Miško Šuvaković Epistemology of Art - TkH

68··· ··· 69
The text addresses the problem of methodology, namely, validating
methodology as the research program. The first analogy refers to a
textbook or a textbook programme. On the first level of consideration,
the textbook is conceived as a map of indexes whose system structure
is set against non-systematic (conventional) priorities. The index
structure is situated around the interior dynamics of the Art&Language
community; in other words, around the concept of interior dynamics
of a community as an essential determinant of a paradigm. This
proposition frames the analysis of the index problem as pertaining
to Thomas Kuhn’s concept of paradigms in scientific communities,
implying that cognitive problems, meanings of the discourse, texts,
conversations, or mutual learning are determined through interior
relations between the members and associates of Art&Language. The
concept of textbook structure, i.e. index structure, is not rendered as
a general methodological scheme, but rather as a tool or set of tools
for research in theoretical domains of conversation, learning, writing,
etc. The purpose of establishing the index structure is a systematic
methodological observation of the ways of employing, on the part of
the community, the mapping analytical machinery. Determining the
method is rendered in five steps: (1) by way of a map (review), intuitive
or informal understanding is systematized and summed up into a
set of criteria of adequacy, e.g. of procedures of teaching and learning,
(2) these criteria of adequacy delimit the temporary formulations of
an explicit theory (3) formal theory is tested against the criteria of adequacy
to ascertain that necessary demands of each theory have been
observed, (4) consequences of the proposed and developed theories
are established, while a possibility of verifying theories pertaining to
individual standpoints is taken into consideration, and (5) theory can
be applied to the main problems in the researched and established
domain. Procedural sequence from (1) to (5) demonstrates how the
interior dynamics of the paradigm is developing, from location of individual
intuitions, through systematizations assuming a function of the
basic criteria of adequacy, to a formal, relatively general theory which
can further be applied to seeking individual solutions. The process
described features an intertextual, namely, inter-discursive map, network,
or grid of individual contributions: suggestions and responses.
Individual contribution to this analogous textbook system is always
an unperfected order of elements, while network, mapping, or grid
features of the order dictate the value and meaning of individual elements.
Conceptual and semantic superposition of structure to the element
indicates that Art&Language theory of indexes is devised from
holistic principles. Individual conventions establish an unperfected
empirical order, while two types of generalizations can be acknowledged:
(a) first are abstract or hierarchical and establish difference
in type, and (b) other pertain to analogies and establish difference in
degree. The grid structure is based on a polar concept:
The concept of a lath is a polar concept, it registers the continuous
polarity rather than discrete separation, of the formal and, as it
were ‘intuitional’ or ‘material’ modes of experience. The determinate
characterisation of either pole requires some kind of reference
to the other. The status of the indices compatible with the propositional
attitudes of a single contributor is essentially ideological. The
institute may be looked at as a corpus of ideological commitments
compromising a field. The problems are essentially regarded as ‘objective’.
The Activity may be regarded as a generally focused search
for methodologies: i.e. for a general methodological horizon. 113
This quote underlines three crucial positions of the theory of indexes:
(1) holistic character of the structure of polarities establishing correlative
references; namely, semantic value of one polarity is determined
by its place in the structure of indexes and relations with other
polarities of the network, (2) ideological position (ideological body
pertaining to the community) is derived from individual positions, circumscribed
in the pattern of propositional utterances – statements
comprising a premise (position, viewpoint) and a proposition, and (3)
acting in the locale (discursive space) of holistic structuration and
ideological demarcation of procedures means searching for a method.
These three positions of Art&Language feature juxtaposed concerns
of analytical philosophy (structural semantic holism, methodology)
113 Art&Language, „The Art-Language Institute: Sugestions for a Map“, pp. 17.16-
17.18.