Green war banners in central copenhagen

a recent political struggle over interpretation—and some implications for art interpretation as such

Frederik Stjernfelt

pp. 209-223

in: Peer F. Bundgaard, Frederik Stjernfelt (eds), Investigations into the phenomenology and the ontology of the work of art, Berlin, Springer, 2015

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of the role of Quasi-Urteile—Quasi-Propositions—in the arts. Stemming from Ingarden's Aesthetics, the notion of Quasi-Propositions addresses the idea that artworks employ proposition-like structures even if their reference deviates—to larger or lesser degrees—from that of propositions in non-arts contexts. Here, the Peircean doctrine of Dicisigns—propositions—is introduced, with a much wider range of sign vehicle types able to instantiate propositional content, such as signs involving pictures, diagrams, gestures, etc. Taking a particular Danish controversy—that of a military "cartouche" at a Copenhagen barracks—as an analytical example, the chapter argues that filling-in is constrained by context, genre as well as aspects of the work itself, making it possible to categorize certain filling-ins as wrong, going against the potentialities of the work. The case, simultaneously, makes necessary a softening up of Ingarden's rigid distinction between fictions and non-fictions.

Cited authors

Ingarden Roman Witold