7/10/2002 2:52 AM C:\B\B\Intro\Quality_datoteke\GOODS
ACTIVITIES CULTURE.doc
Matjaž Potrč, University
of Ljubljana, Slovenia, matjaz.potrc@guest.arnes.si
What are most of goods
we are concerned with on an everyday basis? They seem to be Middle Sized Dry
Goods (MSDG’S). We take them to be substantial, the very paradigm of the items
containing substances or items built upon the substances. But these MSDG’s are
not necessarily always bought as basic. Blobjectivist ontological view takes
MSDG’s not to be substances but properties. These are then local properties
that supervene upon the regional properties of the BLOB, i.e. of the one world.
Once you take the blobjectivist view
of the MSDG’s, it turns out that they do not really exist in any substantive or
genuine way and that they are to a big extent products of linguistic or mental
categorizing activities imposed onto the world, i.e. upon the BLOB.
Culture cannot be satisfied
with just any old good. Culture is aiming towards goods that are opposed to the
prevalent MSDG centered society. MSDG’s tend to be repeatable, quantitative and
governed by the normative authority of the general. Culture as opposed to this
aims at goods that obtain their normative authority from the particular and
that are therefore goods coming with the quality. Quality itself is
characterized as the path of the particular. There is no automatism in quality,
but a risk related to the individual and contextually attuned judgment.
What is a good
will be discussed first. There are ethical and normative goods, and there are
material goods as well. Material goods are what our society is mostly concerned
with in everyday circumstances and in the normativity supporting them. Material
goods may be characterized as Middle Sized Dry Goods (MSDG’s). MSDG’s are
supposed to contain substances. There are troubles for such a view however
showing that a confusion must have been made here between what is ontic and
between what is ontological. Such could not have been the case if respect would
be paid to die ontologische Differenz. Blobjectivism is a Parmenidean
monistic view that takes MSDG’s not as something substantial, but as local
properties supervening upon the regional properties of the BLOB, i.e. of the
world.
As we mention goods,
there may be substantially two meanings attached to the word. Either we think
about ethical and normative goods, or again we have something such as material
goods in our mind. Examples of ethical goods are good deeds. If somebody is
helping those in need, his deed may be called a good one. We also talk about
opera performances being good or being bad, and in this sense the expression
good obtains an evaluative character. If we say that this performance of the
opera was good, we show the evaluative character of our goodness directed
judgment. Ethical goods are many times hard to pin down or to evaluate. Sometimes
there is no question about which of the guys in the movie are good and which
ones are bad guys. But many times considerations for attribution of judgment
have to be much richer, as this happens in our real life evaluations. Several
people had the idea that ethical goods may be substantialized. According to
them, ethical goods would have an objective existence, they would perhaps exist
as some kind of Platonic or Meinongian objects. Plato thought that ideas, such
as the idea of good, have more reality to them as several good deeds, because
each particular good deed is empirical, uncertain and passing, whereas ideas
remain unchanged in Platonic heavens. Meinong was convinced that there is some
kind of existence proper not just to physically or spatiotemporally existing
things, but rather to any items towards which one may possibly direct one’s
thoughts. Opinions may diverge here, but it somehow seems that the existence of
particular good deeds is more realistic than the supposition of the existence
of objectively existing goods as universals.
Anyway, the accent here is not on
ethical goods, but on material goods. We often talk about material goods in the
following manner: “How many goods did you purchase in the supermarket today?” –
“I bought seven items of the kind that were on offer.” We often mention
material goods in such a way, the goods thereby encompassing the house in which
we live and similar material things that are important for us. Probably we have
in our minds that these material things are good for something, that we may use
them for some purpose, or that they have a kind of pragmatic utility attached
to them. We buy these things so we can use them, and we feel good about
possessing them. Certainly material goods are more realistic in their existence
than this is the case with the ethical goods. This is one reason why to take
these material goods as things deserving a somehow closer look. Material things
are goods that our lives seem mostly concerned with. We work in order to be
able to purchase them. So it is worth to take material goods under scrutiny.
