’ of the sort (p. 19). And “drama, music and dance are tradition- central to the performing arts,” it must manifest “to ally taken to be performing arts in this sense” (p. 19). receivers qualities that bear directly on the apprecia- Now, Berthold and Magda attend a performance tion of a work of art” (p. 18). Such a “performance . . . of a work of Sibelius, Berthold’s favorite composer. [is] regarded in the manner distinctive of our appre- Further, Berthold is not merely an admirer: with ciative engagement with artworks” (p. 18). For its his sensitive and informed appreciation, he will being an artistic performance cannot depend solely recognize its correct performance and could give on the elements composing the performance nor on reasons for some judgments, as we see (pp. 56, 58). how those elements are put together (these might The performance that night differs from others they be shared by non-art), but on “how the assem- attended, but then “the lover of a musical work not blage of these elements that make up the artistic only seeks out novel opportunities to experience it in vehicle is intended in the articulation of content” performance, . . . [h]e or she also hopes that each per- (p. 16). In elaboration, the argument exploits what formance will reveal new possibilities of the work” is called “the indistinguishable counterpart” (p. 14) (p. 24). Although feasible for the performing arts provided by an everyday activity, here, moving a (given variety among performances), typical cases bed, as instanced by Yvonne Rainer’s Room Ser- of, say, seeing a movie a second time preclude it since vice. Such an indistinguishable counterpart suppos- the film itself is usually unchanged, even when one edly “shares all of the perceptible qualities of the notices more (p. 24). Hence, as Berthold recognized, vehicle of a given artwork” (p. 14)—a very large a person “can attempt to deepen his appreciation requirement, given that typically there is no finite of a particular performable work through attending totality of such qualities. (In similar argumenta- one of its performances” this being “one of the tion, [Transfiguration of the Com- principal ways in which the concept of a performable monplace ( Press, 1981)] speaks work animates our engagement with artistic per- of “confusable counterparts,” a locution prefer- formances” (p. 47). Yet, reflecting on a particular Book Reviews 213 performance, he and Magda agree that “the per- Applied to dance, the Classical Paradigm might formance might have been cancelled . . . without view performances as “attempts to provide inter- thereby affecting the identity of Sibelius’s work” pretive realizations of the prescriptions of particular (p. 25). So what counts as a performance of that performable works . . . [that] allow of multiple re- particular artwork? And, since various performances alizations” (p. 121). But here again the need for could instantiate that work, how should its multiple normativity looms: what could offer Berthold and character be understood? After assaying a number of Magda “a viable notion of what it is for a dance possibilities (norm-kinds, types [indicated or other- performance to be a correct rendering of the work wise], continuants), and some difficulties of each, as performed” (p. 121)? One answer, my “thesis of

well as the possibility that the performable work was notationality,” requires that performances satisfy a Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jaac/article/72/2/201/5980498 by guest on 27 September 2021 just a convenient fiction, Davies concludes, at least notation agreed by those knowledgeable in the art temporarily, by simply reaffirming the centrality of form to be an adequate notation for that work. But the idea of a performable work, with its attendant it seems “we lack sufficient notational resources to repeatability. identify a piece independently of the choreographer’s But, throughout, the normative force of appre- presence” (p. 126). As Davies points out, more than ciation is stressed in its connection to recognition just one notation system is used for dance (even when (or identification) of works: only when Berthold and “notation system” means a system of notating bod- Magda can identify a work will what they appreciate ily movement): he cites two (p. 122), and elsewhere be its qualities; and they meet the work in perfor- I have mentioned a third. But Davies further prob- mances. Yet it is clear that “different views about the lematizes conceptions aiming to capture normativity nature of the performable musical work go together through notated scores as being unable to accommo- with different views about what counts as a correct date “the subsequent history of the work” (p. 123). or incorrect performance of a work” (p. 57). So cri- I confess myself unable to see why, in principle, this teria of accuracy for performances become crucial difficulty is significantly greater for dance works than here. For instance, when the debate about authentic- for musical ones: in both cases, scores provide a start- ity in musical performance is joined (Chapter 4), the ing point—we agree that, within classical ballet, “per- need for correct performance is emphasized, since formances taken to be of a given dance work are al- radical deviation means that, at the least, this work lowed to vary considerably in choreography” (p. 124). was not performed. That, in turn, assumes a histor- In addition, “there are no scores for most dance per- ical context. Then, drawing on Peter Kivy’s evalua- formances” (p. 125); but, of course, this does not un- tion of historical authenticity, Davies recognizes that dermine the requirement for notationality. And a full authenticity for a performance involves a normative response must acknowledge the variety within what relation between the artist’s activity and that perfor- justifiably counts as (notated) scores for these pur- mance rather than just a causal one (p. 73). Davies’s poses: not all need be conceptualized as prescribing “contextualist or instrumentalist