The tragic death in Tolstoy's writings has helped both Max Weber and György Lukács in characterizing the modern pathos as a tragic contemplation of the emptiness of life. Through Tolstoy's readings, Weber and Lukács found an interesting source of denying arts and modern sciences autonomy, considering, from the aesthetics sphere, the meaningless of this new immanent reality. Both has assumed Tolstoy main theme from the same perspective, contrasting ancient and modern worldviews. Max Weber presented this theme in his disenchantment (...) of world theory and Lukács, in a very similar way, following the paradox of religious needing as a mainline. -/- O tema da morte trágica, presente nos escritos de Liev Tolstói, auxiliou tanto a Max Weber como a György Lukács a caracterizarem o pathos moderno de pressentimento da morte como uma contemplação do vazio. Weber e Lukács encontraram, através das leituras de Tolstói, uma interessante maneira de questionar a autonomia da arte e da ciência moderna, considerando pela esfera estética, como se mostra sem sentido a recente realidade imanente. Ambos assumiram o tema central das obras de Tolstói segundo uma mesma imagem, derivada do contraste entre o mundo antigo e o moderno. Max Weber adequou esse tema a sua teoria do desencantamento do mundo e Lukács, de modo muito semelhante, seguindo seu conceito do paradoxo da necessidade religiosa. (shrink)

In this article, it is claimed that by considering Rancière’s understanding of politics of aesthetics alongside Stengers’ conception of the ecology of practices, it is possible to think about the autonomy of artistic practices which would be created and sustained politically. Rancière demonstrates that the artistic autonomy was previously subordinated to a variety of historical imperatives, while Stengers warns about an apolitical mission of the great narrative of the Anthropocene. Both philosophers make a case for talking about the (...) autonomy of artistic practices based on political differing, but in Stengers’ philosophy, the political principle of dissensus is supported by an ecological perspective. She argues for a symbiotic consensus, where the political is defined as being both contradictory and attuned to the situational interconnectedness. In the destructive environment of the Anthropocene, Stengers challenges the tradition of critical reflexivity and proposes a way out – the autonomy of practices that is not universally given but needs to be constantly recomposed together. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:Hegel's end-of-art thesis is arguably the most notorious assertion in aesthetics. I outline traditional interpretive strategies before offering an original alternative to these. I develop a conception of art that facilitates a reading of Hegel on which he is able to embrace three seemingly contradictory theses about art, namely, (i) the end-of-art thesis, (ii) the continued significance of art for its own sake (autonomy thesis), and (iii) the necessity of art for robust knowledge (epistemicnecessity thesis). I argue that Hegel (...) is able to embrace all three theses at once through a conception of the work of art as an internally purposive whole (what I call the "IP View" of art). On the IP View, because of the kind of wholes that artworks are, they (i.a) are valuable for their own sake as ends-in-themselves, (i.b) yield valuable experiences because they are valuable for their own sake, and thereby (i.c) are necessary for robust knowledge. Finally, I suggest that not only does Hegel appear to hold the IP View of art, but also that on such a view, there is a very sensible reason for affirming (one reading of) Hegel's end-of-art thesis as an important means to establishing art's actual significance for robust knowledge against soaring, but unsubstantiable, claims about art's potency with respect to robust knowledge. (shrink)

Abstract The awakening of art to self-awareness and the statement of its autonomy are modern phenomena. The way we think about art in the modern age may be derived from the Kantian “beauty without concept”. Beautiful art is the work of the genius, who creates a work of art that is valuable in itself and is admired in museums by the public. That which I call here “the modern paradigm of art” is based on an absence: the non-conceptuality of (...) the beautiful, i.e., the fact that objective qualities cannot define the beautiful. This absence establishes originality as the essential requirement for modern art and creates the possibility for artists to push the boundaries of the modern paradigm. Thus, the 20thcentury sees the appearance of strategies for overriding or substituting originality. The artist withdraws from behind her work, and the work of art is no longer an unapproachable object with an aura, just as the museum is also no longer the temple of the arts. But do these experiments overcome the frontiers of art’s modern paradigm? And, more generally, can this paradigm be overcome at all? Here I deduct three elements of the modern paradigm of art from the idea of “beauty without concept”: (1) the original artist, who is seen as a genius, (2) the work of art with an aura, and (3) the museum as the temple of art. Then I present how artists, based on the requirement of originality, worked on dismantling the frontiers of the modern paradigm. (shrink)

Aesthetic autonomy has been given a variety of interpretations, which in many cases involve a number of claims. Key among them are: (i) art eludes conventional conceptual frameworks and their inherent incompatibility with invention and creativity; and (ii) art can communicate aspects of experience too fine‐grained for discursive language. To accommodate such claims one can adopt either a convention‐based account or a natural‐kind account. A natural‐kind theory can explain the first but requires some special scaffolding in order to support (...) the second, while a convention‐based account accommodates the second but is incompatible with the first. Theodor W. Adorno attempts to incorporate both claims within his aesthetic theory, but arguably in his aesthetic theory each is cancelled out by the other. Art’s independence of entrenched conceptual frameworks needs to be made compatible with its communicative role. Jürgen Habermas, in contrast, provides a solution by way of his theory of language. I draw upon the art practice of the contemporary Icelandic‐Danish artist Olafur Eliasson in order to demonstrate this. (shrink)

This essay focuses on the logic of the aesthetic argument used in the eighteenth century as a conceptual tool for formulating the modern concept of “(fine) art(s).” The essay also examines the main developments in the history of the art of modernity which were initiated from the way the “nature” of art was conceived in early modern aesthetics. The author claims that the formulation of the “aesthetic nature” of art led to the process of the gradual disappearance of all of (...) the formal elements that had previously characterized the visual arts; the result was “emptiness” or “nothingness” as art. The author refers to this process in terms of “vanishing acts” that allow for the formulation of an aesthetics of absence in connection to twentieth-century art (complementing the Ästhetik der Absenz, formulated in German art theory). The author also briefly addresses the consequences that these processes have for the way contemporary art, and art world operate. (shrink)

There seems to be a deep tension between two aspects of aesthetic appreciation. On the one hand, we care about getting things right. On the other hand, we demand autonomy. We want appreciators to arrive at their aesthetic judgments through their own cognitive efforts, rather than deferring to experts. These two demands seem to be in tension; after all, if we want to get the right judgments, we should defer to the judgments of experts. The best explanation, I suggest, (...) is that aesthetic appreciation is something like a game. When we play a game, we try to win. But often, winning isn’t the point; playing is. Aesthetic appreciation involves the same flipped motivational structure: we aim at the goal of correctness, but having correct judgments isn’t the point. The point is the engaged process of interpreting, investigating, and exploring the aesthetic object. Deferring to aesthetic testimony, then, makes the same mistake as looking up the answer to a puzzle, rather than solving it for oneself. The shortcut defeats the whole point. This suggests a new account of aesthetic value: the engagement account. The primary value of the activity of aesthetic appreciation lies in the process of trying to generate correct judgments, and not in having correct judgments. -/- *There is an audio version available: look for the Soundcloud link, below.*. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Kant has a far more communitarian theory of aesthetic life than is usually acknowledged. I focus on two aspects of Kant’s theory that might otherwise be taken to support an individualist reading, namely, Kant’s emphasis on aesthetic autonomy and his characterization of judgments of taste as involving demands for agreement. I argue that the full expression of autonomy in fact requires being a member of an aesthetic community and that within such a (...) community, judgments of taste are issued as invitations to others to engage their faculties towards the goal of shared aesthetic appreciation. (shrink)

This chapter presents the formalist account of the moral status of an artwork as an aesthetically significant and autonomous form, with due emphasis on the Anglo-American art-for-art’s-sake aesthetic, as it developed between 1870 and 1960. The author shows that the formalist art-is-above-morals approach is a substantive moral stance in itself. Formalist aesthetics is usually presented in the literature as evincing a purist indifference to ethics, construing moral properties as external to art, in opposition to the internal pure properties of art’s (...) composition. The chapter demonstrates that this is a misrepresentation of the complex formalist prescriptive idea of the relations between art and ethics. Through its autonomy and imperviousness to external co-opting—which is accomplished by due focus on aesthetic form—art on the formalist account is held to be a paradigm of the liberalist principles of individual freedom and self-fulfillment, thus an inherent means to the good. (shrink)

Adorno’s dialectical approach to aesthetics is perhaps understood better in terms of his monumental work, 'Aesthetic Theory,' which attempts to relate the speculative tradition in philosophical aesthetics to the situation of art in twentieth-century society, than in terms of purely theoretical claims. This paper demonstrates that Adorno embraces the Kantian thesis concerning art’s autonomy and that he criticizes transcendental philosophy. It also discusses how Adorno provides the outlines for a dialectical conception of artistic truth in relation to his argument (...) with Hegel. Adorno’s assessment of the Enlightenment is linked to his interpretation of twentieth-century literature. The conclusion of this paper emphasizes the political implications of Adorno’s position when the philosopher approaches art as a sign of historical truth. (shrink)