But here are some preliminary remarks about our practices and experiences
related to material goods. Even if we would happen to possess any item or any
good that we would like to – we may be stinky rich – we still would not
necessarily need to be satisfied because of this. And sometimes, even if we are
lacking most of these material goods that other people have, we may still live
our lives in a happy manner.
Middle Sized
Dry Goods (MSDG’s)
How did
philosophers characterize material goods, and how did they appreciate their
importance? Many philosophers thought that material goods are basic not just in
our everyday life, but also that they have to be taken as the basis for
considerations about what exists, for considerations in metaphysics. Aristotle
seems to have thought like that, and so did many empiricists.
Quine in general had kind of curious
view concerning the existence. His characterization of existence was as
follows: “To be is to be a value of a bound variable”. I.e., if there is the
unsaturated expression Ex Fx, and if we substitute a constant in the
place of the variable, we obtain Fa. This means that the variable x
became bound, with a name fixing an individual now. Say that Fa may be expressed
by the sentence Aristotle is a philosopher, where a is for
Aristotle and F is for philosopher. The main Quine’s idea in this
respect was: If you cannot assign a bound variable to an open quantified
sentence, then you do not really have to deal with the existence. But notice
that the characterization of existence is broader than that of material goods
we were mentioning earlier. The later form a subset of the former. Quine would
also admit that there are other forms of existence as just these pertaining to
the material goods.
It is somewhat strange that although
many philosophers took material goods as their point of departure, they did
rarely even characterize them and they did not characterize them in a
satisfying way at all. Quine is one of the rare people who provided such a
characterization as he said that material goods or objects are whatever fills a
spatiotemporal region. Now there are difficulties with this characterization
that immediately come to the mind. Just what is a spatiotemporal region and how
to determine it? How does the stuff fill this region? And what exactly is the
stuff that fills it? Does the region have an independent existence besides to
the stuff? At one point, Quine was talking about material goods as about
spatiotemporal worms. What was the idea? Take the cup and take the cat. The cup
figures some stuff occupying a certain region of space during some time. If we
trace the relatively compact filling of space during some time, we get a kind
of worm. Cup is a worm if we consider the trajectory it makes through the space
during some time, from the time since it was fabricated up till the time as it
became broken. The trajectory of the cat is even more dynamic and so a cat worm
would be perhaps more interesting as the cup worm. Questions arise even here:
Is the material object or the spatiotemporal worm vague or is it nonvague?
More interestingly, Quine talks
about material goods or about material objects as about Middle Sized Dry Goods
(MSDG’s), an expression that will be appropriated from here on. By this, he is
referring to the most of material objects that we find in our environment. A
first thing to notice is that the items are characterized as middle sized. Thus
they are somehow epistemically determined in relation to ourselves. They are
what is not too big and not too small in relation to our body. So we are not
talking about the whole universe here and neither about these tiny muons or
atoms. The middle sized items are characterized as goods, as something that is
pragmatically relevant. Further, they are said to be dry. So we are talking
about cups and cats. We are not talking about the water. For even if water is
an important good in the sense that we could probably not survive for long
without it, it is not something that could be easily chunked. We cannot hold a
certain middle sized amount of water in our hands, we have to put it into a
bottle, for otherwise it would spill. In general, it seems that a MSDG also
excludes stuff, even if it is dry, such as coal or gold. Although the coal is
dry, it is hard to make a chunked and approximately a well-delimited good from
it. It does not seem that a chunk of coal would be a candidate for having a
substance, in the same sense as the cup and the cat are candidates for items
that have substances.
At first sight it
seems to be clear what is a cup and what is a cat, and where they begin and
where they end, in a spatial and in a temporal way. Cup and cat are MSDG’s.