defense of authentic and proscribing specific bodily movements. Looser performance” (p. 85) presents the historically specific instructions might suffice. Moreover, in practice, all “requirements for understanding, and thereby prop- too often, “a video recording of the performance it- erly appreciating, performable works . . . [as] essen- self” (p. 126) will be deployed, especially for “most tially contextual entities” (p. 84), while still granting contemporary dances.” Yet, in recording a particular “the imperfections in our appreciative understand- performance, the video lacks the normativity implicit ing of musical works from which we are historically in the choreographer’s choices in constructing that distanced” (p. 85). work (and those of notator and/or choreographer in If the Classical Paradigm begins from classical mu- producing the associated score, where this occurs). sic, how does it fare elsewhere? Rock and jazz, as Davies concludes that it “remains an open ques- well as non-Western musical styles, provide a chal- tion to what extent . . . [the conditions required for lenge, and, while they can often be accommodated, using the Classical Paradigm] are met in specific might sometimes with justice be located “outside dance traditions” (p. 128): the fear here is that, where of the classical paradigm” (p. 101). Berthold and these conditions are not met, the work performed (on Magda encountered some kinds of theater readily ac- multiple occasions) will be lost. At the least, perhaps commodated as “interpretations of theatrical works” “a looser conception of what a work prescribes is (p. 115), although Davies follows Jim Hamilton in operative in theatre and dance” (p. 147). taking seriously an “ingredients” model, on which Further, the possibility of treating novels as per- texts (for instance) are merely among the ingredi- forming artworks is raised, from Kivy’s suggestion ents of theatrical practices. Yet, ultimately, the re- that the novel “is properly viewed as a performable quirement that “a troupe of performers . . . intends work whose performances are readings” (p. 129). The to be true to a work” (p. 120) still permits some of conclusion is that literature is not “usefully thought the required normativity. of as a performing art” (p. 131), primarily because 214 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

“appreciating a novel is grasping a structure of mean- place—shared with this work—in the posterity of the ing embodied in a linguistic medium” (p. 131), and philosophical aesthetics of performing arts. that is not well served by reduction to just what might, To conclude on a personal note, its almost si- say, be available to a listener. multaneous publication prevented discussion of this Moving beyond the Classical Paradigm, in Part work in my Philosophical Aesthetics of Dance (Dance 2, the book addresses the first of the two kinds of Books, 2011), and, of course, the same situation work noted above (the performance-work), where meant Davies discussing in detail here ideas of mine “the performance may itself be an artwork” (p. 19). extracted from presentations, rather than that more For instance, what should Berthold and Magda developed version. Indeed, my book was generally

have made of spontaneous performances, typified the poorer for being unable to refer to this one. For, Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jaac/article/72/2/201/5980498 by guest on 27 September 2021 by Keith Jarrett at the piano in the Kohn Opera like Berthold and Magda, I recognize the excellences House, in 1975 (p. 135)? Unfortunately, the mem- of this work. orable cases are typically impure: this one, with the performance recorded and the recording sub- sequently sold as a CD, begins to resemble a tra- GRAHAM MCFEE ditional “work performed” in ways clearly not in- Department of Philosophy tended. Yet how can any performance preclude California State University, Fullerton re-performance? Equally, it is obviously not enough that a performer use a performance (of a given work) to make his statement (see p. 145). Responding schmidt, dennis j. Between Word and Image: Hei- prompts consideration of an “ingredients model” for degger, Klee, and Gadamer on Gesture and Gene- music, which certainly resonates with some impro- sis. Indiana University Press, 2013, x + 187 pp., 21 visational works and practices. But, in many cases, b&w illus., $63.00 cloth. “improvised works” are then repeated: one perfor- mance sets a standard to be followed, to some degree, It is generally held that we grasp the meaningful in other performances. contents of our aesthetic experiences in a manner The text concludes by sketching some potentially quite different than we do the meaning of conceptual exception-generating cases, including John Cage’s propositions. Kant’s third Critique stands as one of notorious 4 33 (p. 202). Here Berthold and Magda the clearest expressions of that difference. There he could recognize the power of the analysis, with some argues that the cognition of linguistically articulated such cases accommodated as performable works, al- contents or schematically determined phenomena, though one “can still ask what kind of performable being determined by the rules provided by concepts, work it is” (p. 215), while (for others) “it isn’t clear can adequately lead to knowledge. In contrast, those in what ways an actual performance would bear concepts are wanting in our aesthetic experiences, on their appreciation” (p. 206)—hence they can be making us unable to judge them otherwise than re- set aside. Then, finally, a further category (men- flectively. As a result, the meaningful appropriation tioned on p. 20) is more formally introduced: per- of our aesthetic experiences is thought to fall short formances in works. This in turn problematizes the of a claim to knowledge and to truth. relation of performance art to the performing arts,es- It is this very exclusion of our aesthetic experi- pecially for some performances encountered in “our ences from the realm of truth