Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The parallelism between the development of Gothic art and the develop-
ment of scholastic thought in the period between about 1 ¡30-1140 and
about 1270 cannot be brought out unless one "brackets off phenomenal
appearances" and seeks the hidden analogies between the principles of
logical organization of Scholasticism and the principles of construction of
Gothic architecture. This methodological choice is dictated by the inten-
tion of establishing more than a vague "parallelism" or discontinuous,
fragmentary "influences". Renouncing the semblances of proof which sat-
isfy intuitionists or the reassuring but reductive circumstantial proofs
which delight positivists, Panofsky is led to identify the historical conver-
gence which provides the object of his research with a hidden principle, a
habitus or "habit-formingforce". (Bourdieu et al. 1991, 191; italics in
the original)
Art felt the spirit of a new age, and there could hardly be a greater
change than from the highly ornate round-arched architecture of the
twelfth century to the comparatively simple Gothic of the thirteenth.
Indeed, if any one wishes to know what a scholastic commentary is
438
like, and what the tone of thought in it is, he has only to contemplate
a Gothic cathedral. The first quality of either is a religious devotion, ^
truly heroic. . . . And if the spirit was not altogether admirable, it is
only because faith itself has its faults as a foundation for the intellec- g
tual character. (EP 1:86, W 2:465) °^
w The most extraordinary break in peoples ideas that the modern his-
*^ tory reveals,—excepting perhaps at the French Revolution—occurs
"^ about A. D. 1200. In the first place, Gothic architecture suddenly
Z appeared. The rich and beautiful but not deeply emotional roman-
<^ esque was suddenly replaced by the extremely chaste but devotional
0-t gothic. The idea that this came from Mohammedans^, who never
[—( executed a single piece of architecture with the slightest elevation of
sentiment,—which is most strikingly absent in the Alhambra, the
mosque of Cordova, and all mosques generally, is ridiculous. As for
those Sicilian towers which show some windows with pointed tops,
they never could have suggested Gothic. People who entertain that
theory are no psychologists. No: Whewell was right. It was simply
forced upon architects by their desire to open large spaces, and in
order to do that to use compartments that were oblong not square.
This theory explains the thing fully. (R 1328, HP 1:350)
But there is more in Peirce than this direct appeal to Whewell's theory
concerning Gothic architecture. Whewell, who invented the English
term "scientist" (Snyder 2009), also supplies the idea of a scientific
community so prominent in Peirce's writings. It can be traced back to
his 1869 notes for the Whewell-lecture:
Ideal scientific men may be thus compared to the schoolmen and their
workj since the work of both lacks any "smack of individuality" and is
therefore "not in any sense egotistical." Their interpretations are not
"private," because they do not cling to their personal theories but
440 •
collectively pursue truth. Whewell himself exemplifies this scientific J^
ethos: when his colleague Robert Willis demonstrated in Remarks on ñ
the Architecture of the Middle Ages [1835] that Whewell's earlier theory \_^
concerning the technical causes for the pointed arch was faulty, he not 3
only acknowledged Willis's further research but happily made use of it §->
(Whewell 1858a, 246f). ^
Whewell's view of science rests on the assumption that scientific 3
observations are formed by an interplay of facts with inferences which «
involve fundamental ideas. These fundamental ideas are internal prin- "
ciples^ which determine what may be called a fact. "All facts involve o
ideas," as Peirce remarks in his Whewell lecture of 1869: ?T
All facts involve ideas. This is the first lesson a man has to learn in *
studying science. . . . But the influence of the mind upon observa- ^
tions is not necessarily evil. It may almost be said that we can only see ^
what we look for. (W 2:344-345) 5
According to Whewell, what distinguishes science from art (in the sense >
of a practical téchnê) is the constant effort of science to develop theo- 2:
ries. For example, the technical process of wine-making does not neces- ^
sarily involve chemical knowledge of the processes of fermentation.
The practical arts are not to be classed among the sciences, because
"[i]n Art, truth is a means to an end; in Science, it is the only end"
(Whewell 1858b, 129):
The real state of the case is, that the principles which Art involves.
