British art historian Charles Harrison presumes the existence of a patriarchal world with power in the hands of men who dominate the representation of women and femininity. He applauds the ground-breaking work of feminist theorists who have questioned this imbalance of power since the 1970s. He stops short, however, of accepting their claims that all women have been represented by male artists as images of “utter passivity” (p. 4), routinely reduced by the male gaze to the status of exploited sexual (...) objects, or that women’s subjectivity is eroded by the visual treatment they receive at the hands of male artists such as Manet and Picasso. He wants to show that what is depicted in the picture plane by the (typically male) artist and enjoyed by the (typically male) spectator is more nuanced than just a simple privileged understanding between two men. He adds a third (and possibly fourth or more) party to the mix when he significantly redefines and expands our concept of the gaze: “A gaze may also be conceived of as a function of a painting’s represented content” (p. 9). In other words, a gaze may be “addressed outward by a represented figure,” and regardless of who and where, “the assumption conveyed by the term [‘gaze’] is that some differential and usually asymmetrical relation will be at stake in any exchange between one who directs the gaze and another at whom it is directed. In fact, it is just this difference—in age, in sex, in class, in interest, in power —that the operation of the gaze tends to mark” (p. 9). Referring to a woman depicted within the picture plane, he asks us to consider, “What does it feel like to look like this?” (p. 21) in order to entertain our many emotional responses and interpretations. When he adds, “What does it feel like to whom?” the sexual difference of the spectator also clearly comes into play. (shrink)

This paper considers whether pictures ever implicitly represent internal spectators of the scenes they depict, and what theoretical construal to offer of their doing so. Richard Wollheim's discussion (Painting as an Art, ch.3) is taken as the most sophisticated attempt to answer these questions. I argue that Wollheim does not provide convincing argument for his claim that some pictures implicitly represent an internal spectator with whom the viewer of the picture is to imaginatively identify. instead, I defend a view (...) on which the external spectator simply imagines herself interacting, psychologically and otherwise, with the depicted scene. I explore some of the consequences of the two positions for pictorial aesthetics, arguing that the view I favour is at least as competent as Wollheim's at accommodating those phenomena we have any reason to think hold. (shrink)

Recent theories of art that subscribe to the view that art objects are agents enchanting their target audience, have tended to explain the operation of art objects as an agent–patient dynamic, a causal nexus of agency. They face a challenge, however, when they also aspire to embrace the idea – dominant in modernist and contemporary art theory – that the function of art is to unsettle its spectators’ habitual ways of perceiving and understanding, that is, to disenchant them: If artworks (...) are to be understood as agents enchanting their recipients, how can they be forces of disenchantment at the same time? I argue that the shift in perspective from perceiving art objects as enchanting agents to approaching them as possible means of gaining cognitive distance is inadequately addressed by these theories. (shrink)

Art is the concrete/tangible/substantial materialization of the human creative impulse to convey her/his most vital desires and needs. Art is the channel that facilitates the release of humanity´s imaginative urge that makes life more liveable and more worth enhancing. In a broader sense, we may even contend that human life in its truest essence is art itself. It is the artistic spirit of humanity that sees beauty in the natural environ of earthly existence. The course of life on earth provides (...) magnificent inspiration to the creative human being in the furtherance of the world which s/he started to create millennia ago and has been the focal point of her/his most determined struggles to survive, to improve and to make life more meaningful despite myriads of troubles, adversities and tragedies. (shrink)

In this essay, I analyze Romare Bearden’s art, methodology, and thinking about art, as well as his attempt to harmonize his personal aesthetic goals with his sociopolitical concerns. I then turn to Hans-Georg Gadamer’s reflections on art and our experience (Erfahrung) of art. I show how Bearden’s approach to art and the artworks themselves resonate with Gadamer’s critique of aesthetic consciousness and his contention that artworks address us, make claims upon us, and even reveal truth. Lastly, I discuss Gadamer’s emphasis (...) on the spectator’s active yet non-mastering role in the event of art’s address—an event that implicates the spectator and has the potential to transform him or her. This leads to a discussion of Gadamer’s notion of the type of self-(and world) understanding that occurs through aesthetic experience. I close by returning to Bearden in order to discuss how his art unearths a crucial feature of our being-in-the-world. I call this feature “world-unmasking” and show how it expands and enriches Gadamer’s account. (shrink)

Greek philosophical tradition, not only the Aristotelian one, is strongly associated with proportion (Eco, 1993: 90). This principle of symmetry is generalisable; forasmuch as it is used as a normative rule in figurative arts. Nonetheless, the proportion for Ancient Greeks does not only describe a mathematical relation, but also represents a metaphysical principle. Thus, beauty is the measurement of the elements of the external form (in the case of tragedy, the meter, the symmetry of the parts, the number of syllables, (...) the number of verses) as well as the aesthetic harmony which the play transmits as total to the spectators (in the same case, the content must be neither superior nor inferior to the chosen form; otherwise the form would give the impression of grotesque or inadequate). (shrink)

Several prominent contemporary philosophers, including Jürgen Habermas, John Caputo, and Robert Bernasconi, have at times painted a somewhat negative picture of Gadamer as not only an uncritical traditionalist, but also as one whose philosophical project fails to appreciate difference. Against such claims, I argue that Gadamer’s reflections on art exhibit a genuine appreciation for alterity not unrelated to his hermeneutical approach to the other. Thus, by bringing Gadamer’s reflections on our experience of art into conversation with key aspects of his (...) philosophical hermeneutics, we are able to better assess the viability of Gadamer’s contributions to contemporary discussions of difference and alterity. -/- Sections two through six focus on key concepts in Gadamer’s account of art’s dynamic ontology and our experience of art. Such concepts include the play structure of art, hermeneutic identity, tarrying with a work, and contemporaneity. The opening sections provide not only a discussion of these central themes, but they also (1) draw attention to the various ways in which difference and otherness are integral to Gadamer’s account, and (2) utilize relevant musical examples that prepare the reader for a more focused discussion of a Gadamerian approach to free jazz in section seven. By highlighting how Gadamer’s understanding of art possesses a dialogical play structure, is characterized by identity and difference, requires actively engaged spectators and auditors, and is amenable to what many criticize as an unintelligible musical expression, viz. free jazz, Gadamer’s project is shown as other-affirming and open to ambiguity and dynamism. That is, the essential structures and concepts characterizing Gadamer’s reflections on art are likewise central to his overall hermeneutical project, and hence are not rightly described as un-attuned to difference or other-negating. Rather, Gadamer’s philosophical project upholds difference, since it requires a dialogical interplay between self and other that creates the possibility for a transformative experience. (shrink)

