Concerning the Sciences, the Arts: And the Humanities

Abstract

expressionist painting. Similarly, the syntax governing a motet by Machaut (1300-1377) is not the same as that controlling a quartet by Mozart-or the structure of South Indian music. It is beyond the scope of this essay to inquire why stylistic principles of 166 Leonard B. Meyer Sciences, Arts, and Humanities the arts have changed as they have. What is important here is that they have-while principles of nature have not. To prevent misunderstanding, it should be noted that style changes in the arts are not, save metaphorically, analogous to biological evolution, or even to the development of scientific theories. In biological evolution it is evidently the case that however much organisms change-however complex they become-their organization remains compatible with certain first principles which are invariant. But this is not so-or at least has not been shown to be so-in the arts. Different styles of, say, music seem to be founded upon quite different and incompatible syntactic principles: compare, for example, the music of Bach with that of Boulez. With regard to a possible analogy between stylistic change and the development of scientific theory, it appears (as we will consider shortly) that, because they are propositional and verifiable, scientific theories evolve in the sense that, generally speaking, they move toward a more accurate explanation of the natural world. Consequently, earlier theories in a given discipline are replaced or qualified by later ones. Once again, this is scarcely true of the arts. Rembrandt's representation of the Crucifixion does not supersede or invalidate one by Perugino, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis does not replace Bach's B-minor Mass, and a comedy by Shaw does not make those by Sheridan or Molibre obsolete. I used Hamlet as an example a bit earlier because, as he so often did, Shakespeare borrowed his plot from an existing source. Now if We are not really interested in the exact word sequence, but are concerned with the content (Stent 1972, p. 89), then it should not be important whether we read Shakespeare's play, the earlier one from which his plot was borrowed, or the tale which was the basis for the earlier play. Clearly, however, this is not the case. And Stent is certainly aware that there is a problem. But his discussion and solution of it seem to me fundamentally mistaken and misleading. Consequently, disputing individual points seriatim would be fruitless. Instead, I shall cut through his Gordian argument with a sharp, but simple, distinction: namely, there is a profound and basic difference between scientific theories, which are propositional, and works of art, which are presentational. Scientific theories consist of propositional statements or hypotheses expressing and explaining recurring and orderly relationships found in the world of natural events, social behavior, and human action. They are general in that they refer to classes or types; they are abstract in that they account for only some attributes of the natural world. The law of gravity, for instance, expresses the relationship between the mass of, and distance between, objects. But it asserts nothing about their shape, color, and texture, or their size and material-except as these may affect their