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Toward a Metaphysical HistoricismAuthor(s): Sondra BacharachSource: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 63, No. 2 (Spring, 2005), pp. 165-173Published by: on behalf ofWiley The American Society for AestheticsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3700470Accessed: 16-08-2015 19:14 UTC

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7/23/2019 Toward a Metaphysical Historicism

2/10

SONDRA BACHARACH

Towarda

Metaphysical

Historicism

Historicism,

broadly

construed,

can

be

charac-

terized as

the view that

access

to

the

content

of

an

artwork,

or

to

the work

itself,

depends

n

part

on

the historical context in

which

the work is

created. Weaker

versions of

historicism

inter-

pret

this

dependency

relation as

an

epistemic

one: our

epistemic

access

to an

artwork's

prop-

erties

(but

not

the

properties

themselves)

may

alter

over

time.

According

to this

view,

an art-

work's

properties

exist as a

matterof fact

in

the

artworkfrom

the moment

of

its

inception,

but

our

epistemic

position may

prevent

us from

per-

ceiving

them.

If

anything changes,

we

do,

but

the work itself does not: its properties simply

remain

latent. Since this

view

holds

that our

epistemic

access

to an

artwork's

properties

changes

over

time,

call

it

epistemic

historicism.

Many prominent

philosophers

have endorsed

some version of

epistemic

historicism,

includ-

ing

Arthur

Danto,

Jerrold

Levinson,

and

No6l

Carroll.1

Perhaps

because

epistemic

historicism has

been

explicitly

endorsed

by

so

many,

it is sur-

prising

that it has

gone

essentially

unchal-

lenged.

This

paper

seeks to

change

that.

I

shall

argue

first

that

epistemic

historicism

leads

to

the

counterintuitive

result that

artworks

can

possess

inconsistent sets of

properties atently.

Second,

the

support

that

epistemic

historicism

appears

to

have

actually

provides

an

argument

for

endorsing

a

stronger,

ontological

form of

historicism,

according

to

which some

of

an art-

work's

properties change

over

time.

Call this

view

metaphysical

historicism.

At first

glance, metaphysical

historicism

might

seem

more radical

because it

allows

an

artwork'sproperties o changeover time, while

epistemic

historicism

might

seem

more

conser-

vative since

it construesan

artwork'sDroDerties

as

stable

and

unchanging.

One of the

purposes

of

this

paper,

however,

is to

dispel

this misun-

derstanding:

argue

hat

epistemic

historicism s

surprisingly

more

radical,

precisely

because it

does

not allow

properties

to

change.

In

fact,

I

shall

show

that

epistemic

historicismentails

the

view

that some

of an

artwork's

properties

are

determined

by

what

happens

after

the work has

been

created-a

view

that

Carroll calls "back-

ward

causation."2

This is

quite

ironic because

this

would

suggest

that

epistemic

historicists

make

the

very

mistake

that

they

attributeto

metaphysical

historicism.

At stakein this debateover historicism s the

nature

and

degree

of

art

historical

knowledge

that

we can

acquire.

If

epistemic

historicism is

correct,

then

one

should

resign

oneself to the

possibility

that

for some

artworks

one

may

never

be

able to learn

everything

there is

to

know

about

them,

and hence

that

one's

interpre-

tations

may

always

be

incomplete.

However,

if

metaphysical

historicism is

correct,

one can

be

assured

that,

at

any

given

moment,

t is

possible

to

construct

complete

interpretations

of

art-

works, but,

as we

shall

see,

one

must also

be

prepared

to

acknowledge

that

interpretations

must

be

indexed to

a

particular

oint

in time.

As

a

result,

what

can be known

about

an

artwork

may

well

change

over time.

This

is both

bad

and

good

news

for

interpreters

of art: the bad

news

stems

from

having

to

recognize

that

inter-

pretations

of artworks

will

always

be

changing

as

the

art-historical

ontext

changes,

but this

is

also

good

news,

as

it

confirms

our intuition

that

artworks

are rich

precisely

because

they

are

inexhaustible.

More

interestingly,

metaphysical

historicism, unlike epistemic historicism, can

also

explain

how correct

but

inconsistent nter-

Dretations

an

be true:

if the

interpretations

re

The

Journal

f

Aesthetics

andArtCriticism

3:2

Spring

2005

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7/23/2019 Toward a Metaphysical Historicism

3/10

166

The

Journal

of

Aesthetics and

Art Criticism

indexed to

a

given

moment in

time,

then it is

possible

for

a

work's

interpretation

t

one

point

to be

inconsistentwith

earlieror

later

nterpreta-

tions of the same work.

Before

turning

to

epistemic

historicism,

we

must be

careful to

distinguish

metaphysical

his-

toricism

from its

close

relative--relativism.

According

to

relativism,

the

correctness of an

interpretation

depends

not

only

on

the artwork

itself,

but

also on the

norms or

conventions

of a

community,

ndividual,

or context.3

As a

result,

a

relativist

may

suggest

that on

one inter-

pretation,

artwork A

has

property

p,

while on

another,

A

has

not-p.

In

other

words,

at

any

given moment,

an

artwork an

have

inconsistent

sets of

properties.

Fortunately,

nd

in

contrast

o

relativism,

metaphysical

historicism

s not com-

mitted to

such a view.

Metaphysical

historicism

differs from

relativism

by

proposing

that an

art-

work's

properties

are

indexed to

a

particular

time.

