Wittgenstein and Aesthetics: Perspectives and Debates: Perspectives & Debates

216 Pages·2012·1.822 MB·English

by  Alessandro Arbo (editor), Michel Le Du (editor), Sabine Plaud (editor)

Alessandro Arbo | Michel Le Du | Sabine Plaud (Eds.)
Wittgenstein and Aesthetics
Perspectives and Debates
APORIA
Apori/a

HRSG. VON / EDITED BY
Jesús Padilla Gálvez
(University of Castilla-La Mancha)

ADVISORY BOARD
Pavo Barišić (University of Split)
Michel Le Du (University of Strasbourg)
Miguel García-Baró (University of Comillas)
Margit Gaffal (University of Castilla-La Mancha)
Guillermo Hurtado (National Autonomous University of Mexico)
Antonio Marques (New University of Lisbon)
Lorenzo Peña (Spanish National Research Council)
Nicanor Ursua Lezaun (University of the Basque Country)
Nuno Venturinha (New University of Lisbon)
Pablo Quintanilla (Pontifical Catholic University of Peru)

Aporia is a new series devoted to studies in the field of philosophy. Aporia (Aπορία)
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publication has to contribute to the explanation of current philosophical problem, using
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philosophical topics and should reflect the ongoing progress of scientific development.

Volume 6
Alessandro Arbo | Michel Le Du
Sabine Plaud (Eds.)

Wittgenstein and Aesthetics

Perspectives and Debates
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CONTENTS

Introduction 7

I. Aesthetic Investigations

JOÃO VERGILIO GALLERANI CUTER
Tractarian Aesthetics 15

CHIARA CAPPELLETTO
Aesthetics as Methodology in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Thought:
The Operational Character of Family Resemblances 25

ANTONIA SOULEZ
His (Freud) Explanation Does What Aesthetics Does:
it Puts Two Factors Together 45

II. Aesthetic Grammar

JESÚS PADILLA GÁLVEZ
Visual Space as Aesthetic Problem 63

MICHEL LE DU
Seeing as and Semantic Expansion 81

JULIA TANNEY
Conceptual Cartography and Aesthetics – a Preliminary Study 97

III. Musical Understanding

ALESSANDRO ARBO
Typology and Functions of “Hearing-as” 117

LEONARDO DISTASO
Notes on Aesthetic Comprehension: Sound beyond Image 129

MARIE-ANNE LESCOURRET
Musical Analysis versus Grammatical Analysis:
Saying, Whistling, Describing, Understanding 141
IV. Ethics and Aesthetics

JERROLD LEVINSON
Prolegomenon to a Morality of Music 161

SANDRINE DARSEL
From Art to Ethics: Exemplary Nature of Art Works
and Aspectual Perception 167

V. Theory of Art

MAURIZIO FERRARIS
Art as Document 183

SABINE PLAUD
From Language Games to Analytic Iconography:
a Comparison between Ludwig Wittgenstein and Daniel Arasse 195

