Goodman, Forgery, and the Aesthetic

Citation preview

Goodman, Forgery, and the Aesthetic Luise H. Morton; Thomas R. Foster The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 49, No. 2. (Spring, 1991), pp. 155-159. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-8529%28199121%2949%3A2%3C155%3AGFATA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism is currently published by The American Society for Aesthetics.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/tasfa.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission.

The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers, and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

http://www.jstor.org Tue Jul 31 23:42:57 2007

LUISE H . MORTON AND THOMAS R. FOSTER

Goodman, Forgery, and the Aesthetic

In Languages of Art, Nelson Goodman argues that there is an aesthetic difference between an authentic painting and a deceptive forgery of it, even if we cannot tell them apart by merely looking at them.' In this paper we shall argue that his grounds for this conclusion are not sufficient. Goodman introduces the problem of authenticity in the arts by asking two questions: (1) Is there any aesthetic difference between a deceptive forgery and an original work of art? (2) In some genres, for example, poetry, there is no such thing as forgery of a known work-why is this so? Although these questions seem peripheral to the main concerns of traditional aesthetics, Goodman claims their solutions are essential to any theory of art. This claim is correct, for the answer to (1) involves an account of aesthetic experience. The answer to (2) identifies some components of an analysis of the identity conditions for works of art. Both of these general issues ure central to traditional aesthetics. Our main concern is with (1). Goodman's discussion of that question is more puzzling and open to misinterpretation than that of (2), even though Goodman's answer to (2) has been the main target of criticism. Briefly, his answer to why, in some genres, forgery is not possible involves making a distinction between two basic categories of art: the allographic and the autographic, i.e., those genres with, and those without a notation. For example, while music and literature are in a notation, painting and sculpture are not. This distinction is used both for identifying the constitutive properties of each type of art work and in developing a general theory of notation. It also leads to Goodman's infamous claim that one wrong note disqualifies a performance as being an instance of a given

musical score. Here, however, our main concern will be with whether there is an aesthetic difference between a forgery and the original. I . THE PROBLEM

Prior to his main argument, Goodman carefully reformulates question (1) as follows: (1') Is there any aesthetic difference between the two pictures [i.e.. a genuine work of art and a forgery or copy or reproduction of it] for at t , where t is a suitable period of time, if x cannot tell them apart by merely looking at them at r'? Or in other words, can anything that x does not discern by merely looking at the pictures at t constitute an aesthetic difference between them forx at t'?'

Goodman's formulation of the question is problematic for it involves several concepts that require clarification, namely, "forgery," "aesthetic difference," and "merely looking." "Forgery" is a term notoriously fraught with ambiguities, leading one to make distinctions between "forgery, " "exact copy, " "reproduction, " "imitation," "fake," etc. Goodman uses these terms indifferently to refer to the same thing, and for this critics have rightly taken him to task.' But those critics who attack the validity of his argument on grounds of equivocation are barking up the wrong tree." Although undoubtedly significant for normative reasons, these distinctions are irrelevant to Goodman's purpose. Goodman wants to argue that subtle perceptual differences count significantly in our aesthetic experience of paintings. Further, he wants to show that the way we perceive paintings is determined, in part, by our knowledge of certain facts about its history of production. He uses the knotty issue

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 49:2 Spring 1991

156 of forgery to tease out certain basic questions about what sorts of things are involved in aesthetic perception. He holds that these concerns need not involve questions of merit. It makes no essential difference to his use of the forgery example whether the problem is normatively framed in terms of an authentic masterpiece and a deceptive (and reprehensible) forgery, or whether it is set up descriptively in terms of an original and a visually indistinguishable duplicate. Either way, Goodman's solution to the problem of authenticity, as he construes it, would be the same, since he is not concerned with whether the difference between the two works is a difference of value. What first needs to be examined critically is Goodman's use and discussion of "merely looking." For he not only begins his argument by showing that no clear line can be drawn between what can and what cannot be seen by "merely looking," he also uses that fact to attack what he takes to be the entrenched view on the issue of forgery and aesthetic difference. The core of the entrenched view may be stated as follows. Call it the Commonsense Argument: (1) There can be no aesthetic difference without a perceptual difference. (2) There is no perceptual difference between an original artwork and a deceptive forgery of it. (3) Therefore, there is no aesthetic difference between an original artwork and a deceptive forgery of it.

