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Full-Text Articles in Philosophy
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 …
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.
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 …
The Aesthetic Experiences Of Aura, Awe, And Wonder: Reflections On Their Nature And Relationships, Russell Quacchia
The Aesthetic Experiences Of Aura, Awe, And Wonder: Reflections On Their Nature And Relationships, Russell Quacchia
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
The aim of this essay is to examine the semantic nature and linkage between the experiential phenomena of aura, awe, and wonder, central to matters of the aesthetic experience. In aesthetic commentary these terms are generally used rather loosely, often independently of each other and, most often, without regard to the connections between them. It would seem worthwhile to examine the nature of each of these terms to move toward understanding them and their mutual relationships. The conclusions drawn are that the aura effect appears to operate universally at the cognitive level of the aesthetic experience while those of awe …
"Can The Audience Want?" On The Artistic Status Of Contemporary Tv-Series, Angela Keppler
"Can The Audience Want?" On The Artistic Status Of Contemporary Tv-Series, Angela Keppler
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
This paper takes up a question that Theodor W. Adorno posed in 1963 relating to television. The aim is to situate the new TV series, which are part of so-called Quality TV, against the backdrop of the tradition, and to analyze the forms in which the medium is being used. An inspection of pertinent sequences leads to the conclusion that the enjoyment we experience when watching these series stems from the very type of active-passive involvement that Adorno described as being essential only for objects of high culture.
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.
Norms Of Cultivation, Kevin Melchionne
Norms Of Cultivation, Kevin Melchionne
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
In this paper I identify a new group of aesthetic norms, which I call norms of cultivation. Judgments of taste are often accompanied by forecasts or expectations about future aesthetic satisfaction. When we find something beautiful, we expect to find it beautiful in the future. Forecasting is at play in all sorts of aesthetically motivated behavior. Yet psychologists have observed an unreliability in such forecasts. As a result of forecasting error, what we take as our taste can be an unreliable guide in our aesthetic lives. Compensating for the unreliability of taste are norms of cultivation, implicit rules for engaging …
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 …
In Praise Of Ambiguity: Musical Subtlety And Merleau-Ponty, Tiger C. Roholt
In Praise Of Ambiguity: Musical Subtlety And Merleau-Ponty, Tiger C. Roholt
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
When a jazz, rock, or hip-hop drummer strikes certain notes in each measure slightly late, instead of hearing the degree to which those notes are late, we typically hear the effects of those variations; namely, a groove, the "feel" of a rhythm. Slight variations of pitch function similarly. In this essay, I argue that certain analytic theorists go astray due to their preoccupation with the variations themselves. By invoking Maurice Merleau-Ponty's insights into subtle visual perceptions, and his notion of perceptual indeterminacy, I avoid an account of musical subtlety suggested by Daniel Dennett that is too coarse-grained, as well as …
A New Problem For Aesthetics, Kevin Melchionne
A New Problem For Aesthetics, Kevin Melchionne
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
The essay introduces the problem of aesthetic unreliability, the variety of ways in which it is difficult to grasp our aesthetic experience and the consequent confusion and unreliability of what we take as our taste.
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 …
Davidson On Rorty's Postmetaphysical Critique Of Intentionalism, Kalle Puolakka
Davidson On Rorty's Postmetaphysical Critique Of Intentionalism, Kalle Puolakka
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
In this article I shall address the standing of intentionalist theories of interpretation through Richard Rorty’s critique. Rorty’s criticism arises from the position literature holds in the post metaphysical, liberal culture Rorty sketches As a counterbalance to Rorty’s critique, I shall develop an intentionalist theory of interpretation drawing on Donald Davidson’s late philosophy of language and his view of literary interpretation that have sadly not been taken into proper consideration in the on-going debate in analytic aesthetics on the role of authorial intentions in interpretation. The prospects of Davidson’s intentionalism for meeting Rorty’s criticism are related to the position of …