Los lenguajes del arte: aproximación a la teoría de los símbolos

by Nelson Goodman

"Like Dewey, he has revolted against the empiricist dogma and the Kantian dualisms which have compartmentalized philosophical thought. . . . Unlike Dewey, he has provided detailed incisive argumentation, and has shown just where the dogmas and dualisms break down." --Richard Rorty, The Yale Review

Genres: Philosophy, Art, Nonfiction, Linguistics, Theory, Psychology, Education

253 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1968

About the author

Henry Nelson Goodman was an American philosopher, known for his work on counterfactuals, mereology, the problem of induction, irrealism, and aesthetics.

Reviews

[Alina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Starting from the case of symbolization in art, Goodman constructs a general theory of symbolization that explains the nature and dynamics of the lived reality, in which we find ourselves. His thesis is highly social constructivist, compatible with new-agey ideas that we can create our own realities, and language and art have immense power in transforming the world around us. But Goodman's arguments are water-tight and rigorous. Unfortunately, it is a very difficult book to read. Goodman's prose is beautiful and appears to be light, but it is in fact dense and is driven by complicated, underlying logical reasoning. He also unfortunately introduces many new technical terms to get his ideas across. But I found the reading experience rewarding; especially chapters 1 and 2 are packed in deep, radical ideas.

In chapter 1, Goodman introduces the question of representation in the arts, which can easily be generalized to representation in general. When we say that a painting of Frida Kahlo represents Kahlo, does this hold by virtue of resemblance? That is, does the possibility of O representing P depend on the extent of similarities between purely visual or physical features of O and P? Goodman quickly shows that this traditional, intuitive resemblance theory of representation fails. Any object resembles itself most closely, above anything else, and we do not think that it represents itself. Moreover, a resemblance relation is symmetric; if P resembles O, O also resembles P. But representation is not reflexive in this way; we do not say that Kahlo the person represents the painting of her.

Goodman introduces a distinction between an P-picture vs. a picture of P. This is to account for the fact that paintings or pictures can be representations of a certain kind (P-representations) without being a representation of anything that exists in the world (or, in other words, without denoting anything). There can be unicorn-paintings, for example, which are paintings of the unicorn kind or genre; these paintings are not of unicorns, properly speaking, because unicorns do not exist. This feature of representation implies the conclusion, again, that representation is not a matter of resemblance. Resemblance requires that two things really exist and stand in relation with one another, while something can be a representation without correlating with anything outside of itself.

Interestingly, the fact of what a representation denotes has no bearing on the kind of representation it is, and vice versa (the kind of representation something is has no bearing on what the representation denotes, if it denotes anything at all). For example, a horse might be represented as a unicorn in a painting. This case would amount to a unicorn-painting that is a painting of a horse. Representation intrinsically involves these two distinct and independent levels of being-of-a-certain-kind and of being-of-something. (These points also hold with respect to language, or any kind of symbolic medium that is representational).

In chapter 2, Goodman analyzes what it means for a painting to be of a certain kind. This is elusive, in contrast to what it means for a painting to denote some object in the world. This issue is tied to the relation of expression. Goodman does a brilliant job at explicating its essence; it takes us through an account of metaphor, and amounts to an anti-realism view regarding the distinction between the literal and the metaphoric.

Reference is straightforward. We can say that Kahlo's self-portrait refers to Kahlo. But what about expression? We can say that this portrait expresses sadness. When we say this, do we think that the painting possesses a property of sadness, or that the painting elicits a feeling of sadness in the viewer? Goodman argues that neither is the case. The things that we think a thing might express are as diverse as feelings, facts, ideas, and personalities; a painting could not possess these as properties, for that would commit us to category errors. Moreover, we say that the painting itself expresses something; we attribute that which is expressed to the painting, rather than to ourselves as its viewers. So what is this special relation of expression?

