Kant's Formalism: Formalism is the theory that AIR because of the action's form.
1. Kant’s Categorical Imperative: What makes an action right is that
everyone can act on it (which yields universalizability), and you'd have
everyone acting on it (which yields reversibility: Golden Rule).
2. Duties: obligations one has by virtue of one's embeddedness in society.
Perfect duty: A duty that must always be performed no matter what. And imperfect duties.
click here for my notes on Kantian ethics + categorical imperative.
3. Kant's Second Formulation: TREAT PEOPLE AS ENDS, NEVER AS MEANS TO AN END. Problems with the second formulation? C/A The problem with Kantian theory is the problem of exceptions to the rule. Should I keep a promise even if it puts someone's life in danger? Then, some times we have to treat people as means to ends.
click here for my notes on Kant's second formulation.
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Monday, March 27, 2017
phi 2801 topics for Exam #3 (painting, film, music)
Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein
Twofoldness theory: This kind of seeing is what Richard Wollheim calls "seeing-in". We sometimes see figures in clouds or water stains or ink blots, and when we do, our experience amalgamates features of the "design" with features of the presented object. Awareness of one does not annihilate awareness of the other; rather, the two aspects blend into one "twofold" experience.
Arguments against film as art: Roger Scruton and Theodor Adorno suggest that the fictional dimension of a film is perverted by the mechanical and/or commercial nature of film-making, this commercial function conflicting with the‘autonomous’ development necessary for art's idea of purposelessness.
Einseinstein's montage: The concept refers to the creation of new, higher levels of meaning and experience through the juxtaposition of any more basic elements. Eisenstein discriminated different types of montage and elaborated the notion in numerous directions. Here are some of the different montage ideas he explores in his book Film (1957).
Arnheim's Gestalt aesthetics: This is the definition of art as embodying "purposiveness without purpose": the notion that aesthetic objects (whether natural or man-made) are distinctive because of the manner in which they are cut loose from practical ends. This disengagement from practical purposes enables aesthetic objects to be used for purely perceptual or contemplative purposes: roughly speaking, the aesthetic object becomes an occasion for reflection rather than action.
Benjamin's idea of aura: According to Walter Benjamin, the traditional artistic object possesses an "aura" which arises from the fact that the object is unique. Benjamin sees art as a descendant of religion; the aura of an artistic object is the secularized equivalent of the mystical & religious icons and artifacts. The advent of techniques of mechanical reproduction sweeps away any such aura, by undermining the uniqueness of the artistic object. The thousands of digital reproductions of the The Mona Lisa become degraded tokens of the original painting.
Expressionist theory: People value music because of how it makes us feel, i.e., its ability to evoke emotion in us.
Representationalism: Music is essentially iconic. Music is an imitation or representation of, and thereby refers to extramusical human emotions, character, and ideas. Referentialism is NOT EXPRESSIONISM. Saying that a piece of music makes us sad (Expressionism) need not be taken to imply, or to be implied by, saying that the music is an imitation of sadness or that IT is about sadness (Representationalism).
Formalism in music: There are many non-referential aspects of music with aesthetic power, such as rhythm, counterpoint, motivic relationships, harmonic structure, and so on.
Kivy's expressionistic theory of music: Kivy rejects simple arousalism. When he says: "It is quite compatible with my perceiving the most intense emotions in a work of art that I not myself be moved in the least". Rather, the listener’s response to expressive character is one of recognition: it is a cognitive rather than affective response. The recognition of expressiveness happens via recognition of music’s resemblance to the human behavioral expression of emotion. If a piece is sad it is because one perceived a structural similarity between sad music and the behavioral expression of sadness (for example, one imagine hopeless helpless moods. Kivy is attracted to Plato's idea of music as imitation.
Walton's representationalist version: According to Walton, as the listener imagines the experience of musical sounds to be an experiencing of particular emotion. Music stimulates the listener's imaginative experience, whether it's conflict and resolution, motion and rest. But the fictional worlds induced by music are far less determinate than those in painting and literature.
Goodman's semantic theory of reference: According to Goodman a sad piece of music metaphorically possesses the property of sadness and exemplifies that metaphorical property. Goodman is NOT saying that sadness is a property music has. INSTEAD that sad music bears a symbolic relation to the property of sadness.
HIGH & LOW ART
High art: painting, sculpture, performance, photo, film, classical music, jazz, ballet, modern dance, theater.
Low art: crafts, video, folk dance, break dance, rock, rap, vaudeville, burlesque.
Modern High Art: All the 20th century "ISMS": Cubism, Fauvism, Expressionism, Futurism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Conteptual Art, Minimalism, Abstractionism, etc.
A taste public: According to Herbert Gans, users generally make choices of values and taste as a result of their cultural content. There are five taste publics: high culture, upper-middle culture, lower-middle culture, low culture and folk low culture.
PAINTING
1. Mimetic theory: in mimetic theory art imitates an idea by means of representing. so the value of a painting derives from what it
represents. we say that the painting has a valuable aesthetic property when it represents something as having that property. Example: the portrait of Stein (above) accurately represents her as stern and stout, or inaccurately represent her as timid and delicately built.
2. Formalism theory: it originates in the early twentieth century by the art critics Clive Bell and Roger Fry as a way to accommodate abstract art. Both critics distinguish "plastic form" from its "illustrative content." Form comprises lines, shapes, and colors (and the relations between them) of its design. For most formalists, plastic form also comprises the three-dimensional shapes and planes represented in a painting (and relations among them).
