Stecker's argument against the implied author

8/14/2019 Stecker's argument against the implied author

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/steckers-argument-against-the-implied-author 1/15

Apparent, Implied, and Postulated AuthorsRobert Stecker

Philosophy and Literature, Volume 11, Number 2, October 1987, pp.

258-271 (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University PressDOI: 10.1353/phl.1987.0033

For additional information about this article

Access provided by McGill University Libraries (5 Nov 2013 18:40 GMT)

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/phl/summary/v011/11.2.stecker.html





Robert Stecker

APPARENT, IMPLIED,AND POSTULATED AUTHORS

"Things inanimate cannot be aumors ..."Thomas Hobbes

ANUMBER OF writers have recendy revived a suggestion of WayneBoodi diat we distinguish, not only between die writer of a work of

fiction and its narrator, but distinguish bodi of these from something elsevariously called die apparent, implied, or postulated author (or artist).What motivates making this further distinction? Does the motivation justify the distinction, i.e. , establish diat diere really is a need for it? Theseare the questions I want to answer in this article.

Kendall Walton makes die distinction not only with respect to literature but across the arts.1 For him, speaking of apparent artists and their apparent acts is merely a convenient way of referring to what appears to bethe case widi or in a work of art. However, not every way a work appearsmakes it appropriate to speak of an apparent artist. That a painting hap- pens to appear green under certain unusual conditions of light need notmake appropriate talk of an apparent artist. It isappropriate to speak of anapparent artist when a work appears to be made in a certain way or with acertain intention, or under die influence of certain beliefs and emotions — in short, whenever acts or states of a maker of the work appear to manifestdiemselves in die work.

Given diis usage, it is certain that there is often license for speaking of apparent artists. Works of art do often appear to be made in certain ways,with certain intentions, and so forth. Often, we are not tempted to attrib-

258



Robert Stecker 259

ute such acts of making to the narrator (if any) of the work. Sometimesthey do not, in fact, belong to die real artist. While Walton's usage gives

us formal license to speak of apparent artists, it does not so far give usgood reason to. We would have a good reason to so speak only if the appearances picked out by such talk were important for understanding or appreciating works of art.

If we are concerned widi appearances simply as our initial estimate of reality and if die focus of critical inquiry is the way a work really is, the in-tentions an artist really had, etc., dien Walton's usage will prove morecumbersome man useful. On die odier hand, if the focus of critical inquiryis or ought to be on the appearances themselves, men Walton's usage willhelp us maintain that focus and not confuse it with die alternative justmentioned. Walton indeed thinks diat it is die latter focus that is correct.

"From the point of view of art criticism and appreciation, how works appear to have come about is important for its own sake, and not as an indi-cation of how it did come about" (p. 65). It is mis claim that reallyjustifiestalk of die apparent artist. The question now becomes whether Walton'sclaim about what is important is itself correct.

One point that might be regarded in its favor is that it preserves thewidely held view diat a proper appreciation of a work of art ought to findits source in the direct experience of it. (Call this "the direct experience re-quirement.") Appearances are well suited to such appreciation while "ex-ternal facts," like the way the work is actually made and die real author'sactual intentions, seem not to be. On the odier hand, die range of appear-ances usually recognized is extended by speaking of die way the work appears to be made and of apparent intentions in such a way as to acknowl-edge diat we see works of art as essentially made, essentially die product of intentional acts.

In die following passage, Walton appeals to die direct experience re-quirement:

One must examine "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" to ascertainthat in it Eliot portrayed die hero compassionately. But if Eliot did notwrite die poem, he did not perform diis act, no matter what die poem islike; and if the poem was "written" by a computer . . . , no one performedthe act of portraying die character compassionately. The words of the poem are, to be sure, good evidence diat someone wrote it, but it is con-ceivable diat other evidence ("external" evidence) should show no onewrote it. (p. 53)



260 Philosophy and Literature

Walton's point, I take it, is that if what is really important were the actsand intentions of die real artist, we would not rest content with our experi-

ence of the poem. Since we do rest content with our experience in decidingwhedier Prufrock is compassionately portrayed, it is die appearance of compassionate portrayal that is important.

