• The definition of art
    I think morality and amorality are aspects of one's perspective.

    You can look at the Holocaust as a mountain of evil, or you can look at it the way a zoologist looks at the behavior of Asian hornets destroying bee hives.

    You can flip back and forth between the two if you like. Where does an absolute show up in this situation?     — frank

    Ethics is analyzable at a level beneath perspective. Not that such perspectives don't exist, and that at a certain level of analysis, this "perspectivalism" doesn't work; it does. But here, one is asked to go deeper, e.g., it is not my perspective that makes medieval torture horrible.
  • The definition of art
    If you mean a god you can pray to, no, there isn't. That's a fairy tale. If you mean some sort of Neoplatonic divinity, maybe. — frank

    Both of these are beyond what the question asks. Is there a way to show that in ethics and aesthetics there is an absolute embedded in the essence of what they are? Give analysis to an instance of these and is their something that is "its own presupposition" that defies analysis? What ever this is, it is beyond contingency and would be ontologically just as grand or authoritative as any Biblical narrative or metaphysical construction. It would be part and parcel of the world, just as "factual" as any other fact, but then, ineffably unassailable.
  • The definition of art
    Exactly - that is why the art work is information about what is occurring in the artist's mind, or in other words consciousness. Likewise this art object representing the artist's consciousness, then interacts with the consciousness of the viewer, to become something in their mind. So it is a communication of consciousness to consciousness and what is exchanged is information, but just like the information communicated in this forum, so little of it gels — Pop

    But there was an objection in this! The term 'information' fouls up the works, for the painting, say, is not about a state of mind sans the painting. The painting itself cannot be reduced to information about something else, like ones and zeros of a program, because the consciousness that is the seat of art's meaning necessarily includes the painting itself. Take a Beethoven sonata. What is exterior is the vibrating piano strings, BUT, to say those vibrations are merely information about something else denies the obvious presence of those very sounds in the consciousness where the experience resides. That is, the art object is not some carrier of information; it is part and parcel of the art event within.
    Address this??
  • The definition of art
    I would too. Amorality appears to you against a background of morality, and vice versa. — frank

    But then, what is morality, so that we can talk about amorality at all? This is, in keeping with the OP, an aesthetic question as well, by implication.

    Could be a result of hot sauce about to be drowned in some awesome beer as you celebrate with close friends. Could be the same pain in the back you've struggled to deal with for months and despair is setting in.

    What the pain is and how you deal with it is definitely a matter of how you cast it. Why would you analyze pain without a context? That doesn't happen very often.     — frank

    But how one casts it is incidental. We have the category of painful events. What is it that binds the particulars to the generality?

    Particularly as he was about to kill his beloved son. What does that tell you? — frank

    I take it as something other than what it seems. Putting aside the puzzle of Abraham, there is beneath ethics, and the principles we abide by, a vacuum. The real question is this: Is there a foundation for art and ethics that is absolute? This kind of thing is not presented to us in our principled thinking. It is as Hegel said, each affirmation made contains its own negation. K's point is that value has no grounding in ethics. The matter must go beyond ethics for its affirmation.
  • The definition of art
    I agree - the postmodernist "Artworld" with its "institutional definition of art" is destroying any value in the definition of art by pushing the agenda that art is defined in whatever way they deem it to be defined. — RussellA

    An interesting statement, and I am inclined to agree, if it wasn't for impossibility of pinning art's definition elsewhere. How else can you account for art's infinite malleability? Where did art theory lose its way? When it abandoned beauty? Significant form? If you can't really say, then art remains an open concept, like ethics: we continually try to make sense out of it, but it seems it is the kind of thing lost in contingencies that cannot be settled.
    And: in the end, all concepts are open. Art is just among the most intractable. The only way to pin it down is to move into metaphysics. This is not impossible, I claim.
  • The definition of art
    Consciousness, as an evolving process of self organization, encompasses all things mental and experiential.

