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1
Lebenswelt, 5 (2014)
FORUM
JERROLD LEVINSON
Contemplating Art. Essays in Aesthetics
Oxford - New York, Oxford University Press, 2006
Discussants:
Alessandro Bertinetto
Filippo Focosi
Michele Di Monte
Lisa Giombini
Ed. by Manrica Rotili
2
J. Levinson, L. Giombini, F. Focosi, M. Di Monte, A. Bertinetto
ALESSANDRO BERTINETTO
(Università degli Studi di Udine)
CONTEMPLATING MUSIC
Introduzione
La filosofia della musica è uno dei principali campi cui Jerrold Levi n-
son ha dedicato la sua riflessione e anche in CA, così come in Music,
Art and Metaphysics (MAM) e The Pleasures of Aesthetics (PA), all’arte
dei suoni è dedicata una specifica sezione che valorizza, accanto alla
costituzione formale, i possibili contenuti della musica, emergenti in
una contemplazione che è al contempo partecipazione attiva, di tipo
sia emotivo sia riflessivo, da parte dell’ascoltatore. I saggi ‘musicali’ di
CA, le cui tesi Levinson ha più recentemente sviluppato in varie dire-
zioni
1
, 1. approfondiscono la teoria dell’espressività musicale già pre-
sentata in MAM e PA (la cosiddetta ‘teoria della persona’, TP), 2. la ar-
ticolano in relazione ad aspetti particolari dell’esperienza musicale
(per es. la performance), e 3. ne esaminano il contributo per la com-
prensione della dimensione narrativa e drammatica della musica
nonché, in generale 4., come elemento centrale del suo valore artisti-
co. Qui mi concentrerò soprattutto sul punto 1., toccando poi più bre-
vemente i punti 2., 3. e 4. Non muoverò particolari critiche alle tesi
qui argomentate da Levinson (eccettuata la proposta di
un’integrazione alla sua tesi sul valore intrinseco-esperienziale della
musica), perché a differenza di alcune posizioni di altri filosofi anal i-
tici della musica, e anche di alcuni orientamenti dello stesso Levinson
rispetto all’ontologia della musica (cui CA non offre particolari con-
tributi), le condivido in larghissima misura. Piuttosto, presenterò
quelli che mi sembrano i punti salienti della sezione musicale di CA,
provando, in un caso, a difendere le proposte levinsoniane da alcune
obiezioni.
1
Cfr. per es. The Aesthetic Appreciation of Music, «British Journal of Aesthetics» 49 (2009);
Philosophy and Music, «Topoi», 28 (2009); Musical Beauty, «Teorema», 31 (2012); Jazz Vocal
Interpretation: A Philosophical Analysis, «Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism» 71 (2013);
Popular Song as Moral Microcosm: Life Lessons from Jazz Standards, «Philosophy», Supple-
ment 71 (2013); Die expressive Spezifität des Jazz, «Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und allgemeine
Kunstwissenschaft», 59/1 (2014) (Ästhetik des Jazz, Hg. von A. Bertinetto, G. Bertram, D.M.
Feige).
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Lebenswelt, 5 (2014)
1. La teoria della persona
Levinson spiega l’espressività musicale con il seguente argomento.
Un brano o un passaggio musicale è espressivo di un’emozione sol-
tanto qualora sia ascoltato, da un ascoltatore esperto, come espre s-
sione di essa. Ma l’atto di esprimere richiede un agente che (si) e-
sprime. Quindi, chi ascolta la musica come espressiva è impegnato ad
ascoltare (o almeno a immaginare) un agente nella musica – la perso-
na musicale: un ente fittizio «caratterizzato soltanto dall’emozione
che la ascoltiamo esprimere e dal gesto musicale mediante cui la e-
sprime» (CA, p. 93). La tesi è che, se ascoltiamo la musica come e-
spressiva, è perché attribuiamo direttamente e immediatamente
(cioè in modo non inferenziale e per lo più inconsapevole
2
)
l’emozione o lo stato affettivo espressi a un agente, e questo anche
quando, pur riconoscendo un carattere espressivo, non siamo in gra-
do di individuare precisamente l’emozione espressa. Questo agente
non è (per forza) – come volevano le teorie romantiche – il composi-
tore o l’interprete, ma un soggetto immaginario – e per questo indefi-
nito: la persona musicale, che si costituisce attraverso la gestualità
musicale che l’ascoltatore percepisce come espressiva.
La questione principale concerne la difendibilità di TP. Tra le
obiezioni discusse, e respinte, in CA (pp. 97-107) quella più pericolo-
sa è se per spiegare l’espressività sia necessario supporre un soggetto
fittizio che provi le emozioni. Infatti, la validità di TP dipende da quel-
la della premessa che ‘l’atto di esprimere richiede un agente che e-
sprime’, una tesi che molti rifiutano. In particolare secondo Joseph
Margolis non è ovvio che ogni espressività debba essere una forma di
espressione
3
. Spiegando l’espressività esclusivamente come forma di
espressione, non si riuscirebbe a chiarire alcuni fenomeni espressivi
in cui è evidente l’assenza di un soggetto che si esprime e nel cui caso
il riconoscimento del carattere espressivo dipende dai criteri esteri o-
2
La non-inferenzialità dell’attribuzione dell’emozione espressa alla persona musicale è una
delle differenze della teoria di Levinson rispetto alle teorie della persona musicale di Robin-
son e Vermazen. Cfr. J. Robinson, Deeper than Reason, Emotion and its Role in Literature, Mu-
sic and Art, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2005; B. Vermazen, Expression as Expression, «Pacific
Philosophical Quarterly», 67 (1986), pp. 196-224.
3
J. Margolis, On Aesthetics: An Unforgiving Introduction, Belmont, CA, Wadsworth, 2009, p.
88.
4
J. Levinson, L. Giombini, F. Focosi, M. Di Monte, A. Bertinetto
ri di pratiche culturali e sociali. Insomma, le attribuzioni di predicati
espressivi non implicherebbero stati psicologici né reali né fittizi. Il
ricorso a un soggetto fittizio sarebbe errato, perché l’espressività d i-
pende semplicemente da pratiche condivise, che hanno le loro regole
(le loro ‘grammatiche’ per dirla con Wittgenstein) e funzionano sul
piano della mediazione storico-culturale. L’espressività riconoscibile
percettivamente dipenderebbe da topoi e convenzioni caratterizzanti
un genere, una tradizione, una cultura. Il punto di forza dell’obiezione
è il tentativo di stabilizzare l’espressività, oggettivandola come risul-
tato di mediazioni culturali. Ciò consente di capire come e perché un
ascoltatore sia in grado di afferrare il carattere espressivo di un bra-
no di un genere di cui è esperto, mentre non riesca a farlo se, non es-
sendo avvezzo a quel genere di musica, non ne domina la grammati-
ca.
L’argomento della dimensione culturale e grammaticale
dell’espressività ha buon gioco, per es., contro la ‘teoria della som i-
glianza’ di Kivy e Davies
4
, che, come Margolis, presuppongono la di-
stinzione tra esprimere un’emozione E ed essere espressivo di E, cioè
avere soltanto l’apparenza esteriore dell’espressione di E. Cionondime-
no, se usato come obiezione contro TP, tale argomento è inefficace.
L’espressione emozionale, tanto ordinaria quanto artistica, ricorre
certamente a figure espressive riconosciute, soggette a trasformazio-
ne storica e regolate da una grammatica culturale. Tuttavia, dire che
l’espressione delle emozioni è esteriorizzata nei comportamenti reg o-
lati da grammatiche culturali non impedisce di sostenere – in parziale
accordo con Wittgenstein – «che tali comportamenti pubblicamente
osservabili siano parzialmente ‘costitutivi’ delle emozioni, essendo al
contempo ‘indicatori’ delle componenti non-osservabili, interne, e-
sperienziali di quelle emozioni»
5
. Dunque, il riconoscere la dimensio-
ne esteriore e grammaticale dell’espressione musicale non esclude
che attraverso le figure espressive musicali si possa riconoscere
l’espressione di un agente immaginario e che questo riconoscimento
sia rilevante per il riconoscimento dell’espressività di un brano o di
un passaggio. Anzi – e qui va cercato il contributo teorico specifico di
4
P. Kivy, The Corded Shell: Reflections on Musical Expression,Princeton, N.J., Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1981; S. Davies, Themes in Philosophy of Music, Oxford, Oxford University Press,
2003.
5
J. Levinson, comunicazione privata.
5
Lebenswelt, 5 (2014)
Levinson – l’attribuzione dell’espressione a una persona (fittizia) è
necessaria per riconoscere la musica come espressiva. Una cosa è r i-
conoscere attraverso l’ascolto una serie di figure espressive costruite
culturalmente, individuando la grammatica dell’espressività di un
brano. Altra cosa è sentire che il brano esprime emozioni e sentime n-
ti. Così come si può distinguere tra il riconoscimento della gestualità
espressiva convenzionale o tipica utilizzata da una persona e la cr e-
denza che tale gestualità sia non soltanto l’esercizio di una grammat i-
ca espressiva, ma rifletta davvero le emozioni di un soggetto, così
nell’esperienza musicale il riconoscimento di una grammatica espres-
siva non è automaticamente il riconoscimento dell’espressione
dell’emozione, e questo anche se la grammatica espressiva può essere
lo strumento per tale espressione.
Si potrebbe ancora respingere TP, argomentando, come fa
Christian Grüny
6
, che il riconoscimento di un evento musicale come
gesto espressivo non implica l’attribuzione del gesto a un portatore, e
quindi a una persona, anche quando richieda una reazione emotiva
da parte dell’ascoltatore. In che senso però i gesti possono essere
svincolati da un soggetto che gesticola? Per riconoscere un mutamen-
to o un movimento come un gesto dobbiamo attribuirlo a qualcuno,
anche quando pur riconoscendo l’espressività del gesto non siamo in
grado di categorizzare esattamente l’emozione espressa. Nella realtà
se vedo un sorriso, non soltanto percepisco la gioia o la serenità nel
comportamento, ma vedo il volto che sorride, percepisco l’agente.
