Two kinds of precision

scientific exactitude versus poetic density.

Motto: Nur wenn man noch viel verrückter denkt als die Philosophen, kann man ihre Probleme lösen.“
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Vermischte Bemerkungen 143

Objective and subjective precision

In recent discussions about the relation between art and science, writers tend to underline the similarities rather than the difference. The difference seems all too obvious. In particular, (top) scientists and artists seem to share certain features: a sense of innovation, careful, non-prejudiced observation and a strong and courageous confidence in one’s own experience. Both activities require a highly sensitive intuition. In art, intuition is seen as a legitimate source, the „muse“, mysterious but respected, while in science this capacity leads an underground existence although many great scientists testified to the importance of intuition and inspiration in their greatest findings.

Today I want to focus on a certain number of differences, but on differences which also reveal an unforeseen similarity. In particular I want to show that the notion of ‚precision‘ applies to art as well as to science, be it in a fundamentally different way. The reason why this topic seems relevant to me is that presently nobody doubts the validity and usefulness of science and technology, while the arts are well respected as merchandise and class-defining entertainment but not seen in their profound educative value. The slogan „Kies exact“ (chose exact sciences or technology for study and career), lanced by the Dutch ministery of education and particularly addressed to girls, is typical for this outlook. But exactitude and precision is not an exclusive property of the socalled exact sciences.

There are two kinds of precision. The first one operates in the object world, the second one in the subjective realm.

The first kind of precision is the one we usually think of: technological precision, the precision of a weapon. This is the precision of a tool considering its assigned function, the precision of a construction according to its plan, the precision of a reproduction compared to the original. The other kind of precision some of us might be reluctant to call it by that name. Subjectivity in general is seen as incompatible with the notion of precision. A „subjective“ judgement in general is seen as arbitrary and unjustifiable. Yet, I will argue that it is an unneccessary and unjustified limitation to restrict the notion of precision to the objective realm. The main reason is that there is a specific non-arbitrary quality in works of art, which is not motivated by external measures but based on ad-hoc and yet precise internal correspondences and contrasts.The criteria and the methods of exploration of these different precisions of course have to be different, but these differences are no reason for disqualifying the subjective or esthetic precision.

The prototypical form of the subjective precision I am talking about is the precision of a poem. But of course, it is not restricted to poetry. There is the grace of a movement, the shock of a word, the gentle precision of a lover’s caresses. Their exactitude is difficult to define yet strongly felt. They are able to surprise us with a strong sense of evidence and recognition and touch us emotionally with sudden power.

The first kind of precision is measured by predictability, the second one is often unpredictable. The first one is defined by full control over the production proces, the second one seems to come by chance, – but a „chance“ that has to be recognized and put to use. The first one is logical, the second one works by means of paradox, in particular by the paradoxical combination of surprise and recognition.

Since we are all quite aware of the precision of the first kind, let’s have a closer look at the second. How can something that operates in the subjective realm be precise? This is the question that the arts, including literature pose since their beginning. In spite of the lack of definitive theoretical answers the arts seem no less successful than the sciences in giving practical answers, i.e. creating works of art which come from the uncompromising subjectivity of a single artist and yet move and „nourish“ countless human beings, often crossing cultural borders, both in space and time. The precision with which these works „strike home“ and provide simutaneously surprising freshness and déja-vue like recognition is wondrous. Because of the subjective origin many great artists in fact were never too sure in advance whether their works would be understood. Many works were only recognized long after their making because genius is always handicapped by the rule „it takes one to know one.“ So it seems that two arts are needed for great art: one of the making, and one of understanding. The art of understanding consists, first of all, in a precise reading; i.e. a reading which takes the text as it is, presuming that every detail is chosen with a certain necessity, consciously or not. We have to assume that the poem has found its „true“ form. Of course, not every text, not every poem allows for this supposition. Thus, for an optimal interpretation, we first have to look critically, whether the poem „deserves“ this treatment, but if the answer is yes: we have to treat it as if it was perfect. This is not an irrational act of devotion but a practical prerequsite for a fruitful interpretation. The reading process „finishes“ the writing. Therefore the reading has to match the writing in ingenuity. Only a presupposition of perfection mobilizes enough careful attention, patience and imagination in the reader to bring the full potential of the poem into awareness. This exercise could serve as a demanding but efficient model for other forms of communication.