So,

while

metaphysical

historicism

endorses

the

possibility

that

some

of an art-

work's

properties

may

change

(so

that an

art-

work

may

even come

to have the

contrary

of a

property

that it

once

had),

an

artwork at

any

given

momentcould never have

two

inconsistent

properties.4

I.

EPISTEMIC

HISTORICISM

According

to

epistemic

historicism,

an artwork

possesses

all

of the

properties

relevant to its

appreciation

qua

artworkfrom

the

moment

of

its

creation.

However,

we do

not

always

see all

of

these

properties

when the

work

is

first

created.

Some

properties

are

hidden

or remain

undiscovereduntil some

time afterthe creation

of

the

artwork,

and can

be seen

only

after we

make other

relevant

discoveries.

Arthur

Danto,

Noel

Carroll,

and

Jerrold

Levinson

have all

endorsed

epistemic

histori-

cism in

some form or

another.

Arthur

Danto has

most

famously

supportedepistemic

historicism

in

his

concept

of the

style

matrix.

He believes

that

many

artworks

possess

style

properties

hat

exist from

the

moment of the

artwork's crea-

tion,

even if

they

were hidden

at

that

time.5

No1l

Carroll

endorses

epistemic

historicism

mainly because he believes that the alternative

would

require

admitting

o

backward

causation,

a view

that he

rightly rejects

as

implausible.6

Jerrold

Levinson has the most

extended

defense of

epistemic

historicism in

his

paper

"Artworks and the

Future."7

He

argues

that

when artworks seem to change, this pheno-

menon is

best

explained

by

appealing

to

an

epistemic

change

in

us,

ratherthan to a

meta-

physical

change

in the work itself. For

example,

one

might suggest

that Picasso's

Guernica

has

taken

on

new

significance

in

light

of the

events

of

September

11,

2001.

In such

cases,

there

are

two

possible

explanations

available:

t

might

be

that the work

itself has

changed,

or it

might

simply

be that

we have

changed

and we now

see

the artwork

n a different

ight

as a result of

the

changes

in us.

Levinson

argues

that

epistemic

historicism

provides

the most

plausible

expla-

nation in such

cases,

as

well as in

a

number

of

other cases

where

one

might

(in

his

view,

wrongly)

believe

that

only metaphysical

histori-

cism could

help.8

Let us examine an

extended

example

in order to understand

epistemic

historicism

n more detail.

During

the 1890s

and

1900s,

C6zanne

created

a series of

paintings

of the mountain

Mont

Sainte

Victoire.

Even

though

they

were

madeat

the same

time as

some

Impressionist

works

(including one of the very same mountainby

the

Impressionist

Renoir),

Erle

Loran

argues

that

the

right

way

to understand

C6zanne's

work is not in relation

o

the

Impressionists

who

were

his

contemporaries,

but

rather n relation

to

Cubism,

which

emerges

a few

years

after

C6zanne's

death

n

1906.

With

the

same

outworn,

uncontemporary

pproach

the

ate

Abstract

rt

of

Picasso,

Braque,

ndothers

s

often

rejected oday

because

of its so-called ack

of

spaceanddepth.Butthere s

an

ever-growingppre-

ciationand

understanding

f the

sensational

pace

effects

n suchAbstract rt.And it is

only

with

this

contemporary,

evised

conception

of

space

that

C6zanne

can

be

understood

n

relation

either

to

typical Impressionism

or

to

later Abstraction

[Cubism]

..

The essential

difference

between

Impres-

sionist form

and

C6zanne's

orm

could

never

be

explained

n wordsas

forcefully

s

it

is

demonstrated

by

the

comparison

f

paintings

by

C6zanne

and

Renoir

rom

he same

motif,

he mountainalled he

SainteVictoire.

The

glaring

ifference

pparent

here

is notmerely hatC6zanne's aintings firm n its

contourswhereRenoir's s

soft,

but that

C6zanne

actually uperimposes

efinite ines at the

contours,

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7/23/2019 Toward a Metaphysical Historicism

4/10

Bacharach

Toward

Metaphysical

Historicism

167

notably

in

the

distant mountain.

Renoir's

mountain

fades

away

in

typical

Impressionistic,

aerial

perspec-

tive;

Cdzanne's

is

stepped

back with

overlapping

planes, so that,through hese moreconstructiveplas-

tic

means,

its

location

in

deep

space

is

absolutely

clear.

And,

being firmly

outlined and

expanded

in

size,

it takes its

place

again

with the

foreground,

and

maintains,

also,

its relation o the

pictureplane.9

According

to

Loran,

Cdzanne

relies on the flat-

ness of

the

color

patches

to

highlight

a tension

between

the

two-dimensionality

of

the

canvas

and

the

three-dimensionality

of the

object

repre-

sented. This is

particularly

evident

in

Cdzanne's

paintings

of

Mont

Sainte

Victoire.

Not

only

is

the

mountain

made

as clear

and

promi-

nent as

the

foreground

orms;

the outlines

of its outer

contours are

even

more forceful and

deliberate.It

is

obvious

that

Cdzanne wished to avoid

the

fading

away

that

characterizes

the

mountain in the

pho

tograph

of the

motif.

Even

more

important

s the fact

that in

Cdzanne's

painting

the mountain

s

enlarged,

expanded

n

size.

Perspective

s

again

reversedto the

end

that the

background

or

distance

should not

fall

away

and thus

destroy

he mural

quality

of

the

picture

plane. The monumental effect, the grandeur of

Cdzanne's

mountain,

clearly

drawn n

deep space

but

decoratively

remaining

on the

pictureplane,

is a

good

example

of

the

difference between

Cezanne's form

and

that of the

Impressionists.10

So,

unlike

the

Impressionists

who

clearly

were

painting

in

perspective,

so that

some

objects

receded

into

the

background,

and others

came

forward into

the

foreground,

Loran

argues

that

Cdzanne's

flatness

is

used to

eliminate our

sense of

perspective altogether

and

to

produce

a

sense

of

tension.