Anzi, percepisco l’agente insieme alla sua espressione, percepisco
l’espressione come risultato dell’azione di un agente. Quindi, se per-
cepisco un mutamento o un movimento sonoro come un gesto o come
una serie di gesti, che esprimono emozioni o affetti cui sono a mia
volta portato a rispondere emotivamente o affettivamente, è plausibi-
le pensare che stia immaginando un agente che gesticola e che produ-
ce il gesto. Se ascolto un brano come espressivo, sento l’atto
dell’espressione e questo implica l’ipotesi di una persona fittizia. La
persona è richiesta per stabilire la connessione basilare con
l’esperienza emozionale
7
. Se l’ascoltatore percepisce un gesto, perce-
6
C. Grüny, Die Kunst des Übergangs, Weilerswist, Velbrück, 2014.
7
Paolo Spinicci mi ha invitato a riflettere sulla seguente difficoltà di TP: l’espressività mus i-
cale può a volte essere irriducibile a una persona umana. La musica sembra a volte essere
per es. espressione di un destino cosmico o di dimensioni emozionali sovrumane, imperso-
6
J. Levinson, L. Giombini, F. Focosi, M. Di Monte, A. Bertinetto
pisce il gesto di qualcuno: altrimenti percepisce un mutamento o un
movimento, ma non un gesto che ne esprime l’articolazione affettiva
o emozionale. Percepire un mutamento non comporta necessaria-
mente la percezione del mutamento come un gesto espressivo. Anche
se a volte è difficile individuare il gesto espressivo e comprendere in
quali fatti sonori esso si produca, ciò significa soltanto che gli ascolta-
tori devono apprendere a riconoscere il gesto espressivo musicale,
così come devono imparare a cogliere l’espressività di un dipinto, e in
modo analogo a come devono apprendere a interpretare la gestualità
degli individui reali.
2. La persona nella performance
La questione è di primaria importanza anche per valutare come
l’espressività del gesto reale del musicista mentre suona uno stru-
mento o canta possa influire sulla comprensione dell’espressività del-
la musica. In CA, infatti, senza tornare su specifiche questioni di ont o-
logia dell’opera d’arte musicale, Levinson, sollecitato dal libro di R.
Casati e J. Dokic La Philosophie du son
8
, difende la centralità della rea-
le esperienza sonora (percettiva e/o immaginativa) della musica per
la comprensione dell’espressività
9
. La tesi è che l’espressività musica-
le – e dunque la persona musicale – sia spesso funzione della gestuali-
tà fisica reale dei musicisti, che il pubblico può osservare a un conce r-
to o immaginare proprio attraverso l’articolazione sonora. Infatti,
l’ascolto di un gesto musicale comporta l’utilizzo della capacità di
formarsi un’immagine spaziale delle possibili sorgenti dei suoni a-
nali. Credo che Levinson potrebbe difendersi in due modi. 1. Le emozioni espresse dalla m u-
sica possono avere un carattere cosmico, destinale; possono cioè riguardare l’impotenza u-
mana di fronte al caso, al destino, ecc. La musica può essere espressione di un’angoscia es i-
stenziale generale, non attribuibile a questo o quell’altro individuo. Ciononostante ciò non
significa che queste non siano emozioni di una persona: sono le emozioni di una persona che
hanno per oggetto una dimensione emozionale (per es. di angoscia) sovra- o impersonale. 2.
Le emozioni possono essere direttamente attribuite a un’entità disumana, impersonale. Per
es. si potrebbe pensare di ascoltare l’espressione emozionale del d estino. Ma anche in questo
caso, sempre che si sia in grado di cogliere una dimensione espressiva, è difficile evitare di
personalizzare l’expresser disumano. Come nella musica possiamo riconoscere l’espressività
di un soggetto collettivo non individuale, così possiamo cogliervi l’espressività di un soggetto
sovrumano o inumano.
8
R. Casati e J. Dokic, La philosophie du son, Nîmes, Editions Jacqueline Chambon, 1994.
9
È così respinta l’ipotesi teorica, pur affascinante, della musica visiva. Per motivi di spazio
trascuro qui questo tema, cui ho prestato attenzione in A. Bertinetto, Il pensiero dei suoni, Mi-
lano, Bruno Mondadori, 2012, pp. 21-22.
7
Lebenswelt, 5 (2014)
scoltati. Cogliere il gesto espressivo comporta l’apprendimento dei
gesti comportamentali e performativi alla base del gesto musicale
(cfr. CA pp. 77, 80). La percezione e la comprensione del carattere e-
spressivo di un passaggio musicale dipende quindi anche dal caratte-
re dell’azione alla base della produzione del suono, che sia essa diret-
tamente esperita o immaginata. Se descriviamo come un ‘accarezzare
le corde’ l’azione che fa sì che un violino generi una certa sequenza di
note, attribuiremo al passaggio musicale una certa dolcezza o malin-
conia espressiva; se invece concettualizziamo un’azione al pianoforte
come un ‘martellare sui tasti’, probabilmente individueremo in
un’emozione più esuberante il carattere emotivo di quel passaggio
(cfr. CA, pp. 82-83). Elaborando le considerazioni di Levinson, si può
sostenere che l’ascoltatore che percepisce un brano musicale come
suonato in modo espressivo può inferirne immaginativamente i mo-
vimenti fisicamente richiesti per eseguire la musica ascoltata. A sua
volta, l’immaginazione visivo-spaziale può poi influire retrospettiva-
mente sull’interpretazione del carattere espressivo del brano
10
.
3. Narratività e drammaticità musicale
TP, come spiegazione dell’espressività musicale, è alla base dell’idea
che alcuni generi musicali abbiano la possibilità di costruire, con le
risorse espressive della musica, articolazioni narrative. Diversamente
da quanto sostenuto dalle estetiche formaliste, almeno in certi casi
l’esperienza musicale parrebbe simile, piuttosto che a quella delle arti
visive, a quella della letteratura o del cinema
11
. Come queste arti, la
musica si sviluppa nel tempo e ciò parrebbe suggerire la possibilità di
attribuirle, oltre che la dimensione espressiva, un carattere narrativo.
Levinson difende questa tesi argomentando quanto segue. Una
narrazione è caratterizzata dalla rappresentazione di almeno due e-
venti che si succedono nel tempo (tra cui è possibile sussista un le-
game causale). Per poter essere narrativa la musica strumentale do-
vrebbe poter non solo 1) rappresentare, ma 2) rappresentare eventi
o stati di cose e 3) la loro connessione temporale e/o causale. Per
10
Ho dedicato qualche riflessione a questo argomento in A. Bertinetto, Vedere la musica, «E-
stetica. Studi e ricerche», 1 (2011), pp. 83-123.
11
Anzi, la musica è anche un elemento del cinema e Levinson analizza in proposito con la s o-
lita precisione e copia di riferimenti diversi possibili contributi della musica alla narrazione e
all’espressione cinematografica (cfr. CA, pp. 143-183).
8
J. Levinson, L. Giombini, F. Focosi, M. Di Monte, A. Bertinetto
quanto concerne le prime due condizioni, basta che la musica, per po-
ter essere narrativa, suggerisca gesti e azioni grazie al suo carattere
espressivo. Per quanto riguarda la terza condizione, occorre che un
passaggio musicale arisulti comprensibile e giustificato in quanto
successivo a un passaggio musicale b. Spiegare asignifica compren-
dere il motivo del suo succedere a b. Levinson sostiene che in propo-
sito si può distinguere tra narratività interna ed esterna. La musica è
esternamente narrativa (è l’oggetto della narrazione del compositore
o del performer), se la ‘storia’ è una sequenza di eventi musicali. È in-
ternamente narrativa (è il soggetto che narra una storia), se la storia è
ciò cui si riferiscono gli eventi musicali. In questo secondo caso la
musica ha il carattere di una serie di enunciati che raccontano una
storia e deve possedere elementi che svolgano la funzione di elementi
tipici di un racconto come frasi riflessive del tipo ‘tanto tempo fa,
c’era una volta’, ecc. (CA, pp. 133 s.). Diversamente da musica caratte-
rizzata da una temporalità non lineare, verticale, discontinua, impres-
sionistica e legata al momento, alcuni generi musicali sembrerebbero
possedere questi elementi.
Inoltre, qualora si percepisca la musica come una sorta di
mondo in cui gli eventi accadono indipendentemente da un compo-
sitore-narratore, la si interpreterà come drammatica, piuttosto che
come narrativa
12
. A differenza della narrativa, il dramma è una pre-
sentazione diretta degli eventi: le azioni non sono raccontate, ma
eseguite dagli attori sul palco o sullo schermo. Come sembra acca-
dere nelle sonate di Beethoven, che offrono un susseguirsi di effetti
drammatici costruiti sull’insanabile contrasto tra temi diversi, anche
la musica può essere in tal senso intesa come un dramma di eventi
che si svolgono qui e ora, davanti all’ascoltatore. Infatti, il dramma
comporta l’esistenza di attori che agiscono: e talora sembrerà
all’ascoltatore che anche in musica le personae musicali (magari
rappresentate dai diversi strumenti musicali o da temi particola r-
mente caratterizzanti) non soltanto esprimano le loro emozioni, ma
agiscano e interagiscano (lottando, correndo, urlando, dialogando,
saltando, danzando, riposando, ecc.). Credo che Levinson offra qui la
12
Correttamente Levinson chiarisce che quella tra narratività e drammaticità non è
un’alternativa rigida: piuttosto, come esistono molti modelli letterari, così i brani musicali
possono avere caratteri prevalentemente narrativi, ep ici, drammatici o lirici a seconda del
loro contenuto, più che del genere (sinfonia, opera, ballata ecc.).
9
Lebenswelt, 5 (2014)
risposta corretta alle obiezioni formaliste circa la capacità della mu-
sica strumentale di narrare o inscenare una storia attraverso
l’articolazione formale dei suoni. Se l’espressività musicale è ricon-
ducibile all’individuazione immaginativa di personae fittizie come
soggetti delle emozioni che percepiamo nella musica, i contenuti de-
terminati delle emozioni (che la musica difficilmente può veicolare)
sono superflui per legittimare, almeno in certi generi, il riconosc i-
mento di una vicenda narrata o rappresentata attraverso la musi-
ca
13
.
4. Il valore della musica
TP è infine uno degli elementi con cui Levinson offre la sua soluzione
alla questione del valore della musica. Anche in questo caso,
l’approccio è pluralistico e antiriduzionistico. Molti sono i tipi di valo-
re che l’esperienza musicale può possedere. Essi hanno a che fare con
le possibili funzioni della musica per l’individuo e la comunità, con le
sue specifiche qualità estetiche e artistiche (di alcune delle quali sol-
tanto si può fare esperienza diretta
14
), con i suoi effetti morali e for-
mativi, con la sua capacità di incarnare, implicare o articolare una
forma o un’attività di pensiero
15
. Il suo valore primario (ma non e-
sclusivo) è comunque quello intrinseco-esperienziale, cioè quello rela-
tivo all’esperienza dell’ascolto.
