ASAGE - American Society for Aesthetics Graduate E-Journal
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Disturbing Nature's Beauty: Environmental Aesthetics in a New Ecological Paradigm
No full text Simus, Jason Boaz, Disturbing Nature's Beauty: Environmental Aesthetics in a New Ecological Paradigm. Doctor of Philosophy (Philosophy), August 2009, 132 pp., 223 references, 153 titles. An ecological paradigm shift from the ";;balance of nature";; to the ";;flux of nature";; changes the way we aesthetically appreciate nature if we adopt scientific cognitivism-the view that aesthetic appreciation of nature must be informed by scientific knowledge. Ecological science is grounded in metaphors: nature is a divine order, a machine, an organism, a community, or a cybernetic system. These metaphors stimulate and guide scientific practice, but are at most useful fictions in terms of how they reflect the values underlying a paradigm. Aesthetic judgments are intersubjectively correct in reference to the currently dominant ecological paradigm. Contemporary ecology is a science driven more by aesthetic than metaphysical considerations. The ";;framing problem,";; is the problem that natural environments are not discrete objects, so knowing what to focus on aesthetically is difficult. The ";;fusion problem";; is the problem of how to fuse the sensory aspect of aesthetic appreciation with highly theoretical scientific knowledge. I resolve these two problems by defending a normative version of the theory-laden observation thesis. Positive aesthetics is the view that insofar as nature is untouched by humans, it is always beautiful and never ugly. I defend an amended and updated version of positive aesthetics that is consistent with the central elements of contemporary ecology, and emphasize the heuristic, exegetical, and pedagogical roles aesthetic qualities play in ecological science.
A Kantian Critique of Positive Aesthetics of Nature
No full textUpon introducing aesthetic judgment in his Critique of Judgment, Kant proceeds to focus almost exclusively on elucidating positive aesthetic judgment. In the face of the conspicuous absence of negative judgment, scholars debate whether it is possible at all in Kant?s aesthetics. In the field of environmental aesthetics, an analogous issue exists. Environmental philosophers adhering to a positive aesthetics of nature position claim that, for the most part, only positive aesthetic evaluations are appropriate for ?virgin? nature. After examining whether negative judgments are possible in Kant, I apply the results to the positive aesthetics of nature position and argue that not only are negative judgments of nature possible, but that a Kantian analysis threatens the viability of the positive aesthetics position. Alternatively, acceptance of positive aesthetics requires an abandonment of Kantian aesthetic theory
The Role of Painting in the Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty
No full textThe paper examines the importance of painting for Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology. Painting, as the celebration of visibility, is an important supplement to that project. It is a way of exploring the possibilities of embodied perception that does not rely on linguistic concepts. That is, in painting we can encounter a philosophy of vision that is performed and understood in terms of vision as embodied perception. Since in his phenomenology Merleau-Ponty is in search of a primitive contact with the lived world prior to the level of explicit reflection, painting provides a suitable example of such contact that cannot be fully explained through the use of language. “Cezanne’s Doubt” presents the similarity between the methods and goals of phenomenology and those of painting. “Eye and Mind” articulates the ontological significance of visibility. The contribution of painting to phenomenology is not in the explication of the former by the latter and its use as an example. Rather, painting pursues the same goals without the use of language, something that the philosophical discipline on its own cannot do
Zips: Experimental Lines of Flight
No full textBy applying a few of the concepts and transformative tools presenting in many of Deleuze?s texts, Barnett Newman?s paintings receive a much-needed re-interpretation. In many of Newman?s paintings, the fields of colors and the pulsating zips that sear through these vast landscapes can be seen as intensive sensations pushing away from philosophical and artistic domains that cling to images of thought rooted in recognition and binarism. The function of such a Deleuzian reading of Barnett Newman is to evoke the potentiality for destabilization so that one is able to create new sensations, new ways of conceiving of painting and life that are never able to be captured by a single system of signification. Rather than the desire to imitate, represent, or capture, Newman is able to mark an intensive threshold of becoming. Beneath a representational regime is a plane of imperceptible forces that traverse the face of the painting and extend beyond the canvas infinitely in every direction.
The Good Life as Conceptual Art
No full textIf we take conceptual art seriously, that is, if we consider that art does not have clear-cut boundaries and that it is not limited to the production of aesthetic objects, then a whole spectrum of possible artworks is open to us. Not only can random objects be conceived as artistic, but cognitive states (ideas, concepts, representations) and behaviors can also be meaningfully conceived as pieces of art by their producer and by any sensitive observer. If one is to take one?s life as a piece of conceptual art, one then faces the question of what kind of life would count as a worthwhile piece of art, i.e., what kind of life can have any artistic worth. In this paper, I discuss the possibility that the pursuit of a worthwhile life in the Aristotelian sense, more particularly the meticulous design of a character as a set of good emotional, conative, and behavioral dispositions, can count as an artistic endeavor. My aim is to show how this can be the case, and to show that this bears on major issues in contemporary philosophy of art concerning the relation between ethics and aesthetics.
The Dynamic Phenomenon of Art in Heidegger's The Origin of the Work of Art
No full textThis paper makes the claim that in ?The Origin of the Work of Art,? Heidegger treats art as a primary phenomenon through which truth as unhiddenness is revealed at the locus of the work of art. Essays by Heidegger commentators John Bruin and Abraham Mansbach are rejected as inaccurate or insupportable because they do not recognize that for Heidegger art is an originating phenomenon; it is not a mode of representation (Bruin), nor is the agency of ?art? due to the ?work of art? (Mansbach).
Dots and Data: Seurat, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty
No full text More than any other artist of the modern era, Georges Seurat has been subjected to an analysis in which the genius of his works is reduced to the theoretical framework?pointillism?out of which they supposedly emerged. This paper considers three major paintings, Une Baignade, Un dimanche après-midi à l?île de la Grande Jatte, and Les Poseuses, to examine the relation of Seurat?s theory to his practice. First, we take a historical look at the theory and practice of optical mixture, a critical technique for Seurat. Second, we develop a philosophical critique of the results achieved by these methods, by way of the aesthetics of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. Third, we study the three paintings to determine the extent of Seurat?s actual adherence to these theoretical methods, and we draw a broader conclusion concerning the relation of art theory to practice.