Art, as discussed in the third book of Arthur Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation, plays a double role in his philosophical system. On one hand, beholding an object of aesthetic worth provides the spectator with a temporary cessation of the otherwise incessant suffering that Schopenhauer takes life to be; on the other, art creates an epistemological bridge between ourselves and the world as it really is: unlike science which only studies relations between things, contemplation of art leads (...) to knowledge of that which is “alone really essential to the world, the true content of its phenomena.” (WWR1: 184) It is this second aspect of Schopenhauer's aesthetics that is both appealing and curious: while Schopenhauer's aesthetics and epistemology are both rooted in his picture of the world as Will, which is (taken at face value) deeply counter-intuitive, it yet seems to me that by assigning epistemic value to art, he manages to capture the quality of profundity with which certain works of art strike us – a profundity that is accounted for neither by reference to mere enjoyment nor by reference to paraphrasable, propositional knowledge. (shrink)

Is it not surprising that we look with so much pleasure and emotion at works of art that were made thousands of years ago? Works depicting people we do not know, people whose backgrounds are usually a mystery to us, who lived in a very different society and time and who, moreover, have been ‘frozen’ by the artist in a very deliberate pose. It was the Classical Greek philosopher Aristotle who observed in his Poetics that people could apparently be moved (...) even by the imitation of a person or an act. And although we are usually well aware that it is a simulacrum, not a real situation, it nevertheless sometimes seems as if we ourselves are standing there on the stage or in the painting, so intense and emotional is our response, even though we are just spectators. Aristotle concludes from this that we have intellectual capacities which allow us put ourselves in another’s place and consequently to react to simulated situations as though they are actually happening to us, here and now. In this process, he contends, observation, memory, imagination and emotions are crucial elements. In the past it was not customary to invoke human mental faculties to explain our response to works of art. The Ancient Greeks, after all, knew little about the human body or brain and usually referred to the extended world of the gods in their endeavours to comprehend the ‘inner world’ of human beings. In our time the situation is completely different—such an allusion to the brain no longer surprises us. Whether it is about the mystery of the consciousness, the question of free will or accounts of bizarre psychological aberrations or disorders, we have become accustomed to references to parts of the brain, to images of brain scans, to reports about neural networks and the like. However, because there are so many factors that play a part in our appreciation of works of art we need a complex explanation for it, and it is not enough to look only at certain properties of the brain that are determined by evolution. Those properties are shared by every human being, and so are rather useless in explaining people’s different reactions to the same work of art. Evidently the brains of individuals differ so much that they make it possible for people to respond differently to one and the same artwork. This, of course, raises questions concerning the painted emotions that can be seen in this exhibition. Virtually everyone, after all, is fascinated by such paintings and usually recognizes the emotions they represent. The reactions to these painted emotions are also often similar. This is probably why artworks like this are generally highly valued, then and now, here and elsewhere: from the enigmatically smiling Egyptian Queen Nefertiti and the startled Rembrandt to a seemingly despairing African mask. Aristotle observed that in the theatre players imitate actions that are associated with emotions in a number of ways and that these emotions are shared in a particular fashion by the playwright, the actors and the audience. The audience may even be carried away by these emotions to such an extent that they are in a sense purged of them and can subsequently leave the theatre relieved. Are such emotional reactions perhaps related to the fact that emotions are universal and that brains respond similarly to them? Is this why we can so readily identify painted emotions? May we therefore also assume that the properties of the brain determined by evolution help us to explain these emotions? In answering these questions we shall discuss a number of insights into emotions in psychology and brain science and explore some theories about the possible function of emotions and their expression. (shrink)

The engineering knowledge research program is part of the larger effort to articulate a philosophy of engineering and an engineering worldview. Engineering knowledge requires a more comprehensive conceptual framework than scientific knowledge. Engineering is not ‘merely’ applied science. Kuhn and Popper established the limits of scientific knowledge. In parallel, the embrace of complementarity and uncertainty in the new physics undermined the scientific concept of observer-independent knowledge. The paradigm shift from the scientific framework to the broader participant engineering framework entails a (...) problem shift. The detached scientific spectator seeks the ‘facts’ of ‘objective’ reality – out there. The participant, embodied in reality, seeks ‘methods’, about how to work in the world. The engineering knowledge research program is recursively enabling. Advances in engineering knowledge are involved in the unfolding of the nature of reality. Newly understood, quantum uncertainty entails that the participant is a natural inquirer. ‘Practical reason’ is concerned with ‘how we should live’– the defining question of morality. The engineering knowledge research program is selective seeking ‘important truths’, ‘important knowledge’, ‘important methods’ that manifest value, and serve the engineering agenda of ‘the construction of the good.’ The importance of engineering knowledge research program is clear in the new STEM curriculum where educators have been challenged to rethink the relation between science and engineering. A 2015 higher education initiative to integrate engineering colleges into liberal arts and sciences colleges has stalled due to the confusion and conflict between the engineering and scientific representations of knowledge. (shrink)

Cinema is neither neutral nor a universal medium. Particularly in African contexts, cinema contributes to European exceptionalism, imposes European values as the norm, and acts as an instrument of cultural and psychological control. It seems that African cinema is ontologically, politically, and aesthetically Eurocentric. By introducing an intercultural philosophical approach to the realm of cinema, we aim to move away from Eurocentrism in African cinema towards a more intercultural and dialogical orientation as an input for the liberation of humanity. Based (...) on findings from a dramaturgical analysis of five films, we argue that African cinema shows a deficiency in communicating liberation and it often fails to portray African people’s values, will, and interests as it has been alienated from its nature and purpose. Overall, African cinema seems to be either in a state of assimilation or confusion. By exploring aesthetics of liberation in African cinema and art (as described in African and intercultural philosophy,) we search for alternative film aesthetics and a mode of filmmaking that seeks to liberate the image and the minds of the filmmakers and spectators of African cinema. Inspired by Kimmerle’s aesthetic-ethic alternative ‘Living (with) art’, we propose an alternative for critical filmmaking based on aesthetics of liberation with an intercultural orientation: Living cinema. Living cinema is a dialogical and liberational cinema with aesthetics of liberation at its core. Based on aesthetic-ethic principles of African philosophy and interculturality, the liberating function of living cinema can be found in reconnecting the aesthetics and filmmaking with African values. Simultaneously, it might be contributing to the liberation of world cinema as it has an impact on both the hegemonic and the suppressed cinema. (shrink)