La tesi è che lo svolgimento temporale della musica, anche (ma
non solo) per la sua generazione di aspettative deluse o soddisfatte, e
le sua qualità espressive offrano un godimento qualitativamente mi-
gliore della semplice impressione sonora. Perciò «buona parte
dell’interesse che la musica suscita va cercato in ciò che essa ci co-
munica a proposito dei gesti, delle azioni e dei sentimenti umani»
(CA, 199
16
). Inoltre, specifica Levinson, il fattore determinante
dell’intrinseco valore musicale è la fusione di forme che si evolvono
nel tempo e dei contenuti (attitudini, qualità, emozioni, azioni, eventi)
13
Cfr. P. Rinderle, Die Expressivität von Musik, Paderborn, Mentis, 2010.
14
In tal caso la presenza di certe qualità della musica, in particolare quelle espressive, può
essere comunicata dai brividi provati dall’ascoltatore, che sono segnali corporei che indicano
che si è percepito qualcosa di significativo e/o pregevole nella musica (cfr. CA, pp. 233-236).
15
Per quest’ultimo aspetto cfr. CA, pp. 209-219.
16
Cito dalla trad. it. di F. Focosi, Il valore della musica, in J. Levinson, Arte, critica e storia.
Saggi di estetica analitica, a cura di F. Desideri e F. Focosi, Palermo, Estetica, 2001, p. 209.
10
J. Levinson, L. Giombini, F. Focosi, M. Di Monte, A. Bertinetto
comunicati, ovvero «cosa la musica comunica in relazione a come
procede» (CA, 200; trad. it., p. 209). Come questo avvenga concreta-
mente nei diversi generi può essere spiegato grazie a due modelli (il
secondo dei quali ricomprende il primo). In base al primo modello, il
fulcro dell’esperienza musicale è la progressione musicale che è i n-
sieme configurazione di forme ed espressione di contenuti. In base al
secondo (comprensibile in base a TP), lo stesso contenuto espressivo
è dotato di forma. L’espressione ha cioè una forma la quale comunica
un contenuto drammatico.
Si potrebbe obiettare che quanto sostenuto da Levinson in
proposito valga soprattutto per quei generi e quelle forme musicali
costituite da una struttura lineare, caratterizzanti la musica occiden-
tale a partire dal ‘700 e che non funzioni pienamente nel caso di m u-
siche che valorizzano la dimensione non-lineare e invariante del suo-
no (come, ad es., in certa musica improvvisata e/o sperimentale). In
tali casi, si potrebbe dire riprendendo la distinzione levinsoniana, è il
modo in cui la musica suona, piuttosto che il modo in cui essa proce-
de, a imporsi all’attenzione dell’ascoltatore. Tuttavia, credo che il pri-
vilegio attribuito da Levinson (almeno a questo proposito) alla di-
mensione lineare della musica dipenda dal fatto che, anche nella sua
riflessione sul valore della musica, egli insiste (a ragione) sui pregi
dell’espressività (che può costituire di per sé un importante merito
artistico) e così, con decisione e profonda intelligenza argomentativa,
dischiude per la filosofia analitica della musica un orizzonte assai f e-
condo, alternativo a quello formalista sinora dominante.
MICHELE DI MONTE
(Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica di Palazzo Barberini)
CONTEMPLATING ART TRANSHISTORICALLY
Among the very important topics poignantly dealt with by Jerrold Le-
vinson in his book, the problem I wish to discuss concerns the rela-
tionship between the epistemic conditions of the concept, or co n-
cepts, of art and their ‘irreducible historicality’, as claimed in Con-
templating Art. Briefly, my idea is that, on the one hand, Levinson’s
historical-intentional theory rests on a postulate – not self-evident
enough – implying the kind of ‘robust historicism’ which Levinson
11
Lebenswelt, 5 (2014)
tries to evade. On the other hand, however, just the constraints en-
suing from that postulate entail a theory with a purely formal, not
substantive, structure, which risks to make the theory itself paradoxi-
cally less irreducibly historical than we should expect
17
.
1. To what extent can a concept be historical?
When we say that a concept is ‘historical’, or ‘has a history’, we usual-
ly can mean, at least, two different things. We can say, in a weak
sense, that 1) the concept is not documented in use before a certain
date, for instance that of ‘tuberculosis’ before 19th century, although it
is however necessary for the retrospective identification of all co r-
responding instances, even if they had appeared at the time of
Ramses II. However, we can also mean, in a stronger sense, that 2) a
concept evolves or undergoes a modification through its history. In
the latter case, clearly, we have to put in question the identity condi-
tions of the very concept. If we say that a concept C has historically
changed, so that in the 20th century is not the same as it was, say, in
the 15th century, we have also to make sure that the purported mod-
ifications actually pertain to the same concept, otherwise we cannot
exclude the possibility that the difference refers to two different con-
cepts, possibly sharing just the same name, as in normal cases of ho-
monymy. In fact, the history of a name – whose identity is fixed by
morphology – is not the history of a concept. If so, the conceptual his-
torical difference, no matter of its nature, cannot be neither absolute
nor too radical, and anyway it must be compatible with a deeper co n-
dition of historical stability and identity, without which it would be
impossible to detect and commensurate the diachronic differences of
that concept. Therefore, dealing with the historicity of concepts (or
anything else), we should specify what changes and what remains the
same. Nevertheless, on this point the position of Levinson seems not
always univocal.
17
I will cite the works of J. Levinson as following: DA: Defining Art Historically, in Id. Music,
Art, and Metaphysics, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1990; RA: Refining Art Historically,
«Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism» 47 (1993), pp. 21-33; EA: Extending Art Historically,
«Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism» 51 (3), 1993, pp. 411-423. Simple page numbers
refer to Contemplating Art. Essays in Aesthetics, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006.
12
J. Levinson, L. Giombini, F. Focosi, M. Di Monte, A. Bertinetto
On the one hand, it seems that «our present concept of art» (p.
15) is a modern phenomenon, emerged only during the 20th century
or, more exactly, «around 1920» (DA, p. 24), though it is not so clear
if that also entails that it would have been impossible to entertain
such a concept before then. On the other hand, our concept is also a
universal one, which we need to identify and define not only conte m-
porary works of art, but also the works of past ages, both those which
had, for contingent reasons, different concepts and those which had
no art concept at all, as far as we can know.
This situation depends not only on an epistemic necessity, as
Levinson has rightly acknowledged, by which it would be «an illu-
sion» to think we can leave «our own conceptual equipment at home,
thus arriving neutrally and virtuously at what is art» for ages and cul-
tures other than ours, «in their own terms» (EA, p. 154). In fact, there
is also another, more strictly conceptual need, independent from
what we can know about artistic conceptions of the past thanks to
philological means. To be judged as art an object must satisfy, in
whatever age it was produced, the conditions of the present concept
of art (that is Levinson’s intentional-retrospective definition), even if
at the time of production (or later) it may have been conceptualized
otherwise. A painting of 15th century, for instance, is art not because
it has some mimetic qualities, but only if satisfies the conditions of
our present concept. That it exhibits also intrinsic mimetic qualities,
possibly highly esteemed in the 15th century, is a fact that we may as-
certain, but it remains an irrelevant fact from a definitional and con-
ceptual point of view (if not so, the mimetic property would be a n e-
cessary or sufficient condition for «our concept» as well).
As a consequence, the difference between the modern concept
of art, as Levinson understand it, and the older concepts is not only of
extensional nature. Nowadays, the mimetic concept too would be ex-
tensionally different from what it was in 15th century, covering works
and objects that had not yet been produced at that time. However, the
mimetic concept (among others) and the post-1920 historical-
intentional one are intensionally different, and individuate different
formal objects, so that we cannot even surely consider them as core-
ferential unless we explain how to identify one and the same referent
in an extra-conceptual way.
13
Lebenswelt, 5 (2014)
Therefore, Levinson’s thesis «that currently the concept of art has no
content beyond what art has been» so far (DA, p. 7) is ambiguous and
risks to be tautological, and it is not better to think that such a «con-
crete» content could be purged of «any abstract principle or generali-
zation» (ibid.), because, if so, the concept would turn out to be a si m-
ple enumerative list, a fortuitous heap, even though it included by
chance all the items someone, in any time, decided to call ‘art’. In real-
ity, in order to retrospectively identify all and only the objects that
are correctly definable as art, «our present concept» has to overwrite
all the earlier concepts.
Thus, it seems that Levinson understand the historicality of the
concept of art in the sense (1), according to which the acknowledg-
ment of art status to any object of the past depends on the mastery of
the present concept itself. However, that is a problem, because a c-
cording to the conceptual definition of art proposed by Levinson the
content of the present concept of art depends on what art has been in
the past
18
, that is to say something whose historical difference, in the
strong sense (2), either we cannot establish, for epistemic limits, or
we have no need to ascertain, for conceptual irrelevance.
2. What does come before the definition?
This problem rises another question: how do we come to grasp «our»
modern concept of art? To what extent can we call it ‘our?? Levinson
seem to assume here that we should just observe a state of affair, but
the things are not so simple. In first place, it is not properly obvious
that the works of the so-called Avant-garde artists in the 20th century
have radically modify the concept of art to such an extent that the
past conceptions «no longer seem remotely adequate to the nature
and range of what have been accounted artworks in the past hundred
years or so» (p. 27). But, ‘accounted’ by whom? And by what authori-
ty?
19
Nor can we take for granted that the «more radical activities of
18
In the words of the author: «whether something is art now depends, and ineliminably, on
what has been art in the past» (p. 13).
