The Phenomenology of the Artist
Looking for Help to Grasp New Ontoepistemologies and Metaphysics

Much of O.G. Rose suggests a âconditionalâ metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology, all of which can seem strange, mystical, and paradoxical. These are fair points of contention, but I think what is proposed in Rose is a lot more tangible and practicable than it might at first seem: we are basically grounding our âabstract workâ in the âconcreteâ experience of being an artist, creator, designer, or the like. âThe creative actâ is the experience at the center of our thinking, and by examining it closer, a better hold around the ideas of Rose becomes possible.Â
Creatives are at the center of phenomenological experiences which could ground philosophy, I believe, but unfortunately art and philosophy seem to have been at war for the last two hundred years, and philosophy has instead (at least in America) centered on âpragmaticism.â Funny enough though, in my view, this âpragmaticismâ has been âcapturedâ by what the socioeconomic order defines as âpractical,â and sine art is not considered practical, âthe practices of artistsâ have been excluded from philosophical developments of pragmaticism. This is what I strongly resist: I have no problem with âpragmatismâ as long it takes into account artists. This leads into what I call âPhenomenological Pragmaticism,â which also resists conflating âpragmaticismâ and âempiricismââanother terrible mistake.
I have resisted a phrase like âAesthetic Pragmaticism,â for I donât want to slip into a âmonotheoryâ that treats the experience of the artist as all we need to account for: rather, I want to include the scientist, engineer, artist, etc. in âthe same boat,â which means I simply want to expand âpragmaticismâ to include and integrate with âphenomenologyâ in general. That said, the particular âphenomenology of the creative actâ might be uniquely useful in helping us âget a graspâ around some of the philosophical concepts explored in O.G. Rose. It is to make this case that I have written this short document.
I want this piece to be very straightforward, so I am going to list as a title a main idea, and then under that idea list a âpracticalâ act of the arts which can be studied to metaphorically, analogously, and/or phenomenologically approach the thinking of Rose. Moving forward, whenever I mention âlack,â for example, readers can consider the experience of Tolstoy writing War and Peace, an idea/novel that was âa present absence.â âLackâ is a strange concept, located between âbeingâ and ânothing,â but if we imagine what itâs like to write a novel, we can start to get a better hold on how something can be âpresent and absentâ at the same time. We can also understand how something can be âpresentâ like a completed novel and yet also not feel like it's âtotally hereâ (many writers will talk like their books are failures). By focusing in on the phenomenology of the artist, we can gain imagery and language to better approach the topics of O.G. Rose.
Please note that if not everything makes sense just yet, advancing in the work of O.G. Rose will hopefully at least prove easier with these metaphoric and analogous connections to which we can refer. I will not promise to cover all the main subjects that I explore, but hopefully these will provide some examples of why considering the arts might be useful for understanding the ontology, epistemology, and metaphysics I like to explore. Admittedly, based on where this short piece ends up in (Re)constructing âA Is A,â there might be a number of terms and constructs readers have not encountered yet. Forgive me for that, but Iâm actually hoping that by introducing readers to the metaphoric schemas first, it will be easier to make sense of the concepts when readers encounter them more abstractly (like a hook waiting to hold our hats). For now, if any of the ideas listed below are new or unclear, please just let them âwash over youââââthere will be much more explanation later on in the book. Mainly, my hope is to establish early that âthinking aestheticallyâ and âconsidering the phenomenology of the artistâ is a useful way (if not the best way) to approach and consider the thinking of O.G. Rose.
Lack
In the experience of writing a novel, painting a painting, etc., the object we are trying to create is âhere,â and yet at the same time it is not: it is âa present absence.â And yet the artist organizes and lives their life according to âthis present absence,â unless that is the artist slips into despair and starts to believe âthe work isnât worth doingâ or âthis work will never get doneâ (which they might be right about, since they are âthe contingent elementâ who influences what turns out to be the case). This is to slip into nihilism, while the artist who âkeeps goingâ can be someone who âaccepts lackâ and âintegrates with it,â aware that whatever they ultimately create may not be accepted or âitâ (like a person who gets married aware that he or she will not find âcomplete wholenessâ in that marriage and yet still marries).