In contrast to film, theater, and literature, audiences typically sing along with popular songs. This can encourage a first-person mode of engagement with the narrative content. Unlike mere spectators, listeners sometimes imagine acting out the content when it is recited in the first-person. This is a common mode of engaging with popular music. And it can be uniquely morally problematic. It is problematic when it involves the enjoyment of imaginatively doing evil. I defend a Moorean view on the issue: It (...) is wrong to enjoy evil whether real or merely fiction. I develop my position through an examination of the controversially song "Mind of a Lunatic" (1990) by the Houston based rap group Geto Boys. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Beitrag ist als ein Versuch zu verstehen, dem polnischen Leser eine recht seltsame Position aus der Reihe der deutschsprachigen Lodzaica, nämlich die 1913 im Verlag August Grüning in Pabianice herausgegebene Sammlung von Witzen und Anekdoten mit dem Titel 'Ne Mütze voll Witze aus Lodz und Pabianice’, näherzubringen. Der Verfasser des schmalen Bändchens, der sich hinter dem Pseudonym Wilfried Spectator verbirgt, ist Reinhold Piel, ein Deutscher aus Pabianice. Als Satelitenstadt von Łódź, der sich damals sehr rasch entwickelnden Textilmetropole, (...) bildete auch Pabianice in jenen Jahren zweifelsohne ein Teil des in ganz Europa einmaligen und eigenartigen multikulturellen und multiethnischen Tigcls. Reinhold Piel stellte sich mit seinem Büchlein die Aufgabe, ein Sammelporträt der Mentalität des typischen Vertreters jenes Tigels von Kulturen und Sprachen zu zeichnen. In der mehrere disparate Elemente integrierenden Gemeinschaft funktionierte der Humor sicherlich als eine Art Sicherheitsventil, mit dessen Hilfe man bestrebt war, Fremdes zu „zähmen“ und Konflikte zu entschärfen. Scheinbar abstrakte, „auslachende“ Beispiele haben sich wahrscheinlich ebenfalls vortrefflich als Methode bewährt, andere diplomatisch zu sensibilisieren, aber auch eigene Nachteile und Unzulänglichkeiten mit Abstand zu sehen. Der universale Charakter der Anekdote als literarisches Genre beruht u.a. auf ihrer Ahistorizität und Konkretheit zugleich, ihr narratives Werkzeug hingegen - die individualisierte Sprache des multiethnischen Milieus - liefert hervorragenden StolT für sprachwissenschaftliche Forschung. Ein besonders interessanter Aspekt ist dabei vor allem die Frage nach der Übersetzbarkeit bzw. Unübersetzbarkeit von Kulturidiomatik. Um dem Leser entgegenzukommen und ihm den historischen und informativen Wert der besprochenen Sammlung bewusst zu machen, wird im Anhang - zum ersten Mal in der polnischen Sprache - eine Auswahl von besonders charakteristischen Witzen der genannten Sammlung von R. Piel präsentiert. (shrink)

Kantian disinterest is the view that aesthetic judgement is constituted (at least in part) by a form of perceptual contemplation that is divorced from concerns of practical action. That view, which continues to be defended to this day, is challenged here on the basis that it is unduly spectator-focussed, ignoring important facets of art-making and its motivations. Beauty moves us, not necessarily to tears or rapt contemplation, but to practical action; crucially, it may do so as part and parcel (...) of its appreciation. This claim is defended via reflection on (i) the art of photography, (ii) the concepts of ‘attentional salience’ and ‘experienced mandates’, and (iii) a virtue-based account of aesthetic value. (shrink)

