mind and art: an essay on the varieties of expressionby guy sircello

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Philosophical Review Mind and Art: An Essay on the Varieties of Expression by Guy Sircello Review by: John G. Bennett The Philosophical Review, Vol. 84, No. 1 (Jan., 1975), pp. 129-132 Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical Review Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2184091 . Accessed: 24/06/2014 23:48 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Duke University Press and Philosophical Review are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Philosophical Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 188.72.126.109 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 23:48:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Page 1: Mind and Art: An Essay on the Varieties of Expressionby Guy Sircello

Philosophical Review

Mind and Art: An Essay on the Varieties of Expression by Guy SircelloReview by: John G. BennettThe Philosophical Review, Vol. 84, No. 1 (Jan., 1975), pp. 129-132Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2184091 .

Accessed: 24/06/2014 23:48

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Duke University Press and Philosophical Review are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to The Philosophical Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.109 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 23:48:01 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: Mind and Art: An Essay on the Varieties of Expressionby Guy Sircello

BOOK REVIEWS

but should only say, "I am trying to repair the radio." Although Thalberg did not emphasize such connections, his article lays the foun- dation for further work in this area.

Several other discussions in the book are also good. In particular, I found Thalberg's treatment of remorse in ethics, Hart on strict liability, and Austin on if's and can's to be helpful. Considering the cost of this book, however, the interested reader is advised to seek the essays where they originally appeared.

STEPHEN P. SCHWARTZ

Ithaca College

MIND AND ART: AN ESSAY ON THE VARIETIES OFEXPRES- SION. By GuY SIRCELLO. Princeton, Princeton University Press, I972. Pp. xiii, 349. $I3.50.

This book falls into three parts. In the first, Chapters I-5, it can- vasses the expressive phenomena in the arts, attempting to show how varied and diverse features of works of art can all be seen as examples of expression. The discussion of the variety of expressive phenomena is wide-ranging, covers a fascinating variety of examples, and is usually sensitive and stimulating even when it is not convincing.

This portion of the book also contains objections to the view of expression held by Monroe C. Beardsley1 and John Hospers,2 among others. Very roughly, this view holds that any legitimate talk about expression in works of art is talk about the "human regional qualities" (Beardsley's term) of the work for example, sadness, joyfulness, and so forth. Any attempt to discuss the artist's role in expression and to see works of art as intimately connected with the mental states of their producers is rejected as talk about the artist rather than talk about the work of art. Sircello calls this "the Canonical Position." His objections to the Canonical Position do not seem conclusive to me. After a great deal of discussion the book's argument seems to turn on the point that what is said when one says that a work of art expresses something is more than that the work possesses certain qualities in particular it is something. which cannot be true unless certain things are true of the

1 In Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism (New York, I958), esp. PP. 325-332.

2 "Philosophy of Art" in Paul Edwards (ed.), Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York, I967), I, 47.

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artist. This seems to miss the point, however. Beardsley, for instance, does not deny that people can and do say such things as "The composer was moved by a feeling of joy to compose his piece and for that reason gave the music a joyful quality."3 Beardsley's position is that all that is thereby said about the work rather than about the composer is that the music is joyful. This issue of the separation of artist and work which Beardsley made into a fundamental tenet of his Aesthetics is never met head on in the work under review.

Chapters 6 through 9 give a theoretical discussion of expression. The aim seems to be to determine what it is for something to be an expression of x's F (for example, an expression of Jones's anger). In Chapter 6 expressions of x's F are contrasted with signs of x's F. The difference is found to be that expressions of x's F show F and F shows in its expressions, while signs of x's F do not show it and it does not show in them. In Chapter 7 Sircello contends that expressions of x's F are caused by x's F. More accurately, what is caused is not so much the act which is the expression, but the expressive quality of the act. Thus if my kicking a dog is an expression of my anger, then I will kick the dog angrily. My anger will then be the cause not necessarily of my kicking the dog but of my kicking the dog angrily. In Chapter 8 seven- teen examples of showing are discussed with the hope of clarifying how expressions show what they express. The conclusion is that none of the examples involves the kind of showing involved in expression.