This argument is valid. But Goodman denies its conclusion. So he must deny one of its premises. He chooses to refute (2). This move is puzzling. What else is a "deceptive forgery" or "perfect fake," as Goodman often puts it, than a work in which there are no perceivable differences between it and the original of which it is a copy? Furthermore, Goodman seems to invite us to think in this commonsense way by presenting the following supposition: Suppose we have before us, on the left, Rembrandt's original painting Lucretia and, on the right, a superlative imitation of it. We know from a fully documented history that the painting on the left is the original; and we know from x-ray photographs and microscopic examination and chemical analysis that the painting on the right is a recent fake. Although there are many differences between the two-e.g.. in

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism authorship, age, physical and chemical characteristics, and market value-we cannot see any difference between them; and if they are moved while we sleep, we cannot then tell which is which by merely looking at them.5 There are three conditions: (i) we are looking at Rembrandt's Lucretia and a recent forgery of it; (ii) we know which picture is the fake; and (iii) we cannot see "by merely looking" any difference between the original and its forgery. This last condition is the crucial, yet slippery, point on which Goodman's argument turns. It is important to point out that it resembles premise (2) of the Commonsense Argument in that it sets forth what might be construed as an indiscernibility condition, i.e., there is no perceivable difference. But whereas premise (2) of the Commonsense Argument is analytic, Goodman's condition (iii) is an empirical statement of fact. Goodman has subtly changed the terms of the Commonsense Argument, which is not assailable, so as to generate one that is. Along with these initial conditions, various differences between the two pictures are fixedthe perceived differences in number and location and the various ur~perceivubledifferences such as difference in authorship, market value, and chemical composition. If a judgment of aesthetic difference is dependent on knowledge of any of these unperceivable features of a work, then the two paintings are aesthetically different for a viewer whether or not they are visually identical. Why then attempt to undermine the second premise of the Commonsense Argument? Why not simply say, as Danto has, that knowledge of differences in the origins of any two indiscernible material objects will enable us to discriminate aesthetic differences between them when we perceive them us works of On this view, if we know that one picture is a forgery, then our aesthetic experience of it will differ from our aesthetic experience of the original, even though what we perceive (namely, the painted canvas) is visually the same. In short, by rejecting premise (1) of the Commonsense Argument ("There can be no aesthetic difference without a perceptual difference"), such a solution is available-provided one gives some account of the aesthetic difference between a work of art and its material embodiment. Such

Foster and Morton

Goodman on Forge??

accounts involve the artist's intention andlor other aspects of a work's causal history. Goodman, however, does not take this route. As indicated above, he rejects premise (2): there is no perceptual difference between an original artwork and a deceptive forgery of it. To see why he does this, we present and analyze his Forgery Argument, indicating what presuppositions are implicit in it and the ways it falls short. The argument's significance goes beyond forgery; what motivates it also motivates Goodman's semantic theory of art. 11. T H E A R G U M E N T

Goodman's Forgery Argument goes as follows: Suppose there are two paintings, a and b, where a is an original and b is a deceptive forgery, and nobody is now able to notice a difference between them. 1. Knowledge of the fact that a is an original and b is a forgery counts as evidence that there may be a difference between them that I can learn to perceive. 2. Evidence that there may be a perceptual difference between a and b assigns my present looking a role as training toward noticing (in the future) some difference between them. 3. The use of my present looking as training toward such perceptual discrimination of a difference between a and b causes me to look at them differently now. 4. Therefore, the fact that a is an original and b a forgery constitutes an aesthetic difference between them for me right now, even though at present I cannot tell them apart by merely looking.7

As presented, a key premise is missing. For the argument to work, it needs some general principle stating what kind of differences are aesthetically relevant. Goodman provides the following: 3.5 The aesthetic properties of a picture include not only those found by looking at it but also those that determine how it is to be looked at.8

