Philosophy Commons^™

Notices

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Recent Publications

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Narrative Understanding And Understanding Narrative, Sarah E. Worth

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

In this paper I deal with the question of how it is that we have emotional responses to things that we do not believe in the reality of, specifically things like characters and events in literature and film (the paradox of fiction). The direction in which I wish to take this query is not the traditional philosophical approach to this question, however. There has been much written on this particular approach, and because of this I think that it is becoming, in philosophical effect, stuck. What I wish to do in what follows is to approach this question from a …

Notices

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Editorial

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Recent Publications

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Between Battlefield And Play: Art And Aesthetics In Visual Culture, Renée Van De Vall

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Mona Hatoum's video installation Corps étranger is an example of an artwork that critically comments on particular aspects of contemporary visual culture, such as the colonization of the body's interior by medical image technologies. It has indeed been interpreted in those terms by several authors from within the new academic field of Visual Culture. Here it is argued that the critical cultural impact of the installation might be more fully described when one grants art a relative autonomy within the cultural field and, moreover, draws on concepts from more traditional academic disciplines and approaches, such as aesthetics and phenomenology. Art …

Sculpture, Curtis Carter

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Paradox And Metaphor: An Integrity Of The Arts, Lawrence Kimmel

Philosophy Faculty Research

Art is movement, movement is life. Surprisingly, the spareness of paradox in art promotes a fullness of life. We must first speak as simply as possible about art as a fundamental human activity. Only then can we hope to say something of consequence about the so-called “fine arts” — which may be misleading as a description. In substance, the reference “fine art” simply means useless art: “fine” as being free from utility. Art is imaginatively productive, it makes something, whether painting, poem, or partita. But this making has no independent utility, and its character as a work of art …

Migrations, Curtis Carter

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

The Self-Growth Of Vision And The Self-Repose Of Color: A Heideggerian Meditation On The Studio Paintings Of Jean Koeller, Charles Taylor

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Lulu And The Flying Babies (1988) By Posy Simmonds, Gareth B. Matthews

Picture Books

It was snowing by the time Lulu’s family arrived at the park, so her parents took them to the museum next door. Lulu sulked and protested: “Don’t want to see the pictures!” so her parents left her sitting on a couch. A winged cherub climbed down from a painting hanging above her and flew Lulu into the winter scene of a Flemish painting, then into other paintings where they splashed in the sea, growled at a tiger, rode a horse, and fell off a cliff. Artists, poets, and writers give us ways of escaping our world, but they also give …

Book Review Of, Nietzsche's Philosophy Of Science: Reflecting Science On The Ground Of Art And Life, R. Kevin Hill

Philosophy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Reviews the book "Nietzsche's Philosophy of Science: Reflecting Science on the Ground of Art and Life" by Babette Babich

An Analysis Of Isenberg's Aesthetic Theory And Its Application To The Works Of Monet And Smokey, Tracee Elizabeth Gross

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy, which attempts to define art using a set of purported characteristics that, when applied to particular pieces, will aid in making discriminations between art and non-art. Aesthetics also traditionally examines the creation, appreciation, and criticism of art. Theories of aesthetics are constructed to assist one in making judgments as to whether or not a piece is art or is beautiful. Ideally, theories serve two primary tasks. The first is to provide an explanation, which will aid in separating out those items not covered in the scope of the theory. Also, theories are used as …

New Directions : Dewey, Aesthetics, And Psychology, David Clark

Honors Theses

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether psychological information is relevant to solving aesthetic problems. Along the way I will point out that there are disparate senses of the word "psychology" and I will show how John Dewey can be perceived historically as an early contributor to what we now call "cultural psychology", which I believe is a viable alternative to experimental aesthetics.

High Art, Folk Art, And Other Social Distinctions, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Most discussions of the arts by critics and philosophers could be characterized in terms of a rather studied neglect of folk and popular art. This neglect is hardly absolute, however, for it is important in order to articulate a specific conception of aesthetic taste, beauty, or style to contrast the standard being used or praised with some other, less desirable, even degraded way of producing or appreciating something similar. It is perhaps more than a historical coincidence that the formation of the modern concept of taste and aesthetic judgment, in the eighteenth century, coincides roughly with the discovery and valorization …

1. Harry Prime (Novel), Matthew Lipman

Adult Education Curriculum

Like the other Students in the Thinking and Learning Environment, Harry Prime has enrolled in an evening course in search of his High School Equivalency Certificate. Before long, he and his friends discover that some ways of thinking are better than others. They promptly turn their newfound powers of critical reasoning upon such matters as science, art, religion, education and mind. As they proceed with their discussions, they disclose what it is to form a community of inquiry.

