Part 3 (2/2)
This is the psycho-epistemological function of art and the reason of its importance in man's life (and the crux of the Objectivist esthetics).
[”The Psycho-Epistemology of Art,” RM, 23; pb 19.]
Is the universe intelligible to man, or unintelligible and unknowable? Can man find happiness on earth, or is he doomed to frustration and despair? Does man have the power of choice, the power to choose his goals and to achieve them, the power to direct the course of his life-or is he the helpless plaything of forces beyond his control, which determine his fate? Is man, by nature, to be valued as good, or to be despised as evil? These are metaphysical questions, but the answers to them determine the kind of ethics men will accept and practice; the answers are the link between metaphysics and ethics. And although metaphysics as such is not a normative science, the answers to this category of questions a.s.sume, in man's mind, the function of metaphysical value-judgments, since they form the foundation of all of his moral values.
Consciously or subconsciously, explicitly or implicitly, man knows that he needs a comprehensive view of existence to integrate his values, to choose his goals, to plan his future, to maintain the unity and coherence of his life-and that his metaphysical value-judgments are involved in every moment of his life, in his every choice, decision and action.
Metaphysics-the science that deals with the fundamental nature of reality-involves man's widest abstractions. It includes every concrete he has ever perceived, it involves such a vast sum of knowledge and such a long chain of concepts that no man could hold it all in the focus of his immediate conscious awareness. Yet he needs that sum and that awareness to guide him-he needs the power to summon them into full, conscious focus.
That power is given to him by art.
[Ibid., 21; pb 19.]
It is not journalistic information or scientific education or moral guidance that man seeks from a work of art (though these may be involved as secondary consequences), but the fulfillment of a more profound need: a confirmation of his view of existence-a confirmation, not in the sense of resolving cognitive doubts, but in the sense of permitting him to contemplate his abstractions outside his own mind, in the form of existential concretes.
[”Art and Sense of Life,” RM, 48; pb 38.]
As to the role of emotions in art and the subconscious mechanism that serves as the integrating factor both in artistic creation and in man's response to art, they involve a psychological phenomenon which we call a sense of life. A sense of life is a pre-conceptual equivalent of metaphysics, an emotional, subconsciously integrated appraisal of man and of existence.
[”The Psycho-Epistemology of Art,” RM, 28; pb 24.1 The emotion involved in art is not an emotion in the ordinary meaning of the term. It is experienced more as a ”sense” or a ”feel,” but it has two characteristics pertaining to emotions: it is automatically immediate and it has an intense, profoundly personal (yet undefined) value-meaning to the individual experiencing it. The value involved is life, and the words naming the emotion are: ”This is what life means to me.”
[”Art and Sense of Life,” RM, 44; pb 35.]
Since man lives by reshaping his physical background to serve his purpose, since he must first define and then create his values-a rational man needs a concretized projection of these values, an image in whose likeness he will re-shape the world and himself. Art gives him that image; it gives him the experience of seeing the full, immediate, concrete reality of his distant goals.
Since a rational man's ambition is unlimited, since his pursuit and achievement of values is a lifelong process-and the higher the values, the harder the struggte-he needs a moment, an hour or some period of time in which he can experience the sense of his completed task, the sense of living in a universe where his values have been successfully achieved. It is like a moment of rest, a moment to gain fuel to move farther. Art gives him that fuel; the pleasure of contemplating the objectified reality of one's own sense of life is the pleasure of feeling what it would be like to live in one's ideal world.
[Ibid., 48; pb 38.]
The importance of that experience is not in what he learns from it, but in that he experiences it. The fuel is not a theoretical principle, not a didactic ”message,” but the life-giving fact of experiencing a moment of metaphysical joy-moment of love for existence.
[”The Goal of My Writing,” RM, 171; pb 170.]
Art is man's metaphysical mirror; what a rational man seeks to see in that mirror is a salute; what an irrational man seeks to see is a justification-even if only a justification of his depravity, as a last convulsion of his betrayed self-esteem.
Between these two extremes, there lies the immense continuum of men of mixed premises-whose sense of life holds unresolved, precariously balanced or openly contradictory elements of reason and unreason-and works of art that reflect these mixtures. Since art is the product of philosophy (and mankind's philosophy is tragically mixed), most of the world's art, including some of its greatest examples, falls into this category.
[”Art and Sense of Life,” RM, 49; pb 39.]
Art is the indispensable medium for the communication of a moral ideal.... This does not mean that art is a subst.i.tute for philosophical thought: without a conceptual theory of ethics, an artist would not be able successfully to concretize an image of the ideal. But without the a.s.sistance of art, ethics remains in the position of theoretical engineering: art is the model-builder....
It is important to stress, however, that even though moral values are inextricably involved in art, they are involved only as a consequence, not as a causal determinant: the primary focus of art is metaphysical, not ethical. Art is not the ”handmaiden” of morality, its basic purpose is not to educate, to reform or to advocate anything. The concretization of a moral ideal is not a textbook on how to become one. The basic purpose of art is not to teach, but to show-to hold up to man a concretized image of his nature and his place in the universe.