Cdzanne

has

made

use

of

all

these elements of

deep

space,

but he

has

organized

them and confined

them

within

a

seemingly

shallower

depth

of total

space...

Three-dimensionality

s

clearly

established;

yet

in

this

painting,

as

in

the entire

series

[of

paint-

ings

of

Mont

Sainte

Victoire]

to

which

it

belongs...

the

all-over

patchwork

of

color

planes

produces

a

pronounced

wo-dimensionality.11

The mountain s the lastparallelplane,andinstead of

being

faded out it is

boldly

outlined...Its

position

in

the distant

deep space

is

actually

clearer

than in

Renoir's

painting

becauseof the firm

drawing

of

planes

that

overlap

from the

foreground

back to the

distant

mountain...But

because

of its

clarity

and

parallelrelationto the pictureplane a strongtension

canbe

felt

between

he

plane

of themountain nd he

flat

plane

of the

foreground

assof

trees.12

For

our

purposes,

what

is

interesting

s how to

make

philosophical

sense

of Loran's

interpreta-

tion.

How do we

explain

the

properties

that

Loran

attributes o

Cdzanne's

works,

if we can

only

see

these

properties

once later Cubist

works

are created?

Epistemic

and

metaphysical

historicism

offer

competing

explanations.

If

epistemic

historicism

is

correct,

then these

properties

were

there

all

along,

but we

simply

could

not

have

seen

them before Cubist works

were

created.

According

to

epistemic

histori-

cism,

once we

see

where Cezanne's work is

headed,

we

reinterpret

his earlier works

as

exhibiting

tension.

Looking

at Cdzanne's

earlier

landscapes

of Mont

Sainte

Victoire in

light

of

later Cubist

developments

helps

us discover

new

properties

in

his

early

works. The

earlier

works

really

did

possess

tension,

but this

remained

latent,

undiscovered

at the

time of

their creation.It is only laterthatwe are able to

realize the

importance

and

interest of the

flatness as

expressing

tension in

Cdzanne's

work.

We are able

to discover

these new

proper-

ties

in Cdzanne's

work

because

of a

change

in

our

epistemic

approach

toward

the

work.

In

particular,

Cubism

allows

us to discover new

properties

n

Cdzanne's

paintings.

This

explains

how

we

gain

new

knowledge

as new

artworks

are

created: we

discern

new features

of

art

as

the art-historical

ontext

changes

and

develops.

If

epistemic

historicism

is

correct,

then

placing

Cdzanne's

early

work

in

the

context of

later

works

reveals

properties

of

Cdzanne's

work

that we

could

not

have seen

in

the

1880s.

With

the

development

of

Cubism,

we are able

to see Cdzanne's

work as

expressing

tension.

But

we

could

not

have discovered

this

about

Cdzanne's

work

except against

the

backdrop

of

the works

from the 1900s.

In

other

words,

the

historical

evolution

leading

up

to

the 1900s

reveals

to us these

new

properties

n

Cdzanne's

work-this

evolution

uncovers

properties

like

flatness and tension, which we could not have

seen before. Of

course,

these

properties

were

there in the work

all

along,

but we

only

discover

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7/23/2019 Toward a Metaphysical Historicism

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168

The Journal

of

Aesthetics and Art Criticism

this

fact once

these later works

emerge,

and

we

could

not

have known

as much when

the works

were first

created.

II.

WHY WE

CANNOT SEE PROPERTIES

ACCORDINGTO

EPISTEMIC

HISTORICISM

The

above

explanation

for

why

we can

make

sense

of tension in

Cezanne's

works

only

in

light

of

Cubism

presupposes

hat

some

proper-

ties

are

closely

tied to the

artwork's uture art-

historical

context.

However,

I

believe

that there

is

a

problem

with

the

epistemic

historicist's

assumption.

Consider the

following

argument

againstepistemichistoricism.(1) if latentprop-

erties

are in the

work from the

moment of its

inception,

then

they

are

independent

of

any

future

art-historical

progress.

(2)

However,

it is

possible

for art

history

to

progress

in

a number

of

different

ways,

such that

an

artwork could

have a

latent

property

p

on

one

path,

and a latent

property

not-p

on

another

path.

(3)

So,

epistemic

historicism

must admit

that

artworkscan have

inconsistent sets

of latent

properties.

Let

me

defend each

of the

premises

n this

argument.

First, recall the epistemic historicist's posi-

tion. If

an

artwork's atent

properties

are in the

work

from

the moment of its

inception,

then

these

latent

properties

must

inhere in

the work

independently

of the artist's

ater

work.

If

latent

properties

did

depend

on the

future,

then which

latent

properties

an artwork

has

would be differ-

ent if

the

history

of artwere

different.

However,

this is

problematic

because,

first,

in

that

case,

these

properties

could not

be latent from the

moment of the

work's

creation;

second,

if an

artwork's

properties

were

different

depending

on the artist'sfuture

works,

then future events

would

determine

which

properties

a

given

art-

work

had

latently-a

form

of backwardcausa-

tion

according

to

which

future events fix the

latent

properties

of earlier

works.

