WEBVTT - Daniel McInerny on Beauty and Imitation 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:07.320 The whole reason why we tell stories. We imitate human 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:11.520 action in stories and in art more generally, is because 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:16.360 human life itself takes the form of a story. I 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:19.880 don't want to say that a story is a completely 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:26.240 artificial construct. It is artificial. It is a work of art, 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:31.800 but it is imitating a narrative trajectory that's there in 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:35.279 human life, in a much messier way, in a in 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.000 a way that's much harder for us to get our 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:39.000 heads around. 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:44.880 Welcome to the Habit podcast conversations with writers about writing. 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:50.400 I'm Jonathan Rogers, your host, Daniel McInerney, is associate professor 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:53.960 and chair of the philosophy department at Christendom College in Virginia. 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:57.680 He's also a novelist and a dramatist. His scholarship is 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:02.520 directed toward reactivating Aristotle's understanding of art as imitation, an 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:06.080 idea long out of favor among philosophers. His biggest step 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:09.200 in that direction is his new book, Beauty and Imitation 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:13.319 A Philosophical Reflection on the Arts. Peter Kreeft wrote of it, 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:15.560 this is literally the best book on beauty that I've 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:19.160 ever read, the most convincing, clear and comprehensive, the most 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:22.920 eye opening and satisfying, the most insightful and delightful. It 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:27.000 is a masterpiece. In this episode, doctor McInerney and I 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:30.240 talk about why human beings take so much pleasure in imitation. 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:32.880 We talk about the odd fact that an imitation can 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:35.039 often afford us a better insight into a thing than 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:38.960 does the direct experience of the thing itself. Also, we 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:44.440 talk about Christopher Walken. Daniel McInerney. I'm so happy to 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:47.120 have you on The Habit podcast. Thanks for being here. 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:50.280 Jonathan, it's it's an honor to join you today. 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:53.960 Yeah. Would you tell us. I just want to start 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:59.000 where I often start. Give us the 92nd version of, uh. 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:00.000 Of your book. 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:04.960 Well. Thank you. I like a verb that one of 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:09.200 my reviewers used when writing his blurb for the back 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:11.560 of the book, he referred to my book as a 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:21.119 re-activation of an Aristotelian and Thomistic understanding of what we 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:24.800 typically call the fine arts. So what does that mean? 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:29.240 It means that I am defending a notion of art 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:35.280 as imitation. And that's a loaded word, because I think 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:37.800 most of the times when we hear that word imitation, 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:42.640 we think copying. Yeah. And it's not. It's a far 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:48.480 richer notion than that. Uh, far from copying. It's a 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:54.080 way of attempting to freshen our understanding of the reality 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:59.000 of things. And so my book is, is developing that 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:05.360 understanding of, of the arts as imitative, as mimetic, and 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:11.239 therefore as related to our human pursuit of the truth. 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:20.400 Ah, uh, truth also, uh, the human pursuit of happiness 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:23.920 and pleasure. Uh, I think it's. Is that fair to say? 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:28.680 Yes, yes. I mean, the the central truth that I 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:34.160 think any work of art attempts to, to, to capture 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:39.000 is the truth about the human quest for fulfillment, what 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:43.760 we commonly call happiness. So we're trying, in short, whether 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.040 it's a novel, whether it's a painting, whether it's a 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:49.480 piece of music, a sculpture, we're trying to understand what 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:55.480 is it saying about how human beings achieve or perhaps 0:03:55.480 --> 0:04:00.920 fail to achieve their happiness. And that means that that 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:03.560 a work of art is, as we say, is trying 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:07.560 to say something. It has a meaning. Or, as I say, 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:10.160 perhaps more provocatively in the book, a work of art 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:13.880 is trying to make an argument about what it means 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:15.600 to live the happy life. 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:21.560 Yeah, yeah. I um, when I ran across that statement 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:24.560 that Art is trying to make an argument, uh, I 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:28.240 pulled up short. I have to say, um, and I 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:31.520 we'll get back. We'll get back to that idea of 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:36.040 art as an argument. Um, and but I do want 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:44.480 to talk about why mimesis, that is, imitation is pleasurable. 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:49.040 It's an odd thing that that we just enjoy imitation. 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:52.880 And you spend some time talking about a Christopher Walken impression, 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:56.360 which is more entertaining than Christopher Walken. Yeah. 0:04:56.960 --> 0:05:01.320 Yeah. In his in his little book, The Poetics, Aristotle 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:08.120 talks about imitation as absolutely fundamental to human nature. It's 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:11.560 it's something that we do instinctively. We don't need to 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:16.000 be taught us how to imitate. So I see my 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:20.839 little grandson, who just turned three, but when he was 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:24.800 still just two, when his father would work with tools 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:28.560 around the house, he would sit down and start using 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:34.000 his toys as tools. And I think I'll follow Aristotle here, too. 