To look at the purpose of art, we first have to understand what art is. Alfred North Whitehead relates art to truth and beauty in the final section on Civilisation in his book Adventures of Ideas published in 1930. He systematically examines each of these notions, so he explains first what truth is, then what beauty is and then what art is, finally relating them to the purpose of art. This essay will recount his theory of these notions but first, some words on the man.
“In England, Whitehead was regarded only as a mathematician, and it was left to America to discover him as a philosopher,” writes Bertrand Russell, himself a famous British mathematician and philosopher. (SEP, 1956: 100).
Whitehead was born in 1861 and died in 1947. As an aside, such dates are important to note when reading a philosopher or writer simply because it gives us a broad idea of the milieu and the kind of society he lived in and events that would have shaped his life. In the case of Whitehead, the dates and his nationality tell us he was an Englishman who lived in a period of the British Empire, and through two world wars, though the topic today does not touch these.
It also places him in the timeline of the history of thought. As a philosopher, Whitehead is best known as a pioneer of process metaphysics, where he puts forward the idea that the fundamental entities of the universe are not things but processes. Metaphysics is the study of the nature of reality. In process metaphysics, things or substances are not to be defined as fixed but as unfolding, in a process of becoming hence making process more fundamental than the things’ supposed essences. Things should also not be examined atomically, individually but in its relation to other things. While process metaphysics is not entirely a new idea even in his time, he elaborates how process philosophy works, and can be seen to be responding to the more traditional substance metaphysics as well as process philosophers such as Henri Bergson who is his contemporary.
Back to the book, its final section on Civilisation, is where Whitehead connects truth, beauty, art, adventure and peace. The book in its entirety is an analysis of the history of the world through his eyes, on the evolution of thought, society, philosophy and civilisation, demonstrating his erudition and is worth reading. I will focus on his exposition on truth, beauty and art, and look at how he connects humankind’s pursuit of truth to beauty and art.
[I have uploaded the text as subtitles so if it helps you to follow the video better, please do turn it on with the cc button at the bottom right of the youtube screen.]
Chapter 16 – Truth
Beginning with Chapter 16 entitled Truth, Whitehead makes a distinction between Appearance and Reality. What we perceive of reality is appearance. Like in Immanuel Kant’s notions of perception, our cognition has to interpret the sense data that we receive through our sensory apparatus, presenting this data as an appearance. In our interpretation, our cognition will emphasise and prolong some aspects and details while diminishing and excluding others. How then do we know if these appearances resemble reality? According to Whitehead, appearance justifies itself using truth and beauty.
What then is truth? Whitehead’s view is akin to the correspondence theory of truth. He writes: “Truth is the conformation of Appearance to Reality.” He explains that “Truth is a qualification which applies to Appearance alone. Reality is just itself, and it is nonsense to ask whether it be true or false.”
This conformation of appearance to reality has various degrees and modes, i.e. it can be more or less true, direct or indirect and there are various species of truth. For e.g. our reflection in the mirror is clearly not the true us, since it is merely an image of ourselves that we see. However, it does also capture what we look like, and in that way, our reflection is a species of truth about us.
There are also truth relations between objects. Truth relations exist when two different objects, with different essences, have a common factor. By examining one, something can be understood of the other. “Two objective contents are united in a truth-relation when they severally participate in the same pattern. Either illustrates what in part the other is. Thus they interpret each other,” writes Whitehead. My e.g. is how a cat and a tiger have some common factors such as both have fur, tails, claws and give birth to their young. They are in fact so similar that they are both classified under the cat family. We know for instance that cats can climb trees. Can tigers? This is what the truth-relations can help us hypothesise.
The two objects are now united and integrated by the contrast with each other by a cognising subject such as us. This subject stands in between, experiencing a transfer of feeling between the objects which is justified by the truth-relation, which expresses the common factor of the objects.
The objective facts about one object get a readjustment of the values of its factors from the perceiving subject because of this analogy with other objects, becoming a “real fact tinged with Appearances.” An example I can think of is prejudice and stereotypes, where people commonly think of how all people of a country or a race are such and such, even though they obviously have not met every single member of that country or race, tinging their perceptions of the appearances they have of them.
He writes: “To know the truth partially is to distort the Universe.” This sentence can be interpreted in several ways. Since we are unable to know everything at once completely, our partial knowledge leads to a distortion of what reality actually is. Think of my nationality and race example. Whitehead also gives an example. A savage who can only count to 10 would have a misplaced sense of the importance of small numbers when in fact, all numbers are equal in importance.