Goodman understands expression as figurative or metaphoric possession. It is like regular possession of properties (e.g., a painting possesses the property of being 24x24 inches) in that the symbolic object is logically antecedent to that which it represents or expresses. But unlike this, that which an object expresses is metaphorically rather than literally possessed by the object. What does it mean for O to possess P? P is a predicate that is attributable to object O. What this really means, according to Goodman, is that O is an example or sample of P. Let us first more concretely think of samples. A tailor shows you a swatch of blue fabric; it is a sample of the original bolt of fabric, which would be the material the tailor would actually work with. The sample is just a secondary object that instantiates or shares certain key properties of the primary object.

According to Goodman, things can be samples of more abstract labels and categories, rather than only concrete physical entities. The original bolt of fabric can be a sample of the color blue; hence, we attribute the (abstract) predicate blue to it. Interestingly, in special cases, an object can be a sample of itself; if there is no prior established label or predicate that applies to the object, the features of the very object can be taken as definitive of a new category. So the object is a sample of this category, which the object itself constitutes.

Expression is a matter of an object's being a sample of something in a metaphoric manner. Think about the simple case of attributing coldness to a painting. The painting is not literally cold; if I touch it, I don't feel a shock of coldness. We might insist that colors can be literally cold (e.g. blues and purples). But this is really a dead metaphor. Originally, coldness is purely a concept of temperature, which is categorically different than color. Goodman argues that the difference between literality and metaphoricality is one of degrees. A label upon a class of objects is more literal if we, culturally and habitually, have taken that label to denote or refer to that class for quite some time. A label is more metaphoric if there are prior applications of labels that are taken as relatively more literal, and this metaphoric application is novel and contrary to those literal applications.

Goodman thinks that there is really no more difference between literal and figurative modes of speech than this. When we apply a label literally, it is not due to some intrinsic or physical properties of the object to which the label is applied. Moreover, metaphorical statements can, in principle, be assessed in terms of truth conditions as much as literal statements can. When we get familiarized with a metaphor, we come to see the object in terms of it, and with enough practice, the object stably shows up in accordance to the meaning and organization imposed by the metaphor. This new object serves as a truth condition, by which we can evaluate statements that were once metaphorical and now are taken as literal.

To return to the matter of expression: if an object O expresses a property P, O is metaphorically a sample of P, or, in other words, O metaphorically possesses P. We can say a painting expresses sadness because the painting, metaphorically, is a sample of the label sadness. The radical implication of this is that art (whether the creation of paintings or prose) involves presenting old objects or referents in new terms; artistic expression is the creation of new metaphors. Because metaphors can always become literal truths (perhaps good metaphors have the innate tendency to do so) art has the capacity to transform and re-organize reality or literal truth.

I cannot do justice to summarizing the remaining chapters 3-6. These chapters start off with the framing question: Why do we take a forgery of a painting that is impossible to tell apart from the original as a forgery at all -- given the contrast to the case of music or novels, in which different replicas of an original score or script are all taken as genuine, rather than are called out as forgeries? It turns out that the possibility of replicas not counting as forgeries and rather as all amounting to genuine instances of the artwork depends on the artistic medium at hand to be formalized in accordance to a notional system (e.g., musical notation; the alphabet). Paintings do not conform to any such system, and so this artistic medium is amenable to the distinction between originals and forgeries.

The bulk of those chapters consists in Goodman's arguing for a conception of the necessary and sufficient conditions of a notational system. This discussion is highly technical and formal, and involves the introduction of many new terms. I got lost especially in chapters 4-5. Goodman ties this discussion back to the larger philosophical project of understanding the nature of representation in the final chapter 6. Because of my lack of comprehension of these preceding chapters, I couldn't grasp how this account of notational systems supplanted Goodman's arguments about expression vs. representation from chapters 1 and 2. Maybe at some point I'll reread these chapters and will hopefully get it.

Nonetheless, it seems that chapters 1 and 2 can stand on their own just fine. I'd highly recommend those chapters to anyone interested in the nature of the symbol (visual or linguistic); in social constructivist theories of reality and truth; or in the nature of metaphor.

[Carla Bainpanneau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dieses Buch hat mein Denken verändert! Goldman gelingt es, die systematische Untersuchung von Symbolen und Symbolsystemen sowie der Art und Weise, in der diese in unseren Wahrnehmungen und Handlungen, in den Künsten und Wissenschaften und damit im Erfassen und Erschaffen unserer Welten funktionieren, voranzubringen!