Games may seem like a waste of time, where we struggle under artificial rules for arbitrary goals. The author suggests that the rules and goals of games are not arbitrary at all. They are a way of specifying particular modes of agency. This is what make games a distinctive art form. Game designers designate goals and abilities for the player; they shape the agential skeleton which the player will inhabit during the game. Game designers work in the medium of agency. (...) Game-playing, then, illuminates a distinctive human capacity. We can take on ends temporarily for the sake of the experience of pursuing them. Game play shows that our agency is significantly more modular and more fluid than we might have thought. It also demonstrates our capacity to take on an inverted motivational structure. Sometimes we can take on an end for the sake of the activity of pursuing that end. (shrink)

There is a well-documented Pre-Reflective Hostility against Machine Art (PRHMA), exemplified by the sentiments of fear and anxiety. How can it be explained? The present paper attempts to find the answer to this question by surveying a considerable amount of research on machine art. It is found that explanations of PRHMA based on the (alleged) fact that machine art lacks an element that is (allegedly) found in human art (for example, autonomy) do not work. Such explanations cannot account for (...) the sentiments of fear and anxiety present in PRHMA, because the art receiver could simply turn to human art for finding the element she is looking for. By contrast, an explanation based on the idea that machine art is “symbolically” a threat to human survival can be successful, since the art receiver’s turning from machine art to human art does not eliminate the (alleged) “symbolic” threat machine art poses for human survival. If there is a pre-reflective belief or feeling that machine art is such a threat, then it is perfectly understandable why humans exhibit a pre-reflective hostility against machine art. (shrink)

It is a matter of fact that Europe is facing more and more crucial challenges regarding health and social care due to the demographic change and the current economic context. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has stressed this situation even further, thus highlighting the need for taking action. Active and Assisted Living technologies come as a viable approach to help facing these challenges, thanks to the high potential they have in enabling remote care and support. Broadly speaking, AAL can be referred (...) to as the use of innovative and advanced Information and Communication Technologies to create supportive, inclusive and empowering applications and environments that enable older, impaired or frail people to live independently and stay active longer in society. AAL capitalizes on the growing pervasiveness and effectiveness of sensing and computing facilities to supply the persons in need with smart assistance, by responding to their necessities of autonomy, independence, comfort, security and safety. The application scenarios addressed by AAL are complex, due to the inherent heterogeneity of the end-user population, their living arrangements, and their physical conditions or impairment. Despite aiming at diverse goals, AAL systems should share some common characteristics. They are designed to provide support in daily life in an invisible, unobtrusive and user-friendly manner. Moreover, they are conceived to be intelligent, to be able to learn and adapt to the requirements and requests of the assisted people, and to synchronise with their specific needs. Nevertheless, to ensure the uptake of AAL in society, potential users must be willing to use AAL applications and to integrate them in their daily environments and lives. In this respect, video- and audio-based AAL applications have several advantages, in terms of unobtrusiveness and information richness. Indeed, cameras and microphones are far less obtrusive with respect to the hindrance other wearable sensors may cause to one’s activities. In addition, a single camera placed in a room can record most of the activities performed in the room, thus replacing many other non-visual sensors. Currently, video-based applications are effective in recognising and monitoring the activities, the movements, and the overall conditions of the assisted individuals as well as to assess their vital parameters. Similarly, audio sensors have the potential to become one of the most important modalities for interaction with AAL systems, as they can have a large range of sensing, do not require physical presence at a particular location and are physically intangible. Moreover, relevant information about individuals’ activities and health status can derive from processing audio signals. Nevertheless, as the other side of the coin, cameras and microphones are often perceived as the most intrusive technologies from the viewpoint of the privacy of the monitored individuals. This is due to the richness of the information these technologies convey and the intimate setting where they may be deployed. Solutions able to ensure privacy preservation by context and by design, as well as to ensure high legal and ethical standards are in high demand. After the review of the current state of play and the discussion in GoodBrother, we may claim that the first solutions in this direction are starting to appear in the literature. A multidisciplinary debate among experts and stakeholders is paving the way towards AAL ensuring ergonomics, usability, acceptance and privacy preservation. The DIANA, PAAL, and VisuAAL projects are examples of this fresh approach. This report provides the reader with a review of the most recent advances in audio- and video-based monitoring technologies for AAL. It has been drafted as a collective effort of WG3 to supply an introduction to AAL, its evolution over time and its main functional and technological underpinnings. In this respect, the report contributes to the field with the outline of a new generation of ethical-aware AAL technologies and a proposal for a novel comprehensive taxonomy of AAL systems and applications. Moreover, the report allows non-technical readers to gather an overview of the main components of an AAL system and how these function and interact with the end-users. The report illustrates the state of the art of the most successful AAL applications and functions based on audio and video data, namely lifelogging and self-monitoring, remote monitoring of vital signs, emotional state recognition, food intake monitoring, activity and behaviour recognition, activity and personal assistance, gesture recognition, fall detection and prevention, mobility assessment and frailty recognition, and cognitive and motor rehabilitation. For these application scenarios, the report illustrates the state of play in terms of scientific advances, available products and research project. The open challenges are also highlighted. The report ends with an overview of the challenges, the hindrances and the opportunities posed by the uptake in real world settings of AAL technologies. In this respect, the report illustrates the current procedural and technological approaches to cope with acceptability, usability and trust in the AAL technology, by surveying strategies and approaches to co-design, to privacy preservation in video and audio data, to transparency and explainability in data processing, and to data transmission and communication. User acceptance and ethical considerations are also debated. Finally, the potentials coming from the silver economy are overviewed. (shrink)

In this paper we analyse the ideas implicit in the style of exhibition favoured by contemporary galleries and museums, and argue that unless the audience is empowered to ascribe meaning and significance to artwork through critical dialogue, the power not only of the audience is undermined but also of art. We argue that galleries and museums preside over an experience economy devoid of art, unless (i) indeterminacy is understood, (ii) the critical rather than coercive nature of art is facilitated, and (...) (iii) the conditions for inter-subjectivity are met. (shrink)

There is a common sense in which words like person or personhood, autonomy, agency and responsibility are used. Talking of these terms merely as words does not reveal the essence of the term. Therefore, these terms have to be treated as concepts and this paper intends to talk about the use of these concepts with a greater philosophical interest with reference to Harry G. Frankfurt’s philosophy of action.

After viewing a painting, reading a novel, or seeing a film, audiences often feel that they improve their cognitive standing on the world beyond the canvas, page, or screen. To learn from art in this way, I argue audiences must employ high degrees of epistemic autonomy and creativity, engaging in a process I call ‘insight through art.’ Some have worried that insight through art uses audience achievements to explain an artwork’s cognitive and artistic value, thereby failing to properly appreciate (...) the cognitive and artistic achievements of artists. I move against this worry by arguing that in order to learn via insight through art audiences must collaborate with artists, sharing the labour and credit for the cognitive achievements they co-produce. I claim this co-productive outlook reveals that our appreciation of art’s cognitive and artistic value involves far more audience participation than has hitherto been realised. (shrink)

Abstract: According to Marcuse, esthetics is an essential component to the process of freedom of consciousness and behavior of individuals. It is, in Hegelian language, to free the absolute spirit. In this sense, art configures itself as fantasy, which makes the “apparent” reveal the essence of things. Essence here is understood not as a metaphysical field, but as an unveiling of questions, within a false truth of the (establishment), in the totality of relationships. In dialectical terms, art manifests itself in (...) the face of internal and external contradictions, seeking the opposition to the representation of the aesthetic form. Marcuse refutes the conceptions of some “orthodox Marxist aesthetes”, making, therefore, the defense in relation to the art when recognizing that it transcends the material relations. He still considers the literary currents of romanticism and surrealism fundamental to awaken critical consciousness, and that the autonomy of art (independence, freedom, and fantasy), integrate the categorical imperative that “things must change” against the realism of the Marxist aesthetes. In this sense, we intend to expose Marcuse’s critical to the Marxist esthetes in order to understand the critical function of art for the liberation struggle. Keywords: Aesthetics. Orthodoxy. Critic. (shrink)

Games occupy a unique and valuable place in our lives. Game designers do not simply create worlds; they design temporary selves. Game designers set what our motivations are in the game and what our abilities will be. Thus: games are the art form of agency. By working in the artistic medium of agency, games can offer a distinctive aesthetic value. They support aesthetic experiences of deciding and doing. -/- And the fact that we play games shows something remarkable about us. (...) Our agency is more fluid than we might have thought. In playing a game, we take on temporary ends; we submerge ourselves temporarily in an alternate agency. Games turn out to be a vessel for communicating different modes of agency, for writing them down and storing them. Games create an archive of agencies. And playing games is how we familiarize ourselves with different modes of agency, which helps us develop our capacity to fluidly change our own style of agency. (shrink)