that comes under fire engagement with later modern and ‘conceptual’ art” in Dennis J. Schmidt’s Between Word and Image.Fol- (p. 20): for example, “when the work is made accessi- lowing on the steps of Continental philosophers such ble through documentation” (p. 216). Here, Cage’s as Nietzsche, Heidegger, and particularly Gadamer, 4 33 reappears as (potentially) illustrating where Schmidt aims to show that artistic images can open “what is articulated through the actual performances, on an experience of truth quite distinct from, yet just as artistic vehicles, is a conceptual point about our as valuable as, that occasioned by conceptual knowl- appreciation of certain kinds of sounds as music” edge. In the book’s final moments, this proposition (p. 216). translates into the claim that artistic images singu- Berthold and Magda are happy when the text con- larly challenge our conceptual appropriation of expe- cludes by stressing “the richness and diversity of per- rience and, more importantly maybe, the modalities formance in the arts that we have explored in this of our ethical being-in-the-world. book” (p. 217), something they recognize from their The book’s argument is structured by three sets of own experience of the performing arts. Having en- conceptual couples, each the object of a distinct chap- joyed the voyage of discovery, Berthold and Magda ter. Those sets are word and image, Heidegger and are content to acknowledge such richness and diver- Klee, and art and truth. The book’s first chapter is sity, recorded by reference to those very experiences. devoted to the relation between word and image and They see that, in this way, they now have secured a is meant to portray how philosophy has historically Book Reviews 215 failed to deal properly with the question of the im- sion of the will to power and, more particularly, that age’s significance. Schmidt’s overall argument in this of Kunstbetrieb. As a consequence, visual art loses section is that philosophy has traditionally judged of its purported necessary ties with the beautiful ob- the image’s capacity to present meaningful contents ject, and the aesthetic experience becomes open to relatively to that of the concept, thus both missing new meaningful possibilities. Those possibilities im- and obfuscating its true value. As the latter’s capac- portantly describe this history’s third moment, which ity to present universal truths was thought to largely is set to begin around 1889. This period is character- exceed that of the image, the philosophical interest in ized by the manner in which cultural, political, and images eventually limited itself to think the nature of technological forces started modern art on a path of

the singularly pleasant experiences they elicit. Here, open resistance to the authority of logos. This was Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jaac/article/72/2/201/5980498 by guest on 27 September 2021 Schmidt first points to fairly classic Platonist argu- mostly exemplified in the manner artists came to re- ments that have often been used to support this view. ject the imitative model of artistic representation. He then moves to considerations regarding the prac- As a consequence, modern art opened the possibil- tice of ekphrasis, held by many as a clear example of ity of thinking anew our relation to artistic images, the concept’s superiority in the presentation of mean- of abandoning traditional metaphysical prejudices, ing. He touches notably on the poetic descriptions of and thus became a challenge to the contemporary the “impossible” representations on Achilles’ shield philosophers, one that the remainder of the book that are described in Homer’s Iliad. Those cases of means to explore. ekphrasis, he tells the reader, were held by authors At the outset of the second chapter, in which like Augustine and Lessing as proof that only the po- Schmidt tries to establish Heidegger’s philosophical etic word had the power to fully render the truth of response to Klee’s visual art, the author explains how what was at stake, while paintings could at best hope his hermeneutic of the image is situated at the heart for partial representations. of Continental philosophy’s project to overcome tra- Against this philosophical inclination to judge of ditional forms of discourse in a return to the things the image’s significance and truth relatively to the op- themselves. While this passage clarifies the distinctive erations of conceptuality, Schmidt will want to argue particularities of Schmidt’s philosophical endeavors that a hermeneutical approach more attuned to the in Between Word and Image, it also helps the reader image’s specific “textuality” can reveal how visual less familiar with Continental thought to understand artworks in fact participate in the advent of truth. the fundamental questions that structure this kind of In order to prepare the field for such an endeavor, approach to art. Returning to the chapter’s main am- the second half of the first chapter offers an “excen- bition, Schmidt then sets out to investigate the sparse tric history” detailing three key moments in the way traces and indications of Heidegger’s interest in Klee philosophy has dealt with the question of the artistic in order to nuance the ’s well-known pes- image. The first moment, situated in Greek Antiq- simism toward the realizations of modern visual art. uity, is described by Schmidt as opening the question This is accomplished in a number of steps. He first of the image that it later obfuscates by a perspective clarifies how Heidegger refused to engage with mod- that sees “through” the image, so to speak, in the di- ern art on the basis that it was still determined, on the rection of the original reality it merely imitates. The one hand, by metaphysical conceptions that needed underlying thesis, of course, is that the value of the to be overcome and, on the other hand, by a mode image is derived from and necessarily less than that of production that participated in the technologiza- of the reality it