More Information 2 on the Methodicism Manifesto (20000614)
Interpretation on the words used in the manifesto usually seems to be unnecessary, but let me write a few of them for your information:
1) Tautology in arts and sciences
Like "mathematics for mathematics" or "art for art," what I meant in tautology in arts and sciences is what is aimed returns toward itself. So, it is the matter of pure art or pure mathematics. An American painter, Ad Reinhardt, presented in 1963 such a thesis as "Art is art-as-art and everything else is everything else." which was nothing but tautology. The thesis originates in the Dadaism by Marcel Duchamp in the 1910s. Duchamp thoroughly adhered to meaninglessness of expression in art, which is considered to coincide with those achievements in linguistics done by roughly contemporary Ferdinand de Saussure and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Futhermore, they can also be interpreted as the same phenomena as the presentations of the theory of imperfectness in mathematics or of the principle of uncertainty in physics. Therefore, "a single principle" that when you faithfully inquire a theory, you can never get rid of a flaw induced by tautology, has always been appearing widely in all genres.
I think that the above perception is what is generally recognized to some degree. For more information, please read the footnotes for my manuscript "Introduction of 'Bitmap and Object'" appeared in the 1997's September-October issue of a magazine "Kohkoku" by Hakuhodo.
2) Tautology was born from democratic systems.
As I have hardly heard about this notion, the following idea seems to be my original one: that authority's situations and the presentations of tautology as seen above seem to have a close relation. The reason is that arts and sciences have always been ratifying government systems in the result. In the Western middle ages, it was monotheistic God that had a "meaning," and during the period of despotic monarchs in the first half of the middle ages and of absolute monarchs in the last half, it was a single human monarch that had a "meaning." Therefore, tautology which means meaninglessness could have never been presented in those days at all. However, in the periods of democracy where authorities connecting directly with meaning are devided into many, in other words, in ancient Athens and in the modern twentieth century, there appeared Socrates and Saussure both of whom thoroughly adhered to meaninglessness by disclosing tautology itself. So, it is quite natural for "meaninglessness" to be revealed in the present age, because now is the day of "re-Socrates" where authorities have been dispersed and diluted. By the way, although the word "mob" used in the manifesto has a negative nuance as is commonly accepted, as a philosophical term, it has also a connection with circumstancial cognition before negative feelings. As far as you are a speaker, you cannot get rid of "follies" of tautology rooted in a language itself, whose phenomenon is prevalent in the "masses" as all speakers, which is called the mob. Also in this meaning, democratic systems, the mob, and tautology are located fairly closely .
Although I often lecture on the above idea of mine at some universities or seminars when invited as a guest lecturer, it may not be an opinion generally recognized. For more information, please read my manuscript "Monadic Jaggies ~Monarchy and Monad~" appeared in a quarterly "InterCommunication" (No.25, Summer 1998) by NTT Shuppan.
3) Authorization of tautology
If the meaninglessness which is what tautology means is to be understood as, say, a defeat, this manifesto may include from the beginning a part which is equivalent to a defeat manifesto. However, what I want to advocate in this whole manifesto is ethics, so I refuse a kind of an epicurean idea that "if you are to be defeated, you can indulge in license and indolence from the beginning;" I advocate that "even if you are to be surely defeated, the defeat is to come only after you have fully sought after truth." I think that ethics has a connection with authority in respect of their being demands, and so I here used such an expression as "authorization of tautology." Furthermore, I think that it is like Socrates's "knowing his ignorance." Because, Socrates seems to have authorized "ignorance" by his saying that he "knows" that.
4) Reduction to method, not to form.
The objectification of "form" is seen in arts and sciences in the twentieth century, especially in formalism which swept over American art after the war. I excluded formalism from the manifesto, as it obstructs an extraction of universal principles seen among different genres. However, its reductionistic attitude should be restored as authoritarianism rooted in history, and so, in that meaning, I criticize the current of modern thought like Jacques Derrida, that is, an escape from authoritarianism.
Or, if you take into consideration the case of the controversy between Brahms school and Wagner school seen in music world in the ninetieth century, you will understand that methodicism is a pure art movement like Brahms school in a point of its being reductionism of "returning to the tradition which each form depends on," and that it is not a composite art movement like Wagner school. However, as it "sings in chorus a single principle in the same age" by being reduced to method, it could be said that it is a kind of a composite art movement which unites each pure art movement side by side. Also it could be said that it is not a "composite-art movement," but a "composite art-movement." Indifference toward adjacent jenres in excuse of their not being in your line is regarded as indolence.
The reason why the word "form" was not taken as an object of reduction is as shown above; and as for the word "method" taken instead, you can understand it as, for example, something like a "counterpoint" used in music. Hitherto, I have created art works and poem works made by the same algorithm as a counterpoint, and, in this case, a counterpoint can be called a single principle which prevails among every art surpassing the form. (Usually, a manifesto is thought to be a resolution in the future tense, but in this manifesto, I also put a commentary by myself on my group of works which have been published since 1997.)
Here, let me add the following not to be misunderstood: Motoaki Shinohara has been using the words, method poem, since about ten years ago in the meaning that he should create works imposing a specific method on himself, but, as far as I know, he has never mentioned that method poem opposes form, nor that it relates to tautology as seen above. So, I am all responsible for the part of a "broad reinterpretation." Here, we thank him for his kind permission to let us use the words in the manifesto, and for his suggestion in choosing some words.
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