Analytical Philosophy and the Study of Art

Analytical Philosophy and the Study of Art Author(s): Arnold Isenberg Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 46, Analytic Aesthetics (1987), pp. 125-136 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/431270 Accessed: 09/10/2010 18:20 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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ARNOLD ISENBERG

Analytical and The Introduction

Philosophy Study of Art thus narroweddown, it is still too large to be treatedexhaustively. I thereforetake the risk of generalizing, in brief compass, about the work being done and the work that might be done in the various departmentsof art study. It is a trite saying among studentsof philosophy that when the right questions have been asked, the battle is won. This much at least is true: it takes hard work and thinking merely to frame questions in such a way that they can be investigated and answered. The formulationof programslike those which appearin the appendix to this reportcan be carriedto any degree of intensiveness. At one end of the scale, one might pose large and vague queries, like "What is the difference between Form and Content?" and give counsels of perfection for their investigation. At the other extreme, one might outline a project so fully as almost to have carried it out. The dilemma has a real pertinence here because, of course, the best evidence for the value of any programof research would be the fact that it had already been done well; and at whatever point one stops short of complete execution, there is that much less assurance of good results. At every point in this paper I have tried to reach a compromise between sketchiness and outright exposition. If I have been successful, the stated tasks should appear convincing as tasks without assuming any particularviews or conclusions.

to be explored in this report1is whetherfruitfulrelationshipscan be established among three disciplines: analyticalphilosophy, aesthetics, and historico-criticalart study. Aesthetics, though not (it seems to me) in a thriving condition at the moment, unquestionably has a vast futurebefore it. The numberand range of problems which "ought" to be investigated and solved is boundless. To make some selection from this medley, I proposeto confine myself, first, to those questions which I think can be treated successfully now, with current methods and information. In short, we are not drawingup a mere list of desideratabut surveying topics which have some concrete promisein them. A second limitation which I accept is set by contemporary interests in the arts. The best thing that philosophy can do for the art studies is to bring some clarity to those issues with which modem criticism is rife-which have arisen "naturally," as it were, out of recent aestheticpreoccupations.For this reasonI avoid those ancient and well-trodden grounds of the aesthetician-The AestheticObject, The Nature of the Aesthetic Experience, The Natureof the CreativeAct-important as these topics are and large as is the amountof work which remainsto be done on them. Anothertraditionalchapterof aesthetics-variously titled the Problem of Taste, the Principles of Criticism, Evaluation, the Verifiabilityof Aesthetic Judgments-is so I. Analytical Philosophy very much alive today in all branches of commentary, and is so full of unsolved but soluble Philosophicalanalysis is a method of clarifypredicaments,that we cannot well ignore it. ing ideas by revealing their essential constituWhen the province of this report has been ents. It has something in common with every other attemptto study a thing by breakingit up into its parts, e.g., chemical analysis, psychoTHELATE ARNOLD ISENBERG was professor of philosophy at Michigan State University. analysis, the critical analysis of a poem. A THE QUESTION

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distinguishingfeature of philosophical analysis (though there are others) is that it analyzes concepts or ideas. I shall hereafter take the libertyof using the shortterm "analysis" when I mean philosophical analysis. The ideas which are made the subjects of analysis are takenfrom common speech or from science, history, morals, jurisprudence, or some other pursuit. These ideas are initially unclear, so that people ask questions about them beginning with "What": What is time? What is truth?What is freedom? What is art? What is education?When they ask these questions, people usually feel confused ratherthan ignorant:they are not looking for information so much as for an explication of meaning. Analysis is supposed to satisfy their queries by providing acceptable definitions. Ideas have logical relations with other ideas; hence the analysis of one idea is apt to involve the analysis of others. For example, a good analysis of "knowledge" should fit together with a good analysis of "truth," of "probability," and so on. A really successful analysis of any important concept would result in a whole theory or system of a subject. This point is made in orderto suggest both the grandscope and the difficulty, the complexity, of analytical philosophy. The analytic methodwas, so far as we know, invented by Socrates; it was practisedby Plato in most of his dialogues. It has always had great prestige. I do not know of any philosophy, no matterhow firmly committed to a speculative, empirical, or transcendentalmethod, that does not also sometimesemploy analysis;and I know of no philosopher who will not admit that analysis is one of the necessary and legitimate methods of philosophy. In the presentcentury, however, we have had groups of philosophers much more consciously and exclusively devoted to analysis than any of their predecessors since the time of Hume. The most eminent of these groupsare the "Cambridgeschool" (Russell, Moore, Broad) and the "Vienna Circle" (Schlick, Wittgenstein, Carnap). These men have had a strong influence on the practice of philosophy in recent times. Analysis, then, is nowadays something of a "movement"; but this is of less interest to us than the inherent potentialities of the analytic method.

