Pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty, Rethinking Art by Richard ShustermanReview by: Daniel O. DahlstromThe Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Sep., 1994), pp. 166-168Published by: Philosophy Education Society Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20129658 .Accessed: 21/02/2013 19:09

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166 GIUSEPPE BUTERA AND STAFF

tion that one can see an object in one way at one time and then see that same object in another way at another time, and the character of the experience of seeing an object as an object. The "mirror-F" and the "duck-rabbit" image serve as examples. An interesting discussion on

"meaning blindness" follows in an appendix to this chapter. The discussion of

"seeing" and "seeing as" is continued in chapter 6, which treats of K?hler's influence on Wittgenstein and Wittgenstein's interest in and objections to K?hler's gestalt theory. This chapter con cludes with an excursus into Moore's discussion of the problems of sense perception and Wittgenstein's criticisms of Moore. Chapter 7 in volves a particularly clear and useful discussion of Wittgenstein's views on memory. Schulte begins with the premise that memory is the basis of knowledge and of intellectual and practical skills. He reads Wittgen stein's remarks on memory as, in part, responses to theories of memory put forth by Russell and William James. Schulte discusses at length

Wittgenstein's criticisms of "the idea of a memory image, the notion of the experiential content of a memory, and the thesis that a memory is embedded in certain feelings" (p. 97). He also discusses three charac teristics of memory of interest to Wittgenstein: that a memory may have to be dredged up or that it may happen "in a flash," its immediacy, and the impossibility of reference failure (p. 112). Chapter 8 concerns Witt genstein's interest in William James's assertion that emotion cannot be disassociated from bodily feelings. In chapter 9 Schulte considers

Moore's paradox as taken up in Wittgenstein's manuscripts. This dis cussion concerns Frege's assertion sign, the grammar of the word "be lief and the question of the uniformity of meaning. In Schulte's view the discussion of Moore's paradox is meant to show the misunderstand ing which arises when we proceed as though a sentence may be given sense outside of its use in a language game. The final chapter raises the question of Wittgenstein's position on the mind-body problem. Schulte states that Wittgenstein cannot be called a behaviorist or a men talist, and that he really does not take a stand on the traditional mind body question. Schulte concludes with the reminder that "for Wittgen stein, many of the questions that have arisen in the context of the

mind-body problem are just confused or, at best, unanswerable" (p. 166).?R. Shannon Duval, University Park, Pa.

Shusterman, Richard. Pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty, Rethinking Art. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basil Blackwell, 1992. xii + 324 pp. $21.95?This engaging work presents a persuasive argument for placing a morally populist and somatic pragmatism at the center, not only of aesthetics and art, but also of what the author calls "the aesthetic life." In the opening chapter the author begins by situating pragmatist aes thetics in its philosophical context, chiefly through a contrast with an

alytic aesthetics. Casting the contrast as a renewal of the quarrel be tween Kantians and Hegelians, the author elaborates the fundamental opposition of analytic aesthetics to Dewey's naturalistic, instrumental,

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SUMMARIES AND COMMENTS 167

and self-consciously evaluational view of aesthetics, his emphasis on the centrality of art and its profound continuity with science and life in all the historico-political and socio-economic richness of the latter, his re fusal to countenance an undemocratic distinction between high and low art, and finally, his insistence on privileging the aesthetic experience over the material object identified as the work of art. The contrast is deepened in the second chapter as the author argues that the currently regnant and supposedly neutral definition of art as a distinct historical practice collapses into art history, naively leaving the question of value to the inner arbitration of the art world and thereby iterating the forced separation of practice and aesthetic experience. Though the author contends that pragmatist aesthetics overcomes these shortcomings, he acknowledges that the reconstructive definition of art as experience, at least as Dewey formulates it, seems "obscurely elusive" and its revision ary aims "too quixotically ambitious" (pp. 55, 58). The author attempts to counter these objections by stressing that the definition is meant, not to provide criteria for judgment and not to effect a sweeping reclassifi cation of art, but to enhance and expedite experience. In this respect, however, the author emphasizes how his project "differs from its Dew eyan source" (p. 27). Instead of trying to effect a change through a global redefinition of art, his aim is "to make a more specific case for

widening art's borders to forms of popular culture and to the ethical art of fashioning one's life" (p. 59). The second chapter concludes with an effective rebuttal of the (pragmatist) challenge that theory in general, including that of a nonfoundationalist pragmatist aesthetics, is impotent and impossible.

In the next three chapters the author attempts to show how pragma tism "reveals itself as a promising middle road between foundational analytic philosophy and deconstruction," not only in aesthetics but also on broader philosophical issues on which the themes of organic unity and interpretation turn. After establishing the link between the Hegel ian notion of a radical organic unity rejected by Moore and by Derrida's concept of diff?rance, the author demonstrates how this link provides the foundation for Culler's deconstructive arguments against the idea of an artwork's unity. In this way (that is, by showing that the arguments presuppose a notion of organic unity) the author deconstructs decon structionism and, perhaps more importantly, outlines pragmatic justifi cations for the interpretive presumption of a work's unity, a presumption that does not commit itself to the existence of "foundationally indepen dent and self-identical entities" (p. 82). In chapter 4, after exposing failed attempts by Hirsch, Beardsely, and Margolis to "satisfy the con

flicting demands of determinate truth and continued productivity" (in interpretation) as well as the naive picture of understanding underlying the

"misreadings" heralded by deconstructionists, the author proposes a pragmatist account of interpretation as "sense-making," where the

work in question "turns out to be a continuous and contested construc tion of the efforts to determine its understanding and interpretation" (pp. 86-95). The remainder of the chapter is devoted to showing how the alternative, putatively pragmatist theories of Knapp and Michaels, Rorty, and Fish variously "impoverish the domain of aesthetic experience" by failing to appreciate nonprofessional responses to a work of art (p. 114).

