tus

the is right in
break
but the largely unconscious monitoring
emotion too simple an account ofth
repressed argues against ofthe
ennce perceptions ofrepresentation to reality.
statusdour components
affective
ofthe
aesthetic pleasure on the disjunction bemeen
of in relation to painting by eve
dependence
The experienceis discussed Richard
the spectator sees",
aesthetic as an Art, "ullat he delineates
ofPainting depends. Though he
Pad 11 which aesthetic perception is
pacifies on makes are perfectly applicable to
the points he mimesisin
in media and their respective modes of senso gene
differences
allowingfor asserts that the three "fundamental perceptual
hension.Wollheim must have and use are:
that the spectator
seeing-in: (ovo) avpressive perception: and (three) the
(one) these perceptual capacityto
delight. Upon capacities rest threebas
experiencevisual which other powers ic
to painting from derive. The
powers that belong basicPOW.
are (one) the power to represent external objects: (two) the power to ex.
ers
mental or internalphenomena: and (three) the power to induce a special
press
the much maligned property of the decorative.
form ofpleasure, or
which representation depends relates to
The second capacity upon theaffec.
Erpressiveperception is, 'that capacity we have
tive power of mimesis.
to see it as expressing, for instance,
enablesus, on looking at a painting, melan.
(Note that, "It is
choly, or turbulence, or serenity." unwarranted to think
has often been thought, a painting cannot express an emotion or feelingunless
that emotionor feeling can also be caught in language. Why should something
if it can be expressed once, have to be expressible twice—and if it hasto
why stop All kinds of mimetic representation are capable ofexpressing
emotion:for example, King Lear is expressive of (among other things)despair,
To the Lighthouse of the affective aspects of the experience of death and losss,

in music are, for example, Strauss's Four Last Songs.

Expressive perception can be understood as the culmination of a process
that begins with the mental activity of projection. It depends on the co-existence
withinus of psychic processes that originate at different stages in the develop
nent of our capacity to relate inner experiences to external perceptions.These
rocessescan be thought of as stages in the development of our capacitytocor•
'lateour subjectiveexperiences with our identity as a natural object,our
lity;they are, so to speak, the means
by which we attempt to resolve the
problems Taylor takes to be coterminous withtheconcept
Itial/philosophical
the self.
 and Pleasure
Vicarious Emotion 129

term Wollheim uses generally to denote the projec-

is the perception is most closely related to c.,
ove; expressive
straints on perception, and e., identification: the assimi-
con entities to oneself, the process by which a
It-governed rties of other
(i NC and vice versa In the context of expressive percep-
psychoanalyticdefinition offered by Laplanche and Pon-

Site:
isappo severaltimes on
the normal character of the mechanism of
insisted in superstition, in mythology, in
Freud he considers that it operates
Thus
,The obscure recognition (the endopsychic perception, as it were) of
@jectiofl
factorsand relations in the unconscious is mirrored [... in the con-
P ifilism reality, which is destined to be changed back once
supernatural
Ofa psychology of the unconscious.'
scienceinto the
more
projection is,
example of simple
Wollheim's
grip of some strong or poignant emotion, and this emo-
weare in the we set eyes on. we have enjoyed a sudden suc-
to color
have been frustratedor rejected in love, and the whole world, the
or of it, presents itself to us in a light to
assuchand every detailed part
emotion disposedus. It seems to us sparkling and resplendent,or it
this unwelcoming place. And it does so, not because of how
usasa chill and
of how we are.
is, but because
the

