Nelson Goodman's distinction between autographic and allographic arts is appealing, we suggest, because it promises to resolve several prima facie puzzles. We consider and rebut a recent argument that alleges that digital images explode the autographic/allographic distinction. Regardless, there is another familiar problem with the distinction, especially as Goodman formulates it: it seems to entirely ignore an important sense in which all artworks are historical. We note in reply that some artworks can be considered both as historical products (...) and as formal structures. Talk about such works is ambiguous between the two conceptions. This allows us to recover Goodman's distinction: art forms that are ambiguous in this way are allographic. With that formulation settled, we argue that digital images are allographic. We conclude by considering the objection that digital photographs, unlike other digital images, would count as autographic by our criterion; we reply that this points to the vexed nature of photography rather than any problem with the distinction. (shrink)

This paper continues Israel Scheffler's investigation of rituals as autographic/allographic. It concludes that the autographic/allographic distinction is more fruitfully applied to rituals as a gradual distinction, distinguishing rituals in terms of their autographic/allographic elements or aspects.

The primary concern of our 2014 paper was not notation but the autographic/allographic distinction, not representations as such but works of art. As we see it, Zeimbekis's considerations do not ultimately undermine the position we advanced in 2014— but they do challenge an element of Goodman's own theory of notation that derives from his requirement of recoverability. That requirement can be abandoned without losing the explanatory power of the autographic/allographic distinction as we have refined it.

Nelson Goodman notoriously distinguished between autographic works, whose instances should be identified by taking history of production into account, and allographic works, whose instances can be identified independently of history of production. Scholars such as Jerrold Levinson, Flint Schier, and Gregory Currie have criticized Goodman’s autographic/allographic distinction arguing that all works are such that their instances should be identified by taking history of production into account. I will address this objection by exploiting David Davies’ distinction between e-instances and (...) p-instances of a work, thereby restating the autographic/allographic distinction. Then, I will show that this way of restating this distinction leads us to effective accounts of relevant related phenomena such as forgery, plagiarism, and digital technologies. Finally, I will show the theoretical advantages of my account of the autographic/allographic distinction in comparison with an alternative account recently proposed by Jason D’Cruz and P.D. Magnus. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungIm Verlauf der Ming- und anschließenden Qing-Dynastie stieg die Anzahl der im medizinischen Bereich tätigen Personen erheblich an. Und auch die Anzahl medizinischer Abhandlungen wuchs proportional zum Anstieg medizinischer Experten. In dieser Hochphase medizinischer Publikationen, in der das Fehlen eines institutionalisierten Zulassungssystems einem breiten Personenspektrum gestattete sowohl Medizin zu praktizieren als auch darüber zu schreiben, mussten sich die Autoren eine besondere Strategie zur Legitimierung und Aufwertung ihrer Bücher einfallen lassen, zumal seit dem 19. Jahrhundert Europäer mit der Verbreitung unterschiedlicher Techniken (...) und Kenntnisse begonnen hatten und dadurch die ohnehin schon starke Konkurrenz noch weiter anstachelten. Einen wichtigen Faktor dieser Strategie bildete das Vorwort. Was ein Autor über sich selbst und seinen Text aussagte, wen er bat, sein Vorwort zu schreiben und was diese Leute wiederum als wichtig zur Empfehlung eines neuen Buches erachteten, ist Gegenstand des Artikels. Diese Aspekte sollen ein Bild davon vermitteln, worauf im späten chinesischen Kaiserreich medizinische Autorität und Legitimation beruhten. (shrink)

Issues about the nature and ontology of works of art play a central part in contemporary aesthetics. But such issues are complicated by the fact that there seem to be two fundamentally different kinds of artworks. First, a visual artwork such as a picture or drawing seems to be closely identified with a particular physical object, in that even an exact copy of it does not count as being genuinely the same work of art. Nelson Goodman describes such works as (...) being “autographic.” Second, other artworks such as musical or literary works seem to be copyable without any such limitations: for example, two identical copies of a novel could each equally be a genuine instance of that novel; such works are “allographic,” in Goodman’s terminology. Nevertheless, it seems clear enough that a deeper understanding of both kinds of artworks requires the pursuit of analogies or similarities between them, in spite of their differences. Any such analogies that may be found will provide critical tests for more general theories about the nature of artworks. I show how to resolve such analogies for the orientational concept of inversion. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Multiplicity How Are Instances of Comics Created? Autographic and Allographic Conclusion Notes References.

