Art and its objects (艺术及其对象) Richard Wollheim/自译

1.

‘What is art?’‘Art is the sum or totality of works of art.’‘What is a work of art?’‘A work of art is a poem, a painting, a piece of music, a sculpture, a novel. ...’‘What is a poem? a painting? a piece of music? a sculpture? a novel? ...’‘A poem is ..., a painting is ..., a piece of music is ... ’ a sculpture is ... ’ a novel is ... ’ Itwouldbenaturaltoassumethat,ifonlywecould fillinthegapsinthe last line of this dialogue, we should have an answer to one of the most elusive of the traditional problems of human culture: the nature of art. The assumption here is, of course, that the dialogue, as we have it above, is consequential. This is something that, for the present, I shall continue to assume.

“什么是艺术？”“艺术是艺术品的总和或整体。”“什么是艺术品？”“艺术品是一首诗，一幅画，一首音乐，一座雕塑，一部小说……”“一首诗是…,一幅画是…,一首音乐是…,一座雕塑是…,一部小说是…”。

可以自然的假定，只要我们填补了上述对话中最后一句话中的空白，我们就可以回答人类文化中最难以把握的传统问题：艺术的本质。以上的假设当然就是我们上面所进行的那段至关重要的对话。这就是到目前我将继续进行假设的东西。

2.

It might, however, be objected that, even if we could succeed in filling in the gaps on which this dialogue ends, we should still not have an answertothetraditionalquestion,atanyrateasthishasbeentraditionally intended. For that question has always been a demand for a unitary answer, an answer of the form ‘Art is ... ’; whereas the best we could nowhopeforisapluralityofanswers,asmanyindeedastheartsormedia that we initially distinguish. And if it is now countered that we could always get a unitary answer out of what we would then have, by putting together all the particular answers into one big disjunction, this misses the point. For the traditional demand was certainly, if not always explicitly, intended to exclude anything by way of an answer that had this degree of complexity: precisely the use of the word ‘unitary’ is to show that what is not wanted is anything of the form ‘Art is (whatever a poem is), or (whatever a painting is), or ... ’ But why should it be assumed, as it now appears to be, that, if we think of Art as being essentially explicable in terms of different kinds of work of art or different arts, we must abandon hope of anything except a highly complexconceptionofArt?Forarewenotoverlookingthepossibilitythat the various particular answers, answers to the questions What is a poem?, a painting?, etc., may, when they come, turn out to have something or even a great deal in common, in that the things they define or describe (i.e. works of art in their kinds) have many shared properties? For if this were so, then we would not have to resort to, at any rate we would not be confined to, mere disjunction. In what would be the area of overlap, we would have a base for a traditional type of answer: even if it later emerged that we could not move forward from this base, in that beyond a certain point the different arts remained intractably particular. For what thiswouldshowisthat thetraditionaldemandcouldnotbesatisfiedinits totality, not that it was wrong ever to make it.

然而这种做法可能会被否定，就算填补了这段对话结尾处的空白，我们仍旧无法回答那个传统问题（艺术的本质），无论如何这一点已经被普遍认同了。因为那类问题总是被要求以单一的形式回答，即“艺术是…”这种形式的回答；然而我们现在希望得到最好的是一个多元的回答，就像我们一开始提到的艺术样式和媒介那样多。那如果现在反驳说，通过把所有特定的答案汇集在一起，从而得到一个唯一的答案，那就理解错了。因为传统的要求（艺术的本质）是确定的，假如它总不是很明确，可以借助一种排除所有有着以下复杂程度的答案的方式：准确地使用“一元”这个词，以显示“艺术是（无论一首诗是…），或者（无论一幅画是），或…”。

但为何要进行假设呢？因为现在情况似乎是这样的：如果我们认为艺术根据不同种类的艺术品或不同的艺术样式就基本上可以被解释，那么我们要放弃所有的希望去追求及其复杂的艺术观念吗？因为这样我们不是忽视了多种答案的可能性吗？错过了什么可能是一首诗，什么是一幅画等等的那个答案，也许等到它们（这些答案）出现的时候，在定义或描述（比如同类艺术品）的时候会有某些或许多共通之处呢？因为如果是这样，我们就不必局限于仅仅在众多答案之中提取那个唯一的答案。在它们（答案）重叠的部分，我们将可以为传统答案（艺术的本质）提供一个基础，即使在后来可能不能从这个基础出发，从这一点上看，不同的艺术样式之间实在难以打通。以上将说明传统要求（艺术的本质）是很难由艺术的整体给出答案的，但这种做法（提出假设）却不是错误的。

3.