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A good many analysts are known for the advocacy of certain theses, among them the thesis that analysis is the only propermethodof philosophizing.More importantthanthis or any other controversial doctrine of theirs is their persistentuse of analysis in their regularwork. We may reasonably assume that those who believe in a certain method can be trusted, better than others, to employ that method with skill and caution;to be awareof its possibilities, its obligations, its risks and pitfalls. It is the contribution that accomplished analysts can make to aestheticstudies thatI wish presentlyto consider. There can be no doubt that the revival of analysis in this centuryhas had valuableeffects upon some of the main branchesof philosophy. Many problems in epistemology, logic, and ethics have been treated with an almost unexampled rigor. New lines of inquiry have been opened up and pursuedwith patience and care. A good deal of light has been shed on some philosophical ideas that have been obscure for centuries. And conservative philosophers, who resist some of the more comprehensiveclaims made by the logical analysts, have been forced to examine and restate their positions. Against this record of accomplishmentmust be set the fact that analytic philosophers have often a restricted range of interests and apply themselves only to matterswhich have already a high technical status. Many rich and fruitful problems of psychology, ethics, social and religious philosophy which are eminently susceptible of analytic treatmentare handledtoday by phenomenologists, existentialists, Marxists, and schools of theology. There exists something of a cleavage in philosophy between the practitionersof exact method and the students of humane subjects. Aesthetics (see next section) is one field which has so far not benefited by the contemporarydevelopment of analysis. I believe this to be an accident and a reparable one. There is nothing about the subject that makes it hostile to analytictreatment;there is much in the subject that demands analytic treatment.To illustratethis point, we have only to discover ideas, essential to the various art studies, that seem to be in need of clarification. But the truth is that one would find it hard to mention any concept of aesthetics or art criticism thatdoes not standin need of clarification.

Analytical Philosophy and The Study of Art At the present moment and for some time past analysis has been the subject of spirited discussion in philosophy. Every feature of the method has become controversial. What is it that we analyze ("words"? "thoughts"? "meanings"'? "sentences"? "judgments"? "propositions"?)? How can the analyzandum and the analyzans have the same meaning and yet be different (the "paradox of analysis")? What is the decisive criterion for the acceptability of an analysis'?Is it "truth," or "correctness": does an analysis terminate in the formulationof a "real definition"? Is it "convenience,'"the watch-wordof nominalism?Is it "fruitfulness''-the pragmaticor heuristictest? Granted that one of these criteria, or some combination of them, is the right one, can we apply it to specific analyses in such a manneras to know with finality whether they are sound? The last question is obviously of some interest to anyone who wishes to judge the merits of philosophical approachesto the arts. An observer of the philosophic scene might conclude, from the prevalanceof disagreement and dissatisfaction,that nobody has a clear idea of what an analysis is; more, that the analytic method itself is a sort of quagmire where it is impossible to reach solid ground. One could not expect much, in aesthetics, from the application of a method the definition of which was uncertain and the results of which, in practice, were treacherousand confusing. But this conclusion would be very superficial. For, in the first place, contemporaryarguments about analysis are no mere repetitionof ancient and insoluble disputes. They occur at a much more advanced level of complexity and incorporatewithin themselves the fruits of previous enlightenments.At their best, they begin where older students of analysis left off. The amount of disagreement may be as great as ever; but the plane of disagreementis higher in the dimension of technicality, intensiveness, and circumspection. There are fundamental questions about the nature of analysis which have still to receive a definitive formulation;but this does not mean that philosophers have no common sense of the characterof the analytic method. In the second place, I believe we may deny that the profitableanalysis of problems in philosophy waits upon a successful analysis of

127 analysis. There is a fair consensus of opinion aboutthe meritsof certainanalyses even among philosophers who have different views about analysis: I should think there was no analytical philosopher who would deny that certain passages in Plato, Hume's analysis of cause, Russell's theory of number, were good (though not final) analyses of their respective topics. In fact, a common mode of discussing analysis is to assume, on the basis of the ordinaryanalytic intelligence, that such-and-such is a good example of analytic procedure, and to generalize from such examples. It is possible that the development of explicit criteria of analysis would help us to discriminate good analyses (say, of aesthetic concepts) from bad ones; but to believe that we are helpless until we have such criteria is to be involved in hopeless difficulties. For, of course, we reach criteriaof analysis by analyzing analysis; and this presupposes that we can attain some degree of clarification without those instruments which are being forged in the process. For these reasons1 assume, in the sequel, that the merits of analyses can be judged by men practised in analysis and will not attempt to state abstractcriteria for telling the good analyses from the bad. We may conclude this section by observing that the analytic method has been applied with particularlygood effect to the study of other methods, e.g., the methods of the natural and the social sciences. It is probablytrue that few among even the most brilliantscientists have as good an understandingof the nature, methods, limits, and aims of science as the average well-trainedinstructorin logic; and one is often surprisedat the blunderscommittedby eminent scientists when they discuss these topics. But the essential point is ratherthis: that a physicist or a biologist who has confused ideas of what "science" and "scientific method" are is not the less competent in his own field for that; whereas a logician with the same confused ideas is incompetentin his field. In other words, the analysis of scientific method belongs to philosophy ratherthan to science itself. We could draw a similar distinction between the practising moralist (Swift, Voltaire, Emerson) and the analytic moral philosopher, who may be a moralisttoo but is professionally concernedwith the clarificationof moral ideas.2

