On Golf.

I could not imagine marrying some of my favorite things in a more cohesive way then the sport of golf.  Let’s analyze some of the components of the sport, develop an appreciation for the aesthetic, and take an analytic approach to the game.  Said game is played outdoors, always, and the molding hands of Mother Nature herself shape the experience.  The recurrent iterations of nature mark the first dynamic aspect of the structure of the game that lends itself so beautifully to those who appreciate God’s green earth.  Basking in the sun is a creature comfort, and none more comfortable then the warm embrace on the back of your neck as you watch your playing partner drive the little white sphere into the blue expanse.  This is only rivaled by the blood tingling exhilaration of staring into the infinite expanse of blue sky as you pose after a perfect demonstration of your golf swing unfurled.  Sometimes you are challenged by the crippling humidity and struggle to maintain your mental composure during the grueling marathon of eighteen holes.  Other times you are forced to squint through the shifted tracers of rain as they fall across your visual landscape. 

Appreciating the sport of golf begins with the humble acceptance of your relevance in nature, and the triumphant feeling comes from knowing that you can be a formidable warrior who used the elements as tools rather then distractions.  Be weary before you approach that first tee box; it is not a right to embark on the journey through the next 18 holes, it is a privilege, one that demands a deep understanding of oneself and ones capabilities.  Do not blame the elements or the game for your lack of appreciation.  Remember, like an ignorant child blameless in his frustration yet unwarranted in his criticism, “This doesn’t make sense!” It, golf, makes sense; it, those elusive two letters are accessible only to those who search it out gracefully.

Up to fourteen tools in the bag for which to capitalize.  14 clubs x 3 discrete different shot shapes x 3 discrete different trajectories and the infinite range between.  These are the options for which your wrist flicks can create a round.  Your scorecard is a mere tally.  Every shot, hole, front 9, full round are an opportunity.  This all proves daunting; golf should not be digested in its totality.  Rather each morsel of experiences should constitute a part and the whole, pun intended.  The skilled performer can hone in on each swing.  Only after rapidly calculating the appropriate shot needed.  Each instantiation requires full and unwavering attention.  Upon completion, a quick pro forma invoice begs to be submitted for processing; were my lines good, how was my weight, did I keep my head down?  I suggest that these line items are what is keeping you from transcending from benevolent pot bellied participant to weekend warrior acclaim.

First, pass me a beer. 

The crack of the can [always use cans, after a few too many if you drop them they cannot litter the golf course with reflecting shards of which are Rubber Tire’s most antagonistic of enemies] signifies this as a time of fun.  Balance is the answer to any moral quandary; beer is the answer to any beverage imposition on the golf course.  Where vices are welcomed, communally indulged, where sport meets recreation, the golf course is where you come to enjoy uninterrupted hours of enjoyable experience. 

Is it better to have 1,xxx,xxx songs to flip through on your ipod, is a newspaper just a tangible annoyance for who’s value can be provided seamlessly on your ipad?  Sure.  Did ‘song ADD’ exist before ipods?  Do you have trouble finishing on article on the computer due to the omniscient distractions?  Golf forces busy individuals to hunker down and enjoy the marathon of social interaction.  Can you enjoy the sport on your own, yes, but you are never alone.  You are willfully detached from the nearest router and with this come great responsibility.  You and your playing partners imitate intimacy in a unique relationship.  If they are strangers, they can be tools for self-reflexivity, if they are your best friends they can be cheerleaders, hecklers, coaches, psychoanalysts, glorified cup holders and everything in between.   

The narrative of a round of golf is not dissimilar to life.  You must know when to accept the current predicament, trust the future blight is less bleak, determine which of the medicines are more tasteful medicine, grimace, gulp, and go.  The peaks of elation, the valleys of frustration; life is not a game – but golf most definitely is.  No one swings the exact same way.  No one plays the exact same shot, ever.   These analogies I’ll allow you to fill in.

I realize I’ve been writing about golf for too long, plus my pitching wedge has been staring at for the last 15 minutes. 