    According to American philosopher John Searle: “Consciousness is that thing that presents itself as we wake up in the morning and lasts all day until we go back to sleep again at night.” It isn’t simply awareness or knowledge – I believe Carl Jung would agree that to every bit of consciousness is attached 100 bits of the subconscious, interwoven into a mental lattice presenting as a united front. It is fundamental to us. Consciousness is personality in action, yet we are hardly aware of it. Modern science has not been able to pin consciousness down, however panpsychism and eastern philosophy agree that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe - from this perspective consciousness takes on a much deeper meaning     — Pop

    All I can say is, and I hope you give this more than a glancing thought, you're thesis is not about the definition of art. It is about the definition of the art object. You are saying, I am pretty clear by now, is that, that painting, novel, performance, and so on, are not where art is to be found. The true locus of art is experience, the perspective imposed on an object by the artist or observer, and here, of course, you have to distinguish yourself from others who argue like this.
    I would otherwise be close to agreeing except for this big objection: the physical art work in its actual presence is also what is in my mind when I think of the artistic nature of the thing. In other words, one cannot call the one art and the other, the art object, information because when it comes to an analysis of the art itself and not the information, the object remains in place. In general information, too,one could make a similar claim: information as to how a computer mouse functions, say, is words on a page, or verbally produced; but the consciousness that receives it, understands it, does not stand apart from the words. It recalls the words, written or otherwise, IN the conscious event. So, the exteriority of the object is not detachable from the interior conscious event.
    Not sure how you will handle this. Even in Dewey, the making of a chair and its physical engagement cannot beabout the making of a chair's interior value making events, for when this interior is conceived, the "object" dimension is necessarily there.
  • The definition of art
    You said it, not me. If all things are in space, then all things are in space. If all things are space, then things are space, right? If all things are space then there’s nothing to compare space with, right? There is only space, so space has no meaning. — praxis

    You're a good man...errrr...woman....errr person... you're a good agency of interlocution, Praxis, who can spin tedium into levity. The world needs more like you.
  • The definition of art
    Yes!! Now we are on the same page. That is all I am trying to say with the definition. Art is always some manifestation of this - an expression of human consciousness, for the consumption of another human consciousness. This is what it provides - constantly, and everything else is variable. This defines art. — Pop

    Errr, no. Art still remains undefined, because the question is still there: what kind of meaning, aesthetic, value phenomenon is this that makes art, what it is?Is it emotional? Is it pragmatic? is it cognitive? Is it form? What is there is experience that is already there that is taken up in art? What is aesthetic rapture? Is beauty only art? Can art be ugly, and if so, what does this say about art as a general concept?

    Or: you are saying artworks are essentially an index to states of mind, that they "carry" information about this inner experience, but: information as such is free of that which is carries, that is, information as information itself is not art, so calling art information certainly does not tell us anything about what art is; only that is can be represented in a medium and the medium is not the art--the interior experience is the locus of the REAL artwork.

    What is "consumed" is not information.
  • The definition of art
    Morality is only half the concept, right? The other half is amorality. — frank

    I would deny that amorality is a fit description of the world at the basic level. Of course, I see as you do that the world does not give favor in its distribution of good and bad affairs, and in fact, on second thought, it likely favors the latter in terms of quantitative utility. But the argument I would defend would be grounded on qualitative distinctions.

    You could say when we jump into the car, this is amoral Eros. There's no good nor evil yet because the story arc is at its beginning. There's no action to judge. Only once we're hanging upside down (which would be an odd place to end the story), do we lay out our condemnations. Morality is a post-event perspective. We weigh the actuality against the ideal. — frank

    But the ontology of pain and bliss looks to neither the beginning nor the end. It simply takes what is there as it is, a phenomenon of certain properties. I am not concerned about how other matters work out, only one: I ask, what IS this pain. Does it have a nature that is clear and present, and that figures into our understanding of ethics and aesthetics? I am not judging actions, but trying to understand in any given action, what is it that makes it ethical? Call it a secret ingredient: value, the most mysterious thing in existence, by far.
    Cognitive dissonance appears when we recognize that the very thing the artist needs: some sort of wreckage, is deadly to that innocent who climbed behind the wheel.

    But then there's the world's pain. It's a burden for some. Nietzsche says that if you long to save the world, you're rejecting it at the same time. We can say yes to life. Accept the car wreck in all it's glory. Isn't that what the Knight of Faith does?     — frank

    You mean if the artist is a novelist. But for the painter, say, it is not a car wreck, but it is the struggle to produce affect (the aesthetic) in the medium. For the composer it is the same. For the player, it is mastery of the instrument and the "work" of the performance. And so on.
    If the one bound to the car about to go up in flames grabs his pocket knife, struggles to cut free, then succeeds, then there is art in this, Dewey would say, and I would agree.
    I am not interested in saving the world, but I do think if we are going to understand what it is that all the fuss is about, then we have to look at the aesthetic simplciter, as such? When I am in aesthetic rapture listening to whatever, what is this rapture? Asking what it is means to allow its presence to come forward and be acknowledged., apart from all the contextualizing.
    The Knight of Faith is one who singularly lives in God's grace. See the first chapter of Fear and Trembling. S/he has posited spirit and unqualifiedly affirms God, the soul and their primacy over all things, securing eternal happiness. Abraham was this.
  • The definition of art
    There's a couple of issues, I'm afraid, that prevent your 'reductionist' theory from rising above the level of nonsense. I already pointed out the first issue in my previous post. Using our imagination we can take a concept or general mental representation of something like aesthetic or pain and do whatever we want with it. We can associate pain with hot burning coals, for example, and that's relatively easy to do. It's a bit harder to associate pain with distant billowy clouds, but we can still do it. Anyway, jumping to the point, the point is that what we can imagine doesn't always correspond to reality. I suspect that you already know that, but in any case, a practical example may help to elucidate the point further.