Index nominum 213
Wittgenstein and Aesthetics:
Perspectives and Debates

Alessandro ARBO, Michel LE DU, Sabine PLAUD
Strasbourg University

The papers collected in this volume were all presented at a
conference held at Strasbourg University in January 2011: “Les raisons de
l’esthétique, à partir de Wittgenstein” (organized with the support of two
research units: EA 3402 “Approches contemporaines de la création et de la
réflexion artistiques,” and EA 2326 “Philosophie allemande”). The purpose
was to reevaluate the epistemological status of aesthetics in the light of
Wittgenstein’s conceptions. This conference sought, therefore, to continue
in the same direction as other seminal contributions to the discipline: the
conference on “Wittgenstein and Aesthetics” held in June 2010 in
Southampton, and the book edited by Peter B. Lewis: Wittgenstein,
Aesthetics and Philosophy (London, Ashgate Publishing, 2004).
Wittgenstein’s writings have of course elicited a lot of debates and
controversies, many of which are now commonplace topics in academic
discussions. Yet, Wittgenstein’s considerations on aesthetics have raised
fewer comments and debates than, for instance, his writings on language,
mind, or mathematics. One aim of this volume is to reconsider this aspect:
the contributors were invited to examine the notion of aesthetics in a broad
sense, and to consider some of Wittgenstein’s concepts – such as aspectual
perception, the criterion/symptom distinction, the opposition between
grounds and causes – that may bring new theoretical material to
contemporary aesthetic reflection. Another aim of this book is to tap these
concepts in order to draw connections between aesthetic concerns and
various areas of philosophical research: philosophy of language,
philosophy of mind, theory of knowledge. Accordingly, the book tries both
to deepen specific topics (such as musical understanding) and to
encompass aesthetic issues in a broader perspective. By editing it, we thus
sought to follow the advice given to us by this (anti-)philosopher when he
invited his readers to throw away the ladder he had himself erected with
his (pseudo-)propositions. In other words, the point of this book is not

Wittgenstein and Aesthetics: Perspectives and Debates, eds. Alessandro ARBO, Michel LE
DU, Sabine PLAUD, Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2012, 7-12.
8 Wittgenstein and Aesthetics: Perspectives and Debates
exclusively to clarify what Wittgenstein said about art and aesthetics (and
how he said it), but also to examine how these conceptions may be
exploited nowadays in the field of aesthetics, and how we might proceed
our own way on some of the paths Wittgenstein has started to open up. The
book is divided into five sections: aesthetic investigations, aesthetic
grammar, musical understanding, ethics aesthetics and art theory.

I. Aesthetic Investigations
In his paper entitled “Tractarian Aesthetics,” João Vergílio Gallerani
Cuter tries to answer the following questions: Is it possible to speak about
“Tractarian aesthetics”? Does it make any sense to look for aesthetic values
“endorsed” (or even “implied”) by the Tractatus? In what sense, and to
what extent, can we look for such values? Is it possible, for instance, to use
“Tractarian principles” (or something of the sort) in order to assess a work
of art? How should we interpret the statement that “ethics and aesthetics
are one”? Are they strictly identical? Or do they simply share a common
ground?
In “Aesthetics as Methodology in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Thought: The
Operational Character of Family Resemblances,” Chiara Cappelletto
underlines that, already in the Tractatus, Wittgenstein writes that “Belief in
the causal nexus is superstition,” and she stresses how he maintains this
conviction throughout his philosophical development. The point is then to
find reasons allowing for a description of how what happens may happen.
Such is the function of family resemblances: they connect different
elements, each of which reveals its identity by means of a recognition of its
relation with other elements of the same epistemological framework.
Under the title “His [Freud’s] Explanation Does What Aesthetics Does:
it Puts Two Factors Together” (taken from passages of Wittgenstein’s
1932-1935 Cambridge Lectures), Antonia Soulez claims that aesthetics,
according to Wittgenstein, is descriptive, placing things side by side so as
to exhibit characteristics conveyed by reasons, intended as “further
descriptions,” or as justifying features in a work of art. It does not answer
the question “why” by alleging causes: the description of a thing is
opposed to causal connections. Aesthetics has nothing to do with
psychology (or psychoanalysis), whose ambition is to become an empirical
science based on experiments. Indeed, Freud confuses the two, treating
psychological questions by means of representations mimicking those of
science. His confusion unfortunately makes psychoanalysis appear as an
Wittgenstein and Aesthetics: Perspectives and Debates 9
empirical science dealing with causes, according to a method relying on a
hypothesis (the Unconscious).

