Philosophy and the Arts, Lecture 24:

1
Philosophy and the Arts, Lecture 24

• Tolerance in Interpretation

2
Relativity??

• 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.

3
Its All Relative

• Sounds so cool, doesnt it? What should we reply
  when someone tells us Its 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.

4
Kinds of relativity

• The best discussion of relativity Ive seen is in
  William Frankenas 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.

5
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 thats 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 were not Romans. Stupid, inconsistent
  view that probably nobody ever held.

6
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?

7
Consider a personal example

• 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??

8
Have an answer

• If the stuff is CO2, then just light a match, and
  pouf, because CO2 will not support combustion.
  But if its 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 Its all relative, or worse, Well,
  if he says its Hydrogen, then its Hydrogen for
  him (I confess Ive never understood what that
  could mean.)

9
Now consider Alice in Wonderland

• 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.

10
Observe the Cheshire Cat

• "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.

11
An Americanized Version
12
This tolerance strikes us as odd, Margolis
says

• 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 Freudand you denounce Freud as false
  science !
• That is odd!

13
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.

14
Of course, Beardsley disagrees

• Beardsleys best line on the subject isif 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.

15
Women have the last word

• 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!

16
The Moral of the story

• I like Marcia Eatons 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.