What is a philosophical theory? Wittgensteinians are partly right, partly wrong.

  

There is much debate over the nature of philosophical theories.  Are they like scientific theories?  Is so, to what extent? Wittgenstein thought that no realm of phenomena is the special business of the philosopher.  Paul Horwich in his article "Was Wittgenstein Right?" published in The Stone Reader, says that for Wittgenstein there are no phenomena about which a philosopher "should devise profound a priori theories and sophisticated supporting arguments." Further "There are no startling discoveries to be made of facts, not open to the methods of science, yet accessible 'from the armchair' through some blend of intuition, pure reason and conceptual analysis." 

So this is what I think.  Philosophical theories and arguments are stories which are more or less illuminating depending on the context.  They are a priori only in the loose sense that they are not tethered close to sense data or scientific experiment.  But they are based on experience, and there is nothing to keep philosophers from developing their theories in a way that is at least consistent with contemporary science.  Philosophical theories are based on philosophical dialogue (whether implicit or explicit.)  Sure, philosophy tends to be done in armchairs, although that's true for a lot of science too.  And philosophers are not horribly limited by that since their armchairs are generally in front  of computers connected to the web.  And usually those armchairs are in well-stocked libraries.  

So the question remains whether there are startling discoveries that philosophers can make.  Probably not, or not often.  However there are moments of inspiration.  There are discoveries.  I like to think of these as sudden revelations of essences, although, in an unorthodox way, since I see essences as evolving through history.  It is more like "I now see how to say something interesting about art that is relevant to our own times" rather than "I now see art's eternal unchanging essence."

Horwich describes Wittgenstein's attitude as "in stark opposition to the traditional view, which continues to prevail.  Philosophy is respected...for its promise to provide fundamental insights into the human condition and the ultimate character of the universe, leading to vital conclusions about how we are to arrange our lives."  I partly agree with the traditional view and partly do not.  Yes, Philosophy should be respected for its promise to provide fundamental insights.  However I doubt there is just one human condition, or that there is just one ultimate character of the universe.  Philosophy can just reveal essential things about the world as we experience it, and that world changes.  Doing this, revealing essences, however, is enough to lead to vital conclusions about how we should arrange our lives.

Wittgenstein thinks we are bound to be disappointed if we take the traditional view, and I agree.  But Horwich goes on to say that the perennial controversy of philosophy is an embarrassing failure.  I would say, taking more of a Hegelian line, that it is not embarrassing at all...something more like a wondrous success story.  Each successful philosophical project, i.e. the ones that ultimately make it into the history books, is both insight and invention.... a further development in the ongoing evolution of essences.    

Horwich/Wittgenstein (for now I treat them as the same) believe that traditional theorizing must be replaced by "painstaking identification of its tempting bu misguided presuppositions and an understanding of how we ever came to regard them as legitimate."  This is a fine thing to do.  But this is part of the dialectic, and there are other parts to the dialectic.  It is the process of destroying the thesis.  But dialectical process, and hence Philosophy, is not complete until it provides an antithesis and a synthesis.   

So Wittgenstein thinks that philosophical investigation should only destroy everything interesting.  I think it does this, but only to make new interesting things.  He thinks the point of Philosophy is "clearing up the ground of language on which they [the so-called interesting things] stand."  I think that this is just one sub-project in philosophy.  

So, unlike Horwich and Wittgenstein, who are extreme pessimists about Philosophy, I am an optimist.  (Although I must say that I am a pessimist about a lot of other things.)  The difference between me and Wittgenstein here is that he is a disappointed absolutist.  I never was an absolutist and so, hopefully, avoid the illusions of being a disappointed absolutist.

So I have no problem with the primary goals of traditional philosophy, which Horwich describes as "to arrive at simple, general principles, to uncover profound explanations, and to correct naive opinions..."  I just disagree with anyone who wants to see these things as much like what scientists do under the same names. 

The place where I most agree with Horwich is when he says:  "our concepts exhibit a highly theory-resistant complexity and variability.  They evolved, not for the sake of science and its objectives, but rather in order to cater to the interacting contingencies of our nature, our culture, our environment, our communicative needs and our other purposes."  Hear hear!  Except that I disagree with "theory-resistant."  This evolution is theory-dependent, or better, it just is the development of theory.  I also agree that "the commitments defining individual concepts are rarely simple or determinate and differ dramatically from one concept to another."  The "general principles" we look for here are very unlike the ones we look for in science:  they are best seen as philosophical definitions offered as part of the ongoing dialectic.

