Intentionality is workable in mechanistic ways, such as machine is intended to perform certain operations or a set of directions is intended to lead one to a particular goal. Even artworks can express intentionality and as they are recognized so they might lead to some particular knowledge or experience. But what of the associative thoughts, experiences, etc., surrounding those intentions, despite their being hidden, ignored or overlooked? We can never say that they are fully irrelevant to our experience even when they may deter us from the supposed correct intentions.
If I notice the artist's intentions that guided the making of art, what am I supposed to do with them except to follow them as a set of directions, presumably to lead me to some subjective experience that imitates that of the artist? I suggest that this possible only in general terms, in superficial terms, if not actually banal terms. No one can fully convey his or her subjectivity to another because, obviously, subjectivity is not objective. So let's say a given artwork can convey an intended subject matter and it can even evoke the cultural memory or narrative associated with it, and perhaps the artist can slant it a bit one way or another to evoke some lesser associations, perhaps unique to him or her, and let's say I get it because I'm versed in both the subject matter and its associative content and am able to imagine myself experiencing something akin to the artist's subjectivity conveyed through some uniqueness of presentation. But in the end I am still awash in my own subjectivity and nothing can fence it out from my efforts to remain caged in the artist's intentions through his/her artwork. I think this is what E. Gombrich had in mind when he wrote, "There is no wrong way to experience an artwork." David Hume insisted that we cannot escape our objectivity and thus all that we know is a sense impression and ideas constructed with them, shaped largely if not exclusively, by "cultural habits and customs". That was the basis of his famed skepticism. We can't , he argued, ever know anything with real objectivity because all our knowing is subjective. So we symbolize the objectivity and those symbols rely on patterns and associations, only some of which have a seemingly causal relationship to the supposed (make-believe) reality. This is what led Hume to question the truth of causality. How can we be sure that A causes B when we are limited to symbols and our associative subjectivity? A may cause B, and C,D,E,F, etc., in any combination or inclusion or exclusion. Only by pragmatic experience can we assume, ultimately through belief alone, that A can cause B. Thus even when causality is extended to natural Laws, we must withhold ultimate certainty. If I can't be certain that the sun will rise or that gravity is eternal or that even the eternal is not relative to my subjectivity, and must rely on symbols, which are "as-if" metaphors that require my leap of belief and are not exact copies because they are subjective, how am I to be sure that I can notice another's intentions, or even imitate them, or be sure that the other has those intentions or is even aware of them? And that is the substance of the Intentional Fallacy. To approach art as if it was a machine, something to be examined and used according to the implicit directions for its use and goal, is, to me. alarmingly naive and superficial. Yes, a real machine may not work as intended if I try to impose another use and goal for it, but perhaps it will do another job better. Artworks, if they symbolize proscriptive intentions, are merely illustrations, like ordinary signs or maps. But if they somehow symbolize ambiguity too, by which I mean additional symbols of subjectivity, (only a few of which the artist can symbolize due to the fact that subjectivity cannot be fully exemplified), then there is at least an open ended potential for enlivened subjective experience for both the artist and his/her audience. The point is that the best intentions are those which symbolize far more than are intended. None are excluded and thus all are relevant and all are "truthful" and all are causal without defined or limited effects. My trouble with Dutton's notion of intentionality is that he requires the artist to have foreseen the broadest and most profound symbolization of subject matter, style, etc. That's impossible due to the cage of subjectivity and the inability of anyone to have full experience or acquaintance with "cultural habits and customs" that invisibly shape our symbols and associations, most of which normally evolve over generations or even millennia, far beyond the life experience of any individual. I would respond to him that the best approach regarding intentionality, which is the container word for meaning, is to avoid intentionality, to try to contradict meaning at every turn, because in this sense, "none" is equal to all, or "one" is equal to "any". I have been ridiculed here for years because of my interest in meaninglessness. Yet I see it as the most profound