Frances to William and members...
The process of determination by the means of systemic methods is admittedly culled from the philosophy of realist pragmatism, which offers a good base of support and bears some repeat. The tendency to challenge both the individual person and the communal people as inadequate and insufficient and inappropriate to make reasonable determinations by any methodical means, about whether an object or work is artistic, leaves little if any alternative for allowing the assignment of art to things. It is however warranted and justified to confer the status of art on stuff, and the communal group is better at doing this than the individual alone. It is clear that the sole individual is simply not reliable enough to control determinations about works of art or works of unart and nonart in tech and science. There is a valid need for a relevant governing group to make these determinations, but with the provision that the determinations must be reasonable and tentative. The individual must therefore agree to comply with the communal for assurance of some conformity to the norm. This collective process is somewhat conventional, but it has just historical precedents and seems to still be the best one available. Each individual in the group must have some collateral experience with the situation at issue, which is required for them to fully know the object of determination. The group must furthermore be relevant and pertinent to the situation at issue, and also show normal normative reasonableness. The process of determination is one of cooperative collaboration, where knowledgeable members should agree by a consensus of opinion, but the agreement must evolve, and so remain contingent and conditional and provisional and probable and fallible. It is the search and the route and the direction and the goal that is central to this process, but not any final end, which is never attainable in any event. There will of course be dissent or discord among members of the group as they attempt consent and accord, therefore the process must be flexible and fluid yet not rigid and dogmatic. The determination after all is a limit and a ground for the object of address, but not its cause or origin. Members simply agree on the marginal boundaries that might be related to the situation at issue. The determinative limitation provides an aid for members to predicate and predict a forecasted outcome. The communal act to determine the status of an object in a limited ground is simply a means to help the individual member avoid uncontrolled abnormality and assure them of controlled conformity. The act need not pander to the subjective states of any member, such as moods and tastes or wishes and needs, but ought to render critical judgements and analytical reviews to dispel skeptical doubts and instill fallible beliefs. The best way to do this is with the methods of empirical inquiry and scientific research, but as a guide modified according to the object of address and as the situation warrants it. The group can variously be informal or formal and unofficial or official, and even a union of groups such an international alliance. The individual member or target can be a single person or a particular and peculiar object, but it might also be a vast institute or a whole nation of persons and peoples. The determination of objects already posited to the group for address eliminates the need for a search, but if none are posited then their presence may be desired or required. The object suitable for determination must be selected as a sample from all those presented as available, which is another important issue to address. The criteria for addressing an object by group determination is a further issue to address. In regard to art as the aesthetic object of address, the criteria might require that the given aesthetic form of a closed work, which is settled and completed and finished, be agreed as empowered to reflect worthy aesthetic values and to evoke warranted aesthetic responses. These values and responses in turn will also determine the kind of art the work might be. This then is the realist and pragmatist approach to determination.