simple projectioncorrelateswith 'disowning projection'; it substitutes for

emotion a belief about how the world is. Happy as well as
, niiety-provoking projected though the former are said to be projected
be
—singemotionsmay emotion whose loss is feared while in the
toprotector perpetuatethe
order
themotiveis escape from the painful emotion and/or the anxiety it
provokes. " . in so far
Simple projectionper se is not however easily sustained since,
zitishaphazard, projectionis also transient. There is nothing out there to sus-
U theexperience of the world that projection induces and the experience fades
abruptlyas it was formed. Thus our simple projections dissolve and are
replacdif circumstances are propitious, with what are termed "complex" pro-
Incomplexprojection our perceptions are legitimately endowed with
jätions.
notion;ourfeelingscorrelate with actual features of reality; in ceasing to dis-
M aparticular emotionwe are left with an experience as opposed to an unwar-
ed beliefabout the world.
llhathappensin complex projection is that a particular perception comes to
b: causallyrelatedto a particular inner experience; a feature of the world comes
toevokeacertainfeeling.Wollheim's example seems to be one that might arise
outofa lifelivedin a cool temperate climate: "we have fallen upon a river scene
hearofa countrysideof fields and small villages and woods: there are tall
Poplars,andwater-meadowsand broken fences subside into the sedge. . . a
 Chapter 9
i 30
despair, finely shaded to match
mood of loneliness and
desolation and oppressive heat of a
creeps over us"; the
and the experience
relation between a scene "correspondence". it evokes is termed
denborg and Baudelaire, ways of experiencing Complex projection
pe:on's most characteristic
person finds set
the world
complex projection, "the up in himself a since, as
disposition
event.'
That a projection can be responsive to actual features of
the
tween the subject's inner state and a particular environment; a
cal perceptioncomes to evoke a certain inner experience. It particulat
certain correspondences will generally operate for most people:also follo
this is .
our examples are, by and large, efficacious. The affective
content Of
representationsdepends on the fact that certain features of external
erally evoke particular inner states: here, for example, is Jenny
Diski

If you could have what you dream about, if 1 could have

white and solitary and boundless, there would finally be no excuse.Antarcticaall
you are exactly where you want to be—and now what? Yes white, Imagine
yes
yes boundless, but will it, in its icy empty, immense reality, do? In mysolitary'
does fine, why seek out the final disappointment which the earlier, head,it
I smaller
dis.
appointment only seeks to prevent?

Being depressed is very painful but it is also silence and absence.

Thereis
a paradox. The pain, real anguish, is intolerable. I would do almost anythingnot
to experience it, but the silence and absence of the place where depressionputs
you brings the possibility of getting close to contentment. This is not to saythat
I had any conscious control over depression, only that I discovered that some-
times, if I sat through the pain, I got to a place of absolute peace and quiet.This
is not a statement of the value of depression. Depression is rotten, you cannot
sit through the pain if your circumstances aren't right, if you haven't got sup-
port, or if you have people depending on you. And even if those conditionscan
somehow be met, to sit through the pain carries the very real risk that you will
not survive it. But given that depression happened to me, and I did havesup-
port, I found it was possible after a time to achieve a kind of joy totally discon-
nected from the world. I wanted to be unavailable and in that place withoutthe
pain. I still want it. It is colored white and filled with a singing silence. It is an
endless ice rink. It is antarctic. 14

Wollheim writes of the formation of correspondences:

What we can say is that the suitability of some part of the world to support
projection, its fitness to be the bearer of projective properties, its power to forge
orrespondences, is not something that discloses itself in a flash: it becomes
 and Pleasure
Vicarious Emotion
and all kinds of innuence, cultural as well
al and eror,
to stabilize projection. thus to rnou)d corre-
be can posit a slow and gradual transition, rather than a
and expressive perception. IS
projection
ce If"
the formation of her desire to visit Antarctica:
piski on
see I transfered my fantasy to the idea of a
•tølirøtionfailed,room nothing to distract the eye from the
hospi white
When the regular rhythmic ritual of the
ne of silence broken by
. without the disadvantage... But
the fantasy being the wrong religion and
I could go with
rely, compromisingly. for making my almost
my morning whiteout .. eventually, I
sex' d achieving at least
world fills up with color.
and the empty white
as these things seem to come. Sud-
to me, effortlessly,
've been thinking it forever..
along with it a desire as commanding as any sexual
was what I uanted, and that therefore I had to have
longed to go to Antarctica,or even ever wanted to espe-
as if it had been a lifelong dream. Per-
it the thought was as powerful
in retrospect.
have lifelong dreams
possi
haps
inner states onto features of the world and the fact that
needto project
lative, elaboration of these complex pro-
More or less culturally relative because the features of the world and
forg
possiblehuman inner experiences do not in the first instance seem
of we can share in the imaginatively
inedby a particular culture. Thus
ces of others widely separated from us in time and space: a
to be
ions seems a human rather that cultur-
resource by which exFrience may be represented. The artefacts
Jlb,relative perception can thus be thought of as the formal repre-
evokeexpressive to discover affective content in the world, as much as
of our capacity
ourselves on it.
impose
to perception,the emotion that corresponds to the perception
Inexpressive through which it is invoked. It... (is)
standapart from the perception
to what is perceived. The emotion should flood in on
.. a mereassociation it is not enough that what is perceived
pa•cotion.In expressiveperception
thecorrespondingemotion: the emotion must effect
invokes " l'
how we perceive
emotion and perception fuse.
vhdweperceive.Expressed
Theuninhibited release of feeling that Plato takes to be characteristic of aes-
reception is thus shown to be an effect of a mode of perception upon
ourcapacityto relate our inner experiences to perceptions of reality, to
the worldas affectively toned, depends. lhe emotions thus evoked
experience
followthe perception, they are inextricable from it, they help to constitute
 Chapter 9