19
In the essay Hume’s Standard of Taste: The Real Problem, Levinson offers reasons for giving
credit to ‘ideal’ critics about the higher artistic value of certain works. It is impossible to di s-
cuss here in detail this important paper, but for our present purpose at least two observa-
tions are in order. 1) While for Levinson arthood in general is not defined in terms of intri n-
sic value qualities, the superior arthood (the relative axiological value) is conceived in terms
of the capacity to arouse qualitative aesthetic experiences (pp. 379-382), whom the ideal
14
J. Levinson, L. Giombini, F. Focosi, M. Di Monte, A. Bertinetto
Conceptual artists […] seemed to establish that art per se had no need
even of any concrete object» (p. 29). In fact, these authors have esta b-
lished nothing cogent, at least unless we can make sure in a prelimi-
nary way that their operations are actually pertaining to art history,
that is unless we can establish that their works are actually art-
works. Unfortunately, this is not a matter of fact, which we should
just record, nor is it an intuitive elementary evidence, something like
what Boethius called propositiones per se notae. But then, how could
we decide? Perhaps because we read so in some art-history text-
books? Or because some museum curators think so? In this way, we
would end up subscribing to an institutional theory, that is a postula-
tory theory, which in any case Levinson himself has rightly refuted.
It is a formal fault to assert that the conceptual definition of art
should take account of the revolutionary outputs of the Avant-garde
art. To avoid the quaternio terminorum, first of all we should warrant
a pre-definitional or pre-theoretical identification. In fact, the epis-
temic purpose of a rigorous definition is also to establish if certain
objects can or cannot be art, beyond controversial opinions. The
problem is not new nor easy, from Plato’s Meno to Heidegger’s The
Origin of the Work of Art: to define X we have to know what counts as
X, but without a definition we cannot correctly identify all the Xs.
There is no room here to add more, but it is not clear what position
Levinson takes about this problem.
Be that as it may, we cannot take for granted a common opinion,
even if sustained by ‘experts’. First, because experts should exhibit
and explain reasons, when requested, which are sharable by non-
experts as well, and this is not surely the case. Second, a conception is
critics would go through better than others. However, Levinson doesn’t seem willing to infer
that the arthood of any artistic object could be defined according to a degree of that kind of
qualitative value. 2) As for the difficulty posed by Hume’s thesis – how can you identify an
ideal critic? – the answer of Levinson relies on a previous and independent identification of
supreme masterworks, universally recognized, whom the ideal critics would be able to ap-
preciate more fully than others, thus earning the title to authoritatively judge works of a
comparable value but less universally undisputed. Nevertheless, Levinson doesn’t explain if
and how we can verify when someone has really appreciated a masterwork fully enough (or
more fully) to be considered an ideal critic, without mistakes or boasts about presumed abi l-
ities. Is it to be established by an ideal critic of ideal critics? And by reasons accessible to
non-ideal critics too, or through an even more rare sensibility? In any case, it seems difficult
to say that the most radical works of contemporary Avant-garde are supreme or paradigmat-
ic masterworks which passed the ‘test of time’, in the sense of Levinson.
15
Lebenswelt, 5 (2014)
not necessarily correct only because is common. When we talk about
‘our’ conception of art – to avoid what Floyd Allport called ‘illusion of
universality of opinions’ – we should not conflate a descriptive genet-
ic-psychological level and a prescriptive one. Does the ‘current’ or
‘ordinary’ concept of art explain how people actually tend to classify
certain objects or rather how people should classify them? It is by no
means sure that, through an empirical test, ‘ordinary’ intuitions about
the classification of contemporary art would turn out to be so much
convergent. Not to mention that, as psychologists know well, many
people, including experts, not always conceptualize objects in a con-
sequential or consistent way.
Therefore, if we want to give normative force to the definition of
art we cannot settle for either an institutional solution or a doxastic -
statistical sociological survey, for there is no one single conception of
art, now less than ever, which ‘emerges’ as self-evident. Unless, we
should add, one wants to believe in a kind of Zeitgeist, whose epochal
symptoms are to be divined and which guarantees the ‘right’ inter-
pretation of the direction taken by History (of Art). But that amounts
to believing in a «robust historicism of a Hegelian or Dantoesque
sort», that is just the kind of historicism from which Levinson wishes
to dissociate his own theory (p. 13).
3. Basic definitions and recursive definitions
The problem of the ultimate foundation is a crucial one. Levinson
specifies that his «basic definition of art» – meant to capture «our
present concept» – is not properly a recursive one, although «the full
extension of art in a given tradition might be displayed by a recursive
definition» (p. 15). The distinction is appropriate, for a recursive –
and not simply circular – definition needs a base clause that is inde-
pendent of the recursive rule. But, then, what is exactly the difference
between the recursive definition and the non-recursive definition
(‘one-step’) which operate together in Levinson’s theory? The answer
is not easy, because we have, on the one hand, the sociological survey,
so to speak, of the use a given community makes of the term ‘art’
(covering with it conceptual works and the like), use which, however,
does not amount to a definition. On the other hand, we have the for-
16
J. Levinson, L. Giombini, F. Focosi, M. Di Monte, A. Bertinetto
mal definition proposed by Levinson, which actually is a recursive de-
finition
20
.
In his earlier essays, Levinson tried to sidestep the charge of circular-
ity suggesting that the intension of ‘art’ at the time tis to be «expli-
cated» in terms of the extension of ‘art’ (and of ways it is or was cor-
rectly regarded) prior to t, so that the concept is definable without
presupposing it (DA, p. 15; RA, p. 50). Nevertheless, it is not easy to
see how we could know the real extension of ‘art’, that is the range of
its proper application, without presupposing what is to be applied, all
the more because ‘art’, for the reasons examined above, cannot be
other than «our present concept». Thus, it is even tautological that all
the objects included within the retrospective extension of the co ncept
share ex hypothesi its intension, irrespective of their temporal or his-
torical location. Only, in this way it is difficult to understand where is
the ‘irreducible historicality of the concept’.
Clearly, however, Levinson cannot do without recursivity, for it
allows to attain the maximum of formal abstractness for his theory,
thus subsuming under one and the same concept also the most radi-
cal trouvailles of the contemporary Avant-garde trends. But, as he
first has pointed out, any recursive structure ends with a ne ultra,
which is a critical point for a theory aiming to be purely relational,
without any substantive-qualitative element. Hence the thorny collo-
cation of the so-called ur-art, with which the whole process of inten-
tional-retrospective reference ceases and from which all the art-
forms of the tradition descend. ‘Thorny’, for it is precisely the final
and original element to fix the identity of the genealogic relation and
to differentiate it from any other formally similar recursion, real or
possible. Just to take an example suggested by Levinson himself (RA,
p. 49), you can identify the progeny of Charlemagne, and individuate
its members, distinguishing it from other progenies, only if, soon or
later, you can substantially identify Charlemagne.
Levinson’s most recent proposal to solve the problem, however,
seems not completely in keeping with the anti-substantialism of his
basic theory. He distinguishes between ur-art – «the ultimate non-art
progenitors of artworks in that tradition» (p. 18, italics mine) – and
20
In his last synthetic formulation: «something is art if it is or was intended or projected for
overall regard as some prior art is or was correctly regarded» (p. 13).
17
Lebenswelt, 5 (2014)
first art, that is the first generation of works definable as art by virtue
of the recursive definition. But the distinction is somewhat far-
fetched, for the objects of both ur-art and first art are equally inten-
tional artifacts and equally involve the same kind of regard (let us call
it r): the only difference is that the r0of the ur-art is not linked to any
predecessor, whereas this is obviously the case with the r1of the first
art. Then, we have to deduce that the first artist is guided by the in-
tention that his own work elicit an identical (or similar enough?) ras
the rof the ur-works, but not because these works exhibit intrinsic
qualitative properties deserving a specific appreciation, for, if so, we
should include in the definition a condition of substantiality which
would threaten the theory’s pretension of a purely ‘non-qualitative’
definition. Therefore, the recursive reference of the first artist is de-
fined and determined only by the retrospective form of the reference
itself, not by its content, so that, somehow paradoxically, the first art-
ist either has no reason to refer to certain objects instead of others or
his own preferences are definitionally irrelevant. In fact, why should
just certain ur-works elicit such an interest unless for an intrinsic
special quality which is positively attractive thus arousing a distinct
kind of r? It is not easy to understand how the recursive process
could start in the first place, on purely formal conditions.
Similar difficulties concern also the proposal of a disjunctive de-
finition accounting for the peculiar position of proto-arts. According
to this definition «something is art iff either (a) it satisfies the basic
definition or (b) it is an instance of first art – that is, one of those
things from which all other art, that satisfying the basic definition,
springs» (p. 18). But why should first art appear in the second di s-
junct, since it regularly satisfies the conditions of (a), as it seems clear
enough? One might think that the condition (b) holds rather for ur -
art, but perhaps Levinson realized that this option would be in con-
tradiction with the assumption that ur-arts are only «the ultimate
non-art progenitors» of the subsequent tradition. Anyway, the defini-
tion of (b) puts forward a solution which Levinson himself should
judge «not acceptable» (ibid. n. 15), i.e. the retroactive attribution of
art status to first art, in the light of what has happened after its pro-
duction: as if we said that first art is art only because a subsequent
18
J. Levinson, L. Giombini, F. Focosi, M. Di Monte, A. Bertinetto
tradition recursively refers to (or ‘springs’ from) it, and this tradition
is artistic because ultimately refers to that very first art
21
.
4. Form vs substance. How many concepts of art are there?
The project of de-substantializing the concept of art rises some per-
plexities also when we come to the issue of the trans-cultural and
trans-historical categorization, which is again both an epistemic and
conceptual problem. Levinson discusses here the case of imaginary
alien civilizations, living before the human era, but it is clear that the
same may hold for more realistic cases. The key question is: how can
we classify an allegedly artistic production that is not historically and
intentionally connected with the tradition we call ‘art’ (or we should
call so by normative definition)? An abrupt reply could simply be that
without such conditions the alien productions are not classifiable as
art, whatever else they may be or have been. However, with great in-
tellectual honesty, Levinson tries to give a more satisfactory and
comprehensive answer, which in turn, nevertheless, highlights fur-
ther questions. Indeed, we should ask in the first place what leads us
to presume to classify certain objects, even if alien, in relation to our
tradition, to such an extent that we have to «liberalize» it just for this
purpose (p. 20). There is no explicit answer, but perhaps it is possible
to guess why.