In this paper, I suggest that the notion of qiyun (qi: spirit; yun: consonance) in the context of landscape painting involves a moral dimension. The Confucian doctrine of sincerity involved in bringing the landscapist’s or audience’s mind in accord with the Dao underpins the moral dimension of spiritual communion between artist, object, audience, and work. By projecting Kant’s and Schiller’s conceptions of aesthetic autonomy and the moral relevance of art onto the qiyun-focused context, we see that the reflection on (...) parallels and differences between the two cultural traditions helps to better understand the moral dimension of qiyun aesthetics. (shrink)

In this paper, I suggest that the notion of qiyun (spirit consonance) in the context of landscape painting involves a moral dimension. The Confucian doctrine of sincerity involved in bringing the landscapist’s or audience’s mind in accord with the Dao underpins the moral dimension of spiritual communion between artist, object, audience and work. By projecting Kant’s, and Schiller’s somewhat modified Kantian philosophy of aesthetic autonomy and the moral relevance of art into the qiyun-focused context, we shall see that reflection (...) on parallels and differences between the two cultural traditions helps to better understand the moral dimension of qiyun aesthetics. (shrink)

When we evaluate artworks, we often point to what an artist could have done or what a work could have been in order to say something about the work as it actually is. Call this counterfactual reasoning in art criticism. On my account, counterfactual claims about artworks involve comparative aesthetic judgments between actual artworks and hypothetical variations of those works. The practice of imagining what an artwork could have been is critically useful because it can help us understand how artworks (...) achieve specific aesthetic effects. I conclude by responding to an objection to my account on the basis that it violates the widely accepted acquaintance principle in aesthetics, on which aesthetic judgments must be based on firsthand perceptual encounters with their objects. (shrink)

“Else-where” is a synoptic survey of the representational values given to art, architecture, and cultural production from 2002 through 2011. Written primarily as a critique of what is suppressed in architecture and what is disclosed in art, the essays are informed by the passage out of post-structuralism and its disciplinary analogues toward the real Real . While architecture nominally addresses an environmental ethos, it also famously negotiates its own representational values by way of its putative autonomy ; its main (...) repression in this regard is “landscape,” figure of the Other and figure of the Real. Engaging forms of spectrality, and not necessarily speculative intelligence per se, architecture is also “conscious” of its own complicity in capitalist orders, a complicity that in part underwrites its avant-garde forms of agitation since the onset of modern architecture. As a result, and over the course of the twentieth century, architectural vanguards have successively been depleted such that they return only as reified half-measures in the late-modern production of difference. As such, the essay “Actually Existing Ground” examines the failed promise of Landscape Urbanism. Since the 1960s, as with the allied arts, architecture has evacuated many of the utopian gestures given to modernism and embraced a form of ultra-contingency in a direct alliance with the post-modern and post-Marxist concession to markets and to cultural production as principal means of establishing formal hegemony. This recourse or surrender to the economic-determinist ethos of post-modernity, regardless of attempts to problematize it and/or critique it through types of what Manfredo Tafuri has called “operative criticism” , has, arguably, all but failed, and with the suggestive return circa 2011 of new forms of resistance an exit from the accommodating spirit of the times is indicative of the expectation of strenuous, yet highly formal and non-discursive operations within artistic and architectural production. The essays collected in “Else-where” cross various disciplines, inclusive of landscape architecture, architecture, and visual art, to develop a nuanced critique of an emergent formal regard in the arts that is also an invocation of the highest coordinates given to the arts – formal ontology as speculative intelligence itself – or the return of the universal as utopian thought “here-and-now.”. (shrink)

The value of up-hill skiing is double, it is first a sport and artistic expression, second it incorporates functional dependencies related to the natural obstacles which the individual aims to overcome. On the artistic side, M. Dufrenne shows the importance of living movement in dance, and we can compare puppets with dancers in order to grasp the lack of intentional spiritual qualities in the former. The expressivity of dance, as for, Chi Gong, ice skating or ski mountaineering is a particular (...) innocence and lightness which is called grace. It is life without the burden of worries. Grace, in slow progression uphill on snow, is as dance for Dufrenne, it has the most central and specific aesthetical quality of life. Others compared dance to a landscape, a landscape is for the sight, what dance is for life, a symbolical space, different from a usual space, where utility and dependency are present. A mountain can be a space of experience of natural beauty. Aesthetical qualities can be closely related to function related qualities as when a climber needs to adjust his movements to the natural convex inclination of the rocks, and avoid slippery forms of inclination, present on the other side of the mountain. The natural object, the quality of the snow or the rock differ from the aesthetical quality of the style of ascent by the absence of neutralization of the object, in case of a purely instrumental approach. On the contrary, grace in the rhythm of the progression of ski climbers needs a difference of attitude, which is not only proper to the playing, and delimited by the conditions of that play, but as a contingency driven attitude, without signification as radical alterity, without any finality. First ascent of the Matterhorn succeeded from the Swiss side, and not from the Italian side because of the different inclination of the rock on both sides. Grace in dance as in martial art or mountaineering is allowing to perceive an autonomy of the expression, as the truth of the perceived object, it puts away a cognitive and practical orientation and replaces it by a new meaning as movement in the whole set of movements done by the climber. This replacement of the functional expression resembles that operated by the painter who chooses a color in the whole set of colors in a painting, or a shape in the whole set of possible existing shapes. -/- Ref. Dufrenne, Mikel, (1989): The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience. Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, trans. by Edward S. Casey, 1st publ. in 1953, Evanston: Northwestern University Press. (shrink)

We introduce Neuroartes as a biological humanism that concentrates on the development of social interventions. We review several connections between art and the human body, mainly the brain. We suggest art, painting in the present case, as a tool to work with the elderly with cognitive and/or motor impairment for the purpose of helping them with their subjectivity and autonomy.

Kant uses the concept of the symbol to show the complicated relationship between the autonomy of beauty and its systematic function as a transition from nature to freedom, which are the two most important topics in the third Critique. Beauty’s symbolism of morality lies in the analog between aesthetic reflection and moral disposition; concretely, it lies in the purity or disinterestedness and self-legislation as negative and positive freedom in both subjective states of mind. In this scenario, beauty’s symbolism does (...) not refer to aesthetic ideas that either involve intelligent interests (in the beauty of nature) or presuppose an end (in the beauty of art); it also cannot be grounded in the supersensible substrate, which is an elevated and metaphysical principle of the judgment of taste given in the Dialectic but not the original principle of subjective purposiveness in the Analytic. With this formal relationship, beauty and morality accelerate each other in the empirical-anthological sense—but they are also not a sufficient or necessary condition for each other. Furthermore, through symbolism, taste looks toward the intelligible and serves as a transition from nature to freedom from the transcendental perspective. (shrink)

[A Czech Greenberg? Mukařovský and Aesthetic Formalism] This article revisits Tomáš Pospiszyl’s discussion of the split between the North American and the Czechoslovak postwar modernism as a difference between the views of two critics who dominated the American and the Czechoslovak art scene, respectively--Clement Greenberg and Jindřich Chalupecký. Pospiszyl convincingly traces the evolution of American art to what has been called Greenberg’s “formalism,” and the developments on the Czechoslovak scene to Chalupecký’s ideas about art as part of social social interactions. (...) Though the author of the article agrees with this analysis of Czechoslovak modernism as anti-formalist, he seeks to draw attention to the writings of the Czech literary theorist Jan Mukařovský, which were contemporaneous with Chalupecký’s and Greenberg’s--in particular Mukařovský’s 1944 lecture “The Essence of the Visual Arts.” The author provides a comparative analysis of Mukařovský and Greenberg, suggesting that the former was quite close to the latter’s “formalism.” This might seem incorrect, given that Mukařovský is considered to be a precursor of the semiotic theory of art, which is generally understood as antithetical to formalism. The solution, he argues, is to realize that Greenberg is subtler, hence not so "formalist” after all. At any rate, it turns out that in addition to Chalupecký’s “social” theory of art, Mukařovský had a more “formalist” alternative which – for well-known historical reasons – had no effect on the subsequent development of Czechoslovak modernism. (shrink)