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:38.560 I think it's again, it's connected to our natural desire 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:42.760 for truth. It's our it's it's our chief way, I 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:47.080 would say, of trying to make sense out of our world, 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:51.920 trying to understand what's going on around us. My little 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:55.600 grandson doesn't really understand what his father is doing, but 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:59.719 he sees him kind of hitting things with objects. That's 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:02.039 the best sense he can make of it. So he's 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:04.240 going to imitate it to see if he can, if 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:07.080 he can get his head around it. And we're still 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:09.880 doing that as adults. When we read a novel, watch 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:12.480 a film, or listen to a piece of music. 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:16.360 Um, can you draw that? Can you draw the connection? 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:21.960 In what way does, um, imitation, um, help us to 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:26.080 figure out the world or, uh, in what ways is 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:29.800 my experience of reading a novel, watching a movie parallel 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:31.799 to your grandson's experience? 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:35.839 Yeah. Good. It's it's certainly more complex. I think that's 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:40.080 what you're noticing. But when I sit down to read 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:43.920 a novel, I'll take, um, I'll take an example pretty 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:46.920 much from random from my shelves here. A Jane Austen novel. 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:53.320 I'm reading. Persuasion. What's being imitated in that work are 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:57.840 human beings. Human beings doing stuff? They're acting. They're falling 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:02.039 in love. They're falling out of love. As I said earlier, 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:07.520 it's it's depicting the human quest for happiness. And so 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:11.880 as I read the novel, I, with Jane Austen's help, 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:16.720 am thinking about what does it mean to fall in love? Um, 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:19.280 what does it mean to fall in love with the 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:22.200 wrong person? With the right person? What makes for the 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:26.800 best kind of marriage? What is real friendship? Uh, what 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:32.280 is family life? I am, whether I'm completely conscious of 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:36.360 it or not. I'm mulling those things over as I 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:39.240 read the novel and to connect with an earlier thought. 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:43.240 Jane Austen is making an argument about how we should 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:47.160 answer the sorts of questions that I was just listing. 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:56.000 Yeah. You you talk about the idea that, um. Well, 0:07:56.000 --> 0:08:00.760 you say stories aren't just packaging, but rather, um, they're 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:03.600 a way of contemplating the narrative structures that are inherent 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:10.520 to human life. And so, um, we don't, oddly enough. Um, a. 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:18.360 A real, let's say, a realistic author who fails to, uh, 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:23.880 imitate the way human beings actually act is less believable 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:28.720 than a fantasy act, you know, fantasy author who's who's 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:31.320 talking about orcs and elves, and yet those orcs and 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:34.480 elves behave in ways that that that imitate the way 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:40.640 people actually work in, in the real world. Um, and so, um, yeah. 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:42.480 Can you say a little more about that idea of 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:45.200 narrative structures that are inherent to human life? 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:48.200 Yeah, there's there's at there's at least two big thoughts here. 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:52.679 We should distinguish. First thing I would say is the 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:57.560 whole reason why we tell stories. We imitate human action 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:01.880 in stories and in art more generally, is because human 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:06.439 life itself takes the form of a story. I don't 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:13.240 want to say that a story is a completely artificial construct. 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:17.040 It is artificial. It is a work of art, but 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:22.200 it is imitating a narrative trajectory that's there in human life, 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:25.480 in a much messier way, in a in a way 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:28.880 that's much harder for us to get our heads around. 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:31.640 So again, what someone like Jane Austen does is it 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:36.839 is she, uh, she puts the events, the characters together 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:43.000 into a plot that is far more compressed than human 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:49.839 life is and allows our minds and and our our 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:54.559 delight to get around that story so we can contemplate 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:59.000 it better. The other big issue involved in your question is, is, 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:03.800 and especially if we're talking about fiction, is an author's 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:10.920 ability to be persuasive. Uh, the imitation needs to persuade. 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:15.240 That doesn't mean that the imitation needs to be super realistic, 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:19.080 as we see with fantasy literature. Uh, it can be 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.880 realistic in certain ways, even when it's not portraying, uh, 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:27.120 human beings. But nonetheless, if someone like Tolkien is going 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:32.600 to give us a hobbits and orcs and even talking trees, 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:38.520 those characters have to be persuasive within that world. We're 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:41.520 going to grant Tolkien that he's going to give us 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:46.360 a fantasy world, but in that world it it has 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:50.280 to have a certain logic that is compelling. 