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Full-Text Articles in Philosophy
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 …
The Aesthetics Of Social Situations: Encounters And Sensibilities Of The Everyday Life In Japan, Garcia Chambers
The Aesthetics Of Social Situations: Encounters And Sensibilities Of The Everyday Life In Japan, Garcia Chambers
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
What beauty could there be in mundane, interactive encounters in and observations of the everydayness of life in Japan? The answer rightly may be none whatsoever based on the Kantian, distancing, art-centered theory and practice of aesthetics. Refreshingly, however, contemporary social and aesthetic philosophers would argue that the use of the word ‘beauty’ was a misguided choice, as it repeats the common error of equating the aesthetic with the beautiful or pleasing. A more appropriate word, honoring the original sense perception meaning of aesthetics, would be ‘sensibility.’ True to this original meaning of aesthetics, this paper presents and analyzes two …
On Habits And Functions In Everyday Aesthetics, Kalle Puolakka
On Habits And Functions In Everyday Aesthetics, Kalle Puolakka
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
A group of theorists in everyday aesthetics, named restrictivists, have explicated the notion of the everyday in terms of a particular stance of everydayness that they believe, in time, comes to characterize people’s relationships to their daily things and environments. The everyday is revealed to be something habitual and routine that, despite its ordinariness, provides a pleasurable sense of safety and trust. In this paper, I present a series of considerations drawing on John Dewey’s notion of habit, on the one hand, and Jane Forsey’s account of the aesthetics of design, on the other, that call into question the general …
The Role Of Imperfection In Everyday Aesthetics, Yuriko Saito
The Role Of Imperfection In Everyday Aesthetics, Yuriko Saito
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
The notions of perfection and imperfection do not have the same prominent presence they once occupied in earlier aesthetics discourse. However, they still play an important role as criteria for aesthetic judgments today in our everyday life. The wide-spread and easily accepted aesthetic appeal of objects with perfection tends to overshadow the potential aesthetic value of imperfect objects that are considered to be defective or deficient. This not only impoverishes our aesthetic lives but also leads to some serious environmental and social consequences. I first argue for the need to cultivate an aesthetic sensibility to appreciate imperfection in our everyday …
The Aesthetics Of Conversation: Dewey And Davidson, Kalle Puolakka
The Aesthetics Of Conversation: Dewey And Davidson, Kalle Puolakka
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Conversation is one of the most mundane events of human life, yet the conversations we have can vary a lot. Some proceed only with great effort, while others engage us thoroughly. Drawing on Dewey’s aesthetics, this paper argues that the movement and rhythm of conversations can make them into genuine candidates for an aesthetic status. The key term of the paper is interaction. For Dewey, all experience, aesthetic experience included, is constituted by an interaction between humans and their environment. In his later philosophy of language, which is critical of conventionalist explanations of language, Davidson, in turn, offers a very …
Experience Of Awe: An Expansive Approach To Everyday Aesthetics, Thomas Leddy
Experience Of Awe: An Expansive Approach To Everyday Aesthetics, Thomas Leddy
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
As opposed to Melchionne and Naukkarinen, I defend an expansive definition of everyday aesthetics, one that includes festivals, tourism, and many daily activities of artists and other professionals, along with most ordinary and common experiences. I argue for continuities between aesthetics of everyday life and the aesthetics of art and nature. Looking through a window, for example, may involve aspects of all three. Although I agree with Melchionne that everyday aesthetics is closely related to questions of subjective well-being, I take a more expansive approach to this, drawing from recent psychological studies of the experience of “awe” to stress the …
The Aesthetic Pulse Of The Everyday: Defending Dewey, Kalle Puolakka
The Aesthetic Pulse Of The Everyday: Defending Dewey, Kalle Puolakka
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
In the relatively fragmented field of everyday aesthetics, some issues have gradually become the subject of increasingly heated debate. One of the primary disputes concerns aesthetic experience and how that concept should be understood. This article defends the view that the conception of aesthetic experience developed by John Dewey offers a much more promising foundation for a theory on the aesthetics of everyday life than some scholars have believed.
Dewey And Everyday Aesthetics - A New Look, Kalle Puolakka
Dewey And Everyday Aesthetics - A New Look, Kalle Puolakka
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
John Dewey is frequently mentioned as an important forerunner of everyday aesthetics. In this article, I attempt to provide an updated view of Dewey’s place within everyday aesthetics by drawing attention to aspects in Dewey’s own work and in contemporary interpretations of his philosophy that have not been thoroughly discussed in the context of everyday aesthetics. In the first part, I offer a reading of Dewey’s notion of aesthetic experience that unties its content through noting the important position Dewey ascribes to imagination in aesthetic experience in the later parts of Art as Experience. The second pillar of the pragmatist …
The Point Of Everyday Aesthetics, Kevin Melcionne
The Point Of Everyday Aesthetics, Kevin Melcionne
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
The point of everyday aesthetic activity is well-being
The Definition Of Everyday Aesthetics, Kevin Melchionne
The Definition Of Everyday Aesthetics, Kevin Melchionne
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
This article responds to recent controversy in the aesthetics of everyday life with a succinct definition designed to clarify the domain of study. The article is intentionally designed for brevity and accessibility in order to facilitate usage.