The sentence may also be read as, part of knowing the truth involves distorting reality. This happens since to make sense of the sense data, our cognition needs to interpret them which is a distortion of reality. The latter interpretation is how Kant might have read it.
Anyway, truth is not everything. Knowing the truth is not necessarily good. “The minor truth may beget the major evil,” he writes. His example is how if Newton had fixated on the small errors of Kepler’s laws which would be the minor truth, he would have missed the big picture and not have been able to devise a new theory altogether which would be the major evil. My example is how knowledge of failing say an exam, which is true but only a minor truth, can give one anxiety over trying other things for fear of failure, which is the major evil. As it is commonly said, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
How do we obtain truth relations?
We obtain truth relations through propositions and sense-perception. Whitehead defines a proposition as “the abstract possibility of an assigned nexus illustrating an assigned pattern.” In other words, a proposition combines subject and predicate in a nexus to capture a pattern. Verbalising a proposition is not just simply enunciating it but involves an “incitement” of a psychological attitude in grasping it, be it “to believe, doubt, enjoy or obey” it. Hence, a proposition is not just a bald, neutral statement but comes attached with an incitement.
However, a proposition is only a suggestion or a theory. When we make a proposition, we transit from the initial experience of the object towards its appearance. We interpret the sense data using propositions and what is retained is the Appearance in propositional form and not the reality of the object itself.
“It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true,” writes Whitehead, because what energises a proposition in our experience is our interest in it, though Whitehead suggests that a true proposition tends to be more interesting than a false one and any actions driven by the emotional push of a proposition is more likely to be successful if it is true, even though truth itself can be its own reason for action. Let’s contrast truth with thoughts. When we think, the objects of our thought exist only as possibilities which might or might not be actual.
Previous sense data informs current bodily activities, hence validating the occurrences of our experiences and eliminating uncertainty of its occurrence. Sense data qualifies our feelings. The feelings we have over appearances are what makes the sense-perception subjective. The interpreted sense data produces the feelings, for e.g. how the look on another person’s face, which is sense data, conveys emotions to the perceiver.
However, “the Reality functions in the past, the Appearance is perceived in the present,” writes Whitehead. We can understand this to mean that the reality which comes to us via sense data is already of the past though our interpretation of the data which is cognised as appearance tells us that it is in the present. Therefore, appearances have truth-relations to occurrences in the past but also in the present. This is because there is a truth-relations of the past to the present. Appearances in the present are justified by the past and our experience of stability. So our seeing a grimace on someone’s face may take place at time 0, and it takes say some milliseconds for us to interpret it which puts the grimace in the past, but we also through inductive experience know that the pain causing the grimace isn’t going to vanish in milliseconds and hence we still think the person is in pain from his grimace even though we took some time, short as it may be, to cognise it all.
There is another type of truth-relation, the truth-relation of symbolic truth. Symbols include writing where the symbols only indirectly represent truth-relations since words are not the objects themselves but represent the objects. In that way, language conveys objective meaning but also can convey subjective meaning. Music for instance can convey patriotic or religious emotion though objectively if we consider how music is just a set of tones, there is no truth-relation. So there is a vague truth-relation through the subjective feelings connecting the music to appearance, and then a truth-relation of this appearance to reality, Whitehead’s examples being the reality of strife between nations or the essence of god. We are starting to see how Whitehead’s ideas on truth relate to art. “This complex fusion of truth-relations, with their falsehoods intermixed, constitutes the indirect interpretative power of Art to express the truth about the nature of things,” writes Whitehead.
The main justification of truth is in matters of fact. Indirect modes are “hints and suggestions” adding to this foundation of facts. Clear and distinct appearances corresponding to reality is the basic form of this foundation of facts. Clear and distinct appearances are primarily sense-perception. However, that objective appearance brings a subjective element which makes art possible. For e.g. three objects by virtue of their numerical quantity of 3 may bring no subjective response but their redness might evoke some subjective feeling of excitement, for instance three red cars versus three grey ones. The sense data become associated with subjective feelings which gives them values.
Chapter 17 – Beauty
In Chapter 17, entitled Beauty, Whitehead explains that “Beauty is the mutual adaptation of the several factors in an occasion of experience.” If something adapts, this implies that it is adapting to some final objective. Hence this objective needs to be discovered. Whitehead thinks this objective is twofold. The first is an “absence of mutual inhibition” between our prehensions regarding the object or objects. This absence of mutual inhibition gives rise to a “minor form of beauty” which is characterised by an absence of clashing and vulgarity. Prehension is a term Whitehead uses to mean individual conceptions and understanding arising from our perceptions of appearances.
