Re: [peirce-l] Aesthetics, Axiology, and Artistic Truth
Thank you for posting your thoughts on this, Michael! How does the concept of style which you elaborate below relate to Peirce's distinction of 'tone' from 'token' and 'type'? Cheers, Cathy -Original Message- From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On Behalf Of Michael Shapiro Sent: Tuesday, 27 March 2012 9:59 a.m. To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Subject: Aesthetics, Axiology, and Artistic Truth Dear Peirce Listers, Apropos of the recent messages regarding the Peirce Society meeting at SAAP earlier this month in New York, yes, I was there too and heard Tom Short's responses after his paper (unsatisfactory, in my estimation; but he told me that he hadn't slept the night before) with regard to aesthetics. One shouldn't forget that Peirce himself is completely unsatisfactory when it comes to aesthetics (as he is on ethics). Whenever I teach my course on Peirce's theory of interpretation, I tell my students (only half in jest) that my definition of a philosopher is someone who only solves problems of their own devising. By contrast, someone who is confronted with the problem of having to explain the facts of language or literature or music is in a rather different position vis-à-vis the data. My long experience with the analysis of aesthetic objects (mostly poetry and prose) convinces me that ultimately one has to deal with them axiologically, so to speak, by acknowledging the necessity of seeing them as repositories of values. In that light, the question as to why the Mona Lisa is admirable always comes under the concept of STYLE and its HISTORY. It is, moreover, on the grounds of style that one can begin to approach the problem of artistic truth in the spirit of pragmaticism. In case this line of thought is of interest, here are some further observations on the specific role of style. (Comments always welcome.) Style suffuses so much of what it means to be human, and has been the subject of so much analysis, that in order to move it away from problems of introspection and self-awareness one needs to redirect the age-old discussion into a more public arena where the contrast with custom allows insight into the ontology of human activity in general. This can be accomplished when style as a phenomenon that cuts across disciplinary boundaries is viewed TROPOLOGICALLY as a fundamentally COGNITIVE category. A global theory of style entails arguing more closely for the concept of STYLE AS A TROPE OF MEANING; and demonstrating how stylistic analysis can reveal itself not just as a compendium of traditionally taxonomized information but as the means whereby individual manifestations of style, their structural coherences, and their mirroring of signification can be identified and evaluated. I. Form and content. Insofar as the distinction can be clear at all, it does not actually coincide with but cuts across the boundary between what is style and what is not. Style then comprises characteristic features both of what is said or performed or made and of how it is said/performed/made. If it is obvious that style is the regard that what pays to how the faults of this formula are equally obvious. Architecture, nonobjective painting, and most music have no subject, nor do they literally say anything. So the what of one activity may be part of the how of another. No rule based on linguistic form alone could determine, for instance, whether or not a discursive meaning is ironic. In considering linguistic style at least, and perhaps even style generally, it soon emerges that the relation between form and content must in part be described metaphorically. II. Content and expression. One famous theory of style, that of the French scholar Charles Bally, identifies linguistic style with the affective value of the features of organized language and the reciprocal action of the expressive features that together form the system of the means of expression of a language. From this Roman Jakobson fashioned a definition of style as a marked––emotive or poetic––annex to the neutral, purely cognitive information. Aside from the impossibility of consistently separating cognitive from affective information without remainder, it is equally transparent that definitions of style that trade in feelings, emotions, or affects go awry by overlooking not only structural features that are neither feelings nor expressed but also features that though not feelings ARE expressed. III. Difference between stylistic and nonstylistic. A feature of style may be a feature of what is said, of what is exemplified, or of what is expressed. But not all such features are necessarily stylistic. Similarly, features that are clearly stylistic in one work may have no stylistic bearing in another locus. Nelson Goodman writes: A property––whether of statement made, structure displayed, or feeling conveyed––counts as stylistic only when it associates a work with one rather than another artist,
[peirce-l] Aesthetics, Axiology, and Artistic Truth
Dear Peirce Listers, Apropos of the recent messages regarding the Peirce Society meeting at SAAP earlier this month in New York, yes, I was there too and heard Tom Short's responses after his paper (unsatisfactory, in my estimation; but he told me that he hadn't slept the night before) with regard to aesthetics. One shouldn't forget that Peirce himself is completely unsatisfactory when it comes to aesthetics (as he is on ethics). Whenever I teach my course on Peirce's theory of interpretation, I tell my students (only half in jest) that my definition of a philosopher is someone who only solves problems of their own devising. By contrast, someone who is confronted with the problem of having to explain the facts of language or literature or music is in a rather different position vis-à-vis the data. My long experience with the analysis of aesthetic objects (mostly poetry and prose) convinces me that ultimately one has to deal with them axiologically, so to speak, by acknowledging the necessity of seeing them as repositories of values. In that light, the question as to why the Mona Lisa is admirable always comes under the concept of STYLE and its HISTORY. It is, moreover, on the grounds of style that one can begin to approach the problem of artistic truth in the spirit of pragmaticism. In case this line of thought is of interest, here are some further observations on the specific role of style. (Comments always welcome.) Style suffuses so much of what it means to be human, and has been the subject of so much analysis, that in order to move it away from problems of introspection and self-awareness one needs to redirect the age-old discussion into a more public arena where the contrast with custom allows insight into the ontology of human activity in general. This can be accomplished when style as a phenomenon that cuts across disciplinary boundaries is viewed TROPOLOGICALLY as a fundamentally COGNITIVE category. A global theory of style entails arguing more closely for the concept of STYLE AS A TROPE OF MEANING; and demonstrating how stylistic analysis can reveal itself not just as a compendium of traditionally taxonomized information but as the means whereby individual manifestations of style, their structural coherences, and their mirroring of signification can be identified and evaluated. I. Form and content. Insofar as the distinction can be clear at all, it does not actually coincide with but cuts across the boundary between what is style and what is not. Style then comprises characteristic features both of what is said or performed or made and of how it is said/performed/made. If it is obvious that style is the regard that what pays to how the faults of this formula are equally obvious. Architecture, nonobjective painting, and most music have no subject, nor do they literally say anything. So the what of one activity may be part of the how of another. No rule based on linguistic form alone could determine, for instance, whether or not a discursive meaning is ironic. In considering linguistic style at least, and perhaps even style generally, it soon emerges that the relation between form and content must in part be described metaphorically. II. Content and expression. One famous theory of style, that of the French scholar Charles Bally, identifies linguistic style with the affective value of the features of organized language and the reciprocal action of the expressive features that together form the system of the means of expression of a language. From this Roman Jakobson fashioned a definition of style as a marked––emotive or poetic––annex to the neutral, purely cognitive information. Aside from the impossibility of consistently separating cognitive from affective information without remainder, it is equally transparent that definitions of style that trade in feelings, emotions, or affects go awry by overlooking not only structural features that are neither feelings nor expressed but also features that though not feelings ARE expressed. III. Difference between stylistic and nonstylistic. A feature of style may be a feature of what is said, of what is exemplified, or of what is expressed. But not all such features are necessarily stylistic. Similarly, features that are clearly stylistic in one work may have no stylistic bearing in another locus. Nelson Goodman writes: A property––whether of statement made, structure displayed, or feeling conveyed––counts as stylistic only when it associates a work with one rather than another artist, period, region, school, etc. But there is no discovery procedure for the isolation of stylistic features, nor is there a fixed catalogue of stylistic properties or traits. Not every property that points in the direction of a certain author/performer/maker is necessarily stylistic in purport. IV. Perception and recognition of style. The registering and