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:56.520 Yeah. You know, I always say the that question at 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:59.839 the start of so many, you know, fantasy stories or 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:02.400 stories at all is, you know what? If you know, 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:05.320 what if there was a world where, you know, there 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:10.400 are ants and orcs and elves, but there's always an unspoken, uh, 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:12.760 preamble to the question of what if? And that is 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:16.680 knowing what we know about human beings. What if they 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:19.679 lived in a world that was covered in water, or 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:23.400 that didn't have water, or where gravity didn't work or whatever? 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:25.520 Right, right. That's a nice way of putting it. I've 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:28.480 never put it quite that way to myself before. But 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:31.600 you're I think you're absolutely right. We always take our 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:36.400 own knowledge of how human beings are into our enjoyment 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:39.200 of the work. And I would even contend, even if 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:45.360 the work does not contain any imitation of a human character. 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:50.800 They're all just pure fantasy creation creations. We're still taking 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:54.600 our understanding of human beings and our human quest for 0:11:54.600 --> 0:12:00.320 happiness into our understanding and enjoyment of that story. 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:02.600 Sure, yeah, Peter Rabbit might look like a rabbit and 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:05.000 he might go, but. But he's not a rabbit. 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:06.240 Exactly, exactly. 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:08.360 That's always the question of if you were in a 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:13.240 position where you were that little and that vulnerable to 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:17.800 a farmer. McGregor what would a person do? Not not really. 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:18.880 What would a rabbit do? 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:20.960 That's nice. Yes, I agree. 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:27.960 Yeah. Um, you point out that a story pictures a 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:32.640 human pursuit of some good, which is also, you know, 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:36.240 Aquinas would say, and Aristotle would say that's what human 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:38.520 beings are doing anyway. They're always in pursuit of some good. 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:41.400 They may be wrong about what's good, and maybe they 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:44.800 may be mistaken about what's going to make them happy, but. 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:48.240 But that connection, the fact that we are always seeking 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:50.720 what we think is going to be good for us. Um. 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:57.080 That's a direct connection to how story works. You you argue? 0:12:57.280 --> 0:13:04.560 Absolutely. There's nothing that human beings do. That isn't in 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:08.439 pursuit of some good. I hesitated there because you mentioned Aquinas. 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:13.319 He does make some, uh, some exceptions to that. He 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:16.920 talks about if someone scratches their beard, you know, or 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:20.760 if you are, uh, jiggling your foot while you're watching 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:24.760 television or something. Maybe you're not. If that's an action, 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:28.280 it's not clearly in pursuit of a good. But every 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:32.400 most everything in life, from flossing your teeth to taking 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:37.480 out the garbage, to recording a podcast, to studying philosophy 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:41.600 to enjoying art, It's all in pursuit of good. But 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:47.080 it's not a disorganized array of goods. It's an ordered set. 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:51.400 And so it is ordered to a first and most 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:55.880 perfect good. It's ultimately going to be God that is 0:13:55.880 --> 0:14:00.839 going to fulfill our desire for happiness. And stories, in 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:03.920 one way or another, are going to try to track 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:10.280 a protagonist's pursuit of a good, and perhaps even explicitly, 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:11.280 the highest good. 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:16.360 Yeah. Uh, you draw a distinction that I thought was 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:21.800 so helpful between purposes and ends. Mhm. Um, can you 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:23.560 draw that distinction here? 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:26.800 Yeah. It's good. I don't want to claim it's original 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:32.520 to me. It's a wonderful philosopher. Francis Slade uh, introduced uh, 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:36.720 that distinction in some writing of his. It's an it's 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:40.720 a a crucial distinction for understanding how human action, the 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:44.200 human pursuit of the good and happiness works and how 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:49.800 that action is imitated in stories particularly. But I would 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:53.160 still argue for any kind of art. So the distinction 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:57.800 comes down to this. Ends are built into the very 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:03.000 beings of things. They are the fulfillment of things. So 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:06.680 the end of the acorn is the oak tree. The 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:10.960 end of the newborn human baby is the fully flourishing 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:18.479 adult human being. Purposes are are choices that we make. 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:24.160 They are our projects or plans that we pursue in 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:28.280 a given set of circumstances. So I imagine a little 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:32.359 later on today, I'll decide to have dinner with my family, 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:36.640 or I may answer an email or go for a walk. 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:43.440 Those are purposes. They may harmonize with my end. Or 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:49.400 they may diverge from my end. What stories do is 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:55.320 they show us through the protagonist's adventure, the interplay of 0:15:55.360 --> 0:16:00.720 ends and purposes. We we watch the character's choices, and 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:06.240 we're we're asking ourselves, is this character's or are the 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:12.360 are this character's purposes aligning with the character's end? Uh, 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:18.760 are these choices illuminating the end, or are his choices 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:22.560 obscuring that end for for him? And that's a that's 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:26.960 kind of a philosophical contemplation. Um, we do it there 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:29.640 on the couch on Saturday night, perhaps as we watch 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:34.440 the movie. But it's it's a very serious attempt to 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:39.280 again to understand the human adventure through art. 