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II. Aesthetics Philosophical aesthetics is an analysis of the concepts and principles of criticism and other aesthetic studies, such as the psychology of art. I could take up many pages, to no very good purpose, trying to explain and justify this definition. It is not intended to be restrictive. "Aesthetics" is sometimes taken as a name for general art knowledge (Kunstwissenschaft). Again, it is sometimes identified with the higher and more theoretical types of art criticism; for instance, Coleridge is regarded as an aesthetician when he gives a definition of poetry though not when he examines passages from Shakespeare. Again, the American Psychological Association has a Division of Aesthetics, the members of which are not concerned with anything that we would call analysis but, for the most part, with finding empirical correlations among different factors in the creative or the appreciative process. Finally, we may notice that philosophical works on aesthetics are themselves seldom purely analytical; they are mixtures of metaphysical speculation, critical appreciation,psychological theorizing, and so on. Analytical aesthetics has a preliminary,critical, and reflective role in relationto these other activities. It concerns itself with the clarity of their premises, the meaning of their statements, and the characterof their methods-of which they are themselves frequentlynot aware. The study of aesthetics, in the hands of professional philosophers,has always been to some degree analytical. The question that I consider worthseriousattentionis whethera more singleminded and rigorous applicationof analysis to aestheticproblems,by its conscious and avowed devotees, can make an importantcontribution.If we answer this question in the affirmative, it is not to disparage traditional and current approaches. I may cite as an example a book like Dewey's Art as Experience. This book is a hodgepodge of conflicting methods and undisciplined speculations. Yet it is full of profound and stimulating suggestions. One cannot help being grateful that it was written;but one may also see the need for something else. The chief reasonfor an emphasis upon analytic methodin aesthetics is simply that every other system and method of philosophy has had its chance; anal-

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ysis, in the proficient modem sense, has not. I may now describe the situation in contemporaryaesthetics. There are six salient points to be made. i. Few among those persons who are known for their abilities as analysts are at all interested in the problemsof aesthetics. This holds trueof older men of outstandingreputation,with a few exceptions such as C.J. Ducasse and C.I. Lewis. (It is astonishingto thinkthatnone of the leaders of the analytic movement, such as Moore and Russell, have ventured into a field that was not shunned by Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, or Kant.) And it is true, by and large, of younger men now teaching in departments of philosophy. It is much less unusualto meet a philosopherwho is a good violinist or an amateurphotographerthan to meet one who is familiar with critical terminology or the issues in the philosophy of art. ii. Conversely, as I have suggested above, few aestheticians practice any sort of strict analytic method. It is also curious to observe how many of those analysts who do occasionally write on aesthetic topics throw their analytic scruples and equipment to the winds as soon as they get into this strangeterritory. iii. Among those who have broughtanalytic techniquesto bear upon aesthetic subjects there is a tendency to keep to limited or abstract problems which are closely connected with those they are studying in logic or epistemology. Thus, there will be a brief and generalized account of "poetic language" in a book concerned with the philosophy of language3or an account of aesthetic valuation in a book on knowledge and valuation;4and there are essays on "Poetry and Truth," "Art and Knowledge," "The Validation of Aesthetic Judgments." We have had, in recent times, grandiose nonanalytic treatments of aesthetic experience; but we have no comprehensive analysis of artor poetryof a distinctionequal to an older work like Ducasse's Philosophy of Art. Nevertheless, the class of people who have made clear-cut though modest analyses of special problems in aesthetics deserves attention. Critics and art historians, teachers, and graduate students of literature, have something to learn from them. In some cases, no doubt, they are capable of larger contributionsthan those they have so far made.

Analytical Philosophy and The Study of Art iv. Some analysts of great ability who have not writtenupon aesthetics may neverthelessbe valuable as critics and consultants. v. There is nothing fool-proof about analytic method. Philosophers are constantly finding objections to each other's analyses. The merits of an analysis depend upon its author's ability, which includes a factorof talent and originality: nothing is guaranteedby the use of the analytic method as such. I think it desirable to call this somewhat obvious point to the attentionof the Foundation, lest I appear to be making exaggeratedclaims for analysis. One might urge that there has been no dearthof analysis in the field of aesthetics, that what is really needed is not analyses but good analyses. Naturally, this raises the difficult question of estimation; but nothing is to be gained by avoiding a recognition of that difficulty. vi. Finally, I believe we may say thatthe best work in the field is to be done, if it is done at all, by young and unknown people. These people will appear if and when graduate students become convinced that aesthetics is worth studying. Analytically minded students of philosophy nowadays try to learn something about sciences such as mathematics or psychology. When they believe thatcriticism and art history also deserve their attention, when students of literaturecome to feel that they must go far into logic and philosophy, there will be some prospect of advances in aesthetics. Such a catalysis can be broughtabout only by the appearanceof work which, though small in amount, is challenging and distinguished.The subject, analytical aesthetics, remains largely to be created. III. The Art Studies The range of currentwork dealing directly or indirectly with the arts is practically limitless. The following is a list, admittedlyincomplete, of types of study dealing with literaturealone: . . .textual criticism and the preparationof standard editions; factual commentaries offering a neutral ,objective" digest of historical, biographical, bibliographicaldata and theories;a comprehensivetechnic of bibliography,discovery and verificationof authorship, of dates, periods, localities of origin and migrationof themes, motifs, images, forms, phrases, and so forth; literary sources . ... linguistic, lexicographic, semasiological, grammatical,rhetoricalstudies....5

129 Mathematics, physics, chemistry, statistics, biology, psychoanalysis-every branch of knowledge has been made to contributeto the aesthetic disciplines.6 Multifarious activities like these make up a total picture which is somewhat bewildering. It is not surprising,then, that some students have felt the need for a methodicalsurvey, an attempt to organize the whole field, distinguishing among the various subjects and methods and showing their relationships. Thus we have the classification of literary studies advocated by T. C. Pollock. Literarytheory should be distinguishedfrom literary criticism, the latterdefined as the evaluationand in this sense the interpretationof works of literature,and from the companion of literary criticism, the theory of criticism, defined as the formulationof general principles on the basis of which critical evaluations may be made. As distinct from these the theory of literatureis . . .the formulation, objectively and with regard for problems of value, of general knowledge of the nature of literature.7

