Appreciating Surrealist Artist Rene Magritte

It has been said, "there are no innocent eyes." (Goodman 7) We do not merely absorb the world about us. In a sense we actively create what we see by choosing what to see and what to overlook, by prioritizing what we do choose to see and by critically analyzing what we see. In this article, I assume that before any of these activities, we must establish for ourselves a point of view from which we will become a knower. We must take an epistemic stance.

Some epistemologists, those philosophers who study theories of knowledge, have proposed that certain epistemic points of view are gender-sensitive. That is, as the title of this article suggests, there are points of view that seem to be more common to men and others that are more common to women. I do not mean to imply, nor does my conclusion support, any effort to reinforce negative stereotypes against either women or men. In fact, my concluding normative claim is foundationally inclusive, not exclusive.

Before I can offer a conclusion, I must first discuss two epistemic stances which I have nicknamed 'woman's eyes' and 'man's eyes'. Next, I argue that art historian Suzi Gablik and philosopher Michel Foucault, respectively, are exemplars of these epistemic stances. This argument is based on a review of books that each scholar has published about the Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte. Finally, I conclude that a knower, irrespective of gender, is best off when she has facility and skill with both 'men's eyes' and 'women's eyes'.

My claim that there is a gender distinction between women's epistemic stances and men's-that there are really such things as 'women's eyes' and 'men's eyes'-is grounded in Lorraine Code's article "Taking Subjectivity Into Account". In this article, Code delineates the characteristics of what she calls the 'positivist-empirical' stance, or, in my terms: 'seeing with men's eyes'.

Code characterizes a 'man's eyes' epistemic stance in three aspects: the knower, the object of knowledge and the way knowledge claims are reported and verified. First, the knower, in this model, fundamentally claims a privileged epistemic stance which excludes the legitimacy of other stances. "I know something that you can't possibly know" characterizes this stance.

The exclusivity criterion is grounded in the standard of certitude. For example, I can 'know that' the baby has 'colic'. If I am a pediatrician, I declare this truth with my diagnosis of "colic." However to 'know how' to comfort the infant is not truly an instance of knowledge. A claim "The doctor knows Liz has colic" is certain-the proposition is either true or false. However, a claim like "Try patting her back or sing to her or put her in the car seat and drive around until she falls asleep-one of those usually works, but sometimes nothing does" is merely anecdotal, a story, an old wives' tale, therefore, not an instance of knowledge at all. It isn't certain, so it isn't knowledge.

A 'man's eyes' knowledge model relies on ideals of pure objectivity, complete value-neutrality, a universal viewpoint from nowhere, and alleges a transcendence of "particularity and contingency" (Code, 16). He must deny the possibility of a justified "interplay between emotion and reason" (ibid.). In short, transcending subjectivity is the necessary pre-condition for knowledge.

Secondly, the objects of knowledge in this model have to be wholly separate from the knowers. "They are the inert items in the observational knowledge gathering process," Code says. This holds even if, as in this brief look at Magritte, the object of knowledge is a human (Code, 17). To make contact on a human-to-human level means that you've abandoned all hope to gain knowledge about your object.

Finally, the reports and assertions of knowledge from such a knower must be devoid of value statements. Since value statements are not verifiable by observational data, they are meaningless. The true knower presents his findings as propositions, the truth-value of which is determined, with certitude, by the observational data. The aim, then, of the positivist-empiricist, the 'man's eyes' model of knowledge, according to Code, is "to predict, manipulate and control the behavior of objects known" (ibid.). The final outcome is to produce paradigmatic knowledge that applies in all cases, to all things.

From Code's description, I suggest that a 'woman's eyes' epistemic stance is radically different in several ways. First, a 'woman's eyes model' acknowledges that participatory, involved experiences with other people are not ever separable from knowledge in practice. It is impossible to gain the ideals of the positivist-empiricist model. The researcher is necessarily involved with people-people who decide what to research and what not to research and, in the case of human studies, necessarily get involved with the things being researched. Because of this multi-level human interaction, it is desirable, and often necessary, for the knower to acknowledge and even rely upon both emotions and reason. The researcher always cares about her subject on some level.

In a 'woman's eyes' model, certitude is acknowledged as one standard of knowledge but its scope is recognized to be too limited. Knowledge claims are enriched by admitting degrees of accuracy and by abandoning the artificial project of establishing paradigmatic knowledge. The knowledge gained through women's eyes is developmental rather than paradigmatic. It admits of degrees and, as Code says "is open to interpretation at various levels...(it is)... multidimensional (and) multiperspectival" (Code, 34).

The knower in this model is in a relational experience with a dynamic subject.

I want to take a moment to define my earlier ambiguous term 'gender-sensitive' knowledge. If gender-sensitive means we are biologically committed to one epistemic stance or another, there is no bridging of this gap-we do not choose our epistemic stance. It is chosen for us in virtue of our sex. But this is simply contrary to fact. Our knowledge experiences are far richer than an either-or stance. Therefore, I propose that there are two kinds of gender-sensitive knowledge.