Goodman cautions his reader that "not every difference in or arising from how the pictures happen to be looked at counts; only differences in or arising from how they are to be looked at."' What does this mean? To assess the Forgery Argument and its consequences, we need to know what sorts of properties determine how a

picture is to be looked at. More generally, we need to know what sorts of properties are aesthetically relevant to works of art. These are crucial questions. To answer them requires an account of aesthetic properties as well as a theory of art. Goodman puts such questions on hold. Instead of arguing for his principle, he merely asserts what he takes to be obvious: "[Tlhe exercise, training, and development of our powers of discriminating among works of art are plainly aesthetic activities." '0 Goodman provides further discussion for some of his premises. To establish the first claimknowledge of a difference in authorship counts as evidence for expecting to learn to see a difference-he gives the following inductive ploy: Although I see no difference now between the two pictures in question. I may learn to see a difference between them. I cannot determine now by merely looking at them. or in any other way, that I shall be able to learn. But the information that they are very different, that the one is the original and the other a forgery, argues against any inference to the conclusion that I shall not be able to learn. 1 1

This passage reminds us that what looks like an analytic truth in Goodman's supposition is only a contingent fact: we cannot now perceive a difference between the two works. Goodman draws the conclusion that from this fact alone we cannot predict whether or not we will be able to learn to see a difference. But then he makes the not so obvious claim that this conclusion counts as evidence for believing that there may be a difference we can learn to perceive. Here, one can point out that the description of one work as a deceptive forgery (perfect fake) suggests that there is no perceptual difference. Recall the contrast between the analytic second premise of the Commonsense Argument and Goodman's contingent condition (iii) of his supposition. For the induction to go through, Goodman is relying not only on the view that sooner or later in cases of forgery, dissimilarities will be noticed by the experts, but also the crucial 3.5 above. Goodman is also relying on condition (ii) of his supposition-we know which painting is the forgery. As a consequence, the way we look at each picture differs. But why set up the problem this way? Why not suppose we do not know which picture is the fake? In other words, what

158 role does Goodman's specification of which picture is the forgery play in his treatment of the problem? For example, if all we know is that at least one picture is a fake, then our way of looking will be the same for both works. Goodman, however, would reject this alternative supposition on the grounds that it does not provide sufficient information for addressing the problem at issue. Although he claims that "Nothing depends here upon my ever actually perceiving or being able to perceive a difference between the two pictures," the important point about his setup is that it provides non-perceptual information which differentiates the way we look at each of them. l 2 However, even if we put aside any question about the setup, Goodman still cannot rest his case on differences of an unspecified nature which may be noticed later. To show that there might be perceptual differences, he argues: [M]y knowledge of the way they differ bears upon the role of the present looking in training my perceptions to discriminate between these pictures, and between others. ... This knowledge instructs me to look at the two pictures differently now, even if what I see is the same. . . . Thus not only later but right now. the unperceived difference between the two pictures is a consideration pertinent to my visual experience with them. ' 3

What has Goodman shown? Does knowledge of the possibility of a difference entail that there is a difference? Does the unperceivable difference in authorship guarantee there will be a perceivable difference between the two works? Not only is Goodman suggesting that our knowledge that one work is original and the other fake gives us reason to believe there may be a difference we can learn to perceive, he also concludes that since the way we now look at the two pictures differs, there is an aesthetic difference between them for us now. Or is there? Are we entitled to this conclusion? Compare the following claims made by Goodman: 4'. [Nlot only later but right now, the unperceived difference between the two pictures is a consideration pertinent to my visual experience with them.'" 4. [Tlhe fact that the left-hand [picture] is the original

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism and the right-hand one a forgery constitutes an aesthetic difference between them for me now. I s

The first statement is the conclusion of the passage above; the second is the conclusion of the Forgery Argument. Although Goodman treats them as if they were equivalent, they are not. In the course of his argument, Goodman makes several unwarranted moves. First, Goodman shifts from talk about differences in the way we scrutinize the works (as in 4') to talk about aesthetic differences to be found between them (as in 4). In effect, he has collapsed the distinction between what we see when we look at a painting and how we look at them. What exactly is going on here? What are the presuppositions that license this move? Second, Goodman moves from mere differences in the way we perceive the pictures to aesthetic differences in the way we perceive them. Suppose we agree that information about the origins of the two pictures changes the way we look at them. What makes that change an aesthetic difference? Recall Goodman's recipe for aesthetic properties, those that determine how a picture is to be looked at as well as those found by looking at it (see 3.5 above). This does not tell us what we need to know, namely, what sorts of properties these are. Imagine you have a special coffee mug you use daily. One day you find it beside another mug identical to yours in all visual respects. You know which one belongs to you. But you scrutinize them carefully, looking for signs that differentiate yours. The way you look at each of them differs-"Hmm . . . this cup is mine, but it is hard to tell it apart from the other one." In such a situation, we would not want to say that the difference in how we look (or further, in what we see) is an aesthetic difference. So the question then becomes, how does this situation differ from Goodman's? What licenses Goodman's second move? We contend these moves are unwarranted. In presenting the Forgery Argument, Goodman has tacitly relied on the context of the art world for concluding that the difference between Rembrandt's Lucretia and its forgery is an aesthetic one. Since we are looking at works of art and not coffee mugs, we are perceiving in an aesthetic way. Questions about aesthetic experience in general or about the nature of aesthetic properties as they pertain specifically to works of art