Any metaphysical issue will necessarily have an enormous influence on man's conduct and, therefore, on his ethics; and, since every art work has a theme, it will necessarily convey some conclusion, some ”message,” to its audience. But that influence and that ”message” are only secondary consequences. Art is not the means to any didactic end. This is the difference between a work of art and a morality play or a propaganda poster. The greater a work of art, the more profoundly universal its theme. Art is not the means of literal transcription. This is the difference between a work of art and a news story or a photograph.
[”The Psycho-Epistetnology of Art,” RM, 25; ph 21.]
As a re-creation of reality, a work of art has to be representational; its freedom of stylization is limited by the requirement of intelligibility; if it does not present an intelligible subject, it ceases to be art.
[”Art and Cognition,” RM, pb 75.]
What are the valid forms of art-and why these? ... The proper forms of art present a selective re-creation of reality in terms needed by man's cognitive faculty, which includes his ent.i.ty-perceiving senses, and thus a.s.sist the integration of the various elements of a conceptual consciousness. Literature deals with concepts, the visual arts with sight and touch, music with hearing. Each art fulfills the function of bringing man's concepts to the perceptual level of his consciousness and allowing him to grasp them directly, as if they were percepts. (The performing arts are a means of further concretization.) The different branches of art serve to unify man's consciousness and offer him a coherent view of existence. Whether that view is true or false is not an esthetic matter. The crucially esthetic matter is psycho-epistemological: the integration of a conceptual consciousness.
[Ibid., 73.]
Art (including literature) is the barometer of a culture. It reflects the sum of a society's deepest philosophical values: not its professed notions and slogans, but its actual view of man and of existence.
[”Bootleg Romanticism,” RM, 121; pb 129.1 See Conceptual Index: Esthetics.
Artistic Creation. As to the role of emotions in art and the subconscious mechanism that serves as the integrating factor both in artistic creation and in man's response to art, they involve a psychological phenomenon which we call a sense of lifr. A sense of life is a pre-conceptual equivalent of metaphysics, an emotional, subconsciously integrated appraisal of man and of existence.
[”The Psycho-Epistemology of Art,” RM, 28; pb 24.]
It is the artist's sense of life that controls and integrates his work, directing the innumerable choices he has to make, from the choice of subject to the subtlest details of style. It is the viewer's or reader's sense of life that responds to a work of art by a complex, yet automatic reaction of acceptance and approval, or rejection and condemnation.
[”Art and Sense of Life,” RM, 43; pb 34.]
The psycho-epistemological process of communication between an artist and a viewer or reader goes as follows: the artist starts with a broad abstraction which he has to concretize, to bring into reality by means of the appropriate particulars; the viewer perceives the particulars, integrates them and grasps the abstraction from which they came, thus completing the circle. Speaking metaphorically, the creative process resembles a process of deduction; the viewing process resembles a process of induction.
This does not mean that communication is the primary purpose of an artist: his primary purpose is to bring his view of man and of existence into reality; but to be brought into reality, it has to be translated into objective (therefore, communicable) terms.
I Ibid., 44; pb 35.]
An artist does not fake reality-he .stylize.s it. He selects those aspects of existence which he regards as metaphysically significant-and by isolating and stressing them, by omitting the insignificant and accidental, he presents his view of existence. His concepts are not divorced from the facts of reality-they are concepts which integrate the facts and his metaphysical evaluation of the facts. His selection const.i.tutes his evaluation: everything included in a work of art-from theme to subject to brushstroke or adjective-acquires metaphysical significance by the mere fact of being included, of being important enough to include.
An artist (as, for instance, the sculptors of Ancient Greece) who presents man as a G.o.d-like figure is aware of the fact that men may be crippled or diseased or helpless; but he regards these conditions as accidental, as irrelevant to the essential nature of man-and he presents a figure embodying strength, beauty, intelligence, self-confidence, as man's proper, natural state.
[Ibid., 46; pb 36.]
See also ART; CREATION ; EMOTIONS; PSYCHO-EPISTEMOLOGY; SENSE of LIFE; STYLIZATION.
a.s.sociations. See Cooperation.
Atheism. Every argument for G.o.d and every attribute ascribed to Him rests on a false metaphysical premise. None can survive for a moment on a correct metaphysics....
Existence exists, and only existence exists. Existence is a primary: it is uncreated, indestructible, eternal. So if you are to postulate something beyond existence-some supernatural realm-you must do it by openly denying reason, dispensing with definitions, proofs, arguments, and saying flatly, ”To h.e.l.l with argument, I have faith.” That, of course, is a willful rejection of reason.
Objectivism advocates reason as man's sole means of knowledge, and therefore, for the reasons I have already given, it is atheist. It denies any supernatural dimension presented as a contradiction of nature, of existence. This applies not only to G.o.d, but also to every variant of the supernatural ever advocated or to be advocated. In other words, we accept reality, and that's all.
[Leonard Peikoff, ”The Philosophy of Objectivism” lecture series (1976), Lecture 2.]
See also AGNOSTICISM; EXISTENCE; G.o.d; MIRACLES; NATURE; RELIGION; SUPERNATURALISM.
Automatization. All learning involves a process of automatizing, i.e., of first acquiring knowledge by fully conscious, focused attention and observation, then of establis.h.i.+ng mental connections which make that knowledge automatic (instantly available as a context), thus freeing man's mind to pursue further, more complex knowledge.
[ITOE, 86.].
<script>