Peter Goldie (1946–2011)

What is conceptual art? Is it really a kind of art in its own right? Is it clever – or too clever?

Of all the different art forms it is perhaps conceptual art which at once fascinates and infuriates the most. In this much-needed book Peter Goldie and Elisabeth Schellekens demystify conceptual art using the sharp tools of philosophy. They explain how conceptual art is driven by ideas rather than the manipulation of paint and physical materials; how it challenges the very basis of what we can know about art, as well as our received ideas of beauty; and why conceptual art requires us to rethink concepts fundamental to art and aesthetics, such as artistic interpretation and appreciation.

Including helpful illustrations of the work of celebrated conceptual artists from Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Kosuth and Piero Manzoni to Dan Perjovschi and Martin Creed, Who’s Afraid of Conceptual Art? is a superb starting point for anyone intrigued but perplexed by conceptual art - and by art in general. It will be particularly helpful to students of philosophy, art and visual studies seeking an introduction not only to conceptual art but fundamental topics in art and aesthetics.… (altro)

The death of Peter Goldie in late 2011, as is increasingly becoming evident, was an immense loss to philosophy. Few thinkers move so deftly between the rarefied atmosphere of analytic metaphysics, moral psychology, and ethics, and the real stuff of life, of who we are in our living rooms when we think about our lives. The posthumous publication of The Mess Inside, which was already completed at the time of his death, brings Goldie’s considerable insight to bear on the role of narrative in our lives. Not, as one might suspect (or hope), the role of fiction. But rather the role that our autobiographical narrative thinking has when we reflect on past actions (and errors), present plans, and future possibilities.

Goldie describes his view as a modest narrativist view. He disavows the strong narrativist stances of Alasdair MacIntyre and Marya Schechtman in which our self narratives constitute our selves. But equally he distances himself from anti-narrativists such as Galen Strawson who maintain that narrative has no role at all in establishing who we are. Goldie threads the needle with an account of narrative that acknowledges its capacity to provide narrative structure—coherence, meaningfulness, and evaluative and emotional import—to our lives without binding us to a fictionalizing metaphysics.

One of the distinctive components of Goldie’s view is found in his account of free indirect style, which he borrows from the literary critic James Wood. In literature, free indirect style facilitates an emergent dramatic irony as evaluative and emotional terms flit between a narrated subject and a narrator. Goldie argues that something similar occurs in our autobiographical narratives, where we also invest the actions of our narrated subjects (ourselves) with evaluative import: I think back now on my foolish behaviour at the office party last year. There, the regretful foolishness is projected by me as narrator on my own past action. This kind of self-reflective bootstrapping helps me to think through my past in preparation for a better, less foolish, future.

Equally important, perhaps, is Goldie’s use of the French notion of tâtonnement, which is a kind of tentative, groping towards something. It has a technical use in economics that Goldie, as a former investment banker, was no doubt aware. But here it characterizes the jumbled, blurry perspective we have on ourselves, a perspective that we revise again and again through our narrative thinking. It is, or can be, a lengthy process, but the narrative sense of self that emerges provides us, so Goldie maintains, with all we want and need in a narrativist account of the self, without the unfortunate fictionalizing metaphysical tendencies of strong narrativist theories.

There is a great deal here (much more than my brief survey permits me to show) to agree with, to question, and to outright reject. And there will undoubtedly be a fair amount of thinking, narrative or otherwise, spurred by Goldie’s substantial and subtle contribution. One only regrets that Goldie’s further participation in the conversation has come to a close.… (altro)

The Routledge Thinking in Action series presents accessible but serious philosophical treatments of key live issues, concepts, or ideas. Like others in the series, Peter Goldie’s On Personality is more than an introductory text. He may be introducing the reader for the first time to philosophical disputes on the nature of character or the role of character traits and dispositions to act in specific ways. But he also is a philosopher of stature with firm views on which way the debate should proceed and thus argues forcefully for that stance. So, very much a case of thinking in action. And is there anything more exciting than that?

The initial chapters lay the groundwork of distinctions needed to discuss personality and character (they are different) sensibly. In the middle chapter, Goldie addresses head-on the apparent evidence from psychological research casting doubt on the notion of dispositional characters. He handily fends off the sceptics, I think, but acknowledges in turn the fragile nature of character and the conditions under which we are prone to misascribe character traits. Having secured our talk of character, he moves on to its vital role in our moral lives. On Goldie’s view we are responsible for many of our character traits and this suggests a rethinking of the ordering of praise and blame in particular cases. A proper understanding of character is thus a clear first step for philosophers working through the connections between agency, responsibility, and character.

Goldie concludes the book with a chapter on the role of narrative in the sense of the self. Although he is often described as having a narrativist position, it is clear that he differs significantly from others in the field. Since he accepts a distinction between narrative and what narratives are about, he sees no difficulty in discounting the view that our lives have a narrative structure; rather, he would say, our “lives, and parts of lives, unfold in a characteristic way which can be related in the form of a narrative (but which aren’t themselves narratives).” Narrative (i.e. self-narrative) is crucial for what he calls the ‘Augustinian inside view’. But it is equally important as an expressive indicator for others.

Things move quickly, I think, in this final chapter. You may reach the end rather wishing that there had been time to learn a great deal more about the philosophical treatment of character, personality, and the role of narrative in the idea of the self. But perhaps that is the best indicator of an excellent introductory text. Recommended.… (altro)