Levinson allows that aliens could have had an autonomous tra-
dition formally similar to our own, but acknowledges that this would
be not enough to individuate a sufficient connection between the two
independent traditions. The only point of contact would thus consist
in the possibility that the alien objects have been intentionally pro-
duced for a kind of regard coinciding, if only per accidens, with the re-
21
Levinson denies that the notions of first art and ur-art «are elements in our concept of art»
(p. 15) or in the «judgement that something is an artwork» (DA, p. 21). Again, it is not so
clear what is meant here with ‘our concept’, but, in any case, the fact remains that the defin i-
tional concept of art, in its disjunctive formulation too, must necessarily cover also the i n-
stances of first art and ur-art, unless we want to break the recursive chain which ide ntify the
tradition. Even if the recursive extension did not include properly the ur -art and extended
only to its descendants, its notion should be implied in the content of th e concept at any rate,
in the same way as the concept ‘descendant of Charlemagne’, even referring to all the de s-
cendants except for the progenitor, would be not definitionally intelligible if ‘Charlemagne’
were not grasped in the intension of the concept itself. The concept ‘descendant of Charle-
magne’ is not the same as the concept, say, ‘descendant of Charles the Bald’, although the set
denoted by the two concepts is partially coextensive.
19
Lebenswelt, 5 (2014)
gard which is actually normative for our art history. By virtue of this
‘extended’ theory, we may legitimately call the alien production
‘*art*’, although the concept here is to be understood «in a stripped-
down, form-and-function-based sense not equivalent to the sense we
operate with at present» (p. 21). In any case, the fact remains that
«insofar as anything outside our art tradition is properly said to fall
under our concept of art, it is because we can appropriately relate it
to our tradition of art» (ibid.), but then we should also acknowledge
that the relation between ‘*art*’ and ‘art’, since it is not a historical -
intentional one, will necessarily be of conceptual order, and the coin-
cidence – or, better, the identity – between *r* and rcannot be a
simply formal-relational identity but must be a substantial-
qualitative identity. Again, there is an unresolved tension between
what can fall under «our concept of art» and the radical difference
postulated between this subsumption and «the sense we operate with
at present». For Levinson, alien *art* could even be «some non -
historicist predecessor of our current concept of art» (p. 20), thus,
strange to say, it would be more closely similar to our concept ‘prior
to the early twentieth century’ than the latter is to our concept post-
1920.
Then, can one really do without any qualitative notion? Surely it
is not enough to appeal to ‘demonstrative’ or ‘paradigmatic’ refer-
ences. It is not a viable solution to intentionally individuate the ways
an artwork is or has been correctly regarded just pointing something
out and saying «as those things are properly regarded» (p. 25). But
what ‘thing’, exactly? Within what boundaries? Even in the apparent-
ly most simple cases, for instance the Mona Lisa of Leonardo, when
someone says ‘that’, what should we mean by ‘that’? Does it include
also the frame, the material support, the title, the representational
content, the intentions of Leonardo, something else? «Those» are
things to be regarded in very different ways. As Aristotle says, one
cannot prove essential nature «by pointing with the finger» (Post.
Anal. 92a).
In Levinson’s opinion, the maker of an artwork «need not pos-
sess a substantive concept of what an artwork is», nor does he need a
theory «à la Danto» (p. 34). However, the point is not that an artmak-
er, qua artmaker, should posses such a concept (or, for that matter, a
more formal-relational concept whatsoever), but, nevertheless, a
20
J. Levinson, L. Giombini, F. Focosi, M. Di Monte, A. Bertinetto
substantive concept is necessary in order to identify art in concep-
tually normative terms, no matter who makes the judgment, be it phi-
losopher, artist, or layman. Indeed, conversely, if no one possessed
such a concept the class ‘art’ could actually be empty and we could
never know it. Levinson worries that such an admission would
threaten the art status of the most radical conceptual works, but, ex-
cept for our deference to the institutional practices of museums and
art market, there is no conceptual or phenomenological constraint
preventing us from saying, to paraphrase Hegel: ‘so much the worse
for the conceptual works’!
The outstanding work of Levinson makes clear that our modern
tradition tries to put together two different conceptions of art, one
that is largely trans-historical and trans-cultural, to such an extent to
be even compatible with imaginary alien creations, and the other one
that is viable, more or less ad hoc, only for contemporary Avant-garde
trends. Rather than supposing a radical historical transformation, in
the strong sense, of one and the same concept referring to very dif-
ferent things – by no means an easy operation, as we have seen – it is
perhaps more economic to think of radical different things that need
not be subsumed under one single concept, even if, by an irreducibly
historical accident, they share one single name.
FILIPPO FOCOSI
(University of Macerata)
ON THE IRREDUCIBLE AESTHETIC COMPONENT
IN LEVINSON’S THEORIES ON ART
While comprising a considerable number of essays spanning over a
period of (more or less) ten years and concerning different philoso-
phical topics, Jerrold Levinson’s Contemplating Art (hereafter, CA) re-
veals a remarkable coherence, in employing a limited set of principles
in contexts as various as that of the definition of art, the nature of ae s-
thetic properties, the debate on musical expressivity, the interpreta-
tive/critical activity of perceivers, and other more circumscribed
matters. The recurring, underlying ideas I’m thinking of include in-
tentionalism (as regards both the definition and the interpretation of
artworks), the notion of musical persona, and realism about aesthetic
21
Lebenswelt, 5 (2014)
properties. But there’s another idea that, despite being usually ig-
nored by commentators, plays a no less relevant role in shaping Lev-
inson’s aesthetic thought. I’m talking of the coalescence (i.e., fusion,
interconnectedness, mutual appropriateness, and so on) of form and
content (hereafter, I’ll refer to it as CFC). My aim then will be twofold:
in the first place, I’ll point out and analyse the passages of CA where
this paradigmatic aesthetic principle explicitly occurs; secondly, I’ll
show how CFC, as is there articulated, can disclose interesting per-
spectives on other aspects of Levinson’s theories about art and aes-
thetic properties.
The first reference to CFC is in Ch. 3 (Emotion in Response to
Art), where Levinson discusses some of the paradoxes that our em o-
tional engagement with art raises. Facing the problem of the well-
known paradox of negative emotion in art, Levinson ranks, among
the best explanations of why people usually are not afraid of, and
sometimes deliberately seek out, artworks (such as tragedies) that
arouse in them emotions such as shame, grief, sorrow, remorse, and
so on, the so-called ‘organicist’ explanation, according to which nega-
tive emotions elicited by artworks become a source of satisfaction
when appreciated as «an essential element [...] appropriately raised»
in the «formal, narrative and dramatic structure» of the work, and so
as contributing to the total experience of the work as an organic
whole (CA, pp. 52-53). A second, even if more oblique, manifestation
of CFC is in Ch. 7 (Nonexistent Artforms and the Case of Visual Music).
The question Levinson faces here concerns the field of all possible
artforms, including nonexistent ones. What is noteworthy, from our
point of view, is, firstly, that he appeals to formal impulses – being
they on the order of juxtaposition, fusion, or transformation of some
existing arts – to explain the emergence of new artforms; and, sec-
ondly, that «new formal combinations» find their artistic raison d’être
in making it possible to express what «weren’t possible before», or in
«embodying moral social attitudes» and «advancing social claims that
hadn’t been open to us» (CA, p. 119). What lies at the heart of the fai l-
ure of the (possible) art of visual music («an art of abstract colour
film [...] comparable to music», CA, p. 120), is, indeed, its limited
structural potentiality (e.g., there not being, in the chromatic spec-
trum, something analogous to tonal relations of tension and release,
consonance and dissonance, cadence and closure, and so on), which
22
J. Levinson, L. Giombini, F. Focosi, M. Di Monte, A. Bertinetto
sensibly reduces its expressive and semantic resources (because
lacking the emotional qualities that such relations produce).
The essay where CFC is most straightforwardly deployed is
Evaluating Music (Ch. 10), when Levinson, after having rejected the
identification of the artistic value of a work of music with the intrinsic
value of the experience that the work, properly understood, offers,
goes in search of some mid-level principles (i.e., principles which are
more general than features concerning the attractiveness of melodies
or rhythmic/harmonic inventiveness, but more particular than the
appeal to the inherent rewardingness of musical experience itself)
which could support the latter, this being, at any rate, the primary
source of goodness in music. And what these principles amount to is
«a particular wedding» of «configurational/kinetic form» and «ex-
pressive/interpretive content», the «fusion» of the «how it goes» of
music (the moment-to-moment evolution of its structure) with «what
it conveys» (in terms of suggestions of human gesture, feelings and
agency) being more appreciable and satisfying than following music
and responding to music’s expressive aspect, when these are experi-
enced separately (CA, pp. 198-200). But Levinson goes a step further,
and states that, given that content itself admits of a «how it goes»
component – i.e., the pattern of succession of the expressive epi-
sodes/characters which a piece of music conveys – and so generates
an additional dimension of content (which he labels «dramatic»),
such a relation between form and content can be realized at a «higher
level», so getting very close to artistic value tout court, as the name
Levinson assigns to it («global significant form/immanent content»)
signals, and as demonstrated in his convincing analysis of how the
Schubert’s Piano Sonata in A major can achieve, through such a «tran-
scendent unity», a «transfiguring» dimension with respect to the lis-
tener (CA, pp. 200-207).
Considerations of this kind are not restricted to musical field.
Talking about the difference between erotic and pornographic pic-
tures (Ch. 15), Levinson maintains that, while both are intended to
stimulate sexually the viewer, the former also aim at satisfying an a r-
tistic interest, inviting him/her to «contemplate the relationship» b e-
tween the «erotic content of the image» and the «vehicle» employed
to achieve the stimulation, i.e., its formal (as well as expressive, dra-
matic, social, and so on) aspects (CA, p. 263). Otherwise put, in erotic
23
Lebenswelt, 5 (2014)
art the form/vehicle is, in some measure, opaque – whereas trans-
parency of medium is a necessary condition of pornography –, and
this is why we relish paintings such as Ingres’s Turkish Bath or Cour-
bet’s The Origin of the World, without going beyond the state of
stimulation that they inevitably generate (CA, pp. 268-270).
