Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 34:1 0021– 8308 © The Executive Management Committee/Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. Blackwell Publishing Ltd Oxford, UK JTSB Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 0021-8308 © The Executive Management Committee/Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004 2004 34 1 000 Original Articles Arnheim and Gombrich in Social Scientific Perspective Ian Verstegen Arnheim and Gombrich in Social Scientific Perspective IAN VERSTEGEN Ian Verstegen , Arnheim and Gombrich in Social Scientific Perspective, pp. 000–000 The two most common names to invoke for a perceptualist aesthetics are Rudolf Arnheim and E. H. Gombrich. But the similaritied and differences between them have never been explicitly drawn. This paper undertakes such an analysis based on the three categories of representation, expression and historical objectivity. Arnheim’s less stringent solutions to the problems of representation and expression are applauded but Gombrich’s unique attempt to ground both of these categories in a form amenable to non-historicist approach to history are also praised. Gombrich’s anti-historicism derives from Karl Popper and Arnheim is fleshed out with the theories of Maurice Mandelbaum. The parallel comparison of Popper-Mandelbaum helps to underscore differences and show an alternative to Gombrich and Popper’s nominalism. For decades the “psychology of art” has evoked two names, Rudolf Arnheim and E.H. Gombrich. Each name represents a particular brand of aesthetic theory based on psychology, with slightly different emphases, but sharing the assumption that the results of psychological science are significant for addressing aesthetic questions. Arnheim was warmer to modern art, yet came to be identified with a naive innatism. Meanwhile, Gombrich was known for his espousal of pictorial realism but was heralded for his theory of making and matching directed against the notion of the “innocent eye.” A representation is made, then matched against reality, leading the artist back to the drawing board but never with any proscribed end to the process. This “perceptualism” shared by Arnheim and Gombrich does not have much purchase in the present postmodern cultural climate, that sees little value of reputed scientific claims. On the other hand, theorists of the sort of Arnheim and Gombrich are some of the few to attempt real explanatory—naturalistic—models of the experience of art. In different ways, Arnheim and Gombrich undertook to explain the relationship of art to the real world, the range of its expressive meaning, and the way we might theorize our historical access to it, against a background of a framework of artists’ agency and societal necessity. In this context, the differences between Arnheim and Gombrich become particularly important. In particular, the odd paradox of the perceptions of each, alternating between static conservatism and an encompassing progressivism, must be resolved. Therefore, this article is devoted to outlining the differences between their social scientific approaches to the experience of art so that a powerful nat- uralistic account of art can be formulated. More than that, this article also seeks to decide between the two authors, generally in the favor of Arnheim. By defending Arnheim from misunderstanding and by expanding his philosophical grounding with the theories of Maurice Man- delbaum it will show new reasons for his relevance. On the other hand, Gombrich is not forgotten but is applauded for the theoretical transparency between his