A/B Ontology
(Paradox, âBe-coming,â etc.)
The artist works in a coffee house but also writes: because the socioeconomic order doesnât tend to support artists, the artist cannot often identify with their job, and they also are in a state of trying âto becomeâ successful. Yes, successful artists can âbeâ their job, but that proves to be a risk: success can kill âthe fire of artists.â In this way, artists often find themselves having to live âa double life,â not necessarily because they want to live âtwo different lives,â but because they find themselves having to do so to survive. People just donât accept artists, and so artists tend to end up having to âbeâ someone they also are not just to get by.
Artists are familiar with imagination (as are children), and for a writer to really âwriteâ their story, they basically have to âbecome itâ and âenter itâ in a very profound and deep way. Caddy basically âbecomesâ a real person to Faulkner, and Hemmingway experiences his characters as flesh and blood individuals who he ârecallsâ (which is how it feels versus âcreatingâ). Dancers and actors âbecomeâ their characters and performances: we fail to really capture âitâ if we say dancers and actors only âperform,â as if there is a division between them as people and them as artists. Similarly, when children play games and pretend to be animals, they really âareâ kittens and puppies: they do everything in their power to engage in âself-forgetfulnessâ (to use Timothy Kellerâs amazing language), and yet at the same time they never stop being themselves. They enter into a space of âboth-ness,â and funny enough it would seem artists and children are just âmaking vividâ and âbringing to the forefrontâ the truth about all of usâââthat we are A/B and not A/Aâââand yet we tend to accuse artists and children of being âimpracticalâ and silly. In truth, they are some of the few people who are actually âpracticingâ who they âareâ (and isnât it irrational to define pragmaticism according to any other standard?).
Lastly, there is a humility and bravery involved in creativity: it requires us to âopen ourselves upâ to something bigger than ourselves, to let that âmuseâ have its way with us, and also artists have to often accept the insults and rejections of the society. It is also brave because the artist really might fail, because anything can come out in the creative process (suppressed traumas, painful memories, etc.), and because the artist might have an idea that he or she might then feel deeply responsible to bring into the world. The risk here is great.
(W)holeness, (In)completeness, (Re)turn, etc.
(Elaborations on A/B ontologies and âbetweenâ terms)
In O.G. Rose, âincompleteâ and â(in)completeâ are not identical, though they sound very similar, which firstly alludes to Derridaâs âdiffĂ©ranceâ and secondly suggests Hegelian negation/sublation. We discuss how âcompletenessâ is problematic (an effacement), but itâs also the case that we donât merely want to accept âincompleteness,â for that would run the risk of nihilism. Rather, we seek to âintegrate with lack,â which is to âfind completeness in incompleteness,â per se, which means our goal is something like â(in)completeness,â â(w)holeness,â and the like (âlackâ itself exists âbetweenâ being and nothing, not being merely one or the other).
It might sound strange to live in a state of â(in)completeness,â but it can be understood better if we examine the artist. The writer has a book that isnât finished and yet the writer works on it each day: the writer has to find stability and motivation in this strange âalready not yet.â The book is done in the writerâs mind (or at least âcompletableâ), and yet the book isnât done in the world: the writer has to live with a âcomplete beingâ in his/her head while working to make that being âbe-comeâ into the world through his or her pen or keyboard. Furthermore, the writer can complete a book and always wonder what people think about it: I can speak from experience that even when you finish a story, you can find yourself always wondering if you should change something, if itâs actually any good, or the like (and someone can always come along three years later and make you realize there was a story element you overlooked). Relating to old work in art is very strange, and also as soon as you finish one project you can feel yourself already âtowardâ the next: âfinishing somethingâ and âhaving something else to doâ constantly feel in concert together. Artists are ostensibly never completely finished, and yet itâs also not the case that artists donât ever complete anything. Itâs both. Itâs â(in)completeness.â
âHere/Thereâ-ness
As also explored in The Absolute Choice regarding Hegel and âAbsolute Knowing,â when we read a book and there is a movie playing in our head, we exist in a very strange âdouble placeâ: we are sitting in a chair reading black marks on white paper, and yet at the same time we are watching Frodo and Sam climb Mount Doom. There is a âmovie playing in our headsâ that we âsee,â and yet we donât see itâââa bizarre phenomenological experience that suggests precisely why A/A is inadequate and A/B more âfittingâ for human existence. This âdouble placeâ is what I call âhere/there,â and I will describe this experience in the context of memory, imagination, and Hegel, and it suggests how we are able to think according to two different dimensions simultaneously. Likewise, we are able to think of things âas being themselvesâ and yet also as ânot being themselves,â which suggests the âcontradictionâ of Hegel that Dr. McGowan stresses. Reading suggests that we are not bound by our immediacy, that we are capable of a radical âboth-ness.â
Language
Artists understand that âblueâ and âazureâ donât mean the same thing, even if they refer to a similar tint of color. Words and details matter, and yet artists also know that words have to be played with and destabilized to âpoint toâ the visions they are trying to craft and articulate. Shakespeare invented many words, and notably poets will search for ways to use language in new ways so that that we can âseeâ new realities that we might have faced our entire lives without realizing it. Artists realize that the languages we learn and use actually impact how we see and understand the world around us: words impact our eyes; they are not arbitrary.
