Like ships we are

Progress in Art, Suzi Gablik, Rizzoli Publications, 1976

It helps a great deal to have read widely in aesthetics
in order to appreciate just how good is Suzi Gablik’s
Progress in Art. Aesthetics has replaced economics as
“the dreary science.’’ Work in this field varies from the
monumentally difficult (anyone for Hegel?) to the per-
sonally precious (Morris Weitz on King Lear).

Philosophy in general and aesthetics in particular
have become the property of university departments.
The language and style of writing is academic and often
puerile. Rarely is language clear and style lively. Gab-
lik’s prose deserves special praise for lucidity and good
humour. Her style is never quarrelsome, and she is
consistently careful not to let her conclusions reach
beyond her argument.

What is her argument? Gablik seeks an explanation
which accounts for the apparent progress (development)
that the history of art chronicles. She is unsatisfied with
mere description of this development and seeks an
account of how we can understand it. Gablik wisely
avoids the options of beginning with unexamined pre-
mises or of asserting anchoring absolutes. Instead she
borrows from Plato and chooses to argue by analogy.

Argument by analogy is the lever Plato (The Repub-
lic) used to build a theory of truth and of the ethical
life. Similarly Gablik argues that recent work in devel-
opmental psychology (Jean Piaget) and the philosophy
of science (Thomas Kuhn) illuminates the successive
stages of the history of art. This succession culminates
in modern abstract painting and sculpture. Gablik is
impressed with the power of developmental psychology
to explain how these stages have come about.

Taken by the development of the abstract powers of
the human mind and the parallel growth of abstraction
in modern art, she summarizes her story:

Everything I have had to say about art in

this book presupposes its permanent affi-

nity with the structures of mind.

[S/tylistic changes reflect varying modes

of cognitive-logical capacity, suggesting

that the history of art may be seen as the

evolution in certain kinds of thought

processes (pp.174).
Gablik acknowledges just how controversial this con-
clusion is, but believes that the ensuing discussion may
provide the crucible from which we form a new aesthetic.

It is important to understand how Gablik comes to
this remarkable conclusion from a traditional form of
reasoning. In a careful fashion, Gablik demonstrates
the bankruptcy of competing theories. Gombrich’s
Art and Illusion with its defense of representation
takes the brunt of this attack. She is convinced that no
alternative theory satisfactorily answers her questions.
We may well ask why she chooses to argue by analogy.

Any explanation which begins with premises is open
to the question, ‘Why ought we accept the truth of
these premises?” We can easily find ourselves off on a
merry chase seeking premises which are more obviously
true. But the chase becomes pathological when we
realize that each successive ét of premises is also open
to the same question, requiring justification ad infinitum.

Argument by analogy avoids this regress by asking
only that one series (developmental psychology) cast a
special light. The light cast helps us to understand a

second series (the history of art). Our understanding is

Tom Kowall scratching his right cheek.

the product of identifying a structural similarity be-
tween what were before unrelated events. With the same
method Plato illuminates what is ethical for the indivi-
dual by examining what would make a nation moral.

I suspect that Gablik aspires to more than illumin-
ation. Her conclusions are interesting only if we are
able to go on to say that the increase in the abstract
powers of the human mind cause a parallel growth in
modern art. It is insufficient to assert only analogy be-
cause argument by analogy is, shudder, promiscuous. By
this I mean that there is structural similarity almost any-
where we are imaginative enough to find it. What makes
analogies interesting is that they point toward a deeper
level of integration. Gablik’s position would be crucial,
indeed, if that deeper level were ag@ just the familiar
notion of cause and effect.

Let me end by suggesting an alternative metaphor
for developing human understanding. Deduction assumes
a linear thread stretching, as it were, along a path from
known to newly understood. Analogy suggests parallel
but independent threads. A third picture sees the fields
of human endeavour as a set of threads which when
woven together by history and culture become the fabric
of human understanding.

If we choose to view the history of art as one thread
in that fabric, we shall feel no need to find a single
thread which either supports the rest or to which all the
others adhere. We shall come to appreciate the power of
John Dewey’s quest for the woop and wharf of human
understanding.

Or to change the metaphor to Otto Neurath’s —
we are like ships at sea which must continuously rebuild
without ever putting into port.

Tom Kowall, director, Student Services

The food we eat

“We enjoy the cynical story of the old-fashioned
doctor who insisted first on going straight to the kitchen
of the afflicted household. Not until he had effusively
thanked the cook for giving him a new patient did he
dash upstairs to see how he could relieve the cook’s
victim.”

In this college one is not concerned with food as
such but with the substances that the food contains;
being a human being here requires an open perception,
or so it has been said. Should we add a garlic poultice
to the college’s hemorrhoids?

