Goodman, Forgery, and The Aesthetic

Abstract

In Languages of Art, Nelson Goodman argues that there is an aesthetic difference between an authentic painting and a deceptive forgery of it, even if we cannot tell them apart by merely looking at them.' In this paper we shall argue that his grounds for this conclusion are not sufficient. Goodman introduces the problem of authenticity in the arts by asking two questions: (1) Is there any aesthetic difference between a deceptive forgery and an original work of art? (2) In some genres, for example, poetry, there is no such thing as forgery of a known work-why is this so? Although these questions seem peripheral to the main concerns of traditional aesthetics, Goodman claims their solutions are essential to any theory of art. This claim is correct, for the answer to (1) involves an account of aesthetic experience. The answer to (2) identifies some components of an analysis of the identity conditions for works of art. Both of these general issues are central to traditional aesthetics. Our main concern is with (1). Goodman's discussion of that question is more puzzling and open to misinterpretation than that of (2), even though Goodman's answer to (2) has been the main target of criticism. Briefly, his answer to why, in some genres, forgery is not possible involves making a distinction between two basic categories of art: the allographic and the autographic, i.e., those genres with, and those without a notation. For example, while music and literature are in a notation, painting and sculpture are not. This distinction is used both for identifying the constitutive properties of each type of art work and in developing a general theory of notation. It also leads to Goodman's infamous claim that one wrong note disqualifies a performance as being an instance of a given musical score. Here, however, our main concern will be with whether there is an aesthetic difference between a forgery and the original.