Science alone evolves. The truths on which the success of Art depends,
lurk in the artist's mind in an undeveloped state; guiding his hand,
stimulating his invention, balancing his judgment, but not appearing
in the form of enunciated Propositions. (Whewell 1858b, 133)
That did not keep Whewell from writing about art, in particular about
architecture. Whewell, himself the eldest son of a master-carpenter, was
an early admirer of Thomas Rickman's An Attempt to Discriminate the
Styles of English Architecture, from the Conquest to the Reformation
[1818]. Rickman's terminology plays an important part in Whewell's
own siuáy Architectural Notes on German Churches [1830]. The part of
the "internal principle," the idea which may be discerned in Gothic
architecture, is there described as follows:
The features and details of the later architecture were brought out
more and more completely, in proportion as the idea, or internal
principleof unity and harmony in the newer works, became clear and
single, like that which had pervaded the buildings of antiquity: the
characteristic forms of the one being horizontal, reposing, definite; of
the other vertical, aspiring, indefinite. (Whewell 1835, 4)
441
^ It is Gothic architecture which in Whewell's History ofthe Inductive Sei-
Ö enees serves as an example for the progress of scientific ideas in a dark
c age, as a "prelude to the period of discovery." (Whewell 1858a, 246)
3 Gothic architecture, though a practical art, "led, in the course of time,
Z to its speculative development as the foundation of science; and thus
^ Architecture prepared the way for Mechanics." (Whewell 1858a, 247-
(Ü 248) The reason for this transformation is the internal principle, the
E idea of mechanical pressure and support that resulted from the wish to
-g solve the problem of building in a "vertical, aspiring, indefinite" way.
^ Peirce adopts Whewell's intuition that an idea, though at first artis-
te tic and in an "undeveloped state," may nevertheless result in a work
2 that embodies that very idea: "The effect of a Gothic church is to em-
/-\ body that intense yearning for something higher, that aspiration, that
HH sursum corda, which marks the fall of pride." (R 1328, HP 2:351) This
E-H common yearning, the "lift up your hearts" of the congregation, is to
U Peirce "agapasmofthe first and highest kind." (R 957, W 8:418, 1892)
<¡ It is thus Peirce's doctrine of evolutionary love, or agapasm, which pro-
•^ vides a link between Gothic architecture and the logical writings of the
Z schoolmen. Both are examples of that mode of evolution, agapasm,
"^ which proposes that apart from purposeless chance-variations (tychasmY
^ or mechanical necessity {anancasm) there exists a love-like attraction or
H purposeful association of ideas that leads to the formation of habits:
3 The quote appears for the first time in Panofsky's famous 1932 essay
Z "Zum Problem der Beschreibung und Inhaltsdeutung von Werken der
^ bildenden Kunst" ("On the Problem of Describing and Interpreting
(Li Works of the Visual Arts")." In this essay Panofsky explains the three
Ë levels of interpretation and distinguishes iconography (the linking of
~T> artistic motifs with concepts, conventions or literary themes) from
^ iconology (a search for underlying principles which reveal the intrinsic
(^ meaning of a work of art). To illustrate the difference between iconog-
("T" raphy and iconology, he recounts a scene of a man greeting him in the
—. street by removing his hat.'^
^ Panofsky does not name Peirce; he only says that he is quoting an intel-
^ lectually stimulating American. In fact, in the 1932 version of this essay
in the magazine Logos, Panofsky quotes incorrectly "what he confesses"
instead of "what he parades" (Panofsky 1932, 117). In 1932 it looks as
if Panofsky is quoting from hearsay. But then, six years later, the quote
appears again in Panofsky's essay "The History of Art as a Humanistic
Discipline," and there Peirce is named for the first time:
Panofsky uses the quote one more time in 1969, in his essay "Erasmus
and the Visual Arts," and readers who did not know better must have
thought that Peirce had actually said something about Erasmus:
That human agents, who form the substance of what Dilthey calls
"the socio-historical reality", experience and know themselves "in-
wardly" is a bold assertion. It transforms one of the most troublesome
moral precepts ("Know thyself!") into a plain matter of fact, which is
contradicted by both ancient and modern experience. Whatever ob-
jections may be made to the current psychology of the unconscious,
it is undeniable that men do not know themselves by immediate in-
tuition and that they live and express themselves on several levels.