The second objective gives rise to the major form of beauty. In addition to the minor form of beauty, there is a synthesis of our prehensions that “introduces new contrasts of objective content with objective content.” [my italics] These contrasts give rise to new “intensities of feelings” that conform to each objective content, raising the intensities of feelings in each object and of the whole. Whitehead is now ready to define the aim of beauty, and he defines it as a “perfection of Harmony,” which is the “perfection of Subjective Form [both] in detail and in final synthesis.”
There are three ways we interpret the world, according to Whitehead: “a) between the objective and subjective content of a prehension, b) between the subjective forms of various prehensions in the same occasion and c) between the subjective form of a prehension and the spontaneity involved in the subjective aim of the prehending occasion.” Occasion can be considered to be the experience by our consciousness in one event.
From (a) between the objective and subjective content of a prehension, objective qualitative factors are what qualify the subjective form. According to Whitehead, this is the general principle that underlies three doctrines: 1) The doctrine of conformal feelings, which forms the primary phase of an occasion, 2) the doctrine of qualitative valuations which is carried out by mental activities and 3) the doctrine of valuations involved in the nature of god, as a creative force in the universe (Eros).
From (b) between the subjective forms of various prehensions in the same occasion and the second doctrine, the doctrine of qualitative valuations which is carried out by mental activities, there is a unity when the occasion is in the process of forming. The various subjective forms contribute to the total subjective feeling of the occasion. Each part which gives its own objective data conforms with its own subjective forms which is then integrated. There is also compatibility between the subjective feelings. Moreover, not all subjective forms are equally prominent to our consciousness. This is how Art is possible where art has a focus or subject matter and emphasises some objects while pushing the others into the background.
From (c) between the subjective form of a prehension and the spontaneity involved in our subjectivity and the third doctrine, the doctrine of valuations involved in the nature of god, as a creative force in the universe, the synthesis of subjective forms is not completely determined by the data but is carried out by the subject, from “the spontaneity of its own essence.” The spontaneity of the novel individual occasions, as carried out by the subject who is itself conditioned by its past and is in the process of becoming, forms the future. Perhaps Whitehead is going after how Beauty is in the eye of the beholder since this spontaneity is something that just comes from within us not due to any particular sense of harmony but just how we feel, no reason required and can differ from person to person.
He gives two meanings of what beauty is: 1) beauty that is realised in actual occasions because parts of the objective content contribute to the perfection of the subjective form of the whole. 2) beauty that is realised in an occasion depending on the objective content and the spontaneity of the occasion, which requires that there is a spontaneous recognition of beauty by the perceiver.
Perfection in the notion of beauty is the “absence of […] component feelings which mutually inhibit each other.”
There are two types of inhibition, according to Whitehead: 1) a perfection despite the finiteness, disregarding any components that are not part of the subjective feelings of beauty. Whitehead terms this anaesthesia. 2) Active presence of both negative and positive feelings about components such that it gives rise to a “third feeling of mutual destructiveness.” He names this “aesthetic destruction” which is discordant.
For Whitehead, there are higher and lower perfections. There may be imperfect occasions that are better than occasions which realise a limited type of perfection. “An imperfection aiming at a higher type stands above lower perfections [...] Progress is founded upon the experience of discordant feelings,” he writes. So imperfection and discordance are not entirely bad things. He writes that “the social value of liberty lies in its production of discords.” Discord and imperfection contribute to beauty in how they make us see even higher perfections, according to Whitehead.
He examined ancient Greek civilisation, which enjoyed a period of progress due to its seeking the ideal of perfection. However, their attainment of perfection caused stagnation, where they lost inspiration towards greater heights. With learning taking the form of repetition, their genius was stifled. The sense of adventure was lost. “Adventure is essential, namely, the search for new perfections,” says Whitehead.
Hence the importance of spontaneity. He writes: “Spontaneity […] belongs to the essence of each actual occasion. It is the supreme expression of individuality […] Freshness, zest and the extra keenness of intensity arise from it.” Being on the path towards the goal of perfection is more thrilling than “any prolonged halt in a stage of attainment with the major variations completely tried out.” Once attaining “a stage of perfection,” we should try out variations that do not introduce discordances. But these will be quickly exhausted and so “bolder” adventures are needed, adventures in both ideas and practice.