They are not just stuff, and they are not just arbitrarily gathered collection
of particles. It seems that they came together by some necessity, the necessity
steaming from the artisan’s design or from the biological evolutionary design,
as for that matter. It also seems that they possess some compactness,
compactness of a diversity that may be claimed to stick together because of the
substance. So cup is not just an assemblage of a handle and of a cone-shaped
container. It is not just coming together of these parts. These parts rather
are put together in the sense in which they are because an underlying essence,
a substance is holding them together. This seems even more the case for the
cat. It is not just that there is this cat’s leg here, and the tail, and other
parts. There seems to be a substance, say DNA that binds all of these parts
together just in the manner that they should be, as their underlying basis. So,
MSDG’s seem to have substances essentially proper to them.
Substance holds parts together, the
parts that would have no centerdness without it. More general name for parts
figures accidents. So the dichotomy is between substance and its accidents.
Many times, accidents are referred to as properties. So, a cup is an assemblage
of various properties, maybe physical or at least physically characterizable
properties, that would be arbitrarily dispersed in the case there would not be
any substance around, underlying them and tying them in a functional manner.
Substances are
widely accepted in metaphysics, including the metaphysics of MSDG’s. But
although substances help to solve several things, for example how to put
accidents together in a functional and sensible way, the supposition of
substances is not without troubles itself.
First, what exactly is a substance?
If it helps to bring together accidents as spatiotemporal items, what is the
substance’s own spatiotemporal status? In any way, it is very hard to trace. Is
there any substance in spatiotemporal sense located in the cup? No scientific
investigation will bring us close to the answer. If we break the cup into tiny
peaces and further into atoms and muons, there will be no substance found at
the end of the process by scientific means. But it is hard to imagine what
other appropriate means, if any, there would exist for locating it. If the
substance of the cat would be the cat’s DNA, it is again not easy to determine
what the spatiotemporal status of the DNA would be, or if DNA is really
substance at all.
Then, even if the substance would
exist: because the substance is most probably not spatiotemporal itself, how
could it bind together these accidents which, to the best of our knowledge, are
of spatiotemporal nature, in the case of MSDG’s?
These and similar troubles which
steam from assigning substances to MSDG’s show that there may be a confusion
encountered here. Substances are perhaps even not the main target right now.
Perhaps substances are just a symptom showing that there may be something wrong
with another underlying and deeper presupposition, namely that
there exists MSDG’s as ontologically independent
entities or PARTS.
Perhaps MSDG’s are
not really the things that exist, at least if the existence is taken in an
ultimate sense.
Respect die
ontologische Differenz, don’t mix the ontic with the ontological
The trouble with
the supposition of the existence of substances proper to MSDG’s turns out to be
the trouble with the presupposition of the existence of MSDG’s themselves, when
they are supposed to be independent ontological entities. Here is what these
troubles show may be the case: It may be the case that MSDG’s do not exist. At
least perhaps they may not exist as independent entities.
This is not to deny that the world
does not exist. The thesis proposed here would just result in the denial of the
existence of MSDG’s as PARTS, i.e. as ultimately existing ontologically founded
entities. But this is exactly what the supposition of the substance amounted
to: to present the entities that do not ultimately have any existence as PARTS
of the world as ones that are endowed with this kind of existence.
The supposition of the existence of
MSDG’s as independent PARTS or entities has pushed their acquisition of
substances and it has so pushed their recognition as ontologically
independently existing entities. But this may have been a wrong presupposition.
Perhaps MSDG’s aren’t really any PARTS, and they are not any ultimately
existing ontological entities. They are probably just what we find to be
plentiful around us, without any deep ontological grounding. They may be just
ontic entities. When we deal with cats and cups, we deal with the ontic, we do
not deal with ontology. We do not deal with what exists in a deep sense; we
just deal with what exists in a kind of a superficial, everyday manner.
Confusing what really exists in an
ultimate sense with what seems to exist as the first thing we encounter but
that really exists just in a superficial way introduces a lack of respect for die
ontologische Differenz. Die ontologische Differenz is the distinction
between the area of the real ultimate existence and between the only
superficial existence, between ontology and the ontic.