    Offhand, pain/panic is the most unaesthetic kind of experience that comes to mind. If I understand your reductionist theory rightly, we can 'reduce the context' of any situation where pain and panic are experienced and the experience will then be that of aesthetic experience. As I've pointed out, we can easily dismiss context with our imagination, but how do we do this in real life? How do we reduce or turn off context? For our purposes, it doesn't matter because reducing is changing, and we already know that changing a situation (context) can change our perception.

    The second issue has to do with the basics of meaning. If everything is aesthetic then nothing is aesthetic and the concept loses all meaning.     — praxis

    Again (technical issue screwed with the first)
    Don't know why you want to talk about hot coals or billowy clouds. It isn't to the point. The reduction is the phenomenological reduction, which moves away from explanatory accounts that are merely factual, and this is important because facts are, as such, ethically arbitrary. In a typical ethical case, the facts are what they are, like you owning the gun I borrowed and wanting it back under, say, dangerous and suspicious circumstances. The gun ownership, the circumstances and so on, these are facts that have no ethical dimension to them as facts. As Wittgenstein put it in his Lecture on Ethics: in all facts of the world, were they laid out in a great book, there would not be a mention of value at all. The sun is further from earth that the moon: a fact, and as such, nothing ethical about it. Then what is it that makes the case ethical (or here, aesthetic; same applies here) at all? it is the value: the injury and pain that is at stake, also my breaking the implicit promise to return the gun that could undermine confidence that thereby undermines friendship and comfort, and so on.
    So. you see the point being made here is to try to analyze an ethical case, any one at all, to find how its parts work, and what they are. This should be clear. Keep in mind that I am not the author of these ideas, but I do put them together as I see fit.
    Not clear why you talk about panic. I don't want to muddle things with what is not at issue.


    If all things are aesthetic, than nothing is aesthetic? If all things are in space, then nothing is in space? Are you kidding?
  • The definition of art
    There's a couple of issues, I'm afraid, that prevent your 'reductionist' theory from rising above the level of nonsense. I already pointed out the first issue in my previous post. Using our imagination we can take a concept or general mental representation of something like aesthetic or pain and do whatever we want with it. We can associate pain with hot burning coals, for example, and that's relatively easy to do. It's a bit harder to associate pain with distant billowy clouds, but we can still do it. Anyway, jumping to the point, the point is that what we can imagine doesn't always correspond to reality. I suspect that you already know that, but in any case, a practical example may help to elucidate the point further.

    Offhand, pain/panic is the most unaesthetic kind of experience that comes to mind. If I understand your reductionist theory rightly, we can 'reduce the context' of any situation where pain and panic are experienced and the experience will then be that of aesthetic experience. As I've pointed out, we can easily dismiss context with our imagination, but how do we do this in real life? How do we reduce or turn off context? For our purposes, it doesn't matter because reducing is changing, and we already know that changing a situation (context) can change our perception.

    The second issue has to do with the basics of meaning. If everything is aesthetic then nothing is aesthetic and the concept loses all meaning.[/quote

    Don't know why you want to talk about hot coals or billowy clouds. It isn't to the point. The reduction is the phenomenological reduction, which moves away from explanatory accounts that are merely factual, and this is important because facts are, as such, ethically arbitrary. In a typical ethical case, the facts are what they are, like you owning the gun I borrowed and wanting it back under, say, dangerous and suspicious circumstances. The gun ownership, the circumstances and so on, these are facts that have no ethical dimension to them as facts. As Wittgenstein put it in his Lecture on Ethics: in all facts of the world, were they laid out in a great book, there would not be a mention of value at all. The sun is further from earth that the moon: a fact, and as such, nothing ethical about it. Then what is it that makes the case ethical (or here, aesthetic; same applies here) at all? it is the value: the injury and pain that is at stake, also my breaking the implicit promise to return the gun that could undermine confidence that thereby undermines friendship and comfort, and so on.
    So. you see the point being made here is to try to analyze an ethical case, any one at all, to find how its parts work, and what they are. This should be clear. Keep in mind that I am not the author of these ideas, but I do put them together as I see fit.
    Not clear why you talk about panic. I don't want to muddle things with what is not at issue.