emotional relation to our

have no
inhuman,
self-evidently
that is
state
111b,
by,
that is prompted Presence
representationsurface..
of
differentiated 1 discern something
be d
it is
da I look at, and
vision the surface
receding behind, something else.
field of Of
the cases) wall."
t of, (in in the
the boy of dramatic art would be one's
instance] in the case emblematic of capaci
see [for capacity event to serve as others,
saidto analogous one the manifold of
An fitness of mundane in events that
the from the for seeing-in
significant audience our capacity makesit
the As pos.
criminate experience. heightened and selective representations
daily the fulfillment of our capacity to
priseour to perceive inseeing-in is the
us
Siblefor and persons. representation.
Wollheim points out
realevents reality and capacity, visual delight,
its
it
between third reality, quoting Proust
guish
discussing the
take pleasure in on Chardin.
capacityto and
In
our sight of everyday scenes inanimate objecw;
ffansforms from the unconsciously experienced, "otherwise
one gets been it
"thispleasure must already have when Chardin summoned it up in his marvel.
Proustasserts, risen in your heart
have
wouldnot
scenes: "pleasure now seeks something with whichit
new pleasurein
domestic
not because originally this thing was
a concerned:
not originally not within our grasp. Pleasure now seeks a
was originallyit was
but because
in domesticity.' with subject-matter is not simple, but de.
din-like quality connected
pleasure
Thus,"the a fluctuation of interest, between painting and reality"
upon
pendson a contrast, represented as opposed to the reality of the representation's
(therealitythatis mode of mimesis, as in seeing-in), as well as the artist's
identityas a particular to evoke affect. If, as Proust avers, aesthetic
media
his
skillin manipulating on bringing together, on deriving something outof
pleasure"rests on matching,
or two aspects of a single experience",20the pleas.
juxtaposing,two experiences
responses to a representation of reality can in part be
urewe take in our affective
difference between first-order and vicarious emo-
tracedto our awareness of the
difference is, in part at least, constituted
tion,realityandits representation.The
us that which, as given, unmediated
by the factthat the representation orders for
by reason,is inchoate,unintelligible and/or threatens to overwhelm us.
Therefore,it seemsthat it is just the ordering, by the maker's judgment, of
experience,in order to satisfy the conditions of a coherent representation that,
whenalliedto our awarenessof its status as representation, frees us to take
pleasurein the emotionsevoked by mimesis. The imposition of form on incho-
ate material,realized in the transmutation of pre-conceptualized affect into that
 Pleasure
Vicarious C,motion and 133

our shared experience,explains some of the

fcature of to arouse feeling.
recognizøble wer of mimesis
i' ø tßkein the in turn that it is just its failure to cmform to
serotottsi%cornpatibility with our understanding of everyday life,
rder emotion. Furthermore, for as jong
is unavailable for integration into
Ives and the world. Vicarious emotion is
merely quantitatively different from first-order experie
e in it, its difference from first-order emotion, and its