This book tells the story of modern ethics, namely the story of a discourse that, after the Renaissance, went through a methodological revolution giving birth to Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s new science of natural law, leaving room for two centuries of explorations of the possible developments and implications of this new paradigm, up to the crisis of the Eighties of the eighteenth century, a crisis that carried a kind of mitosis, the act of birth of both basic paradigms of the two (...) following centuries: Kantian ethics and utilitarianism. The new science of natural law carried a fresh start for ethics, resulting from a mixture of the Old and the New. It was, as suggested by Schneewind, an attempt at rescuing the content of Scholastic and Stoic doctrines on a new methodological basis. The former was the claim of existence of objective and universal moral laws; the latter was the self-aware attempt at justifying a minimal kernel of such laws facing skeptical doubt. What Bentham and Kant did was precisely carrying this strategy further on, even if restructuring it each of them around one out of two alternative basic claims. The nineteenth- and twentieth-century critics of the Enlightenment attacked both not on their alleged failure in carrying out their own projects, but precisely on having adopted Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s project. What counter-enlightenment has been unable to spell out is which alternative project could be carried out facing the modern condition of pluralism, while on the contrary, if we takes a closer look at developments in twentieth-century ethics or at on-going discussions on practical issues, we might feel inclined to believe that Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s project is as up-to-date as ever. -/- Table of Contents -/- Preface I. Fathers of the Reformation and Schoolmen 1.1. Luther: passive justice and the good deeds; 1.2. Calvin: voluntarism and predestination; 1.3. Baroque Scholasticism; 1.4. Casuistry and Institutiones morales -/- II Neo-Platonists, neo-Stoics, neo-Sceptics 2.1. Aristotelian, neo-Platonic, neo-Epicurean and neo-Cynic Humanists; 2.2. Oeconomica and the art of living; 2.3. Neo-Stoics; 2.4. Neo-Sceptics; 2.5. Moralistic literature -/- III Neo-Augustinians 3.l. The Jansenists on natura lapsa, sufficient grace, pure love; 3.2. Nicole on the impossibility of self-knowledge; 3.3. Nicole on self-love and charity; 3.4. Nicole against civic virtue, for Christian civility; 3.5. Malebranche on general laws and necessary evil; 3.6. Malebranche on Neo-Augustinianism and Platonism. -/- IV Grotius, Pufendorf and the new moral science 4.1. Grotius against Aristotle and the sceptics; 4.2. Mersenne and Gassendi; 4.3. Descartes on ethics as the last branch of philosophy’s tree; 4.4. Hobbes on scepticism and the new moral science; 4.5. Spinoza on the new moral science as a descriptive science;4.6. Locke on voluntarism and probabilism; 4.7. Pufendorf on natural law as an exact science; 4.8. Pufendorf on physical and moral entities; 10. Pufendorf on self-preservation -/- V The empiricist version of the new moral science: from Cumberland to Paley 5.1. Cumberland against Hobbesian voluntarism; 5.2. Cumberland and theological consequentialism; 5.3. Cumberland on universal benevolence and self-love; 5.4. Shaftesbury on the moral sense; 5.5. Hutcheson on natural law and moral faculties; 5.6. Gay, Brown, Paley and theological consequentialism. -/- VI The rationalist version of the new moral science: from Cudworth to Price 6.1. The Cambridge Platonists; 6.2. Shaftesbury on the moral sense; 6.3. Butler and a third way between voluntarism and scepticism; 6.4. Price and the rational character of moral truths; -/- VII Leibniz’s compromise between the new moral science and Aristotelianism 1.Leibniz against voluntarism; 2.Leibniz against the division between the physical and the moral good; 3.Leibniz on la place d’autrui and theological consequentialism; 4.Thomasius, Wolff, Crusius -/- VIII French eighteenth-century philosophers without the new moral science 8.1. The genealogy of our ideas of virtue and vice; 8.2. Maupertuis and moral arithmetic 8.3. The philosophes and the harmony of interests; 8.4. Rousseau on corruption, self-love, and virtue; 8.5. Sade on the merits of vice -/- IX Experimental moral science: Hume and Adam Smith 9.1. Mandeville’s paradox; 9.2. Hutcheson on the law of nature and moral faculties; 9.3. Hume on experimental moral philosophy and the intermediate principles; 9.4. Hume’s Law; 9.5. Hume on the fellow-feeling; 9.6. Hume on natural and artificial virtues and disinterested pleasure for utility; 9.7. Adam Smith’s anti-realist metaethics; 9.8. Adam Smith on self-deception and the paradox of happiness; 9.9. Adam Smith on sympathy and the impartial spectator; 9.10. Adam Smith on the twofold criterion for moral judgement and its paradox; 9.11. Reid on the refutation of scepticism and the self-evidence of duty -/- X Kantian ethics 10.1. Kantian metaethics: moral epistemology; 10.2. Kantian metaethics: moral ontology; 10.3. Kantian metaethics: moral psychology; 10.4. Kantian normative ethics; 10.5. Kant on the impracticability of applied ethics; 10.6. Kantian moral anthropology; 10.7. Civilisation and moralisation; 10.8. Theology on a moral basis and the origins of evil; 10.9. Fichte and the transformation of theoretical philosophy into practical philosophy XI Bentham and utilitarianism 11.1. Bentham’s linguistic theory; 11.2. Bentham’s moral ontology, psychology, and theory of action; 11.3. The principle of greatest happiness; 11.4. The critique of religious ethics; 11.5. The new morality; 11.6. Interest and duty; 11.7. Virtues; 11.8. Private ethics and legislation -/- XII Followers of the Enlightenment: liberal Judaism and Liberal Theology 12.1. Mendelssohn; 12.2. Salomon Maimon; 12.3. Haskalā and liberal Judaism; 12.4. Liberal Theology. -/- XIII Counter-Enlighteners 13.1.Romanticism and the fulfilment of individuality as the Summum Bonum; 13.2. Hegel on history as the making of liberty; 13.3. Hegel on the unhappy consciousness and the beautiful soul; 13.4. Hegel on Morality and Sittlichkeit; 13.5. Marx on ideology, alienation, and praxis; 13.6. Schopenhauer on compassion; 13.7. Kierkegaard on faith beyond ethics. -/- XIV Followers of the Enlightenment: intuitionists and utilitarian 14.1 Whewell‘s criticism of utilitarianism; 14.2 Whewell on morality and the philosophy of morality; 14.3 Whewell on the Supreme Norm; 14.4 Whewell on the conflict between duties; 14.5 Mill and the proof of the principle of utility; 14.6 Mill’s eudemonistic utilitarianism; 14.7 Mill on rules -/- XV Followers of the Enlightenment: neo-Kantians and positivists 15.1. French spiritualism; 15.2. Neo-Kantians: the Marburg school; 15.3. Neo-Kantians: the Marburg school; 15.4. Comte’s positivism and the invention of altruism; 15.5. Social Darwinism; 15.6. Wundt and an ethic of humankind -/- XVI Post-enlighteners: Sidgwick 16.1. Criticism of intuitionism; 16.2. On ethical egoism; 16.3. Criticism of utilitarianism -/- XVII Post-enlighteners: Durkheim 17.1. Sociology as physics of customs; 17.2. Morality as physics of customs and as practical science; 17.3. On Kantian ethics and utilitarianism; 17.4. The variability of moralities;17.5. Social solidarity as end and justification of morality; 17.6. Secular morality as “sociodicy”; XVIII Post-enlighteners: Nietzsche 18.1. On the Dionysian; 18.2. On the deconstruction of the world of values 18.3 On the twofold genealogy of moralities; 18.4. On ascetics and nihilism; 18.5. Normative ethics of self-fulfilment -/- Bibliography / Index of names / Index of concepts -/- . (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume 30, Number 2, November 2004, pp. 213-236 Pleased and Afflicted: Hume on the Paradox of Tragic Pleasure E. M. DADLEZ How fast can you run? As fast as a leopard. How fast are you going to run? A whistle sounds the order that sends Archie Hamilton and his comrades over the top of the trench to certain death. Racing to circumvent that order and arriving seconds (...) too late, Archie's friend Frank screams in rage and despair. Archie is cut down before he has run twenty yards. Peter Weir's film Gallipoli is a chronicle of the disastrous Dardanelles campaign of the first World War, but it is also a film about racing. Archie is trained by his uncle Jack to run "as fast as a leopard." The film begins as it ends, with Archie sprinting in response to a whistle. Frank is first shown racing after a train, along with friends who are on their way to enlist. Archie and Frank meet while competing in a race, they race in Cairo once they have enlisted, and they finally race death. From the beginning, Archie has been faster; even at the end he is the first to die. And from the beginning he has swept Frank along in his wake, encouraging him, pushing him, inspiring him, and helping him to positions for which he is inadequately qualified. In the end, Archie's compassion and kindness prompt a decision which has grim consequences both for himself and for hundreds of others. Knowing that his friend fears death in the trenches, Archie recommends Frank as a substitute for himself, a designated message runner. But Frank is not fast enough, and falls short by mere seconds which Archie would not have lost. This is what leads to the failure of the one real effort to countermand the fatal charge. E. M. Dadlez is Professor of Humanities and Philosophy, University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond, OK 73034, USA. e-mail: [email protected] 214 E. M. Dadlez I am an emotional wreck by the time the movie is over, though I should admit that most of my tears are the result of sheer rage. Both my dogs exited the room in some haste once I began to shout at the television and the unpardonably dimwitted British officers who sat sipping tea at a comfortable distance as they gave the order for soldiers to commit suicide. But it isn't just the scope of the real human disaster, or the enormity of the blunder, or the pointlessness of the entire enterprise, or even my renewed conviction that stupidity is, in fact, evil, that is so unsettling. The film unnerves with respect to personal as well as global concerns, focusing attention on the chance of vanity's leading one to undertake responsibilities beyond one's competence, the possibility of advancement or security being achievable only at the expense of another, and the realization of how easy it might be to let those things happen. Gallipoli is a sad, disturbing film, and the spectator is grieved and disturbed in the course of watching it. Yet, having said that, I must own to having a copy in my possession, and to having watched it more than once. I recommend it to friends, offering to lend them my videotape. In fact, I press it on them. I say that it is a terrific, rewarding work which they should take the time to see. How is it that I can describe my experience of the film in such glowing terms and at the same time acknowledge the extreme distress I felt in the course of watching it? How can I reconcile the discordant aspects of my experience? David Hume explores some possible answers in his essay "Of Tragedy."1 He begins by calling attention to the paradox of tragic pleasure: It seems an unaccountable pleasure, which the spectators of a well written tragedy receive from sorrow, terror... and other passions, which are in themselves disagreeable and uneasy. The more they are touched and affected, the more are they delighted with the spectacle.... The whole art of the poet is employed in rousing and supporting the compassion and... (shrink)