The fourth part of the book (Chs. 16-18) is devoted to the topic
of literary interpretation. Here, Levinson defends the view of hypo-
thetical intentionalism, according to which «the core meaning of a li t-
erary work is given by the best hypothesis, from the position of an
appropriately informed, sympathetic, and discriminating reader, of
authorial intent to convey such and such to an audience through the
text in question» (CA, p. 302). This leaves room for multiplicity of i n-
terpretations of a literary work – there being various, even if not in-
definite, individually justifiable readings, which can eventually be
combined in an integrated whole – and for the existence of a residue
of non-paraphrasability, due to the «the inseparability of content and
form» which is most evident in metaphor, whose «imagistic force»
derives from the «specific feel of the words employed», form their
«precise rhythms, resonances, and prosodic properties» (CA, pp. 296-
297). And even in those cases, such as humorous artworks (Ch. 23),
where inappropriateness, in the form of «incongruity» (that is, of
«non-fittingness of items or elements one to another») plays a crucial
role in engendering amusement, still an aspect of congruity and fi t-
tingness has to be perceived: only grasping «the ‘why’ of the incon-
gruity» and solving the puzzle it poses (though in a «relatively effort-
less way»), we can get the «amusement of a higher order» that the
best humorous works are likely to offer, and that comes close to aes-
thetic pleasure, as elsewhere defined by Levinson as the gratification
we derive from our focusing on the relation between «what a work
represents or expresses or suggests, and the means it uses to do so»
(this relation being itself «kind of higher form»)
22
.
The idea of an «intimacy between form and content in art» is
not, as Levinson admits, a novel one in the history of aesthetics; he
traces it back to Croce, Collingwood and Dewey (CA, p. 200n). We can
surely add to this list Kant (for his notion of adherent beauty) and
22
J. Levinson, The Pleasures of Aesthetics (hereafter, POA), Ithaca, NY, Cornell University
Press, 1996, p. 10.
24
J. Levinson, L. Giombini, F. Focosi, M. Di Monte, A. Bertinetto
Beardsley (for the coexistence, in the triadic criterion of ae s-
thetic/artistic value he offers, of formal properties such as unity and
complexity along with content-oriented ones such as the intensity of
human regional qualities); it is possible to find instances of CFC also
in the writings of contemporary analytical philosophers, such as
Danto (who, in turn, refers to the use Hegel made of it), Budd and E l-
dridge. The ways Levinson works out this principle, while testifying
to its relevance in current aesthetical debates, also suggests further,
interesting developments. Most notable is the fact that if we extend
CFC, as articulated in Evaluating Music, to the other artforms, we are
prompted to support the existence of an upper level of aesthetic s u-
pervenience, which would qualify the relation between beauty (as
synonymous with excellence and other merit-terms) and the underly-
ing aesthetic properties; the former being the product of the fusion of
an artwork’s expressive form and dramatic content, which can be
equated respectively with formal and non-formal aesthetic properties
(i.e., with the ordered interaction between expressive and semantic
properties, which in turn gain further intensity from their organic co-
operation)
23
. This possibility was envisaged by Levinson in the sec-
ond additional note to his paper of 1983 devoted to this topic – where
he labelled the emergence-relation between aesthetic evaluations
and aesthetic properties (in addition to the standard one, that be-
tween aesthetic and non-aesthetic properties) as «aesthetic value su-
pervenience»
24
– and later developed extensively by Nick Zangwill in
his pyramidal view of aesthetic properties
25
.
Deployed as it is in various aspects of Levinson’s aesthetic
thought, CFC seems to find no place in his intentional-historical defi-
nition of art except as the ultimate resource to which border-line
cases – i.e., objects or events created outside the connective web of
conscious intentional backward references to integral sets of a c-
knowledged ways of art-regards – can appeal to obtain the status of
arthood. Such are the cases of primitive art, non-western art tradi-
tions, aesthetically pleasing industrial artifacts, and works springing
23
For a detailed analysis of this parallelism see my Due livelli di sopravvenienza estetica,
«Aesthetica Preprint, Supplementa» 23 (2009), pp. 155-177.
24
J. Levinson, Music, Art and Metaphysics (hereafter, MAM), Ithaca (NY), Cornell University
Press, 1990, pp. 157-8.
25
See his Metaphysics of Beauty, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 2001.
25
Lebenswelt, 5 (2014)
from unconscious or self-contradictory intentions (such as Kafka’s
novels The Trial and The Castle). To legitimate their art status, it can
be necessary, as Levinson admits, to take in consideration substan-
tive, instead of purely relational, features on the order of «the amount
of care evident in the handling of details, the degree of attention to
form […] the sense of a statement being made, or an attitude ex-
pressed» (POA, p. 170), the «exceptional potential [artistic] value»
(MAM, p. 57), which, taken together, approximate to CFC. But here
lies an asymmetry that, as I see it, can lead to paradoxical effects. In-
deed, what if all the would-be artworks produced in recent times
would pass the test for arthood (MAM, pp. 58-59) just meeting its
first and basic condition, that is, in virtue of revealing a purposive
orientation on the part of the maker through their «outward face»
and «context of creation», including artist’s pronouncement and
journal’s reviews (MAM, p. 43)? We would be surrounded by a my-
riad of artworks entering the realm of the ‘official’ world of art with
the help of no more than a well elaborated historical narrative, irres-
pective of their actual power of arousing experiences as valuable as
that produced by some paradigmatic artworks to which they have
been linked by some skillful critic; whereas our quest for quality
could be satisfied (let alone past artworks) only with works of com-
mercial/instrumental, remote (geographically and temporally), naïve,
or ‘indie’ art. This is not an improbable scenario: look at what hap-
pened in the field of visual arts, where genuine aesthetic value has
been constantly overwhelmed by socio-economical values imposed
by the art system. I see no other way to invert this trend than to put,
at the core of the definition of art, what plays, as I hope to have
shown here through Levinson’s insights, such an irreplaceable role in
our understanding and appreciation of art: the aesthetic principle of
the coalescence of form and content (CFC). I know Levinson would be
reluctant to follow this path, given that he explicitly distances himself
from a similar proposal, that forwarded by Richard Eldridge who
stated that what is necessary and sufficient for a thing’s being classi-
fied as an artwork is its possession of a «satisfying appropriateness to
one another of a thing’s form and content»
26
. But this seems to me the
26
R. Eldridge, Form and Content: An Aesthetic Theory of Art, in Neill, Ridley (eds.), The Philos-
ophy of Art. Readings Ancient and Modern, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1995, p. 246.
26
J. Levinson, L. Giombini, F. Focosi, M. Di Monte, A. Bertinetto
most promising account of the notion of art; one that sheds light on
artistic practices, from both their productive and receptive side, and
that can be thought of as stemming from the same empirical ground
that directed Levinson towards his search for a definition of art,
namely, the fact that there is «a deeper continuity in the development
of art than is generally noted» (MAM, p. 18).
LISA GIOMBINI
(University of Roma Tre)
ON THE ROLE OF CONTEXT IN THE DEFINITION OF ART
Cast the first stone those who, being involved in the field of aesthetics
and philosophy of art, have never felt sheepish when required to an-
swer the naïve question (yet, alas, quite provocative): ‘what-is-
exactly-the-purpose-of-your-work?’. Actually, it seems far from clear
why anyone interested in art should worry about what aestheticians
and philosophers say in this regard. Most people are spontaneously
attracted to art as a source of emotions and cultural satisfaction, but
this is not sufficient reason for them to be equally interested in the
philosophy of art. And in fact, people are usually not. So skepticism
concerning the significance of the whole enterprise of the philosophy
of art should not surprise us. In most cases, though not always, it
coincides with a more general suspiciousness of the utility of philos-
ophy tout court. The issue is, in a nutshell, why should common
people need philosophers’ opinions at all – especially in the field of
art where, in more than just one trivial sense, it is all a matter of taste
or, if you will, of educated taste.
Jerrold Levinson’s Contemplating Art may supply embarrassed
philosophers with a good source of arguments to be brandished in
case of need. The brilliant yet straightforward language of all 24 es-
says in this book makes it accessible to a large audience, including
non-expert readers,yet it won’t disappoint the connoisseurs in search
of philosophical thoroughness and insight. Levinson’ s expertise in
philosophy goes hand in hand with his passion for an acquaintance
with different art genres, from cinema to painting, from electro-
acoustic music to classical symphonies, so as to make this collection a
27
Lebenswelt, 5 (2014)
successful example of how well philosophical argumentation and aes-
thetic sensitivity can sometimes coexist.
One of the virtue of this collection is undoubtedly the thematic
cohesion of its various sections which, in any case, explore a wide
range of very different philosophical topics (music, pictures, history,
Aesthetic Properties, among the others). This cohesion is guaranteed
by the presence of Leitmotive in the dialectical advancement of Levin-
son’s aesthetical reflection, developed (as in the best analytical tradi-
tion) in the constant dialogue with his opponents and critics.
1. Aesthetic contextualism versus aesthetic isolationism
In this paper I shall discuss only one of the possible fils rouge that can
be discovered in Contemplating Art’s numerous essays; as a disclai-
mer, I should explain that this implies only a partial reading of the
book, thus I drop any claim of thoroughness in advance.
My idea is that the variety of themes in the book, together with
the remarkable profusion in examples always taken from actual art-
works and art practices assumes an even greater significance if read
in the light of an underlying principle which, at least in my view, plays
a key role in the entire work of our author. I’m referring here to the
importance Levinson attributes to the function of context for a proper
understanding of art.
What I will focus on therefore, is Levinson’s adhesion to what it
has been called aesthetic contextualism. As noted by Melvin Rader as
long ago as 1947, most philosophies of art, and mutatis mutandis,
many contemporary aesthetic theories, can be classified in the oppos-
ing factions of contextualim and isolationism: in this respect, Levin-
son admittedly stands with the former.
Aesthetic isolationism can be described as the idea according to
which the norms influencing the definition, the meaning and the
evaluation of a work of art are not independent of the work as an art
object, but internal to it. The art object possesses determinate aes-
thetic values in virtue of its having certain intrinsic qualities, ind e-
pendent of its socio-historical or cultural situation.
Aesthetic contextualism on the other hand rejects the idea of
works of art being completely self-determined objects whose value
depends merely on some work-inherent qualities. Conversely, con-
textualism claims that works of art are particular historically en-
28
J. Levinson, L. Giombini, F. Focosi, M. Di Monte, A. Bertinetto
trenched artifacts that can be completely understood only when con-
textual background factors are taken into consideration. According to
contextualists, isolationism – both in its formalist and empiricist ver-
sion – should be in discarded, since various features of the artistic,
historical and social context in which the work was created and ap-
preciated contribute to a large extent to the work’s identity.
Roots of the isolationist approach may be traced back to Kant’s
idea of the aesthetic judgment being necessarily characterized by a
kind of disinterested interest, achievable only by focusing on the per-
ceptible, non-relational, features of the aesthetic object itself.