Since both

these

implications

are

problematic,

epistemic

historicism

is

committed

to

accepting

that

whether

an artwork

possesses

a

latent

property

p

at a

given

time is

independent

of

what future

artworksare

created.13

To

defend the second

premise,

consider that

arthistorycould have evolved in many,even if

not

infinitely many,

different directions. For

any

contingentpath

of art

history,

later artworks

allow

us to discover

some,

though

maybe

not

all,

properties

of earlierworks.14Which

proper-

ties

we discover

in earlier artworks

depends

on

the contingent evolution of art history. How-

ever,

this

holds

for

every

possible path

of art

history.

This means

that for

any

possible

path

that art

history

could

have

taken,

we could

have

discerned

different

properties

rom the ones

we

actually

discovered.

In

particular,

an

artwork

could

have

two

different,

inconsistent sets of

properties

as a result of two different

paths

of

art

history.

As a

result,

the

epistemic

historicist

is committed

to

granting

that an artwork

can

have

inconsistent

ets

of

properties

hatare atent.

At this

point,

two

possible objections

can

be

raised

against

this second

premise.

First,

one

might

object

to this

line of

reasoning

on

the

grounds

that,

at

most,

it shows

that

there

is

a

potentially

infinite

number of

ways

that we

could

have

discovered

the

properties

that

the

work

actually

has.15

In other

words,

one

might

object

that

artworks

simply

cannot have incon-

sistent sets

of

properties

hat

are

latent

from

the

moment of

its

inception.

To

illustrate

he

initial

plausibility

of

this line

of

reasoning,

imagine

Cdzanne's Mont

Sainte

Victoireof 1888 in two different uturehistories

of art.

First,

on

our current

history,

we discover

its

tension,

thanks

to the

arrival

of Cubism

and

C6zanne's

later

works. On the actual

path,

it

is

dynamic

and

exciting

as a result of the tension

between

the

two-dimensional

canvas

and the

three-dimensional

mountain.

ndeed,

t is

usually

seen as

a wonderful

formulationof the

problem

of

painting

a three-dimensional

bject

on a

two-

dimensional

canvas-a

problem

that is later

solved

by

Cubism.

However,

we

can

imagine

an

alternative

path

that

art

history might

have

taken

that leads

us elsewhere.

Perhaps,

nstead,

it leads

us to

a

prolonged

period

devoted

exclu-

sively

to

Fauvism.

Fauvism

s

characterized

ri-

marily

by

a

reliance on

brilliant

colors,

a sense

of liberation

from traditional

representational

techniques,

and a

preference

or more

primitive

images.

On

this alternative

path,

Cezanne's

interest

in

landscapes

and still-lifes is conser-

vative and

staid

while his

muted

colors

are bor-

ing

and

uninventive.

But

the

painting

cannotbe

both

dynamic

and

staid,

exciting

and uninven-

tive, or expressive and not expressive of ten-

sion.

Unfortunately,

epistemic

historicism

entails this

very

consequence.16

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7/23/2019 Toward a Metaphysical Historicism

6/10

Bacharach

Toward

Metaphysical

Historicism

169

Another

objection

to

the

second

premise

is

that

two future

paths

of art

history

result in

the

creation of

two

different

artworks,

rather han a

single artworkwith two potentiallyinconsistent

properties.17

Returning

to

our earlier

example,

if

we

imagine

that

Cezanne's Mont

Saint

Victoire of

1888

continues to exist in

two dif-

ferent

histories of

art-one with

Cubism and

one

with

Fauvism-then we have

two different

artworks,

with two

different

sets of

properties.

In

other

words,

having

two different

future

histories of

art

results in two

different

artworks.

The

problem

with

this

objection,

however,

is

as

follows.

Imagine

that an artworkA

at

tl

is

created.

Suppose

further

that

the future of art

history

can

continue

down either

path

P1

or P2.

If

the two

future

paths

of art

history diverge,

then

according

to

this

objection,

we shall

have

two

different

artworks

at

t2-call them B

and

C.

In

addition,

by hypothesis,

B

at t2 is

the same

artwork

as A at

tl,

and C

at

t2 is the

same art-

work

as

A

at

t2. The

problem

s

A

at

tl

cannot

be

identical

to two

different

artworks If we

believe that

we

have two different

artworks

because of

the

different

paths

of

art

history,

though,

we

shall be

committedto

saying

that

A

at tl is identicalto two laterworks at t2 that are

themselves

distinct

and different

from one

another.

This,

however,

is

logically impossible.

On the other

hand,

notice that if

metaphysical

historicism s

correct,

then we can

simply grant

that the

artwork

has

changed

over

time;

how it

changes depends

on

the

path

that art

history

has

taken.

So,

the

metaphysical

historicist

will

not

have a

problem

with

this kind of

case.

However,

such a

response

is

not

open

to

someone who

denies that

an

artwork

might change

over

time.

So, if one's intuition in this kind of situation s

that we

have

two

different

artworks,

then,

for

consistency,

one

ought

to

endorse

metaphysical

historicism as

well.18

Of

course,

epistemic

historicism

would

be off

the

hook

if

it held

that an artwork's

atent

prop-

erties

depend

only

on art

history's

actual

progress

(rather

han

on

merely possible,

altern-

ative

paths

of

art

history).

The

epistemic

histori-

cist

might

then

be

tempted

to

suggest

that

artworks do

not

have

an

infinite

number of

latent

properties

since latent

properties

would

be tied to the artwork's actual position in art

history-that

is,

to

the events

leading

up

to and

persisting hroughout

he creation f the

artwork.