represents. As we come to see later in tion of the world. Heidegger had indeed claimed the book, the reduction of artistic images to the im- on many occasions that it was impossible for mod- itation of objective reality is precisely what modern ern art to bring about the possibility of a radically art seeks to refute, thereby challenging philosophy’s transformed world in the way that Holderlin’s¨ traditional understanding of what is made present in had in the previous century, for example. Yet, this artistic images. pessimistic view of modern art was seemingly inter- The second moment of Schmidt’s excentric history rupted, however briefly, by a series of notes on Klee’s runs from Kant to Nietzsche and marks the return paintings that Heidegger wrote between 1956 and of the image as a real philosophical problem. With 1960. Kant, artistic images cease to be understood as mere Though insufficient to rigorously establish Hei- imitations and become the expression of a freedom degger’s interpretation of Klee’s visual works, that defines us. Determined by a productive imagina- Schmidt argues that these notes at the very least tion, visual artworks present the appearance or the indicate that the philosopher had truly entertained trace of the subject’s suprasensible nature that no the possibility that modern art could participate concept can ever reveal. Banking on this conception in opening the space of an understanding of our of art, Nietzsche will eventually see in the “appear- world that abandoned the old and narrow traditional ing” of painting, or the way it “shines,” the expres- metaphysical ways. Central to Schmidt’s argument 216 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism is the claim that this possibility was made accessi- philosophy and sets out to explore the manner in ble to Heidegger by his encounter with Klee’s paint- which the artistic image may guide us toward a novel ings and not through a knowledge of his writings. conception of truth. For, as he points out, contrary to In other words, it was the images themselves that his mentor, who despaired to ever see the promise of pointed Heidegger in the direction of this possibil- art fulfilled by modern artworks, Gadamer thought it ity, a point that serves to strengthen the validity fit to install his hermeneutic at the very heart of their of Schmidt’s hermeneutic of the image. It remains, challenge to philosophy. however, that Schmidt’s demonstration nonetheless The first moment of this ultimate chapter looks revolves almost exclusively around a careful com- into the role played by the ontological valence of

parison of some of Heidegger and Klee’s respec- the artistic image in structuring Truth and Method’s Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jaac/article/72/2/201/5980498 by guest on 27 September 2021 tive writings. Hence, Schmidt first highlights some argument. This allows Schmidt to gather the key of Klee’s bearing on modern art as he ex- propositions made so far in Between Word and Image pressed them in his diaries, his Schopferische¨ Kon- and to translate those in a more Gadamerian con- fession (1920), and his 1924 lecture On Modern Art ceptuality. Particular attention is therefore given to (published posthumously in 1945). He eventually Gadamer’s arguments against “aesthetic conscious- centers his attention on Klee’s conception of the vi- ness,” to the interpretative play the authentic expe- sual artwork as a trace of the creative movement rience of art calls for, to the insufficiencies of an un- and forces generative of a world, whether natural or derstanding of the image as “copy” (Abbild), and, historical. What is central to the experience of artis- finally, to the autonomous capacity of the artwork to tic images, according to Klee, is not the aesthetically give presence to the manner in which we appropri- pleasing presentation of worldly objects but the man- ate our world and its intelligibility. This then leads to ner in which they let the very genesis of things and the chapter’s second moment, where Schmidt follows intelligibility appear. Gadamer in his reinterpretation of .Hisam- The reader already familiar with Heidegger’s the- bition there is to avail himself of a new vocabulary ses on art will easily anticipate Schmidt’s next move, more suited to describe the relation of artistic im- which is to show how these themes strongly resonate ages to truth. Here, Schmidt draws from Gadamer’s with those explored in his later writings as well as later essays, notably Art and Imitation (1986), and the in The Origin of the Work of Art. But if their views manner in which he appeals to Kant, Aristotle, and were so similar, asks Schmidt, how can we reconcile Pythagoras in defining the artistic image as the repe- Klee’s faith in modern art with Heidegger’s explicit tition of an ordering energy that makes itself visible pessimism toward its capacity to occasion such an and recognizable as such. Finally, Schmidt links the experience? Though he concedes that Heidegger will meaning of the image to the revealing of gesture, an- ultimately hold on to his pessimist attitude, Schmidt other concept borrowed from Gadamer’s later phi- argues that it was at the very least challenged by losophy. He characterizes “gesture” as the original Klee’s work, a challenge that was recorded in the idiom of appearance, an elemental and visible form notes he took when he first encountered the painter’s of language that indicates meaning in the world and work in 1956. These notes, writes Schmidt, explic- thereby accomplishes its first ordering. Correspond- itly indicate that Heidegger interpreted the paint- ingly, the artistic image turns out to be the materi- ings as accomplishing a “presencing” of “produc- alization or inscription of gesture and its experience tion” [Hervorbringen]. “Production” here describes an invitation to dwell and answer to its address by the dynamic of the intelligible appropriation and cre- actively following, and thus accomplishing, its indi- ation of being, the very movement that Klee