Only if produced by the internal features of the object can aes-
thetic pleasure be truly disinterested; thus, works of art are to be eva-
luated for their formal attributes and their inner content alone, rather
than by the external context of their provenance and creation. In the
wake of Kant’s Critique of Judgment, a whole tradition of aesthetic iso-
lationist approaches has developed, e.g. structuralism, empiricism,
representationalism, against which contextualism fights.
2. The intentional-historical definition of art
Levinson's intentional-historical definition, initially formulated in
1979 and defended against various objections in Contemplating Art’s
first two papers, builds the foundation for a definition of contextual-
ism which may summed up in the slogan: ‘No work is an island’. The
key idea is that no properties of an object can univocally determine
the concept of art, since this: «also depends on an historical relation-
ship, that is, the relationship between the artist and his historical
past, his practice and consolidated tradition»; thus, art-hood is not an
intrinsic property of a thing: «but rather a matter of being related in
the right way to human activity and thought».Such a relation is in
turn specified in terms of the intentions of an independent individual,
the artist, where the intentions refer to the history of art. Levinson’s
position makes appeal to the intentionality of the author. The pur-
pose of the definition is quite clear: Levinson’s work highlights the
apparently commonsensical, yet too often undervalued, assumption
that art is intrinsically related to its history. Thus, the context Levi n-
son is referring to is constituted strict sensu by the history of art and
the practice of art alone.
29
Lebenswelt, 5 (2014)
A work of art is a thing intended for regard-as-a-work-of-art-regard
in any of the ways works of art existing prior to it have been appro-
priately regarded. We are accounting for what it is for an object to be
art at a given time by reference to the body of past art: «The gist of
the intentional-historical conception of art that I advocate is this:
something is art if it is or was intended or projected for overall re-
gard as some prior art is or was correctly regarded». The motives be-
hind Levinson’s theory are conveyed in his rejection of both the isola-
tionist (either empiricist or formalist) theories and the inst itutional
theories: just as art cannot be defined by simply making appeal to its
intrinsic features, neither can it be considered solely as the product of
a series of social circumstances:
The intentional-historical conception of art differs from the art-theoretical
and social-institutional ones, though, in positing as the crucial contextual
condition of art-hood not a relation to some prevailing artistic theory, nor a
relation to a surrounding social institution, but a relation to the concrete hi s-
tory of art-making and art-projection into which the candidate objects hopes
to enter.
Note, on the other hand, that Levinson’s remarking the irreducible
yet minimal historicality of the concept of art can serve to distinguish
his position from more drastically historicist perspectives such as
those of a Hegelian sort, whose possible relativistic consequences he
clearly foresees.
3. Levinson’s contextualism
Levinson’s form of contextualism thus maintains that works do not
possess explicit aesthetic properties, artistic meanings, or determi-
nate ontological identity outside the general context of the art-history
to which the works belong. This has consequences for how we can
have a proper experience, and subsequently a correct understanding
and evaluation of the work.Accordingly, it is the intentional-historical
context that makes artworks what they really are, but (and this, it
seems, is the central point here) such context is not external to the art
object: the object intrinsically possesses certain relational properties.
Therefore, if Levinson’s thesis is correct, the intentional-historical
features alone constitute the necessary identity conditions of a work
of art.
30
J. Levinson, L. Giombini, F. Focosi, M. Di Monte, A. Bertinetto
It may be worth noting here that by formulating and defending
his view against its main objections (accusations of recursivity, ant h-
ropocentricity, ethnocentrism) Levinson is accounting only for the
domain of works of art. One might be tempted, instead, to further ex-
tend Levinson’s contextualist view to encompass the whole realm of
artifacts. Such a move, however, prompts exactly the criticism Levi n-
son addresses to the psychologist Paul Bloom, whose proposal is in-
deed to apply intentional-historical definitions to artifacts of all
kinds-chairs, umbrellas, and so on. Bloom’s idea is that all artifacts
are created with a precise kind of intention and it is by recognizing
this initial intention that we are able to understand them. Just as we
need to trace relations to episodes of the history of art and art’s tradi-
tion to appreciate whether a particular object is art, the same can be
said with respect to ordinary artifacts. If we consider the concept of
‘chair’, for instance, we may note that our understanding of it in-
cludes entities that have been successfully created with the intention
that they belong to the same category as current and previous chairs.
But, Levinson remarks, such an assimilation is in fact misplaced.
According to Levinson, the specificity of artworks should be pre-
served against all reductionist attempts to align art products with
craft products: «Suppose that Bloom is right, and that an analysis of
the sort that captures what is to be an artwork also captures what is
to be an artifact of any sort. What if anything, would remain of the
special historicality of the concept of artworks, as opposed to those of
chair, pencil, house or other standard artifacts?» since, he concludes
few pages later, «what is special about the artifact concept artwork,
one might say, is that it is a wholly relational one; it is more like those
of observed thing or beloved object or prize winner than it is like those
of standard artifacts, such as chair or cup or cabin, for which there
are at least minimal conditions of form […]».
4. Between essentialism and historical relativism
Note that Levinson’s identifying works of art as wholly relational con-
cepts it is not something that can go unnoticed, at least for anyone
committed to the ontology of art. If works of art are intentionally de-
pendent entities, how can they be at the same time real things with
an ontological identity? It may seem that if the concept of artwork is
intentionally-historically defined, then the ontological status of the
31
Lebenswelt, 5 (2014)
work of art is not graspable before and independently of the use we
make of the relevant concepts and germane artistic practices. Levin-
son maintains that nothing is an artwork in itself but only according
to specific human intentions relating to an artistic tradition. To the
extent that artworks are essentially historically embedded objects,
that neither have definite status nor clear aesthetic properties apart
from the generative contexts in which they arise, it follows that an y-
thing can be a work of art as long as it relates in the right way to that
narrative dimension we call the ‘history of art’. Therefore, one may
conclude that there would be nothing to find out about works besides
what our artistic practices in themselves determine.
But then how can Levinson avoid the risk of falling ba ck into
conventionalism’s pitfalls, that is, denying that art has essential con-
nection to aesthetic properties, or to formal properties, or to expre s-
sive properties, or to any type of property taken by traditional defini-
tions to be essential to art while being a ‘realist’? How can he hold
that kind of even weak objectivity he is referring to when writing:
«the objectivity for aesthetic properties defended in this essay is not
one that accords them a transcendent status, independent of human
reactions[…]»?
Levinson’s philosophical path, I suggest, is characterized by a
constant attempt to avoid several potential pitfalls that threaten ph i-
losophies of art that are too chauvinist: essentialism, on the one hand,
the idea that artworks have a predetermined nature, an ‘essence’,
completely independent of social and historical factors; and historical
relativism, on the other hand, the idea that artworks, like all other
cultural objects, are the result of socio-historical forces and therefore
do not possess any autonomous reality. Of course the claim that
works of art have a fixed nature just like other natural objects is too
naïve a metaphysical assumption to be taken seriously. If it is true
that works of art are not independent from the concepts we have of
them and from our thoughts and practices, there is still no reason to
think that they do not possess a particular nature qua artworks. This
is to say that a knowledge of art history is fundamental to a correct
understanding of art. Nonetheless, we may still want to concede that
art history concerns entities with a specific ontological identity. Le-
vinson’s idea is that it is not possible to decide whether something is
a work of art just by considering its intrinsic features, as isolationists
32
J. Levinson, L. Giombini, F. Focosi, M. Di Monte, A. Bertinetto
maintain, since works have an inescapable intentional-historical cha-
racter. But the necessarily intentional character of works of art does
not imply that they lack a specific nature. Works of art depend onto-
logically on human intentions, since this is their way of existence qua
works of art. Yet this is not to say that they are nothing more than
practices and concepts.
What Levinson’s tries to teach us is that it is not necessary to
choose between essentialism and historical relativism, since they are
eventually compatible and both indispensable to a correct under-
standing of what works of art are.
If contemplating art is to amount to understanding art, Levinson im-
plies, then it must always involve, to some extent, contextualizing it.
JERROLD LEVINSON
(University of Maryland, College Park)
CONTEMPLATING CONTEMPLATING ART:
REPLY TO COMMENTATORS
I wish first of all to thank my four commentators for having taken
Contemplating Art as seriously as they have and for trying to make a
modicum of sense of it. That was not easy to do given that the book is
a collection of essays, and a somewhat heterogeneous one at that.
Two of my commentators solved this problem by narrowing their fo-
cus to just one of the topics that loom large in Contemplating Art; in
the case of Alessandro Bertinetto, the topic of musical expression,
and in the case of Michele Di Monte, the topic of the definition of art.
My other two commentators solved the problem by looking the hete-
rogeneity of Contemplating Art straight in the face and then uncover-
ing some underlying principles or themes or leitmotifs in it; in the
case of Lisa Giombini, that of aesthetic contextualism, and in the case
of Filippo Focosi, that of the relationship of form and content.
Let me begin my remarks with Focosi’s suggestion that the rela-
tionship of form and content is a leitmotif of my aesthetic reflections.
Focosi is certainly right to see that relationship as a pervasive feature
of my thought about meaning and value in art. And he is also right to
note that I nonetheless decline, in my definition of art, to make the ex-
istence or the character of that relationship a condition of arthood.
33
Lebenswelt, 5 (2014)
On the one hand, as Focosi well knows, my intentional-historical de-
finition of art is meant as an explication of the descriptive category of
art, or alternatively, of our current practice of classifying things as ei-
ther art or non-art. And so that which is admittedly central to the val-
ue of an artwork, or that on which its appreciation as art properly f o-
cuses, is not thereby something properly included in a definition of
art whose aim is classificatory, is not thereby that which marks off
artworks from other things, whether artifacts or natural objects. On
the other hand, Focosi is right that I acknowledge the relevance of
something like the centrality of a concern with the form-content rela-
tion in the case of certain borderline phenomena, such as aesthetica l-
ly compelling primitive artifacts or strikingly formed industrial ob-
jects, which seem to call for inclusion as art even though not satisfy-
ing the basic intentional-historical condition I posit as essential. But I
think it is theoretically justified to confine that relevance to those
borderline phenomena, rather than elevating it to a sine qua non for
all artwork, given the increasing diversity and often pointedly anti-
aesthetic impulse of art in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Consider next how Focosi characterizes the principle to which
he claims I give regular allegiance, and which he designates as the
coalescence of form and content, or CFC. Though there may be cases in
which I would describe the relationship between form and content in
a given work as a coalescence or fusion, I would not myself hold that
to be a formula of general application. That is to say, I do not think
that the form and the content of an artwork, even a successful art-
work, necessarily coalesce or fuse, since that implies that the form
and content are no longer separable or distinguishable, that the form
and the content cannot to some extent be independently identified.
