Kendall Walton
Encyclopedia
Kendall Lewis Walton is an American philosopher, the Charles Stevenson Collegiate Professor of Philosophy
and Professor of Art and Design at the University of Michigan
. His work mainly deals with theoretical questions about the arts and issues of philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and philosophy of language. His book Mimesis as Make Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts develops a theory of make-believe and uses it to understand the nature and varieties of representation in the arts. He has also developed an account of photography as transparent, defending the idea that we see through photographs, much as we see through telescopes or mirrors, and written extensively on pictorial representation, fiction and the emotions, the ontological status of fictional entities, the aesthetics of music, metaphor, and aesthetic value.
, originally pursuing a major in music, having been a serious musician, probably headed towards music theory.
However, a philosophy course in his sophomore year convinced him to change his major, tentatively, from music to philosophy. After a few more courses, he became convinced he had found his calling, stating that he had always been “more or less hooked” on philosophy, despite not knowing it by that name.
Because of his background in music, Walton expected that he would have an interest in aesthetics and philosophy of art, but was unmoved by his contacts with these fields at Berkeley. After graduating in 1961, he pursued postgraduate studies at Cornell University
where he attended a seminar with the British philosopher and aesthetician Frank Sibley
that he discovered “how exciting aesthetics can be, how serious, rigorous philosophical thought can connect with real, real-world interests in the arts.” He wrote his dissertation, 'Conceptual Schemes: A Study of Linguistic Relativity and Related Philosophical Problems', with Sydney Shoemaker on philosophy of language, mind and metaphysics, and graduated in 1967 with a Ph.D.
After having been invited to teach a course on aesthetics that he was not fully prepared for (having only had the one seminar with Sibley), he stayed up nearly all night brainstorming topics, which lead to his paper 'Categories of Art'. Recognizing that the analytic tradition
had not explored aesthetics at the time, he was drawn to the idea of being a pioneer, staying “That is more fun, for me, than fine tuning ideas others have worked on for decades or centuries. And I don’t have to leave behind my interests in music and the other arts”
He joined the University of Michigan faculty in 1965, and became Charles L. Stevenson Collegiate Professor in 1999. He was elected as a Fellow
of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
in 1998, and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Nottingham
in 2005. He was president of the American Society for Aesthetics from 2003 to 2005.
Mimesis as Make -Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts. The theory is a development of Ernst Gombrich's sketched ideas concerning the relationship between toys and art, presented in his famous essay 'Meditations on a Hobby Horse', which Walton has described as having been “largely ignored” by most of philosophy of art.
According to Walton's theory, representational art can be understood as props that prescribe specific imaginings, analogous to the way children's toys such as dolls and teddy bears function as props in children's games of make-believe, albeit with greater sophistication. Via certain principles of generation, any such prop generates fictional truths, which collectively constitute fictional worlds. Walton identifies two kinds of such worlds: the game world of each participant and the work world, which can be thought of as containing only such content as is true in any well-formed game world. Props are divided into two forms: sensory depictions (such as paintings, sculpture and certain kinds of music), and verbal representations (such as novels and the spoken component of theater).
A key clarification that the make-believe theory offers is the idea that the term 'fictional' can be taken to mean “true in the appropriate game of make-believe” or, equivalently, true in the fictional world of the representation. Walton states that “Imagining aims at the fictional as belief aims at the true. What is true is to be believed; what is fictional is to be imagined.” He develops this concept into an ontology of fictional objects that eliminates any “voodoo metaphysics” by recognising that people sometimes refer to fictional entities as if they were referring to real entities. Walton identifies a pretence construal whereby a person pretends to describe the real world, when actually describing a fictional world.
