The Reasons of Art/L’Art a ses raisons: Artworks and the Transformation of Philosophy ed. by Peter J. McCormick (review)

222 LEITERS IN CANADA 1986 As I read this book, the biggest question gnawing at me had to do with the entire point of metaphysical thinking and writing. What intellectual need, exactly, does this bookaddress? In part it is the need to be raised above that which is petty and contemptible, a need for the sublime. In part it is a need for categorization: to grasp the manifoldness of the ways of being, and avoid fallacies of reduction. Yet most of all, I think, the need is one so basic that it is rarely noticed. That we can think about everything, talk about everything, write about everything, name things, grasp things, recognize them through their names - this great adventure of thought and speech that we call philosophy really is something singular and precious, something as magnificent as it is ridiculous. This exuberant, excessive, useless, and even pretentious undertaking is fully displayed in the fine book by Jean Theau. (GRAEME NICHOLSON) Peter j. McCormick, editor. The Reasons ofArt/L'Art a ses raisons: Artworks and the Transformation ofPhilosophy University of Ottawa Press '985. 496. $34.95 This collection of articles, 69 of the 250 papers given at the World Congress on Aesthetics, Montreal 1984, addresses the theme of the ongoing relationship between art and philosophy. The five divisions of the book concern the mutual influence of art and philosophy; theories of art; turning points in aesthetics; art and value; and art, fiction, and reality. The articles, for the most part, are short (three to five pages). Philosophers included are from at least forty-eight international centres, and fluency in English, French, and German is essential for the reader. One discovers that philosophers everywhere are well schooled in present and historical trends in Western aesthetics. There are few departures from well-trodden paths. The boldest attempts to acknowledge real differences in aesthetics comes from the People's Republic of China - a comparison of Eastern and Western aesthetics (Zhou, p 465), and an explanation of Taoism, art, and nature (Chan, p 475). At times the debates are lively. In section I the question of the theoretical symbiosis of art and philosophy evokes from Danto the suggestion that 'If art makes nothing happen and art is but a disguised form of philosophy , philosophy makes nothing happen either' (p 21). Then Nordenstam cites Plato, Kant, and Basho's poetry to illustrate the emptiness of Danto's claim, using examples to show that philosophy and art are not in conceptual paralysis (p 25). A concise historical review that provides stagesetting for a crisp defence of hermeneutics (Morawski, p 27) is balanced by an exposition of the elialectic of the inner meaning and outer expressions of art - a 'structure elastique de celle-ci' - which hold and draw in the observer (Sasaki, p 47). Though each section offers a multitude of opinions, critiques of them HUMANITIES 223 are often found elsewhere. It is in section 11, for instance, that Nordenstam (p 124) and Tilghman (p 141) offer further refutations of Danto. This section, on theories of art, also finds Sparshott offering a multiple-arttheory apologetic (p 126), and Nzegwu giving a determined defence of the applicability of western aesthetics to Igbo culture and art (p 173). His philosophical targets are mainly fellow Africans. Section III, on turning-points, begins with a lyrical explanation of night as metaphor for aesthetic experience (Imamichi, p 185). This beginning is an editorial brush-stroke, but night as metaphor is hardly a turning-point. The section includes a refreshing look at art and nature as a locus in history by Canadian and American authors (Townsend, p 215, Carlson, p 222, and Crawford, p 232). Unfortunately, the Eastern perspective does not find voice until the very end of the book in the section on fiction (Zhou, p 465, Pail<, p 471, and Chan, p 475). Papers about art and value, in part IV, provide some unexpected twists. George Dickie defends Hume (p 309). Carolyn Wilde (p 351) comments on art and morality through the analysis of two paintings of Diana and Actaeon, one by Titian, the other by Rottenhammer. Barbara Herrnstein Smith provides an analysis of art and value, which sidesteps the role of capital in the establishing and nourishing of art and its institutions, but which is written in the discourse of the Harvard Business School (p 336). (The anthology is lacking in feminist perspective.) Section v, with articles on icons, photography, music, architecture, and black-ink painting, has a vitality born of philosophers' writing about what they love. For Lai-Xiang Zhou it is acceptable to paint snow on bananas, and describe mountains as 'dizzy' or 'drunken: for these are expressions of feelings and emotions, and of attitudes towards space and time (pp 446-7). The perspectives and examples and the too-infrequent references to local theory that philosophers from other countries offer are rare, and one has to dig for them. The reader learns that Western aesthetics is the measure of publishable matters, and that in looking elsewhere he may find only a distortion (often charming, nonetheless) of Western thought. When Kambayashi (p 56) explains in German that Japanese water colours and German landscapes find common theory in Heidegger, and that in looking at them we are seeing through the artistic eyes of soul brothers, one doesn't know whether to cheer for the universal man, or despair. (ELIZABETH A . TROIT) C. Johnston, G. V. Shepherd, and M. Worsdale. Vatican Splendour:Masterpieces of Baroque Art National Museums of Canada. 160, illus. $29.95 paper In 1986- 7 a selected number of important Baroque works of art from the ...