A procedure now suggests itself: and that is that what we should do is to try and first set out the various particular definitions or descriptions – what a poem is, what a painting is, etc. – and then, with them before us, see whether they have anything in common and, if they have, what it is. But though this procedure might have much to recommend it on grounds of thoroughness (later we may have to question this), it is barely practical. For it is unlikely that we could ever complete the initial or preparatory part of the task. I shall, therefore, concede this much at least, procedurally, that is, to the objections of the traditionalist: that I shall start with what I have called the overlap. Instead of waiting for the particular answers and then seeing what they have in common, I shall try to anticipate them and project the area over which they are likely to coincide. And if this is now objected to on grounds that it reverses the proper order of inquiry, in that we shall be invited to consider and pronounce upon hypotheses before examining the evidenceuponwhichthey are supposedlybased,my argumentwould be that we all do have in effect, already inside us, the requisite evidence. Requisite, that is, for the purpose, for the comparatively limited purpose, to hand: we all do have such experience of poetry, painting, music, etc. that,ifwecannot(asIamsurewecannot)sayonthebasisofitwhatthese things are, we can at least recognize when we are being told that they aresomethingwhichinpointoffacttheyarenot.Theclaimhasbeenmade that human experience is adequate for the falsification, but never for the confirmation, of a hypothesis. Without committing myself either way on this as a general philosophical thesis, I think that it is true enough in this area, and it is upon the asymmetry that it asserts that the procedure I propose to follow is based. This procedure will bring us into contact at many points with certain traditional theories of art. Butit is worth reiterating that itis no part of my present intention either to produce such a theory myself or to consider existing theories as such. There is an important difference between asking what Art is, and asking what (if anything) is common to the different kinds of work of art or different arts: even if the second question (my question) is asked primarily as a prelude to, or as prefatory of, the first.

现在有一个这样的程序（procedure）：我们应该试着首先列出各种特定定义和描述—什么是一首诗，什么是一幅画等等。—然后，把它们摆在我们面前，看看它们是否有一些共同点，如果有的话，是什么。尽管这个程序在其全面性上值得推荐（稍后我们将会讨论这一点），但却是不现实的。因为我们似乎不可能完成一开始或者准备部分的任务。

因此，在程序上来说，我至少承认，对于传统主义者来说：我应该从我所说的重叠（overlap）部分入手。不是等待特定的答案出现然后观察他们有何共通之处，而应该试着去猜测它们然后投影出它们可能重合的部分。但如果这样做被反对，由于它违背了正确发问的顺序，因为我们应在考察证据之根据之前，应先被邀请进行思考并做出一番假设，对此我的论点是，必要的证据已经有效地存在于我们之中。必要的（证据），就是为了那个目的， 的目的，即：我们都有着诗歌，绘画，音乐等等的经验，如果不能（我确信我们不能）在根本上说出这些东西为何物，那在它们不是某物却被说是的时候，我们至少可以辨识出来。这一点是为了说明人类自身经验不足以证伪，但不是为了假设的确认。我没有想要把其中之一作为一个普遍的哲学论断，我认为在这个部分已经足够真实，面临着的不对称性肯定着我提出所遵循的程序是有依据的。

这个程序将会引导我们在许多观点上与某些传统艺术理论产生联系，但值得重申的是，无论是提出这样的理论或是考虑已有的理论，都不是我的目的。提出艺术是什么，和提出不同门类的艺术品或者不同不同的艺术样式之间有什么共通之处，有着非常重要的区别：即使第二个问题（我的问题）主要是作为第一个问题的序言或预言所提出的。

4.

Let us begin with the hypothesis that works of art are physical objects. I shall call this for the sake of brevity the ‘physical-object hypothesis’. Such a hypothesis is a natural starting point: if only for the reason that it is plausible to assume that things are physical objects unless they obviously aren’t. Certain things very obviously aren’t physical objects. Now though it may not be obvious that works of art are physical objects, they don’t seem to belong among these other things. They don’t, that is, immediately group themselves along with thoughts, or periods of history, or numbers, or mirages. Furthermore, and more substantively, this hypothesis accords with many traditional conceptions of Art and its objects and what they are .

让我们从一个假设开始:艺术品是物理对象，我简短地将其称为“物理对象假设”。这样的假设是一个合适的出发点：只要合理地假设事物是物理对象，除非它很明显地不是。有些事物很明显的不是物理对象，即使现在艺术品不是很明显地属于物理对象，它们似乎也不属于其它事物。它们不属于，即立即将其自身根据思想流派、艺术时期、数字或幻觉来归类。此外，更实质地说，这个假设符合许多传统艺术及其对象以及它们是什么的观念。

5.

Nevertheless the hypothesis that all works of art are physical objects can be challenged. For our purposes it will be useful, and instructive, to divide this challenge into two parts: the division conveniently corresponding to a division within the arts themselves. For in the case of certain arts the argument is that there is no physical object that can with any plausibility be identified as the work of art: there is no object existing in space and time (as physical objects must) that can be picked out and thought of as a piece of music or a novel. In the case of other arts – most notably painting and sculpture – the argument is that, though there are physical objects of a standard and acceptable kind that could be, indeed generally are, identified as works of art, such identifications are wrong. The first part of this challenge is, as we shall see, by far the harder to meet. However it is, fortunately, not it, but the second part of the challenge, that potentially raises such difficulties for aesthetics.

尽管假设所有艺术作品都是物理对象是有挑战性的，但对我们的目的来说是有利的，而且有效地将其挑战分为两部分：这个区分方便地对应了艺术本身的一个划分。因为对某些艺术来说，关键点在于不存在物理对象可以带有任何合理性地被认定为艺术品：没有任何存在于时空中的对象能被挑出并且被认为是一首音乐或一本小说。对于其他艺术品来说—最名贵的绘画和雕塑—关键在于，即使具有着标准和可接受种类的物理对象，可以被确切认定为艺术品，这种认定也是错误的。

第一部分的挑战是，正如我们所看到的，难得一遇，然而，幸好不是它，是第二部分的挑战，潜在地为美学提出了这样的难题。