1.  In Chapter 3 of Languages of Art, Goodman introduces an essential distinction between “autographic” art and “allographic” art.  A work of art is “autographic if and only if the distinction between the original and the copy has meaning; or rather, if even its most exact reproduction does not have the status of authenticity.”  Unlike painting, music is allographic.  It follows that a musical forgery is ontologically impossible.

Someone could certainly copy one of Bach’s scores and present it as his own, but he would obtain exactly the same score, viz. Bach’s, and not his own.  If he claims to have found a score by Bach, which instead he himself has written, then we are back in the case of autographic art.  He has not forged a musical work, nor, for that matter, a musical text.  He presents something as having been written by Bach that is in fact his own production, just as one might do with a forged Rembrandt at an auction at Sotheby’s.   If he publishes a photograph of the score (allegedly by Bach) in the Journal of the American Musicological Society, it will be more effective.  Yet it would be a mistake to believe that such a case represents a counter-example to Goodman’s thesis that there are no forgeries in music, since such a forgery is autographic, not allographic.

One musical performance may be preferred over another because it exemplifies certain intentional properties of the work that the other failed to bring out.  But the identity of a work is not threatened by an interpretation whose musical-historical grounds are neither satisfying nor accurate.  It’s even just on the basis of respect for the notational identity of the work that an interpretation is criticized for not respecting the “truth” of the work.  We can distinguish between a narrow identity, which is independent of the interpretation, and a thick identity, which instead is dependent upon it.  The narrow identity of a musical work does not depend upon the exemplification of its intentional properties.  Playing The Art of the Fugue on a Steinway piano is questionable, but it is still Bach’s work that’s being played.  The question of forgeries in art thus arises only for autographic works.

2.  Goodman’s autographic-allographic distinction applies not only to the arts, but also to things in general.  In one case, their identity is historical, in the other, notational.  Whether it concerns works of art—paintings, musical pieces, prints, novels, etc.—a recording of Thelonious Monk or Madonna, banknotes, signatures, passports, Lacoste shirts, Cartier watches or any number of other things, Goodman’s theory can be applied.  It doesn’t belong only to the philosophy of art.  The identity of things assumes that we can re-identify the same thing, whatever it may be.

Goodman’s distinction results from a unified, precise and coherent theory of identity, but its edges are too rough for avoiding the difficult cases that have become the mainstay of critics.  In order to avoid these problems, one may be tempted to drawn on as many concepts of authenticity as there are domains in which the problems arise.  One would then have a concept that’s characteristic of works of art, indeed, of works of certain arts, or even of certain works of art from certain periods.  Some attempts in this direction, which do not take the form of a unified theory, are quite interesting, in particular Stephen Davies’ Musical Works and Performances (2001).  This approach, however, gives rise to a criticism of Goodman’s autographic-allographic distinction since his aim is much broader than just providing a description of our various, complex practices for authenticating works of art.  In these practices, we adapt the criteria of authenticity to the kinds of art, to the kinds of works, genres, periods, etc. through a procedure that might suit Goodman:  that of reflective equilibrium.  We change the rule when it leads to a result we deem untenable; and we modify our habits when we think that the rule must be respected.

3.  Unlike an ontological description of our practices for classifying works of art, an ontology of forgery is the result of prior metaphysical conceptions.  These conceptions are obtained by answering the question of knowing whether the underlying metaphysical notion is that of substance, of parts and the whole, of tropes, events, etc.  If, for example, one adopts a conception of the work of art as kinds of action (Currie, 1989) or as an activity that’s identified by its provenance (what D. Davies, 2004 calls a “performance”), the ontology of forgery that follows will differ from that held by a follower of substantialist metaphysics.  It’s true that the fundamental ontological assumptions in the ontology of art, and in the ontology of forgery in particular, are rarely explicit.  Authors often write as if it were a question for the philosophy of art, while they are in fact taking a position in a much larger debate regarding what exists in general.  They give the impression of providing an ontological description of our artistic practices and sometimes smuggle in a general ontology.

4.  In what follows I outline some elements of an ontology of forgery whose grounds are part of a metaphysics that treats works of art as particular, concrete artifactuals (artificial substances) possessing certain properties.  The basic elements of this view borrow quite a bit from the Thomistic-Aristotelian tradition.  First, this approach is taken without criticism of different views, such as a metaphysics of types of events.  Second, this option maintains Goodman’s distinction between the autographic and the allographic (Pouivet, 1996, ch. 5), i.e., between entities whose identity is historical and others whose identity is notational.  One could, however, approach it according to the principle of reflective equilibrium in order to avoid the difficulties raised in the criticisms of Goodman. 

5.  A forgery possesses a certain property: that of being fake.  In order to understand what being fake consists in for a painting, a passport or a banknote, one must first understand what this property consists in.

(a)  Is it an essential property, that is, a property that makes a thing what it is?  It seems odd to think that all forgeries, regardless of what they are, possess a generic property:  inauthenticity.  A forged Vermeer, for example, is an authentic Van Meegeren.