Architecture and Deconstruction Case of Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi -/- Introduction Towards deconstruction in architecture Intensive relations between philosophical deconstruction and architecture, which were present in the late 1980s and early 1990s, belong to the past and therefore may be described from a greater than before distance. Within these relations three basic variations can be distinguished: the first one, in which philosophy of deconstruction deals with architectural terms but does not interfere with real architecture, the second one, in which (...) a collaboration between Jacques Derrida and a group of architects interested in his concepts is commenced, and the third one, in which completed or only designed objects or new concepts of deconstruction created by architects gain their supremacy over philosophy. The following book analyses these three possible ways, first of all with the reference to Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi. -/- Peter Eisenman -/- Misreading… and Other Errors -/- The issue of relations between Peter Eisenman’s work and philosophy of deconstruction may be referred to his activity more than ten years preceding his direct collaboration with Jacques Derrida (in 1985) and organisation of the exhibition Deconstructivist Architecture at Museum of Modern Art in New York (in 1988). As soon as at the stage of designing the first houses (House I-III, 1967-1970), which almost entirely inscribed in formalistic aesthetics of Modernism, the architect analysed the problem of architecture dependence on its assumptions. All his later designs may be treated as consequence of this initial interest in relations between practice and theory, and at the same time as an introduction to manipulations later on led at the level of metaphysics of architecture. Beginning with the issue of presence, considered in comments to House VI (1972), the number of ideas having their analogies in philosophy of deconstruction increased. The text entitled The End of the Classical: The End of the Beginning, The End of the End (1984), in which Eisenman criticised questions of representation in architecture, its delusive strive for truth and comparably unattainable attempts at ultimate definition of elementary rules, should be acclaimed the breaking point. This attitude was extended by numerous strategies disturbing architecture rules defined at metaphysical level in an essay Moving Arrows, Eros, and Other Errors: an Architecture of Absence (1986). The issue of Eisenman’s passage from formalism to deconstruction has already been much discussed in the literature (Rosalind Krauss, Thomas Patin among others), still it should be mentioned that the threads similar to Derrida’s concept included in Eisenman’s writing reveal untranslatability of architecture and philosophy. -/- Choral Works or Separate tricks -/- In 1985-1986 a series of seven disputes between Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman took place. The pretext for them were designs concerning Parc de la Villette in Paris. The situation of many months of collaboration between a notable philosopher of the second half of the 20th c. and an architect that already had a huge theoretical oeuvre, ended up with a publication of a large volume entitled Chora L Works and it became at the same time a vast study area for historians of contemporary architecture and philosophers. Derrida’s contribution to concept works were his considerations over the idea of chôra, the properties related to this concept were about to be reflected in shapes of the park. Therefore, Chora L Works became an example of the abilities of contemporary art, both in its capability of translation from philosophical ideas to artistic forms and its resistance to tradition of representing in architecture some phenomena and values originating outside this discipline. In the final period of their collaboration both interlocutors started to polemicise with each other more decidedly, what became a separate part of their thought exchange. The exchange of letters between Derrida and Eisenman at the turn of 1989 ended up the period of their direct contacts, nevertheless, at this time precisely a large group of experts in issues of deconstruction joined the discussion and extended the revealed in the former dispute problems into more than ten years of further considerations and publications. Except for a long text by Jeffrey Kipnis, who had participated in the meetings of the philosopher and the architect, there appeared also comments of researchers of artistic theories (K. Michael Hays, Thomas Patin), philosophers (Andrew Benjamin), and even experts in Greek literature (Maria Theodorou or Ann Bergren). Following these debates a contemporary reflection on architecture has saturated with indeed numerous concepts originating in philosophy of deconstruction. -/- Architecture which imitates mute philosophy -/- The series of Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman meetings, which took place in the period of 1985-1987, induced many authors to make comments. Some of them (Jeffrey Kipnis, Ann Bergren, Maria Theodorou) developed the subject of chôra which was introduced to the discussion by Derrida. The problem that was about to be solved was the question of tying up the concept of chôra with architecture, including Eisenman’s architecture and the series of meetings within frames of Chora L Works project. Kipnis on this occasion paid attention to chôra and its character of anachronia which infects any being created within chôra. In other words any event has its counterpart (analogon) in another, earlier event. He demonstrated the similarity of structure of many events and statements from the times of Derrida and Eisenman’s meetings to the almost identical behaviour of figures in Plato’s dialogue Timaeus. The loss of beginning present in this phenomenon was appropriate to both features of chôra and the effects of typical analyses of philosophy of deconstruction. Bergren’s analyses focused on accentuating gender of chôra, which, according to this author, had been neglected hitherto in discussions. She collated chôra descriptions with characteristics of women in myths, early Greek epic and philosophy and she arrived at a conclusion that chôra has features of a single woman and a married one at the same time. And yet Theodorou’s studies showed that in the Homeric epics chôra is not treated as an idea but is related with single things and events. The other part of the comments (represented by Andrew Benjamin and K. Michael Hays’ utterances) concerns Eisenman’s attitude to tradition which was treated as a variety of iteration understood philosophically. Benjamin commenced his considerations at the point of closeness between a definition of tradition and a concept of chôra understood as perpetuation (placement). A problematic issue was for him Eisenman’s complex relation to tradition based on its contest and affirmation at the same time. Overcoming the simple subordination to tradition – according to Benjamin – was based on awareness of the role of repetition in culture not known before. Hays made an attempt to explain the pleasure and torment of repetition with the support of Sigmund Freud and Roland Barthes’ concepts. According to Hays repetitions are attempts of a single being to a certain primal state perceived as free of any tension. In a similar way Rosalind Krauss explained a motif of a grate present in Modernistic art and also exceptionally frequent in Eisenman’s work. -/- Annex Architecture is still writing Balzac novels. Peter Eisenman and literature -/- Architecture’s approach to writing, script or literature, present within Peter Eisenman’s work, is an exceptional phenomenon, furthermore a complex one. The article considers four possible relations. The first one relates to Eisenman’s characteristics as a person extremely gifted with the ability to wordplay, which very ‘play’ reveals skills to create architectural images. In the second approach the attention has been paid to Eisenman’s interests – in the first period of his oeuvre – in linguistic works by Noam Chomsky and his transformational-generative grammar. The third kind of relations applied to overcoming the need for autonomy of architecture (and of modernist aesthetics at the same time) and renew interests in questions of meaning in architecture. The fourth sort of relations occurred when Eisenman started to create reflections of historic or literary narrations in architecture – ‘stone stories’ and architectural fictions of their kind. -/- Bernard Tschumi -/- From perversion to deconstruction In Bernard Tschumi’s writings from the 1970s and 1980s we can find a transposition of important threads of post-structuralist ideas deriving from Georges Bataille, Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida’s works. The analysis of the architect’s writings also shows roots in Phillippe Sollers, Michel Foucault and Denis Hollier’s works. The analysis of borrowed elements from the beginnings of Tschumi’s theoretical activity may be helpful in explaining the contents of his later writings motre inspired by philosophy of deconstruction. The set of his earliest views was inspired by Marxism, Neo Marxism and French Structuralism, mainly by the writings of Henri Levebre and Guy Debord. From the thought of Levebre Tschumi took interest for city as not only a question of urbanistics but also a political issue. From Debord’s concepts he borrowed a conviction about the role of situational violation for changes in the society structure. Some of these beliefs were preserved in his own concepts of architecture as an event. From this period derived also his will to change conservative elements of social structure not by means of political revolution but of theoretical and creative activity. Tschumi acknowledged that the effective way of the proceedings towards achieving his aims would be accepting the role of both a critical intellectualist and architecture expert who would not hide away his left-wing orientation. The speculations defined by the architect as ‘revolting analyses’ were about to characterise contradictions which tear the society apart, penetrate architecture and constitute the basis of culture. Spreading away of the conscience of false assumptions hidden away in various disciplines could have weakened cohesion of a conservative society and influence the will to change among the elites. This way the beginnings of political revolution were rooted in philosophy of architecture. In 1977 Tschumi published his text entitled The Pleasure of Architecture inspired by Roland Barthes’s The Pleasure of the Text, it also included some concepts derived from Georges Bataille and Jacques Derrida. First of all the author used Barthes’s concept which made an assumption that literary activity is pervaded by the spirit of resistance towards social rules, and Tschudi transferred this remark onto architecture. From the ideas of Bataille, acquainted via Holier’s work, he derived his belief that two concepts of space, a conceptual one (defined as Pyramid) and a sensual one (defined as Labirynth), not losing their distinct features, they join in the concept of experienced space which exceeds contradictions. The exceeding itself was defined as the basic rule of architecture and it was referred to situations in which architecture not only negates social needs, but also disavows its own tradition. Crossing the borders applies not only to political issues or permanent rules of the very discipline but also interfering with other fields (especially literature and film). The fact that architecture is associated with organising events turned Tschumi’s attention to questions of violence that result from upsetting architectural order of a given building by its users and the one hand, and on the other from forcing the users to specific acts imposed by this very order. The analysis of the concepts used by Tschumi in his early writings indicates that they are close to definitions that would occur in his reflection in the following years influenced by philosophy of deconstruction. -/- Approaching deconstruction Tschumi in his theories developed in the 1980s presumed that the current social world had undergone a deep process of decay, and the reaction against which ought to be based on ordering-up actions, and also preserving the main outline of disintegration of the whole and its elements in the state of conflict. The statements concerning the nature of the contemporary to Tschumi social relations