What Is 'Everyday' In Everyday Aesthetics?, Ossi Naukkarinen
What Is 'Everyday' In Everyday Aesthetics?, Ossi Naukkarinen
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
The theme of everyday aesthetics has recently been addressed by numerous authors. However, the question of what is actually the nature of the everyday, as contrasted with the non-everyday and how this nature affects the aesthetics of the everyday has not been sufficiently elaborated. The purpose of this essay is to clarify the everydayness of the everyday and combine the general notion of everydayness with the key points of everyday aesthetics
Defending Everyday Aesthetics And The Concept Of 'Pretty', Thomas Leddy
Defending Everyday Aesthetics And The Concept Of 'Pretty', Thomas Leddy
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
The paper defends everyday aesthetics against critiques inspired by Kant’s distinction between the agreeable and the beautiful, such as that of Christopher Dowling. It does this by focusing on analysis of the concept of the pretty. Following Carolyn Korsmeyer and A. C. Bradley, I posit a continuum for the aesthetic, from the pretty to the beautiful and finally to the sublime. After giving a history of the concept of 'pretty,' I consider its largely gendered nature and the feminist issues this raises. I conclude by arguing that limiting aesthetics to art or to art plus nature ignores the continuity between …
Aesthetization, Artification, And Aquariums, Thomas Leddy
Aesthetization, Artification, And Aquariums, Thomas Leddy
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
‘Artification’ is a term recently coined and developed in Finnish aesthetic theory and proposed by Ossi Naukkarinen in this volume as the process of treating non-art objects as art. In this paper, I distinguish between a superficial sort of artification and a deep sort. The superficial sort is the one we need to worry about. In Part I, I consider various issues surrounding the definition of artification. In the process, I situate artification within the larger question of aestheticization. I understand aestheticization in terms of recent psychological work on supernormal stimuli and Virginia Postrel’s defense of style and surface in …
Everyday Aesthetics And Artification, Yuriko Saito
Everyday Aesthetics And Artification, Yuriko Saito
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Everyday aesthetics aims to illuminate the rich aesthetic dimensions of our lives that have been neglected in the modern Anglo-American art-centered aesthetic discourse. Artification, a new concept and practice, encourages us to experience various aspects of our lives normally not associated with art or aesthetics, such as business, education, and medical practice, from an artistic viewpoint. Both discourses are helpful in sharpening our aesthetic sensibility and enriching our aesthetic life. However, precisely because the aesthetic dimension of our lives exerts a considerable power in shaping our lives and the world, we need to cultivate aesthetic literacy and a vigilant attitude …
Affirming Difference: Everyday Aesthetic Experience After Phenomenology, Wood Roberdeau
Affirming Difference: Everyday Aesthetic Experience After Phenomenology, Wood Roberdeau
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
This article explores the complex relationships among two different types of critique, the socio-temporal zone known as "everyday life" and the moment of the encounter by those who are encountering art works. It proceeds with a close study of the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Mikel Dufrenne, and tests their key concepts against generalized contemporary art practices that question a model of the traditional aesthetic experience by suggesting the possibility that within the expanse of postmodernity such a paradigm has shifted, (although it is not completely irretrievable). The paper argues that this shift has been achieved by remobilizing readymade objects …
Home Life: Cultivating A Domestic Aesthetic, Jessica J. Lee
Home Life: Cultivating A Domestic Aesthetic, Jessica J. Lee
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Home Life is an exploration of environmental aesthetics as it applies to the domestic realm. I consider Kevin Melchionne’s argument that through notions of taste, grace, and performance, everyday domestic chores can become heightened artistic practices. I argue that this does not go far enough in overcoming the traditional view of art as aesthetically superior to popular or everyday artefacts and practices; rather, it encourages the limitations of traditional aesthetics values within the domestic setting. Through examples, including Pauliina Rautio’s study on laundry, I consider the possibility that domestic practices are made up of actions that are not performed with …
The Third Tear In Everyday Aesthetics, Katya Mandoki
The Third Tear In Everyday Aesthetics, Katya Mandoki
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Although totally overlooked by mainstream aesthetic theory, various paths were nevertheless left open for addressing everyday aesthetics, a natural yet surprisingly controversial topic. Why they were never taken until recently, when the theme of everyday aesthetics is now becoming fashionable, can be explained not only by the obvious fact of philosophical aesthetics’ restrictive focal point on art but, among other reasons, by a kind of fetishism that demands an object of recognized value for legitimating an aesthetic inquiry. This new popularity entails, however, certain theoretical risks such as clinging to traditional art-centric and beauty-centric categories to explain the everyday and …
On Hanging Laundry: The Place Of Beauty In Managing Everyday Life, Pauliina Rautio
On Hanging Laundry: The Place Of Beauty In Managing Everyday Life, Pauliina Rautio
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
The data of my empirical research in the field of education discussed in this paper consist of letters produced through correspondence. I asked the participants to write about beauty in their everyday lives, giving substance to the concept as freely as they could. In this paper it is only the letters of one participant, Laura, which I limit my attention to. The aim is to find out what kind of place beauty, as defined and used by herself, holds in the managing of her everyday life. The concept of beauty is virtually missing from educational research or is misguidedly restricted …