The Value of Fiction

           Our shared set of prestigious literary works often create a fictional account of history.  Examples generally consist of created interpersonal relations between characters that have no reference to physical reality, and impossible scenarios such as science fiction.  For me, the epitome of what I am referring too is the work of  George R.R. Martin.  Qualified readers of fiction are not deceived when reading these accounts; they are not deceived by the account and are able to find great enjoyment and benefit from their experience.  In addition to the the aesthetic quality, technical expertise, or creative prowess of well written fiction the role of near world experiences sets is vital and gives credence to fiction as a medium.   I am going to do my best to explain what I believe to be the value of fiction.  Once this has been sufficiently explicated I will demonstrate how a reader of fiction gleans value in a universe void of any physical components.  

In his paper “The Logical Status of Fictional Discourse,” John Searle observes that there is a peculiar thing going on when one reads fiction.  He is perturbed by the fact that words that are used to describe things that exist in reality can be equally understood when used in fiction, yet in the case of fiction those words do not have the same support for their meaning as they would in reality.  How could words whose intent is to be used in fiction retain the meaning attributed to them when used to describe reality? This might seem intuitively obvious to you, but addressing the disconnect between value gleaned from real world experiences and the value of fictional experiences, of which I will do my best to demonstrate, is slippery.  Searle is observing that characters in fiction works do not have reference to the physical world.

In order to alleviate this issue one might suppose that entities in fiction should be characterized as a unique type of entity.  If fictional characters are considered abstract artifacts that the author discovers as opposed to entities that the author creates, then their existence would be based on a set of possible fictional characters that are accessed.  According to Amie Thomasson in her paper “Fictional Character as Abstract Artifacts,” artifacts are by nature similar to the type of thing that we refer to in fiction.  She explains, “Artifacts of all kinds…share with fictional character the feature of requiring creation by intelligent beings.”  That is, in order for something to qualify as an artifact and not merely an object the state in which the object exists depends on it’s being the product of an intelligent being.  This feature is shared in fictional characters.  Like a rock becomes the artifact ‘tool’ when shaped by an intelligent being, words become artifactual fictional characters when produced by intelligent beings.   Under this characterization fictional characters that have been extolled in literature would be considered possible abstract objects. 

An abstract theory seems to me to be inaccurate.  The potential fictional characters are beholden only to the extent of the human imagination.  This implies that there are fictional objects that have not been realized yet.  If fictional characters are thought to be abstract object then the entire set would have to have been realized and this is impossible.  The set of possible constructs that could be credited to the human imagination is thought to be infinite or at least very large.  So large that the possible fictional characters that could be realized at this very moment is impossible to quantify as humans have yet to discover the limit of their imagination.

            My intuition leads me to believe that the meaning of the words is not lost when reading fiction and that fictional characters are somewhat like the type that Thomasson described.  I do not believe that fictional characters exist but I do not believe that their lack of reference in the real world inhibits fictional characters from retaining meaning.  Fictional characters are artifactual in that their meaning depends on intelligent beings to create and recreate them in reading.   I believe the meaning is derived from our ability to operate in a relative of reality.  I will call this Experimental Reality. 

We can discuss impossible things.  We can discuss levitation, we can discuss time travel (though that may be possible), we can discuss magic, because we have our understanding of reality as a structure that provides us the reference through which our Experimental Reality can be interpreted.  I agree with Thomasson when she recognizes that if there is no one to consciously experiment with the entity then it has no meaning.  She explains, “If all conscious agents are destroyed, then nothing is left of fictional works or the characters representing them but some ink on a paper.”  However if there are entities that utilize their faculties of imagination and understanding then these fictional characters have a realm for which to operate.  This gives them their meaning.  For example, we have some comfort in our understanding of gravity.  Using this as our basis we can easily imagine if we were not affected by the rules of gravity.  This is an easy case.  Even in more complicated cases we utilize the meaning of the words when used to describe reality to serve as a reference point form which we can understand the same words when used a fictional context.  For example, we have a relatively comfortable understanding of time and how we can recollect occurrences of the past.  We use this to understand what it would mean to collect facts about the future.  An oracle is a fictional character, yet the words we use to describe an oracles actions have not lost their meaning.  We conceptualize the character of an oracle in Experimental Reality and use our understanding of the process of recollecting occurrences in history to serve as a reference for which we can understand what is going on when discussing Oracle behavior.