[Tiago Filipe Clariano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nelson Goodman apercebeu-se que a grande dificuldade para falar acerca de arte se prende com as deficiências das linguagens empregues. Entre a filosofia analítica e a estética norte-americanas, Goodman procede a descrever o contacto com a arte e a corrigir erros ortográficos (dos mais graves) dos fenómenos linguísticos associados a sistemas de símbolos.

O primeiro capítulo, "Reality Remade", debruça-se sobre a denotação, a imitação, perspectiva, escultura, ficções, representação, invenção, realismo, retratação e descrição. A sobriedade é notória no momento em que uma obra de arte pictórica é descrita como mais semelhante a qualquer outra obra pictórica do que ao objecto que representa. Uma coisa denota ou representa outra na medida em que é parecida com ela. A bidimensionalidade do representado não é um elo de semelhança mais forte do que a similaritude tridimensional de dois quadros, no fundo, sabemos que o nosso mundo não é achatado como um quadro. A questão da perspectiva também é interessante pelo facto de se opor a comportamentos dignos de museus como o estar parado, em silêncio, a formar um ângulo de noventa graus entre a verticalidade do corpo e a horizontalidade dos pés no chão, a respirar uma determinada medida de oxigénio em sucessivos tragos de ar do mesmo tamanho. Para a apreensão de uma obra de arte, o ambiente não deve ser apropriado à obra de arte, deve contê-la.

Um capítulo com um título mais estranho é "The Sound of Pictures", iniciado com uma epígrafe de Kandinsky, cuja espiritualidade artística lhe permitia ver temperaturas e rigidez nas formas e cores com que compunha. Distingue-se exprimir de representar na medida em que exprimir se aproxima de uma intimação, uma osmose de sensações e representar implica sempre uma mediação de informações cujo formato original tem de ser reconfigurado num outro muito diferente. É por isto que nos é permitido rirmo-nos quando alguém se magoa num filme, porque, apesar de expressar dor, não é através de uma intimação que nos transfere essa mesma dor, mas num contexto de distância e diferença que nos permite rir da desgraça alheia. Distingue-se ainda cor daquilo que expressa: o cinzento pode expressar tristeza mas a tinta não precisa de ter sido misturada com lágrimas. Uma imagem pode ser literalmente cinzenta e metaforicamente triste porque, no fundo, uma metáfora é ensinar a uma palavra velha truques novos, é a passagem do historial de significações de um predicado a um sujeito que o passa a carregar, lutando por manter a expressão do seu próprio historial de significações. No entanto, nenhum quadro é feliz ou triste em si, por não ter um sistema nevrálgico que lho permita.

O terceiro capítulo, Art and Authenticity é capaz de ser o mais controverso por afirmar que não há uma diferença estética entre uma obra de arte e uma falsificação perfeita dessa obra de arte. São necessárias várias considerações acerca disto: se formos a ver, por vezes utilizamos a palavra estética quase que para preencher espaço porque o que é estético é o que é empiricamente apreensível (este último período, sem a palavra em questão diria "o que é, é o que é empiricamente apreensível"). Se o que importa na estética é o que é sensível empiricamente, então uma falsificação de uma obra de arte, quando perfeita e se passar pelo teste de todos os sentidos, é o mesmo que estar na presença do seu original. O que isto quer dizer é que a falsificação só cria um problema de preconceito, o distanciamento entre original e falsificação só surge na atribuição do rótulo de falsa que, para a mente é o mesmo que passar uma tocha perto o suficiente apenas para deixar a obra de arte toda chamuscada. Surge então o problema do que é infalsificável: a música. Distinguem-se então as artes autográficas (as que se contemplam no objecto ao qual é atribuído o estatuto de obra de arte) das artes alográficas (aquelas que só se contemplam com a activação de um determinado objecto, e é no pôr em acto desse objecto, seja partitura musical, esboço de desenho ou guião de texto dramático, que se contempla a obra de arte). Como uma composição musical, quando ouvida, poder ser pontuada pelos espirros e pela tosse do público de uma pequena comunidade de burgueses franceses tuberculosos no século XVIII, e como esses mesmos espirros não podem ser sempre reproduzidos, por exclusão de partes, a obra de arte musical, pelas circunstâncias e vicissitudes da performance, nunca pode ser falsificada.