Hence, the interpretation of historical documents requires a far more
complex psychology than Dilthey s doctrine of immediate experience
with its direct appeal to a state of feeling. Peirce wrote in a draft of a
psychology of the development of ideas: "it is the belief men betray,
and not that which they parade, which has to be studied." (Wind
1936,258)
446
Panofsky corresponds with Wind a few days before giving his first lee- '^
ture on Gothic architecture at Vassar GoUege, New York. From this ñ
letter we can see that Panofsky's aim in discussing the analogy of Gothic "
architecture and scholasticism already in its original version of 1944 3
was the wish to establish the modus operandi linking both. In order to ^
do so he will refer to the medieval concept oí habitus, and this, in turn, '^
will be taken up by Pierre Bourdieu. The letter reads as follows: 3
c
Lieber Edgar, . . . o>
Dass Sie und Gemahlin Anfang Dezember in New York sind, ^
passt fein. Ich muss am 6 Dezember einen ziemlich wahnsinnigen 3-
Vbrtrag in Vassar halten ("Gothic and Scholasticism," ein mir selbst "
etwas verrückt vorkommender Versuch, zu beweisen, dass die go- >
tischen Architekten wirklich einen scholastischen modus operandi
befolgten—nicht nur "parallelism" oder "analogy"), und kann daher j '
sehr gut mit Dora am 5. nach New York kommen. . . . S
Mit vielen Grüssen von Haus zu Haus, ^
Ihr alter Pan. (Panofsky 2003, 515)" ^
It is interesting to see that even the two poles of what one parades and Jo
what one betrays make their way into Pierre Bourdieu's 1967 afterword
to Panofsky's Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism:
This scholastic (literary) structure finds its literal equivalent in the Gothic
cathedral; Panofsky sees totality in the aim of medieval masons to embody
in the Gothic cathedral "the whole of Ghristian knowledge, theological,
moral, natural, and historical, with everything in its place and that which
no longer found its place, suppressed." (Panofsky 1976, 44-45) The "uni-
form division and subdivision of the whole structure" meets the second
requirement of sufficient articulation (ibid., 45). The third requirement,
that of sufficient interrelation, may be observed in analogous relations
between parts and sectors of the cathedral (ibid., 47).'* Panofsky is not
saying, however, that Gothic architecture is the direct application of Scho-
lasticism. He is well aware that master masons or architects did not read
theological treatises as a pastime. But since the architect of a cathedral
worked out the iconographie program "in close cooperation with a scho-
lastic advisor," he "assimilated and conveyed rather than applied the sub-
stance of contemporary thought" (ibid., 27-28):
449
"^ What he who "devised the form of the building while not himself
ÏJ manipulating its matter" could and did apply, directly and qua archi-
"S tect, was rather that peculiar method of procedure which must have
S been the first thing to impress itself upon the mind of the layman
^ whenever it came in touch with that of the schoolman. . . . This
00 method of procedure follows, as every modus operandi does, from a
^ modus essendi\ it follows from the very raison ¿/f/rí-of Early and High
p Scholasticism, which is to establish the unity of truth. The men of the
3 twelfth and thirteenth centuries attempted a task not yet clearly en-
^ visaged by their forerunners and ruefully to be abandoned by their
•"^ successors, the mystics and the nominalists: the task of writing a per-
C/) manent peace treaty between faith and reason (Panofsky, 1976,
2 28-29).
450
their comparison does shed light on the cumulative history of a philo- "^
sophical term." ^'
Universität Wien "
david.wagner@univie.ac.at 3
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NOTES
1. For a review of this lecture, see "Panofsky and Scholasticism," The Vassar
Chronicle, 9.12.1944, p.7. 453
•^ 2. A view held by August Wilhelm von Schlegel (Frankl I960, 454fF.), later
SJ popularized by Schopenhauer (Ibid., 472f.).
"2 3. Among "fundamental ideas" Whewell distinguishes the ideas of time and
S space, since they are not derived from experience but form our perceptions
¡^ (Whewell 1858b, 9 - 1 0 ) . In that respect he follows Kant. His "ideas" are, however,
00 not identical with Kantian categories, in that Whewell allows for many more be-
'^ side those Kant admitted. Whewell even thinks that we may discover new funda-
C mental ideas as science progresses (Ducasse 1960).
3 4 . For a discussion of Peirce's evolutionism see chapter four of Wiener (1969).
,O Peirce's position towards Darwinism is also discussed in Croce (1995, 198fF.).
'"^ 5. T h e editors of the Collected Papers chose to call the manuscripts for this
CO book Grand Lo^c, Volume 11 of the chronological Writing ofC. S. Peirce ( W l 1)
^ will provide a reconstruction ofthat work.
j^ 6. We also find Peirce referring to Eduard von Hartmann's Philosophy of the
,__, Unconscious ten years later, in R 599 ("Reasons's Rules," c. 1902), one of many
L_( places where Peirce points out that belief is characteristically unconscious, in con-
rj trast to doubt, which is a typically conscious phenomenon.
^ 7. "The only thing of which I am sure is, that the distinction between the or-
fyy ganic and inorganic is arbitrary; that it is more coherent with our other ideas, and
•^ therefore more acceptable, to start with every molecule as a living thing, and then
^ deduce death as the breaking up of an association or corporation, than to start
^ with inanimate molecules and smuggle life into them; and that, therefore, what
we call the inorganic world must be regarded as up to a certain point living, and
•""^ instinct, within certain limits, with consciousness, volition, and power of con-
certed action" (Butler 1910, 15) See also MacDonald (1927) and Amigoni (2007).
8. For more information concerning the influence ofSchellingon Peirce's evo-
lutionary metaphysics, see Esposito (1977).