The lesson to be taken from troubles
with the substance as the symptom of confusing MSDG’s as ontic entities with
ultimately ontological entities should be as follows: Respect die
ontologische Differenz! Do not confuse whatever does not really exist with
that which has an ultimate kind of existence. By the way, the capitalized usage
of expression, such as PARTS, is to indicate that these expressions refer to
things that ultimately ontologically exist, in counterdistinction to these that
do not really ultimately exist, such as parts. MSDG is confusing here: it has
the ultimate existence just in a misguiding way.
Blobjectivism: MSDG’s are local properties that supervene upon the regional properties of the BLOB, i.e. of the world
What really and
ultimately exists is the whole spatiotemporal universe or the BLOB, according
to the teaching that is called blobjectivism. Blobjectivism claims that BLOB is
the only existing object, for there are difficulties to recognize either the
existence of a multiplicity of vague objects or slobjects on of nonvague
objects or snobjects. Blobjectivism as a sort of monism further takes into
question the distinction between reality and appearance, by claiming that the
BLOB is rich and dynamic. It also saves much of everyday and scientific talk by
claiming that truth should be construed as an indirect kind of correspondence.
But, if BLOB is the only ultimately
existing or ontological object, and if there are no PARTS, what about the
MSDG’s then, such as cups and cats, that we usually take to be the paradigm
cases of the existent? Blobjectivist answer is that MSDG’s are properties. Cups
and cats then, from the perspective of blobjectivism, are not any entities in
the spatiotemporal or physical sense. They are just properties. And properties
do not necessarily have an independent existence.
A comparison or a metaphor is useful here in order to illustrate how it may be the case that there are properties, and that there is the BLOB, but that therefore properties are not yet any independently existing entities. Take this apple. You can talk about it as about an apple. But you can cut the apple and see the juicy stuff inside from which it is mostly construed. And you can also observe the color of the apple’s skin. The color of the apple’s skin, red say, is the property of the apple. But this does not mean that there exists this property of red independently of the apple, or that independently of the apple there exists the juicy inside stuff. As we are referring to the color, we are referring to the apple itself, not to any independently existing property. In a similar sense, when we are talking about MSDG’s we are not referring to the independently existing PROPERTIES. Rather, we are simply referring to the BLOB, we are directing our attention to some local aspect of this very rich and dynamic entity, the BLOB, or our universe – in an indirect manner.
MSDG’s such as cup or cat are thus
properties according to blobjectivism. But these properties, thus MSDG’s, are
not related to the BLOB in any direct manner. Rather they are related to the
BLOB’s regional properties. How comes? We have to consider first that similarly
as in the case of the apple, regional and local properties do not have any
independent existence as PARTS; they are just so many manners of describing
really existing aspects of one rich and dynamic BLOB. Here is a schema that may
facilitate seeing the mentioned relations:
BLOB | BLOB’s
regional subvenient properties | BLOB’s local supervenient properties (MSDG’s)
Ontology: ultimate |
regional | Ontic: local
Higher normative requirements: philosophical setting |
scientific setting | Lower normative requirements: everyday setting
A commentary is
needed to sort out the relations in the above summary schema.
Let us take a look at the first line
of the schema. Here we have the BLOB as the only existing ultimate object,
spatiotemporally characterized, according to blobjectivism. We also have BLOB’s
regional subvenient properties. These properties do not comprise the whole of
the BLOB; they are just regional specifications of the BLOB. They are
specifications of the BLOB’s regional physical spatiotemporal constituency.
These regional subvenient properties are just manners of describing the real
constituency of the BLOB, without being PARTS themselves, similarly as the
juicy stuff in the apple is not an independent object or PART, but just a
manner of specifying a regional aspect of the apple. BLOB’s local properties do
not directly appear or supervene on BLOB, as already mentioned. They appear
upon the BLOB’s regional properties. As local properties are MSDG’s, and as an
apple is a MSDG, we may use apple as an illustration here. An apple as a MSDG
does not really exist however. It is just a local property, supervening upon
the regional properties of the BLOB. These regional properties specify in
physical terms the juicy stuff in the apple, as physical regional properties of
the BLOB. These regional properties of the BLOB are just manners of specifying
the BLOB in physical terms, in a region-ish way. So, there is no APPLE around
as a genuine PART. But there is MSDG-apple local supervenient property, which
is itself an aspect of the BLOB.