II. Aesthetic Grammar
In the fourth chapter of this book, entitled “Visual Space as Aesthetic
Problem,” Jesús Padilla Gálvez tries to reconstruct the contributions that
Wittgenstein made to the field of aesthetics. He deals especially with the
reconstruction of a theory of sensory perception, which is characterized by
the program of “minima visibilia.” This program is analyzed by employing
the phenomenological method. In the context of visual space, three
problems are addressed, namely blurredness, indistinctness, and sensory
impressions. A distinction between the visual space and the Euclidean
space can only be achieved by comparing their respective typical
structures. The text focuses especially on the relation between the seeing
subject and the visual space. To get a deeper insight into this problem, the
visual space is compared to a two-dimensional picture. In order to establish
“minima visibilia,” the role of color has to be clarified.
Michel Le Du, in “Seeing as and Semantic Expansion,” tries both to
assess the enduring relevance of Wittgenstein’s remarks on aspect
perception and family resemblances, and to connect these remarks to
current issues in philosophy of language and epistemology. We build
analogies as much as we discover them, and the outcomes of such building
processes may have very different epistemic scopes. Numerous analogies
are aspect-seeing; others have a deeper ontological significance. Some
analogies are clearly fictional. They deserve to be called, following Max
Black, “as-if” analogies. The scopes of many others (both in the human
and in the natural sciences) remain controversial. Consequently, the
purpose of his text is to sketch an overview of the various ways of making
analogies and to analyze the role played by metaphors therein.
Julia Tanney’s “Conceptual Cartography and Aesthetics” addresses
the following questions: What happens to philosophical investigation if we
relinquish the idea that the “elasticities of significance” of our expressions
are discernible outside the contexts in which they are employed? What
happens, thus, if we cannot presume to know in advance the function of an
utterance, the dimensions along which it is to be evaluated – and so what is
communicated and whether it is understood – in virtue of knowing its
grammatical form and the words in which it consists? Whereas traditional
conceptual analysis seeks to uncover a (partial) list of rules that articulate
10 Wittgenstein and Aesthetics: Perspectives and Debates
our grasp of a concept – understood as something that exists independently
of our practices – “naturalized” philosophy proposes theories about what
are taken to be the genuine referents – the properties, states, relations and
events – at which our linguistic expressions merely gesture. But if concept
nouns such as “beauty,” “art,” “intention,” or “expression,” for example,
refer neither to abstract objects nor to meaning rules, nor serve to indicate
real properties or relations, but serve instead a different-order task, then
both the traditional and the naturalist programs are threatened. Julia
Tanney advances the revival of the argument for the cartographical
approach and suggests very briefly how it might be applied to an
investigation of aesthetic concepts.

III. Musical Understanding
Alessandro Arbo, in “Typology and Functions of ‘Hearing-as’” tries
to broaden the perspective opened up by Wittgenstein’s remarks through
an analysis of the phrase “hearing as.” Uses of this expression are tested in
some standard situations, and discussed in order to highlight its key
functions. Four main functions are identified: conceptual (it highlights the
opportunity to conceive the perception of music in terms of aspectual
perception), aesthetico-pragmatic (it solicits and makes easier the
perception of aspects, inducing in this way a musical understanding),
epistemological (it allows us to examine the musical understanding of
which a listener is capable), and experimental (it helps us to test musical
ambiguities). Some variations of its purpose are eventually examined,
according to the nature of the object listened to: when such an object is
recognized as a musical work, the device favors a specific grasp, involving
a knowledge of the context of the composition and a recognition of the
author’s intentions.
Leonardo Distaso, in his paper “Notes on Aesthetic Comprehension:
Sound Beyond Image,” starts from Wittgenstein’s concept of a derivation
of aesthetic understanding, and tries to show what part is played by the
sound (and sonority) of words in an understanding of language that may
overcome the connections between picture and representation, in order to
grasp the problem of art, and in particular music, with respect to language
in general.
Marie-Anne Lescourret, in her text “Musical Analysis versus
Grammatical Analysis: Saying, Whistling, Describing, Understanding,”
recalls that musicians and musicologists know that, as Wittgenstein writes,