voiced cations. as genesis. This opinion was reasserted two years In the book’s final moments, Schmidt makes a bit later, in 1958, on the occasion of a seminar led more precise the manner in which “gesture” is meant with Japanese Zen master and philosopher Hoseki to express how we meaningfully relate to beings in Shin’ichi Hisamatsu. While he then reaffirmed his our world otherwise than by relying on the intelligi- pessimism toward modern art’s general capacity to bility we have secured for them through the use of give presence to “production” [Hervorbringen], he determinate concepts. As such, “gesture” structures simultaneously mentioned Klee’s work as a possi- our being-in-the-world in a way that preserves the ble exception. This possibility was, however, rapidly possibility that what it indicates could always be dif- abandoned, remarks Schmidt, as Heidegger makes ferent from what one signals it to be. Contrary to clear in Technik und Kunst (1961) that art in the the concept, “gesture” remains short of a mastery of age of technology has succumbed to a paradigm of “otherness,” of a reduction under a definite mean- reproduction. ing, and therefore opens the space where one must The third and final chapter of the book endeavors truly be attentive to the manner in which what is to pursue the openings abandoned by Heidegger. To “other” calls upon us and questions our understand- that end, Schmidt turns to Gadamer’s hermeneutic ing of the world. In a nutshell, Schmidt, following Book Reviews 217 on Gadamer but going a bit further than him, wants is. Is the screenplay a blueprint akin to a musical to argue that “gesture” fundamentally structures the score or an architectural plan, merely a constituent authentic opening of our ethical being-in-the-world. of the creative development of an artwork, or ought And as visual artworks stand as the visible trace of we to regard screenplays as autonomous works “gesture,” their experience ought to engage us in di- of art in a unique aesthetic category, as we regard rection of a better understanding of our ethos and its theatrical scripts? According to Nannicelli, this foun- true demands. This last line of thought, however, is dational question and the related puzzles exposed offered only as a “promise.” That is, Schmidt is found by any answer to this question have been largely to say that the artistic image could help us in that di- disregarded by contemporary film theorists and,

rection once philosophy has properly reflected on the perhaps surprisingly, philosophers of aesthetics. In Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jaac/article/72/2/201/5980498 by guest on 27 September 2021 true significance of the image, but Between Word and film studies, the recent publications of Steven Maras’ Image is only meant to indicate the intellectual space Screenwriting: History, Theory, and Practice where that reflection should begin. (Wallflower Press, 2009) and Stephen Price’s The The analytic reader ill disposed toward Continen- Screenplay: Authorship, Theory, and Criticism tal philosophy will likely not find much in this book (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2011) have begun to once to change her view of that field. That being said, the again bring ontological issues that pertain to the first half of Between Word and Image stands as a fairly screenplay to the fore, because these works focus on comprehensive and accessible overview of Continen- the screenplay as a product in itself as opposed to tal philosophies of art and may thus aptly serve as an the film a screenplay produces. Nannicelli sees his introduction to some of its central themes and prob- book as a contribution to this dialogue. The title of lems. On the other hand, Schmidt will likely prove Nannicelli’s book is misleading, as he does not offer most interesting to the continental reader in his anal- a full-blown philosophy of the screenplay (a fact he ysis of Heidegger’s reaction to Klee’s paintings and readily admits). Instead, he focuses his attention on his propositions on furthering Gadamer’s hermeneu- two foundational ontological and epistemological tic of the image. On this subject, however, I must questions: what exactly is a screenplay, and what sort repeat my worry that Schmidt works at too great a of thing is a screenplay? distance from the images that “spoke” to Heidegger. Nannicelli defends an “intentional-historical for- While the book contains twenty-one figures, eleven malist” definition of the term screenplay.Heably— of which present paintings by Klee, the references to and rightly, I think—rejects functionalist, essentialist these images are sparse and often laconic. For exam- definitions of the term, as they do not adequately ple, while Schmidt tells us there is reason to believe account for all the features that screenplays seem that Heidegger was “deeply affected” (p. 96) by three to possess. Instead, Nannicelli claims that an object particular paintings by Klee, his comments touching counts as a screenplay if it “repeats, modifies, or re- on these images hold in the space of a rather modest pudiates” the ways in which plot, characters, scenes, paragraph. Meanwhile, his interpretation of Klee’s effects, and so forth have historically been suggested words is extensive and absolutely central to his argu- by the existing practice of screenwriting. Such a def- ment. As a result, what was meant as a hermeneutic inition bears a deliberate resemblance to historical of the image rather often takes the appearance of an approaches of identifying art proposed by Noel¨ Car- intelligent and promising dialogue with the philoso- roll and Jerrold Levinson. Nannicelli affirms Levin- phies of Heidegger and Gadamer. son’s claim that most definitional categories we use to identify things in the world are historical; therefore a definition of the screenplay must make reference OLIVIER MATHIEU to the historical practices from which the screenplay Department of Philosophy arises. If one takes this approach seriously, she is able McGill University