Art and Experience, Utrecht, © 1996. All rights reserved

Symbol. Goodman has argued that works of art above all are symbols. I argue that this is true only if we do not take symbolism to be based on a set of syntactic and semantic rules. Every art form involves some restricted address of our embodied perception's polymodality which must be made up for by non-natural means of intimation. However, these means are not conventional in any strictly regulated sense, on the contrary. Cf. Walton. (I:2; VII:6; VIII:2).

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© Rob van Gerwen
Last update: 12 April 1996
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