9. See, for example, his introduction to volume one, where Hartmann states:
"we find in Schelling the conception of the Unconscious in its full purity, clearness
and depth" (Hartmann 1893, 24).
10. The prejudice that Peirce's writings are "idiosyncratic . . . demanding, and
at times oudandishly hermetic" (Elkins 2003, 5) is a welcome excuse for many art
historians to ignore Peirce altogether. It is therefore of little surprise that Christine
Hasenmueller does not even mention Peirce in her article "Panofsky, Iconography,
and Semiotics" (Hasenmueller 1978).
11. The first English translation of this essay by Jas Eisner and Katharina Lo-
renz may be found in the spring 2012 issue of Critical Inquiry. Here is Eisner's and
Lorenz' translation of this passage: "After all, just as the degree of politeness in
lifting a hat is a matter of the will and consciousness of the person doing the greet-
ing, but it is not in his power to control what message about his innermost nature
others may take from his gesture, so likewise even the artist knows only 'what he
parades' but not 'what he betrays' (to quote an intellectually stimulating Ameri-
can)" (Panofsky 2012, 480)—See also note 8 of their article "The Genesis of
Iconology" in the same issue (Elsner/Lorenz 2012, 487).
12. For a discussion of the origins of Panofsky's tripartite structure of interpre-
tation, see: Hart (1993).
13. This reads in English: "Dear Edgar, . . . That you and your wife will be in
New York in December is perfect. I have to give a rather crazy lecture at Vassar on
434
the 6th ("Gothic and Scholasticism" even for my taste a bit mad: the attempt to '^
show that gothic architects were actually following a scholastic modus operandi— ^
not just a 'patalellism' or an 'analogy'), and will thus be able to come with Dora to ""'
New York. . . . With many greetings from house to house, your old Pan." (Panof- g
sky 2003, 515; my translation) o^
14. Peirce's use of the anglicized form of the scholastic term is in keeping with ^
his own criteria for an ethics of terminology (EP 2:266, 1903). p
15. Verbatim in Alexander Bain: "The foremost rank, among our intuitive a.
tendencies involved in belief, is to be assigned to the natural trust that we have in 3"
the continuance of the present state of things, or the disposition to go on acting as we ^
have once begun. This is a sort of Law of Perseverance in the human mind, like o
the first law of Motion in Mechanics" (Bain 1865, 537). ^•
16. "Bain does not use the scholastic term 'habit' in this connection, but to
one as steeped in scholasticism as Peitce was, this would seem the obvious techni- *
cal term for the potentiality, the readiness to act, of which Bain speaks as the es- (^
sence of belief" (Fisch 1986, 104n27). >.
17. Writing in 1902, Peirce explains these two uses of "habit" as follows: "Let g
us use the word 'habit,' throughout this book, not in its narrower, and more ^
proper sense, in which it is opposed to a natural disposition (for the term acquired ^
habit will perfectly express that narrower sense), but in its wider and perhaps still Z
more usual sense, in which it denotes such a specialization, original or acquired, »
of the nature of a man, or an animal, or a vine, or a crystallizable chemical sub-
stance, or anything else, that he or it will behave, or always tend to behave, in a
way describable in general terms upon every occasion (or upon a considerable
proportion of the occasions) that may present itself of a generally describable char-
acter" (R 596, GP 5.538).
18. Panofsky sees the homology—the uniform division and subdivision—of
the logical sections in the Summa mirrored in the Gothic architectural vocabulary:
"All parts are on the same 'logical level'—and this is especially noticeable in those
decorative and representational features which, in architectute, correspond to
Thomas Aquinas's similitudines—came to be conceived of as members of one class,
so that the enormous variety in, for instance, the shape of canopies, the decoration
of socles and archevaults, and, above all, the form of piers and capitals tended to be
suppressed in favor of standard types admitting only of such variations as would
occur in nature among individuals of one species" (Panofsky 1976, 48-49).
19. This paper originated as a submission to the 2011-12 Gharles S. Peirce
Society Essay contest. My article had already been revised and copy-edited, when,
in July 2012, Tullio Viola's fine paper appeared in the European Journal ofPragma-
tism and American Philosophy (see: Viola 2012). Viola's research covers similar
ground and provides further documents for the important part William Whewell
played in Peirce's interest in Gothic architecture. In particular, Viola's reference to
R 1614 proves that in 1870, while travelling through Europe, Peirce and his wife
had read Whewell's Architectural Notes on German Churches. Viola's article also
contains further information on Edgar Wind and his role in conveying Peircean
ideas to Erwin Panofsky. I recommend his paper to anyone interested in the
subject.—I thank Naomi Osorio-Kupferblum and Esther Ramharter for their
helpful remarks. Special thanks go to the two anonymous referees of the Transac-
tions for their inspiring critiques.
455
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