Each one of us is the cook in the kitchen, choosing
those essential nutrients and making fresh connections.
To live we must grow. To live in health one must eat

intelligently; and in the spring: . . we search for greens.

Frequently there are sensational “recipes” concern-
ing fascinating bits of equipment and technology. The
individual becomes easily confused. Then there are the
storms of instructors with over-simplified, often ill-
founded dicta, waiting to (ahem) “fill up” the (cough)
“unknowing student”. Little wonder food poisoning is
so common.

One needs a daily recipe insuring basic calorie
values based on edible foods; the idea is to be able to
evaluate those complex relationships of elements larger
than our individual selves. We know one thing for sure:
our nutritional difficulties have to do generally with
(hmmmmnn) over-eating; we eat too much of certain
kinds of food and, second, many of us over-consume
drugs as well as foods. It’s basic knowledge, a fact one
might say — “medication” used habitually may induce
an adverse effect on the body’s ability to profit fully
from even the best dietary intake.

Well, if it’s also true that many teaching methods
have a devitalizing effect, then one must always reach
for fresh foods. . . and perhaps much will be discovered
by eating in front of a mirror.

About those calories again: ‘“‘What we really possess,
then, is not just a simple stoking mechanism, but a com-
puting setup far more elaborate and knowledgeable than
anything that man has been able to devise. The body
sorts and routes nutrients on their way as soon as they
are ingested. Our job is to help it along as much as
possible, neither stinting it nor overloading it.”” What

r 7

= y

would be appropriate is an exchange of recipes from
time to time, conducted on whatever scale we desire.
Perhaps we will gain a sense of proportion of balance,
and be able to deal directly with how we are. In those
delicious foods we eat. . . the crises come to life.

—Gordon Moore, with thanks to Irma S. Rombauer
and Marion Rombauer Becker in ‘“‘Joy of Cooking”

T’is better to be vile than vile esteem’d,

When not to be receives reproach of being;

And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem’d

Not by our feeling, but by others’ seeing:

For why should others’ false adulterate eyes

Give salutation to my sportive blood?

Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,

Which in their wills count bad what | think good?
No, | am that | am, and they that level

At my abuses reckon up their own:

I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown;
Unless this general evil they maintain,

All men are bad and in their badness reign.

Shakespeare
CXX!I

Congratulations on the production of the first copy of ““X"’.
Every success for future editions.

Tom Hudson
Dean of Instruction

Like ships we are

Progress in Art, Suzi Gablik, Rizzoli Publications, 1976

It helps a great deal to have read widely in aesthetics
in order to appreciate just how good is Suzi Gablik’s
Progress in Art. Aesthetics has replaced economics as
the dreary science.” Work in this field varies fro
monumental difficult (anyone for Hegel?) to the per
sonally precious (Morris Weitz on King Lear).

losophy in general and aesthetics in particular
hhave become the property of university departments
‘The language and style of writing is a ‘and often

pucrile. Rarely is language clear and style lively. Gab:
's prose deserves special praise for lucidity and good
imour. Her style is never quarrelsome, and she is

consistently careful not to let her conclusions reach
beyond her argument.

What is her argument? Gablik seeks an explanation
‘which accounts for the apparent progress (development)
that the history of art chronicles. ‘She is unsatisfied with
mere description of this development and secks an
account of how we can understand it, Gablik wisely
avoids the options of beginning with unexamined pre-
mises or of asserting anchoring absolutes, Instead she
borrows from Plato and chooses to argue by analogy.

Argument by analogy is the lever Plato (The Repub:
lic) used to build a theory of truth and of the ethical
life. Similarly Gablik argues that recent work in devel-
‘opmental psychology (Jean Piaget) and the philosophy
of science (Thomas Kuhn) illuminates the successive
stages of the history of art. ‘This succession culminates
in modern abstract painting and sculpture
impressed with the power of developmental psy.
to explain how these stages have come about.

Taken by the development of the abstract powers of
the human mind and the parallel growth of abstraction
in modern art, she summarizes her story

Everything I have had to say about art in
this book presupposes its permanent aff
nity with the structures of mind.
[S]tylistic changes reflect varying modes
Of comnitive-logical capacity, suggesting
that the history of art may be seen as the
evolution in certain hinds of thought
processes (pp.174).
‘acknowledges just how controversial this con-
clusion is, but believes that the ensuing discussion ma
provide the crucible from which we form a new aestheti

Its important to understand how Gablik comes to
this remarkable conclusion from a traditional form of
reasoning. In a careful fashion, Gablik demonstrates
the bankruptey of competing theories, Gombrich’s
Art and Iusion with its defense of representation
takes the brunt of this attack. She is convinced that no
alternative theory satisfactorily answers her questions,
We may well ask why she chooses to argue by analogy.

