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Articles 481 - 510 of 577
Full-Text Articles in Philosophy
Geoaesthetics: New Orleans, Landscape, And Eros, Robert Frodeman
Geoaesthetics: New Orleans, Landscape, And Eros, Robert Frodeman
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
The success of contemporary society in producing knowledge serves to highlight the breakdown between knowledge production and its use. New Orleans and Katrina offer one example of this breakdown. All the knowledge necessary for acting beforehand was available; the problem was not one of knowledge but of will. Geoaesthetics, appropriating the erotic nature of our relationship to the land, is offered as an inter- and transdisciplinary means for making disciplinary knowledge more pertinent.
Implied World Views In Pictures: Reflections From A Cognitive Psychological And Anthropological Point Of View, Michael Ranta
Implied World Views In Pictures: Reflections From A Cognitive Psychological And Anthropological Point Of View, Michael Ranta
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
In traditional art history, iconological attempts to analyze visual works of art by treating their formal and semantic features as symptoms of more general, implied world views or cultures have occurred rather frequently. Still, such attempts have been criticized for permitting subjective and non-verifiable interpretations. In this paper, however, I will argue that (i) pictorial works of art indeed imply wider world views or schemata, and (ii) that our comprehension of these schemata can be explained by taking into account recent research within cognitive psychology. More specifically, I will argue that intelligence partly consists of the storage and retrieval of …
Cockroaches, Or Worlds As Images, Nathalie Blanc
Cockroaches, Or Worlds As Images, Nathalie Blanc
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
The cockroach is an insect of tropical origin whose presence in urban space draws our attention to the fact that the city is not only an artificial and controlled universe but also a porous one because of the interstices through which the animals slip. This article analyzes the role of animals in cities, and more particularly of the cockroach, in the city dweller's imagination and in the construction of an aesthetic experience of urban life. Imagination, metaphor, and domestication are the clues to understanding a sharp, active thought of the lived environment. One will thus approach the place of aesthetics …
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 …
Words And Worlds: Irony Makes Literary Creations, Alastair Goff
Words And Worlds: Irony Makes Literary Creations, Alastair Goff
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
In this paper I take up anew the suggestion recurrent in the work of Kierkegaard and Lukács, among others, that literature is fundamentally ironic. Literary creations, I argue, are ironic because they convey the real world, even though the worldhood of this world is ineffable. In creating a world from words in a novel or poem, the author confronts his or her own skepticism about the possibilities of written expression. Literary creations are only completed when the reader is able to engage with the world of words that is constituted in the work, and to realize that what is said …
Paleolithic Flints: Is An Aesthetics Of Stone Tools Possible?1, Riva Berleant
Paleolithic Flints: Is An Aesthetics Of Stone Tools Possible?1, Riva Berleant
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
This paper asks whether an aesthetics of Paleolithic tools is possible, and if so, what it might be. The application of our own aesthetic sensibilities to artifacts of prehistory is not difficult. We easily recognize and appreciate their visual and tactile qualities. The more complicated questions that the paper explores are whether we can uncover the aesthetic sensibilities of their makers and, if we cannot, whether aesthetic examination of prehistoric tools from our own perspectives is adequate or useful. The paper is based on study of Paleolithic flints from French archaeological sites dating from about 500,000 years ago to about …
Architecture Vs. Art: The Aesthetics Of Art Museum Design[1], Larry Shiner
Architecture Vs. Art: The Aesthetics Of Art Museum Design[1], Larry Shiner
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Many art critics have complained that the most dramatic art museum designs of the last decade have upstaged or interfered with the art within. This essay examines eight contemporary cases before drawing some lessons for art museum design, and ends by setting the architecture vs. art problem in the context of the philosophy of architecture, focusing on the issues of function and symbolism.