            When children are brought into this world they are to some extent empty vessels in terms of being able to understand and relate to reality.  We ease them into this process by teaching children “reality concepts” through the use of fiction.  Thomasson explains in her paper the ability of humans to take advantage of their curiosity to be creative and construct fictional characters “on top of the independent physical world by means of our intentional representations.”  Human imagination is not restricted to the physical world.

            We use our senses to gather information about the world and interpret it.  One of the roles of fiction is to create characters that can be understood in an experimental mental zone in which we could test our ideas about the world.  We use the same words, and are able to do so, because we can relate this fictional world to the reality that we understand. 

            Fictional characters do not exist in the physical world.  They are not necessarily representations of anything in the physical world.  Furthermore they do not have reference to anything in the physical world.  That is why the bounds for which we create fictional characters in works of fiction are not constrained by the realities of the physical world but rather the extensions of our imagination.  Fictional characters are constructs of the human mind whose meaning is dependent on intelligent beings.  These fictional characters operate in an Experimental Reality whose reference depends on our understanding of the physical reality. 

Intention is a necessary component of art.

Intention is a Necessary Component of Artwork

            When reading a good poem one experiences aesthetic satisfaction.  It is the words of the poem and the meaning behind those words that contribute to this experience.  Some combinations of words have the ability to provide more aesthetic satisfaction when compared to others.  This illustrates the relative scale for which aesthetic satisfaction is measured.  During the course of normal life when one engages in conversations with others there is a mutual understanding of the goal of the conversation.  The one who makes the utterance and the auditor have the desired goal of achieving a level of mutual understanding.   The auditor looks to capture the intent of the message and the author looks to create an utterance that embodies the message in a form understandable by the intended audience.  Noel Carrol, in his paper “Art, Intention, and Conversation” believes that the cases of interpreting messages and interpreting artwork share certain characteristics.  Carol is of the belief that creators of artwork and interpreters of artwork engage in a conversation.  There is some noble goal that is attempted by the interpreter of the artwork to understand the meaning of the creator.  On the other hand, the anti-intentionalist believes that the primary and only goal of artwork, specifically interpreting artwork, is to interpret the piece in a way that is most aesthetically pleasing.  In order to achieve this goal in the best way possible, according to the anti-intentionalist, you must hold the fundamental belief that authorial intent is separate from the actual piece of artwork.  This is because authorial intent when incorporated into the interpretation of the artwork potentially places a ceiling on the amount of aesthetic pleasure one could attain when interpreting an artwork.  If, as the anti-intentionalist does, you separate the artwork for the one meaning the author intended from the actual piece of art, you separate the ability of the authorial intent to eliminate other possible meanings (which may include the meaning that provides the most aesthetic pleasure). 

            According to Carroll, the idea of anti-intentionalism came to fruition during a time when literary critics were fond of attributing biographical qualities on novels.  These critics attempted to use the piece of artwork to ascertain an understanding of the biography of the author.  This ideology clearly is flawed, as there are cases in which the artwork shed little to no light on the biography of the author.  This is a case when even the intentionalist would suppose that the intention should be reexamined in its role of interpreting the artwork.  It is clearly plausible and in fact there are many examples where a novel did not have any biographical qualities.  Another case that supports the theory that renders authorial intent valueless is the case in which the supposed authorial intent clearly opposes the reality of the artwork.  The intentionalist would not hesitate to admit that this is not a good example to support appealing to the intent of the author and would suppose that most likely the author has made a mistake or we have made a mistake in interpreting the supposed intent of meaning given by the author.  Even in the less obvious case where it is unclear whether the author meant an allegorical or metaphorical meaning on a certain passage we suppose that we do not understand the author’s actual intent.  This seems like the appropriate and intuitively pleasing response as opposed to use this case as motivation to create a universal rule that stipulates that intent of the author is not relevant to interpreting artwork. 