Writers understand words are very strange: they are black marks on white paper, and yet they create âmovies in our heads.â They are images, and yet not merely images, and if a single comma is misplaced in a sentence, the entire âeffectâ of the sentence could be thrown off. In this way, artists (especially writers) are deeply familiar with the strange ways that language suggests metaphysics, âpointsâ beyond itself while also being itself, and how a sentence has to be âjust rightâ (perfectly conditioned) to create the right effect. If a word is misspelled, the sentence can fail, but if not, the sentence can strike us âjust right,â as if it was âalways just right.â In this way, language incorporates Conditionalism and âflip moments,â existing in this amazing space where realities are created âout of nowhereâ but only if all the pieces are in the right place at the right time (a stress of âConditionalism,â as brought out in studying In Praise of Shadows by Tanizaki, for example).
Zach âHigh Rootâ Fishman noted the importance of using the same term to communicate a negation/sublation, stressing the difference between âbeing a rock-climber,â and âbeing a rock-climber,â and how a slightly different stress on the term ârock-climberâ can completely transform the meaning of the same term. There is problematic âwholenessâ (effacement), âhole-ness,â but then there is â(w)holeness,â which âsounds like wholenessâ but is no longer an effacement and instead a negation/sublation. Mr. Fishman stresses that we need to use the same word (âw-holenessâ) to communicate this negation/sublation, but if we introduce a new term, that will suggest an entirely new and different intellectual schema versus something Hegelian. In this way, Mr. Fishman suggests how the same language in a different circumstance means something entirely different: based on the âconditions,â what emerges and arises can be entirely new.
The difference between âwholenessâ and â(w)holenessâ might sound strange, but writers are much more familiar with word-plays, the difference between visually seeing a word and audibly hearing one, and the ways in which terms can change their meanings through times. All of this suggests different ways according to which artists approach and think about language, which is to say that words are not merely âvessels of informationâ spreading ideas, but entities we experience and that suggest strange metaphysical dimensions that cannot be easily captured in raw materiality. So it goes with paints, the movements of the body in dance, the frequencies of sounds in musicâââall of these are suddenly âwhat they are not.â In this way, âthe aesthetic experience of languageâ is what we need to incorporate into our thinking and to take seriously.
Conditionalism
Between Absolutism and Relativism, âConditionalismâ is meant to suggest that there are âconcrete truthsâ and ârealitiesâ which arise when âthe right conditions are met.â To create a shadow (and allude to the work of Tanizaki), for example, I must position an object in front of a light sourceâââdoes this mean âshadows are relative?â Not really: it means that shadows cannot come into existence ânoncontingently,â universally, generally, or the like: their existence is observable and âconcrete,â and yet their existence isnât âgivenâ relative to any and all circumstances. Please note that if a truth or reality must be âuniversalâ and/or ânoncontingentâ in order to be considered âtrueâ or âreal,â then basically our only choices are Absolutism or Relativism, the first of which can lead to totalitarianism while the second can lead to epistemic nihilism. Sure, there is something ârelativeâ about Conditionalism, but it is also far more âconcreteâ than what ârelativismâ usually suggests (or at least in my view).