The genesis of the make-believe theory can be found in Walton's 1978 paper 'Fearing Fictions', which addresses the Paradox of Fiction i.e. how can we be moved by things that do not exist in the case of fition? Walton's solution is to accept that our responses to fiction are genuine emotions, but to deny that they correspond to the conventional feelings that we refer to – rather, it is fictional that they are the conventional emotions. So, for instance, when a person who has watched a horror movie declares that they felt afraid, it is true that they were emotionally moved, but fictional that what they were moved to was fear. Walton refers to these fictional emotions as quasi emotions.
In later papers, Walton has expanded his theory to recognize a distinction between content oriented make-believe, which describes a participant's relationship to the fictional worlds of novels, films, paintings etc. and prop oriented make-believe, in which the participant's interest is in the nature of the prop itself, not in the fictional world that attaches to it. Metaphors are a classic example of prop oriented make-believe: the phrase “we are in the same boat” is not intended to elicit imaginings about the fictional boat we are in, but to communicate by drawing our attention to a specific prop (the boat). Stephen Yablo has developed Walton's concept of prop oriented make-believe in connection with numbers and concluded that our understanding of cardinality is essentially based upon fiction.
as “the most significant event in Anglo-American aesthetics in many a year”, and compares it to Nelson Goodman's
Languages of Art
, Richard Wollheim's
Art and Its Objects and Arthur Danto's
Transfiguration of the Commonplace by suggesting that it “joins a small pantheon of landmark books”.
Simo Säätelä compared Walton's approach with the make-believe theory to that of Gilbert Ryle
in The Concept of Mind
, albeit far wider in scope.
Patrick Maynard has praised Walton's achievement, staying: "he has worked out a theory of representation relevant to the arts. In an age of aesthetics glib about theory, I wonder if it will be appreciated how significant an accomplishment this is."
The game designer and philosopher Chris Bateman
has adapted the make-believe theory to games and videogames.
Additionally, he has developed a transparency thesis of photography, which is summarized in the following claim: “Photographs are transparent. We see the world through them.” Walton recognizes that this use of 'see' may differ from its conventional usage, but considers it parallel to the way we talk about 'seeing' through a telescope or other such tool. In viewing a photograph, we thus have two related experiences: we see through the photograph to the circumstances it was originally taken, and we have a fictional experience using the photograph as a prop e.g. if one looks at a photograph of Aunt Mabel grimacing one may say “Aunt Mabel is grimacing” - it is fictional that one sees her grimacing, but in addition one actually sees through the photograph an actual grimace that she had on her face in the past.
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and Professor of Art and Design at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
. His work mainly deals with theoretical questions about the arts and issues of philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and philosophy of language. His book Mimesis as Make Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts develops a theory of make-believe and uses it to understand the nature and varieties of representation in the arts. He has also developed an account of photography as transparent, defending the idea that we see through photographs, much as we see through telescopes or mirrors, and written extensively on pictorial representation, fiction and the emotions, the ontological status of fictional entities, the aesthetics of music, metaphor, and aesthetic value.
Biography
Walton studied as an undergraduate at the University of California, BerkeleyUniversity of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, originally pursuing a major in music, having been a serious musician, probably headed towards music theory.
However, a philosophy course in his sophomore year convinced him to change his major, tentatively, from music to philosophy. After a few more courses, he became convinced he had found his calling, stating that he had always been “more or less hooked” on philosophy, despite not knowing it by that name.
Because of his background in music, Walton expected that he would have an interest in aesthetics and philosophy of art, but was unmoved by his contacts with these fields at Berkeley. After graduating in 1961, he pursued postgraduate studies at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
where he attended a seminar with the British philosopher and aesthetician Frank Sibley
Frank Sibley (philosopher)
Frank Noel Sibley was a British philosopher who worked mainly in the field of aesthetics. He was a professor of philosophy at Lancaster University. Sibley is best known for his 1959 paper "Aesthetic Concepts" , and for "Seeking, Scrutinizing and Seeing"...
that he discovered “how exciting aesthetics can be, how serious, rigorous philosophical thought can connect with real, real-world interests in the arts.” He wrote his dissertation, 'Conceptual Schemes: A Study of Linguistic Relativity and Related Philosophical Problems', with Sydney Shoemaker on philosophy of language, mind and metaphysics, and graduated in 1967 with a Ph.D.