This claim could be disputed.  There is a difference between the re-attribution of a painting by Piero della Francesca to Luca Signorelli, and that of a painting by Vermeer to Van Meegeren.  In the first case, the painting was wrongly attributed; in the second, the painting is a forgery.  Once the forger is unmasked, the painting remains a forgery. (The painting isn’t admired as an excellent Van Meergeren, but always as a forged Vermeer).  But this situation concerns, in fact, very few works.  In most cases, one goes from attribution to re-attribution, and not from a discredited attribution to the elimination of all authentic value whatsoever.  Yet, a forged Vermeer by Van Meegeren remains a forgery because it exemplifies what we mean by a forgery as regards paintings, and not because it possesses an essential property that makes it a forgery in itself.

One could still object that a forged Belgian passport or a forged Polish banknote is not at all an authentic Swedish passport or a real Moldovan banknote.  The reason is not that they instantiate inauthenticity, but that they were not issued by the institution authorized to do so.

Thus, inauthenticity cannot be an essential property because a painting, passport or banknote is only real or fake according to a correct or mistaken attribution.  If one attributes a Van Meegeren painting to Vermeer, the painting is not fake in itself, but under a description of this painting as a work of Vermeer.  A passport or a banknote is fake under a description of the passport or banknote as being issued by an institution that, in fact, did not issue it.  This is why Monopoly money isn’t fake, because no one believes it was issued by a government.  (But there could be fake Monopoly money that turned out to be authentic banknotes!)

Nothing is a forgery, as something can be a man or a tulip.  Under a given attributive description, certain things are forgeries; that is, they cannot be attributed to the person or institution that are said to have made or issued them.

(b)  If a thing is only a forgery under an attribution, then inauthenticity is not an intrinsic property, i.e., a property that a thing can have independently of everything else (a thing’s form or matter is intrinsic).  For a key, the property of opening a certain door or, more specifically, any door having a lock with the same cylinders, is not an intrinsic, but an extrinsic, property; it depends on the existence of that lock.  As Frédéric Ferro says, “If the lock were changed, the key would lose what the fans of hidden properties might call its ‘opening property’ vis-à-vis that door, without losing any intrinsic property” (2002, p. 531).  Likewise, a painting is not intrinsically fake; it is so only under an improper description, that is, if there is something else, a person, to say something false about it.  If the attribution were changed and corrected, then as regards those who believed the first description, the painting would not lose any intrinsic property.

(c)  Inauthenticity is not a relative property either.  A property is relative if, in order to possess it, it suffices that it be attributed to something.  One may speak here of an exclusively phenomenal or projective property—what was once called the associations of ideas, that is, a perspective on something that’s accessible only from one point of view.  (For example, the property of evoking something: “This path reminds me of my childhood.”)  Even if they aren’t intrinsically authentic or fake, the authenticity or inauthenticity of paintings, passports or signatures is not a relative property.

(d)  Inauthenticity is an extrinsic property.  It assumes an attribution, that is, a statement declaring that the thing is the work of y.  The same holds for a passport or banknote.  When one gives it to a police officer or a merchant, one implicitly says that this passport was issued by the relevant authority, or that this banknote was made by an institution having the right to print money.

A thing is authentic or fake, not because it possesses an essential property (the inauthenticity common to all forgeries), or an intrinsic property (which it possesses independently of any attribution), but on the basis of an attributive statement, true or false, saying that this thing is the work of y (a person, authority, institution).

6.  But by examining the thing itself, isn’t it possible to determine whether it’s a forgery?  The expert examines a painting in order to detect signs of its inauthenticity; the policeman examines a passport and the merchant a banknote.  Doesn’t this mean that these are intrinsic properties that constitute its authenticity, and that their absence or at least internal difference constitutes its inauthenticity?  If x is a forgery, then there is a property P that it does not possess and that it should possess, or there is a property P* that it should not possess and that it instead does.  Forgers hide these properties that experts (sometimes) discover.

However, what makes a thing a forgery is neither this property P nor the property P*.  Making a copy of a painting (a reproduction) or a photocopy of banknotes (e.g., to teach one’s children how to use banknotes) is not enough for them to be forgeries.  If two paintings, one authentic and the other a copy, are impossible to distinguish, there remains an extrinsic property which makes one the original and the other a reproduction (cf. Pouivet, 2000, ch. 8).

A painting by Lorrain becomes a painting by La Tour without any change in its intrinsic properties due to the single fact of a new attribution.  A careful examination of an object whose authenticity is in doubt is made relative to a statement of attribution whose truth needs to be examined.  It’s a conditional statement of the type, “If x is the work of y, then x must possess property P and cannot have property P*.”  For example, x must be composed of certain chemical compounds, it must be a certain color, and it cannot be made of or have any others.  The examination of x’s intrinsic properties remains linked to a statement of attribution saying who the author of it is, so that we may be able to make a claim regarding the authenticity of x.  This is why authenticity is an extrinsic property even though a well-informed judgment of authenticity and inauthenticity involves the examination of its intrinsic properties.

