Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 16:08:52 -0600
From: George Trail <gtrail-AT-UH.EDU>
Subject: Re: PLC: A theory about theory [was Anyone get Gass?]



>Anyway, the basic issue, as I see it, is how one can justify the kind of
>theorizing that's a priori, that comes before the theorist has acquired an
>informed knowledge of the art.  How does one guard against over-
>generalization, which seems to be the primary flaw?  You're interested
>primarily in lit. Sure it must seem tedious to read the Eliot commentary, the
>Yeats commenary, and so forth. It would be a big time-saver if one could just
>find an all-purpose theory that explained everything and eliminated the need
>to do so much reading.  But isn't this hope just a pipe dream?
>
>pat sloane
>
>
>
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1. Theories are never _a priori_. Phenomena are observed. Phenomena are
grouped in a certain way by the observer. How that observer groups the
phenomena constitutes a theory. You complain that Freud knew nothing about
art. In order to say this you must have a theory, which theory allows you
to use the word "art" as if it were somehow referential. You use the word
artist in the same way. An artist is, presumably one who produces art, the
which you claim to know from experience with "it."

2. Freud was a psychologist, he catagorized human production as symptomatic
of psychological states. How he defined art relates to this view, which is
hardly a priori. It, like any other theory proceeded from the observation
of phenomena and the grouping of them according to certain criteria.

3. Your comments on Eliot and Yeats "commentary" seem to assume that it is
monlithic and (somehow) theory free. That is, that the Yeats "expert" can
read that poet as a poet without being encumbered by "theory." Yet,
presumably one would have to know, in the first place, what a poet was to
know if Yeats was one.

4. Your comments on "Rennaissance" art presume, for instance, that there
was a "Rennaissance," which is hardly possible without the (discredited)
notion of the "Dark Ages." The notion of "periods" itself is totally theory
bound. If you then reply that the "theory" proceeds from the "evidence," I
reply so does all theory. What matters is what counts _as_ evidence, and
how you slice it.

5. Critics and theorists now and always have determined what "art" is, and
what constitutes the canon, and what  body of folk comprise the important
artists. It cannot be otherwise.

6. You then have the notion that there is some theory free corpus knowledge
of which constitutes knowledge of "art history," again as if that were
monolithic and existed without psychological/political/economic parameters.
There is, without theory, no "art," let alone "art history."

Happy New Year.
g

g




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