Personifying Art

  • Brian Soucek
Chapter
Part of the New Waves in Philosophy book series (NWIP)

Abstract

Stanley Cavell once wrote that ‘The answer to the question “What is art?” will in part be an answer which explains why it is we treat certain objects, or how we can treat certain objects, in ways normally reserved for treating persons.’1 The claim is striking, not least because it treats the personification of art as a given, if one in need of explanation or justification. Though it is not always acknowledged, the treatment of artworks ‘in ways normally reserved for treating persons’ is a commonplace both in philosophy and criticism, in our everyday and more theoretical responses to art. It emerges in banalities like ‘the music is sad,’ or ‘that piece speaks to me.’ It finds deeper (or at least more mystical) expression in discussions of the artwork’s ‘soul’ and ‘body,’ whether they be in Kant, Hegel, Dewey, or Danto,2 as well as in descriptions of art’s life, death, and even afterlife.3 Benjamin’s ‘aura’—to perceive which is to invest an object ‘with the ability to look at us in return’4—provides a clear instance of personification in the visual arts, as, more recently, does Roger Scruton’s ‘indispensable metaphor’ about music that ‘the notes in music follow one another like bodily movements.’5 When Nelson Goodman asks ‘how buildings mean,’ or Robert Pippin asks how paintings can be authentic in the existentialist’s sense, not just the forger’s, both are importing into the art world categories native to personhood.6 The centrality of autonomy in post-Kantian aesthetics as well as the insistence on artworks as ends rather than means both point even more significantly to personification’s reach.

Keywords

Moral Judgment Aesthetic Judgment Intentional Stance Musical Work Aesthetic Theory 
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© Brian Soucek 2008

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  • Brian Soucek

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