were applied by him to the world of architecture, this led him to coming up with designing strategies that took into consideration the destabilised character of conditions in which works of architecture were created. New ways of conduct invented by Tschumi drew their inspiration from literature and research on literature, psychoanalysis, structural linguistics, structuralism and post structuralism, and eventually also deconstruction philosophy. The proposed methods were opposed by their author both to functionalism continuity trends and postmodern architecture. Tschumi’s proposals contradicted any forms of conservatism or traditionalism in political sphere as well as in reference to tendencies in architecture. They were not simple contradictions of social or architectural rules, they intrude them from the inside, weaken or escalate the already existing incongruities, they move the boundaries between the areas. Revolutionary illusions about the possibility of radical changes were replaced with strategies which completed, tainted or test former rules in the series of formal games of permutation and combination. Quite different from avant-garde formalism Tschumi’s games were not about maintaining the autonomy of a given area, but on the contrary – polluting it with other areas’ influences. Tschumi enjoyed demonstrating illusions of architecture concerning simple relations between form and function, or between form and meaning. Making use of Freud, Lacan and Foucault’s research he introduced a category of “madness” into architecture allowing an observation that the recognised norms are nothing but merely ones of many possible principles of behaviour, and their recognised status resulted from unjustified hindering innovativeness which is crucial for architecture. To reborn architecture’s capability of changing Tschumi also made use of Barthes’s discoveries concerning rules of narration and works by writers who applied in their writing knowledge on linguistics. Making a work’s author unclear by various mechanical transformations of its elements was however apparent only, and formal rigours imposed on the process of designing liberated possibilities difficult to obtain in more traditional creative action. Another mode of acting introduced by Tschumi was combining his work of elements deriving from outside architecture; joining space records with notation of motion and events accompanying architectural objects among others. These architectural and extra-architectural elements were not unified, on the contrary their heterogenous and conflictual character was stressed. This is how shock, anxiety and instability, typical for live in great metropolises, infiltrated architecture. Taking some ideas of deconstruction philosophy as a pattern Tschumi also took into critical consideration in his essays traditional in architecture oppositions between form and figuration, or theory and practice. By combining various inspirations he eventually worked out an idea of architectural event, which he understood as a series of actions contesting its own field, redefining its sources, principles and elements. An event, understood in this way, was not so much producing works as rather creating conditions of their production and at the same time designing the society different from a hierarchic one. -/- Park of deconstruction Among numerous philosophical strategies of deconstruction most frequently used was questioning the practice of strong opposition of two reasons. In many cases Bernard Tschumi’s writings just consider functioning of the conflict juxtaposition of the ideas of structure and ornament or theory and practice in history of architecture. Violation of traditional relations between terms of this kind, both old and modern, raised Jacques Derrida’s objections, when he was induced for the first time to co-operate with architects’ milieu. During this long lasting thought exchange the philosopher eventually acknowledged Bernard Tschumi’s arguments for reasoning the encroachment of architecture’s fundamental rules. Deconstruction applied in architecture was not a simple transposition or analogy of practices that had been applied by philosophy of deconstruction. We may even say that considering architectural terms became an important formula of deconstruction. Architecture understood in philosophical way became something beyond the practice and theory of its own discipline, a sort of metaphysics of both philosophy and architecture. The deliberate encroachment of simplicity of dividing architecture into theory and practice, for the first time became a clear aim for Tschumi in his drawings and texts entitled The Manhattan Transcripts. The contents of this series of works was a record of characteristic features of this New York district in such a way that not only objects were the subject of the record but also relations between objects, people and events. The record was about to take into consideration a conflict character of elements of this representation and at the same time to avoid applying to them the rule of mimetism. The record became a form of reflection over the very record by an increased control over the ways of representation. Architecture which was considered in the The Manhattan Transcripts was not directed to fulfill the needs of inhabitation or production, it was rather related with hitherto usually marginalised liminal situations: building ostentatiously big monuments, religious cult, war etc. Architecture operating in these relations focused also the attention on the included in it continuous tendency to overpass its own restrictions, the role of violence as its not recognised factor, or the meaning of excess and shock in its operation. Architecture moving from reason towards madness became even more visible in the design of Parisian Parc de la Villette, whose pavilions were defined as folies (in French it means both small park buildings and follies). The park was supposed to be on the one hand a reflection of traditional society disintegration while on the other it questioned basic rules of producing a work of architecture. The traditional rules of designing, based on ordering up, were replaced with the strategies of dysfunction and dissociation. In Tschumi’s opinion methods of this kind may be equivalent of what Derrida named différance. Instead of aiming at mergence, any diversity, plays or variations were strengthen. Tschumi’s texts, in which he explained his attitude, were completed by Derrida’s extent statement entitled Point de folie – Maintenant l’architecture. Derrida’s article is the most significant of all his statements on architecture as a form of thinking and activity. According to the philosopher, architecture should divide space (in French defined as espacement), what enables both thinking and action – it arranges the space of an event. Tschumi’s buildings, defined as folies, in an essential way destabilise any created order, and at the same time they refresh it. Derrida’s statement suggests that architecture may become both metaphor of an order merging a language or a society but also of inner forces which deconstruct and reconstruct it. Therefore architecture is at the same time a construction, a deconstruction and a reconstruction. Parc de la Villette stands out in this system with its attempt to step beyond the scheme of an easy repetition and its heading for chances of achieving more radical otherness. -/- Conclusion Destruction as construction. Paradoxes of deconstruction in architecture -/- Scepticism about persistence and common importance of fundamental values of human culture evinced in philosophers and writers’ works as early as in Greek antiquity, nevertheless it was not expressed so strongly as in the second half of the 20th century. Especially in Heidegger’s work Being and Time (although originated in 1927, still influential in all later philosophy) the following states were characterised: the state of losing the ground (Abgrund), of being out of sight (Unheimlichkeit) and of being out of dwelling (Un-zuhause-sein) – as the basis of self-confidence of conscious being there (Dasein). The entire criticism of philosophy of home and dwelling draws the inspiration from this early writing of the German philosopher, it combines crisis of basic terms of metaphysics with social conditions which are dictated by living in large metropolis. The crisis of both metaphysical foundation and home appears to be similar to the situation of weakening the relations between a man and his dwelling in extensively expanding cities. Whereas philosophy, as well as many disciplines of social sciences, have diagnosed for a long time the destabilisation of fundamental ideas of Western culture and crucial changes in the ways of dwelling, architecture itself occurred to be “the last fortress of metaphysics” (J. Derrida). Among contemporary architects, Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi were the ones who engaged most decidedly in the issues of critical analysis of architecture foundation and its social role. Both the architects noticed new formulas of contemporary social and individual existence, tremendously different from the entire history, and at the same time they affirmed lack of adequacy of architecture concepts to new situations. Both Eisenman and Tschumi used to describe the existing architecture as a tool for consolidation of highly integrated and hierarchised societies, and also as a discipline extremely uncoincidental with the current character of social life based on ideas of freedom and diversity. The means to transform architecture and make a factor of further social changes out of it, was a concept that accentuated revealing the inner contradictions of this discipline, and considering them in designing strategies. Eisenman’s activity, in regard of what has just been noticed, was focused on questioning the basic rules of traditionally comprehended architecture, especially the rule of purpose. The American architect noticed that the concept of architecture as fulfilment the need of location, hides away the fact that the location has to be constantly reconsidered, and hence it is overtaken by change (dislocation). Therefore new concept of architecture propounded architectural activity to translocate the concept of location – more than before – but also to change its status perpetually. Such comprehended architecture should claim, as its main purpose, the constant revision of this purpose and create itself anew permanently. Even Eisenman’s earliest designs of houses nos. I-IV broke with such values as the sense of safety, closeness and familiarity, and just on the contrary they accentuated senses of strangeness, homelessness and loss of confidence. The contradictions within architecture noticed by Tschumi referred to combination of intellectual and sensual values in architecture, when their non-appropriation was defeated by an additional condition, namely the way of experience based on pleasure of excess, marked by insanity. The features of folly were especially visible in his designs of gardens, where the order of planning was mixed with sensual experience introduced by particular elements (both the ones created by nature, and the buildings defined as folies). Parc de la Villette designed by the French architect in Paris put in question not only the common understanding of purpose in architecture but also the ideas of order and integrity, as its plan was based on the combination of independent layers with records of grids of points, various lines and planes. The architecture that collides inadequate elements with each other was supposed to be a kind of an event with no beginning and no end. The architecture treated as an event became a form of a space weakened articulation that maintains its diversity and lack of accordance of the elements building it up. The analyses of Eisenman and Tschumi’s theoretical writings indicate how much the aims of architecture have actually changed; instead of supporting social persistence, the architecture is rather intensifying contradictions, and instead of providing people with the sense of safety, it sublimes danger. From simple acts of defamiliarisation, increasing the distance to itself and enhancing the role of theory, through discomfort, anxiety, not feeling someone at home, weirdness, excess, shock and violence, architecture reached the edge of stability and uncertainty, only to make an attempt at penetrating what is impossible and unutterable, and recording what cannot become the subject of any records. -/- . (shrink)