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:46.000 Yeah, I like your language of, um. Stories reveal meaning 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:48.560 by showing us the purposes of a of a protagonist 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:51.560 as being either adequate or inadequate to the human end. 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:52.680 Yes. That's right. 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:54.960 That's a really. You know, I think that's a really 0:16:54.960 --> 0:17:01.000 helpful way of talking about, um, the the moral weight 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:02.840 of a story. Yeah. 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:03.800 Exactly. 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:06.280 That's that's works, I think, a lot better than what 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:08.840 we typically think of as the moral of the story, 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:09.359 you know. 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:12.760 Yeah. I mean, this distinction is talking about the moral 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:14.760 of the story, but I think it's a fresh way 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:18.160 that I find very helpful, too, so that, uh, when 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:21.040 I get to the end spoiler warning of the Divine 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:23.960 Comedy and I and I see Dante there in the 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:27.600 highest of the heavens, looking upon the very face of God, 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:33.560 I see his purposes perfectly now, adequate to his end. 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:38.359 That's the most perfect literary picturing of purposes aligning with 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:42.960 the end. But typically you don't have story, really, not 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:46.480 even the Divine Comedy. Unless, at least at the beginning, 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:51.800 the protagonist's purposes are not aligned with with the end. 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:56.480 And the whole story is about that character figuring out, 0:17:56.480 --> 0:18:00.359 oh my gosh, um, I'm not aligned with my end. 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:03.320 What do I have to do, uh, to get there? 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:06.800 Or sometimes you have a very dark tragedy where the 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:09.120 character never really figures that out. 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:15.679 Yeah. I mean, probably an overgeneralization, but, uh, but it 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:18.080 seems like maybe comedy is a is a function of 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:21.240 the character gets more aligned, their purposes get more aligned 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:23.440 with their ends, and tragedy is a story in which 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:25.520 characters don't get more aligned. 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:27.080 Absolutely. Absolutely. 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:33.560 Yeah. Um, and so to return to your idea that, um, 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:37.119 a story tries to prove something, um, about the nature 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:42.360 of happiness, I think maybe it was when I got 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:44.800 to that part of the book about purposes and ends 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:47.200 that I was able to say, okay, I can accept 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:50.640 the possibility that that a story is making an argument. 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:55.640 Yeah. And and hopefully it shows that the kind of 0:18:55.640 --> 0:19:00.280 proving that stories or works of art in general do 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:05.240 is not the kind we we, we do in logic 101. 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:09.920 So when I teach my freshmen the most basic, uh, 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:13.679 form of syllogism, you know, all men are mortal. Socrates 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:17.840 is a man. Socrates is mortal. That's a proof. And 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:22.200 it follows with that conclusion. Follows with absolute necessity. You 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:27.399 cannot deny it on pain of of being illogical. Uh, 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:31.680 art doesn't work like that, Of course it's it's a 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:36.440 kind of proving that works through through imagery, through imitation, 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:43.879 through drawing us emotionally and also intellectually and through our 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:49.760 will toward a pleasing resolution or even a lack of 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:54.400 resolution in which purposes are not aligned with ends or purposes, 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:57.520 are aligned with ends. But it's all put in the 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:01.840 form of, of imagery. And so that makes it a 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:07.240 far looser kind of proof. I in, in the book, quote, quote, 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:10.520 Aquinas is saying poetry. What we would think of as 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:16.240 literature has a defect of truth. It's the least of 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:22.560 doctrines because its way of proving is so loose. It's it's, 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:27.800 you know, you can you can get to the end of, uh, 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:32.000 of of persuasion again. Spoiler warning. You know, the the 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:35.600 the two young people in love, um, are going to 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:39.639 get married at the end of Jane Austen's Persuasion. Jane 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:45.240 Austen is arguing that that type of love, that type 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:47.600 of friendship, is going to make for the best marriage. 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:50.880 But there's there's no reason why a reader has to 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:54.680 accept that in the way that they have to accept 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:58.040 the syllogism. About Socrates, you can say, yeah, but I 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:01.400 just don't believe these characters. I don't like these characters. 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:04.840 You can imagine a young teenager, maybe a teenage boy, saying, 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:07.960 these characters are boring, right? So the proof just kind 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:09.159 of falls apart. 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:15.600 Yeah. Well, I recently saw a show in which, uh, 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:18.399 a husband left his wife of 25 years for a 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:23.840 younger woman, blew up his family. Um, and his friends 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:30.280 all said, hey, you're making a mistake. He found it inconvenient. 