Even if

epistemic

historicism restricts itself

to

suggesting

that an artwork's atent

properties

depend

on art

history's

actual

progress,

rather

than on merely possible alternativepathsof art

history,

a

serious

problem

still arises.

Since

these latent

properties

are

supposed

to exist in

the artwork

rom the moment of its

inception,

future

artworks

will determine which

latent

properties

an

artwork

has

when

it

is first cre-

ated.

To the extent

that

future artworksdeter-

mine the

latent

properties

of an artworkat the

time

of its

creation,

epistemic

historicism

itself

falls

prey

to the

very

criticism raised

against

metaphysical

historicism.

Recall that Carroll

and

Levinson

both

object

to the

possibility

that

an artwork

may acquire

properties

as a result of

futureevents-and

this

is

precisely

what

occurs

when

we

accept

epistemic

historicism.

Once

again,

it is ironic that so

many

are

eager

to

defend

epistemic

historicism,

for this is

pre-

cisely

the

complaint

they

raise

against

meta-

physical

historicism.

Relying

on the

intuition that

an artwork

may

acquire

properties

as a result of future

events,

the

epistemic

historicist

might

be

tempted

to

suggest

that

latent

properties

remain latent

because they are relational. Some properties

only

come to

exist as

a

result of

being

related

n

relevant

ways

to later

artworks.

So,

we cannot

discover

these

properties

until after

these later

works

are created.

9

Returning

o

C6zanne,

sup-

pose

his Mont

Sainte

Victoire

of 1888

possesses

the

latent

property

"tension"

in virtue

of its

relation

to

his later works

from

the

early

1900s.

The

epistemic

historicist wants

to

say

that

expressing

tension

is a

property

hat we

come

to

discover

in the

early

1900s,

but this

property

was there all along, latent in the work. How-

ever,

if

C6zanne's

Mont Sainte Victoire

exhibits

tension

at least

partly

n virtue

of its relations

to

future

artworks

n the

early

1900s,

then

in

1888,

we

cannot

say

that it

exhibits

tension. In

fact,

nothing

in 1888

can have

the

property

"exhibit-

ing

tension"

because

the relevant relations

to

future artworks

n the 1900s

have

not

yet

been

established

n

1888.

What

can

a

latency

theorist

say?

He or

she

can

say

that

the

following

is

a latent

property

of

C6zanne's

Mont Sainte

Victoire even

in

1888:

"will exhibit tension in the early 1900s (in vir-

tue of its relations

to later

works)."

But notice

that

"exhibiting

tension" is an

importantly

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7/23/2019 Toward a Metaphysical Historicism

7/10

170

The

Journal

of Aesthetics and Art

Criticism

different

property

rom

"will exhibit

tension

in

the

early

1900s,"

in

that

the

latter,

but not the

former,

is a

latent

property

that

correctly

describes Cezanne's Mont Sainte Victoire even

in

1888. "Will

exhibit

tension

in

the

early

1900s"

is a

property

that

applies

even at the

time of

the

artwork's

creation,

and hence

quali-

fies

as

a

latent

property

even if we will

not dis-

cover

this fact until

much

later.

Exhibiting

tension,

on

the

other

hand,

does not exist from

the moment of

the

creation

of the

1888

work,

and

therefore

cannot be a

latent

property

of it.

Only

the

time-indexed

property

"will

exhibit

tension

in

the

early

1900s"

can.

It

is

tempting

to want

to fix

this

problem by

including

time

references n

the

characterization

of

latent

properties.

So,

for

example,

instead of

claiming

that

"exhibiting

tension" is a latent

feature of

C6zanne's work

all

along,

we

simply

time index

the

property

so

that "will

exhibit

tension in

the

early

1900"

(rather

than

simply

"exhibiting

tension"

tout

court)

is latent in the

1888 work.

However,

notice that

even

though

it is

pos-

sible to

say

that "will

exhibit

tension

in

the

early

1900s" is a latent

property,

his takes

away

the

force of the epistemic historicist'sposition for

two

reasons.

First,

it

is not

clear what it

really

means to

say

that an

artwork

has the

property

"will

exhibit

tension in the

early

1900s,"

or

what

this

actually

amounts to.

When the

epistemic

historicist claims that

some

property

is

latent,

we

naturally

do

not take

him

or her to be refer-

ring

to

properties

hat

only

come to exist

after

the

creation of

the

work. In

fact,

it is not

logically

possible

for a

property

hat

is

latent

in

the work to

come to exist

only

after

the creation

of

a

later work. But if

a

propertyonly comes to

exist after the

creationof

a

later

work,

then

it is

not

logically possible

for

that

property

o be

in

the

earlier

work.

The

epistemic

historicist

also has a

problem

with

an entire

class of

properties-that

is,

prop-

erties

that the artist

could

not

have known about

because

they

involve

concepts

that were not

yet

available. For

example,

an

artist in the

1600s

could not

have

construed

his or

her

work as

being Impressionist.

mpressionism

had not

yet

been

formulated in

the

1600s,

and so it is

unavailable to anyone in the 1600s, not just

because

the artist did not

happen

to think of

characterizing

his or her

work in

this

way,

but

also because

it was

impossible

for the artist to

do so.

In the

1600s,

nobody

had the relevant

concept

of

Impressionism

that

we would

later

apply to other works. This example highlights

how

certain

properties

are constituted

by

their

relation

to

later works. If these works do not

exist,

the

dependency

relation

necessary

for

these

properties

o exist will also fail to obtain.

Hence,

these

properties

do not exist at all-

latently

or

otherwise.