While feminist aestheticians have long interrogated gendered, raced, and classed hierarchies in the arts, feminist philosophers still don’t talk much about popular music. Even though Angela Davis and bell hooks have seriously engaged popular music, they are often situated on the margins of philosophy. It is my contention that feminist aesthetics has a lot to offer to the study of popular music, and the case of popular music points feminist aesthetics to some of its own limitations and unasked questions. This (...) essay addresses the paucity of work in feminist philosophy and popular music by applying insights from other areas of feminist aesthetics to questions of popular music, and thereby using feminist aesthetics – specifically, Julia Kristea’s notion of female genius and the genius spectator – to critique itself. (shrink)

This essay re-examines the once promising idea that style analysis can provide an independent source of insight into an artifact's non-stylistic context. The essay makes explicit the consequences of treating collective style as such a source in archaeology and anthropology of art, and further develops a new framing for the idea that avoids the criticisms largely responsible for the decline in theoretical interest in the epistemic import of visual style analysis since World War II. This re-framing proposes that inference from (...) style to context is permissible on those occasions when a collective style signals by its morphology its suitability to serve a certain function. And it does so because it prescribes publicly certain modes of behavior or spectatorship. Furthermore, the public nature of the signaling may be such that it allows even uninitiated spectators to get a sense of it and thus to gain access to some of the motivations and norms informing the collective's form of life. (shrink)

In this paper I provide an ecological, Schelerian-based description of the aesthetic experience that, without being exhaustive, may account for its complexity, perspective character and stratifications. Aesthetic enjoyment, aesthetic object and the creative process of the artistic type are all specific and necessary moments of an experience – an aesthetic experience – shared by different experiential “individuals”, who also contribute to its formation process. The content of this experience grows and develops in conformity with its own laws, like a living (...) being so to speak, able, as such, to turn its own gaze to the others’ gaze at the same time as they turn to it. In other words, I will deal with the dynamics of the artist’s interactions with the spectator, of those of the spectator with the artist and of those of both with the work of art, which, created by the artist, or rather, “brought to light” by the artist, becomes an object– a quasi-sujet in Dufrennian terms – unique to the spectator. In this context, I will try to rehabilitate the axiological virtues of beauty, not in the sense of a metaphysics of beauty, but in a sense nearer to our experiences of “seeing something in a new light”. (shrink)

Artwork of astounding genius requires a spectator (and not just anyone will do!). The materialist magic worked by an artistic genius only affects others; each genius is impervious to their own magic. Diderot's thought is wonderful and really deserves wider attention (if any thought really does deserve attention ...): a masterpiece is incomplete without one who can appreciate it. -/- This is a talk presented (a few years ago) to an audience of nearly none at a conference. I only (...) post it in case there is anyone out there who enjoys Diderot, art, French, hardcore materialism and magic. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I defend the view that, despite empathy’s susceptibility to problematic biases, we can and should cultivate empathy to aid our understanding of our own values and the values of others. I argue that empathy allows us to critically examine and potentially revise our values by considering concrete moral problems and our own moral views from the perspective of another person. Appropriately calibrated empathy helps us achieve a critical distance from our own moral perspective and is thus tied (...) to impartiality in moral inquiry. In defending this role for empathy in moral inquiry, I draw on empirical work from psychology and neuroscience to support a constructionist account of emotion, according to which we can develop more wide-ranging, fine-grained emotion concepts and empathetic capacities by seeking diverse experiences, communication, and engagement with art. I then defend the value of this effortful correction of empathy bias, arguing (1) that impartial moral inquiry ought to utilize empathy as a check on motivated reasoning and presumptions regarding what count as appropriate solutions to moral problems, and (2) that compassionate moral inquiry ought to involve empathy as a means of recognizing others as authentic moral agents that can make valuable contributions to moral debate. Lastly, I draw on insights from pragmatist philosophy to critique Adam Smith’s empathy-based account of the “impartial spectator” and defend a conception of impartiality grounded in fallibilistic, empathetic method. (shrink)

Tarkovsky opposed to the movie editing and considered that the basis of the art of cinematography (movie art) is the internal rhythm of images. He considers cinema as a representation of distinctive currents or time waves, transmitted in the film through its internal rhythm. Rhythm is at the heart of the "poetic film". A rhythm like a movement inside the frame ("sculpting in time"), not as a sequence of images in time. Time within the frame expresses something significant and true (...) that goes beyond the events itself, received differently by each spectator. The rhythm is not determined by the length of the sequences, but by the pressure of time passing through them. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.11136.48642. (shrink)

Watching other people play videogames —a.k.a. ‘spectator gaming’— is a widespread practice. Yet, it is considered by some as an inadequate form of engagement with games. In this paper, I show that the strongest objection to spectator gaming relies on the claim that some properties of videogames are better, if not exclusively, accessible to the player. After that, I propose two replies to this challenge. The first is that ‘secondary players’, i.e., individuals who indirectly take part in the (...) game, can access the relevant properties. The second reply is that even paradigmatic spectators may engage in simulated play, and therefore, access these properties as well. (shrink)

For Malraux, modernity in art is not only about modern art; it is also about the birth of what he aptly terms “the first universal world of art.” This event was a consequence of the process of metamorphosis which is central to Malraux’s account of the relationship between art and time. The article explains this event, noting also that modern aesthetics has not provided an explanation. (This is the English version of the final which will be in French.).

