Art and Knowledge - Essay Example

?Art and Knowledge Introduction The question whether people derive some knowledge from art is an old one. Traditionally, art has been viewed as or ntal or emotional in character. One can see the presence of this ideology in the work of Plato which argues that the appearance of poetry as a source of knowledge is rather deceptive. This positive tradition which follows the western philosophical thoughts loves to believe that art is largely emotive rather than informative. To illustrate, according to people like Ayer (1952, p.54), the sources of empirical knowledge should be synthetic propositions the truth value of which can be determined. In addition, logical relationships should be derived from analytic propositions which are open to manipulation (ibid). Does art provide knowledge? The historical discussion Admittedly, this traditional belief that art has nothing to do with epistemology arose from the fact that arts are mainly aimed at arousing emotion. In fact, people seek out arts mainly to get oneself lost into the imaginary world created by the arts. Thus, one can easily point out that arts are primarily meant to reach a natural high which is often the result of ones sensory responses. Thus, traditionally, arts and sensory experiences were interlinked and inseparable. Thus, Plato (1992, p. 113) argued that the sensory side of human experience is primary in the arts. According to Stolnitz (1992, p. 191), the argument is that senses are a hindrance to the achievement of the high state in which reality can be understood. In fact, the weights and chains of the prisoners incarcerated in Plato’s caves were really surrogates or proxies for the distractions that our senses imposed upon whatever our rational mind could possibly muster. Thus, one can see that the stimulation of senses, which takes place through arts, is rather misleading. As John (2001, p.330) reflects, instead of making one reach critical thinking and rationality, arts lead one away from truth which can only be derived through critical rationality. And as time passed, there arose two extremes in the cognitive triviality of arts (ibid). The opinion of Plato was contradicted by Aristotle (2008, p. 45) in Poetics through the argument that poetry is capable of conveying the knowledge of universals to people. Thus, there arise two classes of thought; one that believes in the aesthetic value of art, and one that believes in the cognitive value of art. Admittedly, it is possible to develop a third class of thought; that is, aesthetic cognitivism. This class of thought claims that art can give knowledge, and also that this knowledge can enhance the aesthetic value of art. According to cognitivists, it is possible for art to impart knowledge. In order to substantiate their claim, cognitivists rely on philosophical knowledge as derived from various works of literature. The gist of their argument is that though moral philosophy manages to provide an outline of what is good; works of literature are useful and at times necessary to understand the application of the same in various situations. As McKeon (2001, p.241) comments, Aristotle comes up with three types of knowledge; theoretical, practical, and productive. The theoretical knowledge refers to the knowledge about things that are fundamental in nature (ibid). An example of this knowledge is the products and processes of nature. Practical knowledge refers to the knowledge that teaches what to do to address certain contingencies. Thirdly, productive knowledge teaches one how to make new things. Admittedly, the question arises as to how art can introduce productive knowledge. Thus, one gains the insight that the meaning of the word ‘knowledge’ itself is likely to change according to the nature of the problem one pursues (ibid). Based on the traditional view of scientific knowledge, knowledge is supposed to come along with evidence regarding the truth. In other words, knowledge is the ability to provide warranted assertions. In other words, the term ‘assertion’ is itself sufficient to point out that language is used as the means of representation. However, the second half of the 1900s made it evident that knowledge is not always conveyed in language (Polanyi, 1966, p. 95). The realisation arose that knowledge is not always presentable in linguistic forms. In other words, knowledge appears in different forms (ibid). To illustrate, despite the development of language, there is no specific word that clearly explains how water tastes, or how one looks, or how a piece of music sounds like. It becomes evident that in such cases, the direct use of language does not sufficiently convey the meaning it intends to do. In such cases, one can see that the artistic use of language becomes able to convey more than the mere direct use of words. Thus, one reaches the realisation that art too, indeed, is capable of giving knowledge. The fact that becomes evident from these discussions is that humans have, over time, developed a number of different forms of representation. They range from visual, auditory, gustatory, kinesthetic, and so on. These various forms of communication give people innumerous representational avenues. An example is photography. There are photographers like Edward Steichen, Dorothea Lange, Paul Strand, and various