responses to the world that seemed least conformable to it

dßdist disapproving of mimesis' power to reveal projections, as
to for cannot be
we have acknowledged an emotion to be our own, we are in a posi-
"plato
affective response initially taken to emanate from others or
an
admitthat in ourselves th1S
originates expressive perceptions from the external world.
world
withdrawalof our
wous pleasures are those of the intellect entails his
assertionthat the only true
withdrawal of affect from th
the
Salof even if Plato's metaphysics does not present itself as a live option, it
case
to demand that we cease projecting our feelings onto the
be unrealistic is inseparable
since projection relation to our surround-
world lives wholly detached from any affective
live
aspireto remainhuman. However, as Burnyeat points out, Plato disapproves
and consciousness of disruptive emotions, not of socially bene-
calling to
onlyofthe that it is the tendency
evocations of feeling. Plato appears to be claiming
ficial our disowning projections that is dangerous, for this is
to dissolve
ofmimesis we come to acknowledge an emotion repressed because of its
what we do when
unacceptability as our own.
Well, mimesis, in formalizing, structuring, an ini-
Whywouldthis be so?
intelligible and the representation which makes
inchoateemotion,makes it
tially
repressed emotionintelligiblealso provides us with a repertoire of attitudes and
in the world. In making a repressed
actionsbymeansof which it may be enacted
emotion intelligible,mimesis simultaneously makes us conscious of it as ours,
it, and provides us with a scenario by means of which it may be ex-
justifies
pressed:ready-madeattitudes and roles (potential identifications) which may be
to ourselvesand to others, and which, in accounting for the emotion in
question,canconstrainthe ways we interpret states of affairs. With regard to
disowning projectionsin particular Plato is right: the mimetically mediated rec-
ognitionof a disruptiveemotion as one's own does make it possible for its pos-
toexpressit as he would not have done otherwise. On the other hand, the
sessor
dissolutionof disowningprojections is also a condition of our seeing ourselves
andothersas they are, of our ceasing to attribute aspects of ourselves which we
cmnot tolerateto elements of the material world, or to others. The dissolution of
 Chapter 9

134
against which Plato warns is also a condition
projections well as seeing others Of
disowning ourselves, as more truthfully 01
responsible for emotion and perception that art
fully fusing of
is by just this in exploiting our pre-existent alters
It world:
our relation to the heightens them, bringing them
affectively
does, aspects ofreality it to conscio
relationsto that the events depicted are mere representations
know they evoke are Ofev
Althoughwe aware that the emotions real and
nonetheless of other
life we areconsciousawareness of the possibility ways of
broughtto happened and the possibility of questioning experiem
this has our
reality.Once analogous events and objects has arisen, then we
perceptionsof whether to allow mustdec
or not, it to influence
to realize this possibility
whether
world.
perceptionsof the certain affective response to mimesis initiates
that a
To theextent consistent personal identity, it can't
a
of a avoid
disposition,is to be part understanding
its possessor's life, a revision of his of himself.
The
tioninto of responding to the world requires
tablishmentof a new way it offers a novel
reinterpretatiog
response, but of others
of affairs to which
not only of the states reinterpretation will probably, in the first instance
it is related. The
to which analogous to that represented in the mimesisthat
presupposesome situation
denied emotions to consciousness but a sin.
originallybroughtthe repressed or
represented to reality is unlikely to be sustain.
ple transpositionof the scenario
will have to be adjusted to conform to reality
able over time. The scenario given
world will have to alter in ways thatmake
just as beliefs aboutoneself and the
senseof one's new response; since, "at„any given moment we seek to lead[our
21
lives]underthe aegis of all our beliefs , a rational person will not be ableto
segregatehis new perceptions of himself and others from his other beliefs.Fur.
thermore,the extent to which beliefs can be revised is limited because,"We
require our beliefs to fit the world, [though] we require the world to fit our de-
sires."22The person who wishes his beliefs to be consistent will be forced to
revisehis beliefsabout other, related states of affairs if his repertoire ofaffective
responsesto the world is to include those of which he has newly become aware,
and attitudesconsistent with the new responses will ramify out from the initial
revision.It follows that, given a largely rational set of beliefs, incorporation ofa
dispositionto respondin novel ways to events in the world cannot wholly evade
the constraintsof reason, though an uncharacteristic, transient mental state
might.Thisfact does not in itself of course guarantee that the new identity will
conformto prevalent norms, although it will
presumably be more transparent,to
•tselfand to others.

limesis and Revision of

Values
aulRicoeurwritesthat
fictionis "revealing, in the sense that it brings features
lightthat were concealed
rience,ourpraxis... and yet already sketched out at the heart of our ex-
we reach the point examined in this way is a changed life, another life•
a life
where discovering and
inventing are indistinguish-
 Vicarious Emotion and Pleasure
135
the public reception of a
from the individual to work of art
Moving of Hans Robert Jauss who asserts that, "the meaning he
work of a
upon the dialogical (dialogisch) relation established
rests between
't'
which are in turn by,

traditions concerning the genre, the theme, and the degree of con-
earlierfirst receivers between the poetic language and everyday practical
the Quixote). To determine a horizon of expectation for a new
Don
age(Sec
as-yet-unknown
experience) the audience must discover the interplay
Iango(an
work w
to
ofquestions