The expression supervenience was
used in the above commentary, so it should be explained. Historically,
supervenience first appeared in contexts of moral theory. Later it was used as
a means of maintaining the non-reductionist approach all in respecting the
naturalistic basis. A property, such as being good, is a supervenient property,
appearing on a subvenient physically specified basis, if and only if, given
that there would be an identical physical basis in another situation, it could
not have been the case that the same supervenient property would not have
appeared. Say that St. Francis is good, and that the property of goodness
appears as based on the subvenient physical regional arrangement of the world.
Now, if there would have been exactly the same physical arrangement in another
situation, it could not have been the case that St. Francis twin in that
situation would not be good as well. Counterfactual relation is using
counterfactual specification, by referring to the situations that did not but
could have obtained. Counterfactual specification introduces lawful relation,
which is a desirable thing. In counterdistinction to the emergence that is sui
generis, counterfactual relation preserves explanatory power.
In sum, we have identified from the
blobjectivist perspective MSDG’s to be supervenient properties, whose
subvenient basis are the subvenient regional or physically specifiable
properties of the BLOB. MSDG’s, thus, are not any entities at all. But as we
refer to MSDG’s, such as cups and cats, we are talking about the BLOB, as about
the local manners how the BLOB is.
Let us turn now to the second line
of the schema. BLOB and BLOB’s regional subvenient properties are both
ontological. They belong to the ultimate reality, as it exists independently
from language and thought. But whereas we really talk about the ultimate
reality in the case of the BLOB itself, we approach the ultimate ontology of
the BLOB in a regional way as we talk about the BLOB’s regional properties, specifiable
in a scientific manner. Both the BLOB itself and BLOB’s regional subvenient
properties contrast here with the realm of the ontic, which gets introduced by
BLOB’s local supervenient properties, MSDG’s in our case. If we would not
center at MSDG’s, we could have given other examples of supervenient local
properties that are more usual in the literature, such as mental properties.
Mental properties are thus themselves a kind of local properties of the BLOB,
supervening upon the subvenient physically specifiable regional properties of
the BLOB. Notice that ontic is closer to our epistemic access, to the first
things that we encounter. We certainly do seem to have our first epistemic
access to MSDG’s and to the mental, but not to the BLOB. The real ontological
story may reverse this epistemic order.
The third line in the schema further
lays out some things. We have not specified BLOB itself too extensively. The
reason is that direct referring to the BLOB is only possible in a specific
setting, such as that of the philosophical discourse. Rather high normative
standards or requirements are in force then about what it is sensible to talk
about: what it is sensible to talk about in such a setting. Notice that talking
about the BLOB directly would not be appropriate in most of everyday
situations, but that this is appropriate in the rather artificial setting of
philosophy, where normative standards involving what is appropriate to mention
are set in a comparatively high manner. Higher normative requirements are also
appropriate as we tackle regional ontological setting involving the BLOB’s
regional subvenient properties. Only that now these setting involves scientific
characterization of the BLOB’s regional basis. Both BLOB and BLOB’s regional
subvenient properties are contrasted here again with the lower normative
requirements specific for everyday settings, appropriate for ontic stuff of
local BLOB’s supervenient properties, such as MSDG’s. That was what we had to
say about some specifications concerning the above schema. Nobody says that
ontology is easy! Many times a good metaphysics will start with what is
epistemically obvious and turn it on the head as something ontologically
derivative, actually as the ontic stuff. This is also the case with MSDG’s, such
as cups and cats, seen as the first things that we have an epistemic access
towards in our everyday environment, and which turn out to be nothing but
supervenient properties of the only existing object under the blobjectivist
perspective.
Blobjectivist view
about MSDG’s suggests that these do not really and ultimately exist in any
substantive or genuine way. But if this is the case then MSDG’s may be
characterized as the product of linguistic or mental categorizing activities.
