Abstract

An account of what Michael Krausz refers to as “a three tiered structure” within the interpretative process is defended. Starting with the employment of Peircian nomenclature, as employed by Joseph Margolis, artworks and persons - cultural entities - are distinguished from physical entities as tokens of types. But even if culturally emergent entities con be attributed to certain physical atributes in relation to their materiality at the first level of interpretation - the elucidatory - in which such culturally emergent properties are embodied, cultural entities possess certain distinctive Intentional attributes, at a second level of interpretation - thc intentional - not assignable to purely physical properties nor, in the case of artworks such as Van Gogh’s The Potato Eaters, their creator’s intentions. But in order to make sense of Krausz’s notion of “aspectual reverberation” for an individual appreciator, a third level of interpretation is required - the elaborative - in order to make sense of Peirce’s notion not only of the type and token status of a work of art, but its tone, This third elaborative sense of interpretation is then considered in two ways: experientially in terms of what the spectator can bring to an appreciation of an artwork and performatively with respect to an artist’s interpretation of the work in performance, as in dance for example. Possible attacks on this position are then considered.