November
8th to 11th, 2004
1st
DAY -Monday
- November 8th, 2004 - 7
p.m.
1st Session
1st Lecture
Vagueness
and the Ontology of Art
Prof. Dr. Claudine Tiercelin
Université Paris XII - Créteil, France
[Abstract]
Vagueness
is most often viewed as a mere epistemic or semantic notion, and the claim
that there might be vague objects is seldom taken as a serious option. Although
a lot of original work has been conducted in the twentieth century in the
domain of the ontology of art, little attention has been paid to the way
the concept of vagueness might be relevant to help and clarify many important
ontological issues related to art: what is the mode of existence of a work
of art? What are its conditions of identity, of individuation? Are they
the same, according as the artwork is a painting, a sculpture, a piece of
music? What kind of entity is a work of art: a type, a token? An event?
A state of affairs? Is it Real (platonic), nominal, conceptual? Merely mental,
conventional? What is the relation (supervienence?) between esthetic, artistic
properties and physical properties? Are esthetic properties, properties
of objects or mainly dispositions? Does it make sense to be a realist (although
not a Platonist) in art?
At the turn of the century, Charles Sanders Peirce offered very useful (although
indirect) tools on such issues in developing a whole Logic (or rather Semiotic)
and Realism of Vagueness: not only did he claim that vagueness is objective
(and not merely logical or epistemic), but, through a sophisticated categorial
analysis owing much to the medievals (Duns Scot in particular), he also
claimed that reality itself is irreducibly vague and general.
The aim of the paper will be threefold: 1) to present and try to apply Peirce's
analyses in the domain of vagueness (from a semiotic, epistemological and
ontological point of view) to some examples taken from debated issues in
the ontology of art; 2) to see whether such applied analyses might afford
some solid arguments in favor of a (newly defined) realistic position
in the ontology of art; and 3) whether the forms vagueness takes in the
domain of art may not, in turn, clarify some ongoing disputes related to
the epistemology and ontology of vagueness itself.
Philosophy Graduate Program
Departament of Philosophy
Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo - Brazil