The first I call gender-specific knowledge. This refers to knowledge that is necessarily inaccessible to the other gender. For instance, regardless of how empathetic and willing he may be, no man can experience the range of sensations and emotions associated with pregnancy or childbirth. Gender-specificity grounds the unique epistemic stance of traditional mid-wives and no doubt accounts for the successful birth of literally millions of children over human history. Similarly, the unique emotions associated with a diagnosis of testicular cancer are inaccessible to a woman, even if she is a survivor of another form of cancer.

One cannot change one's epistemic stance from one gender-specific stance to another. By the way, I am well aware that 'gender' and 'sex' are not synonyms. Working out a more precise relationship to epistemic stance would take us too far afield in this article. I'm also deliberately avoiding all of the very complex questions that arise in the transgendered person.

On the other hand, what I call gender-typic knowledge is knowledge that may be socially or culturally associated with one gender but which may be freely adopted by either gender. For example, some men have chosen to learn to be successful nurturing and caring parents of infants by choosing a 'traditional' 'woman's eyes' epistemic stance. Some women have chosen to learn to be successful remote and dispassionate mathematicians by choosing a 'traditional' 'man's eyes' epistemic stance. We can transcend gender-typic epistemological stances, I suggest, and gain skill in assuming a variety of gender-typic stances depending on what we most need to know. However, this requires that we abandon the exclusivity claims of the 'man's eyes', positivist-empiricist stance.

I suggest that art scholar Suzi Gablik serves as something as an exemplar of the 'woman's eyes' stance, a gender-typic stance characterized by an involved, experiencing participant. Specifically, I rely on Gablik's biography of René Magritte which is generally held to be the definitive Magritte biography in English.
What makes Gablik's work especially interesting to me is how unique her particular epistemic stance really is. In 1959, at the invitation of Rene and Georgette Magritte, Gablik actually moved into their Brussels home. For the next eight months Gablik observed Magritte not only as he painted, but as he ate, as he discussed the nature of language and art and absurdity with poet Louis Scutenaire and others in the surrealistic movement of the day and as he continued his life-long love affair with Madame Magritte.

Gablik's epistemic point of view is revealed in the opening paragraph to the biography:

"Rene Magritte, the Belgian surrealist painter, died on 15 August 1967 in Brussels, in his own bed, at approximately two o'clock in the afternoon. His life had been a solitary posture of immense effort: to overthrow our sense of the familiar, to sabotage our habits, to put the real world on trial. He had always tried to live within the subjunctive mood, treating what might happen as a construction of his own highly inventive will. And, like Baudelaire, in the end he exhausted his own lucidity." (Gablik 9)

In this paragraph we find two clues to Gablik's epistemic standpoint. First, though complete in detail, the obituary reads almost conversationally, as if she were dutifully relating to a stranger the details of the death of a dear acquaintance. This tone does not suggest a remote, observing spectator (ROS) dispassionately observing an inert object but a involved, experiencing and participatory relationship between researcher and the focus of that research.

Secondly, Gablik categorizes Magritte's life here without appealing to his life's products, i.e., his artwork. Except for the locution 'the Belgian surrealist painter' (which we fans of Magritte use almost automatically since Magritte is still less well known than, say, Dalí, Matta or Miró), Gablik opens with a description of the motivations of the man, not the products of the artist. In short, the topic of her inquiry is not approached as an inert object defined by its effects in the world but as a responsive subject, whose products are of secondary interest to the motivations which grounds them. I take Gablik to be an 'involved, experiencing participant,' that is, a 'woman's eyes' knower.

Further evidence for this is found later in the biography. She says "An image for Magritte would often be the result of complex investigations-an authentic revelation after a long period of calculated reflection" (Gablik, 101-2). Here she reveals a connection to Magritte's pre-painting process. Presumably, this would be wholly inaccessible to a researcher observing only Magritte's art work. Yet, it is more critical to a complete understanding of Magritte than a chemical analysis of the pigments he used.

This particular observation provides an epistemological right of entry to Magritte in the case of "L'etat de grâce (State of Grace)," 1959. In this piece, Magritte has painted a bicycle on top of a lit cigar. The bicycle seems to be full sized. The cigar on which it rests is itself a bit longer than the bicycle-in other words, a normal bicycle is standing upright on what seems to be a five foot long lit cigar.

Because of her unique epistemic stance, Gablik knows that Magritte's interest here is to re-present the phrase "It can happen that a bicycle passes over a cigar thrown in the street" (Gablik, 102). Because Gablik is the involved, experiencing participant, we know through her that Magritte's motivations included a desire to 'put reality on trial,' 'to sabotage our habits', to evoke a poetic mystery.