Faz-se, no capítulo quarto, uma "Theory of Notation" baseada nas qualidades linguísticas da sintaxe e semântica. Um sistema de notação não deve ser ambíguo semanticamente e deve ser disjunto e diferenciado sintacticamente. Surge aqui a questão do analógico e do digital, após uma abordagem de relógios e contadores. É analógico o sistema denso em termos sintácticos e digital se for descontínuo e os caracteres relacionados com classes de conformidade: exactamente como a diferença entre relógios analógicos e digitais. Enquanto nos analógicos o lento girar dos ponteiros do relógio emula o passar do tempo, os digitais apresentam uma notação mais precisa do tempo, mas mais disjunta (00:00:01 =/= 00:00:02). Para traduzir de um sistema para outro recorre-se à elisão (apagam-se os pontos intermédios para passar do analógico ao digital) e suplementação (são acrescentados pontos intermédios para passar do digital ao analógico, pense-se nos desenhos das crianças para completar, com pontinhos e números que deviam ser seguidos por ordem).

O grande problema de "Score, Sketch and Script" prende-se com a irrepetibilidade da experiência: por muito que uma partitura descreva exactamente como deve ser apresentada uma obra, as contingências, as intensidades e o manuseio individual dos instrumentos cada artista raras vezes permitirão que a música soe exactamente ao mesmo que soou na noite anterior no bar do outro lado da rua. Já o esboço é só um guia prático que pode nem surgir exactamente manifesto na obra no seu formato final - aponte-se para o «Museu Imaginário» de Malraux que descreve uma candonga de esboços renascentistas que já se aproximavam de arte surrealista até pela diferença para com os resultados finais das obras a que deram luz.

O capítulo final, Art and Understanding é um excurso que procura provar a proximidade entre arte e ciência. Passa por explicar o que a tradição concebe por "atitude estética" (aquela de uma contemplação passiva e silenciosa do imediatamente dado, sem conceptualização) que, em último caso pode ser comparada à de olhar para a página que envolve o poema sem o ler. Defende-se que a quantidade ou intensidade do prazer estético não são critérios.

No fundo, o que dificulta a compreensão da arte, o que dá origem a um desfazamento, é o contexto investigativo. Os cientistas da arte ainda estão na fase de observação à distância, de conceptualização do espaço envolvente, mas tão cedo fazem isso, como tiram análises à obra de arte, não vá estar doente, ou a chocar uma ninhada de mosquitos com praga cristalizados em ambar.

"None of this is directed toward obliterating the distinction between art and science. Declarations of indissoluble unity - whether of the sciences, the arts, the arts and sciences together, or of mankind - tend anyway to focus attention upon the differences. What I am stressing is that the affinities here are deeper, and the significant differentia other, than is often suposed. The difference between art and science is not that between feeling and fact, intuition and inference, delight and deliberation, synthesis and analysis, sensation and cerebration, concreteness and abstraction, passion and action, mediacy and immediacy, or truth and beauty, but rather a difference in domination of certain specific characteristics of symbols."

[thecoomer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Languages or Art, says more about language than art, and if you are looking for that then just stick to Saussure. If you are thinking of learning about art, dont bother. If art and its philosophic standard is what you want, then do instead with The Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics by Hegel. Languages of Art contains probably 20 pages or so of real discussion, much of which is similar to Hegel but more constrictive of what can be allowed to be called "art". Some of it, is full of typical analytic dogma such as the "myth of the given", utter nonsense. And in good analytic behavior, is filled with around 240 pages of word-salad. In all respects, the 99 page lectures of Hegel are much more serious, valuable, and thoughtful than this. Further, many of his arguments at that are fallacious. When arguing over the "perfect fake" for example and the aesthetic value an original can hold, he already takes his conclusion in the premise of his argument and this is common behavior for him throughout. Additionally the book mentions few works of art at all and repeatedly mentions the same ones. It is written and reads as if Goodman had little acquaintance with the arts, and absolutely none at all in his own experience (or non experience) with an artform.

