Myths that misinform the Philosophy of Art.
The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein believed the task of philosophy was to show the fly the way out of the bottle.
Flies buzzing around in a bottle is an apt image of the entrapment philosophers of aesthetics experience when attempting to unpack what goes on in art. More often than not their problems relate to beliefs or practices long held reliable but never questioned. Consequently long complicated theories are produced attempting to explain how people respond to art works.
For example, Kendall L. Walton[1], in an attempt to circumvent the principle that we are obliged to believe what we know, rejuvenates the notion of make-believe to explain emotional reactions to fiction.
For Walton make-believe is not actually a case of believing. Rather it is something that children do regularly and adults do when confronted with fiction. Walton asserts:
“Participants in a game of mud pies may decide to recognize a principle to the effect that whenever there is a gob of mud in a certain orange crate, it is “true in the game of make-believe,” i.e., it is fictional, that there is a pie in the oven. This fictional truth is a make-believe one.”[2]
Walton intends this description to be an explanation of what make-believing is describing it as a game. He goes on to assert that “Principles of make-believe that are in force in a game need not have been formulated explicitly or deliberately adopted.”
Walton has just flown into the bottle and the notion of ‘make-believe’ is the illusion that will keep him there. Walton is correct to describe the children’s creation of mud pies a game but it is not a make-believe one.
The notion of ‘make-believe’ has a long history. In part, it became popular as a result of trying to explain how it is that children can seemingly believe that a gob of mud is a pie when they know it isn’t. For Walton it is how an audience can, during the experience of a play, feel flashes of pity, joy, admiration, fear or what have you.
But believing that a gob of mud is a pie is no different than believing that the sun rises and sets everyday. (See: Sorry, Ernest, The Sun Doesn’t Rise in this blog) It is a convention of our language use. All conventions are language conventions. But of course Walton, would hold that it is incorrect to say ‘believing that a gob of mud’ etc. and there are many who would support him in this. He would insist we must say “make-believing that a gob of mud’…and so on.
There are several myths implicit in Walton’s argument and we mention them only to point out that they create a web of bewitchment. Myths such as ‘reality is a fixed state of affairs’ and ‘illusion is a false thing’. Also ‘acting is pretense’ and ‘a convention is a type of behavior’ rather than a description in language, to name a few. Belief in one myth entraps the believer into swallowing down a host of others.
There are two ways to demonstrate the fallacy of Walton’s argument. The first is to accept the children are playing a game. Games are rule governed (Walton describes them as principles) and rule determined. There is a rule that tells us when the game is over. In this children’s game it is an ad hoc rule that comes into play when they tire or become bored with it or when an adult calls them to dinner or some such. Walton holds that the game is a fiction and as such is not something the children actually believe. But all games that develop a story-line are fictional. If there are rules to the game then we are obliged to believe (not make-believe) the rules apply. There’s nothing fictional about following rules.
Is it the case that Walton believes that children who play a game of mud pies are in some way insincere? If the children were insincere then they would be disbelieving the rules apply. Disbelieving the rules is not playing the game. Walton must have something else in mind. Make-believe must be some type of pseudo believing and not actually believing. But what type of believing is this? Walton cannot be thinking of pretense for all pretenses are insincere.
Walton holds that when children follow the rules and say there is a pie in the oven it is a fictional truth and this fictional truth is a make-believe truth. What ever is fictional is make-believe for Walton. If we have fictional truths then it must be the case that we could also, at times, have fictional falsehoods but what would a fictional falsehood look like? In actual fact what Walton describes as a fictional truth is a rule that governs the game and this rule cannot be make-believe. There is an inherent contradiction here.
Walton’s problem is that he doesn’t question what it is we are doing when we believe. How do you suppose we learned to believe anything? When did we start believing?
I think it would be difficult to argue that believing took place before we learnt language. By the same token once we had become accomplished with using language believing was well and truly established. There seems little doubt that believing is an attitude that is a necessary condition for acquiring language.
A child who points to a stove and produces a sound that we take to be ‘burn’ verifies her language use, her beliefs by her behavior which elicits a response which sustains or corrects that behavior. The believing behavior of the child demonstrates her conviction.
It seems pretty safe to say that for the child believing is a conviction that the language she is using is correct. Not true or false but correct. The stove may be disconnected or not in use but as the child is learning language her behavior is supported because the truth or falsity of the statement does not come into play. We learn to believe before we learn statements to be true or false. We learn to believe when learning language.
All believing entails conviction. No conviction no believing. Walton might suggest that Make-believe means that the children are playing without conviction but this will not do for their behavior would demonstrate this. We have seen children play these games with honest sincerity and conviction.
Make-believing has to be an attitude much as believing is an attitude but unlike believing, make-believing has no antonym. We cannot take on an attitude of make-disbelieving. There is good reason to believe that ‘make-believe’ is a grammatical red herring.
There is a long held philosophical axiom that states that in order demonstrate that you know something to be the case (have knowledge of) you must believe it. Knowledge entails belief. It is a contradiction to say: “I know the earth is round but I don’t believe it.” If you don’t believe it then you cannot claim to have that knowledge. In Walton’s example the child would say: “I know this to be an orange crate but I believe it to be an oven.” Walton and many others would see this as irrational and not wishing to create an example where the children could be described as irrational he has conjured up the notion of ‘make believe’. He insists the children don’t actually believe the orange crate is an oven rather they make-believe it is an oven. Walton’s solution is a common one but it is mistaken.
It is no more of a contradiction to believe an orange crate is an oven than it is to believe an orange crate is a toy box (a box for storing toys) or a bookcase. We might wish to argue that it is a poor oven whereas it is a good toy box and an adequate bookcase but this is a different argument. The children are not disbelieving and saying ‘I know this is an orange crate but I don’t believe it.’ Quite the contrary, they believe that as an orange crate it will make quite an adequate oven just as we believe it will make a toy box or bookcase.
No doubt some people will bring forth that hoary old chestnut insisting the children do not believe the orange crate is an oven but they suspend their disbelief but this also will not work.
The ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ is a term coined in the nineteenth century by S. T. Coleridge as a refutation of the positivists’ attack on poetic truth. It was soon adopted by theatre enthusiasts to relieve them of the criticism that it was ‘irrational’ to believe the falsehoods of the stage to be true.
But what the ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ means is ‘I believe’. It functions much like the remark: “I promise not to read the previous sentence.” Belief entails conviction and disbelief means a belief in a contrary proposition. There is no in-between attitude here. If we suspend disbelief we obliged to believe. We have no choice.
Launt Thompson
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?field-keywords=Launt+Thompson&url=search-alias%3Daps&x=16&y=9
Launt Thompson
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?field-keywords=Launt+Thompson&url=search-alias%3Daps&x=16&y=9
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