Film And The Public Memory: The Phenomena Of Nonfiction Film Fragments, James F. Moyer
Film And The Public Memory: The Phenomena Of Nonfiction Film Fragments, James F. Moyer
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Film theory and philosophy have in recent decades rightly critiqued earlier theorists' claims for the fundamentally realist nature of the cinema, and of photography generally. While cognizant of the problematic status of "realist" representation-of photography being somehow purely or naively representative-this essay nevertheless deliberately recuperates a realist discourse with which to value some forms of nonfiction film. The essay sees "nonfiction film fragments" as a form of witnessing, and tries to articulate our experience of such film in terms of memorializing the people and events it bears witness to. The essay goes even further in its claims on behalf of …
Acquired Taste, Kevin Melchionne
Acquired Taste, Kevin Melchionne
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Acquired taste is an integral part of the cultivation of taste. In this essay, I identify acquired taste as a form of intentional belief acquisition or adaptive preference formation, distinguishing it from ordinary or discovered taste. This account of acquired taste allows for the role of self-deception in the development of taste. I discuss the value of acquired taste in the overall development of taste as well as the ways that an over-reliance on acquired taste can distort overall taste.
Art, Perception And Indeterminacy, Robert Pepperell
Art, Perception And Indeterminacy, Robert Pepperell
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
This article considers the phenomenon of visual indeterminacy, which occurs when the sensory data gathered from the visual system cannot be integrated with semantic knowledge. A number of examples are given, including from the author's own art work, and some results presented from a scientific study based on them. The implications for the operation of the mind and, in particular, the nature of aesthetic experience are addressed, and the distinction between the perception of visual forms and their cognitive interpretation is discussed. Arguments about the nature of aesthetic experience are then considered from some historical sources and interpreted in light …
Poetics And Maieutics: Literature And Tacit Knowledge Of Emotions, Stefán Snaevarr
Poetics And Maieutics: Literature And Tacit Knowledge Of Emotions, Stefán Snaevarr
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
The theme of this paper is the idea that imaginative literature can disclose our tacit knowledge of emotions. It this does with the aid of such devices as metaphors and similes. The kind of insight we get thanks to the disclosive power of literature is akin to that which Kjell S. Johannessen has called 'knowledge by familiarity,' Frank Palmer 'knowing what' and Charles Taylor implicitly 'the result of articulation.' I defend the theory that at least some important emotions cannot be understood (or even exist) outside of behavioral contexts and that this understanding is mainly tacit. I try to show …
Artist's Labor, Derek Whitehead
Artist's Labor, Derek Whitehead
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
This essay explores the relations between perception, phenomenology and art practice. The object of my inquiry is the kind of perceptual repertoire available to the artist in relation to his art, which extends beyond the technical means available to art making in its varying forms. I invoke an artist's innate perception as the source and locus of art's creation. This creation of art also has an outward or phenomenological dimension. In this respect, I investigate the ways in which phenomenological perception, via Maurice Merleau-Ponty's hermeneutic insights into artistic activity, might offer to contemporary arts practice a means of reappraising its …
A Phenomenological Aesthetic Of Cinematic 'Worlds', Christopher Yates
A Phenomenological Aesthetic Of Cinematic 'Worlds', Christopher Yates
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Contemporary film aesthetics is beset by difficulties arising from the medium itself and the bewildering itinerary of film theory. Inspired by Martin Heidegger's hermeneutical vision in "On the Origin of the Work of Art" (1935), my essay seeks to overcome this paralysis by grounding the aesthetic value of cinematic art in its ability to "disclose the world" through a convergence of artist and viewer intentionalities. Stanley Cavell has gone far by exploring a corresponding "natural relation" between philosophy and cinema, but his work assumes an ontological discourse without an appropriate phenomenological method. I contend that Mikel Dufrenne's phenomenology of aesthetic …
Symposium On Pictorial Realism
Symposium On Pictorial Realism
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
No abstract provided.
The Perceptual Constraints On Pictorial Realism, Jennifer Mcmahon
The Perceptual Constraints On Pictorial Realism, Jennifer Mcmahon
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
No abstract provided.