Wellek and Warren prefer a different arrangement: It seems best to draw attention to these distinctions by describing as 'literary theory" the study of the principlesof literature. . . and by differentiatingstudies of concrete works of art as either "literary criticism" or 'literary history." . . . The term "theory of literature"might well include-as this book doesthe necessary '"theoryof literarycriticism" and '"theory of literaryhistory."8

One could mentionother systems and distinctions which have been proposed by various writers. We need not discuss the comparativemerits of these classificatory schemes. I would like to point out, first, that they overlap; second, that they do not agree;third, thatthey are one and all concerned with the subject matterand methods of other disciplines. The line of inquiry is "metalinguistic": it is about criticism or art historyor stylistics; it does not fall within any of these domains. It belongs in fact to philosophy. The most elementary distinctions among art studies-even those which are presupposedby the section headings of this report-sooner or later requirethe application of refined analytic methods. Let us suppose, for instance, that we began with a fairly acceptable distinction

130 between art history and art criticism. It would quickly appearthat most books about art contain elements of both: most histories of art are critical, most critics use historical information. But, more than that, we should find authors insisting, with good reason, that history is an essential ingredient (or "moment") within the critical process and that historicalresearchcannot be conducted without evaluation-just as (so we are told) there is a critical phase in the composition of the work of art and a creative aspect to criticism. But this is bound to complicate the original definitions. The discrimination of the art studies on the basis of the methods they employ is itself one of the most valuable and necessary projects that this report can envisage. We have, then, a first question as to the methods of the art studies and the subject (called "methodology," "theory of literature," "theoryof artcriticism," and so on) that studies those methods. Critics, historians,editors, teachersnormally absorbedin the primaryproblemsof interpretation frequentlyturnaside and write or lectureon the tools of their trades. There are excellent reasons why they should do so. At certain stages in the developmentof any subject, problems of method become compelling. Some of the narrower specialities have, to be sure, attained a stable footing. "The science of bibliography" is relatively well defined; etymology, iconology, certainpartsof musicology are channels in which scholarship can move ahead without much self-questioning. (At that, we have many articlesand volumes on Methods of TextualCriticism, Principlesof Emendation, etc.) But the status of the larger questions remains obscure. There is, for instance, a difference between the interpretationof an obsolete word in Shakespeareand the interpretation of a characterin Shakespeare.These two questions are theoreticallyof the same type; yet the first can usually be determinedwith accuracy, while the second commonly leads to ontological and epistemologicalentanglements(see below). Besides these internalincentives for the discussion of method, there are others which are provided by conflicts of teaching method and teaching aim. Scholars usually believe in the importance of their own lines of work and advocate their diffusion through the curricu-

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lum-or the nation. Our arts departmentsare governed very largely by technical historians, who draw up requirementswhich do not agree very well with the intellectual proclivities of students. These specialists are challenged by social and cultural historians, who again have quarrelswithin their own family. Meanwhile, the very premises of the historicalapproachare questionedby moralisticcritics or by the advocates of a "pure" criticism. An interest in the methods of criticism, the relations between history and criticism, and cognate questions is fostered incessantlyby these controversiesover educationalpolicy. For these and other reasons, a secondary literaturedealing with the problemsof the artstudies has arisen and grown to enormous proportions. Language associations have devoted whole meetings and whole issues of their proceedings to debatesover method.Manyvolumes devoted wholly to questions of method appear each year; and in most primaryworks of scholarshipwe find eithera separateessay or a passing opinion about "the sociological approach to literature," "methods of art interpretation," "the importanceof the history of ideas for the appreciationof literature," and similar topics. As for the criticism, not a month or a week passes without articles on "The Role of the Critic" or "The Functionof Criticism" written by scholars,critics, or literarymen. Books about "the principlesof criticism" have been a wellestablishedgenre since the eighteenthcentury.9 This body of writingcontainsevery degree of thoughtfulness,adequacy, insight, and suggestiveness, accordingto the authorand the chapter or page that we happento examine. I have, however, to express an opinion as to its encompassing limitations-without taking all the space that would be needed to substantiatemy opinion. These writers are engaged in philosophical analysis. There is no particularreason why philosophizing should not be done, and done well, by people who have not taken their degrees in philosophy;and we find, in fact, that the most interesting work of the type we are considering has been done by art historians or critics ratherthan by professionalphilosophers. Yet these men, trainedin responsibilityto their own primarycrafts, are unawareof the responsibilities of analysis and tend, as analysts, to be slack, casual, amatuerish,and informal.

Analytical Philosophy and The Study of Art We may first consider an example. In the context of an interpretationof Shakespeare's characters, the distinguished German scholar, Schticking, enunciates the following principle: If we fix our attention on the manifestation of his characterfrom the very beginning of the play, we shall be better able to recognize it than by investigating minutely what Hamlet was before the events related in the play. This point of view, which is taken, e.g., by Kuno Fischer, Bradley, etc., must be regardedas quite erroneous if only for the reason that it always comes perilously near confounding art and reality. Only what has been present in the poet's consciousness can be adducedfor the purposeof explaining artisticcreations. In the case of an imaginedfigure we cannot speak of its past unless the poet himself does so. To attempt itisi reconstructionfrom the given facts is ridiculous. As well might we look underthe frameof the picture for a continuation of the scene representedon the canvas. Hence it is amazing that even a great and serious critic like Dowden should think it worth while to reflect on the probabilityof Hamlet's having been influenced by the fact that during the reign of the strong-willedelder Hamlet his introspectiveson was not compelled to take an active part in affairs. This would be an ingenious inference in the case of a real person, but it is comical if we are dealing with a fictitious character, whose naturecan obviously not be determinedby such reflections . . .