In this paper, I provide a descriptive definition of art that is able to accommodate the existence of bad art, while illuminating the value of good art. This, I argue, is something that existing definitions of art fail to do. I approach this task by providing an account according to which what makes something an artwork is the institutional process by which it is made. I argue that Searle’s account of institutions and institutional facts shows that the existence of all (...) institutions is due to their being perceived by their participants to perform some humanly valuable function. I then identify the functions to which the existence of art institutions is due. I then use these functions to provide a reductive institutional definition of art. Finally, in section seven, I examine the account’s consequences for the value of good art. (shrink)

Overview of the definition of art and its relationship to definitions of the individual art forms, with an eye to clarifying the issues separating dominant institutionalist and skeptical positions from non-skeptical, non-institutional ones. Section 2 indicates some of the key philosophical issues which intersect in discussions of the definition of art, and singles out some important areas of broad agreement and disagreement. Section 3 critically reviews some influential standard versions of institutionalism, and some more recent variations on them. Section 4 (...) discusses some recent reductionist approaches to definitional questions, which advocate a shift of philosophical focus from the macro- to the micro-level —from art to the individual art forms. Section 5 outlines an alternative, non-institutionalist and non-reductionist approach to definitional questions. (shrink)

Art historians and philosophers often talk about the interpretive significance of titles, but few have bothered with their historical origins. This omission has led to the assumption that an artwork's title is its proper name, since names and titles share the essential function of facilitating reference to their bearers. But a closer look at the development of our titling practices shows a significant point of divergence from standard analyses of proper names: the semantic content of a title is often crucial (...) to the identification, individuation, and interpretation of its associated artwork. This paper represents a first step towards an empirically centred study of our titling practices. I argue that, in order to accept titles as proper names, we must first recognize the social, rather than the referential, function of naming. (shrink)

From the Renaissance onwards, the Western tradition singled out the term beauty for a unique and highly prestigious role. As Christian belief began its gradual decline, Renaissance art invented a rival transcendence in the form of an exalted world of nobility, harmony and beauty – the world exemplified by the works of painters such as Raphael, Titian and Poussin. Beauty in this sense quickly became the ruling ideal of Western art, subsequently underpinning the explanations of the nature and function of (...) art (the aesthetics) developed by Enlightenment thinkers such as Hume and Kant – explanations that continue to be influential among contemporary philosophers of art. Today, however, there are fundamental questions to be asked: Is beauty still the ruling ideal of art? If not, what becomes of traditional, post-Enlightenment aesthetics which continues to shape much modern thinking about art? (shrink)

Lack of consent is valorized within popular culture to the point that sexual assault has become a spectator sport and creepshot entertainment on social media. Indeed, the valorization of nonconsensual sex has reached the extreme where sex with unconscious girls, especially accompanied by photographs as trophies, has become a goal of some boys and men.

This thesis analyses Deleuze & Guattari’s notion of becoming through certain performative encounters in contemporary political art, and re-conceptualizes them as “art(s) of becoming”. Art(s) of becoming are actualizations of a non-representational –minoritarian– mode of becoming and creation as well as the political actions of fleeing quanta. The theoretical aim of the study is, on the one hand, to explain how Platonic Idealism is overturned by Deleuze’s reading of Nietzsche and Leibniz, and on the other hand, how Cartesian dualism of (...) mind and body is surpassed by following a Spinozistic theory of affects. In this respect, the dissertation has both theoretical and practical dimensions. Since art(s) of becoming are bodies without organs which constitute their own lines of flight through a process of minoration, the concepts of body, affect, becoming, and intensity are central to this study. For the same reason, this is an attempt to show the intersections of philosophical, political and aesthetic domains in Deleuze’s theory of sensation which is part of his general practice of philosophy, that is, a quest for establishing an ontology of immanence as opposed to identitarian metaphysics. (shrink)

[First published in Italian as: “L’irreligione e lo spettatore imparziale nel sistema morale di Adam Smith”, in Rivista di Filosofia 3 (3):375-403 (2005). -/- Translated by E. Lecaldano.] -/- A number of commentators on Smith’s philosophy have observed that the relationship between his moral theory and his theological beliefs is “exceedingly difficult to unravel.” The available evidence, as generally presented, suggests that although Smith was not entirely orthodox by contemporary standards, he has no obvious or significant irreligious commitments or orientation. (...) Contrary to this view of things, this essay argues that behind the veneer of orthodoxy that covers Smith’s discussion in The Theory of the Moral Sentiments there are significant irreligious themes present in his work. -/- . (shrink)

Heidegger, Art, and Postmodernity offers a radical new interpretation of Heidegger's later philosophy, developing his argument that art can help lead humanity beyond the nihilistic ontotheology of the modern age. Providing pathbreaking readings of Heidegger's 'The Origin of the Work of Art' and his notoriously difficult Contributions to Philosophy, this book explains precisely what postmodernity meant for Heidegger, the greatest philosophical critic of modernity, and what it could still mean for us today. Exploring these issues, Iain D. Thomson examines several (...) postmodern works of art, including music, literature, painting and even comic books, from a post-Heideggerian perspective. Clearly written and accessible, this book will help readers gain a deeper understanding of Heidegger and his relation to postmodern theory, popular culture and art. (shrink)

Attempting art: an essay on intention-dependenceIt is a truism among philosophers that art is intention-dependent—that is to say, art-making is an activity that depends in some way on the maker's intentions. Not much thought has been given to just what this entails, however. For instance, most philosophers of art assume that intention-dependence entails concept-dependence—i.e. possessing a concept of art is necessary for art-making, so that what prospective artists must intend is to make art. And yet, a mounting body of anthropological (...) and art-historical evidence and philosophical argument suggests that not only is such a criterion unsatisfied by most of the art-historical canon, but it also rests on a false premise: concepts of 'art' are not shared between cultures, nor even in the same culture across time. My dissertation aims to rectify this error by first exploring what our commitment to art's intention-dependence actually entails, and then showing that, properly understood, intention-dependence sets a number of important constraints on theories of art with respect to explanatory desiderata such as the success- and failure-conditions of art-attempts, the cross-cultural identification of art, and the reference of 'art' and art-kind terms. I begin by situating art's intention-dependence in the philosophical literature on intentional action, arguing that, properly conceived, intention-dependence is a weak criterion which can be satisfied either directly or indirectly. It therefore does not necessarily entail concept-dependence. I then use this distinction to motivate a new treatment of the success- and failure-conditions for art-attempts, arguing that the extant model's emphasis on compliance with 'the manner intended' is far too restrictive to capture actual artistic practices. I go on to show that Ruth Millikan's model of linguistic conventions supplies an independently plausible explanation of art's concept-independent origins in terms of the development of a system of indirectly intention-dependent conventions called an 'artworld'. I argue that this account of artworld development supplies us with the tools we need to distinguish art-kinds from other artifactual kinds. Finally, I turn my attention to methodological issues, arguing that even though 'art' is a social kind with its roots in arbitrary and historically-contingent networks of conventions, the philosophy of art is not merely an exercise in bare conceptual analysis. In fact, there is now a great deal of evidence to show that the ways we think about 'art' are inconsistent, incomplete, imperialistic, and largely unprincipled. Yet I argue that this does not mean that the artworld data have no bearing on theories of art. Instead, I argue that our best reflective understanding of our artworld practices sets the constraints on the reference of 'art' and art-kind terms. I argue that we have no privileged epistemic access to the ontology of social kinds; our only privilege lies in our ability to determine the proper subject of our inquiries. (shrink)

