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Full-Text Articles in Philosophy
Disinterestedness, Disdain And The Reception Of Berleant’S Major Idea, Cheryl Foster
Disinterestedness, Disdain And The Reception Of Berleant’S Major Idea, Cheryl Foster
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Arnold Berleant’s philosophical theories have proven to be prescient in their identification of an aesthetic interface between human beings and the natural world – the interface he calls “engagement,” a form of participatory aesthetics. This essay presents the context out of which Berleant’s theory of engagement has evolved and then touches upon the application of engagement first to cases of aesthetic appreciation and then to a very recent case in coastal ecology and management. It is suggested that Berleant’s elaboration of a “participatory aesthetics” both mirrors and informs the scientific model of “participatory research,” which in turn has implications for …
The Role Of Aesthetics In World-Making, Yuriko Saito
The Role Of Aesthetics In World-Making, Yuriko Saito
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Arnold Berleant’s oeuvre spanning five decades is devoted to restoring aesthetics’ connection to the rest of our lives. In this paper, I shall join him by highlighting the crucial role aesthetics plays in shaping our lives and the world by interacting with objects, environments, and people. I show how our seemingly innocuous and trivial aesthetic tastes and preferences regarding everyday objects and activities have a surprisingly significant power to determine our attitudes, judgments, and actions, often with serious political, environmental, and moral implications. In light of this power of the aesthetic to affect the quality of life and the state …
Reflections On The Aesthetics Of Violence, Arnold Berleant
Reflections On The Aesthetics Of Violence, Arnold Berleant
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Violence has long been a factor in human life and has been widely depicted in the arts. This essay explores how the artistic and appreciative responses to violence have been practiced, understood, and valued. It emphasizes the difference between the aesthetics of distant, disinterested appreciation and the engaged appreciative experience of violence in the arts, and insists on the relevance of their behavioral and ethical implications.
Aura, Self, And Aesthetic Experience, Marshall Battani
Aura, Self, And Aesthetic Experience, Marshall Battani
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Aesthetic experiences are generated in encounters with cultural objects and such experiences are marked by the free play of cognitive and numinous experience unstructured by concepts. Kant’s famous three types of pleasure, made infamous in social theory by Pierre Bourdieu, are examined in relation to the critical theoretical concept of aura, the social psychology of “flow,” and cognitive explanations of perception to explain experience in aesthetic fields. Theories of aesthetic experience developed at the crossroad of critical social thought and cognitive science hold promise for a social analysis able to avoid the usual sociological pitfalls of either ignoring aesthetics or …
Aesthetic Appreciation, Ethics, And 9/11, Emmanouil Aretoulakis
Aesthetic Appreciation, Ethics, And 9/11, Emmanouil Aretoulakis
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
There have been numerous critical articles on what really happened on the otherwise beautiful morning of 11 September 2001. Beyond doubt, the bulk of the critical responses to the terrorist attacks focused on the ethical and humanitarian, or rather the unethical and inhumane implications of the atrocious act, leaving no room for any philosophical reflection on the potential assessment or reception of the event from the perspective of art and aesthetics. The few years that have gone by since 2001 have provided us with some a sense of emotional detachment from the horror of that day, a detachment that may …
Aesthetics And The Environment: Repatriating Humanity, Nikolaos Gkogkas
Aesthetics And The Environment: Repatriating Humanity, Nikolaos Gkogkas
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
If aesthetics is to claim its place among the fundamental philosophical disciplines, it must adequately deal with the ecological challenge, that is, the need to explain the continuity-relation between human and non-human environments. To that effect, Arnold Berleant's aesthetics of engagement constitutes an attractive proposal. Its critics (Allen Carlson and others) seem to miss its point and attack it on the basis of a particular understanding of Kantian aesthetics (mainly the disinterestedness thesis). But not only can Berleant's aesthetics meet the ecological challenge; it is also possible that it encourages a re-evaluation of traditional aesthetic categories (like disinterestedness) without necessarily …
The Varieties Of Aesthetic Disinterestedness, Norman Kreitman
The Varieties Of Aesthetic Disinterestedness, Norman Kreitman
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Disinterestedness, a comparatively recent concept in aesthetics, is commonly held to be one of the characteristics of an appropriate response to art, but can be understood in a number of senses. Three varieties are distinguished: a strong form which confines attention exclusively to the internal relations of the work of art; a moderate variety which links internal and external features of the work but solely within the cognitive domain; and a weak form which permits the appreciator to draw on a wide range of external referents but proscribes purely idiosyncratic responses. An illustration is given of the confusion which can …
An Exchange On Disinterestedness, Ronald Hepburn
An Exchange On Disinterestedness, Ronald Hepburn
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
The idea of aesthetic disinterestedness has been a central concept in aesthetics since the late eighteenth century. This exchange offers a contemporary reconsideration of disinterestedness from different sides of the question.