These are the first three pages of my book on art theory. You may download the introduction by logging to www.martinipndozy-artaboutart.com

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“OF ARTEOLOGY” ©

                                                             CHAPTER VIII

THE THEORETICAL GROUND STRUCTURE OF THE CRITICISM OF ART

1. Introductory Remarks

             

            A theory of criticism must be a product of synthesis. This we have learned it from Kant’s three critiques. We have also learned from Kant that synthesis must be radical and must reinforce fundamental principles and that is why our judgments must be synthetic and analytical thus stemming from the fundamental causation of nature. Humans are natural beings and parts of an ecosystem, which, according to Aristotle expresses an organum of interdependence, necessity, and purpose that has a predestined course of transcendence. Thus, the principle consists of maintaining and advancing this natural condition of human life, which is our anthropological stance.  Nature is what we are as mental substance and physiologically, even though we possess a mind that tries to cross existential boundaries and wonder in imaginary space, marveling at its own fantastic productions.

            In Chapter Four and Five, I have engaged the reader in the meaning of theory. Most importantly, I have arrived at the realization that theory cannot rest on mere conjectures or presuppositions. We have, for that reason learned the four fundamental Aristotelian conditions of causes: material, formal, efficient and final. Now, I would like to point the attention of the reader to the “final cause”, which is identified with the purpose of all things. Aristotle, did not speak of  telos by chance. If all things in the world must have a purpose, the rule applies also to the notion of theory art theory and theory of art criticism.

             Theory is made of intrinsic parts, each with specific and determinative functions, which are the unities of judgments assuming logical order. Thus, theory must lead to some sort of conclusion, or at least advance an idea towards further development. However systemic the order, like in mathematics, the parts, which may be infinite, must meet logical structures even if infinitely progressive or regressive, like calculus and be bound by necessity. In mathematics the order of parts defines specific quantities undeniably consistent with the commanding logic of natural forces determining specific quantitative purpose: (F1 by 2 = F2). However, a force, though expressed mathematically, may identify specific qualities. In art, the infinite parts are such phenomenological qualities undeniably consistent with the same commanding logic of nature. In synthesis, both mathematics and art share the same fundamental logic of nature expressed in numbers, quantitatively and qualitatively. We can not only summarize the forces but also define their qualities, thus the eternal dilemma remains: quantity versus quality, and how these affect human life. It is not the mathematical principle which must guide us toward adopting the best theory of art, but the reasons why we must arrive at one. Therefore, at this point, it does not matter how many works Picasso completed in his life time, if we cannot define their force, conceptualize the ideas and determine how they have affected our lives.

            In substance, we must possess a fundamental concept of nature in order to arrive at a purposive theory of art criticism or we will not be able to make any comparative critical judgments both in life and in art, since this is what theory is for, according to Aristotle, who mentioned that we arrive at new knowledge by “analogy”. Once the concept of art is established, future artistic development can be undertaken. Qualitative judgments, for instance, will help us decide what kind of art should go into museums toward historic preservation documenting our anthropology; or what theories should be dismantled because they do not reflect the pure logic of human nature. This means that the sempiternal and unresolved argument about “What Is Art” can be now re-addressed under a different light. Morris Weitz, in his 1956 essay “The Role of Theory in Aesthetics”, published in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, expressed his belief that art is “an open concept”. He must have had his reasons for arriving at such determination of judgments besides studying L. Wittgenstein’s “language games”. Louis Margolis, in his 1958 essay, “Mr. Weitz and the definition of Art”, published in Philosophical Studies, responded by saying that “we decide” what art is. The search among the theorists for a theory of art that agrees with prima philosophia has not stopped since Baumgarten, and this argument was covered rather substantially in Chapter Six.

            Weitz’ s “Antiessentialism” rejects all the previous theories on which attempts had been made to erect the criticism of art:

Formalism: Art (and only art) is an instance of significant form – a unique combination of certain elements in their relations. 

Emotionalism: Art (and only art) is the embodiment of emotion in some sensuous public medium.

 Intuitionism: art is not a physical public object but a specific creative, cognitive and spiritual act – a non-conceptual awareness of the unique individuality of things.

 Organicism: Art (and only art) is an “organic whole[s] consisting of distinguishable… elements in their causally efficacious relations which are presented in some sensuous medium” 

Voluntarism: Art (and only art) is the embodiment of imaginatively satisfied wishes, desires and language and harmony 

            Thus, a new theory of art cannot originate from critical judgments unsupported by fundamental natural principles, such as these. However, Weitz’s and Margolis’ arguments are encouraging even though they appear to be the desperate search of anxious theorists tackling the topic with equipment that does not work. This reminds me Heidegger’s notion of the “equipmental quality of equipment”. Equipment is a vehicle “ready-to-hand” and “in-order-to”, according to Heidegger. This means that we have now the equipment to break away from the vicious circle of “Art’s for Art’s sake” or “Art as mystery,” “Art as fantasy”, etc. or whatever else is reflected in the historicity of our postmodern time.  Postmodernity seems to have endured another form of “anti-intellectualism’, which in turn amounts to ignorance and mental vacuity. Art is not everything you do not want to know, for we must make something of this word.

            Weitz, Margolis and even Wittgenstein have not fully reflected on the difference between signs and symbols, however. Signs are instructional equipment that direct the mind to whatever requires attention; symbols express human existential meaning, and many more aesthetic theorists like Wittgenstein and critical theorists, like Weitz and Margolis, have forgotten to apply this fundamental linguistic principle in order to retain the concrete conspicuousness of their argument. After all, it is the principle of nature that puts a stamp of approval on all conceptual structures. We must recognize the priority of nature as our “equipmental” quality of art to guide us, or we are not a part of this world. Most importantly, we must abide by the fundamental application of the natural law -- the absolute mother of all principles -- or we are disowned of our own nature.