These activities cannot be arbitrary though, because their subvenient basis is
in the world, i.e. in the BLOB.
Blobjectivist view about MSDG’s suggests that these do not really exist in any substantive or genuine way
MSDG’s, such as
cups and cats, do not really exist as genuine entities from the blobjectivist
perspective. If cups and cats are nevertheless taken to exist, as independent
PARTS, as it is usual in many everyday and philosophical approaches
(philosophical approaches relying on these everyday presuppositions) then the
bet is that they would have to be proven as ontologically respectful entities.
This they can hope to achieve by introducing the supposition that they have
substances. But as MSDG’s do not really have any substances – for they do not
really exist – the self defeating character of this search becomes apparent.
MSDG’s are nothing but supervenient properties, showing some aspect of the
BLOB. But they are not PARTS, which they would have been if there would be a
plurality of objects around. Blobjectivism claims however that there is really
just one object around, the BLOB.
MSDG’s are product of linguistic or
mental categorizing activities cum fundamentum in BLOB
Distinction
between the ontology and between the ontic in the schema above, or between the
higher normative requirements and between the lower or everyday normative
requirements was in a sense the distinction between that what really exists in
a manner that is independent from any epistemic factors such as language and
thought, and between that which does substantially depend on the factors of
language and thought. BLOB and subvenient regional properties of the BLOB, the
world and what is regionally specifiable in the world by scientific means, is
ontological and independent of language and thought. MSDG or the ontic stuff,
which allows for lower normative standards of the setting where it is
specified, such as in the everyday setting, is ontic, and thereby it is heavily
language and thought dependent in its specification. We recognize something as
a cup, or as a cat, even if these items may not have an ultimate ontological
existence. We recognize these as MSDG’s, i.e. as properties, themselves
consisting of several other properties. A cup is recognized until there is an
open-cone container of a certain size around and also a handle of certain
appropriate size. A bird is categorized as a MSDG-bird property if some other
properties enter into it, such as flying, nesting in trees, having feathers.
The categorization of MSDG’s may be a complex enterprise and it certainly
involves recognizing and other epistemic activities involving linguistic
and mental means. This is not something unexpected if we consider that language
and thought are basically activities themselves. They are activities promoted
by these MSDG’s that are usually referred to as talking and thinking beings but
that ultimately ontologically do not exist either, by the people.
One may think now that once the
categorizing power of linguistic and mental activities is given an important
place in the constitution of MSDG’s, the linguistic and mental activities will
become completely independent of the world, i.e. of the BLOB. And this would
mean that by the power of categorization any arbitrary carving of the world may
be effectuated. But this is not the case however. For the linguistic and mental
activity have an important root and corrective. This is the fact that
categorization, in the case when it is a correct kind of categorization,
happens not only in respect to linguistic and mental powers, but also in
respect to the BLOB, in respect to the ways the BLOB actually is and behaves.
Locally, the BLOB may display the property of a cup. Now, the categorization of
the cup will be correct if happening through the linguistic and mental means in
such a way that MSDG-cup subvenient properties of the BLOB will support it, and
not when the MSDG-cat subvenient regional properties of the BLOB will support
it. The world or the BLOB thus has an important say in the correctness of the
categorization. It is thus true that MSDG’s are products of linguistic and
mental categorizing activities. But all in being that, they are not arbitrary,
because they are activities ultimately rooted in the world. Categorizing
activities are activities cum fundamentum in BLOB. We should not forget
that MSDG activities are just one kind of manner to approach the BLOB, namely
that they present the ontic local properties.
Culture may not be
pursued and followed by every member of a society. But culture itself is picky
as well. It is not satisfied by just any old good that may come around. To some
extent, culture is aiming towards goods that are opposed to the prevalent
MSDG’s centered society. MSDG’s tend to be repeatable, quantitative and
governed by the normative authority of the general. Culture, on the other hand,
aims at goods that obtain their normative authority from the particular and
that are therefore goods coming with quality. Quality itself may be
characterized as the path of particular, of each one individually. Quality is
not supported by any generalized automatism; it may rather be the product of
the risk that is related to the contextually attuned individual judgment.