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:32.400 Less convenient than he thought to be married to a 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:36.320 woman who was 20 years his junior. Um, but you 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:39.840 know what? At the end, more or less, he. He 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:44.359 got happy. He. As it turns out, everybody. Everybody turned 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:52.200 out okay. And, um. And his, um. He pushed through 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:56.159 the discomfort of being married to me or not even married, 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:58.880 being together with somebody 20 years his junior. And then 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:00.520 turns out he was happier than he than he'd ever 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:04.959 been before. And I, I don't know what to make 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:06.760 of that in terms of I mean, I was thinking 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:09.280 about that story with regard to purposes and ends and, 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:13.720 and the way that you that that story makes a 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:14.800 moral argument. 0:22:15.440 --> 0:22:15.960 Absolutely. 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:18.439 It's one that I can't accept in the end. I 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:21.560 find it really hard to believe that he ultimately found 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:25.159 his found meaning in life as a result of those choices. 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:27.960 Yeah, that's a great that's a great problem. 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:31.840 And it shows. I've been talking, perhaps too glibly about 0:22:31.840 --> 0:22:36.840 the way in which art imitates the human quest for happiness. But, 0:22:36.840 --> 0:22:41.080 but as as your question, uh, makes clear, not everybody 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:45.480 agrees on what happiness is. Yeah. We have different understandings 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:49.680 of of fulfillment. We can have one understanding at one 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:53.760 point in our lives, and 25 years later, that understanding 0:22:53.760 --> 0:22:57.320 can change, uh, what we think we could never live with, 0:22:57.359 --> 0:23:01.359 we can quite happily live with. So when we look 0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:04.560 at the broad array of works of art, we're really 0:23:04.560 --> 0:23:10.840 not just seeing one proof for the human end. We're 0:23:10.840 --> 0:23:17.880 seeing multiple and conflicting and sometimes quite tenaciously conflicting understandings 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:20.359 of the human end. And this is one of the 0:23:20.359 --> 0:23:24.840 things I'm most interested in as a philosopher. As a 0:23:24.840 --> 0:23:32.840 philosopher of literature is thinking about how stories can argue 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:37.320 with one another because they have different understandings of the 0:23:37.320 --> 0:23:41.440 human end. How is it possible that, I mean, obviously, 0:23:41.440 --> 0:23:45.880 the story you just described, um, is in conflict with 0:23:45.880 --> 0:23:51.399 Jane Austen's persuasion. It's in conflict with Dante's comedy. Could 0:23:51.400 --> 0:23:56.240 those three stories get into a kind of platonic dialogue 0:23:56.240 --> 0:23:59.879 with one another? Can we sort out what the human 0:23:59.880 --> 0:24:04.359 end is not in in more abstract philosophical terms, but 0:24:04.359 --> 0:24:07.399 in the terms of images? Can one story sort of 0:24:07.440 --> 0:24:10.359 win an argument over a very different kind of story? 0:24:10.359 --> 0:24:14.040 That's a really interesting question for me. But in any event, 0:24:14.040 --> 0:24:20.000 it's absolutely the case that artists as as mores change, 0:24:20.000 --> 0:24:26.040 as culture changes, they're going to give us depictions of 0:24:26.040 --> 0:24:31.480 ends and purposes that are going to conflict with rival understandings. 0:24:32.359 --> 0:24:36.879 So you said you have the the question of whether 0:24:36.880 --> 0:24:39.800 or not one work of art can win an argument 0:24:39.800 --> 0:24:41.720 with another work of art. Do you have an answer 0:24:41.720 --> 0:24:42.520 to that question? 0:24:42.760 --> 0:24:43.399 I took a. 0:24:43.400 --> 0:24:47.080 Stab at an answer in an article I just published 0:24:47.080 --> 0:24:53.479 earlier this year. Uh, in in the journal logos. Logos. Um, 0:24:54.000 --> 0:24:58.960 and it's it's, uh, the title of it is literature 0:24:58.960 --> 0:25:03.040 is Tradition Constituted Inquiry, and it draws upon the work 0:25:03.040 --> 0:25:08.520 of the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre. It's, um, it's a complicated argument. 0:25:08.560 --> 0:25:13.000 I guess it all comes down to trying to show 0:25:13.359 --> 0:25:23.480 how certain images, in a sense, undermine mine, their own worldview, 0:25:23.480 --> 0:25:25.679 if that's if that's what I want to say or 0:25:25.760 --> 0:25:30.280 certain stories that is undermine their own worldview. They kind 0:25:30.280 --> 0:25:33.959 of subvert themselves. That's a tough argument to make, and 0:25:33.960 --> 0:25:36.080 it would be a very tough argument to make in 0:25:36.080 --> 0:25:39.639 regard to the show you were just describing, because the 0:25:39.640 --> 0:25:45.280 protagonist ends apparently quite, quite content. So how is it 0:25:45.280 --> 0:25:49.879 possible to show that that that moral understanding, that understanding 0:25:49.880 --> 0:25:52.760 of the human ends subverts itself, that that would be 0:25:52.760 --> 0:25:54.760 the task I would have to take up? 0:25:55.320 --> 0:25:59.359 Hmm. Daniel, I often, um, when I teach writing, I 0:25:59.359 --> 0:26:03.119 spend a lot of time talking about the importance of, um, 0:26:03.440 --> 0:26:06.280 staying on the surface, oddly enough, you know, and I 0:26:06.280 --> 0:26:09.800 got this from Flannery O'Connor, who points out that the 0:26:09.800 --> 0:26:14.640 the raw material for fiction, um, is not ideas, but 0:26:15.119 --> 0:26:18.600 but sensory images. Right. And so I'm always trying to 0:26:19.119 --> 0:26:22.920 to push writers to be a little bit more, um, 0:26:24.240 --> 0:26:26.560 to live in the world of the senses and resist 0:26:26.560 --> 0:26:29.080 the temptation to go off and, and, uh, and talk 0:26:29.080 --> 0:26:31.880 about ideas. What I'm really doing is trying to, to 0:26:31.920 --> 0:26:34.560 move the needle in that direction, because I know that 0:26:34.560 --> 0:26:40.080 the ideas are appropriate as well. But, um, that seems 0:26:40.080 --> 0:26:44.240 like a way into the question of the sensible and 0:26:44.240 --> 0:26:47.240 the intelligible. Um, which is something you you talk about 0:26:47.240 --> 0:26:49.360 a good bit. There's, there's that which we receive with 0:26:49.359 --> 0:26:53.200 our senses. And Aristotle and Aquinas are both very clear 0:26:53.200 --> 0:26:58.400 that that's where knowledge starts, right? And yet it's not 0:26:58.440 --> 0:26:59.320 where it ends. 0:27:00.040 --> 0:27:02.080 That's right. Yeah. 0:27:02.080 --> 0:27:07.159 We we we human beings were embodied spirits. So, as 0:27:07.160 --> 0:27:10.320 you just said, we we first encounter the world through 0:27:10.320 --> 0:27:14.520 our five external senses, through through our bodies. Right. And 0:27:14.520 --> 0:27:20.600 our sense organs. But we're we're we're spirits in the 0:27:20.600 --> 0:27:25.879 sense that we have these intellectual powers. And there's actually 0:27:25.880 --> 0:27:31.440 two of them. Intellect and will. Mind and will. Art, 0:27:31.480 --> 0:27:36.679 interestingly enough, is also a kind of embodied spirit. It's 0:27:36.680 --> 0:27:43.399 it's made of matter, right? But it has intelligibility or 0:27:43.400 --> 0:27:48.639 what we might say, meaning packed into it. Mhm. So 0:27:48.680 --> 0:27:54.359 what Flannery O'Connor is encouraging us. Yeah. She, she took this, 0:27:54.400 --> 0:27:58.199 this notion I think from Henry James I believe of, 0:27:58.280 --> 