[Lena · Rating 3 out of 5]

no to teda trvalo

[Gerardo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Il testo è complesso perché parla dell'arte attraverso il linguaggio della filosofia analitica. Il saggio introduttivo, per fortuna, aiuta a orientarsi meglio all'interno di questo modo di scrivere e ragionare.

Il problema principale del testo è di definire che cosa è un'opera d'arte e lo fa attraverso un'analisi dei linguaggi dell'arte. Il testo, quindi, sin da subito, si dichiara come una teoria della simbolizzazione. Il simbolo è un segno che rimanda a qualcos'altro.

G. riconosce due strategie: la notazione e l'esemplificazione. Ciò che annota è un segno che fa riferimento a un oggetto reale: una cosa sta per un'altra cosa. L'esempio, invece, sta per se stesso: risulta, quindi, essere un "esemplare" di ciò che rappresenta. Ciononostante, non bisogna credere che l'esemplare sia un elemento che rimanda all'opera intesa come oggetto trascendentale: esso è l'opera stessa. Se per il quadro la questione è abbastanza semplice, poiché esso è unico, la situazione cambia per la musica o la letteratura: ogni testo è l'originale di quell'opera (a patto che non ci siano evidenti manomissioni nella copia), così come ogni rappresentazione musicale è l'originale (a patto di non stravolgere in maniera troppo evidente l'opera come appare dallo spartito).

G., che vuole dimostrare come l'opera d'arte non sia una notazione, ma un esemplificazione, propone una teoria della notificazione molto precisa, solo per dimostrare come l'opera d'arte non soddisfi i criteri di tale teoria. Affinché un sistema sia notazionale c'è bisogno di alcune caratteristiche:

1) funzione primaria: l'oggetto che annota deve identificare un maniera univoca l'elemento al quale si riferisce;
2) indifferenza di carattere: tutte le copie della stessa notazione devono indicare, indifferentemente, lo stesso oggetto;
3) l'oggetto che annota deve essere composto di vari caratteri, i possono essere composti affinché producano caratteri più complessi;
4) l'oggetto che annota deve essere congruente con un altro elemento, che appartiene a sua volta a un altro sistema con delle sue regole interne;
5) l'oggetto che annota non deve essere ambiguo: non può indicare più oggetti del medesimo sistema al quale si riferisce.

Si vedrà, continuando con la lettura, come le opere d'arte non sempre soddisfano tutti questi requisiti: se, ad esempio, lo spartito è un sistema notazionale, il quadro non lo è, poiché non rimanda a qualcos'altro, ma sta per se stesso. L'opera letteraria, invece, è sia notazionale che esemplificativa, poiché è sia un campione dell'opera che un riferimento a quell'opera. Il copione, invece, anche se fa riferimento a qualcos'altro, essendo il suo riferimento non univoco ma solo indicativo, non permette di dissipare l'ambiguità e quindi non è propriamente notazionale.

Per tale motivo, non è possibile riconoscere un linguaggio che sia propriamente artistico, ma soltanto dei sintomi:

1) densità sintattica, dove le differenze di grana più sottile costituiscono per certi aspetti differenze tra simboli; […] 2) densità semantica, dove sono prodotti simboli per cose distinte sotto certi aspetti da differenze di grana più sottile […]; 3) pienezza relativa, dove relativamente molti aspetti di un simbolo sono significanti […]; 4) esemplificazione, dove un simbolo, non importa se denota o meno, simboleggiare il fatto di servire come un campione di proprietà che esso possiede letteralmente o metaforicamente; e infine 5) riferimento multiplo e complesso, dove un simbolo realizza svariate funzioni referenziali integrate e interagenti, alcune dirette e altre mediate da altri simboli.

Inoltre, G. è contrario con l'identificare l'opera artistica con qualcosa che produce una particolare emozione, poiché questo può essere soddisfatto anche da opere non artistiche.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I only read chapter 3 on Art and Authenticity.