In Chapter 9 Sircello gives his positive account of expression. The chapter begins by asking for the principle of unity of expressions of a given mental state. Why are a group of particular acts all expressions of x's F? What explains this? "Intentional explanations" are rejected:

[intentional explanations] explain how all of F's diverse expressive acts can show F merely in terms of how all of these acts are seen, apprehended, inter- preted, organized, synthesized, or collected together "by the mind." Any such account, however, is incompatible with the primary fact that all of F's ex- pressions show F in virtue precisely of the same features in virtue of which F is their cause (p. 270).4

Sircello does not say why it is incompatible. His ovwn account of the unity of expressions of a given mental state is that the expressions are unified by the nature of F-that is, the mental state expressed. He discusses several possible objections to this answer but never explains

3 Cf. Beardsley, op. cit. p. 326. 4 References to Sircello's book are given in parentheses.

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how it answers the original question. Next comes a discussion of the causal relation between what is expressed and its expressions. At the beginning of this discussion it is stated that what is expressed is "an overall characteristic of a pattern of acts" (p. 276). I am unable to find where in this book this controversial statement is argued for. It seems quite implausible that anger, for instance, should simply be an overall characteristic of a pattern of acts. The book suggests that causation of expressions by what is expressed is an instance of "formal causation." Despite some discussion of Platonism, however, there is no explanation of formal causation: it is sui generis and "there is no way of understanding it on the model of other forms of causation" (p. 282). Finally, the chapter discusses the sense in which what is expressed is inner. The conclusion is that it is "inner" in the sense in which "inner" means "inherent"-that is, the sense in which "inner" is used in the following sentence: "For Hegel, World History takes a course deter- mined by its own inner law" (p. 287). There follows a discussion of how people mistakenly think that states like anger are inner in the sense in which that word means "part of one's private experience" as sensations are said to be inner.

What seems to be most valuable in these nine chapters is the careful and extended discussion of many examples in which we are tempted to use the word "expression." The examples are insightfully chosen and the discussion of them shows great sensitivity to nuances of language. No one interested in the subject can fail to be stimulated by the discussion to think about the similarities and differences which the book points out. Much of the book is spent in such explorations of similarities and differences, however, and though the book excels at this, such similarities and differences cannot alone make a theory. It seems to me that the argumentative and theoretical portions of the book are weak, and I have tried to emphasize this in my all too brief summary of these portions.

Chapter io is independent of the rest of the book, although it too seems to be about expression. In this chapter the pace of the writing picks up, the numerous examples of earlier chapters disappear, and there is not even the slightest suggestion of an argument for the position stated. The chapter treats of self-expression, and by "analyzing" self- expression attempts to shed light on the nature of the self. I shall summarize it.

In self-expression only that can be expressed about a person which has as its object some large-scale aspect of the person's world. What is expressed must also be noble-that is, magnanimous-in the sense of

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greatness of soul. "To be concerned with anything less than objects of cosmic significance is to be correspondingly smaller, i.e., meaner of soul" (p. 306). Self-expression "excludes both the mean and the demeaning" (p. 307). One does not have a self if one does not express it. What is expressed must be truly fundamental to a person's make-up; it must pervade one's life. In most cases this means also a person's work. But different sorts of work offer different opportunities for self- expression. There are fourteen categories of work ranging from "art" to "custodial," ranked according to opportunity for self-expression. Marx's critique of capitalism should have included the point that in capitalist societies the forms of work which are most prevalent do not give much opportunity for self-expression. Having opportunity does not guarantee self-expression: in fact, only a few people ever manage it because self-expression must also be completely original. Most people never achieve self-expression and hence lack a coherent self.

I enjoyed this chapter, but found it impossible to take seriously. I hope potential readers of the book are not put off by the excesses of Chapter io.

JOHN G. BENNETT

University of Michigan

ETHICS WITHOUT GOD. By KAI NIELSEN. Buffalo, Prometheus Books, I973. PP. vii, I03. $6.95 (cloth); $2.95 (paper).

Ethics without God picks up where Euthyphro and Socrates broke off. It is on the whole well written and lucid and, despite its shortcomings, worth reading. The book divides neatly into two parts. In Chapters I and 2 Nielsen attacks the view that "the only genuine basis for morality is in religion." In Chapters 3 and 4 he proposes his own secularist ethos and defends it against Anscombean counterattacks. I shall say very little about Chapters 3 and 4, for I find them neither clear nor insight- ful. After briefly indicating the basis for this evaluation, I shall return to the more interesting and cogent first two chapters.

Nielsen is a consequentialist, but it is unclear whether he is a "rule- consequentialist" or an "act-consequentialist." Pages 6o and 6i with their allusions to Rawls seem to require the former interpretation; the discussion of Chapter 4 makes sense only in terms of the latter. It is also unclear how much weight Nielsen is willing to assign to non- utilitarian factors such as respect for, persons, fairness, and equality. We are led through the by now well-charted seas of desert islands

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