Aesthetic Investigations (E-Journal, Dutch Association of Aesthetics)
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The Folly of Reason and Gravity of Reconciled Humor in Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment
Get PDFThe aim of this paper is to show how, taken at face value, it appears that Horkheimer and Adorno’s conception of the culture industry presented in The Dialectic of Enlightenment does not allow for integral freedom--or the very freedom which is at the heart of modernity’s conception of the person and is the basis for its political philosophy. Nevertheless, the text has the resources to support a slightly less pessimistic reading, and provide a role for irony which came to be among prevalent artistic practices for postmodern aesthetics. That is, once the distinction between terrible laughter and reconciled laughter as well as terrible and reconciled humor is understood, the text rewards rational reconstruction to demonstrate the folly of reason, and in doing so, we might experience The Dialectic of Enlightenment itself as an instance of reconciled humor. Perhaps, the text itself offers a way to mitigate against Horkheimer and Adorno’s condemnation of the culture industry so that it is less totalizing than it would first appear. Therefore, laughter has a critical role in a slightly less pessimistic reading of the text as once the distinction between reconciled and terrible laughter is integrated into the text itself, one may interpret the Dialectic of Enlightenment as an exercise in reconciled humor, and not the terrible humor so frequently found in the culture industry. The freedom involved in this beneficial sort of humor-- reconciled humor-- may be fleeting, but it is nevertheless significant
Art and the Vulnerability of Subjectivity
Get PDFWe may compare art with science, but must not understand it as science. In my view, modern science brought subjectivity into trouble, whereas art itself has the subjective as its main motivating force. For one, narrative arts tell stories, and are acclaimed for conveying the subjective aspect of events. Artistic creativity aims at regulating the appreciative experience. Lastly, to assess a work\u27s artistic merit is to look for the artist\u27s achievement, which involves looking for the way they realised their intentions with their audiences. It is thus that one wants to say that art is concerned with the subjective, and that one wants to distinguish it sharply from how sciences treat their subject matters: aiming for quantification and universalisation, applying objectivist methodologies, and conveying the thought that all knowledge hangs together---and that it be objectivist
The Best Way to Locate a Purpose in Sport: Considerations in Aesthetics?
No full textThe paper highlights the centrality of some concepts from philosophy of sport for philosophical aesthetics. Once Best (BJA, 1974) conclusively answered negatively the fundamental question, ‘Can any sport-form be an artform?’, what further issues remained at the intersection of these parts of philosophy? Recent work revitalizing this interface, especially Mumford’s Watching Sport (2012), contested Best’s fundamental distinction between purposive and aesthetic sports, and insisted that purist viewers are taking an aesthetic interest in sporting events. Here, we defend Best’s conception against considerations Mumford hoped would bring the aesthetics of art and sport closer together, thereby elaborating the aesthetics of sport. But, against Mumford’s resolutely psychological conception of an aim, we follow Best to defend the centrality, for purposive sports, of the means/ends contrast even when taking an aesthetic interest in such sports. We conclude with general speculations about the potential future of the discussions originated here
Book Review. Néstor García Canclini. Art Beyond Itself: Anthropology for a Society Without a Story Line
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Ex Ante Allusions
Get PDFWe tend to think of allusions as indirect references to objects that already exist. Here I argue against this post facto orthodoxy and for the view that certain cases of allusion count as ex ante allusions (i.e. allusions before the fact). I argue that the standard view conflates the epistemic dependence of allusion (knowledge of the object of allusion) with an existential dependence (the object must already exist). As an adequate account of allusion should explain both the apparent paradoxical character and the possibility of ex ante allusions, I propose that literary allusions should be understood in terms of what might be called reference from rather than reference to
DESKTOP graffiti
Get PDFAnd then Christophe showed me his nicely tailored folders. He still accompanied it with the parlé people nowadays treat young managers during their Powerpoint presentations. When the first folder was opened, though, something changed drastically, in a flash. Suddenly the need for explications dropped away. Without a doubt, these were scribbles straight from the gut, vomited onto the paper when the urge was highest. Without parlé or excuse. Surprising!
That is when we really started talking, Christophe and I
Aesthetics is the Grammar of Desire
Get PDFThis essay presents (i) the nature of aesthetic judgement, (ii) the significance of aesthetic judgement and finally, (iii) the relevance of art to understanding aesthetic judgement
The Aesthetic Experience of the Literary Artwork: A Matter of Form and Content?
Get PDFEver since the introduction of aesthetics in philosophy, the literary arts have posed a challenge to common notions of aesthetic experience. In this paper, I will focus on the problems that arise when a formalist approach to aesthetics is confronted with literature. My main target is Peter Kivy\u27s ‘essay in literary aesthetics’ Once-Told Tales, in which Kivy defends formalism and concludes from this approach that literature is a non-aesthetic art form. Contrary to Kivy, I will claim that we have good reasons to consider literature an aesthetic art form and, therefore, that the literary arts naturally pose a challenge to formalism. By showing the inextricable intertwining of form and content in literary artworks, I will demonstrate that the identification of so-called aesthetic properties with purely formal properties of a literary artwork is problematic
Double Life. Illusion - Disillusion
Get PDFIn order to make my life and therefore my art more exciting I often imagine being someone else. While working on art projects, usually for several months, I have lived double lives as art historians and political scientists, but mostly as artists who should have been famous.
To trick my audience into believing the fantasy figures I fabricate are real, I use circumstantial evidence. But with the help of that same audience, the double lives I live become far more interesting. It is their imaginative power that really brings my alter egos to life