Therefore, we know that this picture is not mere amusement or a silly advertisement for or against cigar smoking or a brand of bicycle, but is intended to challenge our common notion of meaning in the world. 'I rode my bicycle over a cigar' is suddenly not so obvious a locution as it first seemed.

Because her epistemic stance is as an involved, experiencing participant, Gablik is uniquely justified to claim "(Magritte's) images incorporate a dialectical process, based on paradox, which corresponds to the unstable, and therefore, indefinable, nature of the universe" (Gablik, 110). In contrast, though the 'man's eyes' knower may utter the same proposition, he cannot demonstrate the truth of the claim by appealing to what he has discovered in the object, in this case, the art object. Motivations are not the stuff of empirical, sensory observation data. The 'man's eyes' knower might infer motivations from the products of an artist, but such an inference may well lack the certitude expected of a positivist-empiricist model of knowledge.

Finally, a claim from the 'man's eyes' knower that asserts insight into an artist's motivations may be an instance of the 'hidden subjectivity' with which Code charges the positivist-empirical model of knowledge. Such a claim may be merely an imposition of the researcher's own thoughts onto Magritte's artwork since the 'man's eyes' knower does not have access to the motivations of his objects. Therefore, his claims in this regard would not be epistemically justified. In short, we have no reason to believe him as regards artist motivations. We do, however, have reason enough to believe Gablik because of her epistemic stance.

As a final example, Gablik says, "Magritte was at peace only when his mind was tormented by problems" (Gablik 11). The truth of this proposition is simply inaccessible to the remote, observing spectator. The qualities of 'peace' and 'torment' suggest access to a kind of knowledge that is grounded in empathy and accessible only to the involved, experiencing participant-researcher. The justification for the truth of this insight may be less certain than measuring the dimensions of a particular piece of art. On the other hand, certitude is not the only, and may not always be even the best, measure of knowledge. The richness of Magritte's project is appreciated only by including the unique knowledge of the involved, experiencing participant.

For Gablik, Magritte was not primarily the object of her research, he was the subject of her experience. Though the biography she writes does include instances of the ROS model, her typical epistemic standpoint models the involved, experiencing participant, the 'woman's eyes knower.'

In 1968, the early version of Michel Foucault's short book "Ceci N'est Pas Une Pipe (This is Not a Pipe)" was published. The English translation (on which I rely) appeared in 1984. The book is named after Magritte's famous painting of the same title. The painting (also known as "La Trahison des Images" [The Treachery of Images], 1928) shows a large and free floating tobacco pipe. In careful lettering below the depiction are the words "Ceci n'est pas une pipe"-this is not a pipe.
In this extended essay, Foucault examines the painting as it relates to his own theories in the philosophy of language. The opening paragraph to the book reveals Foucault's epistemic point of view.

"The first version, that of 1926 I believe: a carefully drawn pipe, and underneath it (handwritten in a steady, painstaking, artificial script, a script from the convent, like that found heading notebooks of schoolboys, or on a blackboard after an object lesson), this note: 'This is not a pipe.' " (Foucault 15)

Here we find two clues to Foucault's epistemic stance. First, we see a careful and accurate description of an object of art. Second, we see no mention of the artist. In fact, Magritte's name does not first appear until the second chapter. There is additionally, in Foucault's opening paragraph, a rather casual disregard for the actual date of the piece, as if to suggest that linking the history of the piece to its creator is not relevant to the analysis at hand.

Let me offer just one more example of Foucault as a 'man's eyes' knower. As is correct to his stance, he considers only inert objects. He says, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe exemplifies the penetration of discourse into the form of things; it reveals discourse's power to deny and redouble" (Foucault, 37). In this case, Foucault is not only examining merely an object, his observational data is used to support a paradigmatic knowledge claim about the relationship of language to objects. He does not experience either Magritte as a man nor the painting as an expression by a man.

What does one conclude from this? I do not suggest that either 'woman's eyes' nor 'man's eyes' stances can be mutually exclusive. I admit them both because we need them both. Therefore, not only the good scholar but the good knower in any field of human experience should strive to build facility with both stances in order to better account for the fullest knowledge of thing at hand, whether surrealism or colicky babies.

Gablik does rely upon both epistemic stances in her biography of Magritte than does Foucault and so the reader herself becomes more knowledgeable. Her dual facility, it seems to me, makes hers the superior work.

In the end of his book, Foucault, relying on a 'man's eyes' epistemic stance leaves us with much Foucault and little Magritte. On the other hand, Gablik, leaves us with much Magritte and little Gablik, by permitting us to see Magritte with 'woman's eyes'.

Bibliography

Lorraine Code, "Taking Subjectivity Into Account" in Feminist Epistemologies, Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter, eds., NY: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1993.
Michel Foucault, This Is Not A Pipe, trans. and ed. James Harkness, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984.
Suzi Gablik, Magritte, NY: Thames and Hudson, 1970 (2000).
Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1976.