Paul M W Hackett

Having outlined the scope and terms of reference for this book in chapter one, in the second chapter of my essay I briefly review the work of Rosalind Krauss and Paul Crowther. Both of these scholars have addressed a similar series of questions and subject matter in their research, namely, both have written about how we perceive and understand three-dimensional art. In reviewing Crowther and Krauss’ published work I attempt to illustrate the different perspectives each has taken in their research in this area. Krauss has considered the expanded field in which modernist three-dimensional artwork resides and of which it is an intimate part. She offers a Klein Group model to account for the structural composition of the three-dimensional artwork. Crowther on the other hand addresses the ontological nature of abstract three-dimensional art. He proposes eight distinct ontological elements in his theoretical depiction of this content domain. Both of these approaches are extremely germane to my research and I use the characteristics of Crowther and Krauss’ research to set the scene for my own theorizing on this subject in the form of a structural mereological/ontological account, which I propose and discuss in subsequent chapters.

In chapter three I present an augmentation to existing models of visual perception that have been developed to account for the perception and understanding of the experience of three-dimensional fine art. The chapter begins with a reflection upon how the model I propose draws upon the scholarship of Crowther (2007) in conjunction a modification of the mapping sentence approach used as a qualitative or philosophical research approach (Hackett 2014, 2016a, b). I delve into mapping sentences and I use these organizational templates to elucidate the writing of Rosalind Krauss by modelling how she has considered two-dimensional (Krauss 1986) and three-dimensional (Krauss 1979) modern abstract art. In facet theory research mapping sentences are frequently used either alone or in initial stages of research into a content domain using smallest space analysis (SSA) and to guide interpretation of later partial order scalogram analysis (POSA). In earlier publications I have put forward the mapping sentence as a structural template for understanding two-dimensional art (Hackett 2016b) and in this chapter I offer a modified version of this mapping sentence to account for the experience of three-dimensional abstract art.

Up until this point in this book I have reviewed previous research and thinking in the area of perception as this relates to how we understand and perceive art. I have singled out the philosophical writing of Paul Crowther as being especially pertinent to my research. I then presented the findings of my own research into the characteristics I used to evaluate and understand twelve pieces of abstract three-dimensional abstract art. In this concluding chapter I summarise the findings from my research, make positive claims regarding theory development and I also offer caveats. I compare and contrast the findings from my research into the perception of two- and three-dimensional art and provide suggestions as to the direction of future research. I conclude that the structural model that I have developed may be thought of as a meta-ontological and meta-mereological account of the experience of abstract three-dimensional art.

In this section of the research, I use POSA to facilitate more thorough comments upon how we perceive and understand three-dimensional abstract art. In my exposition of POSA, I take some time to delve into previous uses of the approach to reveal partial ordering of variables. I present examples of POSA’s previous theoretical deployment and I demonstrate its application using applied art-related examples. Specifically, in the chapter, I consider a partially ordered model of the eight characteristics from Crowther’s ontology. I assert the usefulness of POSA by referencing how I have used this approach in earlier research that incorporated Crowther’s characteristics within a mapping sentence which I analysed using POSA to facilitate greater understanding of two-dimensional abstract art. I conclude the chapter by considering how the mapping sentence models I have developed for two and three-dimensional art, and partial order analysis of facets from the mapping sentences for two and three-dimensional art, relate to each other.

In any book, the first chapter sets the scene for what the reader is going to encounter as they progress in their reading. This book is no different and in this introductory chapter, I succinctly establish the main components of the coming essay in such a manner that, I hope, will reduce later surprises that are potentially confusing and enhance the reader’s sense of accumulative discovery and knowledge development. I start by considering the idea of categories of art and art experience including notions of aesthetics and figure ground relationships. In order to achieve clarity in my claims I then go on to define the major terms that I use including: mapping sentences; ontology; hermeneutics and hermeneutic consistency; mereology; facet theory in general and in particular qualitative facet theory and the mapping sentence (as this relates to notions of a flexible hermeneutically consistent template); three-dimensional abstract art. The overall aim of this chapter is to prepare the reader for my enquiries into viewers’ experiences when looking at three-dimensional abstract art.

The assignment events, objects, state of beings, etc., to an experiential category is a fundamental activity carried out by human (and by other animals). So rudimentary are the processes involved in categorizing that it is indeed impossible to imagine conscious awareness to exist without the presence of categories. A considerable body of writing exists on categories dating from the times of Classical philosophy. Plato developed a categorical ontology and Aristotle produced one of the earliest examples of a complex understanding of basic ontologies. A number of other categorially structured ontologies have been proposed including those by Lowe, Westerhoff, Chisholm, etc. The book is an edited collection of up to the moment essays that address critical aspects on the understanding of categories and categorial systems. The perspectives included in the book are drawn from philosophy, psychology, theology, divinity, comparative cognition and facet theory. The authors are all renowned experts in the area of their writing. Topics addressed include both contemporary advances in the understanding of perennial debates and latest thinking upon how categories are employed to structure our experiences of the world we live in. The book is distinct as being written by philosophers and psychologists. The book is a collection of writings from selected academics at the fore of debates and understandings of categories in contemporary thought. The text provides a single source for contemporary scholarship in categories. No single text that brings together expositions of categorial experiences for students and academics within the above listed disciplines.

This paper uses a declarative mapping sentence approach to explore and amend design thinking - a project development and management technique recently disseminated in Africa. We contend that there are problems in the manner in which design thinking has been exported to Africa, namely, that design thinking is rooted in the linear, binary, human-centric systems present in Western philosophy and that the exportation of design thinking is potentially neo-colonial. We, therefore, attempt to ameliorate these difficulties by decoupling design thinking from its Western philosophical perspectives. We will also seek to broaden the understanding of design thinking by adopting the more communitarian perspective found in philosophy that has been developed in Africa. The amended form of design thinking we present considers the user’s existential paradigms and facilitates a flexible and reflexive process void of deliberate finality. Furthermore, we claim that amending design thinking’s philosophical foundations to incorporate a communitarian perspective has the potential to make design thinking more ecologically-centric.

How do we think about the worlds we live in? The formation of categories of events and objects seems to be a fundamental orientation procedure. Facet theory and its main tool, the mapping sentence, deal with categories of behavior and experience, their interrelationship, and their unification as our worldviews. In this book Hackett reviews philosophical writing along with neuroscientific research and information form other disciplines to provide a context for facet theory and the qualitative developments in this approach. With a variety of examples, the author proposes mapping sentences as a new way of understanding and defining complex behavior.

This book deals with philosophical aspects regarding the perception of spatial relationships in two and three-dimensional art. It provides a structural understanding of how art is perceived within the space created by the artwork, and employs a mapping sentence and partial order mereology to model perceptual structure. It reviews the writing of philosophers such as Paul Crowther and art theorists such as Krauss to establish the need for this research. The ontological model established Paul Crowther is used to guide an interactive account of his ontology in the interpretations of the perceptual process of three-dimensional abstract art to allow the formulation of a more comprehensive philosophical account. The book uniquely combines structuralist and post-structuralist approaches to artistic perception and understanding with a conceptual structure from facet theory, which is clarified with the help of a mapping sentence and partial order mereology.