Is Köpcke being inconsistent? He makes a piece of art, with the instruction,
"Insert words". You insert words and end up with the police. McEvoy calls it
'satire' of 'modern' art and wonder if implicatures are involved. He (McEvoy)
suggests that filling in Köpcke's piece possibly 'adds value,' but brings the
issue for discussion.
My question, is the artist being 'consistent' has to be understood technically,
since we are dealing here with contradictions, with, for Grice, are simple
enough (just blatant violations of the cooperative maxim, "Do not say what you
believe to be false"), whereas for Sir Karl, they involve inconsistencies and
touch on irrefutability -- or something like that. It's all so complex that the
case is the textbook definition of the 'authorial fallacy' in aesthetic theory.
Thanks to McEvoy for his expansion on Popper on 'contradiction,' which I
thought was at the heart of Köpcke's implicature (or rather the new exhibition
label, to the effect that one is to comply with "do not insert words" --
whereas the original caption, still being displayed, reads, "insert words").
McEvoy writes:
"Let's break this litany of error down. ... It would be more accurate to say,
for Popper, that a system that admits contradictions as true would be a system
[of statements] where nothing is refutable in terms of inconsistency - where
nothing can ever be ruled out as false: because everything will be consistent
with the contradiction. That is why any such a system should be rejected -
because minimal standards of consistency are abandoned in any system where a
gross inconsistency like a contradiction is accepted. However, let us say I
prefer a system without minimal standards of consistency: what can now _refute_
my system? As inconsistency is already allowed within it, nothing can be
inconsistent with it in a way that refutes it - that is the very problem with
it. So contradictions are not strictly refutable but must be rejected within
any system unless everything within that system is to be irrefutable - and
'irrefutability' is not a virtue but a lethal vice. ... it is not so much that
a system that contains a contradiction is thereby refuted but that it must be
rejected because within such a system nothing is refutable in terms of
inconsistency, and such a system fails to keep to minimal logical standards by
accepting inconsistency.... [Let us] chose a different example like "There is a
swan in my room and there is not a swan in my room" ... the most important
mistake ... is the claim that a contradiction is a "statement to the effect
that the state of affairs that [it] depicts cannot occur". A contradiction does
not state that the state of affairs it depicts "cannot occur" but that it _can
occur_: for example, that it _can occur_ both that "This sentence is in English
and this sentence is not in English" or that it _can occur_ both that "There is
a swan in my room and there is not a swan in my room". And that is the problem."
-- which, was, I thought Ms Grice (the name I'm using for this German lady
reported in The Daily Telegraphy, in the reference kindly supplied by McEvoy)
who followed:
i. Insert words.
only to be told that what she should have done is followed:
ii. Do not insert words.
I take that the conjunction of (i) and (ii) would be a contradiction. There is
no way Ms Grice can comply, as the art gallery now wants, with both commands.
The art gallery (our second utterer) then means to say that (i) is being
"mentioned," but not used, and that the real order is the prohibition NOT to
insert words.
Since two utterers are involved -- Köpcke's "Insert words", with Köpcke as the
first utterer; and the art gallery curator as a second utterer with "Do not
insert words" being USED and NOT mentioned -- there is no contradiction. The
existence of a possible contradiction came to light when Ms Grice reported to
the police, "I was just following the injunction." And the new policy by the
curator is to disallow that possibility.
Now, if Köpcke did mean his addressee NOT to insert words by interpreting
"Insert words" ironically, that's a different way of dealing with a
contradiction -- or rather a way out of a contradiction. But I take McEvoy's
point that a contradiction prima facie does pretend to display or depict a
state of affairs that can occur (and I also take the point about the lack of
existential import of 'all', and welcome his use of the example of the swan
with the existential quantifier, rather.
McEvoy goes on:
"the problem with a contradiction ... is that if we accept it - for example,
accept "This sentence is in English and it is not in English", or, generally,
accept a statement and its negation as true - then we have admitted (into our
system of statements) that any state of affairs can occur even if it
contradicts some other state of affairs accepted as true. In such a system, the
logical standards of consistency are too feeble for anything to be refutable on
the grounds of inconsistency - and it is this resultant lack of refutability
that is the flaw in such systems. Popper's approach to contradiction and
tautology is, in this respect, similar to Tractarian Wittgenstein: a tautology
admits too little and a contradiction admits too much, in terms of what logical
possibilities [or Tractarian "logical space"] it canvasses."
I wonder if it relates to Popper's views on probabilities, since I like that
idea of the 'too little' and 'too much'. This has been analysed by Bar-Hillel
and Carnap:
They argue that it may seem strange that a self-contradictory sentence (such as
"Insert words and do not insert words") hence one which no addressee can comply
with, is regarded as carrying with it the most inclusive information.
However, it should be emphasized that "semantic information" (which may relate
to the "logical space" mentioned by McEvoy above) is here not meant as implying
truth.
Thus, a false sentence which happens to say much is thereby highly informative.
A self-contradictory sentence asserts too much; it is "too informative to be
true," Bar-Hillel and Carnap put it. Mind, it may be the case that Popper read
about Bar-Hillel and Carnap.
On ther other hand, I doubt Köpcke ever heard of Kripke.
Cheers,
Speranza
********
Justin Huggler writes from Berlin for the Telegraph, under "91-year-old woman
fills in crossword at museum - only to discover it was a £60,000 artwork":
A 91-year-old woman has been questioned by police in Germany — after she filled
in the blanks in a piece of modern art based on a crossword puzzle.
The pensioner, who has not been named under German privacy law, was questioned
under caution after she filled in the work valued at €80,000 (£67,000) with a
biro.
"Reading-work-piece", a 1977 work by Arthur Köpcke of the Fluxus movement,
essentially looks like an empty crossword puzzle.
Next to the work is a sign which reads: “Insert words”.
The hapless pensioner explained to police that she was simply following the
instructions.
“The lady told us she had taken the notes as an invitation to complete the
crossword,” a police spokesman said.
The elderly lady was part of a group visit to Nuremberg’s Neues Museum, where
the work is displayed.
If the museum didn’t want people to follow the artist’s instructions, they
should put up a sign to make that clear, she told police.
Eva Kraus, the museum director, said the damage was not permanent and would
probably be relatively easy to repair.
“We do realize that the old lady didn’t mean any harm,” she said.
“Nevertheless, as a state museum couldn’t avoid making a criminal complaint.
Also for insurance reasons we had to report the incident to the police.”
The private collector who presented the work to the museum took the incident in
good humour, she said.
Restoring the work is expected to cost a few hundred euros and the museum will
bear the expense, she said.
The work was presented to the museum by a private collector.
“We will let the lady know that the collector took the damage to the work in
good humour, so she doesn’t have a sleepless night,” Ms Kraus said.
The museum said that in future it would alter the label for the work to make it
clear visitors were not permitted to fill in the blanks.
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