concept, the widest open door to associative experience and symbolization by means of metaphor. Intentions are necessarily proscriptive, preferring this but not that, directing this but not that, wrongly assuming the certainty of causality, and so on, but even for Dutton, the most profound meaning is also the most inclusive, and that is the same as saying all intentions are better than some. I go further and say that since symbols as metaphors are the only way to provoke associations, then the most provocative, the most diverse and fullest associations will be the most meaningful. Deny all meaning to a cup (all uses and symbols, all habits and customs) and you have a potential symbol of anything at all. Include all intentions and associations by choosing none. Create the most potential for subjective associative experience by means of the "meaningless" symbol. An empty cup can hold any drink or serve an infinitude of symbolic functions. The job of the artist is to offer an empty cup. A big one. But even the biggest and seemingly emptiest cup will retain something, an aroma at least. No cup is truly ever empty. No symbol is totally free from evocative "meaning". But we try, and it's a noble effort. We blur and mask the residue. We contradict it by any means we can. We try try try to empty the cup. Whoever succeeds best produces the best art. The best, the most profound art is the most meaningless, the most contradictory, the most paradoxical, and thus finally, the most meaningful. Real art is not only a machine, not only a map, not a only set of directions, illustration, prescriptions and proscriptions. It is the composite amplification and contradiction of all of that. If we could possibly symbolize and therefore evoke all the subjective associations of every person who ever lived and will live, we will have made the greatest work of art, the biggest empty cup, the totality of "make-believe". Courbet famously said, "Show me an angel and I will paint it" to affirm his commitment to the objective world. But in fact he had already "seen" the angel by mentioning it, and had already evoked a host of the associative subjectivity the cultural customs and habits of symbolizing angels. I say that Courbet had already painted the angels when he denied the possibility of doing so. I know because I "see" them, I construct them, through associative subjectivity, when I look at his paintings: his tangled leaves, foamy water, and rocky ground, because I believe that anything can look like something else. Look and perhaps you too will "see Giotto's putti frolicking in Courbet's woodsy grottos. Now we celebrate our American Thanksgiving. It's my all-time favorite holiday for two reasons. One is that it symbolizes the aspiration for universal brotherhood and peace and the other is that John Alden and Priscilla Mullins were my direct 12th generation American ancestors. Imagine their joy. WC ----- Original Message ---- From: Chris Miller <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thu, November 26, 2009 8:36:00 AM Subject: Re: Reading Dutton: Chapter 10 - Four Characteristics of Great Art Yes, "Anything is infinitely complex or simple, as one chooses.", but Dutton is concerned with that complexity which has been presented rather than just any complexity that can be found. Here's the quote, again: "presenting audiences with the highest degree of meaning-complexity that the mind can grasp" As the complexity of a presentation is recognized, it is attributable to the individual presenting it -- serving as that virtuosic display which Dutton claims is the evolutionary origin of the art instinct. Which means that art criticism has to be concerned with the intentions of the artist. (as discussed in Chapter 8), and the critic has to ask "did the artist intend for the work to be seen through a microscope?" -- even if that intention cannot be proven with the same certainty as one might prove the existence of a moon around Saturn. Just as with all the gestures/expressions/responses displayed in courtship. What did he/she really mean by that? Intention is everything, and a lot of guessing or mind reading is required. ............................................................................. .......................... <anything is infinitely complex or simple, as one chooses. I can't think of anything that disproves this. If something is examined for its constituent parts and they seem simple, then one has not looked enough. This was the breakthrough of scientific enlightenment. The invention of the microscope, for instance, revealed "new worlds" hitherto unknown and unimagined. This kind of discovery mode led to the notion that everything can be infinitely complex and what limits our perception are a-priori constraints. wc ____________________________________________________________ Weight Loss Program Best Weight Loss Program - Click Here! http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/c?cp=MhzvydEO01jCZpEUtQmtuwAAJz6c l_zTaptgNR5c8Mer1v9kAAYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEUgAAAAA=
