representation and presentationa reply to professor dickie.pdf

8/22/2019 Representation and PresentationA Reply to Professor Dickie.pdf

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Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

Representation and Presentation: A Reply to Professor DickieAuthor(s): Monroe C. BeardsleySource: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 58, No. 9 (Apr. 27, 1961), pp. 238-241Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2023037

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238 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHYor design in art, but this is not a compelling reason to demand thatall the components of a representative work of art (a unified visualdesign, a unified subject matter, a unified dramatic design, etc.,)themselves be unified into still another unified design. I suspectthat, as a matter of fact, in the large majority of the great works ofart visual design and its elements are unrelated to subject matter.

GEORGEDICKIEWASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY

REPRESENTATION AND PRESENTATION: A REPLYTO PROFESSOR DICKIE

Professor Dickie has given an acute explication of a subtle fal-lacy: that of mistaking a comparison of two parts of the subjectin a representational design (i.e., a design that depicts) for a com-parison of the subject (i.e., what is depicted) with the design itself.His analysis clarifies the nature of this error, and perhaps the fivecases he cites are instances of it. My Giotto example certainlyappears to be; it is at best vitiated by loose speaking. The otherfour I would defend.The distinction that he is concerned with is of general relevancein aesthetics, so I would like to take it up briefly. As Mr. Dickieshows, the question is what qualities may correctly be attributedto visual designs as such. Several hard problems in the aestheticsof fine art involve the relation of subject to design, and to discussthem intelligibly (or even to be sure they are genuine problems)we must draw a satisfactory distinction between the two things tobe related.A particularly puzzling case, it seems to me, is that of predicatesreferring to depth or third dimension. Do they apply correctlyto the subject or to the design? Fine arts critics themselves havevacillated on this point. To cite one example, Clive Bell, shortlyafter his well-known statement that "To appreciate a work of artwe need bring with us nothing but a sense of form and color anda knowledge of three-dimensional space," makes this remark: "Ifthe representation of three-dimensional space is to be called 'repre-sentation', then I agree that there is one kind of representationwhich is not irrelevant. " 1 But is it to be called "representation "?that is the question. I hold that these depth-predicates can applyto either subject or design-that there is represented depth andthere is presented depth, and they can vary independently. Some-times it is correct to say that a painting represents one object as

1 Art, 5th ed. (N. Y.: Stokes, [n.d.]), p. 27.


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COMMENTS AND CRITICISM 239more distant than another, because we can "read" that object asfarther from the picture plane. Sometimes it is correct to saythat a painting-even one that is non-representational-has cer-tain parts that are (i.e., look) farther back or in front of others(for example, the simple figure-ground relationship). But whena design is deep and also represents depth, the distinction is by nomeans easy to preserve.What criterion, then, will serve to help us make and keep thedistinction? I believe Mr. Dickie is using three criteria, and Iobject to all of them.(1) His first criterion is that we can attribute to a visual designonly those qualities that remain invariant through a 1800 rotation.This is, I think, much too restrictive, and would not in fact be"generally said." I don't know how far he would extend this.For example, a 450 rotation converts a square into a diamond-which is a wholly different figure, phenomenally speaking. As tothe upside-down transformation, a left-hand arrow is a differentdesign from a right-hand arrow; the universe-class sign (V) is dif-ferent from the null-class sign (A), for the former is unstable, thelatter stable.2 It would be better to lay down the rule that what isrepresented by a design must also be represented by its mirror-in-version. One could argue, for example, that a photograph cannotcontain any information that would not be given if it were reversed.But this is too strong, for a photograph of a car tells us whether ithas a left-hand or a right-hand drive.3(2) Mr. Dickie 's second criterion seems to be constructive: helists a basic set of predicates that are stipulated to apply to designsor their parts, and then, in effect, excludes all other predicates thatcannot be defined in terms of them. This latter step is a form ofreduction, and it amounts, I think, to denying that visual designscan have any qualities that cannot be localized. But surely it isnot true that complex areas have no qualities but those which singlepatches of color can have.(3) His third criterion seems to exclude such predicates as take

2 On the difference between top and bottom, left and right, see RudolfArnheim, Art and Visual Perception (Berkeley: University of California, 1954),pp. 16-19.3 See the extremely interesting article (cited by Arnheim) by Mercedes

Gaffron, "Right and Left in Pictures," The Art Quarterly, Vol. XIII (1950),pp. 312-331. Gaffron points out powerful differences (in depth, in the rela-tion of the depicted objects to the observer, etc.) between some paintings orprints and their mirror inversions. This is especially noticeable in some ofRembrandt 's etchings, when seen in reverse-that is, the way they wereoriginally drawn on the plate. I am indebted to two of my colleagues, Pro-fessor Robert Walker and Professor Hans Wallach, for a vivid demonstrationof this reversal effect.


