Meaning and Truth in the Arts by John Hospers (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 865 To investigate this further in an adequate manner and to indicate how theological principles could illumine this particular problem would extend far beyond the limits of a review. It should be mentioned, however, by way of noting the positive criticism which can be made. It is enough, for the present purpose, to underline the insufficiency of myth as the explanation of our contemporary disorder. I think this can be done summarily by the following question: Is it the " mythical thinker " who remains at the root of our continuing political disorder? Is it the "mythical thinker" who blocks the way to international peace and political order? Naziism, whose apostles Mr. Cassirer considers to be the primary exponents of myth, is officially dead. Yet our problems of tyranny and disorder continue to grow. Clearly, then, the men from whom we can fear the most are decidedly not the myth makers. They are, rather, the presumably educated men whose only unity consists in an increasing denial of the theological order and therefore of the natural order as well. They are found chiefly among philosophers, scientists, politicians, and educators. They are men who deny the objectivity of truth, the objectivity of moral principles, the objectivity of the natural law, and so on. They are men who would claim that they are especially struggling against myth. To them, and to all of us in our foolishness and self-sufficiency, God has said and continues to say: " Destruction is thy own, 0 Israel; thy help is only in me." CoUege of St. Thomas, St. Pam, Minnesota. JOHN A. OESTERLE, T.O.P. Meaning and Truth in the Arts. By JoHN HosPERS. Chapel Hill, N. C.: The University of North Carolina Press, 1946. Pp. ~88, with index. $4.00. It may be said, though not without risking oversimplification, that there are three fundamental attitudes which have been taken, or may now be taken, toward the role which meaning and truth play in art. One is the view which maintains that art is not only an intellectual habit and experience , but, in being so, is essentially ratiocinative. The artist is simply a rational craftsman, quite like any other, and the pleasure which his work gives is the pleasure of a formed rational judgment on the part of the auditor. In addition, because a rational judgment has been made, it is sometimes said that the auditor comes from art in possession of logically formulated "truth" which is subsequently useful to him in a practical way. As a result, this view sometimes calls itself " functional " and is almost always favorably disposed toward the " didactic " potentialities of art. When in 866 BOOK REVIEWS conflict with other attitudes toward art, this first view rather vigorously claims the intellectual nature of art for itself exclusively, charging that all anti-ratiocinative positions are necessarily irrational and sentimental. It will be noted in passing, however, that in order to make this assertion the proponents of this view must also make an absolute and exhaustive identification of the intellect with the ratiocinative processes, supposing one to be the other in an exclusive sense. A second, and more "modem" view, in nearly every way antagonistic to the first, holds that the reasoning processes either are not involved in art at all (music), or, if they are involved (literature, the verbal arts), are serviceable merely as occasional tools to assist the artist and audience toward an end of a completely different and anti-intellectual character: the evocation of pleasurable affective states. In this view, "meaning" in art becomes a· relative and subjective factor, without metaphysical correspondence . " Truth " as correspondence with reality is irrelevant to the quality of the artefact, although there may be some " truthful " correspondence with similar affective states experienced in life. Knowledge, in this view, is altogether absent. Because the .ratiocinative operation of art has been denied, the intellectual nature of art has been denied also. Here again it will be noticed that an absolute identification of the reasoning processes and the intellect has been made, though to the precisely opposite effect of that in the first view above. A third view is possible, and is the object of much contemporary study. It...