            Often those attempting to use authorial intent to interpret artwork depend on the actual piece of artwork to determine the author’s intent. Perhaps this is because the author is not around to answer the question and the intent is unclear. This poses a problem and helps identify the fundamental belief the anti-intentionalist must hold.  This type of interpretation seems to be circular, which is an epistemic travesty; as you can’t use the piece to determine the meaning of the piece.  Additionally it seems as though in those cases where it is rendered impossible to ascertain authorial intent and the actual artwork does little to shed light on the authorial intent it would be impossible to interpret the piece unless you viewed the piece as a separate entity from the intent of the author.  This separation is a fundamental belief of the anti-intentionalist.

            My intuition has me feeling uncomfortable when I try to separate the authorial intent with the actual piece of artwork.   If the goal of artwork is for the interpreter to achieve the highest level of aesthetic satisfaction, at the exclusion of other goals when interpreting artwork, then the intention is in fact meaningless and ultimately a hindrance.  It narrows the plethora of possible logical interpretations down to the one that the author intended limiting the ability of the artwork and the interpreter to appeal to the interpretation, that may be different from authorial intent, that provides the most aesthetic satisfaction.

            I believe that authorial intent is a fundamental component of a piece of art that differentiates it from other things.  Authorial intent is not all encompassing in determining what makes something art but provides a necessary part of the foundation that makes the creation art as opposed to something else.  Identifying the other components that are necessary to make something art is out of the scope of this paper.  I am merely trying to show the error that occurs when one tries to render authorial intent irrelevant to appropriate interpretation.  An interpreter attains a feeling of affinity towards artwork because it accomplished its intention to the best of its ability, on a relative scale, as well as encompassing aspects of creativity on a relative and very subjective scale.  What makes something creative or not, or more or less creative, is beyond the scope of this paper and I will not attempt to come up with a system that determines levels of creativity. 

The process of interpreting the meaning of artwork is fundamentally different then attributing meaning to things that are intention-less.  Perhaps we see a cloud that looks like it says “Happy Holidays” while we are lounging on the beach.  If there is just a cloud that happens to look like that, we would feel it merely a coincidence and the cloud actually has no meaning.  On the other hand if the cloud is in that form because a pilot was paid to fly his plane and released gases in a certain way as to write out that message in shapes that took the same form as clouds that would be an instance where the clouds do have meaning.  Intent is important, valuable, and necessary in interpreting some piece of artwork and attributing meaning.  The artwork was put into existence for a purpose; intent is the motivation that is responsible for the existence of the artwork.  It would seem very peculiar to, after the artwork is created with a specific meaning, impart your own unique meaning after the fact.  Doing so gives you too much interpretative power and in some way makes the artwork unduly yours as you put your meaning onto it.  A part of what makes the artwork great, meaning, has now become your meaning, and minimizes the credit that the author deserves.  The artist did something that is difficult, generating a creative instantiation of their goal, their intent.  We shouldn’t cheapen the artists craft by rendering them merely artisans of aesthetic entertainment, but rather view them as they should be viewed, contributors to culture and society, relaying their message in a different medium, through the noble skill of utilizing their creative talents. 

One might oppose my opinion by suggesting a case in which an artist creates something purely beautiful while intentionally withholding meaning.  I do not think this is actually a counterargument.  I would not suppose that an aspect of “good” artwork is that it was created with the intent of leaving the meaning up for interpretation or without ability to be interpreted at all.  This intentional ambiguity could be a noble goal of the artists and renders the artwork perhaps better because it allows the interpreter the opportunity to operate within the parameter intentionally set out by the creator, by imbuing their own meaning onto the artwork.  But in the case where the interpreter ignores the meaning set out by the author, or by appealing only to the meaning that provides the most aesthetic pleasure, they are engaging in a different activity, similar to observing something outside you that is aesthetically pleasing, such as symmetry in nature.  Both of these cases ignore the intention of the artist.  This is not good interpretation of artwork.

            The view that takes the opposite opinion on the fundamental belief of the anti-intentionalist, namely that authorial intent must be separate entity from the artwork, is what Caroll refers to as the neo-wittgensteninian view.  This view supposes that intention is a purpose, manifest in the artwork, which regulates the way the artwork is.  In order to discover intention once must analyze or dissect the artwork.  The attribute of this view that is different from the anti-intentionalist is that intention is a component that is discoverable in the artwork as opposed to a separate entity.  I am not sure where I stand on the neo-wittgensteninian view because it is plausible that my understanding of the role of authorial intent permits the discovery of the intent in the artwork.  Whether authorial intent is discoverable in the actual artwork or whether it is a separate entity is not in the scope of this paper.  Rather I suppose that intent is what makes the artwork art, a necessary component of the creation, and valuable in interpreting the piece.

