Philosophy and the Arts, Lecture 24:

Philosophy and the Arts, Lecture 24: “Tolerance in Interpretation”

The essay you were to have read for today is “Robust Relativism,” by Joseph Margolis. I have to confess I really prefer his essay on “The Logic of Interpretation,” which appeared in the first edition of his anthology, Philosophy Looks at the Arts. Relativity??

Sounds so cool, doesn’t it? What should we reply when someone tells us “It’s all relative?” I suggest we should say-”What on earth do you mean by that?” There are many kinds of relativity, and they do not all have the same “logics.” “It’s All Relative”

Kinds of relativity… • The best discussion of relativity I’ve seen is in William Frankena’s book, Ethics. He distinguishes 3 kinds of relativity. • First, there is what he calls Descriptive (or cultural) relativism, i. e., the belief that different people, in different cultures, have different moral (or aesthetic) beliefs. Most philosophers (not all) would agree that this is the case. • Second, there is what he calls Meta-ethical relativism, the belief (in my words) that moral (and aesthetic) judgments are neither true nor false, nor can they be supported by good reasons. I suspect this is what most people mean by “relativism.”

A word about logic… • It is worth noting that Cultural relativism does not imply Meta-ethical relativism. The ancient Greeks knew there were people who disagreed with them; that’s why they called them barbarians. • A third kind of relativism is Normative relativism….sort of “When in Rome do as the Romans do”….it really is right for them, but not for us; we’re not Romans. Stupid, inconsistent view that probably nobody ever held.

Bernard C. Heyl • In his “Relativism Again,” and a book, Bernard Heyl suggests a fourth view, which might be called “Relational” relativism. • “This painting is good” is rather like “Milk is good, and cyanide is bad” (for humans). We can imagine a planet somewhere where creatures live who find cyanide nourishing, and milk deadly poison. • Heyl seems right in suggesting that most people would not consider such a view relativistic at all. • I think Risieri Frondizi held a somewhat similar position in his book, What is Value?

In a small high school Chemistry class, six students are dumping various chemicals into a flask; a gas begins to bubble up. The students collect some of the gas in a bottle. 3 students put together an equation to “prove” the stuff in the bottle is pure Hydrogen; the other 3 are convinced it is Carbon Dioxide. What to do?? Consider a personal example…

Have an answer… • If the stuff is CO2, then just light a match, and “pouf,” because CO2 will not support combustion. But if it’s Hydrogen, the stuff will explode! I am here today because the stuff was CO2. • But note that nobody, in such a case, would think of saying “It’s all relative,” or worse, “Well, if he says it’s Hydrogen, then it’s Hydrogen for him” (I confess I’ve never understood what that could mean.)

Lewis Carroll, the author, taught Logic and Math at Oxford. One of his hobbies was photographing little girls-nude. He wanted to marry the little girl who was the model for Alice. Her mother disapproved. Now consider Alice in Wonderland

"Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin," thought Alice; "but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!" It is easy to interpret this example in terms of basic sentential Logic. The point is that “O” propositions are not convertible. Observe the Cheshire Cat…

An Americanized Version…

Obviously (remember Doug Morgan?) it is easy to give a Freudian interpretation of Alice. And you might find that plausible and interesting, even if you know Carroll did not read Freud—and you denounce Freud as false science ! That is odd! “This tolerance strikes us as odd,” Margolis says…

Back to Margolis… • Margolis’ “Robust Relativism” is a rather technical paper. Boil it down to two basic points. • First, he rejects both skepticism and universalism (and/or cognitivism). Note that this means it is not the case that “anything goes;” some interpretations are better than others. • Second, he accepts values other than truth and falsity, notably plausibility. Some interpretations are implausible, and should be rejected.

Of course, Beardsley disagrees… • Beardsley’s best line on the subject is”…if they could not be true of false, I do not see how they could be illuminating or plausible.” • Denis Dutton agrees with Margolis, and goes further, to suggest we should not compare aesthetic interpretations with scientific hypotheses. Scientific hypotheses are to be tested, verified, etc., but in criticism, we are doing something else. In this area, it is enough to show that our interpretations are plausible, helpful, illuminating, and the like.

Marcia Eaton has written a rather subtle essay, in which she seems to want to have it both ways. “Correct” interpretations cannot be contradicted, but “good” interpretations might. As odd as it sounds, the “best” might contradict a “correct” interpretation! Women have the last word…

The Moral of the story… • I like Marcia Eaton’s line that “The best interpretation is that which results in the most valuable work possible.” and this usually means the one that is most aesthetically pleasing. • What we love, we want to understand, and this is usually what pleases us most. • Pooh agrees.

Philosophy and the Arts, Lecture 24: