Metaphor and Symbol in the Interpretation of Art JANE FORSEY/ University of Winnipeg At the intersection of aesthetics and epistemology lies the idea that works of art can convey knowledge of a kind/ and can enrich our understanding of the world. The many theories that have devolved from this central notion include those seeking to explain art in terms of a theory of metaphor: if art can be shown to be metaphorical/ art can therefore generate new meaning/ and so lay claim to epistemic legitimacy. This approach can be found in the work of Arthur Danto/ Mark Johnson, and Carl Hausman, but more recently in articles by A. T. Nuyen and Kirk Pillow/ who claim that the notion of art­ as-metaphor can be traced in nascent form to Kant's Critique ofJudgment 1 Nuyen writes that "it is the Kantian theory that gives epistemologicallegiti­ macy to the visions of poets and artists .... [I]t is the Kantian theory that places those visions at the center of human rationality" (KM, 108). Both he and Pillow wish to find in Kant an early/ and bona fide, articulation of the epistemological function of art. I will argue that they cannot do so, and that their contentions rest on an incomplete reading of, particularly, sections 49 and 59 of the Third Critique. 2 Kant's goal, I will claim, is more modest than they allow. His conceptions of beauty and the aesthetic ideas of genius function not as metaphors provi­ ding new insight/ but as symbols serving to represent rational ideas we already have, enabling us to demonstrate and concretize concepts for which no direct intuition is possible. While Kant does provide insight into how artworks come to have meaning for us, he is not, in the end, breaking ground for a theory of art as metaphor or for a defense of art's function in the acquisition of knowledge. My purpose in this paper is twofold: first, I seek to correct what I regard as an overly ambitious reading of sections of the Third Critique; second/ I shall use Kant's discussion of art to explore what happens in the interaction between a spectator and a work/ and to make some (very modest) proposals about the nature of interpretation. These proposals will emerge largely through an analysis of Nuyen's and Pillow's arguments/ and a reading of Kant's text. I will begin with Nuyen's article, which presents the weaker of the two arguments for a Kantian theory of metaphor. He focuses on §59 of the Critique ofJudgment, entitled "Of Beauty as the Symbol of Morality." Here Kant makes a number of observations on symbolism. Symbols are one of three types of "hypotyposis"-presentations, or what Paul Guyer defines as the "rendering of concepts in terms of sense." Concepts must be connected www.symposium-journal.org to something we can experience in order to have real meaning; intuitions are just what establish the objective reality of our concepts. Yet the ~ I 574 Metaphor and Symbol in the Interpretation of Art I Metaphor and Symbol in the Interpretation of Art 575 I connections between them vary. For determinate empirical concepts, for advanced by Max Black, and later articulated by Nelson Goodman, Paul instance, sensible intuitions serve as examples(as in this cat, Fluffy), while Ricoeur, and Eva KittayS-suggests that a metaphor sparks a semantic for concepts of the understanding, the intuitions are schemata (such as interaction when a concept is transferred from its customary domain to an 3 temporal succession standing for the concept of causation ); but for rational alien one, producing new links between previously unrelated phenomena. ideas, such as "freedom," "God," or "monarchy," Kant notes that if we try Black uses the example of "man is a wolf," and claims that our understand­ 6 to establish their objective reality "we are asking for something impossible, ing of both concepts is transformed through their interaction : the collision because absolutely no intuition can be given which shall be adequate to between disparate semantic or experiential domains expresses something them" (0, §59, 197). We cannot form a determinate concept of rational that literal wording cannot capture, thereby offering new insight. A metaphor ideas because they refer to something that extends beyond the bounds of is not simply a deviant use of language, one that departs from its basic experience. Thus, we cannot have knowledge of them. The best we can do function of literal description, but is instead a legitimate form of expression is provide a symbol, an "indirect" presentation of the idea, as it is not the which provides a unique opportunity for epistemic gain. direct object of sensible intuition. Rational ideas are indemonstrable in this What Ricoeur calls metaphor's "impertinence"? in projecting "new regard: while they can be defined in the abstract, they cannot be directly possibilities of redescribing the world'tS results in an indeterminacy of shown in intuition. Providing a symbolic presentation of them is the best we meaning as both speaker/artist and audience contribute to its significance. can do. Connotations about wolves that are conjured up in the metaphor "man is Symbols, however, are not arbitrary. Kant suggests as an example that a wolf" may be different for you than for me; you may see implications I a handmill can represent a despotic state, not because there is a resem­ miss, add layers of meaning to the metaphor that I fail to see or do not think blance between the properties of each, but because "there is a similarity in relevant. Thus, the metaphor may mean something different to you than the rules according to which we reflect upon these two things and their to me. Kirk Pillow notes that the meaning of metaphors "varies with the causality" (0, §59, 198). The mind, as it reflects on the image, is led to a interpretive finesse of their audience and so cannot be specified by any similar train of thought, which Paul Guyer describes as follows: interpretive rule" (JE, 198). Instead, metaphors are understood through a creative and imaginative process whereby we are enjoined to "do some­ In both these cases [the handmill and the despotiC state], presumably thing" with the juxtaposition of ideas presented to us. one thinks in a similar chain: of objects (grain, persons) being sub­ Nuyen claims that the Kantian symbolical process is in fact metaphorical. jected to operations entirely outside of their control (being ground, The similarity between the two relata-despot and handmill-is not, he says, being dictated to) and being converted into whatever the mechanism "already in existence or antecedently given" to us (KM, 99). The judgment (the mill, the despot) is designed for, or designs to produce (flour, instead creates a resemblance between them by filling in the gap with a slaves).4 similar train of thought. The result is both original and insightful, and the power of metaphor lies partly in this: if metaphors produce new affinities The actual content of the symbol is neither an example nor a schema of between entities that are actually disjoint, they ascribe new qualities to the what it symbolizes. There is instead an analogy between the way the ideas subjects in the metaphor and transform our understanding of those subjects in each case are connected. While nothing but a cat will serve as an example in ways that could not have come about otherwise. Metaphors do not merely of the empirical concept, other things can serve as symbols of despotic compare existent components of the world, or flesh out their meanings. states if a similar line of thought can be traced through each. The success Rather, they help craft that meaning and so contribute to our understanding. of the use of a given symbol lies in our ability to grasp its appropriateness Pillow seeks to find an interactionist theory of metaphor in Kant's text or "fit" by a chain of thinking such as Guyer describes. as well, while taking issue with Nuyen's interpretation of §59 as its locus. Nuyen argues that, for Kant, "since intuition is inadequate to represent Pillow argues that symbols are metaphors only if "one accepts that meta­ a rational concept, the best we can do is to invent or create a similarity" phors are fundamentally analogical": despot and hand mill may indeed be between the two. It is this creativity that leads Nuyen to suggest that "what "radically disjoint" notions, but the rule-boundedness of our reflection on Kant calls 'symbol' we [should] call 'metaphor,'" understood along Interac­ the two requires the mind to work in a similar way as we consider each. This tionist lines (KM, 97, 98). The interactionist conception of metaphor-as first not only limits the possibilities at which we will arrive, but actually fixes the ~ I 576 Metaphor and Symbol in the Interpretation of Art I Metaphor and Symbol in the Interpretation of Art 577 I meaning that will result. A despot is not a hand mill in the way that man is I or sculpture" but "poetry and rhetoric" in like ways stimulate the imagination a wolf; our reflection on the two does not ascribe new qualities to each, but to "spread itself over a number of kindred representations that arouse more sorts out the similarities between them. A despot is like a handmill and the thought than can be expressed in a concept determined by words" (0, §49, mind is led to supply the reason why, in the way we supply the middle term 158). Aesthetic ideas are so abundant in intuitive content that no single in an Aristotelean enthymeme.