This passage would not serve our purpose if it were chosen as an example of poor thinking on its particular subject. There is always a degree of confusion prevalent among the general run in any profession; and one could make out a case against any class of scholars by confining one's attentionto the more muddled specimensof the class. But thereis an important difference between the unclearideas of individuals and the unclarified status of certain concepts. The latteris what interestsus throughout this report;and Schiicking's passage is cited as a good, plausible, even brilliantexample of its kind. It is obvious that Schficking, in this passage, is not interpretingShakespearebut statinga rule of methodfor the interpretationof Shakespeare; also, that this rule of method is philosophical, since it involves a distinction between art and reality. How seriously is the authorcommitted to the implications of his rule of method? A close textual critic like Kittredgecan infer that Hamlet must have been speaking with some of his "friends among the King's counsellors"thoughthe fact is not statedin the text-because

131 he seems to know about his approachingtrip to England in the thirdact althoughthe King does not announce it to him until the fourth.11 In other words, Kittredge explains an apparent inconsistency in the play by invoking an assumed event that is not in the play. In another place, the same critic declares that Macbeth's speech (act v, scene iii). "I have lived long enough. My way of life ..., " though it contains no mention of Duncan, implicitly alludes to Duncan.12 Kittredge's interpolations and extrapolations are less speculative, less extensive than those of a psychoanalytic critic like ErnestJones, who goes all the way back to Hamlet's infancy; they may be betterjustified, on the textual evidence, than Jones's; but they are similar to Jones's in attempting to reconstruct the absent phases of an "imagined figure." Does Schucking mean to say that all such attemptsare necessarily ridiculous? If so, we could point out that such inferences do not rest upon any "confusion between art and reality." For when we reconstructthe past or the future of a fictitious figure, we are talking about a fictitious past and a fictitious future. What is precluded, in the case of the literary work, is the verification, e.g., of Hamlet's past by documents, memories, interrogationof witnesses, etc., not the imaginary existence of such a past, which may be more or less directly suggested by the text. Of course, these reconstructionsare of unequalmerit;some are indeed absurd, as Schucking says; but there must be other principles, which Schucking does not mention, by which we discriminate among them-for instance, a principle of aesthetic relevance. The point of view expressed by Schucking has become a fashionable critical cliche. But I do not know of any really careful examination of the issue. It is no clearer, no better understood today thanwhen MauriceMorgann,in the eighteenth century, brashly advancedthe thesis that "in Dramaticcomposition, the Impression is the Fact." It has not been my purpose to refute Schticking's ideas but to show that his attitude towardsthe question of method that he raises in passing is somewhatcavalier. A similar attitude towardsthe substantivequestion of characteror plot in Hamlet would be regardedby him and his colleagues as disgraceful. Yet this attitude

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is, in my judgment, typical of the critic or scholar turned philosopher. His reflections upon methodare struckoff as by-productsof his daily occupation. They contain a mixture of considerations of different type or level. The shop talk of the craftsmanis confused with the theory of the craft, which is a branch of the theory of knowledge. It seldom happens that a course on evidence in law school, which discusses (for instance) the admissibilityof certain types of testimony, should identify itself with the "theory of evidence" which is another name for logic; or that a book on "methods of historical research" should mix up questions about the authenticityof documents with questions about the natureof historical knowledge. Yet such confusions are customaryin the theory of art study. Broad remarks about the fundamental purpose of criticism, narrow rules of thumb which have been useful to the authorin his work, a few objections to prevailing practices among contemporaries,a few intelligent suggestions as to paths of thought that deserve to be opened up, some ideas of theses that belong in the field ratherthan in an essay about it, some inconclusive examples (often minutely analyzed) which are supposed to prove general principlesaboutthe distinctionbetween creativity and criticism or the relation of art and knowledge or the bearingof historicalerudition upon criticaljudgment-all these are scrambled together with a fine disregardfor logical order and coherence. It is as if a treatiseon scientific method should have something to say, within a single chapter, on i) deduction and induction; ii) how to set up laboratory apparatus; iii) whether fruitful hypotheses are apt to occur in dreams; iv) why ESP has not been proved scientifically; v) science and religion; and so on. Withoutbelittling any of these questions, it should be obvious to us that, mingled in this fashion, none of them could be followed out very far. The same topics, in the hands of persons trainedin logical analysis, could be treatedwith unexampledclarity and rigor. For logical analysts, however, the danger lies in lack of familiaritywith the concrete subject-matterand its problems, leading to an excessive abstractness. Even today there are some good ideas in theoreticalaesthetics which are ignored by critics and historians because of their forbidding

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dryness, their apparent lack of relevance to practical pursuits. A thorough acquaintance with the rich though incoherent reflections of men working in the mines are the corrective to this philosophicalremoteness. IV. The Significance of Method We have so far considered only the type of work which, like that of Richards, Pollock, Wellek, and Warren,sets itself to interpretthe concepts and methods of the aesthetic disciplines. We must now ask whether a good analysis of this type would have useful implications for the actual conduct of those disciplines; for it is the art studies themselves which must ultimately increase our understandingof the human imaginationand its works. This is really a philosophicalquestion of the first magnitude, and we can attempt only a summary treatmentof it. It can be plausibly maintained that the "philosophy of science" does nothing and can do nothing to promote actual progress in the sciences. It has no implications for the procedureof scientists; it merely analyzes those techniques, clarifies those ideas, which are already current in a given field. Surely, the analysis of the notion of "evidence" in the theory of probabilityand induction does not contributeany evidence towards the solution of any scientific controversy. Nor can we maintain with confidence that it provides the working scientist with standardsfor judging his evidence that he does not already possess. Stevenson has made a similar point with respect to the bearing of "ethical analysis" upon the practicalwork of the moralist.'3 Now it is certainlytrue that no philosophical analysis can devise methods which it imposes on a science from the outside. Every idea of method must come from the study of methods already employed in the field. But those methods which have led to the best resultsin one part of the field may be unrecognized, or may be merely implicit, or may be mixed up with barren methods, in the rest of the field. An explicit formulationof method, then, can lead to a greaterawareness of direction and aim; it can eliminate waste activity; it can increase the general efficiency of research. Such an influence of philosophy upon science is perhaps