Harry Prime (like Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery, another philosophical novel by Matthew Lipman) is a fictional introduction to philosophy and logic. Some …

Objectivity And Aesthetic Judgment, Glenn Poskocil

Honors Theses

Where do we draw the line between what is and is not a work of art? and, how are we to distinguish between so called "good" and "bad" works of art? There is a tendency to blur the distinction between these questions because they seem, in certain senses, to be inextricably bound to one another. It is not uncommon, for instance, to hear someone praise something by referring to it as a "work of art," yet most of us agree that not all works of art are "good," even in the aesthetic sense. Too often this distinction is muddled by …

Robert A. Heinlein: A Philosophical Novelist, Marie Guthrie

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Robert A. Heinlein is a key figure in the development of American science fiction. What makes his contribution unique is his emphasis on philosophical speculation. Heinlein's program is based on rationality as a vital element to salvation. Although the importance of rationality is an aspect of many schools of philosophy particular value may be gained by comparing Heinlein's system with the philosophy of Plotinus. An examination of Heinlein's key works (Stranger in a Strange Land. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Time Enough For Love, The Number of the Beast--. And various short stories I provides ample evidence to support …

From The Sublime To The Political: Some Historical Notes, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Let me document my suggestion that modernist poetics tends to give a privileged position to what has traditionally been known as the sublime by adducing two examples from rather disparate traditions. Martin Heidegger's ontological poetics can reasonably be viewed as a renewal of the aesthetics of the sublime -- although Heidegger never uses the term sublime, so far as I know -- and is explicitly hostile to the limitations of aesthetics, conceived as an autonomous study of a certain kind of experience. Harold Bloom does recur to the Romantic terminology of sublimity in his attempt to construct a poetics which …

04. Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery, Matthew Lipman, Ann Margaret Sharp, Frederick S. Oscanyan

Middle School Curriculum

This instructional manual includes hundreds of short, accessible explanations of the philosophical ideas and issues written into HARRY the novel, and as such is a valuable introduction to philosophy. Adults with no experience in academic philosophy will have no trouble using this manual to engage young people in philosophical dialogue. The manual provides discussion plans and exercises to help the students think for themselves about the philosophical ideas most relevant to their experience. The manual is also a primer in critical thinking and formal and informal logic, which are treated as helpful tools for inquiry. Students will find the logic …

Richard M. Moyle's Review Of Steven Feld's Sound And Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics, And Song In Kaluli Expression, Richard M. Moyle

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Leese Webster (1979) By Ursula K. Le Guin, Gareth B. Matthews

Picture Books

Leese was a spider, born in a palace throne room. Like other members of the “Webster” family, Leese knew how to spin an elegant and efficient web of traditional design. But then she started to produce webs of original designs like the flowers portrayed in the carpet and the huntsmen and hounds in a painting. Were these images pictures? Many animal species dance, adorn themselves, and build elaborate nests to attract mates. Can they be more and less aesthetically gifted? Authorities had Leese’s webs encased in glass and put on exhibit. Did that change their metaphysical status?

3. Sources And References For Suki, Matthew Lipman

Secondary School Curriculum

This sequential bibliography matches the 1978 edition of Suki page by page. It contains both sources—works that influenced Matthew Lipman in writing the novel, references to philosophical works he and Ann Margaret Sharp recommend to explore the novels’ philosophical themes, and brief commentary on them by Lipman.

2. Writing: How And Why (Instructional Manual To Accompany Suki, Matthew Lipman, Ann Margaret Sharp

Secondary School Curriculum

The aim of this program is to engage students in philosophical inquiry into aesthetics and related philosophical issues. The instructional manual includes short, accessible explanations of the philosophical concepts found in SUKI, the novel, as well as hundreds of exercises and discussion plans to prompt and assist the student's inquiry. As poetry is the primary aesthetic genre taken up in the novel, the explanations and activities in this manual offer numerous additional poems as objects of aesthetic inquiry. The manual also includes numerous activities that invite students to transform their thinking and dialogue into essays, poems and short stories, so …

The Humanities And Dance: The Contemporary Choreographers' Response In The Arts To Aesthetic And Moral Values, Curtis Carter

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

1. Suki (Novel), Matthew Lipman

Secondary School Curriculum

Suki, a young adolescent, loves poetry and its world of metaphor. Her friend Harry hates literature class and the idea of writing poetry frightens him. Their worldviews begin to converge as the two come to see logic and poetry as two ways of finding meaning in life experience, though not before they have confronted a number of problems of language, knowledge and aesthetics. As Suki, Harry and their classmates work through the obstacles they encounter in creative writing, they construct new understandings of concepts like friendship, freedom, integrity, originality, harmony, form, balance, personhood and meaning.

Intention And Interpretation In Art: A Semiotic Analysis, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Kant was perhaps the first philosopher to note the distinctive puzzle, verging on paradox, which marks our dealings with art. Works of art seem to place us under an obligation to interpret them and yet we are convinced that our interpretations will never be exhaustive. Kant attempts to account for this peculiar phenomenon by talking of "purposiveness without purpose" or of the aesthetic idea as "a representation of the imagination to which no concept is adequate." We are constrained to see some pattern or organization in a work of art and this is typically understood as a teleological or purposive …

Xxii. Philosophical Meaning, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XXII: Philosophical Meaning

As we have seen, philosophy was one of the major contributions of Greek Civilization. It was the Greeks who gave it its first major impetus as well as its name, "the love of learning." This very phrase embodies the most important aspects of their contribution to the West: the love of the best or most excellent; the search for something beyond a description of immediate experience; and the attempt to grasp, in some comprehensive fashion, both the actual and the ideal, both the given and the possible. In order to accomplish this task philosophy has, as we have seen, traditionally …

The Role Of Art In The Complete Development Of A Christian Personality, Sister Loretta Ann Mccarthy

Art & Art History ETDs

A survey of ancient literature reveals that art as an area in school life is becoming increasingly recognized as tremendously significant to a complete participation in the creative activities of life. A critical point has been reached in so far as art has begun to be recognized as an integral part of the school program rather than an educational frill offered for those students who have difficulty with the academic program or as a concession to the few talented students.

It is the purpose of this study (1) to outline briefly the theory of art education as applied to the …