            From the observance and integration of the natural law, we can then proceed logically and pass to the Aristotelian principles of telos and organum whereby everything must have a purpose as we can see in life, and that somehow the constitution of an organic whole, such as the concept of art, must follow the same fundamental logic as any good and sound judgment. This is sufficient support to my argument because it asserts that both Weitz and Margolis, like all the others, have not arrived at a  feasible and acceptable theory of art and have not completed their arguments on the purpose of “theory”. Their efforts of discarding everything that was done before, however, was a beginning, but not the beginning of a “theory”, because until now, we still cannot assure the world that we have a viable concept of art, which possesses fundamental structure and critical purpose. So I say: art is a human concept pursuing the existential human cause, not a sign leading to the “open” vacuity of space. If this is acceptable, we should adopt it as a universal maxim and turn it into an instrument of human development, of sensibility and intelligence, like it was during the Renaissance.  

            If critical theory must start with the logical structure of judgment, we must return to the history of human thought – not just its structures, but its substance in particular. Beatrice Longuenesse, in her book Kant and the Capacity to Judge, expressed Kant’s dominant belief that the faculty of judgment stems from the synthetic work of human’s intellectual faculties, especially that of understanding. Deduction is the underlying force of reason, supported by the categories, and the capacity to arrive at a conceptual whole of causes and effects, motives and ends. Why should not critical theories avail themselves of this kind of reason to render correct and valid judgments of art? Kant’s contradictions are the causes of art’s displacement from its historical and humanistic tradition. Human reason as prima philosophia remains the logical instrument to open the understanding of the intelligence of nature. The critical process is, thus, an advancing movement of understanding and consciousness that offers the prospect of new states of being and receives acknowledgment by a comparison with earlier pronouncements and deliberations. Kant’s belief in the power to make sound judgments is ratified in his rendering of the “transcendental deduction” of the categories that express precisely this ratification, but he shows no explanation as to why that does not apply to aesthetic judgments. Thus, according to him, all forms of judgment belong to consciousness, (Ib., p.7) and, at the same time, all judgments presuppose concepts originated in the understanding, which are their very source and condition. This discourse is circular, but it reiterates that understanding is the faculty to which all concepts and judgments must correspond.

            Longuenesse’s reference to the faculty to judge does not advance aesthetic hypotheses, but it  attempts to modify any prior affirmation of existing aesthetic beliefs regardless of their positive or negative structure. We must now determine in what way critical judgments may have helped correct, expand, and substantiate the consciousness of art and our understanding of it, in our time. Instead of producing a substantial synthesis, she indulges in mere empirical subjectivism or in the external comparison of objects for the sake of sensuous gratification and entertainment, which is not structural or synthetic.[1] No one can deny that the determination of true value in art has anthropological significance. Since art is a human concept, always in the forming and contributing from all sides to the entire spectrum of human nature, criticism should be a desirable task helping to move understanding toward completion of judgments concerning human reality.[2]

            Expanding, correcting, and substantiating the meaning of art requires a thorough review of both philosophical and scientific concepts that advanced culture has produced. For this reason, art criticism must be conceived as an interdisciplinary research of the values we attribute to art. More importantly, the role that art must play in society is production of meaning that substantially enhances the level of human consciousness and therefore must be assigned to art and to other human disciplines of knowledge with the exclusion of none. To this end, the author wants to demonstrate that the so-called “creative process,” as it is commonly understood, constitutes a major fallacy and that it is actually a “synthetic process” employing all the faculties of the mind and resting on different levels of thought and understanding. This truth alone redefines the task of criticism and opens new research directions, which are to elevate and expand the level of the consciousness of art, both in the artist, and in the public, inducing the first to produce higher art, and the second to be nourished by it.

             Criticism cannot be defined outside the parameters Kant and Husserl have established for predicative and qualitative judgments, which render criticism of art essentially analytical and synthetic.  This being said, the two major goals of this chapter are: to determine the purpose of the criticism of art in general and to render critical judgments operative toward achieving excellence of purpose in the arts. A discipline is needed in every mental work and art criticism is not excluded. Kant spoke in generalities when he addressed the “faculty” of judgment. Phenomenologically speaking we must follow Husserl in order to believe that every critical work begins with a practical notion reflecting the general principle of existence; secondly, we must move to analysis, which breaks down the parts and opens the understanding of the object; thirdly, we must proceed with the synthesis that reconstitutes the original concept; and finally, we must arrive at a final judgment determining whether the object meets the general purpose of excellence of human nature or we accomplish nothing. This phenomenological severance of the mental and the corporal state is required to understand the necessary conceptual structure of art and to arrive at a good predicative qualitative judgment. Those people who think that a judgment is a faculty and not a process, are mistaken. One cannot change the structure of the human mind and the way it naturally works.

Raffaele M. Pandozy, Ph.D.

(All Rights Reserved, For publishing purpose, please ask for permission)

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[1] This point has been cleared in Chapter Six where I have determined the synthesis of human substance and its role in history and anthropology. There is no question that the critical discourse must move beyond appearances – that what pleases or challenges the senses is not necessarily meaningful or valuable to us.

[2] As I have done in the previous chapters in the treatments of perception, consciousness, language, theory, method, aesthetic, and history, my interest is to reveal the neural principle affecting our understanding of human perception as it applies to the notion and the perception of art. Just as Copernican heliocentrism changed the picture of the heavens, this scientific discovery of brain functions turns the secular concept of art upside down the and urges revisions and new understanding of phenomenological reality.