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5.  REPRESENTATION CAN EXPLAIN GENERALITY

Generality phenomena concern the fact that apparently there can be multiple instances or tokens of abstract properties, types or universals.  Realist, conceptualist or nominalist theories traditionally have been proposed to explain such kinds of generality.  However, it has not previously been realized that the concept of representation enables a fundamentally different approach to generality of all kinds to be developed.  On this approach, generality is not explained in terms of abstract types, properties or universals.  Instead, it is explained in terms of the abilities of cognitive beings, such as ourselves, to use many particular objects or events to represent appropriate items.

For example, instead of saying that a piece of music is an abstract type that has individual performances of it as tokens, on the representational view each individual performance represents the relevant piece of music.  It is unproblematic that there can be many representations of the same thing, and that each representation may differ from others in various ways, so this kind of account can automatically explain how various qualitatively different performances of a musical work can nevertheless be all performances of the same work.  Also, since there can be representations of things that do not exist, such as Santa Claus or unicorns, the representational account can provide a fictionalist account of the ontology of musical works--a piece of music, such as Beethoven's 5th symphony, doesn't have to actually exist for it to be possible for there to be multiple performances of it, each of which equally represents it.

However, it might seem as if a representational account is fundamentally unsuited to explain sortal properties or universals, such as that of being an actual cow or a person.  It seems as if there really are cows, even though we might be prepared to give up on the existence of pieces of music.  Nevertheless, as I show in my article "A Representationalist Approach to Generality", the concept of representation can be appropriately extended to cover such cases.  In ordinary cases of representation, only some limited subset of the relevant properties are represented.  For example, a picture of a building represents only some of its properties, such as its frontal appearance from a particular angle.  But a comprehensive representation can be envisioned--an object which would represent all of the properties of an item.  This enables sortal properties to be dispensed with--instead of there having to be a sortal property of cowhood, instead it is only required that those items we usually refer to as 'cows' are capable of comprehensively representing all of the properties of a cow.   On this approach, there don't actually have to be any real cows, but only particular objects capable of comprehensively representing 'a cow'.  So all we need is a concept of cowhood, plus an implied list of what would be all of the real properties of cows if there were any, plus the capacity of individual objects--conventionally called 'cows'--to comprehensively represent 'a cow' that would have all of those properties.  In this manner a very economical, broadly Quinean view of the ontological priority of particulars and of the non-existence of typical sortal properties can be implemented.

BOOKS

The Double Content of Art (New York: Prometheus Books, 2005). Information  Amazon
The Double Content view is the first comprehensive theory of art that is able to satisfactorily explain the nature of all kinds of artworks in a unified way — whether paintings, novels, or musical and theatrical performances. The basic thesis is that all such representational artworks involve two levels or kinds of representation: a first stage in which a concrete artifact represents an artwork, and a second stage in which that artwork in turn represents its subject matter.

ARTICLES (PDF links)

"A Representationalist Approach to Generality," Philo 6 no. 1 (2003), pp. 216-234.
There are no unicorns, but there are representations of them, hence motivating an explanation of discourse about the property 'unicorn' in terms of discourse about representations of unicorns.  I show how to extend this strategy to apply to any kind or property terms.  References to property instances may be explained as references to comprehensive representations of them, which represent all of the (supposed) properties of such an instance--unlike 'ordinary' representations, which are distinctive in that they represent only some limited subset of such properties, through use only of some proper subset of their own (supposed) properties.  This representationalist approach results in a very economical naturalist ontology, which has no need for properties.

"Representation as Epistemic Identification," Philo 9 no. 1 (2006), pp. 12-31.
In a previous Philo article, it was shown how properties could be ontologically dispensed with via a representational analysis: to be an X is to comprehensively represent all the properties of an X. The current paper extends that representationalist (RT) theory by explaining representation itself in parallel epistemic rather than ontological terms. On this extended RT (ERT) theory, representations of X, as well as the real X, both may be identified as providing information about X, whether partial or comprehensive. But that information does not match ontological, property-based analyses of X, so it is epistemically fundamental--hence supporting a broadly conceptualist rather than nominalist metaphysics.

"In Support of Content Theories of Art," Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85 no. 1 (2007), pp. 19-39.
A content theory of art would identify an artwork with the meaningful or representational content of some concrete artistic vehicle, such as the intentional, expressive, stylistic, and subject matter-related content embodied in, or resulting from, acts of intentional artistic expression by artists. Perhaps surprisingly, the resultant view that an artwork is nothing but content seems to have been without theoretical defenders until very recently, leaving a significant theoretical gap in the literature.
     I present some basic arguments in defence of such a view, including the following. Content views of linguistic communication are ubiquitous, so why should they not be applicable in artistic cases as well? Also, propositional accounts of language involve two kinds of content (the proposition expressed by a sentence, plus the worldly state of affairs it represents), both of which kinds can be used in explaining artworks. In addition, the differing modal properties of artworks and concrete artefacts can be used to show that artworks could not be, or include, such physical artefacts.

"Reforming Indicated Type Theories," The British Journal of Aesthetics 45 no. 1 (January 2005), pp. 11-31.
There is some intuitive plausibility to the idea that composers create musical works by indicating sonic types in a historical context. But the idea is technically indefensible as it stands, requiring a thorough representational reform that also eliminates the type-theoretic commitments of current versions. On the reformed account, musical 'indication' is an operation of high level representational interpretation of concrete sounds, that can both explain the creativity of composers, and the often successful interpretations of their listeners. This approach also bypasses contentious issues regarding the status of both indicated and 'initiated' types, as extensively discussed in the BJA.

"Internal Versus External Representation," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 62 no. 1 (2004), pp. 23-36.
I argue that the concept of representation is ambiguous: a picture of 'a man', when there is no actual man that it depicts, both does, in one sense, and does not, in another sense, represent 'a man'--hence the need for a distinction of internal from external representation.  Internal representation is also defended from reductive, non-referential alternative views, and from 'prosthesis' views of picturing, according to which seeing a picture of an actual man just is seeing through the picture to that actual man himself.  The view also provides a strong foundation for a theory of reference to fictional entities.

"A Refutation of Goodman's Type-Token Theory of Notation," Dialectica 57 no.3 (2003), pp. 330-336.

"A Counter-Example to Theatrical Type Theories," Philosophia 31 nos. 1-2 (October 2003), pp. 165-170.

"Theater, Representation, Types and Interpretation," American Philosophical Quarterly 39 no. 2 (April 2002), pp. 197-209.

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Last Updated: April 27, 2010