Thursday, February 5, 2015

Phi 2801 review topics for exam#1

AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE

The monism/pluralism issue:

Monism: there is proper aim in aesthetics, interpretation should aim at satisfying this criteria.

Relativism: there are many equally good interpretations of AW,

Pluralism: there may be different interpretations of a AW, but that doesn't mean they are equally good. 

If art interpretation has a plurality of aims, it is quite possible that there are correct or true interpretations of works arrived in pursuit of some of these other aims that do not make statements about the artist’s intention. 

the pluralist is not saying that all interpretations are equally good. what the pluralist is saying is that given a thing to be interpreted there are different ways to interpret, different versions.

AESTHETICS

click this link for my explanation of aesthetic facts (please, read the info-consensus-best-consensus part).

Meaning in aesthetics:

is there meaning in AWs? there are 3 views:

Objectivism: meaning is something the thing has,
Subjectivism: something one brings to the thing,
Intersubjectivism: meaning is both objective and subjective, thus it's intersubjective. 

Intentionalism: in aesthetics is the view that AW's are expressions of the actual intentions of their creators. Interpretations of art works assert that a work expresses this or that actual intention, and are true only in the event that the intention in question is expressed in the work.

Aesthetic experience: Dewey and Beardsely believe that aesthetic properties emerge from the object and the individual's own taste. When these experiences are shared we obtain consensus on aesthetic properties. This seems to explain stuff such as wine, paintings, etc.

Beardsley and Dewey talk of aesthetic experience as unified or coherent, and complete.

Eddy Zemach adds that we also experience negative aesthetic properties as well – ugliness, dreariness and so on – so their characterization is both too narrow and has the wrong logical priority between aesthetic experience and aesthetic properties.

BEAUTY/PLEASURE

Disinterested pleasure:  Shaftesbury (eighteenth century) recognizes in the pleasurable response to beauty an impartiality, a lack of self-interest. He adopts the term "disinterested" from ethics to describe the pleasure recognized as associated with beauty.

For Kant desinterested means that the pleasure of beauty is like perceiving a solution to a problem, and enjoying it for its own sake, rather than because personal rewards are anticipated.

The pleasure-principle tradition:  Beauty evokes a pleasurable response. If while perceiving an object you do not experience pleasure, you are not perceiving beauty.

TASTE

1- taste needs first-hand experience. this is known as knowledge by acquaintance. Just as one cannot decide that soup is well-seasoned without actually sipping it, so one cannot conclude that music is lyrical and moving without hearing it. 

2-  though aesthetic taste is grounded in natural dispositions, it clearly requires cultivation.

Cultivation doesn't mean elitism. It means having access to the information.

3- taste is inter-subjective: one has it, but in addition, one learns about it through exchange of information with others, aesthetic notes can be learned.

4- judgements of taste are about objects: the statement "X is beautiful" is not just a report that it pleases the speaker, but a debatable claim that refers to qualities in X, that may be noticed and enjoyed by others.

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