Abstraction is not a snarly twine for me. I gave my definition. I'm agree with Saul's definition from the standpoint of phenomenal text and subjective text, as I understand it. Neither is new. wc
________________________________ From: Frances Kelly <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, July 6, 2009 9:17:49 AM Subject: RE: Worringer: Abstraction and Empathy Frances to William and others... As you have clearly pointed out, the state and stature and status of abstraction is indeed a hazy arena for any theorist to navigate in. It is a snarl of twine that thinkers are still trying to unravel. We here may nonetheless be closer than it seems in our attempt to define abstraction. My task however is to try and keep abstraction within the phenomenal boundaries set by pragmatism as the structured categories of its built system for the world. This setting is only a tentative starting point for me, and of course it may never be realized. Nonetheless, any definition of abstraction along with everything else should be kept consistent with those trichotomic categories to the extent that it is possible, in order to avoid problems that otherwise would surface later in my theorizing efforts. My basic guess is that abstraction in art or nonart is fundamentally made of some ordinary phenomenal object and so must be a sign, and therefore must stand for some other object in some way to some signer. The object here called a possible abstract object is furthermore held to be aligned with subsequent objects called an actual concrete object and an agreeable discrete object. On the surface it seems correct to classify abstraction as being mainly a kind of either syntactic abstraction or semantic abstraction. In the alternative it also seems correct to classify abstraction as being mainly a kind of either formal abstraction or referential abstraction. There are however obvious problems with these attempts at classifying abstraction, and indeed they may simply be wrong. Syntactic formal abstraction is held to mainly occur when the immediate representative form of a sign vehicle stands for an immediate referential object that is virtually static, but only when that form has no further intermediate referential content that is dynamic or energetic and often called figurative or naturalistic. For example, the immediate static object known to be referred by the form and symbolic sign "CAT" is that of a word and noun in the english language. Now, the spoken uttered sounds or the written scribed strokes of this sign is its immediately represented form or vehicle and its immediately referred tone or mark, and if this syntactic form or semantic tone and mark are not known as a symbolic lingual word, then they are still referent of an immediate object, but now as an abstract object, rather than as a discrete object. As a formal abstraction, the form and tone or mark are iconic of something to some degree. As a causal abstraction, they are indexic of style to some degree. As a conventional abstraction and an agreeable discrete object, the form and tone or mark when known as a symbolic lingual word would bear or have an intermediate dynamic or energetic object as its referred semantic content, which would be say "a furry four legged feline animal with a tail and claws like a lion or tiger or panther" or something similar to this. The syntactic object is the vehicular form of a sign. All form is representative because it will be indirectly and thus iconically similar to some other referent to some degree, the least thing of which for example may be a mere quality of objective finding or a mere quality of subjective feeling. The semantic object is the referred content of a sign. All content is referential because it will determine the representative form of a sign to be mainly an icon or index or symbol. To the extent that form has any content, and even if only as an immediate qualitative abstraction, that form will be semantically referential. All immediate objects and their signs furthermore are subordinate icons of formal similarity, whether these immediate objects are abstract or concrete or discrete. All intermediate objects will consequently be determined as mainly icons or indexes or symbols. This likely means that abstraction is better classified as semantically referential, but necessarily in regard to being either of an immediate referred object, or of an intermediate referred object that is often called figurative or naturalistic. All referents are relative, being jointly held as form and content in a ground of conforming connectivity; and whether they are controlled or governed mainly by objective or subjective signers is a matter of degree. The personal styles of sign makers as referred by the formal marks of their sign vehicles for example are clearly determined objectively as material constructs, and such causal cathartic referents are not associative mental constructs like notions or nominations. Incidentally, any meaning conferred upon an object is not a necessary factor at this stage of semiosis, because whether objects as referents are reassigned with any value or meaningful meaning or worth or even force and power is well beyond the information they bear as forms and contents. The syntactic representational object or isolated form when analyzed away from any referred content should likely not be classified as an abstraction. This form is represented as a sign vehicle and called a representation merely to the extent that such an ordinary object cannot be directly presented to sense, but rather must be sensed as a seeming phenomenon as moderated by signs. PS Worringer seemingly did not consider the "infinite irregularity of the organic" or the biomorphic as an abstraction in art, but he did consider "regular symmetrical formulaic geometry" as a geometric abstraction in art. It would seem therefore that he also favored a tendency toward simplicity and order in abstraction. The problem here is that an increase of excessive redundancy in abstraction, and even with added forms that are simple and ordered, is also an increase in complexity, but rather than evoking anxiety and distance such "replayed" excess can actually help clarify reference and meaning, and thus make them more concrete. William partly wrote in effect... I reject this idea of three kinds of abstraction or degrees of abstraction, because all referents are subjective, and cannot be said to belong to any sort of abstraction. And "everything can look like something else" or even evoke association to something that is entirely different. Any object or shape may evoke multiple associative referents, subjective and different for each person, but likely not widely different. Also, all objects or shapes are inherently abstract, non-referential, and meaningless, until a person regards them as if something else (subjectively prompted, culturally associated). Back to Abstraction and Empathy: Worringer made it rather clear, I believe, that he was speaking of a particular degree of abstraction, one that employs a regularity, by which he means symmetrical formulaic geometry, as in grids or triangles, etc. (mosaics and the pyramid) and opposed to the infinite irregularity of the organic. I don't think Worringer was trying to define types of abstract art but to claim that the tendency for abstraction has always been a psychological refuge for people in dread of nature's overwhelming complexity and boundless change. Again, this was, in his view, opposite the well entrenched view of empathy (in 1908) which is the projection of self into other, as if it becomes the other. Worringer felt both poles of his model are necessary and fundamental in human art experience. Before him, Western philosophers of psychological aesthetics argued for empathy alone and used canonical, imitative examples in the Greco-Roman-Renaissance tradition to justify and explain their view. So, with Worringer, we are not speaking of abstract art and representational art in particular examples, but of the most basic human impulses in seeking the happiness of art experience: "Esthetic enjoyment as self-enjoyment." We may speak of abstract art, but only if we remain mindful that all art, all things are inherently abstract and yet all art and all things are inherently evocative of other art and things. We name things by projecting primary uses for them or indexing them by comparison and contrast with other things and also by regarding them as metaphors --- a projection of symbolic subjectivity. I propose that we can say that the ambiguity we feel is evoked by something is an indicator of its abstractness. The more ambiguity (in the poetic sense of multiple meanings, identities, uses) we can project into something, the more abstract it is. The opposite would be the case for representational art and things. The less ambiguity we can project for them, the less abstract they are, although a one-to-one match, where one artwork or thing refers only to itself or to its copy, is impossible. Again, everything looks like something else. Anything can be as-if anything else, in metaphor. Boris partly wrote... "Abstract" or "natural" in art was never defined on this forum. Without agreement on terms we can't discuss the subject. Frances wrote... It occurred to me that the Worringer thesis as a global approach considers only two main kinds of objects as artworks: (1) the abstract; and (2) the natural. If however there were more kinds of objects to consider as artworks, then the thesis might work better. It could also then even be made consistent with the tridential approach of Peircean pragmatism, which as a global approach would hold that there are three main kinds of objects with contents as artworks. The tern of art would thus be as: (1) abstract with possible referents; or (2) concrete with actual referents; or (3) discrete with agreeable referents. Each of these three could be further divided into those that were: (1) a formal icon of similarity; or (2) a causal index of contiguity;