art undermines the status quo by altering collective perceptions,

of
into question,but it can only do this if the possibility of alternative
them already exists for its audience: "we can understand a
Ollingdings work only
to which it responds."
understoodthat
that pleasure (aisthesis) is a mode of perception:
ifwe
Jaussasserts
common idea that pleasure is ignorant and mute, Jauss as-
contraryto the
the power to open a space of meaning in which the logic
thatit possesses [explanation] will subsequently unfold.
and answer It gives rise to
ofquestion .PIeasure is a perceptive reception, attentive to the prescrip-
understanding.
musical score that the text is... .By all these features, aesthetic per-
lionsof the from everyday perception and thus establishes a dis-
is distinguished
ception experience.
to ordinary
in
tance relation

Nonetheless, we are no further on in coming to understand how it is that af-

from representational contexts to everyday life. If this pleas-
fectistransposed in Kantian terms as pure receptivity to novel understand-
defined by Jauss
perceptions, the gap between reality and
ings,isto be neansposedto everyday
rpresentation must somehow be bridged. The decision to favor a novel percep-
possesses all of the advantages that accrue to famili-
tionofrealityover one that
be explained.
arityandorthodoxymust itself
Jaussaccountsfor the transposition of aesthetic understandings to everyday
experience by distinguishingbetween aisthesis or pleasure, "the moment of
communicability of perceptive understanding"? and catharsis. Catharsis begins
anaffective and cognitive transposition—a radical evaluation—that leads us to
attemptto "translatethe meaning of a text in its first context into another con-
whichamountsto saying: to give it a new signification which goes beyond
text,
thehorizon of meaningdelimited by the intentionality of the text in its original
context."Pleasure"frees the reader from everyday concerns, catharsis sets the
readerfreefor new evaluations of reality"; aisthesis calls feeling into awareness,
usesreasonto make it efficacious. Thus the pleasure we take in mime-
catharsis
sisiscapableof initiating the altered perceptions of reality, including oneself, to
which Platoobjects:the affect evoked conditions our values which in turn con-
dition
ourperceptions,hence our identity. That the pleasure is conditional on our
 to the perception in
na have incorpo accrues
distinction
between mimeti
vicarious otion he did not we would
once em • if it
pleasure in our emotions,
re-always take
remainsafter is presupposed by both
[oentfeaxc: freception
filt31naer o
aesthetics psychological/aesthe
withstands a
world
ofthe Mimesis alters affec
to another.
one context
ofpreviously
unconscious
us aware into our self-concept and
by making
demand
incorporation
habitual ways of interpreting
tivelnyen:nldpeßeptions changein our
demand of mimesis are, so to speaks
to willParadigmatic instances experiences; they can provide the
responding to reality.regard to our innermakes self-evaluation possible, an
and with that
educative
essentially ways of being can examine one's current identity.
knowledge from which one in its function as possible
perspective
unfamiliar is indisputably dangerous since,
it
Nonetheless, us from familiar ways of being and maybe
evaluation, it detaches
socially disruptive.

Notes
l. M.F.Bumyeat,"ArtandMimesisin Plato's 'Republic' ", based on the second of
twoTanner Lectureson 'Cultureand Society in Plato's Republic' given at Harvard, De-
cember, 1997,LondonReviewofBooks 20, no. 10, (21 May, 1998): 3—9, 8; published in
fullin TheTannerLectureson Human Values, vol. XX, (Salt Lake
City, Utah: 1999),
55-324, 319-320.
2. J. Laplanche
andJ.-B. Pontalis, The
cholson-smith,(London:KarnacBooks, Language of Psychoanalysis, trans. Donald
1988), 349. Reprinted by
3. Laplanche kind permission of
and Pontalis,
4.FrangoisDagognet,Language,
Psychoanalysis, 350—351.
. PaulRicoeur, Écrüureetlconographie,
avidPellauer, TimeandNarrative,3
(Paris: Vrin, 1973).
vol.3 trans. vols., vols. 1—2
hiversityofChicago Kathleen Blamey
trans. Kathleen McLaughlin
Press, and David Pellauer
SeeJanet 1984—1988), 1: 81. 0 (Chicago and Lon-
(London:Malcolm,"The 1988 by The
University of Chi-
ussing Papermac, 1996),One-way
Gregory Mirror" , in
Bateson's 177-229 The Purloined
formulation Clinic: Selected
of the
theo ry of
communication that laid