This article, which appeared in the Library of Living Philosophers series, is a thought experiment that imagines Danto’s analytical framework reaching well beyond what he had called the “drab” state of philosophy in the early 2000s. It describes, in minimalist terms, what he saw as the fundamental project of all philosophy -- regardless of the specific theoretical content any particular philosopher might put forth. It discusses his central (and still underdeveloped) notion of representation, and his quasi-Hegelian view of how art (...) theory has been altered by its own recently emerging self-consciousness. It draws out the implications of his Argument from Intelligibility, which informs Danto’s interest in human self-consciousness, in autonomy, and (somewhat speculatively) in “spirit.”. (shrink)

Technical reproduction in general, and photography in particular have changed the status and practices of art. Similarly, the expansion of Web 2.0 interactive spaces presents opportunities and challenges to artistic communities. Present study focuses on artistic activism: socially sensitive artists publish their creation on the internet on its most interactive space – social media. These artworks carry both artistic and social messages. Such practices force us to reinterpret some elements of the classical art paradigm: its autonomy, authorship, uniqueness (as (...) opposed to copies and series), and the social role of art. The analysis is aimed at Hungarian and Romanian online artistic projects from Transylvania region of Romania, relevant as intercultural communication endeavours. Our research question is the way they differ from the traditional artistic paradigm. (shrink)

This book is an anthology with the following themes. Non-European Tradition: Bussanich interprets main themes of Hindu ethics, including its roots in ritual sacrifice, its relationship to religious duty, society, individual human well-being, and psychic liberation. To best assess the truth of Hindu ethics, he argues for dialogue with premodern Western thought. Pfister takes up the question of human nature as a case study in Chinese ethics. Is our nature inherently good (as Mengzi argued) or bad (Xunzi’s view)? Pfister ob- (...) serves their underlying agreement, that human beings are capable of becoming good, and makes precise the disagreement: whether we achieve goodness by cultivating autonomous feelings or by accepting external precepts. There are political consequences: whether government should aim to respect and em- power individual choices or to be a controlling authority. Early Greek Thinking: Collobert examines the bases of Homeric ethics in fame, prudence, and shame, and how these guide the deliberations of heroes. She observes how, by depending upon the poet’s words, the hero gains a quasi- immortality, although in truth there is no consolation for each person’s inevi- table death. Plato: Santas examines Socratic Method and ethics in Republic 1. There Socrates examines definitions of justice and tests them by comparison to the arts and sciences. Santas shows the similarities of Socrates’ method to John Rawls’ method of considered judgments in reflective equilibrium. McPherran interprets Plato’s religious dimension as like that of his teacher Socrates. McPherran shows how Plato appropriates, reshapes, and extends the religious conventions of his own time in the service of establishing the new enterprise of philosophy. Ac- cording to Taylor, Socrates believes that humans in general have the task of helping the gods by making their own souls as good as possible, and Socrates’ unique ability to cross-examine imposes on him the special task of helping others to become as good as possible. This conception of Socrates’ mission is Plato’s own, consisting in an extension of the traditional conception of piety as helping the gods. Brickhouse and Smith propose a new understanding of Socratic moral psychology—one that retains the standard view of Socrates as an intellectualist, but also recognizes roles in human agency for appetites and passions. They compare and contrast the Socratic view to the picture of moral psychology we get in other dialogues of Plato. Hardy also proposes a new, non-reductive understanding of Socratic eudaimonism—he argues that Socrates invokes a very rich and complex notion of the “Knowledge of the Good and Bad”, which is associated with the motivating forces of the virtues. Rudebusch defends Socrates’ argument that knowledge can never be impotent in the face of psychic passions. He considers the standard objections: that knowledge cannot weigh incom- mensurable human values, and that brute desire, all by itself, is capable of moving the soul to action. Aristotle: Anagnostopoulos interprets Aristotle on the nature and acquisition of virtue. Though virtue of character, aiming at human happiness, requires a complex awareness of multiple dimensions of one’s experience, it is not properly a cognitive capacity. Thus it requires habituation, not education, according to Aristotle, in order to align the unruly elements of the soul with reason’s knowledge of what promotes happiness. Shields explains Aristotle’s doctrine that goodness is meant in many ways as the doctrine that there are different analyses of goodness for different types of circumstance, just as for being. He finds Aristotle to argue for this conclusion, against Plato’s doctrine of the unity of the Good, by applying the tests for homonymy and as an immediate cons- equence of the doctrine of categories. Shields evaluates the issue as unresolved at present. Russell discusses Aristotle’s account of practical deliberation and its virtue, intelligence (phronesis). He relates the account to contemporary philo- sophical controversies surrounding Aristotle’s view that intelligence is neces- sary for moral virtue, including the objections that in some cases it is unnecessary or even impedes human goodness. Frede examines the advantages and disadvantages of Aristotle’s virtue ethics. She explains the general Greek con- ceptions of happiness and virtue, Aristotle’s conception of phronesis and compares the Aristotle’s ethics with modern accounts. Liske discusses the question of whether the Aristotelian account of virtue entails an ethical-psy- chological determinism. He argues that Aristotle’s understanding of hexis allows for free action and ethical responsibility : By making decisions for good actions we are able to stabilize our character (hexis). Hellenistic and Roman: Annas defends an account of stoic ethics, according to which the three parts of Stoicism—logic, physics, and ethics—are integrated as the parts of an egg, not as the parts of a building. Since by this analogy no one part is a foundation for the rest, pedagogical decisions may govern the choice of numerous, equally valid, presentations of Stoic ethics. Piering interprets the Cynic way of life as a distinctive philosophy. In their ethics, Cynics value neither pleasure nor tradition but personal liberty, which they achieve by self-suffi- ciency and display in speech that is frank to the point of insult. Plotinus and Neoplatonism: Gerson outlines the place of ordinary civic virtue as well as philosophically contemplative excellence in Neoplatonism. In doing so he attempts to show how one and the same good can be both action-guiding in human life and be the absolute simple One that grounds the explanation of everything in the universe. Delcomminette follows Plotinus’s path to the Good as the foundation of free will, first in the freedom of Intellect and then in the “more than freedom” of the One. Plotinus postulates these divinities as not outside but within each self, saving him from the contradiction of an external foundation for a truly free will. General Topics: Halbig discusses the thesis on the unity of virtues. He dis- tinguishes the thesis of the identity of virtues and the thesis of a reciprocity of virtues and argues that the various virtues form a unity (in terms of reciprocity) since virtues cannot bring about any bad action. Detel examines Plato’s and Aristotle’s conceptions of normativity : Plato and Aristotle (i) entertained hybrid theories of normativity by distinguishing functional, semantic and ethical normativity, (ii) located the ultimate source of normativity in standards of a good life, and thus (iii) took semantic normativity to be a derived form of normativity. Detel argues that hybrid theories of normativity are—from a mo- dern point of view—still promising. Ho ̈ffe defends the Ancient conception of an art of living against Modern objections. Whereas many Modern philosophers think that we have to replace Ancient eudaimonism by the idea of moral obligation (Pflicht), Ho ̈ffe argues that Eudaimonism and autonomy-based ethics can be reconciled and integrated into a comprehensive and promising theory of a good life, if we enrich the idea of autonomy by the central elements of Ancient eudaimonism. Some common themes: The topics in Chinese and Hindu ethics are perhaps more familiar to modern western sensibilities than Homeric and even Socratic. Anagnostopoulos, Brickhouse and Smith, Frede, Liske, Rudebusch, and Russell all consider in contrasting ways the role of moral character, apart from intellect, in ethics. Brickhouse / Smith, Hardy, and Rudebusch discuss the Socratic con- ception of moral knowledge. Brickhouse / Smith and Hardy retain the standard view of the so called Socratic Intellectualism. Shields and Gerson both consider the question whether there is a single genus of goodness, or if the term is a homonym. Bussanich, McPherran, Taylor, and Delcomminette all consider the relation between religion and ethics. Pfister, Piering, Delcomminette, and Liske all consider what sort of freedom is appropriate to human well-being. Halbig, Detel, and Ho ̈ffe propose interpretations of main themes of Ancient ethics. (shrink)

Based on accounts and rewrites, this article intends to think about paths in photography history, their connections between ethics, and use of image and narrative appropriations. Taking the Pará Amazon as a place of reflection, an effort is made to rethink the power relation-ship constituted by a specific point of view in the history of image. This text had the collaboration of Izabelle Louise Anaúa Tremembé, an indigenous student at Federal University of Pará (UFC). In her accounts, she talks about (...) appropriation culture, exotification of sacred objects, and sexualization of female bodies, as well in her speech, she affirms the lack of knowledge when it comes to their rituals and even brought up that indigenous autonomy in making art has always existed. The accounts were articulated on the occasion of the meeting between teachers and photography and cinema producers, in April 2019, Alcantara, Maranhão. (shrink)

The global ecological crisis is the greatest challenge humanity has ever had to confront, and humanity is failing. The triumph of the neo-liberal agenda, together with a debauched ‘scientism’, has reduced nature and people to nothing but raw materials, instruments and consumers to be efficiently managed in a global market dominated by corporate managers, media moguls and technocrats. The arts and the humanities have been devalued, genuine science has been crippled, and the quest for autonomy and democracy undermined. The (...) resultant trajectory towards global ecological destruction appears inexorable, and neither governments nor environmental movements have significantly altered this, or indeed, seem able to. The Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Civilization is a wide-ranging and scholarly analysis of this failure. This book reframes the dynamics of the debate beyond the discourses of economics, politics and techno-science. Reviving natural philosophy to align science with the humanities, it offers the categories required to reform our modes of existence and our institutions so that we augment, rather than undermine, the life of the ecosystems of which we are part. From this philosophical foundation, the author puts forth a manifesto for transforming our culture into one which could provide an effective global environmental movement and provide the foundations for a global ecological civilization. (shrink)