Le concept d’authenticité sert de base à la valorisation de la thématique de « l’identité » qui domine aujourd’hui. Anish Kapoor présente toutes les garanties de cette « hybridité » actuellement très à la mode. Toutefois, il résiste explicitement à toute tentative de « mise en boîte » qui le cantonnerait à l’expression d’une quelconque « indianité ». Kapoor est connu pour l’aspect sensoriel et aléatoire de son travail. Shooting into the Corner est un excellent exemple d’une œuvre qui évacue (...) l’identification culturelle ; elle trouble par ailleurs les catégories goodmaniennes habituelles d’autographique et d’allographique. Son slogan – « Je n’ai rien à dire » – semble confirmer ce rejet de l’authenticité. Je compte démontrer que même l’aléatoire et l’auto-engendré sont reliés au critère d’authenticité, si cette notion repose sur l’intentionnalité et « l’intensionnalité » de l’œuvre d’art. Redéfini ainsi, le concept d’authenticité deviendrait une « règle constitutive » de notre institution. (shrink)

There is disagreement as to the ontological status of works associated with an original. Some hold that works like paintings are identical to the concrete particular the artist worked on while creating the artwork. Others suggest that works of this sort cannot be instantiated more than once. In this paper, it is argued that, even if artworks like paintings cannot be instantiated in reproductions, they are nevertheless possibly instantiated more than once. Moreover, it is tentatively suggested that the same holds (...) for improvisations in music. Therefore, even the best candidates on offer do not allow for an identification of the work with a particular or for an identification of the work with a type that is instantiated maximally once. The argument rests on thought experiments, and an inference to the ‘best’ explanation. This inference is, of course, defeasible. Four alternatives, three of which are potentially fruitful, will be identified, and it will be argued that, on balance, these alternatives should be dismissed. (shrink)

Co-authored by three prominent philosophers of art, Jazz and the Philosophy of Art is the first book in English to be exclusively devoted to philosophical issues in jazz. It covers such diverse topics as minstrelsy, bebop, Voodoo, social and tap dancing, parades, phonography, musical forgeries, and jazz singing, as well as Goodman's allographic/autographic distinction, Adorno's critique of popular music, and what improvisation is and is not. The book is organized into three parts. Drawing on innovative strategies adopted to address (...) challenges that arise for the project of defining art, Part I shows how historical definitions of art provide a blueprint for a historical definition of jazz. Part II extends the book's commitment to social-historical contextualism by exploring distinctive ways that jazz has shaped, and been shaped by, American culture. Chapters 4 and 5 use the lens of jazz vocals to provide perspective on racial issues previously unaddressed in the work, after which chapter 6 examines the broader premise that jazz was a socially progressive force in American popular culture. Part III concentrates on a topic that has entered into the arguments of each of the previous chapters: what is jazz improvisation? It outlines a pluralistic framework in which distinctive performance intentions distinguish distinctive kinds of jazz improvisation. This book is a comprehensive and valuable resource for any reader interested in the intersections between jazz and philosophy. (shrink)

Given the increasing need for solid organ and tissue transplants and the decreasing supply of suitable allographic organs and tissue to meet this need, it is understandable that the hope for successful xenotransplantation has resurfaced in recent years. The biomedical obstacles to xenotransplantation encountered in previous attempts could be mitigated or overcome by developments in immunosuppression and especially by genetic manipulation of organ source animals. In this essay we consider the history of xenotransplantation, discuss the biomedical obstacles to success, (...) explore recent developments in transgenic sourcing of organs and tissues, and analyze the problem of infectious disease resulting from xenotransplantation (xenosis). We then apply a model of risk analysis to these risks. The conclusions of this risk analysis are used in an ethical evaluation of informed consent in xenotransplantation, with an ethical foundation in Kantian autonomy and Levinasian heteronomic alterity. Our conclusion is that individual and collective informed consent to the infectious disease risks of xenotransplantation requires an open, participatory and dialogical public policy process not yet seen in the United States and Europe. Until that process is created, we propose caution in xenotransplantation in general and a postponement of solid organ xenotransplants in particular. (shrink)

Firstly, this contribution proposes to address synthographies – images generated through Text-to-image technologies – by deepening the epistemological shift related to the possibility of transposing the image-creation process from the analogue arts to the notational ones (or, by drawing on Nelson Goodman's terminology, from the “autographic” to the “allographic” forms of art). Secondly, the paper highlights how synthographies can be considered partly autographic and partly allographic, since the linguistic prompts constitute only the notational aspect of the generated images. (...) Furthermore, this contribution argues that the recent critiques around such images, which referenced aspects related to the absence of authorial presence and mechanicality, characterised the history of photography since its beginning. Finally, the contribution explores how the possibility to create synthographies that are almost indistinguishable from photographies easily might further separate the interaction between the detective and the depictive functions to the advantage of the latter, erasing what remains of the visual reliability and documental value of images. (shrink)