Rancière’s The Emancipated Spectator - Irfan Ajvazi.

We resist Schilbach et al.’s characterization of the “social perception” approach to social cognition as a “spectator theory” of other minds. We show how the social perception view acknowledges the crucial role interaction plays in enabling social understanding. We also highlight a dilemma Schilbach et al. face in attempting to distinguish their second person approach from the social perception view.

What follows here is not a definition of art by decree. Nor is this some kind of art manifesto. We are not saying this is how art should be, or could be, but how it is, if you let go of the prison of aesthetics, and follow an infinitely more interesting conceptual trail. This is about uncovering and identifying an approach to art which avoids the triviality of sensory-based aesthetic theory and moves instead towards exploring the experiential worlds that art (...) presents us with. And this approach is not about diminishing the sensory enjoyment of artworks, but about placing them in a much richer context, where they can work a far greater magic. (shrink)

Most recent discussions of reasons in art criticism focus on reasons that justify beliefs about the value of artworks. Reviving a long-neglected suggestion from Paul Ziff, I argue that we should focus instead on art-critical reasons that justify actions—namely, particular ways of engaging with artworks. I argue that a focus on practical rather than theoretical reasons yields an understanding of criticism that better fits with our intuitions about the value of reading art criticism, and which makes room for a nuanced (...) distinction between criticism that aims at universality and criticism that is resolutely personal. (shrink)

The theory and culture of the arts has largely focused on the arts of objects, and neglected the arts of action – the “process arts”. In the process arts, artists create artifacts to engender activity in their audience, for the sake of the audience’s aesthetic appreciation of their own activity. This includes appreciating their own deliberations, choices, reactions, and movements. The process arts include games, urban planning, improvised social dance, cooking, and social food rituals. In the traditional object arts, the (...) central aesthetic properties occur in the artistic artifact itself. It is the painting that is beautiful; the novel that is dramatic. In the process arts, the aesthetic properties occur in the activity of the appreciator. It is the game player’s own decisions that are elegant, the rock climber’s own movement that is graceful, and the tango dancers’ rapport that is beautiful. The artifact’s role is to call forth and shape that activity, guiding it along aesthetic lines. I offer a theory of the process arts. Crucially, we must distinguish between the designed artifact and the prescribed focus of aesthetic appreciation. In the object arts, these are one and the same. The designed artifact is the painting, which is also the prescribed focus of appreciation. In the process arts, they are different. The designed artifact is the game, but the appreciator is prescribed to appreciate their own activity in playing the game. Next, I address the complex question of who the artist really is in a piece of process art — the designer or the active appreciator? Finally, I diagnose the lowly status of the process arts. (shrink)

Abstract: There is a long tradition of trying to analyze art either by providing a definition (essentialism) or by tracing its contours as an indefinable, open concept (anti-essentialism). Both art essentialists and art anti-essentialists share an implicit assumption of art concept monism. This article argues that this assumption is a mistake. Species concept pluralism—a well-explored position in philosophy of biology—provides a model for art concept pluralism. The article explores the conditions under which concept pluralism is appropriate, and argues that they (...) obtain for art. Art concept pluralism allows us to recognize that different art concepts are useful for different purposes, and what has been feuding definitions can be seen as characterizations of specific art concepts. (shrink)

An object being non-art appears only trivially informative. Some non-art objects, however, could be saliently 'almost' art, and therefore objects for which being non-art is non-trivially informative. I call these kinds of non-art objects 'failed-art' objects—non-art objects aetiologically similar to art-objects, diverging only in virtue of some relevant failure. I take failed-art to be the right sort of thing, to result from the right sort of action, and to have the right sort of history required to be art, but to (...) be non-art by having failure where being art requires success. I assume that for something to be art that thing must be the product of intention-directed action. I then offer an account of attempts that captures the success conditions governing the relationship between intention-directed actions and their products. From this, I claim that to be failed-art is to be the product of a failed art-attempt, i.e., to be non-art as the result of the particular way in which that art-attempt failed. An art-attempt I take to be an attempt with success conditions, that, if satisfied, entail the satisfaction of the conditions for being art—whatever those may be. To be art, then, is to be the product of a successful art-attempt. As such, any art theory incompatible with my account of failed-art is an art theory for which the notions of success and failure do not matter, and therefore an art theory for which being art needn't be substantively intention-dependent. So, any theory of art unable to accommodate my account of failed-art is _ipso facto_ false. (shrink)

This essay explores how some themes in the writing of Jean-Jacques Rousseau—particularly having to do with what it is to be a spectacle before others—might illuminate two feature films by the Spanish director Víctor Erice, The Spirit of the Beehive (El espíritu de la colmena, 1973) and El sur (1983).

One of the difficulties standing in the way of a straightforward understanding of art is caused by the confusion that arises at a very basic level between the purposes and functions of various types of crafted material. In fact, there are only three major types – covering all eventualities – and being able to differentiate between them very much helps to pinpoint exactly what the special nature of ‘art’ is.