I find unconvincing bodi Walton's claim about what is important for understanding/appreciating works of art and die reason given in supportof the claim. Let us begin with his remarks about "Prufrock." I believe thatwe might often rest content with our experience of the poem to find outhow a character is portrayed. This, however, does not show that we arenot interested in how die real author portrayed die character. Certainlythis is not shown by pointing out mat it is conceivable that Eliot did notwrite "Prufrock* and die words of die poem might still exist having been produced in die right order by a computer, or by a monkey or by the ac-tion of waves on a cliff face. Though these possibilities are conceivable,they are not possibilities we have to dispose of before attributing the act of portrayal to Eliot because none of these are possibilities there is any reasonto take seriously. We know who wrote "Prufrock" so we can take for granted diat the words of the poem are evidence of his acts and intentions.

Walton claims diat there is more direct evidence of these diings whichwe would be expected to seek if we were really concerned to discover theacts and intentions of die real artist. However, this is false on a number of counts. First, a work often provides as good evidence of die artist's actsand intentions as possible. A record of how Eliot felt or what he was think-ing before, during and after writing "Prufrock," or of a general dispositionto compassion or lack thereof, would not be better evidence of how he por-trayed Prufrock than die evidence of die text. It would in fact be worse

evidence. We cannot, widi equal confidence, say die same about howEliot intendedto portray Prufrock, but it remains true mat professions of in-tention are not necessarily better evidence of intentions man products of intention. In die case of arts like painting and sculpture, there can be better evidence of how a work is made man the work itself, e.g., a photographicrecord of die work being made. But diis would not give us more direct ac-cess to odier artistic acts performed by die artist or to his intentions.

Second, even if more direct evidence is conceivable, it may be felt thatthe work provides adequate evidence or that, although such evidence is con-ceivable, it is unavailable.

It may be diought mat all diis misses Walton's point in introducing die possibility that die words of "Prufrock" have a nonhuman source. Perhapshe is suggesting that the way Prufrock appears to be portrayed would be







Robert Stecker 263

teendi century. That the Irishman is Berkeley would lead us to interpret itone way, mat he is Swift would lead us in quite a different direction.

The argument so far only shows mat Walton gives no reason for beingconcerned with historical context that is not also a reason for being con-cerned widi historical author. There may still be a way of showing why weshould regard the former but not die latter as important for criticism. I willlook at another attempt to do so in die next section. It may be worth point-ing out now die implausibility of any such attempt. Walton unintention-ally pinpointed why we would ordinarily be interested in historical con-text. Since it is the context in which die artist worked, information aboutthe historical context renders probable or improbable hypotheses aboutwhat die artist was doing, or intending to do, in a work. Cutting off an in-terest in historical context from an interest in historical audior not only ar- bitrarily confines a critic to only some historical information out of dietotal information, but deprives him of an obvious reason for being inter-ested in historical information.

II

According to Alexander Nehamas, the object of critical understandingis die postulated audior, an agent hypothesized to explain die features of atext.2 Accordingto Nehamas, this agent is not die historical writer. Never-theless, the postulated author has to be understood as occupying die his-torical context of the historical writer. So far this sounds just like Walton'sapparent artist but the postulated audior is a rather different creature. Inconstructing the postulated audior, we are by no means confined to how atext appears to us against a background of common historical knowledge.All sorts of information, including biographical information about diewriter, no matter how esoteric, can be relevant to the enterprise which Nehamas compares to the construction of a scientific theory to explainnatural phenomena.

I find Nehamas's conception of the enterprise of interpretation attrac-tive. I agree mat much interpretation consists in forming and defendinghypotheses about what die author meant, though some interpretation con-sists in accounting for divergences between what the audior evidendy didand what he might have meant.

I find puzzling, however, Nehamas's distinction between die postulatedauthor and historical writer. Nehamas's description of the enterprise — "toconstruct ... a complete, historically plausible audior" ("PA," p. 147) —




sounds like it is concerned with die actual writer. In Nehamas's first articleon me subject, "The Postulated Audior," he only offers a few hints of hismotivation. Unfortunately none of these really justifies the distinction.

At one point, Nehamas distinguishes die postulated audior from the ac-tual writer's self understanding. As Nehamas says, such self-understanding(e.g., of die writer's intentions) is fragmentary. If we were to identify dieactual writer with his self-understanding, we could see how die former could be distinguished from the postulated author. But of course, such anidentification is incorrect. The intentions that a writer is unaware of or misconstrues are still his.