other photographers. An example is the ‘White Angel Breadline’ by Dorothea Lange. The work took birth in the year 1933 when the American street was getting deeply cut by the Depression. The work ‘White Angel Breadline’ is a black and white photograph that shows a few men, probably in the street. Admittedly, the work evidently transforms the element of gloom in a split second. However, in order to fully understand the informative element of the work, it becomes necessary for one to have knowledge about the time the work originated. In fact, this is so in the case of science too. A scientific study that is taken out of its context, or for which the background information is not available, will render itself useless. Thus, arts, irrespective of their forms of expression, can provide some kind of knowledge which should be understood in the context of their origin. Another example is the Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Dillard (1974, pp.31-32). The work is the epitome of perfectly crafted language that reflects acute perception in order to provide the reader a virtual sensory experience of nature with its all glory and complexity (ibid). To illustrate, as Dillard (1974) says, “I breathed an air like light; I saw a light like water. I was the lip of a fountain the creek filled forever; I was ether, the leaf in the zephyr; I was fleshflake, feather, bone” (pp. 31-32). What one can see in both these cases is that instead of being descriptive, they tend to be evocative in nature. That means they transport the viewer to another world. In other words, while the descriptive only manages to create a relation between something done and something said, the evocative manages to crate an empathic sense of life in the people who view the art work; whether the work is visual, linguistic, choreographic or musical. In all the cases, artwork necessarily involves imagination and emotion. However, in the opinion of Gaut (2003, p.437), this situation can be informative too. To illustrate, according to him, this emotional content provides us the knowledge of possibilities; and such art works with evocative quality show how a particular situation might feel to someone. Thus, the emotive element helps one walk in the shoe of another (ibid). Admittedly, it is this content of emotion that makes Plato and other eminent scholars oppose the knowledge-providing capacity of arts. However, though there is the emotional aspect, one cannot turn a blind eye towards the descriptive aspect of arts. Another important issue is the educative value of emotion or empathy itself. It is just reasonable to argue that empathy is one way to get deep insight into what others are experiencing in a particular situation. In other words, walking in the shoes of another is a useful way to know a particular aspect of a given situation. Thus, one gets a chance to argue that the emotional content or the sympathy aroused by arts is useful in understanding what the artist, at the least, is experiencing in that given situation. However, there are things to be taken care of while a researcher looks into arts for answers to questions. This is so because unlike science, arts do not provide watertight answers. This is so because arts are not bound to find answers as researchers are. While science and the traditional researchers are not interested in raising problems, artists do not find any problem in leaving question halfway, or leaving the question back to the viewers to decide. Thus, the knowledge provided by arts may or may not be useful for a researcher. That, in fact, depends on the kind of knowledge one looks for. In other words, arts do not offer a definite formula for the viewer to follow so that all the viewers from different time and place derive the same knowledge from them. Another argument that favors the advocates of aesthetic-cognitivism comes from Langer (1957). According to him, the artist tries to express “more or less purely, more or less subtly, not feelings and emotions the artist has, but feelings which the artist knows; his insight into the nature of sentience, his picture of vital experience, physical and emotive and fantastic”( Langer, 1957, p. 64). That means, the artist is just offering a piece of knowledge, but not in the ordinary way of discourse. The reason behind this variation in discourse should be explained with the reason that the forms of feelings to be expressed and the usual forms of discursive expression are incommensurate, making the artist to use artistic language (ibid). In addition, one comes to know the fact that the world of feeling is almost exclusively the provenance of arts, or arts are the only way to communicate feelings. As Langer (1957) rightly pointed out, scientific way of knowledge is solely dependent on discursive language which is not good in disclosing qualities of life. If that is the case, one can also claim that the education of life is not possible through science. That means education of life can be effectively achieved through education in and through arts. However, according to Peirce (1963, p. 79), science is marked by the need for consensus which is not the case of arts. Instead of providing a precise referent which can be interpreted through a traditional interpretation, art provides an evocative image. This evocative image is