This book covers the field of and points to the intersections between politics, art and philosophy. Its hero, the late Sir Roger Scruton had a longstanding interest in all fields, acquiring professional knowledge in both the practice and theory of politics, art and philosophy. The claim of the book is, therefore, that contrary to a superficial prejudice, it is possible to address the philosophical issues of art and politics in the same oeuvre, as the example of this Cambridge-educated analytical philosopher (...) proves. Accordingly, the book has a bold thesis on the general, theoretical level, mapping the connections between politics, art and philosophy. However, it also has a pioneering commitment on the level of the particular, offering the first full-length study into the philosophical legacy of Roger Scruton, probably the most important British conservative philosopher of the late 20th and the first decades of the 21st century. It also allows reader to look into the philosopher’s fascination with Central European art and culture. Finally, it also provides a daring analysis of the late Scruton’s metaphysical inspirations, connecting the arts, and especially music, with religion and the bonds of love. (shrink)

A standard art-ontological position is to construe repeatable artworks as abstract objects that admit multiple concrete instances. Since photographic artworks are putatively repeatable, the ontology of photographic art is by default modelled after standard repeatable-work ontology. I argue, however, that the construal of photographic artworks as abstracta mistakenly ignores photography’s printmaking genealogy, specifically its ontological inheritance. More precisely, I claim that the products of printmaking media (prints) minimally must be construed in a manner consistent with basic print ontology, the most (...) plausible model of which looks decidedly nominalist (what I call the relevant similarity model) and that as such, photographic artworks must be likewise construed, not as abstracta but as individual and distinct concreta. That is, the correct ontological account of photographic art must be one according to which photographic artworks are individual and distinct concrete artworks. In the end, I show that the ontology of photographic art resists the standard repeatable-work model because the putative repeatability of photographic artworks is upon closer inspection nothing more than the relevant similarity relation between individual and distinct photographic prints. (shrink)

This insight to art came from chess composition concentrating art in a very dense form. To identify and mathematically assess the uniqueness is the key applicable to other areas eg. computer programming. Maximization of uniqueness is minimization of entropy that coincides as well as goes beyond Information Theory (Shannon, 1948). The reusage of logic as a universal principle to minimize entropy, requires simplified architecture and abstraction. Any structures (e.g. plugins) duplicating or dividing functionality increase entropy and so unreliability (eg. British (...) Airways IT system). The ideas here were verified by my chess compositions, art works and complex information system as an author of each co uk, and were presented at conferences in Santorini, Adelaide, Geneva, Daejon and virtually. (shrink)

Dans cette entrée, après une introduction qui servira de cadre à notre discussion (section 1.), nous allons présenter et analyser des définitions du concept « Art ». Nous discuterons brièvement les définitions classiques les plus influentes puis nous nous concentrerons sur les principales définitions contemporaines. -/- Nous verrons pourquoi les définitions classiques sont aujourd’hui considérées comme insatisfaisantes (2.a.), et comment les philosophes, à partir de la seconde moitié du XXème siècle ont tenté de pallier leurs défauts. Dans les grandes lignes, (...) le problème principal soulevé à l’encontre des théories classiques est qu’elles cherchent toutes l’essence de l’art dans un trait caractéristique qui serait reconnaissable dans les œuvres elles-mêmes. Les théories contemporaines répondent à ce problème principalement de quatre façons, comme on le verra dans les sections 2.b à 2.d. Les théories sceptiques (2.b.) défendent qu’il est dès lors impossible de définir l’art – qu’on peut au mieux en donner certains caractères typiques, des airs de famille. Les théories relationnalistes (2.c.) défendent que ce qui fait qu’une chose est de l’art est à trouver en dehors de celle-ci, notamment dans les relations qu’elle entretient avec son contexte de création ou de présentation. Les théories néo-classiques (2.d.) continuent à chercher l’essence de l’art dans un trait caractéristique reconnaissable dans les œuvres elles-mêmes tout en prenant en compte les réactions sceptiques ou relationnalistes. Enfin, la théorie du ‘renvoi de la balle’ (2.e.) défend que l’on ne peut pas définir l’art mais seulement des sous-catégories comme la musique, la sculpture, les installations, les performances, etc. -/- Nous présenterons les avantages et les inconvénients principaux des théories contemporaines. Nous verrons qu’aucune n’est dénuée de problèmes, expliquant pourquoi il n’existe pas de consensus sur une définition de l’art aujourd’hui. Nous verrons également que – à l’exception d’un certain scepticisme qui jette, semble-t-il, trop vite l’éponge – chacune de ces théories amène, par son originalité, à une compréhension nouvelle et plus profonde de cette notion extrêmement complexe qu’est le concept « Art ». (shrink)

The study of the arts in philosophy has often concentrated on the role that emotions (and affective responses more generally) play in art’s creation and value. Philosophical theories of art have sometimes even defined art in terms of its capacity to elicit or express emotions. Philosophers have debated such questions as what it is to express an emotion in art; whether emotions form part of the value of an artwork; whether the emotions involved in art appreciation are of the same (...) kind as those that we experience in real life, or of a different, even sui generis kind (i.e., aesthetic emotions); whether it is rational or appropriate to experience emotions in response to art; and what value, if any, there is in art that evokes unpleasant emotions. Although the focus here will be on what, to a first approximation, can be characterized as the “Western mainstream philosophical tradition,” discussion of the role of emotions in art can also be found in different approaches and traditions of thought: from Indian philosophy to cognitive science, to so-called Continental philosophy. (shrink)

Es difícil imaginar una sociedad del buen vivir sin arte. Por ello, la creatividad artística es reconocida como derecho en la Constitución del Ecuador, y como derecho humano en los intrumentos internacionales relevantes. Partiendo de esta reflexión, los artículos de este libro argumentan que siendo el arte un derecho, le corresponde al Estado la provisión de condiciones para su garantía por medio de políticas públicas, que deben tomar en cuenta tanto las especificidades de las personas, y los pueblos y nacionalidades, (...) como el contexto tecnológico de la era digital, que brinda las bases para una sociedad abierta donde el conocimiento sea libre. (shrink)

Art-science, as its name suggests, combines art with science. The idea of combining art and science raises the question whether the outcome, art-scientific works, can succeed against a standard properly belonging to them. In other words: can there be such a thing as an art-scientific work, or do such works merely belong to either art or science while superficially seeming to belong to the other sphere as well? Surprisingly perhaps, these concerns overlap with a chief point of contention as regards (...) Adorno’s mature thinking, in particular his Aesthetic Theory ([1970] 2002): whether or not it is coherent to believe that knowledge can have an aesthetic form. This essay is motivated by the thought that Adorno’s reflections are useful for understanding contemporary art as well, and the burgeoning paradigm of art-science represents a welcome occasion to ask the reverse question: can art become theoretical? The first aim of this essay is, accordingly, to consider how Adorno’s negative dialectic of philosophy and art might illuminate the field of art-science, how its works might express sui generis truths. In turn, an examination of how the aestheticisation theme in Adorno might be appropriated for the business of art-science critique, might tell us something about the relationship between artistic content and philosophical interpretation, beauty and truth, in Adorno. (shrink)