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168 GIUSEPPE BUTERA AND STAFF

This appreciation amounts to recognizing that understanding, while cor rigible and nonfoundationalist, is not to be conflated with interpretation, a thesis that the author ably defends in chapter 5 by calling attention to both "uninterpreted linguistic understanding and meaningful experience that is non-linguistic" (p. 128) and to the advantages of preserving the distinction between understanding and interpretation.

The author begins the second part of the book, entitled "Rethinking Art," by arguing that high art deserves, not to be shunned, but to be criticized in a "more ethically acute and socio-politically engaged" man ner (p. 147), something often exemplified?albeit ambigously?by high art itself, as the author attempts to illustrate in Eliot's "ironic critique of late romantic art and aestheticism" in Portrait of a Lady (p. 161). After

mounting a meliorist defense of popular art ("between the poles of con demnatory pessimism . . . and celebratory optimism") ultimately aimed at the dissolution of the high/popular art dichotomy, the author unpacks the rap song "Talkin' All That Jazz" in order to demonstrate how it displays values traditionally reserved by critics for high art. The concluding chapter, entitled "Postmodern Ethics and the Art of Living," promises more than it delivers. While the author trenchantly criticizes Rorty's version of aesthetic life, on the basis of that Auseinandersetzung he does no more than sketch the outlines of an alternative, presumably composed?more or less?of the possibilities of "an exquisite flower of aestheticist decadence," a classic and ascetic self-creation, and a so

maticaily social aesthetics. Indeed, throughout the entire book the author devotes far more atten

tion to criticizing others' positions than to developing his own. Nev ertheless, Shustermann has written an important book that makes an impressive case for a neopragmatist conception of aesthetics, art, and the aesthetic life. The writing is richly informed, delightfully lucid, and invitingly argumentative.?Daniel O. Dahlstrom, The Catholic Univer sity of America.

Sklar, Lawrence. Philosophy of Physics. San Francisco: Westview Press, 1992. xii + 246 pp. Cloth $44.00; paper $17.95?This is a sophisti cated, nontechnical introduction to the main issues in the philosophy of physics. It is exceptionally well-written. The issues are well-chosen, the prose are clear and concise, the text is organized into manageable sections arranged in a logical manner, and the treatment of various po sitions on the main issues is evenhanded. Also, each of the three central chapters is supplemented by an annotated bibliography that will serve

well as a selective guide for motivated readers. The text focuses on philosophical issues that are connected with three

pillars of modern physics: relativity theory, statistical mechanics, and quantum mechanics. One chapter is devoted to each area. They are arranged consecutively and flanked by two brief chapters, one prelimi nary and the other concluding, that serve to unify the whole by means of several metaphilosophical themes concerning the interdependency of

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Article Contentsp. 166p. 167p. 168

Issue Table of ContentsThe Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Sep., 1994), pp. 1-238Front MatterSome Reflections on Sartre's Nothingness and Whitehead's Perishing [pp. 3-17]Remarks on the Argument from Design [pp. 19-31]Emending Aristotle's Division of Theoretical Sciences [pp. 33-70]Aristotle and Adam Smith on Justice: Cooperation between Ancients and Moderns? [pp. 71-90]Peirce's Transformation of Kant [pp. 91-120]Books Received: Summaries and CommentsReview: untitled [pp. 121-122]Review: untitled [pp. 122-124]Review: untitled [pp. 124-125]Review: untitled [pp. 125-126]Review: untitled [pp. 127-129]Review: untitled [pp. 129-130]Review: untitled [pp. 130-132]Review: untitled [pp. 132-133]Review: untitled [pp. 133-135]Review: untitled [pp. 135-137]Review: untitled [pp. 137-138]Review: untitled [pp. 138-139]Review: untitled [pp. 140-141]Review: untitled [pp. 141-142]Review: untitled [pp. 142-144]Review: untitled [pp. 144-146]Review: untitled [pp. 146-148]Review: untitled [pp. 148-149]Review: untitled [pp. 149-150]Review: untitled [pp. 150-151]Review: untitled [pp. 151-153]Review: untitled [pp. 153-154]Review: untitled [pp. 154-156]Review: untitled [pp. 156-157]Review: untitled [pp. 158-159]Review: untitled [pp. 159-160]Review: untitled [pp. 160-162]Review: untitled [p. 162-162]Review: untitled [pp. 162-163]Review: untitled [pp. 163-165]Review: untitled [pp. 165-166]Review: untitled [pp. 166-168]Review: untitled [pp. 168-170]Review: untitled [pp. 170-171]Review: untitled [pp. 171-172]Review: untitled [pp. 172-174]Review: untitled [pp. 174-176]Review: untitled [pp. 176-177]Review: untitled [pp. 177-179]

Current Periodical Articles [pp. 181-202]Doctoral Dissertations, 1994 [pp. 203-223]In Memoriam: Frederick C. Copleston, S.J. (1907-1994) [pp. 237-238]Back Matter