Psychologism and Completeness in the Arts

Abstract

When is an artwork complete? Most hold that the correct answer to this question is psychological in nature. A work is said to be complete just in case the artist regards it as complete or is appropriately disposed to act as if he or she did. Even though this view seems strongly supported by metaphysical, epistemological, and normative considerations, this article argues that such psychologism about completeness is mistaken, fundamentally, because it cannot make sense of the artist's own perspective on his or her work. For the artist, the question is not about his or her own psychology, but about the character of the work and the context in which he or she works. A nonpsychological account of completeness, on which completeness is a question of whether the work satisfies the conditions implicit in the artist's plan, avoids this problem and is equally or better able to explain the metaphysical, epistemic, and normative phenomena which appeared to support psychologism.

How to Understand the Completion of Art

“…Extant philosophical theories of artwork completion fall into two basic camps, each of which places a psychological constraint on the completion of a work. The first, I will follow Rohrbaugh (2017) in calling “psychologism.” This is the view that whether an artwork is complete is merely a matter of the artist's psychology. Livingston has articulated various versions of psychologism (along with coauthors Archer and Trogdon).…”

“…The other extant camp has a sole (published) occupant. Rohrbaugh (2017) holds what I call “satisfactionism,” the view that an artwork is complete if and only if it is intrinsically such as to have satisfied the artist's creative plan, their intentions in making the work. It thus places a psychological constraint on the completion of the work (namely the plan of the artist) but stops short of analyzing work completion in terms of artist psychology.…”

“…In order to understand what artists are trying to achieve, we need a better understanding of artwork completion. Trogdon and Livingston (2014) and Rohrbaugh (2017) also discuss the fact that an artwork cannot be unrestrictedly evaluated and appreciated until it is complete, for some sense of completion 3 . Since philosophers of art are already motivated to understand artistic evaluation and appreciation, we should be motivated to understand the relevant sense of completion as well.…”

Psychologism about Artistic Plans: A Response to Rohrbaugh

“…Whether a given artwork is complete or remains unfinished is a matter of central importance to the critical and appreciative aspects of our engagement with that artwork. Guy Rohrbaugh () has raised a worry for what he takes to be the dominant view in debates about completion, which he calls psychologism . In light of this worry—which I here call Rohrbaugh's Regress —Rohrbaugh has offered a new account of what it takes for a work to be complete, according to which completion is a matter of fit with an artistic plan .…”

Psychologism about Artistic Plans: Reply to Cray

“…In a recent paper (Rohrbaugh, ), I argued that mainstream accounts of artwork completeness are mistaken precisely because they offer purely psychological conditions for such facts, conditions in which the state of the artwork in progress plays no role at all. According to such accounts, whether an artwork is complete is solely a matter of the artist's attitudes toward that work, for example the existence of a judgment that it is finished or a tendency to act as if one has made such a judgment.…”