Foster and Morton

Goodman on Forgen

are left unaddressed. For the move from differences in how we perceive to what we perceive. Goodman has relied on a theory of perception which is assumed but not made explicit in his discussion of forgery. By granting that the way we perceive each of the two objects differs, are we thereby entitled to conclude that there is a difference between the objects of our perception? Or that such a difference between the objects is an aesthetic one? Or that the difference between the way we perceive them is an aesthetic one? Or that there is an aesthetic difference between the objects considered as works of art? Responding to our claim that Goodman's moves from how we perceive to what we perceive are illegitimate, Catherine Elgin defends his position: The excellence of a forgery is measured by its match to the work (or style) it forges. . . . We take the original as the standard against which the fake is evaluated. .. . Even if we never find any deviations, that one functions as a standard and the other is measured against it affects the way we look at the two. ' 6

Elgin's defence of Goodman's argument turns on an ambiguity in the notion of "standard." One use is ontological; the other, categorial. First, while the nominalist may use the term to speak of an individual to which we compare other individuals, as in the case of the "standard meter," the realist may use it to refer to the property by means of which two or more individuals are compared, e.g., being-a-meter-long. A different notion of "standard" is used when a painting is called "a Picasso" or "a Vermeer." In this case, it is the canonical set of "Picasso's" or "Vermeer's" which functions as a criterion for including forgeries in the style of a given master, as in the case of the notorious Van Meegeren's "Vermeer's." Elgin blurs these two notions. It is clear that she can not use the canonical set to justify Goodman's argument for the Lucretia case. As a nominalist, Goodman could consistently use the notion of "a standard" to refer to individual paintings such as Lucrcria. He could also use that notion to refer to the style of Vermeer established by the class of authentic works. One

can give a rich intensional account of Vermeer's style by employing the notion of aesthetic properties. Or one can account for his style extensionally by appealing to the class of authentic Vermeer's. But no Van Meegeren forgery is of any given work by Vermeer. So Goodman cannot appeal to the extensional notion of style to defend his argument about Lucretia. The question that we are raising is whether properties which account for the difference between an original and a forgery must be aesthetic, and, further, whether aesthetic or not, a nominalist ontology can provide an adequate account for them. LUISE H . MORTON

Department of Philosophy The Ohio State University Columbus, OH 432 10 THOMAS R . FOSTER

Department of Philosophy Ball State University Muncie, IN 47306 1. Nelson Goodman, Lcrnguages oJ Art, (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1976). 2. Ibid., p. 102. 3. William E. Kennick, "Art and Inauthenticity." Jourilal of Aesthetics anti Art Criticisin, 44 (1985): 3-12; Roger Scmton, Art and Inlagination: A Sruci: in the Philosophy of Mind (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982). Scruton provides criticism of Goodman's theory of art and an alternative, non-descriptive theory of the meaning of aesthetic judgments as a rational capacity involving imagination and normative judgment. 4 . Hunter Steele. "Fakes and Forgeries,'' British Journal ofAestherics, 17 (1977): 254-258. 5. Goodman, Lcrnguages of Art, pp. 99-100, emphasis added. 6. Arthur Danto, Transjgurarion of the Coinn7onplace (Harvard University Press. 1981). 7. Ibid., p. 105. 8 . Ibid.. pp. 111-1 12. 9. Ibid., p. 105, emphasis added. 10. Ibid., p. 11 1. 11. Ibid., pp. 103-104. 12. Ibid.. p. 105. 13. Ibid., pp. 104-105. 14. Ibid., p. 105, emphasis added. 15. Ibid., emphasis added. 16. Catherine Elgin, "There's More Here Than Meets the Eye." unpublished paper presented to the American Association of Aesthetics, Eastern Division. April 1989. Philadelphia