0:28:02.040 of too many writers have weak specification. That is as 0:28:02.040 --> 0:28:05.520 you were saying, they're not the writing isn't grounded in 0:28:05.520 --> 0:28:09.479 the senses in the particular. We're not getting enough of 0:28:09.480 --> 0:28:13.840 the material world, you know. So how people in Nashville 0:28:13.880 --> 0:28:18.160 speak as compared to people in Manhattan. We need to 0:28:18.200 --> 0:28:21.800 get the particulars and our. When we first engage with 0:28:21.800 --> 0:28:27.200 any work of art, we're picking up the particulars. However, 0:28:27.240 --> 0:28:32.640 we're always searching through those particulars with our minds to 0:28:32.680 --> 0:28:39.200 understand the meaning. So what is being said about the 0:28:39.200 --> 0:28:44.040 human person in this story of O'Connor's, for example, what 0:28:44.040 --> 0:28:48.640 is being said about the human quest for fulfillment in 0:28:48.640 --> 0:28:53.760 this story? That's our mind at work. But our mind, sure, 0:28:53.800 --> 0:28:57.800 in in studying philosophy or in talking philosophy, likes to 0:28:57.840 --> 0:29:01.680 think about those questions in a purely abstract way. One 0:29:01.680 --> 0:29:04.760 of the delights of art is that it suits our 0:29:04.760 --> 0:29:09.960 nature as embodied spirit so well by allowing us to 0:29:10.000 --> 0:29:16.440 think about meaning, the intelligibility of the human experience as 0:29:16.440 --> 0:29:20.640 it's embedded in particulars. That's as I tell my students, 0:29:20.640 --> 0:29:24.920 that's the perfect sandwich for us as human beings. You know, 0:29:24.960 --> 0:29:28.320 if I tell you, um, come on over Saturday night, 0:29:28.320 --> 0:29:31.440 we're going to read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason together. 0:29:31.440 --> 0:29:34.480 You're going to be a little daunted and a little hesitant. 0:29:34.920 --> 0:29:36.640 But if I say, come on over, we're going to 0:29:36.640 --> 0:29:40.360 watch a movie, you're like, okay, I can handle it. 0:29:40.360 --> 0:29:44.280 That's that's like a warm bath for us as embodied 0:29:44.280 --> 0:29:47.800 spirits that, that because it's going to fill up our 0:29:47.800 --> 0:29:51.720 senses but still allow us to be rational animals, still 0:29:51.720 --> 0:29:56.440 allow us to think about how the predicament of that 0:29:56.440 --> 0:30:00.840 protagonist shows us, that interplay between ends and purposes that 0:30:00.840 --> 0:30:02.400 we were talking about earlier. 0:30:02.560 --> 0:30:05.600 Yeah, yeah. Uh, I love it when you say I 0:30:05.600 --> 0:30:08.280 don't want to contemplate a universal. I want to contemplate 0:30:08.280 --> 0:30:11.920 a sensible particular, but the contemplation of the sensible particular, 0:30:11.920 --> 0:30:14.160 like a work of mimetic art, is possible because the 0:30:14.160 --> 0:30:16.120 intellect is able to take the essential knowledge of a 0:30:16.120 --> 0:30:19.040 thing and apply it back to the sensible particular. 0:30:19.080 --> 0:30:20.000 Yeah. Yeah. 0:30:20.040 --> 0:30:24.120 Don't tell my philosophy, colleagues I said that. But I mean, 0:30:24.160 --> 0:30:28.360 that's what philosophers do. We contemplate universals more or less 0:30:28.360 --> 0:30:31.560 in the abstract. We're happy to talk about justice and 0:30:31.560 --> 0:30:36.280 happiness and virtue and all the good things, uh, without 0:30:36.320 --> 0:30:40.640 with only sort of a very loose reference to particular people. 0:30:40.640 --> 0:30:44.160 We kind of fly away with the abstraction very quickly. 0:30:44.680 --> 0:30:49.760 But what art does. Perhaps storytelling most vividly is it 0:30:49.760 --> 0:30:55.560 is it puts that, that desire to think about human life, um, 0:30:56.400 --> 0:31:00.120 in the context of this, you know, character, say, a 0:31:00.160 --> 0:31:06.640 character of Flannery O'Connor. Um, you know, living on this farm, uh, 0:31:07.240 --> 0:31:11.640 with this economic status Us being visited by this Bible 0:31:11.680 --> 0:31:15.400 salesman on a day, and we see what happens from that. 0:31:15.400 --> 0:31:18.280 We just can't we just can't get enough of that 0:31:18.280 --> 0:31:19.360 as human beings. 0:31:19.600 --> 0:31:23.520 Yeah. Because it's what every day of every minute of 0:31:23.520 --> 0:31:24.120 every day. 0:31:24.320 --> 0:31:24.680 That's right. 0:31:24.720 --> 0:31:25.120 Our life. 0:31:25.120 --> 0:31:27.040 Is. That's right. Absolutely. 0:31:27.040 --> 0:31:29.880 It's meaning making its way out through the particulars of 0:31:29.880 --> 0:31:30.880 our existence. 0:31:30.920 --> 0:31:33.440 Yeah. I mean, we live in the particular and and 0:31:33.480 --> 0:31:38.600 abstraction is great, but but to kind of even philosophers, 0:31:39.800 --> 0:31:43.040 they're going to run into trouble unless they bring their 0:31:43.080 --> 0:31:48.360 abstractions back and ground them in particulars. And I think 0:31:48.360 --> 0:31:53.240 that's one of the great, um, the great benefits of, 0:31:53.240 --> 0:31:57.760 of our enjoyment of art. Is it it keeps us grounded, um, 0:31:58.200 --> 0:31:59.480 in the particular. 0:31:59.960 --> 0:32:00.360 Yeah. 0:32:01.560 --> 0:32:05.480 So you have used the word contemplation a few times 0:32:05.480 --> 0:32:11.120 in this discussion. Action. Um. What do you mean by contemplation? 0:32:12.240 --> 0:32:17.200 Yeah, I don't. It's certainly connected to sort of a, um, 0:32:17.800 --> 0:32:21.200 the religious sense of contemplation. You know, a monk or 0:32:21.240 --> 0:32:25.440 a nun might practice. It certainly connected with that. But 0:32:25.440 --> 0:32:28.840 I'm also using it in a more flexible, more everyday 0:32:28.880 --> 0:32:32.320 way so that, you know, we're on vacation and we're 0:32:32.360 --> 0:32:35.320 on the beach and we're looking at the sunset and 0:32:35.320 --> 0:32:39.280 just soaking it up. That's a form of contemplation. Uh, 0:32:39.280 --> 0:32:42.560 I would call watching a movie enjoying any kind of 0:32:42.560 --> 0:32:47.280 work of art contemplation. So what it is, um, it's 0:32:47.280 --> 0:32:51.920 it's the mind at work searching for meaning. Right? Inquiring. 0:32:51.960 --> 0:32:57.120 Inquiring into truth. That's what contemplation is. And and even 0:32:57.160 --> 0:33:00.959 at its best, it's the mind soaking up truth that 0:33:00.960 --> 0:33:04.320 it has achieved. But again. 0:33:04.360 --> 0:33:05.520 The mind has achieved. 0:33:05.560 --> 0:33:08.000 Yeah. That the mind is achieved. Now, of course, with 0:33:08.000 --> 0:33:12.320 the help of the senses and the imagination and the emotion. 0:33:12.320 --> 0:33:16.040 But ultimately the, the main contemplative act is, is going 0:33:16.080 --> 0:33:19.160 to be that of the mind. Uh, when the mind 0:33:19.200 --> 0:33:23.600 achieves meaning. But again, when it comes to art, we 0:33:23.640 --> 0:33:29.040 don't achieve that meaning apart from the particular. So another 0:33:29.040 --> 0:33:32.920 great phrase of Flannery O'Connor's from one of her essays, 0:33:32.960 --> 0:33:38.400 she says art or stories give us experienced meaning. So 0:33:38.400 --> 0:33:42.120 not abstract meaning, but but meaning in the experience of 0:33:42.120 --> 0:33:48.080 a character in a story. Um, but gazing at the 0:33:48.080 --> 0:33:52.200 action portrayed in that story is is the contemplative act 0:33:52.200 --> 0:33:56.320 and and simply soaking it up for the meaning that 0:33:56.320 --> 0:33:58.320 it has again, for the way in which it shows 0:33:58.320 --> 0:34:01.239 us the interplay of, of ends and purposes. And I 0:34:01.240 --> 0:34:04.400 tell my students, one way we can see contemplation at 0:34:04.400 --> 0:34:06.520 work in the and the enjoyment of art is in 0:34:06.520 --> 0:34:10.600 the fact that we read certain books and see certain 0:34:10.600 --> 0:34:14.520 movies again and again and again and again. We know 0:34:14.560 --> 0:34:19.480 the ending. We may have large swatches of the dialogue memorized. 0:34:20.239 --> 0:34:25.080 It's not about the initial surprise of what happens. It's 0:34:25.080 --> 0:34:31.359 simply about mulling over, uh, the argument, uh, that the 0:34:31.360 --> 0:34:32.960 author is putting before us. 0:34:33.400 --> 0:34:33.720 Yeah. 0:34:34.360 --> 0:34:38.799 You have been using the verb achieve, achieve truth. Are 0:34:38.800 --> 0:34:42.560 you using that in some technical philosophical sense or. 0:34:43.960 --> 0:34:44.160 No. 0:34:44.200 --> 0:34:46.000 What does achieving truth mean? 0:34:46.200 --> 0:34:49.600 No, I certainly no special technical sense. I think I, I, 0:34:50.239 --> 0:34:54.600 I gravitate toward that verb, um, because of my sense 0:34:54.600 --> 0:34:59.719 that it's difficult. Truth is an achievement. It doesn't come easily, 0:35:00.800 --> 0:35:05.040 not even when you're watching a movie or enjoying a painting. 