3. Parallelism theory: Defended by art historian E. H. Gombrich (1969). Painting either exhibits a form design (e.g. its flat surface composed of brush strokes, marks and lines) OR its content (the three-dimensional scene it represents), but never both at one and the same time. This is analogous to the way we can see Wittgenstein duck/rabbit drawing, which he called "seeing-as."
Twofoldness theory: This kind of seeing is what Richard Wollheim calls "seeing-in". We sometimes see figures in clouds or water stains or ink blots, and when we do, our experience amalgamates features of the "design" with features of the presented object. Awareness of one does not annihilate awareness of the other; rather, the two aspects blend into one "twofold" experience.
FILM
Arguments against film as art: Roger Scruton and Theodor Adorno suggest that the fictional dimension of a film is perverted by the mechanical and/or commercial nature of film-making, this commercial function conflicting with the‘autonomous’ development necessary for art's idea of purposelessness.
Einseinstein's montage: The concept refers to the creation of new, higher levels of meaning and experience through the juxtaposition of any more basic elements. Eisenstein discriminated different types of montage and elaborated the notion in numerous directions. Here are some of the different montage ideas he explores in his book Film (1957).
Arnheim's Gestalt aesthetics: This is the definition of art as embodying "purposiveness without purpose": the notion that aesthetic objects (whether natural or man-made) are distinctive because of the manner in which they are cut loose from practical ends. This disengagement from practical purposes enables aesthetic objects to be used for purely perceptual or contemplative purposes: roughly speaking, the aesthetic object becomes an occasion for reflection rather than action.
Benjamin's idea of aura: According to Walter Benjamin, the traditional artistic object possesses an "aura" which arises from the fact that the object is unique. Benjamin sees art as a descendant of religion; the aura of an artistic object is the secularized equivalent of the mystical & religious icons and artifacts. The advent of techniques of mechanical reproduction sweeps away any such aura, by undermining the uniqueness of the artistic object. The thousands of digital reproductions of the The Mona Lisa become degraded tokens of the original painting.
MUSIC
Expressionist theory: People value music because of how it makes us feel, i.e., its ability to evoke emotion in us.
Representationalism: Music is essentially iconic. Music is an imitation or representation of, and thereby refers to extramusical human emotions, character, and ideas. Referentialism is NOT EXPRESSIONISM. Saying that a piece of music makes us sad (Expressionism) need not be taken to imply, or to be implied by, saying that the music is an imitation of sadness or that IT is about sadness (Representationalism).
Formalism in music: There are many non-referential aspects of music with aesthetic power, such as rhythm, counterpoint, motivic relationships, harmonic structure, and so on.
Kivy's expressionistic theory of music: Kivy rejects simple arousalism. When he says: "It is quite compatible with my perceiving the most intense emotions in a work of art that I not myself be moved in the least". Rather, the listener’s response to expressive character is one of recognition: it is a cognitive rather than affective response. The recognition of expressiveness happens via recognition of music’s resemblance to the human behavioral expression of emotion. If a piece is sad it is because one perceived a structural similarity between sad music and the behavioral expression of sadness (for example, one imagine hopeless helpless moods. Kivy is attracted to Plato's idea of music as imitation.
Walton's representationalist version: According to Walton, as the listener imagines the experience of musical sounds to be an experiencing of particular emotion. Music stimulates the listener's imaginative experience, whether it's conflict and resolution, motion and rest. But the fictional worlds induced by music are far less determinate than those in painting and literature.
Goodman's semantic theory of reference: According to Goodman a sad piece of music metaphorically possesses the property of sadness and exemplifies that metaphorical property. Goodman is NOT saying that sadness is a property music has. INSTEAD that sad music bears a symbolic relation to the property of sadness.
HIGH & LOW ART
High art: painting, sculpture, performance, photo, film, classical music, jazz, ballet, modern dance, theater.
Low art: crafts, video, folk dance, break dance, rock, rap, vaudeville, burlesque.
Modern High Art: All the 20th century "ISMS": Cubism, Fauvism, Expressionism, Futurism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Conteptual Art, Minimalism, Abstractionism, etc.
A taste public: According to Herbert Gans, users generally make choices of values and taste as a result of their cultural content. There are five taste publics: high culture, upper-middle culture, lower-middle culture, low culture and folk low culture.
Tolerant hierarchicalism: Popular art is dominated by a need for familiar forms, an intolerance of ambiguity, a tendency toward easiness and indulgence in stimulated emotion. In spite of all this there is a time and place for popular art.
Intolerant hierarchicalism: Popular art (low) is essentially flawed. A rare view.
Pluralism: There are two classes of works, but he finds each group significantly valuable. Each group has different aesthetic needs.
Nöel Carroll's defense of HIGH:
1. Massification: In order to appeal to a mass audience, the mass work must gravitate “toward the lowest level of taste, sensitivity, and intelligence”. This is not compatible with distinctive expression (unique expression flowing from a personal vision), yet distinctive expression is what art should aim at.
2. Passivity: Genuine art should require active spectatorship. But mass or popular art, in order to generate broad appeal and accessibility, abets passive reception. It is easy and safe.
3. The formulaic: A common complaint is that popular or mass art is formulaic,whereas real art is original in its conception and in its goals.
4. Autonomy: Many theorists view the arts from the perspective of political. Adorno, for example, held that a central function of art is to provide a critical perspective on society; its goal should be liberation from the social,economic and political realities.
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