Abstract

Puzzlement about how feelings can be put into and expressed by objects has generated expression theories of art. These theories rely upon an analogy between art and language; I examine the ways in which this analogy can be spelled out, discussing both theories of art and corresponding theories of language. ;I begin by considering Locke's view of language and Ducasse's parallel theory of art. On Locke's view the meaning of a word is an idea in the mind which gives life to the signs with which we arbitrarily associate them. The meaning of an artwork is similarly construed by Ducasse. However, upon investigation these ideas and signs, in language and in art, are conspicuously absent. ;I next discuss Collingwood's aesthetic and the notion that language and art share a common origin and that they are both externalizations of "imaginary objects." But imagination, it appears, enters into art--and language--in ways incompatible with and unaccountable by the theory. Moreover, the metaphysics supporting the common-origin view cannot withstand scrutiny. ;A parallel is esbtablished next between a theory of the meaning of emotion-words involving inner ostensive definition and a certain picture of "the creative process." The examination of this parallel includes a review and application of some of Wittgenstein's work on privacy. ;Langer's account of artistic meaning is taken up, and the atomistic referential theory of meaning she relies upon proves unequal to the task of explaining meaning, in art and in language. The relation between symbol and feeling, the content of the symbol itself, the connection between form and feeling, and the requisite special perceptual mode all resist an intelligible formulation. ; Lastly I dicuss the problem of the artist's intentions in connection with the role of the medium. I consider the parallel problem of intention in language: No more do words make preexistent thoughts in a speaker's mind tangible than artworks clothe preexistent images in the artist's mind. ;Throughout the work I find insights from Wittgenstein on the philosophy of language illuminating when considered in connection with aesthetic problems