A New Theory of Beauty by Guy Sircello (review)

Books 161 These two books serve as ideal coffee table decoratives and as good introductionsto their subjects.The first has somestriking black and white and colour photographs, a colour map of East Africa from the time of Vasco da Gama, reproductions of old engravings and lithographs, and a colour photograph of a modernAfricansculpture.And these leavequitea visual impact. The text itself offersexcerptsfrom a wide variety of writingsby well-knownAfrican,Europeanand Asianauthors, includingthe politicians Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya’s President) and Tom Mboya.The selectionsdo reflect Kenya, its history and its postindependence cultural strivings.The overall emphasis is on the human element. Thus, GraceOgot in her short story ‘Elizabeth’ and Kenneth Watene in his ‘Return to Kenya’ portray the reactions of a ‘native’ returning to the country after some years abroad. The impact of the city on village life is treated in Leonard Kibera’s ‘VoicesIn theDark‘andintheshortpoem ‘TheCitySwallow’by Samuel Mbure. The nostalgic sentiments of the Asians leaving Kenya are brought out in the poem ‘Leavingthe Country’ by Bahadur Tejani. I regretted the lack of reproductions of present-day African paintingsby, forexample, Elimo Njau, Eli Kyeyune,Jony Waite and Rena Fennessey. In the second book Priceintroducesreadersto traditional and contemporary artifacts-textiles, metal, ivory, beads, calabashes , pottery, sculpturesin clay and in metal, carvings-of Nigeria,Ghana, Liberia,the IvoryCoast and other countriesof West Africa.The book is well arranged, with separate chapters on the variouscrafts. The end chapter is entitledAspectsof the New Age. Theauthor urges readersto realize that theseartifacts were notjust pieces of decorativeart but were a vital part of life and religion.This appliesgenerally to those made by the tribes represented, such as the Yoruba, Ashanti, Baule and Dan. In traditional African art, ‘the spirit world was very close to the people (and)the artistsserved asa link between men and the unseen world, and among the Ashanti they were called the linguists, or spokesmen, of the Supreme God, Creator of the Universe’. 1wishtheauthorhad devoteda largersectionto contemporary Western African art, highlighting the impact of industrial societieson the traditionalwaysof life. Overall,whilethe author within thecompassof thqbook obviouslycouldnot have gonein for minute details regarding particular facets of her survey, she doesofferan overallinformativeintroductionto the subjectin a lucidstyle,avoidingtechnicaljargon. Alistofillustrationsandof books for further reading and a general index are provided. A chaptergiving‘hints’onhow to ascertainas to whethera pieceis genuine or a recent imitation would have been useful. A New Theory of Beanty. Guy Sircello. Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, N.J., and London, 1975. 141 pp. $12.00;f6.60. Reviewed by Elmer H .D~mcm* ReadingG. Sircello’sbook is somewhatlike readingJ. Rawls’A TheoryofJustice, i.e. one has the feeling that there is something rather profoundhere, but may not be clear about just what it is. The treatment of the subject is so different, that the writer’s purposeis not alwaysobvious.Further, Sircellodoesnot u s ethe word ‘theory’as the empirical scientist uses it, though he does speakof his ‘theory’being confirmedby favourableinstances.In this short review, I shallconcentrateon what SircelloSeesas the purpose of his theory, the statementof the theory and its most essentialfeature. First,then, Sircellosays(p. 14):‘...a comprehensivetheoryof beautyneed give an accountonly of thoseproperties. ..that can constitute what is beautiful about some beautiful “objects”.’ Again, it is not clear in precisely what sensethis theory can be saidtobec o n h e d or,better,inwhatsenseitcouldbedecisively disconfirmed. Sircellodoes insistthat he is not simply providing ‘. ..a generaltheory of the usesof the term “beautiful”’(p. 110). The theory is rather technically stated: ‘A P.Q.D. of an “object” is beautiful if and only if (1) it is not a property of *Dept. of Philosophy, Baylor University, Waco, TX 76703, U.S.A. deficiency, lack, or defect, (2) it is not a property of the “appearance”of deficiency,lack,ordefect,and (3)it ispresentin that “object” in a very highdegree;and any “object” that is not a P.Q.D. is beautifulonly if it possesses,proximatelyorultimately, at leastoneP.Q.D. in that “object” to a very high degree’(p. 43). The essentialnotion here is that of a ‘P.Q.D.’, or ‘propertyof qualitative degree’. This complex notion is discussed at length with a wide varietyof examplestaken from natural scenery, the visual arts, and music, e...