| Phi 220 Spring 2016 |
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For Wed.: intro. and §§I-II, pp. 47-55c1.
For Fri.: §§III-IV, pp. 55c1-60.
Walton’s work in aesthetics has been largely devoted to developing a particular approach to representation (the short article noted in the first reading guide provides more details of this). His view differs from others in that the viewer, reader, or listener plays a crucial role in creating the representation (and is not merely someone exposed to it). To appreciate a painting, for example, is to pretend to see something (a bed, for example); the painting serves as a “prop” in this game of make-believe. What one pretends to see is in a “work world” that need not be real and need not incorporate the viewer, and one’s pretending to see it is in a “game world.” Notice how this turns things around from Plato somewhat: while an artist may create a prop that entices a viewer to play the game of pretend-seeing and in this way might be said to manipulate the viewer, the viewer is not merely passive but rather does something with the prop by using it to pretend to see what it represents.
What we are looking at are two rather special cases that depart from the more straightforward applications of this idea. In the case of photography, Walton argues that it escapes his account of painting by providing a means of really seeing and not merely a prop used in pretending to see. In the case of music, there is pretending; but he will argue that it is not primarily pretend hearing and that there is not much of a “work world” being heard. The result is that, while music fits Walton’s view of representation, it doesn’t have much connection with the part of his view (i.e., the relation between a work and a world it represents) that corresponds to more familiar ways of understanding representation. And that allows him to accomodate both reasons for thinking music is representational and reasons for thinking it isn’t.
• In the part of the paper we will discuss Wed., Walton discusses grounds for taking each side of that issue. After a short introduction to the issue, he looks (in §I) at ways in which music might be said to represent. In §II, he notes on the other hand that music has a more rudimentary “work world” and one in which we can participate less than in other arts while insisting that our involvement with music seems, if anything, more direct.
There is some technical vocabulary that shows up in this section, both from music theory and from philosophy. It’s fairly safe to ignore the ideas from music theory if you are not familiar with them: Walton will explain exactly what he expects someone who does understand them to get from these discussions. The key bit of philosophical vocabulary, the Latin phrase de se, is easy to explain: it can be translated ‘of oneself’, so ‘imagining de se’ (which appears on p. 54 c. 1) refers to the sort of imagining about oneself that occurs in games of make-believe.
• The assignment for Friday (§§III-IV) provides Walton’s way of reconciling a sense that music is representational with its differences from the sort of representation found in visual art and literature. The key idea is presented on p. 55 in the first three paragraphs of §III, with the rest of the paper serving to explain its significance. As you read this, think whether Walton is right about music, but think also whether, and how, what he says about music might apply to abstract but expressive visual art. (For some comments on such art, see p. 49 on Mondrian, Malevich, and Stella and his reference to wallpaper design on p. 52 c. 2.)