            I disagree that the goal of interpreting artwork, at the exclusion of any other goals, is to discover the interpretation that gives the interpreter the most aesthetic pleasure.  This strips the author of the satisfaction, responsibility, and connection to the art.  I agree with Carroll that the ant-intentionalist proposition that aesthetically pleasing interpretation overrules all other goals of interpreting artwork is flawed.  I believe that this allows the interpreter to strip some value attributes from the author as well as minimizes the craft and makes it too easy to create something that would be considered art.  It is a very selfish understanding of the role interpretation of the appropriate way to interpret art.  In order to adequately appreciate a piece of art one must appeal to the meaning intended by the author.

Metaphors; A Magic Carpet to Literal Meaning

First I am going to do my best to articulate what I believe to be Max Black’s relatively comprehensive explication of the structure of a metaphor.  I am then going to explain what I believe the shortcomings of his analysis.  From this criticism I will derive what I believe the value of metaphor.  I will then address what I believe to be the most challenging flaw with my proposed value of a metaphor.  Finally I will conclude my structure of metaphor.

In his paper entitled “Metaphor,” Max Black presents a philosophical understanding of a common literary tool.  According to Black’s structure there are two aspects of a metaphor, the focus and the frame.  The focus is the word that is being used metaphorically.  The frame is the remainder of the sentence.  In order for a metaphor in its entirety to be understood appropriately, the author and the reader depend on the meaning of the words used.  Understanding the interplay between the focus and the frame, which is vital for an appropriate metaphor, depends on a sufficient understanding of the meaning of the words used as the focus and the frame.  Black iterates, “The rules of our language determine that some expressions must count as metaphors; and a speaker can no more change this than he can legislate that “cow” shall mean the same as “sheep.””  Black recognizes that there are restrictions to what would constitute as an appropriate metaphor. A metaphor is not a product of orthographic, phonetic, or grammatical usage.  The author or speaker is constricted by the normal usage of words.

When attempting to understand the emphasis or weight that the author or speaker puts on the metaphor Black recognizes that the author depends on the context.  That is how the author or orator uses tone, historical context, etc.

From here Black illustrates a substitution view of what occurs when using a metaphor that appeals to my understanding of the structure of a metaphor.  The substitution view supposes that a Metaphor (M) is a substitute for the literal explanation (L) of the point the author is trying to get across.  That is the (M) has the same meaning of (L).  Black recognizes that this seems like an unnecessary puzzle the author challenges the reader to solve included in a narrative and attempts to understand what the value of this type of substitution serves.  He supposes that perhaps there is no equivalent (L) so the author substitutes (M) in order to get his point across.  Additionally, Black recognizes the potential pleasure added when reading a metaphor as opposed to merely being exposed to a literal explanation.  Despite the potential enjoyment from problem solving (determining the equivalent (L) from the (M)), and the potential delight at the agreeable surprise, Black is not satisfied.  He feels as though this is a cheap explanation of a peculiar language quirk of which there is little evidence for its support.  This feels as though it is the easy way out of explaining what is occurring when one uses a metaphor. 

            Before Black gives us his proposed structure of a metaphor he supposes that there is little practical value in utilizing a metaphor.  He supposes, “Except in cases where a metaphor is a catachresis that remedies some temporary imperfection of literal language, the purpose of metaphor is to entertain and divert.”  He is of the opinion that since a metaphor always constitutes a deviation from the “plain and strictly appropriate style,” there is little use for a metaphor in the philosopher’s handbook if the philosopher is more interested in achieving a higher purpose then entertaining their reader.  I find this to be selling metaphors short.  There is a highly practical purpose of artistically utilizing a metaphor.  I will explain after I conclude explaining Black’s structure of metaphor. 

