1. Intro. k.kortmulder@kpnplanet.nl
In Part III of my essay, some things were unclear or incorrect. Several kinds of value were mentioned, but without clarifying their relationships to the concept of value that I proposed. The confusion became most evident in the final pages, where I answered some questions from the public. Please refer to Answer 2, where I mentioned ‘artistic value’, and suggested it to be synonymous with my concept of value. This was wrong.
In the end, I may have to rewrite the Introduction (section III.1) to Part III, but let me begin with the Questions and Answers numbers 2 and 3, which I reproduce here the way they were.
But here first is my definition of value, copied from section III.3: The quantity of images going in, together with the degree of their integration with the internal organisation already present. (See section III.7 for a sketch of a formalism).
[quote:]
“Q2: I think your view of value misses several points. In my eyes, a mediocre piece of art from a period of which little is left, is worth much more effort to conserve than a masterwork from a well-documented time or area.
“A2: One of my points of departure is that the value of an art object as an art object does not change when it becomes rare or when many similar objects are discovered. What you allude to as reasons for conservation is the scientific value, or the commercial. The latter I have left out from the beginning. The scientific value is possibly what Leertouwer had in mind. His remark served the purpose in the introduction, but I think also scientific value should be excluded from the artistic value.
“Q3: On the whole, I appreciate your approach to the concept of value in nature. A similar treatment of art, however, is unjustified, because it ignores the transcendent values inherent in the latter, in particular the value of beauty. How do you propose to deal with them?
“A3: This is a very important point. Let me add a few notes. First - at the risk of damaging my own point of view - I have doubts about any categorical distinctions between humans vs animals, culture vs nature. Nature too appeals to our sense of beauty. Moreover, wherever natural beauty is a result of sexual selection, it mirrors the sense of beauty of the selecting partner (who was/is an animal).
“Second, it is important to distinguish between the concept of beauty and its actualisation in this or that object. As we all know, the presence and degree of it in a certain object is admitting of personal taste and of cultural background.
“In the art world of to-day, the predicate of beauty is out. More weight is given to an object’s power to arrest and hold attention. This may do paltry justice to the concept of beauty, but the advantage is that one can measure that power by observing people. More or less the same is true for other non-verbal responses of spectators betraying the perception of beauty: being awed, stunned, reverent, devoted etc.
“As to mutual gauging of different measures, I derive some confidence from the fact that it is all about images, also in the appreciation of beauty: the perfect balance between qualitatively different subjects in a painting, the brilliant turn in the plot of a story, the surprising yet familiar shift of key in music, etc.
“Finally (but not least), should such integration of measures prove impossible, and our measurement of value be of necessity incomplete, this should not deter us from further developing and applying the new principle here proposed for as far as it goes, in art as well as in nature. In my opinion, it contributes to our understanding of what this is: an object’s value.”
[end of quote]
2. Some new considerations.
There are many possible measurements of value, depending on diverse subjective interests: financial, scientific, artistic, power/prestige, sentimental and transcendental, and I think they are all dictated by subjective interests, and all different from the sort of value I propose. Therefore they should be excluded from the latter’s definition. We may call the kind of value here proposed: disinterested value.
One consequence of being aware of the disinterested value is that the total value of many a work of art (a fortiori for an organism) is much higher than one thought, because (apart from the subjective values) it would equal the costs of a complete and exact restoration of the object should it have been lost.
The Answer on Question 2 should now become:
Q2: I think your view of value misses several points. In my eyes, a mediocre piece of art from a period of which little is left, is worth much more effort to conserve than a masterwork from a well-documented time or area.
A2: With the definition of value suggested in my essay, the value of an art object does not change when it becomes rare or when many similar objects are discovered. What you allude to is the object’s scientific value, or the commercial. The latter I have excluded from the start, and I think that the same should apply to the scientific value. Perhaps my quoting Leertouwer’s adage in the Introduction of Part III has caused confusion, because he may have meant the scientific value. That passage served the purpose at that point in my essay, but should not be read as a plea to include scientific value in my definition. In fact, I exclude all sorts of value that depend on subjective (human) interests: financial, scientific, artistic, power/prestige (stemming from the possession of the object), sentimental and perhaps even transcendental values such as beauty. The concept of value that I propose is what remains, should all conscious consideration of the object become extinct. For this remaining value I suggest the term: disinterested value.
Some confusion may also have arisen from my passage: “...is the effort [...] necessary and justified to preserve [the object] for the future.” In terms of the conclusions of the essay, the passage is about the sum of all values including the subjective ones. By “transcending the personal aspects of ‘you, me or him’,” the subjective ones may be eliminated.
On the other hand, if you take into consideration the value of ‘species’ as well as individuals - as I very provisionally attempted in section III.8 (Other scales of magnitude) - it is true that a whole species disappears with the demise of its last member. In this case, you would be right that a last member of a period or style has a heightened value, also in the disinterested sense, because of its Mohican status.
Of A3, only the beginning is affected, thus:
Q3: On the whole, I appreciate your approach to the concept of value in nature. A similar treatment of art, however, is unjustified, because it ignores the transcendent values inherent in the latter, in particular the value of beauty. How do you propose to deal with them?
A3: This is a very important point. In my answer to the former question (Q2), I hinted at the exclusion of transcendental values from my concept of value, but I am still thinking about that. Let me add a few notes. First - at the risk of damaging my own point of view - I have doubts about any categorical distinctions between humans vs animals, or culture vs nature. Nature too appeals to our sense of beauty. Moreover, wherever natural beauty is a result of sexual selection, it mirrors the sense of beauty of the selecting partner (who was/is an animal).
Second, it is important to distinguish between the concept of beauty and its actualisation in this or that object. As we all know, the presence and degree of it in a certain object is admitting of personal taste and of cultural background.
In the art world of to-day, the predicate of beauty is out. More weight is given to an object’s power to arrest and hold attention. This may do paltry justice to the concept of beauty, but the advantage is that one can measure that power by observing people. More or less the same is true for other non-verbal responses of spectators betraying the perception of beauty: being awed, stunned, reverent, devoted etc.
As to mutual gauging of different measures, I derive some confidence from the fact that it is all about images, also in the appreciation of beauty: the perfect balance between qualitatively different subjects in a painting, the brilliant turn in the plot of a story, the surprising yet familiar shift of key in music, etc.
Finally (but not least), should such integration of measures prove impossible, and my measurement of value be of necessity incomplete, this should not deter us from further developing and applying the new principle here proposed for as far as it goes, in art as well as in nature. In my opinion, it contributes to our understanding of what this is: an objects’s value.
(Koenraad Kortmulder, June 6th, 2023).