Harmony
Because realisations are finite and possibilities are always excluded, harmony is in that way always disrupted. However, once again, this is not a bad thing since otherwise we would be stuck in cycles of repetition in an ultimate perfection. Whitehead outlines four ways to deal with this inevitable disharmony: 1) anaesthesia where the discordant parts are disregarded, 2) eliminate the incompatibility, 3) readjust the “relative intensities of incompatible feelings” which might then make them compatible. This is possible when it is a clash of intensities and not a logical incompatibility of qualities. By reducing one of the clashing intensities into the background, it might provide variety which is a good thing. We can introduce another system of prehensions relevant to both inharmonious systems, to alter the distribution of intensities of the two systems. This is what happens in Appearance, when there is a simplification of the massiveness of the variety of reality, where occasions are combined to form a region that supersedes them. Massiveness is the variety of detail with effective contrast. (p. 252) “Appearance combines massiveness [variety] with intensity by unifying the diversities of objects,” eliciting feelings of good and bad. This is what “makes possible the height of Beauty and the height of Evil; because it saves both from a tame elimination or a tame scaling down,” understands Whitehead. So instead of anaesthesia or reduction to background, it unifies through simplification.
In summary, “Harmony is more than logical compatibility, and Discord is more than logical incompatibility.” There can be an emotional significance for that specific individual, for e.g. a ring is not just a ring but my wedding ring. So in that case, it is not the objective qualities or the sensory that lends it its emotional subjectivity.
Individual details lend themselves to the beauty of the whole. Whitehead writes: “In the work of art, the relativity becomes the harmony of the composition, and the absoluteness is the claim for separate individuality advanced by component factors.”
Chapter 18 – Truth and Beauty
Chapter 18, entitled Truth and Beauty is where Whitehead brings together his three notions of truth, beauty and art. “Beauty is a wider and more fundamental notion than Truth,” claims Whitehead. Beauty concerns the inter-relations of components of reality, of appearance and the relation of appearance to reality. He believes that “the teleology of the Universe is directed to the production of Beauty.” Anything beautiful is, to the extent it is beautiful, justified in its existence. However, a thing might inhibit more beauty than it creates so it turns out to be overall evil. Beauty in its partial form is not necessarily good.
Truth’s meaning is narrower. It only concerns the relation of appearance in conforming to reality. Conformation in terms of truth requires that the truth-relation between two things have common factors.
There is no special importance about truth-relation. Facts do not necessarily yield a subjective response, and even if it does, it is not necessarily promoting beauty since a truth-relation may be evil. “Thus Beauty is left as the one aim which by its very nature is self-justifying,” explains Whitehead.
“The Discord in the universe arises from the fact that modes of Beauty are various, and not of necessity compatible,” he continues. But discord is necessary to transit from one mode of beauty to another. “The objective life of the past and the future in the present is an inevitable element of disturbance,” he writes – life in itself inevitably has discord and so life in itself can transit to different modes of beauty.
A “wide purpose” contributes to the massiveness/variety of experience of the individual and hence is beautiful. To give up the immediate for the sake of purpose is a “sacrifice to Harmony.”
However, truth is important to promoting beauty since truth-relations are a direct simple way to achieving Harmony while falsehood is corrosive. Indirect ways to achieve harmony is more contingent, depending on the environment.
An experience of a beautiful object helps us realise “hidden, penetrating truth with a keenness beyond compare.” “The type of Truth required for the final stretch of Beauty is a discovery and not a recapitulation,” writes Whitehead, i.e. truths that appear especially beautiful are ones that we discover and not just repeat from previous knowledge. Its appearance “summons up new resources of feeling from the depths of Reality,” a truth of feeling and not just a propositional truth. “The Truth of supreme Beauty lies beyond the dictionary meaning of words,” according to Whitehead, i.e. the truth expressed in supreme beauty is not something we can verbalise completely but needs to be felt.
When appearance has a truth-relation to reality, the beauty of the appearance is secure, also for the future. This suggests a timelessness of such beauty, for instance the beauty we find in nature, compared to a fashionable kind of beauty, where changing tastes over time might render what is beautiful today ugly later.
“The realisation of Truth becomes in itself an element promoting Beauty of feeling,” he elaborates. Thus truth becomes self-justifying, by promoting Beauty, which is self-justifying.
What then is art? “Art is [the] purposeful adaptation of Appearance to Reality,” according to Whitehead. The purpose of art is truth and beauty. “The perfection of art has only one end, which is Truthful Beauty,” says Whitehead. “In the absence of Truth, Beauty is on a lower level, with a defect of massiveness. In the absence of Beauty, Truth sinks to triviality. Truth matters because of beauty.” “Apart from Beauty, Truth is neither good, nor bad,” he writes.