0:35:05.040 --> 0:35:08.520 You can miss the point of the movie, especially if 0:35:08.520 --> 0:35:12.239 it's kind of challenging. Um, I know I've walked out 0:35:12.239 --> 0:35:16.480 of a movie theater thinking, what was that all about? Right. 0:35:16.520 --> 0:35:22.400 I didn't achieve. Um, the argument that the that the screenwriter, 0:35:22.440 --> 0:35:25.160 the director was trying to put before me, I certainly 0:35:25.160 --> 0:35:29.360 felt that way in front of certain modern paintings. Uh, 0:35:29.480 --> 0:35:32.200 what is the meaning? I miss it so. Truth is, 0:35:32.239 --> 0:35:36.480 is an achievement. It's hard won. Uh, and so I 0:35:36.480 --> 0:35:38.840 think that's that's the reason I use that word. 0:35:39.080 --> 0:35:40.200 Yeah, I. 0:35:40.840 --> 0:35:44.680 I'm a little bit surprised, insofar as, you know, Aquinas 0:35:44.680 --> 0:35:49.960 talks about the importance of receptivity of of receiving and beholding, um, 0:35:50.920 --> 0:35:55.160 and so that beholding doesn't, doesn't seem like an achievement. 0:35:55.160 --> 0:35:58.360 But that's the end of the process. I kind of 0:35:58.400 --> 0:36:01.719 slipped in a minute ago in my earlier answer about contemplation. Inflation. 0:36:01.719 --> 0:36:06.200 It's it's at its best when all the hard work 0:36:06.480 --> 0:36:09.120 of inquiry is over and you've got it and you 0:36:09.120 --> 0:36:13.200 can just soak up the truth. That's the beholding. Um, 0:36:13.920 --> 0:36:18.240 but you've got to there has to be some inquiry, uh, 0:36:18.239 --> 0:36:21.920 in order to achieve that state. We don't, uh, we 0:36:21.960 --> 0:36:26.120 don't get our minds around hardly anything in life or 0:36:26.120 --> 0:36:31.080 in art. Um. Right away. So we have to mull 0:36:31.120 --> 0:36:34.799 it over. We have to, uh, inquire at least a 0:36:34.800 --> 0:36:38.840 little bit. Uh, we at very least have to go 0:36:38.840 --> 0:36:42.719 through the experience of watching the film or reading the 0:36:42.760 --> 0:36:47.360 novel or or gazing at the painting in the museum. 0:36:48.239 --> 0:36:54.880 But when we get the point, the experienced meaning, then 0:36:54.880 --> 0:36:58.919 we behold. Then we simply take it in, as you 0:36:58.920 --> 0:36:59.800 rightly say. 0:36:59.800 --> 0:37:01.400 Listen. Yeah. 0:37:02.120 --> 0:37:06.000 Okay. Daniel, earlier on, very early in our conversation, I 0:37:06.040 --> 0:37:11.240 alluded to Christopher Walken impersonation, which I thought was a funny, 0:37:11.560 --> 0:37:14.680 a funny way of talking about mimesis. Um, can you 0:37:14.680 --> 0:37:16.719 kind of walk us through that? Sounds like I'm trying 0:37:16.719 --> 0:37:19.399 to make a lame pun, but, uh, walk us. 0:37:19.400 --> 0:37:20.680 Through the walking. 0:37:21.160 --> 0:37:21.799 Example. 0:37:22.080 --> 0:37:25.440 Right. And I'll spare the audience my own Christopher Walken. 0:37:26.120 --> 0:37:26.720 Thank you. 0:37:29.160 --> 0:37:31.920 But I start, I start, uh, the opening chapter of 0:37:31.920 --> 0:37:36.320 the book with the scenario of of a celebrity going 0:37:36.320 --> 0:37:39.400 on a late night talk show. And as they often 0:37:39.400 --> 0:37:42.440 like to do, the celebrity will do voice impressions of 0:37:42.440 --> 0:37:45.600 other celebrities. And I at least have often noticed they 0:37:45.600 --> 0:37:47.319 like to do Christopher Walken because he has. 0:37:47.360 --> 0:37:47.800 A very. 0:37:47.920 --> 0:37:54.720 Distinctive voice that's a very simple and homey and but 0:37:54.719 --> 0:38:00.560 delightful example of imitation. Um, and and what it shows 0:38:00.560 --> 0:38:06.920 us is that we delight in the form of something 0:38:07.320 --> 0:38:10.399 being put before us in a different medium. 0:38:10.880 --> 0:38:11.120 Yeah. 0:38:11.160 --> 0:38:14.560 So we we don't have Christopher Walken himself sitting there 0:38:14.600 --> 0:38:16.839 in the television suit. I mean, that's fun too. And 0:38:16.840 --> 0:38:19.160 you can kind of listen to his voice, but there's 0:38:19.160 --> 0:38:23.239 no doubt it's even a little more delightful to see 0:38:23.239 --> 0:38:27.440 some other actor sitting there doing his walk in impression. 0:38:27.840 --> 0:38:33.319 It freshens Walken's voice for us even more and allows 0:38:33.320 --> 0:38:38.600 us what to contemplate it. It's not the deepest contemplation. It's. 0:38:38.600 --> 0:38:42.600 It's not like reading, uh, The Brothers Karamazov, but it's 0:38:42.600 --> 0:38:48.799 nonetheless his voice is so distinctive. Its form is so unusual. 0:38:49.160 --> 0:38:54.640 The impersonation, the imitation gives us a chance to contemplate 0:38:54.640 --> 0:38:58.600 it because it's exaggerated. If Walken is sitting there, he's 0:38:58.640 --> 0:39:03.280 he's probably more prone to not sound like he does 0:39:03.280 --> 0:39:06.359 in the movies. You know, he's going to probably be 0:39:06.360 --> 0:39:10.279 a little more subdued than he ordinarily would be. He's 0:39:10.280 --> 0:39:13.959 not going to get into character. Not certainly not one 0:39:13.960 --> 0:39:17.839 of his own characters, celebrities, movie stars typically don't like 0:39:17.840 --> 0:39:20.839 to do that, but the other actor will. So he'll 0:39:20.880 --> 0:39:25.720 exaggerate the voice. And that's like, uh, that's like putting it, 0:39:25.920 --> 0:39:27.560 as I say in the book. It's like putting it 0:39:27.560 --> 0:39:30.799 on a on a slide that we can then put 0:39:30.800 --> 0:39:35.160 under a microscope. We can really examine that voice and 0:39:35.160 --> 0:39:40.200 delight in that voice. It's not all purely with the mind. Uh, 0:39:40.520 --> 0:39:42.880 we're able to delight in that voice even more. 0:39:43.560 --> 0:39:44.080 Well. 0:39:44.680 --> 0:39:49.600 You you alluded to this a minute ago, and, um, 0:39:49.640 --> 0:39:52.760 but you didn't use the actual the actual phrase, which I'm, 0:39:52.800 --> 0:39:55.720 which is from your book. You speak of the alien 0:39:55.719 --> 0:39:59.480 matter of a particular artistic medium? Yeah, I love that 0:39:59.480 --> 0:40:02.680 language of alien matter. We we take great pleasure in 0:40:02.680 --> 0:40:04.280 seeing the form of a thing. 0:40:04.640 --> 0:40:05.120 Right? 0:40:05.560 --> 0:40:08.479 Rendered in alien matter, you know. 0:40:08.520 --> 0:40:08.840 Yeah. 0:40:08.880 --> 0:40:09.720 I mean, like. 0:40:10.120 --> 0:40:12.160 What was it that Close Encounters of the Third Kind 0:40:12.160 --> 0:40:14.080 where the guy was making the Devil's Tower out of 0:40:14.080 --> 0:40:15.200 mashed potatoes, you know? 0:40:15.239 --> 0:40:15.640 Yeah. 0:40:15.920 --> 0:40:17.359 Alien matter. That's. He's making a little. 0:40:17.360 --> 0:40:18.000 Sculpture. 0:40:18.120 --> 0:40:20.880 And it was an imitation we figured out. We didn't 0:40:20.880 --> 0:40:24.040 know at first what she was doing when she was 0:40:24.040 --> 0:40:26.839 doing that. But as the story goes on, we see that. Oh, 0:40:26.840 --> 0:40:27.960 that's an imitation. 0:40:28.400 --> 0:40:28.720 Yeah. 0:40:28.760 --> 0:40:31.920 Um, or to switch to another example, I can look 0:40:31.920 --> 0:40:36.080 at a painted portrait of Winston Churchill. It's not Churchill, 0:40:36.960 --> 0:40:41.760 but yet it is, in a way, Churchill. It's his, 0:40:42.440 --> 0:40:46.799 his sensible forms. You know how he looked, his girth, 0:40:46.880 --> 0:40:53.120 his expression. Uh, it's there, uh, depicted on that canvas 0:40:53.120 --> 0:40:59.280 and and even something of his, of his character is depicted. Uh, 0:40:59.800 --> 0:41:03.280 I'm thinking of Graham Sutherland's famous portrait of Churchill. It's 0:41:03.280 --> 0:41:07.959 depicted in that portrait. Um, Churchill is there. His form, 0:41:08.120 --> 0:41:12.800 both sensible and intelligible, is there on that two dimensional 0:41:13.400 --> 0:41:18.480 painted canvas. But in an alien medium. And again, that's 0:41:18.480 --> 0:41:21.240 that's like the voice impression of Christopher Walken. We just 0:41:21.239 --> 0:41:25.200 delight in that. It freshens the world for us. 0:41:25.520 --> 0:41:25.920 Yeah. 0:41:26.239 --> 0:41:30.600 So alien matter. Um, can we talk about form for 0:41:30.600 --> 0:41:31.400 just a minute? 