Firstly, this contribution proposes to address synthographies – images generated through Text-to-image technologies – by deepening the epistemological shift related to the possibility of transposing the image-creation process from the analogue arts to the notational ones (or, by drawing on Nelson Goodman's terminology, from the “autographic” to the “allographic” forms of art). Secondly, the paper highlights how synthographies can be considered partly autographic and partly allographic, since the linguistic prompts constitute only the notational aspect of the generated images. (...) Furthermore, this contribution argues that the recent critiques around such images, which referenced aspects related to the absence of authorial presence and mechanicality, characterised the history of photography since its beginning. Finally, the contribution explores how the possibility to create synthographies that are almost indistinguishable from photographies easily might further separate the interaction between the detective and the depictive functions to the advantage of the latter, erasing what remains of the visual reliability and documental value of images. (shrink)

Digital pictures can be type-identical in respect of colours, shapes and sizes (allographic), but they are not tokens of notational systems, because the types under which they are identical have vague limits and do not meet the requirements for notational characters. Digital display devices are designed to instantiate only limited ranges of objective properties (light intensities, sizes and shapes). Those ranges keep differences in objective magnitudes below sensory discrimination thresholds, and thus define objective conditions sufficient, but not necessary, for (...) the phenomenal type-identity of pictures. The fact that digital pictures are types shows that pictures are not necessarily autographic. Moreover, the reasons why digital pictures are allographic (essentially, the consistent manipulation of sub-phenomenal information) could in principle also be made to apply to non-digital pictures. (shrink)

This paper explores some issues concerning the ontology of photography. It would appear that photography’s ontology bears some significant specificities comparing with other art forms. First, the study of negative film and printed photograph relations shows us that photography has a multi-layered ontology, since although the latter is ontologically dependent upon the former, it stands autonomously as work of art. Second, I will consider the problem of forgery in photography. It seems that photographs are autographic and allographic, fakeable and (...) unfakeable. Third, ontological status of negative film will be explored. Apparently, current ontological categories aren’t pertinent as far as negative-photograph’s ontology is concerned. That’s why, relying on Gérard Genette ontological notions, I propose to consider the negative film as «immanence» and the printed photograph as work’s «transcendence». In this regard, printed photograph functions as a manifestation of the negative film. (shrink)

The paper considers an argument of Richard Wollheim’s, originally presented in a 1976 symposium with Goodman and Wiggins, which disappeared when the symposium contribution was ‘reprinted’ in the supplementary essays to the expanded edition of Art and Its Objects (Wollheim, 1980). It lays out the argument’s original context, locating its objectives by means of a comparison with Goodman’s autographic/allographic distinction, with its attendant discussion of the ‘history of production’, and presents Wollheim’s defence of ‘the artist’s theory’. This defence coheres (...) in interesting ways with Wollheim’s aesthetics emphasis on the importance of the artist’s intention (suitably understood) as part of a specification of what the work itself is. This conception reinforces the importance Wollheim grants both to the fulfilled intentions of the artist and to a suitably positioned, suitably informed, and suitably sensitive spectator. Both should be modelled as operating under the aegis of the artist’s theory, a notion this ‘missing’ argument serves to emphasize. (shrink)

This article defends a Platonist view of streaming. It is opposite to the mainstream representation that streaming has “liquidated” the structure both objective and collective of musical experience. On the contrary, streaming is the support of a new kind of musical object, which is distinct both from the allographic notational objects and from the phonographic ones. This third kind of object has to be characterized as a flux-object. The way it is diffused and accessible implies a new kind of (...) experience. Cyberspace in which this experience takes place is characterized as an “hyperobjective noosphere”: the relation of streaming with the subjects of musical experience is akin to the relation of atmosphere or biosphere to the living beings. This article invites to an ascetic exercise: the everyday experience of the listener has to become mindful of the “swarm community” in which s/he participates by streaming. Thus it develops a renewed musical Platonism, as a kind of response to “object-oriented ontologies”. According to this renewed Platonism, dispositional properties are essential to the objects. Objects have no sense apart from the relation to individual and collective subjectivations that are potential parts of them. (shrink)

A review of the achievements of Fr. Busa over the course of his 60 years of work in the area of computational linguistics: internal hypertexts, the systematization of allographs, lemmatization, homographs and typologies; the lexical system; the laws of economy for graphemes, for semantic typology, for heterogeneity among terms, and of the two lexical hemispheres. Finally, the project of disciplined languages is mentioned, a response to the linguistic challenge resulting from informational globalization.