Vicious and virtuous circles

So let me use a poem as argument and illustration for poetic precision.

THE RED WHEELBARROW

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.

(William Carlos Williams)

What is so amazing about this poem? It seems to start with an extremely vague statement with completely unclear reference: „so much depends upon“, – and continues with a very concrete and detailed description of an banal every-day object. But what depends upon what? „So much depends“: the first words seem to come out of the blue or out of the middle of a story or a conversation. What did we miss? One way to make sense of this is to take it as a concrete and poetic instantiation of a world-view which the buddhists call „the interdependence of all phenomena“. But then, besides the fact that this is just one interpretation: why not just say: „I believe in the interdependence of all phenomena?“ Well, of course, such a confession would not prove that belief in any way, – neither that one really believes it, nor that the belief is plausible. A (philosophically minded) scientist might indeed have to write hundreds of pages of scientific argumentation to bring the reader to that insight.

The poet works in different ways. The proof of what a poem says lies in the poem itself, in its way of saying. A particular density is brought about by resonances between meaning and form, through synesthetic analogies and parallelisms between different elements of form, structure and meaning. This means that a poem has not only a mind but also a body which is expressive of that mind. In „normal“ language the relation between form and meaning is arbitrary, as structuralist semiotics have maintained throughout this century. Poetic language shows another side of language: form matters. The sound of a word, the rhythm of a verse, the architecture of a sentence, they all matter. Every detail matters. The way something is said becomes part of the message: the form specifies, comments and corroborates the content. In fact, form and meaning become thoroughly interdependent. The resonance between form and meaning redeemes the alienating arbitrariness of linguistic form, not in any lasting definitive way but for a moment, – just as long as the poem lasts.

One of the main differences between a logical system and a poetic work is how it deals with self-reference. While in logics self-referentiality is an error which has to be avoided by all means, since it creates a vicious circle which can derail the system. A class of objects must not contain itself as one of the objects. „Class-hopping“, a confusion of levels in logics creates chaos. Also in a theory of signs there has to be a clear distinction between the level of objects denoted by a sign and the level of the sign, between type and token, between communication and metacommunication. But in art ,and in poetry in particular, self-referentiality is welcome and almost a requirement which increases artistic quality and depth. More often than not, a poem speaks, no matter to what subject it is referring, also about itself and of what it means to write a poem. It is as if poeticity itself has to be questioned and re-established anew in each poem.

So, going back to the poem: what makes this banality so intriguing? We get a combination of colors and details of a rural situation, a simple object, a wheelbarrow, chicken, the fresh and shiny colors after a rain-shower, – a scene of utter contingency. One might ask: so what? What is the matter? The poem’s answer is: everything is the matter: everything matters. So much depends on this, as everything depends on everything. But as a generality this statement is not interesting. This concrete instantiation makes clear: this is not a theoretical claim, this is an experience. A personal insight, a sudden revelation of suchness . „This is it, and this is all. Now.“ The amazing thing about the scene is nothing in the scene as such but the fact that someone sees it. And takes this wheelbarrow and its surroundings as serious as anything else in the world. This moment in which I happen to see this is as important as any other moment. Relevance, just like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Seeing this „suchness“ means not just a deep philosophical insight, it means first of all enjoyment, connectedness, a precious moment of presence in the world, where alienation has no grip on us. It points to the primacy of experience, the pleasures of concreteness, the richness of sensory perception, which cannot be described and captured by words but nevertheless are evoked, pointed out and recreated by poetic language.