The other hint we are given is diis: "The author is postulated as dieagent whose actions account for the text's features; he is a character, a hy- pothesis which is accepted provisionally, guides die interpretation, and isin turn modified in its light. The audior, unlike die writer, is not a text'sefficient cause, but, so to speak, its formal cause, manifested in diough notidentical with it" ("PA," p. 145). The formal cause of a diing is its essence,and, since a text is essentially a production of someone, I do not see howthe efficient/formal distinction is supposed to work here. Earlier in the passage the postulated audior is identified widi a hypodiesis which die ac-

tual writer certainly is not. But the identification cannot plausibly be takenliterally, or else it conflicts with the characterization of the postulatedaudior as an agent. "Hypodiesis" must be loose for "hypothetical agent."Taking "hypodiesis" this way, die passage goes on to suggest diat die iden-tity of diis agent is constandy changing (while die real writer does notchange with every change in our interpretation). However, our changinghypodieses are more plausibly construed as changes in belief about theaudior rather than changes in the identity of die audior. In that case they

can be construed as hypotheses about die actual writer. Nehamas has recendy made a more elaborate attempt to justify the dis-tinction between postulated audior and historical writer.3 The backgroundof diis attempt is Foucault's critique of the audior in "What is an Audior?" Nehamas accepts two points that Foucault makes: (A) Rather man a per-son, the author is a figure, function or role which implies the appropriate-ness of certain questions about the text and the expectation of certainanswers. (B) The audior has been a repressive principle used to force textsto undergo certain operations and to exclude odiers. I will return to B atthe end of diis section. For the time being I will concentrate on A.

Let us first examine Nehamas's main argument for distinguishingwriters and audiors. It is found in the following passage which harks back






that whatever is referred to is essentially related to die text. However, ondiis construal of (3'), "whoever" does not refer to anything. (3 ̂would

mean that the predicate "x is die audior of diese texts" is true of S. This toodoes not imply (4). I know of no way of construing(3 ̂— or (3) — on which(4) does follow. So I conclude diat Nehamas's argument is invalid.

Furthermore, when Nehamas specifies the questions that die audior figure invites, it becomes as puzzling as it was in his earlier article why theaudior is not die historical writer. According to Nehamas, to interpret awork (which for him is the same as supposing it to have an author) is toconstrue it as the product of action by an agent and to ask questions appropriate to the understanding of actions and products of agents("WTWA," p. 277). If diis is what interpretation is, why in die world is itnot concerned with die writer. He is die agent whose actions broughtabout the product we are interpretingas the product of actions ofan agent!What else could we be talking about?

Nehamas answers this question in many ways: (A) "the agent postu-lated ... to account for construing a text as the product of an action" p. 281); (B) "a plausible historical variant of the writer" (p. 285); (C) "acharacter the writer could have been" (p. 285); (D) "what any individualwho [produced die text] must be like" (p. 286).

Not all diese come to the same diings. (A) is precisely where we beganand would normally be construed to refer to the writer, the actual agent.(D) surely implies that we are describing die writer; he did produce dietext and so, if anyone who produced die text must answer to our descrip-tion, die writer must. (C) at least leaves open mat die writer coincides withthe audior. Only (B) seems to imply that we are not talking about thewriter. However, even (B) can be accommodated with die identification of

audior and writer. After all, our hypotheses about what the agent (i.e., diewriter) was doing in producing a text will usually be just diat: hypotíiesesrather than highly confirmed dieories. To that extent, it is likely diat dieagent we describe will be a plausible variant of die actual agent. That issimply a way of saying that our hypotheses will fall short of die truth. As inhis original article, it is not clear why Nehamas prefers to think of hypodieses as constructing characters rather than imperfectiy character-izing the writer.