0:41:31.600 --> 0:41:31.960 Yeah. 0:41:32.000 --> 0:41:36.840 Um, because form does not mean the external form. 0:41:37.360 --> 0:41:40.440 It can. There are two senses of it. Let's go 0:41:40.440 --> 0:41:44.560 back to what we were saying earlier about art. I 0:41:44.600 --> 0:41:47.880 called it just like human beings. It's an embodied spirit. 0:41:47.880 --> 0:41:50.839 That is to say, any work of art has both 0:41:50.880 --> 0:41:57.800 a sensible material dimension, and it has a non-sensible intelligible dimension. 0:41:57.920 --> 0:42:03.280 There are forms on both levels. So when I'm watching, uh, 0:42:03.880 --> 0:42:09.760 someone do a voice impersonation of Christopher Walken. Uh, first 0:42:09.760 --> 0:42:15.520 of all, there's a sensible form being imitated. Simply kind 0:42:15.520 --> 0:42:20.439 of the timbre, the rhythm, the New York ease of 0:42:20.440 --> 0:42:23.799 his voice. Those are sensible forms. 0:42:24.280 --> 0:42:24.680 Yeah. 0:42:25.600 --> 0:42:28.640 You could also say, though, even with the voice impression, 0:42:28.640 --> 0:42:33.960 there is some intelligibility, there's an intelligible form that is 0:42:34.160 --> 0:42:39.080 something about that voice tells us something about a character, 0:42:39.080 --> 0:42:43.880 and I'm not sure I could say exactly what that is. Um, 0:42:44.560 --> 0:42:50.360 but there's something about being human that's also in that voice. Now, certainly, 0:42:50.360 --> 0:42:53.520 you go to a more complicated kind of imitation, like 0:42:53.760 --> 0:42:59.200 a portrait of Churchill. There are sensible forms on the canvas. So, 0:42:59.239 --> 0:43:03.320 I mean, the painter chose to use certain dark colours 0:43:03.320 --> 0:43:08.680 to depict Churchill's three piece suit. Right. So those browns 0:43:08.680 --> 0:43:12.640 or even blacks, those are sensible forms. And I pick 0:43:12.640 --> 0:43:15.960 those up through my sense of sight. But then there 0:43:15.960 --> 0:43:21.440 are intelligible forms. Forms of meaning. And that has to 0:43:21.440 --> 0:43:25.239 do with what I mentioned a moment ago. I, I 0:43:25.400 --> 0:43:32.520 discern Churchill's character as kind of coming through. The intelligible 0:43:32.520 --> 0:43:35.640 forms are embedded in the sensible forms, but they kind 0:43:35.680 --> 0:43:38.400 of come through them to my mind. 0:43:39.000 --> 0:43:39.320 Yeah. 0:43:39.880 --> 0:43:43.000 So what is the relationship to, uh, to form on 0:43:43.000 --> 0:43:48.640 the one hand and. Those aspects of a of a 0:43:48.640 --> 0:43:52.000 person or a thing that are necessary to its being, 0:43:52.000 --> 0:43:55.719 that person or thing. In other words, I can picture, 0:43:56.280 --> 0:43:58.919 you know, elephants are all the elephants I've ever seen 0:43:58.920 --> 0:44:01.120 are gray, but I can picture a pink elephant. 0:44:01.480 --> 0:44:01.800 Yeah. 0:44:01.840 --> 0:44:05.360 Um, and so that that grayness is not the essence 0:44:05.360 --> 0:44:07.560 of the the elephant. But there's something about the elephant 0:44:07.560 --> 0:44:12.360 that is an essence. I mean, once we start envisioning 0:44:12.360 --> 0:44:14.080 an elephant without a trunk, it feels like we're not 0:44:14.080 --> 0:44:15.320 talking about an elephant anymore. 0:44:16.360 --> 0:44:22.080 Exactly. So form is one of its synonyms is essence. 0:44:22.680 --> 0:44:28.279 So when so when my mind understands, in looking at 0:44:28.280 --> 0:44:32.759 this portrait of Churchill, something about his character. I don't 0:44:32.760 --> 0:44:35.200 know everything about Churchill's character. But one thing I know, 0:44:35.200 --> 0:44:38.560 if I look at Graham Sutherland's portrait, is this is 0:44:38.600 --> 0:44:40.440 a man. Even if I didn't know who it was, 0:44:40.680 --> 0:44:43.399 I would still pick up. This is not a man 0:44:43.440 --> 0:44:47.000 to be trifled with. Right. This is a this is 0:44:47.000 --> 0:44:51.520 this is a man with a commanding personality. Right? That's 0:44:51.640 --> 0:44:56.160 that's part of Churchill's essence as a person. If you 0:44:56.160 --> 0:44:58.360 don't get that, you don't get Churchill. 0:44:58.760 --> 0:44:59.200 Yeah. 0:44:59.239 --> 0:45:02.040 He might have worn a different suit that day. He 0:45:02.040 --> 0:45:06.440 might have been painted five years earlier. Those are accidents. 0:45:06.840 --> 0:45:12.360 Those come and go. But what's essential to his character endures. 0:45:12.640 --> 0:45:15.960 And so what I'm trying to pick up in terms 0:45:15.960 --> 0:45:19.160 of intelligible form when I enjoy a work of art 0:45:19.200 --> 0:45:23.320 is is what is the essence here. And that's another 0:45:23.320 --> 0:45:27.239 way of talking about what is, um, how are the 0:45:27.239 --> 0:45:32.800 purposes aligning with the end? Because that dynamic reveals what's 0:45:32.800 --> 0:45:34.759 essential and what's accidental. 0:45:35.160 --> 0:45:35.640 Yeah. 0:45:37.239 --> 0:45:41.080 Well, I feel like we could talk about this for hours, but, um, 0:45:41.360 --> 0:45:43.520 but I have I have standards, Daniel. 0:45:43.560 --> 0:45:45.879 We we try. 0:45:45.920 --> 0:45:49.399 To keep these things to, to relatively short. So I'm 0:45:49.400 --> 0:45:53.120 going to I'm going to, uh, not ask you any more, uh, 0:45:53.120 --> 0:45:55.000 philosophical questions. But I do want to ask you, who 0:45:55.040 --> 0:45:56.640 are the writers who make you want to write? 0:45:57.160 --> 0:46:01.840 Oh, I love that question. Well, uh, I'm a novelist myself. Uh, 0:46:01.840 --> 0:46:04.920 I get yeah, it's a great question because there's a 0:46:04.920 --> 0:46:09.400 lot of novelists I admire, but there's really only one 0:46:10.560 --> 0:46:14.560 who I read. And after a sentence or two, I'm 0:46:14.600 --> 0:46:18.520 itching to write myself. And that's Evelyn Waugh. 0:46:18.920 --> 0:46:19.160 Uh. 0:46:19.640 --> 0:46:23.719 And I, I don't say that I, I'm, I'm a Catholic. 0:46:23.719 --> 0:46:25.840 I'm not just saying that because while I was a 0:46:25.840 --> 0:46:28.920 Catholic novelist and their Catholic themes in his novels, that's 0:46:28.960 --> 0:46:32.640 that's great. That's that's that's a part of my attraction 0:46:32.640 --> 0:46:35.840 to him. But know what I mean? Are his sentences. 0:46:35.840 --> 0:46:41.080 I think he wrote the most beautiful sentences in 20th 0:46:41.080 --> 0:46:47.040 century English. Um, they are remarkable. I find them infectious 0:46:47.040 --> 0:46:50.919 to read. Um, I think one of his reviewers, who 0:46:50.920 --> 0:46:53.879 blurbed one of his books I saw recently, just said 0:46:53.880 --> 0:46:57.680 he never wrote a bad sentence. And I think the 0:46:57.680 --> 0:47:01.279 appreciation of war has to. It's not just, you know, 0:47:01.320 --> 0:47:06.160 the deathbed conversion in Brideshead. It's it's the sentences that 0:47:06.160 --> 0:47:07.560 I think are so beautiful. 0:47:07.880 --> 0:47:08.400 Yeah. 0:47:08.440 --> 0:47:11.960 Do you know about Evelyn Wall's, um, blurb he wrote for, uh, 0:47:12.000 --> 0:47:13.640 wiseblood Flannery O'Connor's book? 0:47:14.080 --> 0:47:16.759 I think I have heard that, but go ahead. 0:47:16.880 --> 0:47:19.799 He said something like, uh, if this is the unaided 0:47:19.800 --> 0:47:22.560 work of a young woman, it is indeed remarkable. 0:47:22.600 --> 0:47:23.400 Yes, yes. 0:47:23.560 --> 0:47:24.120 They didn't put it. 0:47:24.120 --> 0:47:24.640 On the back of. 0:47:24.680 --> 0:47:26.320 The. They didn't put it on the back of the book. 0:47:27.040 --> 0:47:30.320 And it sounds so incredibly condescending. 0:47:30.600 --> 0:47:30.960 Oh. 0:47:31.280 --> 0:47:33.000 He meant it as a compliment. 0:47:34.680 --> 0:47:37.160 That's a pretty Evelyn Wall uh. 0:47:37.840 --> 0:47:38.640 Thing there. 0:47:38.680 --> 0:47:41.279 Yes. Yeah. Don't. Yeah. You don't get more from him 0:47:41.280 --> 0:47:44.480 than that. So I appreciate that. And I think she did. 0:47:46.120 --> 0:47:48.759 All right. Well, Daniel McInerney, thank you so much for 0:47:48.760 --> 0:47:49.360 being here. 0:47:49.640 --> 0:47:52.000 Jonathan. Thank you. It's been been delightful. 0:47:54.280 --> 0:47:57.200 The habit Podcast is brought to you by the Rabbit Room, 0:47:57.200 --> 0:48:00.920 where art nourishes community and community nourishes art. You can 0:48:00.920 --> 0:48:04.280 support their work, including this podcast, by becoming a member. 0:48:04.520 --> 0:48:10.359 Visit COVID-19. Special thanks as well to Taylor Leonard for 0:48:10.360 --> 0:48:12.920 letting us use her song diamonds as the theme music 0:48:12.920 --> 0:48:15.920 for The Habit podcast. You can learn more about Taylor 0:48:15.920 --> 0:48:20.880 and follow her work at Taylor Dirt.com The Habit. 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