Subjects and Objects: Art, Essentialism, and Abstraction (Philosophy of History and Culture)

410 Pages·2007·1.73 MB·English

by  Jeffrey Strayer

Subjects and Objects
Philosophy of
History and Culture
Editor
Michael Krausz
Bryn Mawr College
Advisory Board
Annette Baier (University of Pittsburgh),
Purushottama Bilimoria (Deakin University, Australia),
Cora Diamond (University of Virginia),
William Dray (University of Ottawa),
Nancy Fraser (New School for Social Research),
ff
Cli ord Geertz (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton),
Peter Hacker (St. John’s College, Oxford),
Rom Harré (Linacre College, Oxford),
Bernard Harrison (University of Sussex),
Martha N ussbaum (University of Chicago),
Leon Pompa (University of Birmingham),
Joseph Raz (Balliol College, Oxford), and
Amélie Rorty (Brandeis University)
VOLUME 25
Subjects and Objects
Art, Essentialism, and Abstraction
By
ff
Je rey Strayer

LEIDEN•BOSTON
2007
Cover photograph, used by permission: Gehry Web, Chicago by John Gevers
© 2005. www.newmediabrew.com.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Szulakowska, Urszula.
The sacrificial body and the day of doom : alchemy and apocalyptic discourse
in the Protestant Reformation / by Urszula Szulakowska.
p. cm. — (Aries book series ; vol. 1)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-90-04-15025-6
ISBN-10: 90-04-15025-0 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Alchemy—Religious
aspects—Christianity—History. 2. Apocalyptic literature—History and criticism.
3. Reformation. I. Title. II. Series.
BR115.A57S98 2006
540’.1120943—dc22
2006043990
ISSN 0922-6001
ISBN 978-90-04-15714-9

© Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
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Fees are subject to change.
printed in the netherlands
To Angela,
to the memory of my father,
and to the memory of Max

CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ...................................................................... xix
Introduction ................................................................................ 1
1. The subject matter of this work .......................................... 1
2. Artworks and subjects and objects ...................................... 2
3. Artworks and artistic complexes .......................................... 3
4. Essentialism and essential elements of artistic complexes .... 4
5. The format of this book ...................................................... 8
6. Concluding introductory remarks ........................................ 8
PART ONE
PRELIMINARY ISSUES RELEVANT TO
ESSENTIALIST ABSTRACTION
1. The terms ‘Abstract’ and ‘Abstraction’ .............................. 13
2. The development of Abstraction in art history .................. 15
3. Levels of Abstraction in art ................................................ 20
4. The different relation of philosophy and art to the
question of the limits of Abstraction in art ........................ 26
4.1. The general difference of art and philosophy,
and the differen t relation of each to Essentialist
Abstraction .................................................................... 26
4.2. Philosophy and Essentialist art .................................... 26
4.3. The non-hierarchical relation of art and
philosophy ...................................................................... 27
4.4. The complementary relation of art and philosophy
in the question of Abstract art’s limits ........................ 29
5. Modernism and Essentialist Abstraction .............................. 29
5.1. Modernism and Essentialism and identity and
reflexivity ........................................................................ 31
viii contents
PART TWO
ON SUBJECTS AND OBJECTS AND WORKS OF ART:
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS AND BASIC POINTS OF
RELEVANCE TO ESSENTIALIST ABSTRACTION
Introduction ................................................................................ 35
Division I: Singling Something Out, Artistic Identity, and
Intentional Actions .................................................................... 39
1. Singling something out ........................................................ 39
1.1. Creating, selecting, and specifying objects .................. 40
1.2. Artworks and objects .................................................... 53
1.3. Singling something out determinately ........................ 59
1.4. Singling something out indeterminately ...................... 61
1.5. Success and failure in singling something out ............ 64
1.6. Possible lack of clarity in singling something out ...... 66
1.7. Singling out more than one object, but not more
than one artwork .......................................................... 66
1.8. Singling something out, the visual arts, and the arts
in general ...................................................................... 68
2. Artworks and apprehensible objects .................................... 69
2.1. Phenomenal and noumenal objects ............................ 69
3. The notion of the identity of an artwork .......................... 74
3.1. The logical and epistemological aspects of an
artwork’s identity .......................................................... 76
3.2. The identity of an artwork and phenomenal and
noumenal objects .......................................................... 77
4. The minimal conceptual relation of artist to artwork ...... 78
4.1. No artwork without an identity .................................. 79
5. Two kinds of required intentional relation of an artist to
an artwork ............................................................................ 80
5.1. The artist’s conscious understanding of each kind of
relation .......................................................................... 81
5.2. Implicit and explicit claims that certain objects are
artworks .......................................................................... 81
5.3. Time and intentional relations of an artist to an
object meant to be a work of art .............................. 81
6. Artworks, aesthetic objects, and intentional actions .......... 82
6.1. Intentional actions and novel artworks ...................... 82
contents ix
7. The liberal notion of the use of objects and the direct
and indirect relation of an artist to an object used to
make an artwork .................................................................. 83
7.1. Artworks and the products of accidental actions ...... 84
8. The dependence of artworks on artistic intentions and
cultural contexts .................................................................... 85
8.1. Abstraction, lack of artistic action, and publicity ...... 86
Division II: Artists, Objects, and Some Minimum Conditions
of Artistic Identity ...................................................................... 89
1. The dependence of artworks on preexistent objects .......... 89
1.1. The minimum number of preexistent objects
required to make artworks depends on the
metaphysics of personhood .......................................... 89
1.2. Metaphysics, acts, and objects used in producing art 90
2. That an artwork must be something singled out does not
dictate the nature of what is singled out ............................ 91
3. The history of an object with which an artwork is meant
to be identified ...................................................................... 91
4. The dependence of an artwork not meant to be identified
with some preexistent object on the artistic use of some
preexistent object .................................................................. 92
5. An artwork has its particular identity in spite of any
degree of similarity that it has to any other object .......... 92
Division III: Artistic Identity, Subjects, and Apprehensible
Objects ........................................................................................ 93
1. The dependence of t he identity of an artwork on an
apprehensible object .............................................................. 93
1.1. Specification and objects that are meant to be
artworks that cannot be apprehended ........................ 93
2. The dependence of knowledge of the identity of an
artwork on an apprehensible object .................................... 93
3. Relevant apprehension of the apprehensible object on
which knowledge of the identity of an artwork is
dependent .............................................................................. 94
3.1. Relevant apprehension of an apprehensible
artwork .......................................................................... 94
3.2. The dependence of an artwork that is meant to be
identified with a non-apprehensible object on an
apprehensible object ...................................................... 94
x contents
3.3. Understanding the relation of an apprehensible
object on which the identity of an artwork is
dependent to that identity .......................................... 95
4. The artistic identity of an artwork and its relevance to
the ontology, meaning, and value of an artwork ............ 95
5. The dependence of the identity and the apprehension
of the identity of an artwork on a public perceptual
object .................................................................................... 96
5.1. Privacy and publicity and phenomenal objects ........ 98
5.2. A public perceptual object is necessary but is not
sufficient ...................................................................... 100
5.3. Apprehensible properties relevant to an artwork’s
identity .......................................................................... 100
5.4. No a priori limitations on public perceptual objects 100
5.5. Art-historical objects and consciousness .................... 101
6. Original and subsequent dependence of artworks on
objects .................................................................................. 102
7. Embodied artworks ............................................................ 103
7.1. Embodiment, identification of artworks, and
sophisticated notions of artworks .............................. 104
7.2. Different kinds of appreciation of embodied
artworks ........................................................................ 106
7.3. Ways of producing embodied artworks .................... 107
8. Non-embodied artworks ...................................................... 107
8.1. Non-embodied artworks and specification ................ 108
8.2. Non-embodied artworks and selection ...................... 108
8.3. Non-embodied artworks and perceptible objects ...... 110
9. Awareness and agency and perceptual objects ................ 110
10. Conceptual idealism and works of art .............................. 111
11. An artist’s presentation of an object to the artworld as
an artwork .......................................................................... 112
Division IV: Artworks and Kinds of Object .......................... 115
1. Artworks and times and places of apprehending them .... 115
2. An artist’s identification of the same artwork with
apprehensibly different things ............................................ 116
3. An artist’s identification of a number of works with a
number of indistinguishable objects .................................. 116
4. The equal identification of an artwork with different
objects at the same or different times .............................. 117