And the poems says: very little is needed for that. The poem is very short, the verses consist of just one or three words, its form is simple and unpretentious, there are no complicated rhyme schemes nor sophisticated symbols and ambiguities. And it talks about something so simple as a humble farming tool and some animals. But it refers also to the unspecified „so much“. This might refer to the rest of the universe, but it certainly also refers to the poem itself. The poem completely depends on this wheelbarrow, and more so, on the fact that someone noticed it and appreciated it and found words for it and found the words worthy of beeing written down. That is the amazing thing about it. That circularity is the crux of the poem. So, in a way, the poem is amazed about itself and the reader shares this amazement.

How details matter in a very concise way is shown in a lecture of the great Argentinian writer and poet Borges. In a talk about poetry he quotes a line from a poem

„the green silence of the fields“

and compares it to the corresponding formulation

„the silence of the green fields“.

Some scholars would not hesitate to consider the second formulation as the correct paraphrase of the first, which is taken as a poetic „distortion“ of how things „really are“. Such an interpretation tries to bring the poetic back to the presumedly underlying prose version of what the poems really means to say. Borges argues against this equation. One cannot say that the latter is closer to „reality“ (or „mimesis“) than the former. Both sentences, like any sentence or any word, create a particular reality, a particular perception and experience which is different from one formulated differently. A „green silence of the fields“ is different form a „silence of the green fields“. Again, in that sense, a poem is in a certain sense self-referential in that it refers to a sensation which coincides with what the poem evokes. With a green wheelbarrow and brown chicken the W.C.Williams‘ poem would no longer be the same poem, even if we do not assign any particular sybolic meaning to the colors chosen. Of course, not every text works with such precision, but at least that claim goes for poetry. That is where every detail matters. Poetry enhances our perceptual sensitivity and emotional intelligence by presupposing and activating this differentiation.

All this is just a beginning of an interpretation. I have not even touched the details of the image, the colors, the sound, the music of the vowels, the simplicity of the sytax etc… I do not want to bore you with this. After all, you can read yourself.

The superiority of the poem over the clumsy and tedious text of interpretation is obvious. Not only have I given just one aspeect of one possible interpretation and neglected countless details of form and meaning which could be elaborated. But that shows exactly what I mean by precision in a poem. Its density provides an immensity of meaning with a minimum of means. Contrary to the stereotype of poetry as a kind of idle play of language, I dare say that in poetry language reaches a maximum of efficiency and precision.

Abstraction versus instantiation

A major difference in the way problems are solved in science and the arts is that in science we look for generalization while in art there are only ad hoc solutions, no matter how general its themes, methods and languages appear. Roughly speaking, in science we look for generalization on the basis of contingent observations. In art, the individual experience also becomes elevated to an intersubjective level, but not by way of abstraction and prediction but through the way in which this contingency is formulated. Not the general nature of the experience (death, love, loss, beauty etc. ) provides the esthetic pleasure and the feeling of recognition in the recipient but the individual and unpredictable choices which become stabilized and made recognizable through the resonance between meaning and form. For this transformation there is no generalizable method. There is no recipe for making one subjective world accessible to other subjects, other minds. That’s exactly why art is an art and not (only) a craft. Even though there exist certainly some general principles of esthetic communication, some of which we try to address here, there is no generalizable “ formula“ for poetic or artistic quality. That might seem frustrating from a scientific point of view. But the appreciation of these singularities, e.g. a single poem or portrait, might last for centuries. The songs of Horatius or Sappho outlasted many a scientific theorem of their contemporaries.The ad-hoc quality of art reflects the ad-hoc, ever-changing nature of our life, and the more its impermanence and ungraspable nature is elucidated the more lasting is the work of art. Paradox is at the core of art. It cannot remedy the contradictions in our lives but might show us how to live with them.

Amsterdam, 1998