After having been invited to teach a course on aesthetics that he was not fully prepared for (having only had the one seminar with Sibley), he stayed up nearly all night brainstorming topics, which lead to his paper 'Categories of Art'. Recognizing that the analytic tradition
Analytic philosophy
Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century...
had not explored aesthetics at the time, he was drawn to the idea of being a pioneer, staying “That is more fun, for me, than fine tuning ideas others have worked on for decades or centuries. And I don’t have to leave behind my interests in music and the other arts”
He joined the University of Michigan faculty in 1965, and became Charles L. Stevenson Collegiate Professor in 1999. He was elected as a Fellow
Fellow
A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...
of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
in 1998, and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Nottingham
University of Nottingham
The University of Nottingham is a public research university based in Nottingham, United Kingdom, with further campuses in Ningbo, China and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia...
in 2005. He was president of the American Society for Aesthetics from 2003 to 2005.
Make-Believe Theory
Walton's major contribution to philosophy is his theory of representation, known as the make-believe theory. In the context of ontology, the same theory is usually referred to as pretence theory, and in the context of representational arts, prop theory. Walton has been working on this philosophical theory since 1973, and it is expounded in his 1990 magnum opusMagnum opus
Magnum opus , from the Latin meaning "great work", refers to the largest, and perhaps the best, greatest, most popular, or most renowned achievement of a writer, artist, or composer.-Related terms:Sometimes the term magnum opus is used to refer to simply "a great work" rather than "the...
Mimesis as Make -Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts. The theory is a development of Ernst Gombrich's sketched ideas concerning the relationship between toys and art, presented in his famous essay 'Meditations on a Hobby Horse', which Walton has described as having been “largely ignored” by most of philosophy of art.
According to Walton's theory, representational art can be understood as props that prescribe specific imaginings, analogous to the way children's toys such as dolls and teddy bears function as props in children's games of make-believe, albeit with greater sophistication. Via certain principles of generation, any such prop generates fictional truths, which collectively constitute fictional worlds. Walton identifies two kinds of such worlds: the game world of each participant and the work world, which can be thought of as containing only such content as is true in any well-formed game world. Props are divided into two forms: sensory depictions (such as paintings, sculpture and certain kinds of music), and verbal representations (such as novels and the spoken component of theater).
A key clarification that the make-believe theory offers is the idea that the term 'fictional' can be taken to mean “true in the appropriate game of make-believe” or, equivalently, true in the fictional world of the representation. Walton states that “Imagining aims at the fictional as belief aims at the true. What is true is to be believed; what is fictional is to be imagined.” He develops this concept into an ontology of fictional objects that eliminates any “voodoo metaphysics” by recognising that people sometimes refer to fictional entities as if they were referring to real entities. Walton identifies a pretence construal whereby a person pretends to describe the real world, when actually describing a fictional world.
The genesis of the make-believe theory can be found in Walton's 1978 paper 'Fearing Fictions', which addresses the Paradox of Fiction i.e. how can we be moved by things that do not exist in the case of fition? Walton's solution is to accept that our responses to fiction are genuine emotions, but to deny that they correspond to the conventional feelings that we refer to – rather, it is fictional that they are the conventional emotions. So, for instance, when a person who has watched a horror movie declares that they felt afraid, it is true that they were emotionally moved, but fictional that what they were moved to was fear. Walton refers to these fictional emotions as quasi emotions.
In later papers, Walton has expanded his theory to recognize a distinction between content oriented make-believe, which describes a participant's relationship to the fictional worlds of novels, films, paintings etc. and prop oriented make-believe, in which the participant's interest is in the nature of the prop itself, not in the fictional world that attaches to it. Metaphors are a classic example of prop oriented make-believe: the phrase “we are in the same boat” is not intended to elicit imaginings about the fictional boat we are in, but to communicate by drawing our attention to a specific prop (the boat). Stephen Yablo has developed Walton's concept of prop oriented make-believe in connection with numbers and concluded that our understanding of cardinality is essentially based upon fiction.