As a

rule,

properties

whose

characterization

nvokes

concepts

that

are even

partially

constituted

by

their relationto

future artworks

will also

always

have

to

specify

the

time reference

o those futureartworksn their

characterization.

More

generally,

any

relational

property

that

is even

partially

constituted

by

its

relation

to

future artworks

ails

to

qualify

as a latent

prop-

erty.

Relational

properties

whose existence

depends

on

future

artworks will

always

have

to

specify

the time reference to those

future

artworks

n

their characterization.As we have

seen,

this can

be done in two

ways:

either the

time reference

can be

built

directly

into

the

description

of the

style predicate

tself,

or

not. If

the

predicate

s defined with reference to

time,

then it is impossible for these propertiesto be

latent. On

the

other

hand,

if

the

predicate

is

defined

without

reference to

time,

such

proper-

ties can

be

latent,

but then one

must

admit

that

these

properties

can

change.

In

either

case,

the

spirit

of

epistemic

historicism

s

lost.

Finally,

even

if we could

make

sense of

these

relational

properties

as time

indexed,

this

still

does

not address

the

original

problem

that

plagues

epistemic

historicism-that

epistemic

historicism

entails

that an artworkcould

have

inconsistent

sets of

properties. Providing

an

account

of time-indexed

relational

properties

does not

solve

this

problem.

Clearly,

we

need an

alternative.

would

like

to

suggest

that

a

stronger

form of

historicism,

according

to

which at least some of an

art-

work's

properties

may change

over

time,

is

a

step

in the

right

direction.

Returning

to

C6zanne,

metaphysical

historicism has

a far

more natural

way

of

thinking

about

properties

such as

exhibiting

tension.

Instead

of

saying

that this

property

is latent, a more

plausible

sug-

gestion might simply be thatexhibitingtension

becomes a

new

property

hat

we

can attribute

o

C6zanne's earlier

Mont Sainte

Victoire

once

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7/23/2019 Toward a Metaphysical Historicism

8/10

Bacharach

Toward

Metaphysical

Historicism

171

later

works,

which

are

related to

the

previously

existing

work in

relevant

ways,

are

created.

According

to

metaphysical

historicism,

the

path

thatarthistory actually takes does in fact help

to

create

these

properties.

f

this

is

the

right

way

to think

about

these

properties,

then

stronger

forms of

historicism

that

allow

an

artwork's

properties

to

change

over

time

will be

more

plausible

and more

defensible than

epistemic

historicism.

The

epistemic

historicist

might

be

tempted

to

argue

that

latent

properties

could be

relational

in

just

this

way.

If

we think of an

artwork's

latent

properties

as

potential

properties,

then

it

might

be

that an

artwork has the

potential

to

have

properties

p

and

q,

but

not

r,

in

virtue of

a

given

future

path

of

art

history,

in

the

same

way

that

a

hydrangea

eedling

(that

has not

yet

flow-

ered)

can

have

the

potential

o have

pink

or blue

flowers,

but not

orange

ones,

in

virtue of

a

given

future

gardening history.

Just as

we

think

of this

nonblooming

hydrangea

eedling's

flower color

as

latent, so,

too,

can

we think

of

an

artwork's

properties

as

latent.20

The

reason we

might

explain why

having

pink

or

blue

flowers,

but

not

orange

ones,

is

latentis this:whethera hydrangeaat tl has the

potential

to

have

pink

or

blue

flowers at

t2

depends

at

least

in

part

on

the

acidity

of the

soil,

which

fixes the

color.21

So,

flower color

depends

importantly

on

certain

underlying

intrinsic

properties

of the soil

(its

acidity)

and

the

flower's

relation

to the soil

in

the

future.

This

dependency

relation

is

sufficiently

fixed

that,

given

the

relevant

informationabout

plant

and

soil

conditions,

we

can

easily

predict

at

tl

what

properties

he

flower

will have at

t2.

So,

prima facie, at t1 we can state which flower

colors are

latent n

a

flower and which

will

then

emerge

and

become

accessible at t2.

Although

this

line

of

reasoning

may

be

plausible

for

flowers,

there is

an

important

dis-

analogy

between the

way

that

a

hydrangea

eed-

ling's

future

depends

on

certain

underlying

flower

properties

and the

way

that an

artwork's

future

depends

on

certain

underlying

rt-historical

properties.

Unlike

in the

hydrangea

case,

there

are no

corresponding

kinds of

underlying

ntrin-

sic

properties

of a

given painting

that

constrain

whatpotentialfeaturesan artworkmay have in

the future in

virtue

of

the

future

art-historical

context. Unlike

the connections between

flower

color and future

gardening

conditions,

the

con-

nection between

an artwork's

properties

and

its

future art-historical ituationare not

sufficiently

fixed to enableus to make the kinds of predic-

tions

that

we

can in the

case of flowers.

That there are

no

underlying

fixed

connec-

tions between

an artwork's

properties

and

its

future art-historical

ontext should

come as

no

surprise;

after

all,

artworks

are

by

their

very

nature

creative,

and

are therefore

constantly

changing

and

challenging

traditions.As

such,

it

would be

surprising

o

imagine

that there

could

be fixed connections

between

artworksand the

future

art

history

that would

allow us to

predict

which

properties

were latent in the same

way

that

we

can

for natural

properties

ike a

flower's

color.

So,

while

it is true that for

objects

like

flowers the color

of a

plant's

future

lowers

may

well

be

potential

and

latent,

the same does

not

hold

of

an artwork's

properties.

An

artwork's

properties

are

underwritten

by

the

art-historical

context,

something

that is

always changing.