Analytical Philosophy and The Study of Art imperceptibleat the presenttime, for the simple reason that a highly efficient "hypotheticodeductive-experimental" method has become institutionalized in the natural sciences: it is engrained in the working habits even of those scientists who have never taken a course in logic. But if we were living in the time of Bacon and Descartes, when the very idea of science was in a state of confusion, such a question as whetherscience concerns itself with efficient or final causes would be rathermomentousfor the future of science. And in the science of psychology today, the methodologicalprinciplesof the structuralist,behaviorist, Gestalt, and psychoanalytic schools-which are really philosophical theses of a vague and primitivetypeare clearly bound up with the kinds of work that are being done. We can at once draw a conclusion for the theory and practiceof criticism. A good theory of criticism should not and could not reform critical practice from the ground up. But by separatingout, from the welter of reactionsthat pass for criticism, those lines of thoughtwhich have proved fruitful, and by explaining their tendency, it can encourage harderand sharper attacks in the same directions. The greater the degree of disorder in any subject-matter, the more significant becomes the question of method. A considerableemphasis upon method may be a symptom of distress and stagnation;but it may also very well be the only possible cure. Now, by any reasonable standard, the humane sciences are today in a state of disorder. We have already remarked thatthe more strictlypedantictypes of historical scholarshipstand in no particularneed of methodological scrutiny. A studentwho is to occupy himself with tracingthe source of certain spellings in a groupof old manuscriptscan, afterone course in card catalogues, handle any question that will ever occur to him. Critical and historical ideas about literatureand the arts, which are of much greateramountto the human race, are another matter: it is these that present the picture of confusion. I may illustrate by discussing a group of contemporaryworks which have certain qualities in common. I am thinkingof books like RosamundTuve, Elizabethanand MetaphysicalImagery;Moody E. Prior, The Language of Tragedy; E. M. W. Tillyard, Poetry Direct and Oblique; Maud

133 Bodkin, Archetypal Patterns in Poetry; Chard Powers Smith, Pattern and Variationin Poetry; William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity; and Kenneth Burke, A Grammar of Motives. Comparableworks by studentsof music and the plastic arts could be mentioned. Each of these works displays powes of critical appreciation, as the reader can tell by noticing what happens to his own reading of poetry undertheir influence. Most of them also contain historical information, more or less general, more or less novel: Miss Tuve, for example, demonstrates the influence of Ramus's logic on the poetry of the seventeenth century. But over and above its collection of facts and insights, each work is built around a theory, a hypothesis, a general idea. In one case, it is a distinction between "intellectual" and "sensuous" imagery; in anothera conception of varieties of multiple meaning;in a third, the thesis that the diction of tragic drama is, "'essentially" and not "superficially," connected with the tragic structureand idea. I have classed these works together because of the presence in each of this theoretical element together with the commoner critical and historical motives. Now in even the most backward of the sciences, general ideas like these would quickly find a place in a continuous movement of research. They would attachthemselves to earlier ideas as corollaries, generalizations, revisions, or refutations. They would be taken up by later writersand, if found to have any merit, would be built upon-explored, retested, applied to new and related subjects. A careless reader of literaryjournals might imagine that the present works have a similar role within a frameworkof their own. There is, indeed, an appearanceof continuity and progress. All the authorscriticize some of their predecessorsand express indebtednessto others. Their own ideas are minutely examined in the reviews and subsequentlyreferredto in doctoraltheses. One writer acts upon another as a stimulant or a provocation. There are flurries of discussion which resemble the explicit work of evaluation that goes on in the sciences. But when the smoke blows away, nothing solid remains: there is no real advance towards truth. Factual study, in art history, at least makes progress towards quantitativeaccumulation;but literary

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theory makes no progress towards greater objectivity, precision, generality, and comprehensiveness. Ideas, instead of being incorporated within a persistent intellectual effort where other ideas can be mountedupon them, fall into a miscellaneous "tradition" where they affect each other by invisible shoves and electric shocks. No work has had a createrinfluence on recent aesthetic thinking than Empson's Seven Types. Yet among all its fervent admirers I doubtthatone personcould be found who could say what the seven types are, how one type is differentfrom another,why there arejust seven types, or how these "types of ambiguity" are related to the study of mental processes or the theory of ambiguity in logic. Empson's book, to be sure, retains all its value as a critical study. But no such theoretical apparatuswas required for that purpose; in fact, there is no reason for a theory like Empson's unless it is meant to be taken seriously as a theory. Certain qualifications should, perhaps, be allowed. One might point to a few areas in which arttheoryseems to be moving aheadand, on the other hand, to periods when the sciences themselves seem to proceed by a succession of fashions and emphases. One might also find it strangethatthe foregoing criticism shouldcome from the camp of philosophy, the status of whose problems is dubious indeed. But it is even more importantto understandthe point of view from which this criticism is being made. It would clearly be wrong to attemptto discourage the appearanceof books like those mentioned above-rich works with manifold values, straddling several departmentsof thought. A humanist is, almost by definition, one who seeks balanceand a roundedview and is not interested in intensive inquiry leading to definite "results"; and many humanisticworks of the past exhibit a play of intelligence upon many topics without systematicallycultivatingany one. One may go further and, with Howard Mumford Jones, deplore an excessive emphasis upon the study of art at the expense of those values of enjoyment which are sought by the average cultured person. One may even admit, going beyond Mr. Jones, that the arts themselves can have only a limited role in the outlook and life of the professional, business, or working man: arts and letters are "specialities" when compared with experience in general. And, as a