“Appearance is beautiful when the qualitative objects which compose it are interwoven in patterned contrasts, so that the prehensions of the whole of its parts produces the fullest harmony of mutual support.” “The whole heightens the feelings for the parts, and the parts heighten the feelings for the whole and for each other,” explains Whitehead.
Truthful beauty can also come from the slow processes of nature instead of art [by human beings].
A third purpose of art in addition to truth and beauty is goodness. Good and evil is beyond appearances, solely concerned with “inter-relations within the real world.” “The real world is good when it is beautiful,” he claims.
“The charge of immorality is not refuted by pointing to the perfection of art,” since there can be “unseasonable art,” i.e. art that is good in a particular setting or milieu but not out of it. Art is not necessarily immortal. Our tastes can change. However such changing taste is not entirely a bad thing, since according to Whitehead, “one incidental service of art to society lies in its adventurousness.”
Because of a craving for freshness, change should be promoted by Art. However, art adapts appearance for beauty’s sake and so it is immediate in its orientation. In that way, some depth is lost by art. Morals on the other hand are directed at an ideal which can be resistant to change from a “well-assimilated system of customs.” It aims towards a permanence that could be challenged to reform by art.
Consciousness
Moving on to consciousness, consciousness is what makes Art possible in our experiences. What is consciousness? It is a quality that emerges in conjunctions. Whitehead seems to consider it to be a mental faculty that judges – “that quality which emerges […] as the result of the conjunction of a fact and a supposition about that fact […] the quality inherent in the contrast between Actuality and Ideality.”
“Consciousness is a mode of attention,” where it selectively gives attention to certain details while relegating the rest to background or ignoring them, strengthening “the artificiality of an occasion of experience.” Appearance is clear and distinct to consciousness. “What leaps into conscious attention is a mass of presuppositions about Reality rather than the intuitions of Reality itself,” says Whitehead. However, this background is massive and important, and in art, “haunts” the object that is clear to consciousness. “These dim elements provide for art that final background of tone apart from which its effects fade.” Art needs to somehow still capture the less significant elements in its background to work more effectively and powerfully.
“The work of Art is a fragment of nature with the mark on it of a finite creative effort, so that it stands alone, an individual thing detailed from the vague infinity of its background.” In standing out in such a way, it draws our attention to what it is trying to say. Hence, “the merit of Art in its service to civilisation lies in its artificiality and its finiteness,” according to Whitehead. It heightens our “sense of humanity” by evoking into consciousness “the finite perfections which lie ready for human achievement.” His example is of a sunset which is “glorious but […] dwarfs humanity and belongs to […] nature.” Art is required to bring it into a form that can inspire our consciousness.
“Consciousness itself is the product of art in its lowliest form,” writes Whitehead. Consciousness interprets reality by shaping it into a “finite, select appearance,” which is what Art does also. Art is artificial but aims to capture nature in its depictions. “Art is the education of nature […] art is civilisation,” says Whitehead. We use art to capture the most salient aspects of nature as far as mankind is concerned and in that way, art is the mark of civilisation, understanding civilisation to be what differentiates a civilised person from the state of nature.
The human soul uses the body to produce art, concentrating on elements “derived from components dismissed into shadow.” Whitehead thinks that art brings to our attention things we might otherwise miss. Art comes from our physiological cravings, and we apparently have a craving to re-enact. We want to “re-live” our own emotional life and those of our ancestors. Hence we can trace art back to religious rituals, dance, cave paintings, poems, music, etc.
“But the secret of art lies in its freedom,” writes Whitehead. We can relive tense experiences in our emotional lives again but this time without the strain but only its joy. He says: “Art can be described as a psychopathic reaction of the race to the stresses of its existence.” “Art has a curative function in human experience when it reveals […] in a flash, intimate, absolute Truth regarding the Nature of Things.”
Returning to his theme of civilisation, Whitehead writes: “Science and Art are the consciously determined pursuit of Truth and […] Beauty.” Our limited consciousness uses them to capture the infinite richness of nature. We create institutions and professions to do this, to build civilisation so that we can through science and art, use these ultimate sources of harmony.
In conclusion, beauty is self-justifying. What makes beauty more powerful is its truth content, and in that way, truth is also justified. Art is a human creation aiming at beauty and the best art expresses both truth and beauty. Goodness comes from beauty. Beauty comes from harmony but the subjectivity of our feelings towards beauty can also arise spontaneously. There are varying degrees of the perfection of beauty and hence art, and discord in a lower perfection of beauty can spur us on to higher perfections of beauty. Art in its adventurousness can inspire change which can enhance the state of our civilisation.
No comments:
Post a Comment