The writer realizes that if she wants to emotionally move her reader, she needs to âmeet the conditionâ of not having any grammar mistakes in her sentence, of picking the right words and placing them in the right order, of making sure the imagery flows together smoothly, and so on: like the chef picking ingredients, the painter picking colors, the architect choosing materialsâââeverything has to be âjust right.â If the words in the sentence are beautiful but too sophisticated, the reading experience will be hindered; if the imagery is stunning but distracting from the story, the reader might grow bored; if the characters are interesting but the dialogue between them rigid, the book might end up on a shelf forgotten; and so on. Does the word âAbsolutismâ or âRelativismâ capture the craft of the writer? I donât believe so, and it is by considering the work of the creator that we can better grasp the logic and points of Conditionalism.
Philosophy often seems more like an art-form than a science (even when about science), and if art is best understood through Conditionalism, than we should expect the same of philosophy, which would suggest trying to understand philosophy in terms of Absolutism and/or Relativism has been a âreductionistâ mistake, like trying to fit something into a cookie-cutter. Please also note that, as argued in âExperiencing Thinkingâ by O.G. Rose, just because something isnât a science doesnât mean it is âless trueâ than something that is: science deals with âlow order causalityâ (generally involving a single ontology like Physics or Chemistry), while the arts can be more focused on âhigh order causalityâ (involving multiple ontologies, say the interplay between Mind and Physics). By âhighâ and âlow,â I donât mean to establish a hierarchy, for indeed both are necessary and vital at different times: rather, my point is only to say that while science is perhaps better suited to be associated with Absolutism and/or Relativism, Conditionalism is better for philosophy and the arts. (Please note that the work of Alexander Bard and Alexander Elung on âVector Theoryâ would be useful here to consider.)
Dialogos, Participatory Knowledge, âPhilosophical Practices,â and the Like
The topic of âDialogos,â as coined by John Vervaeke, is readily discussed throughout the new emerging online spaces, and it is the idea that there is a kind of conversation where something can âemergeâ which cannot be reduced to the participants and thatâs âbirthâ cannot be readily understood except by those who participate in the Dialogos. This thought is overlain with âparticipatory knowledgeâ (which brings to mind Michael Polanyi), and generally the idea is that there are things we cannot know or understand except by âdoing them.â If someone were to ask from outside, âHow does that work?ââââsilence would likely be the response. It is not easy to say âhowâ Dialogos works, and yet there is indeed a logic to it. It is not random. It is not âanything goes.â Like the artist, even when we donât know what weâre doing, we know once weâve done it.
âLabels, Names, and Poemsâ by O.G. Rose elaborates on this point, but we can think of âparticipatory knowledgeâ as like what is found in a jazz improvisation. Nobody knows what is going to happen ahead of time, and yet there is still a âright and wrongâ way to play. The pianist simply canât play anything, as cannot the saxophonist, and yet it can âseem that wayâ from the outside (and when we ask the performers how they knew what to play and they struggle to offer a convincing response). Improvisations are not random, but to know what should be played (and when), we really must be part of the action. Action we are not part of is inactively watched.
And so on.
There are other macro-concerns of O.G. Rose, such as âAesthetic Epistemologyâ and the topic of beauty in general, but I donât think I need to make a point to metaphorically connect those with the Phenomenology of the Artist. Unfortunately, I fear the antagonism which has arisen between âphilosophersâ and âartistsâ has contributed to philosophers not looking to the arts for metaphors and ârepresentative schemasâ by which new ideas could be mined and explored. As a result, A/B ontologies, âlacks,â Conditionalityâââmany useful ideas have been missed and ignored.
Looking ahead, the artist knows the strange tension between âobservingâ the world and thinking about it, which is a movement between âthinkingâ and âperceivingââââa distinction at the heart of O.G. Rose. Flannery OâConnor stressed the need to âstareâ and really look at things, as did Cezanne, Nishitani, and many others who understood the secret to imagination was really âtaking in the world,â which we all naturally think we do, and yet few of us actually do so with the seriousness required for quality creation. Again, this suggests a distinction to which we will turn to in âOn Thinking and Perceivingâ by O.G. Rose.
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