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final concession to those who may object to the argumentof this section, let us make it clear that the specifically critical effort is probably not to

be judged by any canons of scientific progress. To set up the positivist ideal of "getting somewhere" for the criticismof artis to impose an aim foreign to its nature-though, we must add, an aim which many critics seem to accept when they talk about each other's works. Yet none of these points impeaches the desirability of intellectual progress. They do not make it less regrettablethat scholarshipshould be divided between pedantrywhich is exact and objective and theory which is nebulous and transient.The themes and issues of the authors namedabove (andof manyothers like them) are the really exciting matterof the humanities.It is these authorsthemselves, incidentally, who set up their theoreticalobjectives: if we were talking about straight biography, appreciation, or historicalreconstruction,all of the presentstrictures would be beside the point. Now if we ask why interesting and important projects like these have accomplishedso little, the answer is fairly simple. These writers, with no lack either of brilliance or of care, are irresponsible because there is no clear-cutsubject or method to which they can be responsible. Their thinking, in spite of reciprocal influences, is strictly individual. Any of the strands interwoven in their work would, if followed out, lead over into psychology or general linguistics or aesthetics or logic, whither the authorsare by no means concerned to follow them. Thus, Miss Tuve's distinction between "intellectual" and "sensuous" images, though it belongs to psychology, has no benefit of psychological analysis and would be completely obscure to any student of psychology. It is quite sufficiently clear for her various nontheoreticalpurposes, historical and critical; but it cannot be of any use for a theory of imagery. Mr. Tillyard's categories, "direct" and "oblique," make no sense whatever to a student of symbolism, though they serve well enough to convey the particularcritical opinions of the author. The hybridityof these works is at the very opposite pole from a genuine synthesis of methods or subject matters;instead of infusing one discipline with the explicit principles of another, they exemplify a general unclarity as to the requirementsof any method.14 They subsist at

Analytical Philosophy and The Study of Art an undifferentiatedfetal stage of inquiry, where any of numerous tendencies, if encouraged, would result in something that could be called fish or flesh or good red herring. Returningnow to the questionthat was asked at the beginningof this section, I believe we can answer it in the affirmative. In an unfortunate situation we can always prescribe genius as a remedy; and for all I know, the theory of art may tomorrowtake an immense stride through the efforts of some brilliant person. But if we are looking for a humbler practical recipe, we must return to our diagnosis. The path of literaryand art theory is clogged by an unconscious competition of purposes, each maiming or hinderingthe others. A critique of methods, producingan awarenessof the commitmentsof each, might not of itself generate brilliantnew attacks upon the old problems; but it is a sine qua non. V. Qualifications An ideal equipment for the philosophical analyst of aesthetic problems would be a combination of backgroundsand abilities such as perhaps no living person has. In a more moderate conception of a qualified person we need to consider the relative importanceof different sorts of talent or attainment. Analytical trainingand ability is, clearly, the prime requisitefor such tasks as we consider in this report. The analyst must be the leading partnerin any collaborativeattackupon them. It seems less unlikely that he should have, or be able to acquire, a familiaritywith the problems of the art psychologist, historian, or critic than they should learn how to handle analytic procedure. (Let us remindourselves that such results as the amateurphilosophercan producewith the sharpbut undisciplinedanalytic faculties of the gifted man we have already, in innumerable works. There is no point to the continuationof these studies unless they are done better than they have been done before.) If we were recommending projects in empirical psychology, history, or criticism, there would of course be a different conclusion to be drawn. The qualifications of the analyst can be judged from the work he has already done or from the recommendationsof persons who are themselves qualified analysts. But there has long existed, in many quarters,

135 a fairly well justified feeling about the ineptness of philosophers who tread upon the aesthetic domain. "Why," asked William James-and many people have repeated the query- "does the Aesthetik of every German philosopher seem to the artist an abomination of desolation?" We here touch upon another difficult question, really demandingprolongedanalysis. What are the nonanalytic qualifications of the analyst? What, for instance, should be his degree of competence as a critic? How good a judge of art must he be if he is to have a good philosophy of art? There could be numerous answers, each presupposingits own conception of the relationsamong the art studies. An artist might dislike a system of aesthetics simply because it is not a work of art; but it does not seem reasonable to charge aesthetics with the responsibility of being beautiful. James forgot to ask whether his "artist," rather than his "German philosopher," might not be at fault. A work of intellectual genius like Kant's Critique of AestheticJudgment, abounding in profound implicationsfor the understandingof the arts, has been ignoredby men of letters (except for Schiller and Coleridge);but they ignore it to their own loss. Again, philosophers and psychologists have been blamed for evincing bad taste in their critical reactions and choice of examples, though it is not shown that this deficiency really impairstheir analyses. Again, many an Aesthetik of the sort that William James had in mind is philosophically inept to begin with: apart from annoying the artist, it botches its own program and offends against sound criteria of analysis; it can therefore hardlyserve as evidence for the mutualhostility of art and philosophy. Thus we see that many different things-his literarystyle, the modishness of his tastes and tone, the adequacy of his analysis-might be meant by the "competence" of the philosopher. Critically distinguished and fascinating books by Malraux, Sartre, Ortega y Gasset, full of startling intuitions and tasteful examples, seem to me to throw no particle of light on any aesthetic problem;while there are stuffy monographsby obscure Ph.D.'s which successfully pursue the clarification of some aesthetic concept. Yet there are othercases-certain works on aesthetics by Americanphilosophers-where one cannot help feeling that the anlaysis has been