The chapter starts asking the question whether there is any aesthetic difference between a work of art and a perfect fake. This is an interesting question to me because it seems to enlarge the discussion around how to appreciate a piece of art, what we need to know before appreciating it (sometimes nothing), and what extra enjoyment we can get from knowing the history or the craft behind it. The question also seems to point to the value of creativity and imagination.

It's also an interesting question because it's only a step away from a critique of the art market (if there is no aesthetic difference between two paintings, why is one worth a million and the other nothing? Who has an interest in policing the difference? Why are banks buying up all the artwork?) or a critique of the canon (if good forgeries are possible, perhaps a painter should not be treated as a self-made hero). This chapter did not go into these critiques.

Unfortunately, this chapter takes the question too literally and takes up quite a bit of space clarifying it and even translating it into a mathematical equation (ugh). I think this is a case of analytical philosophy babbling on in a very accurate way and totally ruining an interesting question.

[Craig Marvele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nelson Goodman’s Languages of Art is one of those books that you don’t so much “read through” as wrestle with. It’s dense, meticulous, and sometimes infuriating, but it ends up reshaping how you think about art, symbols, and representation.

Goodman’s central move is to treat artworks not as mysterious emanations of genius but as symbol systems, operating under rules of reference and classification just like language. He spends much of the book analyzing painting, notation, music, and dance as structured “languages,” with particular focus on the difference between autographic and allographic arts—whether a work depends on its exact material instance (like a painting) or can be faithfully reproduced through a system of notation (like a piece of music).

Reading this is not easy. Goodman’s style is analytic to the bone: he writes in clipped definitions, sharp distinctions, and endless sub-categories. At times it feels like he drains the life out of art in order to dissect it. But once you push through, his categories illuminate: the way he unpacks representation without relying on “resemblance,” or how he treats expression as symbolic function rather than mystical essence, is genuinely transformative.

The book is at its best when it destabilizes assumptions—like the idea that pictures must look like what they depict, or that “aesthetic experience” can’t be subjected to logical analysis. At its worst, it gets lost in terminological hair-splitting. Still, Goodman’s ambition—to provide a philosophical grammar of art—is enormous, and he largely succeeds.

If you come to it expecting warmth or flowing prose, you’ll be disappointed. But if you come ready to think hard about what art does, Languages of Art remains one of the most powerful (and challenging) works of 20th-century aesthetics.

[Ante Banović · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goodman, Nelson. (2002). Jezici umjetnosti (Pristup teoriji simbola). KruZak : Zagreb. – s engleskog prevela: Vanda Božičević

UVOD
- Cilj ove knjige, kako sam navodi Goodman u uvodu jest pristup općoj teoriji simbola. Autor se ne bavi vrijednosnim pitanjima i ne nudi kritička mjerila. Goodman koristi pojam simbola u vrlo širokom smislu, taj smisao pokriva slova, riječi, tekstove, slike, dijagrame, karte, modele itd. Termin “Jezici” pa i "Umjetnost" iz naslova ove knjige, preciznije se mogao zamijeniti sintagmom “simbolički sustavi.” Pučki izraz se zadržao jer se naslov uvijek čita prije knjige. Knjiga se dijeli u 6 poglavlja, teme ponekad slabo povezane, odnosno isprepletene, jer je knjiga sintetizirana iz predavanja, pa stoga ni esejistička forma nije odsutna. Goodman se nije libio napadati važeća autoritativna mišljenja.
Kada bih se igrao asocijacija što je izazvalo promišljanje ove knjige rekao bih: crvena boja, tužna slika, jednorog i Pickwick, rekao bih oprimjeravanje i metafora, pa reprezentacija, rekao bih da je oko pokoran član složenog i hirovitog organizma, zatim simbol, rekao bih da je realističnost stvar navike i tako u nedogled, pa i u poželjan krug.