Culture is a wide
term. It covers activities in many fields, such as painting, the literature,
science and many activities that one can find in a certain society. Why thus
not just take everything that is produced in a society, for example this bottle
of Coke, and observe it as a cultural good? This would suppose a too wide
specification of what is culture. Not just any old good, such as this bottle of
Coke, is a cultural good! We need some criteria. Negative criteria for a
cultural good will be shortly delimited first, followed by characterization of
positive criteria involving cultural goods.
Culture is aiming towards goods that are opposed to the prevalent MSDG’s centered society
MSDG’s, such as
cups, Coke bottles and cats are the goods towards which our society tends to be
centered in a prevalent way. But culture, understood in the narrower sense as a
cultural activity, is not aiming just at any old MSDG. Many times cultural
products in the narrower sense are first rejected and only consecutively they
get appropriated as important goods by a society. Cultural products often tend
to be presented as marginal goods, considered as marginal in respect to most of
the goods produced in a society. It often happens that the best artists and the
goods that they produce are not immediately recognized by the society in which
they live. Rather, the common opinion of the epoch would not recognize these
products as valuable ones. Certainly these goods do not tend to be practical,
they just present opposition to MSDG’s. What are thus characteristics of the
MSDG’s?
MSDG’s tend to be repeatable, quantitative and governed by the normative authority of the general
MSDG’s, such as
cups and Coke bottles, tend to be repeatable. They are usually produced in
large quantities, which by itself tends to efface their individuality. It is
important that you get what you expect for the price you pay. Thus the
normative authority MSDG’s tend to obey is that of the general. Only if there
exist a predictive general pattern will MSDG goods be considered as appropriate
for the society in most of the cases.
Culture aims at goods that obtain their normative authority from the particular and that are goods with quality
The goods towards
which an interesting culture is aiming do not subscribe to generalities. They
are not the kind of goods that would obtain their reason of being by falling
under general patterns. The interesting or relevant culture always tries to put
these general patterns into question. Even putting a Coke bottle as a ready
made object at the exposition produces challenge to general principles from the
part of the normative authority of the particular. But not just any old
challenge of the general pattern will be appropriate for an interesting or
relevant culture. The challenge of the general pattern has to come from the
side of the quality. And where does quality come from?
Quality is the
mark of the particular. Take the example of what is often called qualitative or
conscious experience. Its main characteristic is that the qualitative
experience cannot be accounted for from the objective third person perspective.
The quality of this experience I have right now is ultimately proper to me
only. Even if I try to express it in generally accessible terms, the
qualitative experience will stay just my particular property in its qualitative
dimension. There will persist an explanatory gap between the first and between
the third person perspective.
Quality is the mark of the
particular in these rare occasions where the mark of particular succeeds in
challenging general patterns. Quality indicates the path of particular as well,
where there is decision for someone particular to embark on her own itinerary,
to take account of one’s own desire. Such a path is many times undertaken by the
artists who do not only master well generally accessible techniques of the area
they work in, but who exceed these techniques by the mark of their qualitative
individual approach.
There is no generalized automatism in quality, but a risk related to the contextually attuned individual judgment
Quality does not
necessarily reject general patterns. The mastering of general patterns may be a
necessary condition, a precondition for quality to appear. But qualitative risk
exceeds the generality induced generalized automatism by adjoining an
irreducible individual mark to what already exists as the habitual thing. This
individual mark does not have the guarantee that is many times there in the
case of the normative authority of the general. As there are no generalized
guidances in the qualitative approach, the merits of contextually attuned
individual judgment come into the foreground. This is not just the way of
achieving productivity in the culture, but also of assuring quality of one’s
individual life.
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(1993). “From Supervenience to Superdupervenience: Meeting the Demands of the
Material World”. Mind 408: 555-586.
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