Responses
The make-believe theory has been described by Jerrold LevinsonJerrold Levinson
Jerrold Levinson is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is particularly noted for his work on the aesthetics of music, as well as for his search for meaning and ontology in film, art and humour....
as “the most significant event in Anglo-American aesthetics in many a year”, and compares it to Nelson Goodman's
Nelson Goodman
Henry Nelson Goodman was an American philosopher, known for his work on counterfactuals, mereology, the problem of induction, irrealism and aesthetics.-Career:...
Languages of Art
Languages of art
Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols is a book by American philosopher Nelson Goodman. It is considered one of the most important works of 20th century aesthetics in the Analytic tradition. Originally published in 1968, it was revised in 1976...
, Richard Wollheim's
Richard Wollheim
Richard Arthur Wollheim was a British philosopher noted for original work on mind and emotions, especially as related to the visual arts, specifically, painting...
Art and Its Objects and Arthur Danto's
Arthur Danto
Arthur Coleman Danto Arthur Coleman Danto Arthur Coleman Danto (born January 1, 1924 is an American art critic, and professor of philosophy. He is best known as the influential, long-time art critic for The Nation and for his work in philosophical aesthetics and philosophy of history, though he...
Transfiguration of the Commonplace by suggesting that it “joins a small pantheon of landmark books”.
Simo Säätelä compared Walton's approach with the make-believe theory to that of Gilbert Ryle
Gilbert Ryle
Gilbert Ryle , was a British philosopher, a representative of the generation of British ordinary language philosophers that shared Wittgenstein's approach to philosophical problems, and is principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase "the ghost in the...
in The Concept of Mind
The Concept of Mind
The Concept of Mind is a book by the philosopher Gilbert Ryle. It argues that the concept of "mind" is "a philosophical illusion hailing chiefly from Descartes and sustained by logical errors and 'category mistakes' which have become habitual." Richard Webster praises its "lucidity and vigour",...
, albeit far wider in scope.
Patrick Maynard has praised Walton's achievement, staying: "he has worked out a theory of representation relevant to the arts. In an age of aesthetics glib about theory, I wonder if it will be appreciated how significant an accomplishment this is."
The game designer and philosopher Chris Bateman
Chris Bateman
Chris Mark Bateman is a game designer, outsider philosopher and author, best known for the games Discworld Noir and Ghost Master, the books Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames, 21st Century Game Design and Beyond Game Design: Nine Steps Toward Creating Creating Better Videogames, and his...
has adapted the make-believe theory to games and videogames.
Later Theories
Walton has developed several additional philosophical theories pertaining to art. He has developed the groundwork for a theory of aesthetic value in which aesthetic pleasure is understood as being partly constituted by the admiration a participant feels for an artwork, and suggested that styles in art can be understood by comparison to the adjective qualities we attach to the actions that artists apparently took in making a work of art.Additionally, he has developed a transparency thesis of photography, which is summarized in the following claim: “Photographs are transparent. We see the world through them.” Walton recognizes that this use of 'see' may differ from its conventional usage, but considers it parallel to the way we talk about 'seeing' through a telescope or other such tool. In viewing a photograph, we thus have two related experiences: we see through the photograph to the circumstances it was originally taken, and we have a fictional experience using the photograph as a prop e.g. if one looks at a photograph of Aunt Mabel grimacing one may say “Aunt Mabel is grimacing” - it is fictional that one sees her grimacing, but in addition one actually sees through the photograph an actual grimace that she had on her face in the past.
Books
- Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990.
- Marvelous Images: On Values and the Arts. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
- In Other Shoes: Music, Metaphor, Empathy, Existence. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press (forthcoming).