to characterize an object that appeared sixty years ago as a screenplay though its form, style, and content differ significantly from a contemporary screenplay, nannicelli, ted. A Philosophy of the Screenplay. because the definition of the category is closely tied New York: Routledge, 2013, xiii + 270 pp., $125.00 to the sociohistorical moment in which that category cloth. appears. There is, on Nannicelli’s account, an intentional In the introduction to A Philosophy of the Screen- component to the construction of a screenplay. He play, Ted Nannicelli recalls that in the “classical” contends that in order for an object to be properly re- era of film theory, important philosophical concerns ferred to as screenplay, the author of that object must were raised about the nature of writing for film. Osip be deliberately attempting to participate in, modify, Brik, Hugo Musterberg,¨ and other early film theo- or subvert the sociohistorical practice of screenwrit- rists puzzled about what sort of thing the film script ing. Here, Nannicelli follows Annie L. Thomasson’s 218 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism work on artifact concepts to make this claim, arguing serts that in order to appreciate a script for a film, an that “those speakers who ground the reference of an important component of that appreciation is what artifact kind term actually establish what sort of fea- he terms “mental imaging,” using the mind’s eye tures are relative to unifying that kind” (p. 43). This to construct the scenes through imagination. Per- approach is particularly interesting because of its im- haps one might evaluate the quality of a screenplay plications not only about defining the screenplay, but based upon its capacity to elicit clear mental im- other sorts of artifacts as well; if Nannicelli’s char- ages from the reader regardless of how such images acterization of how artifact kinds are identified and are ultimately displayed (if they are displayed) on a defined is successful, this means that practitioners of screen.

each respective artifact-producing cultural practice Perhaps A Philosophy of the Screenplay’s greatest Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jaac/article/72/2/201/5980498 by guest on 27 September 2021 (not philosophers or theorists!) define what counts strength is its careful use of to an- as the product of that form. alyze concepts and refine its argument. This feature Assuming that Nannicelli’s conception of what may be off-putting to readers unfamiliar with ana- counts as a screenplay best characterizes what sorts lytic methods or unsympathetic to the often pedantic of object ought to be referred to as such, can one con- nature of the discipline, but for those who find value clude that the screenplay, on its own, counts as a work in such an approach, this book is quite impressive. of art? It is this question that Nannicelli addresses in Though Nannicelli claims in the introduction to the the second half of the book. To answer this question, book that he is not a philosopher, his careful method Nannicelli argues that screenwriting is an “art prac- and modest but defensible arguments suggest oth- tice,” again drawing from Carroll’s understanding of erwise. Nannicelli carefully surveys and responds to art as emerging from a narrative of cultural practice. objections to each position he asserts, and this rigor According to Carroll, if one can tie a particular arti- ultimately provides a very compelling case for the fact as a product of a cultural practice that has been screenplay as a potential work of literature for aes- regarded as art, it is fair to identify that artifact as a thetic evaluation. work of art. If one can establish that screenplays are products of a cultural practice regarded as art, then JEREMY KILLIAN it is fair to regard a screenplay as a work of art, apart Department of Humanities from its instantiation within a film. University of Louisville In Chapter 4 of the book, Nannicelli presents such a historical account of the screenplay as emerging from the preexisting art practice of playwriting in the mag uidhir, christy,ed.Art and Abstract Objects. United States during the late nineteenth and early Oxford University Press, viii + 310 pp., $75.00 twentieth centuries. He describes, in some detail, how cloth. prescriptions and theories applied to early screenplay writing arose from the conventions of playwriting, Guy Rohrbaugh, in his contribution to this volume, and he uses historical evidence such as “scenario” writes that we are living through “a golden age for writing guides produced by the early film industry the ontology of art” (p. 30). Rohrbaugh is certainly to validate his claims. He shows that even in the era right, and this volume is a testament to the high of the kinetoscope, actors and playwrights conceived quality of philosophical work being done in ontol- of staging theatrical events for film and wrote brief ogy of art. (This epoch has come upon us suddenly. scripts accordingly. Given the veracity of the histori- As recently as 2001, the first edition of The Routledge cal narrative Nannicelli constructs, it is certainly rea- Companion to Aesthetics did not have a chapter on sonable to conclude that screenwriting emerges from ontology of art. The most recent edition does.) The the art practice of playwriting. This chapter not only volume is noteworthy for other reasons. Mag Uidhir makes a compelling historical argument, but it also has recruited a number of philosophers who are not provides an excellent model for how one might estab- primarily known for their work in philosophy of art. lish the art status of an artifact kind utilizing Carroll’s These new voices can only enrich the debate. As well, narrative method. there is a dialogue among some of the papers, and Nannicelli further argues that not only is a screen- this enhances the value of each paper participating play a work of art but it might be additionally re- in the dialogue. Finally, several of the papers in this garded as a work of literature. He