capable of creating a number of different definitions depending on the circumstances. It might give way to newer and more unsettling queries in an area, deepen an already existing issue, or mercilessly redirect the quest into a totally new direction (ibid). Thus, it becomes evident that for the artist, evocation is more important than distribution of knowledge. However, the way arts can be utilised for knowledge cannot be ignored. According to Kurtz (n.d), arts are rather closely linked to humanism. It is pointed out by the scholar that humanism is not only to focus on scientific knowledge and philosophy but also on arts. This is so because humanism needs to look into humanist outlooks and human values and emotions (ibid). As a ready discussed, arts are the best way to the world of outlook and emotions. That means, in order to promote humanism, it should be intimately linked to arts. Hence, again, one can see that Kurtz is in line with Langer (1957) in claiming that arts necessarily promote knowledge which is mainly about views, feelings, and outlooks. Admittedly, these points are in stark contradiction with what Platonic theory argues. While Plato argues that emotional content in arts is a hindrance to rational thinking and knowledge, these people argue that the emotional content is the educative element in arts. Another important theory of arts is the representational theory which claims that arts represent the realities in nature. According to the theory, arts are true representations of reality. Admittedly, the theory goes far off the mark because it misses out the aesthetic content of arts. Moreover, the theory fails to take into account modern arts like cinematography and photography and various other forms of modern art which give a lot of space for imagination. Admittedly, people like Picasso and Jackson Pollock showed how to distort reality to arouse feelings. Thus, the theory miserably fails in its attempt, though there are certain art works that can be used to support the theory. In other words, though there are certain novels, plays and fictions which represent human situations in the way they are, not all arts do so. Thus, one can give two contradictory answers to the question whether arts provide knowledge. First of all, art is well-linked to the culture from which it originates. Also, the way of artistic expression changes from generation to generation. Thus, one can give the answer that arts are informative of the culture and generation in a certain way though the degree to which people manage to derive the same back from the art works is rather uncertain. Some examples are the bullfight of the Spanish, opera of the Chinese, and the Inca pottery. Secondly, one can see that arts provide information about certain universal ideas like victory, failure, valor, cowardice, luck, and so on. Secondly, arts can provide such knowledge that cannot be considered far different from descriptive knowledge and historical narrative. An example is the Brighton Beach of Neil Simon. In order to fully understand the informative value of arts, one should also look into works like The Rape of Sabine Woman and The Last Days of Socrates. Admittedly, these works are truly informative in nature. However, one cannot deny the fact that there are certain totally deceptive works which possess no descriptive knowledge at all. An example is the picture of Mary and the Infant. Thus, it becomes evident that despite the content of information in arts, they cannot be used as reliable sources of information. Conclusion Thus, in total, arts indeed provide knowledge, but in different ways in different arts. Some arts provide such knowledge that is very similar to historical narrative or descriptive knowledge. Some others show how a particular situation is viewed by others. Thirdly, the evocation of feelings itself is a way to knowledge as scientific works do not enter the realm of feelings and emotions. However, some arts are highly deceptive in nature and the knowledge they provide may not be correct, or the way knowledge should be extracted from them is still not known. Thus, because of this varied nature, arts are more capable of utilising their evocative value than informative value. References Ayer, AJ., 1952. Language. Truth and Logic. USA: Dover Publications. Aristotle., 2008. Poetics, New York: Cosimo, Inc. Dillard, A., 1998. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, USA: Harper Perennial Modern Classics. Gaut, B., 2003. Art and knowledge. In J. Levinson, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 437. John, E., 2001. Art and knowledge. In: B. Gaut & DM. Lopes eds. The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, New York: Routledge,. 330. Kurtz, P., n.d. Humanism and the arts: Does art convey knowledge?, [Online] Available at: [Accessed 24 March 2012]. Langer, SK., 1957. Problems of Art: Ten Philosophical Lectures, New York. McKeon, R.,2001. The Basic Works of Aristotle, New York: Random House. Peirce, CS., 1963. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, USA: Harvard University Press. Polanyi, M., 1966. The Tacit Dimension, USA: University of Chicago Press. Plato., Jowett, B. 1968. The Republic, BompaCrazy.com. Stolnitz, J., 1992. On the cognitive triviality of art, British Journal of Aesthetics, 32(3), pp. 191-200. Read More