There
is an obvious sense in which Hegelian synthesis would be more suited to the
study of art than philosophical analysis. Take any artwork; it’s a synthetic
whole, and requires a holistic approach for proper understanding. A concept is
holistic if it’s “used to refer to the forms of organization of a society
[that] cannot be reduced without remainder to concepts which only refer to the
thoughts and actions of specific individuals.”[1] A style or milieu is holistic because you
can’t make sense of it purely in terms of individual persons, although things
like styles can only exist by being distributed among many individuals. Elkins’ next step is to argue that if “art
history is essentially ‘Hegelian,’ its positivist assumptions-that is, the
objectivist intention and empiricist ‘position’…will be jeopardized” (Elkins,
1988:361).
It’s strange that Gombrich
did not see the contradiction in his attack on “Hegelianism,” but that might be
explained again by his theoretical (if not practical) commitment to positivist
philosophy within the context of its time.
What Elkin’s treatment reveals is that features like holism, historicism
and serial collectivism are essential to art historical practice as we know it,
and that attempts to dispense with those theoretical habits, either by refusing
theory altogether or by opting for a more empiricist approach, leads to
something other than art history.[2] For example, the attempt to make art history
look like the natural sciences fails in just this way: “Ackerman argued that art history,
particularly in America, was becoming a hyperspecialized and increasingly
fragmented pursuit of ‘facts’ and value-free ‘objectivity’…he linked the boom
in specialization and the bust in speculation to a failure to communicate with
the general public.”[3] Of course, Ackerman’s comments could just as
well be directed against analytic philosophy as it’s usually practiced. For the attempt not to engage in theory
inevitably leads to being unaware and uncritical of one’s own implicit theory.
[1]. Maurice Mandelbaum, “Societal Facts” in Theories of History Patrick Gardiner,
ed. 1957 pp. 478-9; quoted in D. C. Phillips
Holistic Thought in Social Science Stanford University Press, 1976 p. 40
[2]. The same could be said of sociology; see
[3]. Irving Lavin, “The Crisis of ‘Art History’” in The Art Bulletin Vol. 78, #1 March, 1996
p. 14 Lavin is quoting James Ackerman,
“On American Scholarship in the Arts” in College
Art Journal No. 17 1958 pp. 357-62
No comments:
Post a Comment