In a series of recent papers, Professor Nick Zangwill has returned our attention to the merits of aesthetic formalism. In this paper, I seek to support formalism as an approach to understanding what counts as an aesthetic property by considering how this approach serves to illuminate identity conditions and critical assessment of a subset of allographic works of art I label “consumable”; these are works that exist as token art objects (as contrasted with art works) only within thetemporal duration (...) of their being reproduced and presented to their audiences. I look at three sorts of consumable art forms: food, theater plays, and dance. (shrink)

In a series of recent papers, Professor Nick Zangwill has returned our attention to the merits of aesthetic formalism. In this paper, I seek to support formalism as an approach to understanding what counts as an aesthetic property by considering how this approach serves to illuminate identity conditions and critical assessment of a subset of allographic works of art I label “consumable”; these are works that exist as token art objects (as contrasted with art works) only within thetemporal duration (...) of their being reproduced and presented to their audiences. I look at three sorts of consumable art forms: food, theater plays, and dance. (shrink)

Conservation problems can reveal unsuspected complexities in the ontological make-up of modern and contemporary artworks. Using a problem in the conservation of one of Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawings as my starting point, I argue that Goodman’s well-known and often criticized distinction between autographic and allographic art can be fruitfully used to articulate the different options in conservation dilemmas, but only if used in a non-disjunctive way and in the context of a biographical approach to the works under consideration.

I argue that there is no distinction between allographic and autographic representations. One consequence of this is that replicative forgeries have the same aesthetic and artistic value as originals, and are accurate records of actions. I end with some reflections on the pragmatic structure of forgery.

In "How to Forge a Musical Work," Peter Kivy poses a counterexample to Nelson Goodman's view that forgery is impossible in "allographic" art form such as music. Yet Kivy's example does not raise problems for Goodman's position, because his example does not exemplify the sort of forgery of concern to Goodman. By focusing on Kivy's characterization of what counts as a version of a work of art, I argue that he only seems to make room for musical forgeries (of (...) the sort damaging to Goodman's view) by collapsing the difference between versions of a work and instances of a work. (shrink)

The employment of digital technology in recent instances of artwork replication raises important questions about the perceptual and ontological distinction between original and copy, for the latter is purported to be even more authentic than an original that has undergone alterations. Such instances challenge not only Benjamin’s claim about the loss of aura but also Goodman’s distinction between autographic and allographic arts. The article proposes to rethink the original/copy dualism from the perspective of the cult image. In the devotional (...) traditions of Graeco-Roman polytheism as well as Christianity and Buddhism, cult images are approached not as representations, but as animated entities endowed with thaumaturgic powers that can be ritually transferred onto copies. From this perspective, replication is not about reproducing more or less faithfully the original, but engendering a double as effective as the original. Finally, the bearing of this perspective on contemporary works of art is considered. (shrink)

With this text I wish to revisit a long-standing preoccupation of mine which addresses the extent to which the digital medium may have brought about a paradigm shift in creative process; one which has been effectuated through a conversion of the creative medium itself – from atoms to bits. As a visual practitioner, what is particularly significant to my enquiry is that this change in medium is deemed to have brought about a change in language that affects the very nature (...) of autographic work which comes into being as visual output: following Goodman’s definitions of allographic and autographic output, McCullough asserts that visual artworks may now be considered to be allographic productions since they presently share the same attributes of notationally based allographic work, which has traditionally manifested only as music or as literary output. The result is a work environment which wide opens the doors to unprecedented levels of non-linear process and experimentation whilst engaged in the visually creative act. (shrink)

Clanak nastoji da utvrdi identitet umetnickog dela u slikarstvu, muzici i knjizevnosti. Rasprava je po svom karakteru ontoloska. Posebna paznja posvecena je problemu falsifikata umetnickog dela u razlicitim umetnostima. Tu razlikujem dve vrste falsifikata: fake i forgery. Prva vrsta falsifikata postoji iskljucivo u umetnostima u kojima je umetnicko delo singularan fizicki objekat, takozvanim autografskim umetnostima, dok se druga vrsta falsifikata moze pojaviti i u drugim, alografskim, umetnostima, iako mnogo redje. Sa problemom falsifikovanja umetnickog dela usko je povezano pitanje mogucnosti redukovanja (...) umetnickog dela na formalni simbolicki sistem, koji bi predstavljao svojevrsnu definiciju umetnickog dela. Rasprava pokazuje da konzistentna analiza ontoloskog statusa umetnickog dela u razlicitim formama umetnosti, daje naizgled neintuitivne i iznenadjujuce rezultate. (shrink)

A review of the Czech translation of Nelson Goodman's Languages of Art. I emphasize Goodman's move away from the issue of the definition of art, and the fruitfulness of the autographic/allographic distinction.

Dans cet ouvrage tiré d'une thèse soutenue à l'université de Toronto, Rachel Sauvé aborde la question de la femme auteur et de la place des femmes dans l'institution littéraire par un biais original : elle y étudie un ensemble de préfaces allographes (c'est-à-dire écrites par quelqu'un d'autre que l'auteur) à des œuvres littéraires du XIXe siècle. Établi de façon très systématique, le corpus de deux cent dix préfaces (dont cent soixante et onze à des œuvres de femmes) allant de 1803 (...) à... (shrink)