Any explanation which begins with premises is open
to the question, “Why ought we accept the truth of

ve can easily find ourselves off on a

s which are more obviously

true. But the chase becomes pathological when we
realize that each successive &t of premises is also open
to the same question, requiring justification ad infinitum.

Argument by analogy avoids this regress by asking.
only that one series (developmental psychology) cast a
special light. ‘The light east helps us to understand
second series (the history of art). Our understanding is

‘Tom Kowall scratching his right cheek.

|
1/

the product of identifying a structural similarity be-
‘tween what were before unrelated events, With the same
‘method Plato illuminates what is ethical for the indivi
dual by examining what would make a nation moral,

1 suspect that Gablik aspires to more than illumin-
ation. Her conclusions are interesting only if we are
able to go on to say that the increase in the abstract
powers of the human mind cause a parallel growth in
modern art. It is insufficient to assert only analogy be-
cause argument by analogy is, shudder, promiscuous. By
this T mean that there i structural similarity almost any-
where we are imaginative enough to find it, What makes
analogies interesting is that they point toward a deeper
level of integration. Gablik’s position would be crucial,
indeed, if that deeper level were aa just the familiar
notion of cause and effect.

Let me end by suggesting an alternative metaphor
for developing human understanding. Deduction assumes,
a linear thread stretching, as it were, along a path from
known to nevly understood. Analogy suggests parallel
but independent threads. A third picture sees the fields,
cof human endeavour as a set of threads which when
woven together by history and culture become the fabric
‘of human understanding.

If we choose to view the history of art as one thread
in that fabric, we shall feel no need to find a single
thread which either supports the rest or to which all the
others adhere. We shall come to appreciate the power of
John Dewey's quest for the woop and wharf of human
understanding.

Or to change the metaphor to Otto Neurath’s —
we are like ships at sea which must continuously rebui
‘without ever putting into port,

Tom Kowall, arector, student Services

The food we eat

“We enjoy the cynical story of the old-fashioned
doctor who insisted first on going straight to the kitchen
Of the afflicted household. Not until he had effusively
thanked the cook for giving him a new patient did he
dash upstairs to see how he could relieve the cook's

Tm this college one is not concerned with food as
such but with the substances that the food contains;
being a human being here requires an open perception,
fr $0 it has been said. Should we add a garlic poultice
to the college's hemorthoids?

Each one of us is the cook in the kitchen, choosing
those essential nutrients and making fresh connections.
To live we must grow. To live in health one must eat

ntly; and in the spring: .. we search for greens.
Frequently there are sensational “recipes” concern-
ing fascinating bits of equipment and technology. The
individual becomes easily confused. ‘Then there are the
storms of instructors with oversimplified, often ill
founded dicta, waiting to (ahem) “fill up” the (cough)
“unknowing student”. Little wonder food poisoning is

‘One needs a daily recipe insuring basic calorie
values based on edible foods; the idea is to be able to
evaluate those complex relationships of elements larger
than our individual selves. We know one thing for sur
our nutritional difficulties have to do generally with

hmmmmnn) over-eating; we eat too much of certain
kinds of food and, second, many of us over-consume
drugs as well as foods. It's basic knowledge, a fact one
‘might say — “'medication”” used habitually may induce
an adverse effect on the body's ability to profit fully
from even the best dietary intake.

Wel, if it’s also true that many teaching methods
hhave a devitalizing effect, then one must always reach
for fresh foods. .. and perhaps much will be discovered
by eating in front of a mirror.

‘About those calories again: “What we really postess,
then, is not just a simple stoking mechanism, but a com
puting setup far more elaborate and knowledgeable than

nything that man has been able to devise. “The body
sorts and routes nutrients on their way as soon as they
are ingested. Our job is to help it along as much as
possible, neither stinting it nor overloading it.” What

‘would be appropriate is an exchange of recipes from
time to time, conducted on whatever scale we desire,
Perhaps we will gain a sense of proportion of balance,
and be able to deal directly with how we are. In those
delicious foods we eat... the crises come to life.

~Gordon Moore, with thanks to Irma S. Rombauer
and Marion Rombauer Becker in ‘Joy of Cooking”

‘Vis better tobe vile than vile esteem’,
‘When not tobe receives reproach of being
‘and the just pleasure lst, which i 0 det
‘Not by our feeling, but by others’ seeing’
For why should others’ false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my spotiv Blood?

Or on my fralties why are fale spes,
Which in thee wils count bad what
No, am that 1am, and they that level
[At my abuses reckon up thei own:

{may be stralght, though they themselves be bevel;
By ther rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown;
Unless this general evi they maintain,

All men are bad and in thelr Badnest reign,
Shakespeare

Xx

‘Congratulations onthe production of the first copy of
Every sucess for future editions

Tom Hudson
ean of instruction