[Searchingthemeaningoflife Greece · Rating 5 out of 5]

[...]Όμως η πρόσληψη και η ερμηνεία δεν είναι ξεχωριστές, αλλά πλήρως αλληλεξαρτώμενες λειτουργίες. Εδώ ισχύει το καντιανό ρητό: το αθώο μάτι είναι τυφλό και το παρθένο μυαλό άδειο. Ακόμη, το τι έχει προσληφθεί και το τι επεξεργασία αυτό έχει υποστεί, είναι κάτι που δεν μπορούμε να το διακρίνουμε στο τελικό αποτέλεσμα. Δεν μπορούμε να εξαγάγουμε περιεχόμενο ξεφλουδίζοντας διαδοχικά στρώματα σχολίων.[...]

[Callum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shows that analytic philosophy is not necessarily antithetical to art. The most impressive part of the book is Goodman's developing a theory of how all art - from computer programs to painting to prose - can be broken down into related symbolic systems. But the most enjoyable to read is when he lets slip the cool analytic mask and allows his own florid instincts free. "The eye comes always ancient to its work."

[Joel Gn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being more familiar with Continental texts, Languages of Art was challenging at the start, but
the eventual returns were nothing short of illuminating. Goodman's analytic prose is extremely technical and placid, but he presents a very precise and highly differentiated explanation for the application of various aesthetic categories.

[Ally Gator · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a mediocre philosophy book that sets up a bad example for anyone wanting to learn how to do philosophy. Goodman frequently makes radical assumptions with hardly any arguments offered in favor of or against them. What makes it worse is the flowery rhetoric. A complete waste of time reading it

[Andrea R.]

Un filosofo eccellente parla del rapporto tra rappresentazione e realtà. La tesi più interessante che difende è che questo rapporto non ha davvero a che fare con la somiglianza. Prendete la mimesis e buttatela via!

[Megangoldberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

The way you hold your gaze ignites something primal within me. Let's see where this intensity takes us.

[Markéta Effenbergerová · Rating 4 out of 5]

Akademický opak "This was once revealed to me in a dream." je Goodmanovo "Doufám, že chaos byl zredukován, ne-li na úplnou jasnost, tak aspoň na menší zmatek."

[A. B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book! Wrote a detailed summary for my notes.

[Stanimir · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nelson Goodman’s Languages of Art (1968; 2nd ed. 1976) is a groundbreaking and provocative rethinking of aesthetics. Rather than asking the traditional question “What is art?”, Goodman asks “What does art do?” His answer situates art within a general theory of symbols: artworks are not mirrors of reality but symbolic systems that help us organize, interpret, and even construct the worlds we inhabit. By aligning art with science and ordinary cognition, Goodman dissolves the boundary between aesthetic experience and other forms of knowledge.

One of the book’s most radical contributions is Goodman’s rejection of resemblance as the basis of representation. A painting does not depict by looking like its subject any more than a musical score resembles the sounds it prescribes. Representation, he argues, is a matter of denotation governed by conventions of use. What we call “realistic” is never a natural property of an image but the result of entrenched habits of interpretation. Thus, realism is relative to symbolic systems and cultural familiarity — a claim that subverts centuries of aesthetic theory premised on imitation.

Equally influential is Goodman’s analysis of notation, which underpins his distinction between autographic arts (such as painting, where authenticity and history of production are essential to the work’s identity) and allographic arts (such as music and dance, where works are defined by notational systems and can have multiple valid instances). This taxonomy reshaped analytic aesthetics by introducing rigorous criteria for thinking about the ontology of art. However, it has also sparked debate. Arthur Danto faulted Goodman for neglecting the historical and conceptual dimensions of art, reducing it to symbolic function rather than cultural practice. George Dickie’s institutional theory likewise criticized Goodman for bracketing the social frameworks that determine what counts as art.

Despite these critiques, Goodman’s Languages of Art remains a landmark in 20th-century philosophy. Its insistence on the cognitive and constructive role of art — on art as a mode of worldmaking — continues to challenge and inspire contemporary debates on representation, meaning, and artistic value.

[Patrick Diego · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagina ser uma linha de raciocínio na mente do Nelson Goodman.

[rhenvar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dissolves the stubborn distinction between the cognitive and emotive in the arts. "Viewing the world in terms of the work and the work in terms of the world".