Ambivalent Agency: A Response to Trogdon and Livingston on Artwork Completion

Psychologism about Artistic Plans: A Response to Rohrbaugh

“…Friends of psychologism have options in that this characterization is really more of a family of related views than a fully specified view in itself. On one way of filling in the details, we might understand psychologism in terms of artists’ judgments (see, e.g., Livingston and Gover ). Even then, we might further divide into camps based on whether we take those judgments to be cognitive or noncognitive .…”

“…In either case, Rohrbaugh argues, settling these matters will end up requiring an appeal to a cognitive judgment of completeness. Such judgments are thereby inevitable for any friend of psychologism (compare Gover , 458). But, as before, once we appeal to such cognitive judgments, we find ourselves faced with Rohrbaugh's Regress.…”

Psychologism and Completeness in the Arts

“…The metaphysical considerations have been dealt with, but how are we to square this view with an acknowledgment of the artist's sole and complete authority over his or her work? After all, Gover (, 457) is exactly right when she says, “she is the sole determinant of the criteria for completion as well as the judge of when it meets those criteria.” But this observation is not, as might be assumed, just a recognition of the truth of psychologism. We can consistently say that there is here a substantial, nonpsychological question about the work—whether the “criteria for completion” are satisfied—while also recognizing both (1) the authority of the artist over picking those criteria and (2) the authority he or she has to judge whether they are satisfied.…”

“…There remain active disputes over the details of this approach. Some, including Paisley Livingston (), Carol Archer (Livingston and Archer ), and K. E. Gover (), say that a work is finished when its author efficaciously judges it to be complete and so refrains from further intervention. Others, including Kelly Trogden and a later Livingston (, ), say that such an occurrent judgment is dispensable and that an author need only possess the right kind of disposition to refrain.…”

Artwork Completion: A Response to Gover

“…In “The Complete Work” (Trogdon and Livingston ) we set out and defend a view of artwork completion, the disposition view : an artwork is complete just in case the artist who created the work has acquired a completion disposition with respect to her work. We read K. E. Gover () as posing six objections to the disposition view. Below we reconstruct the objections and respond to each of them.…”