surveys competing volume address meta-ontology of art. These meta- definitions of literature and demonstrates, using di- ontological reflections are timely given the flourish- verse examples from film history, that screenplays ing of ontology of art. can meet the criteria that each of these definitions Mag Uidhir’s introduction identifies two attitudes claims essential. In the final chapter of the book, toward the ontology of art on display in the litera- Nannicelli discusses how one might appreciate and ture. According to the first, which he calls the Defer- evaluate a screenplay as a work of literature. He as- ence View, ontology of art ought to defer to general Book Reviews 219 metaphysics and employ only those ontological cat- tribution is useful since some philosophers, including egories applied to other objects. The second attitude Dodd, take the existence of locutions that appear to (the Independence View) holds that the categories make reference to kinds (“The Daffodil is the na- of general metaphysics are inadequate for the needs tional flower of Wales”) as a reason to posit the ex- of ontology of art: art onta are not the kinds of ex- istence of abstract types. Of course, a semantics that istents recognized by general metaphysics. Mag Uid- involves reference to abstract types is also possible. hir then introduces the “Paradox of Standards.” This P. D. Magnus is more or less in sympathy with paradox is the inconsistency of three principles that Mag Uidhir, holding that we ought to employ, in Mag Uidhir regards as standard: (1) some artworks the ontology of art, categories developed in general

are abstracta, (2) abstracta are non-spatiotemporal metaphysics. Magnus believes that artworks are his- Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jaac/article/72/2/201/5980498 by guest on 27 September 2021 and causally inert, and (3) all artworks are caused by torical individuals and that an ontological category actions of artists. developed by philosophers of biology can be suc- In Mag Uidhir’s opinion, neither the Deference cessfully appropriated by ontologists of art. In par- View nor the Independence View provides a satis- ticular, the homeostatic-property cluster conception factory resolution to the Paradox of Standards. Mag of species can, Magnus believes, be successfully ap- Uidhir takes Julian Dodd (who is in some ways the plied to works of art. Allan Hazlett adopts a similar eminence´ grise or, perhaps, beteˆ noire against whom position. Like Magnus, he believes that artworks are the book is directed) to be an example of someone temporal. They are also, on his view, modally and who adopts the Deference View. Dodd embraces ab- temporally flexible. This leads Hazlett to conclude stracta, a category of object countenanced by general that artworks cannot be types (which are nontempo- metaphysics, and rejects the view that all artworks are ral, temporally inflexible, and modally inflexible). In- created by artists. Mag Uidhir rejects Dodd’s belief stead, they belong to a category similar to that which that some artworks are uncreated as wholly implausi- applies to biological species. Rohrbaugh also holds ble, a thistle too painful to grasp. The Independence that artworks are historical individuals. His principle View’s response to the Paradox of Standards is held contribution is an argument for the conclusion that to be equally unsatisfactory. The Independence View philosophers do not cease to do metaphysics when often leads to the adoption of nonstandard views of they make claims about the structure of thought. abstracta. According to Mag Uidhir, these abstracta Not all of the contributors have views aligned often seem to collapse into concreta of one sort or with those of Mag Uidhir. Jerrold Levinson con- another. This response of the Independence View to tinues to adopt the Independence View. He be- the Paradox of Standards is “wildly disproportionate, lieves that works of literature and works of music counterproductive . . . ad hoc” (p. 21). are “half-abstract and half-concrete entities . . . in- With both Independence and Deference unsatis- dicated structures” (p. 55). Levinson also holds that factory, Mag Uidhir recommends that we adopt his writers and composers create “a rule,anorm,aminia- Reciprocity View as a way of resolving the para- ture practice” (p. 54). The relationship between indi- dox. On this view, metaphysics of art ought to be cated structures and rules or norms could be made grounded in general metaphysics, and general meta- clearer, and I wondered whether an ontology needs physics ought to be sensitive to the particular chal- both sorts of entities (if, indeed, they are supposed to lenges posed by reflection on art onta. It is un- be distinct). Interestingly, Levinson no longer holds likely that works of art are somehow ontologically that these entities are types. He regards types as eter- sui generis. On the other hand, general metaphysics nal, uncreated, and immutable. Sherri Irvin is another needs to be certain that its categories make room for contributor who seems committed to the Indepen- art onta. Reciprocity leads, Mag Uidhir believes, to dence View. Her essay is devoted to the ontology of some sort of nominalism about artworks or, alterna- performance art and identifies some similarities be- tively, to eliminativism or fictionalism. tween performance art and works for performances Marcus Rossberg reaches conclusions congruent (such as the compositions of classical music). She with those of Mag Uidhir. In particular, Rossberg re- comes to the conclusion that works of performance inforces the conclusion that there is no way to render art are “abstract and temporal” (p. 243) or “quasi- consistent the claim that some artworks are abstracta abstract” (p. 255) entities. An example of a quasi- and the view that all artworks have been created and abstract object is a game of chess played without a can be destroyed. Andrew Kania argues for the con- board or pieces. One wonders whether Irvin’s quasi- ditional view that, if there are no abstracta, then we abstract entities are examples of onta that Mag Uid- ought to be fictionalists about works of music. Shieva hir would regard as ad hoc and liable to collapse into Kleinschmidt and Jacob Ross show how it is possible some sort of concreta. David Davies adopts a view to develop a semantics for sentences such as “The with affinities to those of Irvin and Levinson. He sug- Moonlight Sonata has three movements” that is able gests that films are types, but asks what sort of type. to do without reference to abstract kinds. This con- He concludes that they are created types. 220 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