7.  Authenticity is a matter of identity.  Identity is relative, in the sense that x is not authentic or fake in itself, but it is an authentic or fake y.  When we say that a painting, passport or banknote is fake we claim that, appearances notwithstanding, it is not of the same kind of another thing, z, which is really the work of y.  Authenticity is a matter of sortal categories:  a category is a classification of kinds if it provides the identity conditions for distinguishing and counting its members.  Everything that is attributed to y forms a class.  To say that x is fake amounts to claiming that it does not belong to a certain class of objects under a certain description.

8.  This means that properties that make it possible to establish the authenticity of an object do not make up an individual essence.  A definition of ‘individual essence’ is:  E is an individual essence if, by definition, there is an x that necessarily exemplifies E, and there is no y, different from x, that exemplifies E.

However, we may be reluctant to accept the idea that properties that establish the authenticity or inauthenticity of a thing are kinds and not individual properties.  Isn’t an object the work of y independently of its correct or incorrect (misleading) attribution to y?  Thus, something just is this object since it possesses an individual essence that makes it that object, independently of any attribution.

Yet assuming this to be the case, one must not confuse, on the one hand, what it is that makes an object that object—an object unlike any other—and on the other hand, its authenticity or inauthenticity.  Saying that a thing is fake doesn’t say anything about what it is, but instead amounts to refusing to take it as an element of the class of things that can be attributed to y.  As a result, the property of being authentic or being fake does not individuate, rather, it specifies.  It says that x possesses a property shared by all those things that can be attributed to y, or that it does not possess this property.  And this property is extrinsic since it assumes an attribution.

9.  However, that the property of being fake (like that of being authentic) is extrinsic does not imply that it cannot be necessary.  Having a father (or a parent) is an extrinsic property that a good number of animals necessarily possess: just as every artifact, regardless of what it is, necessarily has a maker.  But the attribution does not say:

(1) (x) (x is authentic) ®  ($ y) (y is the maker of x)  

(for all x, if x is authentic then there necessarily exists a y that is the maker of x)

but says instead,

(2)  ((x) (x is authentic) ® ($ y) (y is the maker of x))

(necessarily, for all x, if x is authentic then there exists a y that is the maker of x)

(1) attributes de re to x the necessary property of being the work of y.  (2) attributes de dicto to x the property of being authentic only under the attribution to y.

The forger’s aim, the one who knowingly makes a false attribution, i.e. who lies, is to give the impression that authenticity is tied to the thing’s individual essence.  Through his “intuition” he may be able to detect the presence of this individual essence defined in (IE).  He says that, for someone endowed with the appropriate receptivity or sensibility, the painting manifests this individual essence.  As a result, by applying (1) he arrives at the conclusion that y is necessarily the maker of x.  Instead, with (2), if y is the author of x, then no one else can be; but one cannot say that x possesses a property for which no one else could be the author of x.  A Vermeer does not possess (a property of) vermeerness.  It follows that the only possible justification of authenticity is historical inquiry.  It is not a miraculous intuition by which inspired individuals grasp the individual essence of an object.  This is, however, what the forger suggests in order to cut short the historical inquiry that could unmask him.

If something is a forgery then it possesses a temporal (historical) property that it should not have, and it does not possess a temporal (historical) property that it should have.

11.  If the arguments just outlined are correct, a number of conclusions can be drawn.  First, things are only authentic under an attributive description; hence, authenticity is an extrinsic property.  Second, an ontology of forgery for which the authenticity of an object is in part tied to its individual essence suits the forger.  The one who attributes to an object the property of being only and nothing other than y, while knowing that such is not the case, is more a of forger than the one who makes a forgery.  For the forger, the metaphysical fiction of individual essences suits his claim of “artistic intuition” quite well.  Third, the only way for determining the authenticity of an autographic entity is to examine its history in order to assure oneself of the likelihood that it is in fact the work of the person to whom it is attributed (cf. Pouivet, 1992).

References

Butt, John (2002). Playing with History: The Historical Approach to Musical Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

Currie, Gregory (1989). An Ontology of Art. London: MacMillan.

Davies, David (2004). Art as Performance. Oxford: Blackwell.

Davies, Stephen (2001). Musical Works and Performances. Oxford: Oxford UP.

Ferro, Frédéric (2002). “Pour introduire à l’intrinsèque.” Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale. 4 (Oct.-Dec.).

Goodman Nelson,

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-   1996. Esthétique et logique. Liège: Mardaga.

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-   2002a. “Review of S. Davies, Musical Works and Performances.” British Journal of Aesthetics, 42.3.

-   2002b. “Le statut ontologique des œuvres musicales.” Sats : Nordic Journal of Philosophy, 3.1.

-   2002c. “Manières d’être.” Eds. V. Carraud & S. Chauvier. Le réalisme des universaux. Caen: Presses Universitaires de Caen.

-   2004. “Apologie du particulier.” Ed. J.-M. Monnoyer. La structure du monde : objets, propriétés, états de choses. Paris: Vrin.