But it is fundamental to Wittgenstein to avoid theory-construction and to be merely therapeutic, and this will be an exposing of irrational assumptions on which theory is based.  I just do not see why this is an either/or situation.  Theory-construction IS story-telling that is therapeutic.  To expose some assumption of an opposing theory is just what one does in dialectic.  Be prepared for that to happen to you too, later down the line.

Horwich then goes on to apply this thinking to the evolving idea of "truth."  His point, as always with the Wittgensteinians, is that the entire history of the concept is a history of failures.  But no theory ever really fails, it just recedes, or is sublated.  It goes underground, for awhile.  It can be reinterpreted and enter the fray again.  True, "truth" is not like an empirical concept such as "red" or "magnetic."  It is, to follow Gallie's terminology, an essentially contested concept.  So it doesn't quite stand for a property:  it stands for an object of philosophical contest, an essence.  But this means that Horwich is profoundly wrong when he concludes that "Truth emerges as exceptionally unprofound and exceptionally unmysterious" because he accepts the disquotational theory of truth, i.e. ""It's true that E = mc2" is equivalent to E=mc2."" This is just ignoring the problem of truth.  It is a deliberate avoiding of Philosophy, and I think there is something inauthentic going on here.  

No, all of the essentially contested concepts are profound, all are mysterious.  Diving deep into the nature of anything is diving deep into a nested collection of essences and thus, for example, into an entire culture.  What he calls a "wild goose chase" is really the point...except it is never just one goose.  

Of course belief in the disquotational theory of truth is belief that there is one final definition of truth, one that, it turns out, is marvelously unmarvelous.  This is the path of a disappointed absolutist who is still, really, an absolutist at heart.  

  

      

Is Lopes' buck-passing theory of art really even a theory?

The theory of art proposed by Dominic Lopes in Beyond Art (Oxford, 2014) is called the "buck passing theory of art."  It is a theory, he says, because it is "a proposition that answers a 'what is...?' question.  This is somewhat confusing since it is supposed to answer a "what is" question by "passing the buck" on answering that question.  (Normally, "passing the buck" is considered a vice.  Lopes is cleverly trying to make a vice a virtue.  But can he?  Years ago, George Dickie tried to make the circularity of his definition of art into a virtue, and he called his book The Art Circle.  The book was a great contribution to philosophy, but did he solve the circularity problem?)  It is not at all clear to me that the "buck passing theory of art" is a theory at all.  It has no real content:  it is just a formal maneuver, a clever way to suggest we stop trying to talk about art in general and just focus on individual arts.  Of course, the word "art" still appears in every question directed to an individual art:  so refusing to answer the question "what is art?" doesn't really help us to understand "what is music, as an art?" since it tells us nothing about the nature of art.  I suggested in my last post that Lopes is abandoning the "what is" question. He does not think he is.  He thinks that not answering the question, but pointing elsewhere for a possible answer, is an answer to the question.  This is like saying to the teacher "My answer is that you have the answer!"  Right.

It is noteworthy that Lopes takes a comment made by comedian Groucho Marx that "Art is Art" to be a theory (although he admits it is uninformative.)  I would not call this a theory: it is not only circular but completely without content.  It is funny.

Here is the buck-passing theory, the "theory of art" offered by Lopes (trumpets blare) "x is a work of art = x is a work of K, where K is an art."  (14)  This is a circular definition.  In a circular definition you include the term being defined in the definition.  Maybe strict circularity is avoided since the term being defined might be said to be "work of art" and not "art."  But this is quibbling.  If you explain x with a sentence that contains x you have a circularity problem.  I also think that trying to define "work of art" is not a good way of going about doing philosophy of art or asking the "what is" question about art.  Art includes not just objects but practices, institutions, roles, and ways of appreciating.  To just focus on identification of objects as works of art is to miss most of art.  But Lopes thinks "a theory of art states what makes each [of a wide variety of items from different arts] a work of art."  He thinks that, with one exception, philosophers have all interpreted the "what is art?" question as really "what is a work of art?" (he is excluding philosophers in the continental tradition, such as Heidegger.)  Lopes does admit that there are other senses of "theory of art" for example John Frow's definition in New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society (that it is "a systematic account of all or many elements in the domain of art") and that Lopes' own use of "theory" only covers, at best, a component of this.(12)  Frow's idea sounds about right to me and I have yet to see the advantage of Lopes' narrower meaning, although he is perfectly free to coin terms or give terms special meaning.

Lopes knows, of course, that the collecting of various Ks (music, video games, etc.) under "art" also demands a theory.  However, by the end of the book he thinks that prospects for such a theory are weak.  So the buck-passing theory really doesn't give us anything but a nudge to paying more attention to individual arts. 