Paradoxes And Puzzles: Appreciating Gardens And Urban Nature, Stephanie Ross
Paradoxes And Puzzles: Appreciating Gardens And Urban Nature, Stephanie Ross
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
To explore our appreciation of gardens and urban nature, I propose a recursive definition of original or wild nature together with guidelines for discerning degrees of naturalness. Arguing (contra Robert Elliott) that nature can be restored as well as degraded, I characterize four varieties of urban nature - interrupted, altered, constructed, and virtual. I build on Stan Godlovitch's comments about scale to suggest two modes of appreciation - macroscopic and fine-focused. I close by discussing some particular examples - parks, environmental art, gardens - and drawing some conclusions for the appreciation of vernacular gardens.[1]
Commitment And Communication: The Aesthetics Of Receptivity And Historicity, Todd Mei
Commitment And Communication: The Aesthetics Of Receptivity And Historicity, Todd Mei
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
A general tension in contemporary aesthetics can be described as existing between objective truth claims and historical relativity. The former is generally represented by the Enlightenment approaches and its descendants that ground aesthetic judgment in rationality. The latter characterizes the postmodern appeal to historicity and the exposure of historical prejudice. Following mostly the hermeneutical philosophy of Heidegger, Gadamer, Ricoeur, and Dupré, this paper argues how aesthetic theory, defined by either pole, inadequately accounts for historicity. In response to this critique, this paper attempts to navigate between these two poles in returning to an analysis of the nature of history and …
Musical Experience As Aesthetic: What Cost The Label?, Wayne Bowman
Musical Experience As Aesthetic: What Cost The Label?, Wayne Bowman
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
This brief essay draws upon a number of themes introduced in Carolyn Korsmeyer's recent book Gender and Aesthetics: An Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2004; ISBN: 0415266599). It does not attempt a comprehensive or critical review of her book; instead it focuses selectively on certain of her points in order to raise concerns of some significance to the music education discipline and, perhaps, to philosophical aesthetics. [1]
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 …
Depiction And The Sense Of Reality, John Armstrong
Depiction And The Sense Of Reality, John Armstrong
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
No abstract provided.
Beautiful Noise, Will Swanson
Beautiful Noise, Will Swanson
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
This article aims to explore the nature of discordant sound, such as guitar feedback, in several respects: its status as music, its status as art and the extremely interesting aesthetic responses it evokes. I will argue for its value as an art form on the grounds that: (1) it is a neglected and overlooked area of music in terms of philosophical aesthetics; (2) it raises some interesting ontological questions about the nature of artworks; and (3) it highlights some key aspects of aesthetic responses, e.g., emotions and the body. Examining the works of such music artists as The Jesus and …
Gesture, Pulsion, Grain: Barthes' Musical Semiology, Michael Szekely
Gesture, Pulsion, Grain: Barthes' Musical Semiology, Michael Szekely
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Although Barthes is perhaps best known as a semiotician, he is paradoxically always in search of precisely that which defies the constraints of language, whether art, signs or, in fact, language itself. Enter the relevance of music for Barthesian aesthetics. Barthes called for a "second semiology," in contrast to the classical semiology, which would explore "the body in a state of music." In this essay, I explore Barthes' musical semiology in terms of key concepts, including gesture, pulsion, grain, and jouissance. I extend the relevancy of Barthes' concepts, often articulated within the context of the Western classical musical tradition, to …
Fact And Fiction: Writing The Difference Between Suicide And Death, John Carvalho
Fact And Fiction: Writing The Difference Between Suicide And Death, John Carvalho
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Did Michel Foucault die of AIDS or did he kill himself? Did he knowingly infect others in the bath houses in San Francisco or was he unaware that he was ill and of how less-than-safe sex could spread the same virus that infected him? What did he know about AIDS/HIV and what do we know about what he knew? Answers to these questions are ambiguous. This is due, in part, to the culture of homosexuality and the cultural response to AIDS/HIV at the time. It is also due to the conflicting reports about what Foucault knew, and when, in the …
Reflections On An Aesthetics Of Touch, Smell And Taste, Mădălina Diaconu
Reflections On An Aesthetics Of Touch, Smell And Taste, Mădălina Diaconu
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Modern aesthetics regards sight and hearing as the only senses which were able to produce art. Touch, smell and taste might offer pleasant stimuli, but can never achieve the status of art objects. What are the arguments for this rejection, and are they still sustainable? This paper focuses on the general and specific difficulties of forming an aesthetics of touch, smell and taste; some can be overcome, while others are still waiting for a proper answer. At the same time, artistic movements, as well as changes in recent discussions of the aesthetics of everyday life prove the necessity of extending …