In Games: Agency as Art, Thi Nguyen has given us a deep and compelling picture of agency as much more layered, volatile, environment-dependent and discontinuous than it appears in most philosophical accounts. Games ‘inscribe … forms of agency into artifactual vessels’.1 1 When we play a game, we take up a form of agency, including a set of motivations, values and goals, which has been artificially provided by the game. Our purpose in playing, in the kinds of gameplay that interest (...) Nguyen, is to have the aesthetic experience of first-personally exercising the kind of agency sculpted by the game. As we move in and out of gameplay, we take up and drop values, motives, and goals that are provided to us by the game. Games can expand our autonomy and the richness of life by allowing us to practice different forms of agency, taking on different ends for the aesthetic experience of striving to meet them. While I am on board with these central moves of Nguyen’s book, in this essay I will argue that the situation is substantially messier than Nguyen portrays it as being. Game play, I will claim, is inextricably embedded and entangled in its larger social, material and cultural context. Conversely, I will argue, everyday life is routinely sculpted in ways Nguyen claims are distinctive of games. (shrink)

Celebrated as the equal to the great philosophers of old, namely Plato and Aristotle, whom – as Cassiodorus put it – he taught to speak Latin better than they spoke Greek, Boethius aspired to fully emancipate Roman culture from its Greek models through translations and exegesis so faithful they would leave nothing more to be desired from the original. The essay focuses on Boethius philhellenism, without complexes insofar as it had little to do either with the mixed feelings of his (...) Roman predecessors or with the plundering agenda of his Christian contemporaries. Special attention is paid to the close relationship Boethius established between word for word translations and multi-layered commentaries which he thought of and – albeit partially – carried out as part of the same scholarly endeavour. Devoid of literary pretentions as well as free from aspirations to autonomy, Boethius literal rendering and scrupulous interpretation were meant to be completely self-sufficient. Together they stand out as both the most innovative and the most conservative features of his ambitious cultural project. -/- Célébré comme l’égal des grands philosophes du passé, auxquels il aurait appris à parler Latin mieux qu’ils ne parlaient Grec, Boèce a caressé le rêve d’une émancipation radicale de la culture romaine vis-à-vis des modèles grecs qu’il se proposait de traduire et interpréter assez fidèlement pour que la comparaison avec les sources ne soit plus nécessaire. De son effort de livrer un Aristote et un Platon latins à la hauteur des originaux grecs, nous étudions l’étroite solidarité qui relie la traduction mot-à-mot des textes grecs et la restitution scrupuleuse de leur sens. Cette double tâche, que Boèce a conçue et menée d’un seul tenant, nous est dès lors apparue comme le reflet d’un philhellénisme sans complexes, tout aussi éloigné des sentiments ambivalents que nourrissaient vis-à-vis des hellènes ses devanciers romains que des efforts visant à domestiquer l’héritage classique auxquels se livraient certains de ses contemporains de même confession que lui. Affranchis de tout rêve d’autonomie, les traductions et les commentaires de Boèce se conçoivent comme parfaitement autosuffisants. Ensemble ils constituent ce qu’il y a à la fois de franchement novateur et de profondément conservateur dans son projet de faire parler Latin les sources grecques. (shrink)

This essay presents the Aestheticism of the 19th century as the foundational movement of modernist-formalist aesthetics of the 20th century. The main principle of this movement is what I denominate “productive opacity”. Aestheticism has not been recognized as a philosophical aesthetic theory. However, its definition of artwork as an exclusive kind of form—a deep, opaque form—is among the most precise ever given in the discipline. This essay offers an interpretation of aestheticism as a formalist theory, referred to here as “deep (...) formalism”, focusing on the thinking of leading aestheticists, Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde, and James Whistler. These three thinkers defined artwork as a form saturated with an inextricable content, viz. opaque form. (shrink)

Sometimes neuroscientists discover distinct realizations for a single psychological property. In considering such cases, some philosophers have maintained that scientists will abandon the single multiply realized psychological property in favor of one or more uniquely realized psychological properties. In this paper, we build on the Dimensioned theory of realization and a companion theory of multiple realization to argue that this is not the case. Whether scientists postulate unique realizations or multiple realizations is not determined by the neuroscience alone, but by (...) the psychological theory under examination. Thus, one might say that, in the splitting or non-splitting of properties, psychology enjoys a kind of autonomy from neuroscience. (shrink)

Contrary to the opinion of some scholars which holds that science is independent of particular worldviews in its presuppositions and method, this paper argues that although the presuppositions of science have no worldview content, science may provide evidence that has a bearing on a certain worldview . This dependence on a worldview is what gives science some level of political autonomy ; that is, some kind of scientific citizenship in philosophy that gives credence to a form of local knowledge (...) , and thus, gives voice to a group of people. This is very important as science and technology is not just about doing or making by hand ; it involves not only human activities, but also the skills of the crafts- man or woman, which does not leave out the ar t of the human mind that does the manufacturing. It is on this basis that this paper studies Igwebuike as the basis for science and technology in Africa. Igwebuike falls within the parameters of the art of the African mind. It shapes the African thinking a s it is the basis of the African logic. At this point, science and technology become a revelation of the Igwebuike framework. This piece, therefore, studied how Igwebuike impacts on science and technology through its determination of the logic (nka) employ ed in science and technology. It discovered that the African worldview conceptualized in Igwebuike is capable of a science that is anchored on the structure of the African world. For the purpose of this study, the Igwebuike complementary method of inquiry was employed. (shrink)

The article examines the collaborations between the pensionnaires of the Villa Medici in Rome and the members of the French School of Athens, shedding light on the complex relationships between architecture, art, and archeology. The second half of the 19th century was a period during which the exchanges and collaborations between archaeologists, artists, and architects acquired a reinvented role and a dominant place. Within such a context, Athens was the place par excellence, where the encounter between these three disciplines took (...) place. The main objective of the article is to render explicit how the revelations of archeology, actively disseminated by the members of the French School of Athens—the “Athéniens”—had an important impact on the approach of certain pensionnaires of the Villa Medici in Rome. Particular emphasis is placed on certain pensionnaires, who decided to devote their envois to ancient monuments of Greece. In parallel, the article intends to shed light on the methods that helped the pensionnaires-architects of the Villa Medici in Rome appropriate archaeological discoveries concerning Greek antiquities. The article takes, as a starting point, the following hypothesis: to better understand the figure of the architect-archaeologist, of whom Jacques Ignace Hittorff is an emblematic example, it is pivotal to bear in mind that before the second half of the 19th century neither the figure of Hellenic archeology nor the figure of the architect had yet acquired their autonomy. Taking into account that Johann Joachim Winckelmann, in the middle of the 18th century, forged an ideal Greek model, which was criticized during the second half of the 19th century, the article also sheds light on the fact that the revelations of archaeologists have called into question the Winckelmannian image of Greece. Another aspect that is explored in the article is Jacques Ignace Hittorff’s studies concerning the polychromy of ancient Greek monuments, paying special attention to his Restitution du temple d’Empédocle à Sélinonte ou l’Architecture polychrome chez les Grecs. The article also explores how the shifts of the status of philhellenism are related to the mutations of the meaning of travel to Greece. In parallel, it investigates the impact of Greek independence on the ideals of beauty and nature in arts, as well as how Greek independence is related to the intensification of the interest in the excavations of Greek antiquities. (shrink)

For many contemporary artists, failure has been an instrument of experimentation and self-expression, of investigation into existential questions and manifestation of utopian tensions. In this paper, I will discuss how some of the well-known strategies of experimental and avant-garde artistic practices with failure involve risky actions, challenging or impossible attempts, loss of control, and compulsive repetition of inconclusive acts. In those experimentations, the ideal model of an effective and successful action performance (in which a goal is defined through a clear (...) intention, a plan and a well-controlled execution) is willfully sabotaged in its stages. In this regard, a distinction between failure and mistake will be highlighted: if failure could be traced back to the tradition of heroic or tragic defeat in front of adverse odds, mistake on the contrary means doing something wrong that one is expected to control. While failure negatively reflects our tension toward autonomy, the focus on mistakes is the expression of rigidity and heightened risk aversion in contexts where maximal efficiency and self-optimization are expected. This paper will argue that equating the category of failure with that of mistake is not faithful to the motives underlying those artistic traditions. In this respect, artistic experimentations in the “aesthetic of failure” can also be viewed as a critical response toward a general mindset defined by the anxiety of control and obsessive mistake avoidance that seems typical of our current times. (shrink)

The recent spectacular progress in assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) has resulted in new ethical dilemmas. Though women occupy a central role in the reproductive process, within the ART paradigm, the importance accorded to the embryo commonly surpasses that given to the mother. This commentary questions the increasing tendency to position the embryonic subject in an antagonistic relation with the mother. I examine how the mother’s reproductive autonomy is compromised in relation to that of her embryo and argue in favour (...) of doing away with the subject-object dyad between them, particularly in the contexts of surrogacy and abortion. I also engage with the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016. A critical discussion of the privacy judgment passed by the Supreme Court of India helps examine how personal autonomy of the body and mind extends to include the reproductive autonomy of women as well. (shrink)

Principles of Art History: The Problem of the Development of Style in Early Modern Art Heinrich Wölfflingetty research institute. 2015. pp. 356. £20.00.