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240 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHYtheir literal meaning from human contexts ("happiness," "sad-ness," "divine suffering," etc.). He seems to be saying that noneof these terms can correctly be applied, even in a metaphoricalsense, to visual designs. I do not see how he would defend thisposition, so I do not know how to counter his defense. And anygeneral principle that might be used to support it (as that therecan be no true metaphorical predications about designs) seems tome clearly wrong.Let us try a fourth criterion, which seems acceptable. If it ispossible to find a non-representational design to which a predicatetruly applies, then that predicate can be applied to the design-aspect of a representational painting. This is not a necessary con-dition: we can't assume that, for every quality of designs that arerepresentational, there must be some non-representational designwith the same (or a closely similar) quality. But surely it is asufficient condition. Then I would say that since there are non-rep-resentational designs that are cheerful, it is possible to speak of arepresentational design as cheerful, without referring to the sub-ject. Mr. Dickie evidently disagrees with me here: "How coulda visual design or its elements alone be cheerful?" But it is so,and whatever sort of evidence is required to show that it is so, canbe made available. For example, if he will agree that some musicis cheerful, then we can show how certain abstract designs can bereliably correlated with such music. If, on the other hand, hedenies that there is such a thing as cheerful music, but agrees thatthere are cheerful people and events, we can show how certainmusical passages can be reliably correlated with those people's be-havior and those events.

There is, however, in Mr. Dickie's paper the suggestion that hewould fall back upon another argument, for he seems to hold that ifa line is cheerful it can only be "because it suggests a smile," andhence "functions as an abstract depiction of a smile, not as aplastic element." Here he seems to be forcing a dilemma upon us.He asks: when a line is cheerful, must it have something in commonwith the look or bearing of a cheerful person? If we say No, thenhe replies that the fusion theory breaks down, since there is nothingin common between a cheerful design and a cheerful subject. If wesay Yes (because it is the similarity that justifies the metaphoricalextension of the term "cheerful" from person to line), he repliesthat therefore the line must be an "abstract depiction." But Ihave argued in Chapter 6 of Aesthetics that "depiction" (or"representation" in this sense) is best defined in such a way thatnot all similarities between design and object amount to depiction.So I hold that a design can be cheerful without depicting a cheerful


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BOOK REVIEW 241person (just as music can) ; and it can depict a cheerful personwithout itself being particularly cheerful. (That a line can becheerful without depicting cheerfulness, I am ready to agree indoubting. But I believe that lines can be brittle and jagged with-out depicting brittle and jagged objects. And I do think non-repre-sentational designs may have what I mean by "focus," thoughperhaps that is not the best term for the region on which many ofthe dynamic movements of the shapes converge.)I was also much interested in Mr. Dickie's suggestion that theimportance of fusion, if there is such a thing, has often been over-stressed because of too much concern to show that great paintingsmust be unified, not only as designs and as subjects, but in therelation of subject to design. Perhaps so, but I think we must alsoinquire into the source of this concern. The concept of subject-design unity is connected in an important way, I believe, with twobasic problems in the aesthetics of plastic art. First, there is thequestion whether we can really call a representational painting anaesthetic object, of which both subject and design are components,in the sense in which we call a song an aesthetic object, of whichwords and music are components. It might not be appropriate tocall it such unless there is some relation between design and sub-ject that unifies them for perceptual experience. Second, let usgrant that the unity of a design has a bearing on whether or notit is a good design, but we seem to be saying more than this when wesay of a representational painting that it is a good painting. Andif this species of goodness (that is, being a good painting) has any-thing to do, as I believe it has, with the quality and coherence of theexperience the painting affords, then there is some justification forholding that this goodness depends, in part at least, upon the fusionof what it represents with what it presents.

MONROE C. BEARDSLEYSWARTHMOREOLLEGE

BOOK REVIEWConcepts, Theories, and the Mind-Body Problem. Edited byHERBERTFEIGL, MICHAELSCRIVEN,AND GROVERMAXWELL.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press [1958]. xv, 553pp. (Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. II.)$7.00.

This volume is the second in a series published by the MinnesotaCenter for the Philosophy of Science. It consists of ten articles,

representation and presentationa reply to professor dickie.pdf

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