But that implication is too strong. A principle of greater generality
than CFC, and one to which I would more readily subscribe, would be
that of the interrelationship of form and content, or IFC, the idea being
that the specific relationship of form and content in an artwork is the
primary locus of its value as art and the proper focus of artistic ap-
preciation of it, whether that relationship in a given case and at a gi v-
en level amounts to complete interpenetration of form and content or
to something short of that.
I turn now to Giombini’s sympathetic reconstruction of some of
my views about art, and can agree that the aesthetic contextualism
34
J. Levinson, L. Giombini, F. Focosi, M. Di Monte, A. Bertinetto
she singles out for attention is even more of a leitmotif of my writings
than the principle of the interrelation of form and content just dis-
cussed. (As she notes, I have even written an essay entitled Aesthetic
Contextualism, published in 2007, and which will be reprinted in a
forthcoming collection of essays, Aesthetic Pursuits). What I was most
struck by in Giombini’s commentary was her bringing out the affinity
between the principle of aesthetic contextualism and the intentional -
historical definition of art which I have defended, with modifications
and qualifications, for thirty-five years now.
In light of Giombini’s analysis one might well see the intention-
al-historical definition of art as a special application of the principle
of aesthetic contextualism broadly construed, along the lines of the
slogan that Giombini recalls, ‘No work is an island’. Broadly con-
strued, aesthetic contextualism about art holds that nothing of artis-
tic significance about an artwork resides in its inherent form or per-
ceptual appearance by themselves, but only in relation to the artistic
context in which the work is embedded. The intentional-historical de-
finition of art underlines the way in which the very status as art of an
artwork depends on both its historical context in terms of past art
and its intentional context in terms of the projections of a relevant
agent, while aesthetic contextualism narrowly construed concerns
the way in which the artistic content of an artwork depends crucially
on its contextual relationships to other artworks both past and
present. Both theses, then, are instances of aesthetic contextualism
broadly construed, and though one might very well hold the second
without holding the first, they clearly make very good, and quite na t-
ural, bedfellows. Finally, I can only applaud Giombini’s convincing
demonstration of the compatibility of a certain degree of both histor-
ical relativity and ontological essentialism in the theory of art, and
would venture that these are perhaps even enjoined by a judicious
embrace of aesthetic contextualism.
It is with pleasure that I now address Alessandro Bertinetto's
careful commentary on some of the musical essays in Contemplating
Art, since the aesthetics of music is the part of aesthetics closest to my
heart, and begin by thanking him for drawing attention in a footnote
to a number of musical essays composed after Contemplating Art, all
of which figure in a forthcoming collection, Musical Concerns. I am al-
so gratified that he finds so much to agree with in the views I have
35
Lebenswelt, 5 (2014)
put forward on musical expressiveness, musical performing, musical
narrativity, and musical value.
Especially worthwhile is the Bertinetto's précis of my account of
musical expressiveness, which locates such expressiveness in the sus-
ceptibility of much music to be heard, in virtue of its movement, as
the expression of an emotion or other state of mind, and which thus
implicates the hearing of an agent of such expression in the music,
what I and others call a persona. I could hardly improve on that précis
myself, and am glad to note Bertinetto's defense of the claim that ex-
pressiveness, though distinct from expression, cannot be understood
without reference to it; the claim that an act of expression, whether
real or imagined, logically requires an expressing agent, and that a
gesture similarly requires a gesturer; and the claim that a persona
theory of expressiveness is in no way incompatible with recognition
of the culturally variable and grammatically governed aspect of the
expression of emotions. I would only signal that it is preferable to
think of the highly abstract and indeterminate agent of expression
heard in expressive music as an imaginary rather than a fictional enti-
ty, since the notion of a fictional entity plausibly entails a framing i n-
tention or invitation to make-believe with a prop that, in contrast to a
novel or film, is not normally present in connection with a piece of in-
strumental music.
Before leaving this topic I would draw attention to Bertinetto's
resourceful replies to the putative difficulty for a persona theory of
expression posed by music that appears expressive of something i m-
personal, superhuman, or cosmic. He convincingly suggests that ei-
ther the expressiveness in such cases is still anchored in a human re-
sponse, only one that is directed toward the impersonal, superhu-
man, or cosmic aspects of existence, or else that if the response is in-
deed attributable to a nonhuman agent, such as destiny or fate, such
an agent must be to some extent personalized if we are to think of it
as capable of expressing perspectives or states of mind.
Finally, I can only concur with Bertinetto's briefer but equally
astute glosses on three other positions of mine staked out in other es-
says in Contemplating Art. The first concerns the impact that the per-
ception or imagination of the performing gestures of musicians can
have on the musical gestures heard in the music performed, and thus
on the perceived expressiveness of such music. The second concerns
36
J. Levinson, L. Giombini, F. Focosi, M. Di Monte, A. Bertinetto
the way in which a persona theory of musical expressiveness, posi t-
ing the gestures of an imagined subject hearable in music's move-
ment, rather naturally generates the possibility, albeit a limited one,
of narrative and dramatic content in music. And the third concerns
the locating of music's main value in the quality of how it goes – how
it unfolds over time, how it evolves from moment to moment – rather
than in the quality of how it sounds. But Bertinetto plausibly proposes
that this claim might best be restricted to music whose thrust is pri-
marily linear and teleological – the vast bulk of music from the 17th
to the 20th centuries – since perhaps not applicable to certain con-
temporary modes of music, such as ones of minimalist, spectral,
trancelike, or freely improvisatory character, which arguably priv i-
lege the sonic surface of music over its sequential syntax.
I have left for last the commentary of Michele di Monte, the
most critical of my commentators – though his criticism is of the best,
that is to say, constructive, sort. In addressing those criticisms I re-
turn to the vexing yet unavoidable topic of art's definition. Di Monte's
critical reflections are among the most searching my theory of art has
elicited since its initial formulation and offering thirty-five years ago,
and they have the additional merit of taking into account all four of
the major essays in which that theory is advanced. I do my best in
responding to them, though limitations of space and limitations in my
understanding of some of his concerns keep my response from being
quite what those reflections deserve.
I begin with Di Monte's pertinent questioning of the sense in
which my account of arthood is a historical one. He quotes one of my
formulations on this point, namely this: «whether something is art
now depends, and ineliminably, on what has been art in the past» (=
A), but also glosses it, in his own words, like this: «the content of the
present concept of art depends on what art has been in the past» (=
B). However, these are not equivalent. B is about the content of the
concept of art, while A is about what is necessary for something to be
an artwork at a particular time. So if there is something problematic
about the definition's historicality understood as B, it is not some-
thing that need worry me. The historicality of arthood on which I do
insist is captured by A, and is just the idea that having the status of
arthood at a given time depends on what has that status at an earlier
37
Lebenswelt, 5 (2014)
time, rather than the idea that the content of the concept of art at a
given time is provided by what count as artworks prior to that time.
Di Monte next raises the reasonable question of why in theori z-
ing about art we should assume that what is proposed as art by any
would-be artist of today actually is art, or alternatively, that anything
a consensus of influential art critics recognize as art today in fact
counts as art? I'm not sure I have an answer to that question, but I
suppose I am willing to say, though I don't subscribe to a sociological
theory of arthood, that widespread acceptance of items as artworks
by the art-interested or art-informed – a broadly social fact – is a be-
drock datum to which a theory of arthood, of what is art and what is
not, must be adequate. A third issue broached by Di Monte is the
putative recursive character of my definition of art. Di Monte claims
that «the formal definition proposed by Levinson», according to
which «something is art iff it is or was intended or projected for over-
all regard as some prior art is or was correctly regarded» (Conte m-
plating Art, p. 13), «[...] actually is a recursive definition». Now al-
though I did propose a recursive definition of art in my 1979 essay
27
,
that definition is not meant as an elucidation of our core concept of
art, but only as a highly idealized representation of the extension of
art, from first art to the present. As for my basic definition of art cited
above, and which is meant to capture the core notion of art with
which we now operate, it is not, pace Di Monte, a recursive definition
as I understand that term. A strictly recursive definition of a domain
posits a recursive structure for it that is expressed by an initial step
and a recursive step; but there is no trace of such a two-step struc-
ture in the formal definition quoted by Di Monte from my 2002 essay
on this topic
28
. Moreover, that basic ‘one-step’ definition, to which I
am committed, does not require identification of that which is actual-
ly first art, does not even presuppose the intelligibility of the notion
of first art, in order to get off the ground or be applicable in practice.
Thus Di Monte is perfectly right to remark elsewhere in his commen-
tary that I deny «that the notions of first art and ur-art are elements
in our concept of art».
27
J. Levinson, Defining Art Historically, «British Journal of Aesthetics» 19 (1979), 3, pp. 232-
250.
28
J. Levinson, The Irreducible Historicality of the Concept of Art, «British Journal of Aesthet-
ics» 42 (2002).
38
J. Levinson, L. Giombini, F. Focosi, M. Di Monte, A. Bertinetto
At the end of his commentary Di Monte suggests that my basic
definition of arthood, in pointedly avoiding reliance on any substan-
tive or normative notion of art, may render itself incapable of a justi-
fied, rather than simply ad hoc, sorting of objects into art and non-art.
Like Focosi, Di Monte is deeply suspicious of simply deferring to the
artworld in its recognition of various modes of Conceptualist, Mini-
malist, Appropriationist, and Exhibitionist activity as ones that issue,
no questions asked, in artworks. One understands this suspicion, for
no one likes to be scammed, conned, or hustled. But it should be
borne in mind that acknowledging something to have arthood –
which is just a certain sort of artifact status – is not thereby to
attribute to it any value whatsoever – though it may, as I remark
elsewhere, involve recognizing it to be making a claim to possess
some sort of value or be worth engaging with.
Still, Di Monte’s reflections lead one to think that perhaps we
should after all give up the attempt to articulate a unified concept of
art adequate to both traditional and avant-garde art, and instead con-
tent ourselves, as Di Monte suggests, with recognizing two different
concepts, one adequate to the former and one adequate to the latter.
But I am, at this late point, still hopeful that the unity of the concept
can be retained, and along roughly intentional-historical lines.