136 spoiled by sheer lack of critical sophistication or of genuine responsiveness to art; These remarksserve to show merely that the question of the general competence of the philosopher is not a simple one. The one positive suggestion which I think may be of some use here is the following. An analysis is usually tested against the "denotation" of the concept that is being analyzed. Thus, a good analysis of the concept "justice" should not result in a definition which excluded from the meaning of the term flagrant cases of what people would call "justice" and included flagrant cases of "injustice." It follows that the analyst must be at least aware of the chief specific values that are denoted by the term or idea he is analyzing. Now among the important concepts of the art studies are some which have arisen in the process of critical evaluation and which thereforedenote values as well as facts. The analyst should know these values. He should know, for example, that Tennyson is considered a skillful manipulator of verse rhythmsand phoneticharmonies,and why he is so considered-if he wishes to clarify the critical use of the term "technique." If he studies the methods employed by psychologists to determine the taste of the average American movie fan, it may not be necessary for him, the analyst, either to share these tastes or to reject them; for he is concerned with descriptive studies of aesthetic reactions. But if, as often happens, he tries to explain what is meant by "good color" in the criticism of painting by means of examples drawn from the worst col-

orists, then (at the very least) he confuses his treatment of a normative concept by raising distractingcontroversiesat the primarylevel. A similar point could be made about the analysis of the problemsof arthistory. One who is unfamiliarwith common distinctionsof style, school, period, etc., is certainly not fit to philosophize about the knowledge embodied therein. An analyst should therefore be a sensitive and well-informedperson. At the same time, it is doubtful whether the analyst needs to have all the sensitivity and delicate discriminationof the practicingcritic or all the information of the historian. What is more likely is that in the course of his work he

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should reach particular junctures where his present taste or knowledge needs to be either checked or extended. There is, for example, in the case of certain poems, no degree of understanding or clarity of interpretationso perfect that it cannot be questioned or improved. The specialist, who gives his whole time to questions of that order, is the right man to go to for confirmationor criticism.

' This paper represents, with only a few short omissions, pages 1-28 of Isenberg's "Analytical Philosophyand the Study of Art:A Reportto the RockefellerFoundation," April 1, 1950. The full paper is 48 pages (the last 15 of which constitute an 'Appendix of Simple Problems"). Excerpts from pages 5-6, 14-28, and 43-46 have been printed in W. Callaghan, et al., eds. Aesthetics and the Theory of Criticism: Selected Essays of Arnold Isenberg (University of Chicago Press, 1973). 2 [Isenbergends this section with the following bibliographicallist on which he has apparentlybased his discussion of contemporaryanalysis, its nature, methods, and problems-ed.]: C. D. Broad, Scientific Thought (New York, 1923), see Introduction;Paul Arthur Schilpp, ed., The Philosophy of G.E. Moore (NorthwesternUniversity Press, 1942), see article by C.H. Langford; Arthur Pap, Elements of Analytic Philosophy (New York, 1949), see Chapter17; Moritz Schlick, "The Futureof Philosophy," in Bronstein, Krikorian,Wiener, eds., Basic Problems of Philosophy (New York, 1947); MorrisWeitz "Analysis and Real Definition," Philosophical Studies 1 no. 1 (1950). 3 Karl Britton,Communication(New York, 1939), see Chapter 10. 4 C. I. Lewis, An Analysis of Knowledgeand Valuation (La Salle, IL. 1946), see ChaptersXIV and XV. ' Martin Schutze, Academic Illusions (University of Chicago, 1933), p. 238. 6 For example, Birkhoff'sAestheticMeasure (Harvard UniversityPress, 1933), Joseph Schillinger'sMathematical Basis of the Arts (Da Capo Publishers, 1948), HenryLanz's Physical Basis of Rime (HarvardUniversity Press, 1933), John Redfield's Music: A Science and an Art (New York, 1928), and Alan Burrough'sArt Criticismfrom a Laboratory (Boston, 1938). 7 Herbert E. Read, The Nature of Literature (Ayer Company, 1938), p. xviii. 8 Rene Wellek and Austin Warren, Theory of Literature (New York, 1949), p. 30. 9 And books about books about the principles of criticism, e.g., M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp (Oxford University Press, 1953), Walter J. Bate, From Classic to Romantic (New York, 1946), S.H. Monk, The Sublime (New York, 1935). 10 Levin L. Schficking, Character Problems in Shakespeare'sPlays (New York, 1948), p. 158. " G. L. Kittredge, ed., Hamlet (Ginn and Company, 1939), p. 247. 12 Ibid. 13 Charles Stevenson, Ethics and Language (AMS Press, 1944), p. 1. 14 Always excepting the more concrete and nontheoreticalobjectives. Miss Tuve understandsthe requirements of historicalresearch.Mr. Empsomknows how to go about criticizing a poem.