There are other things Nehamas says about audiors which do clearlydistinguish diem from writers, but at the same time they undermine hisaccount of interpretation. One (crucial) example will have to suffice here."Authors, not being persons, do not have psychological states diat mightdetermine in advance what texts mean" ("WTWA," p. 286). If diis is so,



Robert Stecker 267

audiors are indeed not writers, but it is not clear how diey can be regardedas die agents postulated to explain die features of a text. Agents do have

psychological states and it is precisely in terms of such states as intention,desire and belief diat die actions of agents are understood.Finally, I return to Foucault's claim mat die audior is a repressive prin-

ciple. This is a claim mat Nehamas takes very seriously. Another motivethat he has in distinguishing between writers and authors is to avoid dieaccusation involved in the claim. However, I do not think that Nehamas'saudior figure would escape Foucault's condemnation. What Foucault wascondemning was a conception of reading texts which forces texts toundergo some operations and exclude odiers. Nehamas's conception of in-terpretation certainly does diis.

On the odier hand, die audior, even construed as the writer, needn't beinvoked as a repressive principle. It would be repressive if regarded as dieonly principle diat determines legitimate interpretations. However, die project of constructing hypodieses about what a writer is doing in a work,can be regarded as one of many possible projects all equally deservingthe name "interpretation." To so regard it would be to abandon die criticalmonism it was Nehamas's original purpose to defend, but given die stateof contemporary criticism, I believe that such monism has to beabandoned.

Ill

It seems wrong to think of the acts and intentions of actual audiors asunimportant for criticism. It may still be true that die apparent author should be important too. While I don't want categorically to deny diis, Ido want to argue diat apparent authors are harder to come by man is com-monly thought. The reason for this is diat it is harder to find room for theapparent audior between die narrator and die real audior.

Wayne Booth tries to make room widi his notion of an implied audior.*This notion is harder to pin down dian diat of Walton's apparent artistand Nehamas's postulated audior though it has more affinities with dieformer. The basic idea seems to be mis. A novel has an ethical, emotional,intellectual perspective. In fact, a novel may have many such perspectives belonging to die various characters including narrators. But there will be amore fundamental perspective that may not belong to anyone in dienovel. It is from this perspective that die novel can be said to pass, or refuse to pass, judgment on its characters. The perspective determineshow much knowledge characters have of themselves, odiers, and die




world. It determines die moral significance, or lack thereof, of the situa-tions of die novel, and characteristic ways of reacting to them. It proposes,

or refuses to propose, an attitude toward diese reactions.According to Boodi, diis perspective is created by die actual writer, butit is not necessarily his. It is necessarily the implied author's. This claim iscompatible with what I have been arguing: that the actual writer's acts andintentions are important in understanding a work including die perspec-tive of die implied audior, but it claims that we still need die impliedaudior to attribute this perspective to. While I do not deny that such per-spectives exist in novels, I question whedier we need any categories other

than narrator and actual writer to account for such perspectives.Very often, die role of implied audior is filled by die narrator of a work.Booth acknowledges this is so whenever the narrator is undramatized,i.e., stands wholly outside die world of die fiction. Such are the narratorsof Emma and of Anna Karenina. (Actually, if an undramatized narrator turns out to be unreliable, and I do not see why diis is impossible, wewould not identify his perspective with the perspective of die novel.) Boodisuggests, however, that whenever we have a dramatized narrator, the implied audior should be distinguished from the narrator. His practice, un-fortunately, does not follow diis suggestion. For a class of narrators, called"reliable spokesmen for the implied audior" (p. 211) such as die narrator of TomJones, Booth's practice is to constandy shift between maintaining andignoring the distinction.5 Since his substantive remarks ignore the distinc-tion — necessarily, since whatever can be said ofdie implied audior can besaid of die reliable spokesman — I infer mat once again die category of narrator does all die work.

If there is reason to introduce a new category — the implied audior — it

ought to be found in diose works with a narrator or narrators who are notreliable "spokesmen." Such narrators need not be unreliable; they mayalso include narrators whose perspective is more limited dian die audior's.In such works, we are particularly anxious to find a perspective that tran-scends diat of die narrator, but why shouldn't we say diat die one we arelooking for is simply the actual writer's?

I have already mentioned one reason Booth gives to think odierwise.Though the perspective we seek is created by die audior, it is not neces-sarily held by him. Thus one follower of Booth has suggested, "however querulous and intolerant the actual Tolstoy may have been, the impliedaudior of Anna Karenina is full of compassionate understanding."6 Boodihimself has suggested diat there is some doubt whether die actual Fieldingheld some of the moral beliefs diat are part of me perspective of TomJones.