Some of the contributions to this volume are tan- ated depends crucially on an appeal to Mag Uidhir’s gentially connected to the themes that Mag Uidhir intuitions. In my view, intuitions are the result of the introduces in his introduction. Roy T. Cook’s essay adoption of some ontological view. Having adopted develops ’s suggestion that art is an open a theory, certain views seem intuitive. Intuitions are concept. Cook concludes that the concept of art is not the grounds for ontological theories. “open-ended in a sense similar to the (Godelian)¨ Some writers try to resolve ontological questions indefinitely extensibility of the concept of natural by appeal to David Davies’s pragmatic criterion (on- number” (p. 106). Hud Hudson’s essay challenges tology ought to be consistent with our critical prac- some commonplace beliefs about the ontology of tices in the arts) as a way of resolving ontological

: that they are solid, three-dimensional, debates. Irvin, for example, appeals to the criterion. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jaac/article/72/2/201/5980498 by guest on 27 September 2021 and perceptible. He does so by presenting a series To a large extent, however, this volume undermines of ingeniously contrived (“fantastical” is his word) confidence in the pragmatic criterion by casting examples. Joseph G. Moore is concerned with the de- doubt on the Independence View. Advocates of the bate between contextualists and structuralists. Con- Deference View,of course, are not moved by Davies’s textualists hold that musical works are individuated proposal, and even on Mag Uidhir’s Reciprocity by reference to their musico-historical contexts and View it is of limited value. Worse than that, the prag- to their composers. Structuralists disagree: two works matic criterion seems to be compatible with quite with identical structures and different origins are different ontologies. At any rate, advocates of quite one work. Moore stakes out an intermediate po- disparate views appeal to it. sition. Ross P. Cameron defends nominalism, but If intuitions and the pragmatic criterion will not re- nominalism about fictional characters rather than solve questions about the ontology of art, we are left artworks. wondering what will resolve them. The ontological One might wonder what conclusions about the questions debated in this volume are not, as Moore ontology of art can be drawn, given the disparate astutely observes, empirical questions and cannot be views expressed in this book. I think that it is fair resolved by empirical inquiry. These questions need to say that a movement away from adherence to cre- to be resolved by a process of a priori reasoning. It ated abstracta can be discerned. (Irvin’s abstracta are is such reasoning that seems to be doing in the view only quasi-abstract, and Levinson no longer speaks that some artworks are created abstracta. A priori of initiated types.) These days, most philosophers reasoning leads to the conclusion that something ab- who favor types posit full-blown Platonic ones. A stract (and therefore outside the causal realm) cannot trend away from the Independence View is evident. be created. Ultimately, the concept of a created ab- A trend toward nominalism of one sort (historical in- stractum is incoherent. Whether similarly compelling dividuals) or another (eliminativism or fictionalism) a priori arguments can be given for Platonism and is also apparent. One might also wonder whether some version of nominalism remains to be seen. In these trends are driven by compelling philosoph- my view, this is unlikely, and we will have to choose, ical argumentation or by fashion. The arguments on pragmatic grounds, between several ontologies of against created types strike me as persuasive. This art that are equally compatible with all of the empir- leaves an empty middle ground between Platon- ical evidence and all of what we can know a priori ists and nominalists of various stripes. While fash- about metaphysics. But then I am a Carnapian about ion may favor nominalists, one can wonder whether ontological matters. they have the philosophical wherewithal to vanquish These ruminations should not be seen as, in any Platonists. way, detracting from the value of this book. Philo- Certainly, there is room for doubt on this mat- sophical progress is made here even if it is, as philo- ter. Many of the arguments on offer rely on intu- sophical progress almost always is, incremental. Mag itions that the opposing camp finds uncompelling or Uidhir has assembled a collection of papers of uni- worse. We know that Dodd’s intuitions tell him that formly high quality, and these papers are likely to works of music are eternal and that one hears a whole continue to influence debates in ontology of art for work in hearing a performance of it. Magnus, in con- the foreseeable future. Anyone with an interest in trast, reports that his “intuitions differ on this, and ontology of art will want to read and reflect upon the I am perfectly comfortable saying that the audience essays in this volume. hears an entire performance of the work but does not hear the entire work simpliciter” (p. 114). Moore is also forthright in allowing that his arguments rely on JAMES O. YOUNG “intuition-mongering” (p. 286). Mag Uidhir’s rejec- Department of Philosophy tion of Dodd’s view that works of music are uncre- University of Victoria