Cellular, or mobile phones are great: they allow people to communicate over long distances whenever and wherever they are, and instantaneously at that when the one called is wearing one too. Having said that, though, it must immediately be added that they, also, have a complex disadvantage, and it is one we are hard pushed to understand. In fact, due to its complexity people simply tend to neglect it, even though everyone in his right mind has had experience with it. (...) Now Walter Benjamin defined aura as “a distance however close it may be”.1) This has standardly been interpreted as a characterisation of an experience of presence, also by Benjamin. This aura supposedly suffered from the rise of photography. Aura can, also, be understood as inertia, the absence of something present. And whether aura is gone or widespread I gladly leave to more speculative-minded thinkers. I submit that we experience a person’s “aura”—her distance however close she may be—when perception tells us the person is present yet our mind realises that she isn’t. I am referring here to the observation had of another person engaged in a cell phone conversation. The inertia of the cell phone caller consists in her incapacity to address those who observe her. I think there is an immoral streak to her selfappointed moral autonomy. In a previous edition of this Dutch-Russian exchange on inertia I argued that our trafficking with facial expressions forms the model with which we’d best understand the workings of art—facial expression is the anthropological foundation of art. My discussion, today, of the cell phone conversation is meant to add to that previous suggestion. (shrink)

Starting out from the ontology of human work set out by Marx in Das Kapital, the paper seeks to analyse the relations between the artist and his actions and aims, the work of art he produces, and the audience for this work. The paper concludes with a discussion of the problem of creativity in the arts, drawing on ideas of Roman Ingarden and other phenomenologists.

This paper presents a new account of aesthetic pleasure, according to which it is a distinct psychological structure marked by a characteristic self-reinforcing motivation. Pleasure figures in the appreciation of an object in two ways: In the short run, when we are in contact with particular artefacts on particular occasions, aesthetic pleasure motivates engagement and keeps it running smoothly—it may do this despite the fact that the object we engagement is aversive in some ways. Over longer periods, it plays a (...) critical role in shaping how we engage with objects to get this kind of pleasure from them. This account is yoked to a broadly functional understanding of art: it is not the nature of the object that makes it art, but the nature of the response that it is designed to elicit. The view does not, however, rest on individual psychology alone, as some other functional accounts do. Crucially, it is argued that shared cultural context is a key determinant of the pleasure we derive from aesthetic artefacts. The pleasure of art is always communal and communicative. (shrink)

Psychology has been considered to have an autonomy from the other sciences (especially physical science) in at least two ways: in its subject-matter and in its methods. To say that the subject-matter of psychology is autonomous is to say that psychology deals with entities—properties, relations, states—which are not dealt with or not wholly explicable in terms of physical (or any other) science. Contrasted with this is the idea that psychology employs a characteristic method of explanation, which is not shared (...) by the other sciences. I shall label the two senses of autonomy ‘metaphysical autonomy’ and ‘explanatory autonomy’ The question of whether psychology as a science is autonomous in either sense is one of the philosophical questions surrounding the (somewhat vague) doctrine of ‘naturalism’: questions concerning the extent to which the human mind can be brought under the aegis of natural science. In their contemporary form, these questions had their origin in the ‘new science’ of the 17th century. Early materialists like Hobbes (1651) and La Mettrie (1748) rejected both explanatory and metaphysical autonomy: mind is matter in motion, and the mind can be studied by the mathematical methods of the new science just as any matter can. But while materialism (and therefore the denial of metaphysical autonomy) had to wait until the 19th century before starting to become widely accepted, the denial of explanatory autonomy remained a strong force in empiricist philosophy. Hume described his Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) as an ‘attempt to introduce the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects’—where ‘moral’ signifies ‘human’. And subsequent criticism of Hume’s views, notably by Kant and Reid, ensured that the question of naturalism—whether there can be a ‘science of man’—was one of the central questions of 19th century philosophy, and a question which hovered over the emergence of psychology as an independent discipline (see Reed 1994). In the 20th century, much of the philosophical discussion of the autonomy of psychology has been inspired by the Logical Positivists’ discussions of the UNITY OF.... (shrink)

Social epistemology is autonomous: When applied to the same evidential situations, the principles of social rationality and the principles of individual rationality sometimes recommend inconsistent beliefs. If we stipulate that reasoning rationally from justified beliefs to a true belief is normally sufficient for knowledge, the autonomy thesis implies that some knowledge is essentially social. When the principles of social and individual rationality are applied to justified evidence and recommend inconsistent beliefs and the belief endorsed by social rationality is true, (...) then that true belief would be an instance of social knowledge but not individual knowledge. (shrink)

What precisely does a distraction threaten? An agent who spends an inordinate amount of time attending to her smartphone – what precisely is she lacking? I argue that whereas agency of attention is the agent’s non-automatic decision-making on what she currently pays attention to, autonomy of attention is the agent, through her second-order desires, effectively interfering with her non-automatic decision-making on what she currently pays attention to. Freedom of attention is the agent’s possibility to hold or switch her focus (...) of attention without fixating on any specific focus against her will or without distraction from chosen foci. This conceptual work provides resources to track manipulations that diminish a person’s freedom of attention. (shrink)

The systems studied in the special sciences are often said to be causally autonomous, in the sense that their higher-level properties have causal powers that are independent of the causal powers of their more basic physical properties. This view was espoused by the British emergentists, who claimed that systems achieving a certain level of organizational complexity have distinctive causal powers that emerge from their constituent elements but do not derive from them. More recently, non-reductive physicalists have espoused a similar view (...) about the causal autonomy of special-science properties. They argue that since these properties can typically have multiple physical realizations, they are not identical to physical properties, and further they possess causal powers that differ from those of their physical realisers. Despite the orthodoxy of this view, it is hard to find a clear exposition of its meaning or a defence of it in terms of a well-motivated account of causation. In this paper, we aim to address this gap in the literature by clarifying what is implied by the doctrine of the causal autonomy of special-science properties and by defending the doctrine using a prominent theory of causation from the philosophy of science. (shrink)

My first paper on the Is/Ought issue. The young Arthur Prior endorsed the Autonomy of Ethics, in the form of Hume’s No-Ought-From-Is (NOFI) but the later Prior developed a seemingly devastating counter-argument. I defend Prior's earlier logical thesis (albeit in a modified form) against his later self. However it is important to distinguish between three versions of the Autonomy of Ethics: Ontological, Semantic and Ontological. Ontological Autonomy is the thesis that moral judgments, to be true, must answer (...) to a realm of sui generis non-natural PROPERTIES. Semantic autonomy insists on a realm of sui generis non-natural PREDICATES which do not mean the same as any natural counterparts. Logical Autonomy maintains that moral conclusions cannot be derived from non-moral premises.-moral premises with the aid of logic alone. Logical Autonomy does not entail Semantic Autonomy and Semantic Autonomy does not entail Ontological Autonomy. But, given some plausible assumptions Ontological Autonomy entails Semantic Autonomy and given the conservativeness of logic – the idea that in a valid argument you don’t get out what you haven’t put in – Semantic Autonomy entails Logical Autonomy. So if Logical Autonomy is false – as Prior appears to prove – then Semantic and Ontological Autonomy would appear to be false too! I develop a version of Logical Autonomy (or NOFI) and vindicate it against Prior’s counterexamples, which are also counterexamples to the conservativeness of logic as traditionally conceived. The key concept here is an idea derived in part from Quine - that of INFERENCE-RELATIVE VACUITY. I prove that you cannot derive conclusions in which the moral terms appear non-vacuously from premises from which they are absent. But this is because you cannot derive conclusions in which ANY (non-logical) terms appear non-vacuously from premises from which they are absent Thus NOFI or Logical Autonomy comes out as an instance of the conservativeness of logic. This means that the reverse entailment that I have suggested turns out to be a mistake. The falsehood of Logical Autonomy would not entail either the falsehood Semantic Autonomy or the falsehood of Ontological Autonomy, since Semantic Autonomy only entails Logical Autonomy with the aid of the conservativeness of logic of which Logical Autonomy is simply an instance. Thus NOFI or Logical Autonomy is vindicated, but it turns out to be a less world-shattering thesis than some have supposed. It provides no support for either non-cognitivism or non-naturalism. (shrink)