In the definition, the term "an art" is understood by Lopes as "an art kind."  The term "art kind" is, however, ambiguous.   Photography is an art kind but only in the sense that there are photographs that are art, i.e. that there is such a thing as the art of photography.  Many photographs are not art:  photos taken by a surveillance camera with no art intention behind them, and no art context in which they can become art, are not art.  This is also true for paintings, dances, and gardens.  In each case there are examples that are art and examples that are not.  If I dance across the room (not lovely to look at) this is not an art work.  Lopes seems to be ignoring the ambiguity when he talks about art kinds, thinking that if he just lists various art kinds he can avoid defining art.  But if dance which is art is distinguished from dance which is not we still need to define art.  Lopes says "any item is a work of art if it is a work in an art kind - if it is a work of music, architecture, dance, or the life."(16)  So can he tell me whether my dancing across the room or my singing in the shower is a work of art?  Is he packing the needed distinction into the word "work" so that he can insist that since my dance is not a "work" then it is not art?  But then isn't this circular too -  since "work" needs to be defined as a work of art (as opposed to what I do in the privacy of my home.)     

Lopes has a kind of answer to a similar question, whether the coffee mug on my desk is an example of ceramic art.  He recognizes that this would be a counterexample to his theory if it were.  (Hmmm.  If I am in the business of coming up with counterexamples then am I admitting that he has a theory?)   He thinks the objection will fail if we can show that not everything made with ceramic slip is a work of ceramic art.  But then he says that it is up to the theory of ceramic art to show that the coffee mug is not art.  Similarly, I presume, it is up to the theory of dance art to show that my dance is not dance and up to the theory of music art to show that my shower song is not music.  But wait, my dance does fit some definitions of dance and my song fits at least some definitions of song, and songs are generally included as examples of music.  The point isn't that my song is not music:  it is that my song does not belong to the art of music.

I said that this is a kind of answer (see his page 17), but isn't it just a circular answer?  Lopes, if I am reading him right, is saying that the coffee mug is not art because, even though it is made of the same materials as ceramic art (ceramic slip) and through similar processes, it is not an example of ceramic art, since it does not fit under the (not yet stated) definition of ceramic art (although this definition avoids answering the question "what is art" which has been ceded to the various art forms of which ceramic art is one).  My head spins.  

Morris Weitz has an advantage over Lopes on one point.  Lopes has no resources for dealing with new art forms.  His theory of a work of art depends on there being certain art forms that are already established.  New art forms pose a problem for him.  What if there is something that seems to fit no previous art form.  Lopes gives the example of Barry's Inert Gas Series, which is neither painting or sculpture.  Weitz simply asks the relevant authorities (mainly art critics and art historians, I think) to decide whether something is sufficiently similar to things previously called art to be admitted into the realm of art, probably by way of coining a term for a new art kind, e.g. "conceptual art."  "Sufficiently similar" is vague, and I think that Weitz should have said "essentially similar" or similar in the sense that it too fits under the essence of art.  I discuss this in my unpublished book (see "pages"). 

Above I implied that the buck-passing theory is not informative.  Lopes argues that it is no less informative than buck-stopping theories (i.e. traditional theories of art, for example "art is significant form.") Neither is informative since "both set us off to think more about the individual arts."  (20)  Wait!  "Art is significant form" tells us something about the essence of art and also tells us what makes an art form and art form.  The buck-passing theory tells us nothing about art or about the what makes an art form an art form.  It is therefore less informative.

Lopes argues that a theory is correct if it is viable and informative.  As we have seen, his "theory" is neither viable (it is open to the counterexamples offered, e.g. the coffee mug and the problem of introducing new art forms) nor informative (it tells us nothing, and certainly less than the traditional theories).  Nor is it even a theory.

Actually, I really hate the kind of paragraph the previous one is.  A good reader, in my view, should not just be dismissive, but should alternate between combat and charity.  With no sympathetic side, reading is pointless as a communicative enterprise.  Reading is also pointless in philosophy if there is no combative side.  There are no knock-down arguments, only stages in an unending path.  Sympathetic open-mindedness to the point of acceptance is also unworthy of philosophy.  Balance between the two is needed but difficult to achieve.

I even have a problem with this style of philosophy. Lopes' style is typical for analytic philosophy and my own when I start talking in the same style.  This style takes the methods of logical analysis we teach in critical thinking classes too seriously since it typically reduces complex nuanced arguments and positions to a series of premises and a conclusion none of which (usually) were ever actually asserted by the proponent (an example of this is on page 39).

Yet there is much value in Lopes' book (not in the so called "theory" but in the theoretical thinking presented in the book as a whole): it is exciting to have something so intelligent and so maddening to think through and argue with, and I look forward to writing further posts.