            For Black, the metaphor serves to extend the meaning of the focal word.  That is, in his interaction view, the focus “obtains a new meaning, which is not quite its meaning in literal uses, not quite the meaning which any literal substitute would have.”  He utilizes an example of a man being a wolf.  He supposes that if there is mutual understanding of the characteristics of a wolf and of a man then it should be understood that the focal word (wolf) serves to provide a system of associated commonplaces that provide some value when interacting with the subject; man.  I would like to refine Black’s structure of the role of metaphor and from that the value of the metaphor becomes apparent.   

The beauty of a high quality metaphor is that it has the potential to unlock some emotional connection to the point of (L).  If a metaphor is used with expertise then it serves to help explain the subjective character of the experience.  For example, when someone says “my heart is the size of the ocean,” assuming the reader has had the experience of standing on the beach and looking out onto the horizon, or even better the reader has had the experience of being at sea and seeing only blue water up to the horizon for all 360 degrees around him, he appreciates the feeling of “miniscule” relative to the size of the.  If the reader has had that experience he feels a certain way about the size of the person’s heart.  The depth of the understanding is exponentially higher because of the closeness to the subjective experience.  Had the reader never had either of those experiences, or if the author chose to use arbitrary adjectives (i.e. vast, gigantic, huge) the reader has a superficial, yet in some cases sufficient, understanding of (L).  Though the reader is not currently having the experience of the ocean, the relevant goal is to have an understanding of “size.”  A good metaphor serves to provide something close to a phenomenological experience that provides a better understanding of the type of size attempting to be described as opposed to a simple understanding of the words used to describe (L).

Metaphors serve another vital role. The English language still has holes in it.  There are nuances of circumstance that can be artistically explained via metaphor. The beauty of metaphor and the talent of good users of metaphor is that they can artistically (that is in an entertaining way) explain a phenomenon or a normal occurrence in a way that betters gets the point across to the reader then simply utilizing (L) type words.  The metaphor refers beyond itself.  From this I appeal to Black’s extension theory.  Not only does it have the potential to explain all of the things that you want to get across in one word; that is, have explanatory value, but also provides an experience that has more depth to it then only using adjectives.

A critic would challenge my supposition by suggesting an example of a very complicated and subjective point that a metaphor would look to explain.  Take for example, the feeling of “love at first sight.”  This is highly subjective, controversial, and complicated experience. 

Take for example the example of Harry and Sally.

Harry went to a philosophy study group and looked around at the other members of the study group.  When Harry’s eyes had the blessing of seeing Sally he felt as though the “cat got his tongue.”

Not only is it a difficult experience to understand the feeling of love and the excitement and nerves that could come with it, having the subjective experience of feeling like a “cat got his tongue” is equally as vague.  Suppose the reader is always nervous and perpetually has difficult finding his words.  Despite completely understanding the meaning of the words in the analogy that reader probably would associate that feeling with negative scenarios like embarrassment, lack of control, etc.  Clearly that is not the point the author meant to convey.  Such a potentially subjective experience like a phenomelogical one, or a complicated experience i.e. “love at first sight” will serve as an elusive guide to (L) because of all of the potential external (to this circumstance) variables that could be brought into the context of the metaphor. 

The enjoyment of the metaphor is once you achieve the level of understanding it is as if you are in the head of the author, that is attain an understanding of the current platitudes at use in the metaphor.  For, as Black recognizes in determining things that have a subjective judgment, like likeness, are not comfortable in that it seems to fail to provide a definite understanding.  He explains, “Likeness always admits of degrees, so that a truly “objective” question would need to take some such form as “Is A more like B than like C in respect of P.”  I would respond to the critic by suggesting that a good and appropriate metaphor written or spoken by a skilled writer or orator would have to take into account the readership.  The writer/orator would have to produce a metaphor that with enough availability to the intended meaning so that most readers would have adequate understanding of what is meant to occur when reading the metaphor.  This structure gives authors and orators criteria for which to be judged on for the quality and craftsmanship of their work.  I believe this to be a more accurate iteration of what a metaphor is rather then merely catachresis.  Catachresis is merely using a word in some new sense in order to remedy a gap in the vocabulary.  Metaphor does remedy a gap in the vocabulary but this is not mutually exclusive to the requirement of a metaphor to provide the best path to point of (L).  The reader rides the magic carpet woven by the author to get to (L).