Robert Stecker 269

(Ignore the fact diat neimer of these works contains an unreliable nar-rator.)

A minor point about such claims is that they are often simpleminded,as is me one just given about Tolstoy. Just because someone has a ten-dency toward intolerance does not mean diat he is not also full of compas-sionate understanding. When understanding is acute, a person often vac-illates between compassion and intolerance. There is much evidence diatTolstoy was just such a person and even his novels display both tenden-cies, though in these diey are directed to different characters, the tendencyto intolerance usually only to minor ones.

The main problem with such claims is mat, even if the perspective of anovel is not the actual writer's, in the sense diat he firmly holds every belief and has every disposition constituting it, it is not necessary to positan implicit author who does. Such perspectives can exist and guide diereader's judgment of die narrator and die events he narrates without it being anyone's in this sense and widiout die reader attributing it to any-one. In another sense, however, the perspective is the actual audior's.

Let me try to explain these two senses. Just as die world of die novel isnot asserted by its actual audior to be the real world (no matter how muchresemblance it bears to the real world) but is presented as something to beentertained in die imagination, so die perspective a novelist adopts in presenting this world may itself only be entertained. From the point of view of a certain moral perspective, say, characters are judged, situationsare given ediical significance, and so forth. It is the real audior who is do-ing this; it is in diis sense diat die perspective is his, not an impliedaudior's. But die moral perspective from which the writer judges charac-ters, etc. , is one he may not unequivocally affirm (though he can unequiv-

ocally be said to present it to us). The writer may be exploring it, trying toimagine what it would be like to actually hold it, but he does not hold it.This is die sense in which die perspective is not the writer's, but in thissense it does not have to be anyone's in or out of die novel.

This is not to say diat perspectives are not sometimes held in the strongsense of affirmed by writers or that it is never worth asking whedier a perspective is affirmed or merely entertained by its writer. It may be partof understanding a work to understand diis.

IV

It may be that die idea of an apparent or implied artist does not have auseful general application, but it may still have an application in certain




special cases. Walton provides several special cases where this is plausible.For example, Mozart's "Musical Joke" at one level appears to be written

by an incompetent composer, diough at a deeper level it appears, and infact is, written by a composer of genius. AndJackson Pollock's paintingsat one level appear to be painted in a haphazard and spontaneous man-ner, though at a deeper level they appear, and in fact are, carefully planned and executed. I diink it is significant diat diese examples comefrom arts other dian literature. If a novel appeared to be written incompe-tendy "at one level" but not at a deeper level, die incompetence would probably be attributable to die novel's narrator. Similarly if it appeared to be produced in a haphazard and spontaneous manner at one level but notat a deeper level.

I am inclined to think diat the notion of an apparent artist has genuine,significant application in diese cases. In die "Musical Joke," Mozartestablishes the fiction diat die piece was composed by an incompetentcomposer just as novelists can establish the fiction diat a story is written byan incompetent writer. But while we already have die notion of a narrator to handle die latter case, we need some other notion like that of apparentartist to handle die "Musical Joke." I would be less inclined to say mat

Pollock establishes a fiction, but no less inclined to endorse the usefulnessof die notion of apparent artist in understanding his paintings, at least if Walton's account of diem is correct.

Whether the notion of apparent artist has any useful application to liter-ature — the art to which it was thought to have die most obvious applica-tion — I do not know.

Central Michigan University

1 . Kendall Walton, "Style and die Products and Processes of Art" in The Concept of Style,ed. Berel Lang (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1979).2. Alexander Nehamas, "The Postulated Audior: Critical Monism as a RegulativeIdeal," Critical Inquiry 8 (1981): 133-149; hereafter abbreviated "PA."3. Alexander Nehamas, "Writer, Text, Audior, Work," in Literature and the Question of Philosophy, ed. A. J. Cascardi, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), pp. 267-91; hereafter abbreviated "WTAW."4. Wayne Boodi, The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961).



Robert Stecker 271

5. Ibid.; see especially pp. 71-73 for a passage where die distinction is ignored.6. Jenefer Robinson, "Style and Personality in die Literary Work," The Philosophical

Review 94 (1985): 234. It may be noted that philosophers are particularly fond of findingcompassion in implied audiors.

Documents

Stecker's argument against the implied author