A better

way

of

thinking

about how

an

art-

work's

properties

depend

on the

art-historical

context

s

to

compare

t to the

way

the

grammati-

cality

of

a sentence

depends

on the

grammatical

rules in place at a given moment in time. The

correctness

of

a sentence

depends

on the

lin-

guistic

context

in the

same

way

that the

exist-

ence

of

a

given

aesthetic

property

depends

on

the art-historical

ontext.

To see

why,

consider

a

given

sentence

Si.

Suppose

that at

tl,

gram-

maticalrule

G1

is

in

place,

such

that f one

were

to utter

S1

at

tl,

it would be

grammatically

correct. It

is

no stretch

of the

imagination

to

envision

a

future

history

t2 in which our

gram-

matical rules

have

changed.

In

such a

future,

supposethatrule G2 has replacedrule G1. As a

result,

if

one

were

to utter

S1

at

t2,

it would be

ungrammatical.

One of the

properties

of

the

sentence-being grammatical

or

ungrammati-

cal-has

changed

over

time. The reason it

has

changed

is

that the

linguistic

context has been

altered.

Similarly,

a

particular

artwork

A

might

be

related o

the

art-historical ontext

n

such a

way

that a

given

property

would

apply

at

tl,

but

not

at

t2.

C6zanne's

Mont

Sainte

Victoire

will be

post-Impressionist,

ut not

exhibit

tension in the

late 1890s, because of the way that the work is

related

to

the then-current

rt-historical ontext

at

tl.

However,

the

workwill exhibit

tension

in

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7/23/2019 Toward a Metaphysical Historicism

9/10

172

The

Journal

of

Aesthetics

and

Art Criticism

the

early

1900s because of

the

way

that

it is

relatedto

the

new

art-historical ontext contain-

ing

Cubist

works

at t2.

The

properties

of the

artworkchange as the artworkbecomes related

in

relevant

ways

to

the

art-historical ontext in

the

same

way

that

the

grammaticality

f a

given

sentence

changes

as the

sentence

becomes

related in

relevant

ways

to

different

linguistic

rules.

Just

as an

artwork

acquires

new

properties

as

the

art-historical

context

changes,

so, too,

does

the

grammaticality

f a

sentence

change

as

the

rules of

grammar

hange

over

time.

To

summarize,

epistemic

historicism faces

some

serious

problems.

For

one,

we have

trouble

understandingwhy

we cannot

always

discover

various

purportedly

atent

properties.

For

another,

the

epistemic

historicist ends

up

being

committed

to

the

possibility

of

logically

inconsistent

sets of

properties.

The

ways

around

this

problem,

however,

either entail

giving

up

the

basic

spirit

of

epistemic

historicism

altogether

or entail

endorsing

some form of

backward

causation-the

ultimate

irony,

since

this

is

precisely

he

criticism

hat

atency

heorists

try

to

pin

on their

opponents.Finally,

we cannot

make

sense

of

certain

properties

as

latent,

and

so epistemichistoricismwill be unable o account

for

some of

an

artwork's

properties

at all.

As an

alternative,

propose

that

we consider

metaphysical

historicism's

suggestion

that

an

artwork's

properties

change

over time. In

addi-

tion

to

being

more

plausible

than

epistemic

his-

toricism for

reasons

suggested

above,

it also can

account

for

two

familiar

problems

n art

history:

first,

it

seems to take

time

to discover certain

properties

of

artworks

and, second,

our

concept

of

a

given

style appears

to

change

as

a

result

of

discovering properties. The metaphysical

historicist

has

a

compelling

explanation

for

these two

phenomena

that

avoids talk of

latent

properties.

It

is not

that

it

takes a lot of

time

to

discover

certain

properties

of

artworks;rather,

certain

properties

are not

createduntil the

relev-

ant

art-historical

elations

among

artworks

have

been

established.

So,

they

are not

discovered at

all,

but

rather

come to

exist

This

is

precisely

why

our

concept

of

style

evolves-because

the

relevant

artworks

come to

be related in

certain

ways

that did not

obtain earlier. Not

only

can

metaphysicalhistoricismexplainthesephenom-

ena,

but it

can do so

without

appealing

to

unwieldy,

hidden,

and

inaccessible

properties.

Of

course,

crucial to

defending

an

account

like

metaphysical

historicism will

be to

explain

which causal

relations

among

artworks

are

relevant o fixing new propertieshat areattribu-

table

to earlierworks. After

all,

only

some

rela-

tions

among

artworkswill license

the

creation

of new

properties.

I

hope, though,

that

this

paper

will motivate

philosophers

of art to

con-

sider new

ways

of

thinking

about

an

artwork's

properties

that have so far been

neglected

for

some

of the

wrong

reasons.22

SONDRA BACHARACH

Philosophy

rogramme

VictoriaUniversityfWellington

Wellington

NewZealand

NTrERNET:

ondra.Bacharach@vuw.ac.nz

1. Jerrold

Levinson

has defended such an account in

his

"Artworksand the Future"

n

Music,

Art and

Metaphysics

(Cornell

University

Press,

1990),

though

he has

more

recently

modified

his view in "Work and Oeuvre"

(seem-

ingly

heading

toward

a

stronger

orm of

historicism,

hough

not

as

strong

as

the

metaphysical

historicism I defend

here)

in The Pleasures of Aesthetics (Cornell University Press,

1996).

Danto's

position

on the

style

matrix also assumes

a

form

of

epistemic

historicism.

Noel

Carroll

has

also

endorsedthis

position

in his

"Danto,

Style

and

Intention,"

The

Journal

of

Aesthetics and Art Criticism 53

(1995):

251-257.

Any

intentionalist,

n

fact,

wouldseem to be

com-

mitted to this

view.

2.

This

is

somewhat of a misnomer for an

artwork's

properties

may

well be determined

by

what

happens

after

the

work

has

been

created without

those

properties

hereby

having

been

caused

by

those future events.

This

point

will become

important

ater

when we

see

how

epistemic

historicismentails

this

very

position.

3.

See,

for

example,

David Carrier's

Principles

of

Art-

writing (Penn State University Press, 1991); "PieroDella

Francesca

and

His

Interpreters:

s There

Progress

in

Art

History?"

History

and

Theory

26

(1987):

150-165;

"Art

History

in

theMirror

Stage: Interpreting

Un

Bar

Aux

Folies

Bergers,"

History

and

Theory

29

(1990):

295-320.

For

stronger

versions

of

relativism,

see

Joseph Margolis's

work,

for

example,

"PlainTalk about

Interpretation

n a

Relativi-

stic

Model,"

The

Journal

of

Aesthetics and Art Criticism

53

(1995):

1-7.

4.

Stephen

Davies

makes a

similar

point

in

his

discussion

of

Margolis's

robust brand

of relativism in his

"Relativism

in

Interpretation,"

The Journal

of

Aesthetics and

Art

Criticism53

(1995):

8-13.

5.

The

entire

system

of the

style

matrix is underwritten

by a commitment to latent properties.However, for an

explicit

endorsement

of latent

properties,

see,

for

example,

Arthur

Danto,

After

the

End

of

Art

(Princeton

University

Press,

1997),

pp.

161-162.

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7/23/2019 Toward a Metaphysical Historicism

10/10

Bacharach

Toward

Metaphysical

Historicism

173

6. See

Nodl Carroll, "Danto,

Style

and

Intention,"

The

Journal

ofAesthetics

and Art

Criticism 3

(1995):

251-257.

7.

Jerrold

Levinson,

"Artworks

nd

the

Future."

8.

Interestingly,

however,

Levinson has

recently

granted,in "Workand Oeuvre,"thatmetaphysicalhistori-

cism

is a

plausible

position

in

the case

of

intra-oeuvral

works of a

single

artist.

However,

he

argues

that

epistemic

historicism

applies

in

all other

cases.

9. Erle

Loran,

Cdzanne's

Composition:Analysis of

his

Form,

with

Diagrams

and

Photographs of

his

Motifs

(University

of

California

Press,

1963),

p.

12.

10.

Loran,

Cdzanne's

Composition,

p.

99.

11.

Loran,

Cdzanne's

Composition,

p.

104.

12.

Loran,

Cdzanne's

Composition,

p.

100.

13. Of

course,

whether

an

artwork's

atent

properties

are

discovered

does

depend

on

whether certain later

artworks

are

created.

This

is

not in

dispute.

14.

I

grant

that a

later artwork

may

not

allow

us

to

dis-

cover all or even many latentfeatures of an earlier work. I

simply

want

to draw our

attention

to the case

where two

paths

allow

us to

discover some

but not all latent

features of

an

earlier

work.

15.

I

thank

Robert

Stecker

for

having

originally

raised

this

concern.

16.

One

response

available to

epistemic

historicism

s to

suggest

that

artworksdo

not

have

an infinite

numberof

pos-

sible

latent

properties

because

an

artwork's atent

properties

are

tied

to

the artwork's

actual

position

in art

history.

I

shall

discuss this

case later.

17.

I

thank

RobertStecker for

raising

this

concern.

18. One

might

think there are

two

different

artworks

not

because the

future s

different,

but

because the

past

is

differ-

ent. This

may

be,

but is not the

relevantly

nteresting

case-

the

question

at

hand is whether futureevents in

part

consti-

tute

the

properties

of an artworkor

not.

19. Levinson

has noted that

ust

because certain

proper-

ties of artworksonly come into existence as a result of

being

related to certain

other,

later artworks

does not

nec-

essarily

entail

that we cannot

discover these

properties

until

these

later

properties

have been created. To show that

this

entailment

ails,

he

points

out that a

perfect

predictor

could

know what was

going

to exist in the

future,

and

hence

could know

that

an artwork had certain

properties

that

depended

on

later

artworks,

even before those later

art-

works were

created. I

certainly

grant

that a

perfect

predic-

tor

can

know,

at

tl,

that at

t2,

artworkA will come to

have

property

p,

in virtue

of

being

appropriately

elated to

art-

work B that is created at t2. But this is different from

knowing

that

at

tl

an artwork

has a

property

p

in virtue

of

being appropriately

related

to B created at t2-but it

is

impossible at tl for an artwork o have p, if p depends on

B,

which will

only

come to exist at t2. For

the

perfect pre-

dictor

to

make

this

claim,

he or she would

not

only

need

to

predict

the

future,

but create

it,

too.

20.

I

thank

an

anonymous

referee for

bringing up

this

kind of

example

and

way

of

thinking

about atent

properties.

21. Of

course,

having

flowers

also

depends

on

the

amount of

fertilizer,

sunlight,

and

water,

for without

these,

the

flower would

not

bloom at all.

But

flower

color

alone

depends

entirely

on the

acidity

of the soil.

22.

I

thankJerrold

Levinson,

Bob

Stecker,

Stephen

Davies,

Pradeep

Dhillon,

David

Eng,

and,

especially,

Lee Brown

and Susan

Feagin

for

helpful

comments

on earlier drafts

of

this

paper.

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