    If all things are aesthetic, than nothing is aesthetic? If all things are in space, then nothing is in space? Are you kidding?     — praxis
  • The definition of art
    I think Nietzsche is like several truckloads of feces into which a few diamonds and sapphires have been scattered. My connection to Nietzsche deep, like in the direction of dreams. But weren't Nietzsche and K saying something similar? regarding accepting evil? — frank

    They are both appalled by philosophy's attempt to rationalize the world, leaving the true, well, power and the glory behind, civilized and contained and weak and objectified and reduced. K's issue ws with Christendom, Nietzsche the same, I guess; I mean, this emasculating metaphysics that takes great possibility and turns it monkish denies the greatness, the will to push through and create. K looked also to this authenticity that is oppressed or forgotten by the neutralizing effects of bad metaphysics and cultural distractions. There is something that has nothing whatever to do with reason that is always there: actuality. The actual is not rational, not part of God's rational self actualization (Zizek has a different take on Hegel in this. Available on youtube). But then K goes north and N goes south. Heaven and Earth. (Keep in mind N adored people like Emerson and his Transcendentalism-very religious and but very vivid and full of encounter and meaning. NOT the church's conventions and liturgies.)

    Could you say more about that? — frank

    Metaphysics can be absurd, but then, it can be just the stark admission that all constructions of what the world is both end in aporia, openness, indeterminacy, and are part and parcel of the perceptual acts that reveal the world at the perceptual level. This latter is what Buddhism is essentially about, for what is it to meditate like this? It is a very radical process that is not confined to any particular part of things, but is the whole of things. To meditate as the Buddha tells us is to annihilate the world, the stream of existence produced moment to moment that informs us, gives us the habits of familiarity we deploy in everyday living.
    Get into this deeply, and metaphysics becomes a lived reality. This is a rather complex argument, and it takes more time and writing than is allowed here. But for now, Good metaphysics begins with the observation that finitude as an imposing totality on a world that defies all totalizing, and this is exactly what Nietzsche and Kierkegaard were about, I would argue, though it would take a thesis to do so.

    What's the final trouble? — frank

    why are born to suffer and die? What is the nature of value, or, metavalue? To borrow a term, we "totalize" the world with our systems of understanding. There remains below this, or above it, or amidst it, actuality, which defies this, cannot be reduced to ideas we have of this. To bring Levinas' thought in, in all our ideas, the ideatum exceeds what the idea is, the desideratum exceeds what it is we desire. This is a delicate juncture. We did not invent metaphysics at the basic level. We invented a lot of bad thinking, but this terminus we encounter when we raise our fist to the sky, say, is very real. It is real in thought and its concepts, and in the actuality they try to contain.
    The ethical dimension to this is most disturbing, but this takes a phenomenological approach to see what it is we are fussing about so much when we talk about ethics and aesthetics: value. There you are, seat belted in your car, upside down, the gas slowing into the passenger compartment, then you detect the hint of smoke. The metaphysics of this situation is vry real, because once you exhaust all possible accountability, there is nothing else. The gravity of the condition exceeds the explanatory totality there is to account for it.
    We are not, of course IN the situation above, but to conceive it honestly shows that ethical nihilism is foundational inadequate to "totalize" what it is all about.
    The final trouble is metaethics.
  • The definition of art
    So you’re saying that there’s genocidal glee, just the concept of glee, and your mind can separate glee from any actual instance of glee, such as Hitler’s alleged genocidal glee.

    If I’m following what you’ve said correctly, you’ve separated the concept of glee from what you’re now referring to as an illustrative example (glee in context) of glee in order to perform an analysis of some kind.

    That’s about all the sense I can make out of what you’ve written. It not clear if this somehow relates to your claim that “the aesthetic is an integral part of experience itself.”

    Perhaps your analysis has revealed that you have the capacity to consider the concept of aesthetic out of context, or that having this capacity, you can apply this concept any which way that your imagination can manage.     — praxis

    It is rather that there is one, final context, and that is at the basic level, and this is phenomenology. On ethics and aesthetics: take lighted match and apply it to your finger. Now, there is a lot one can say about this anatomically, motivationally, psychologically, and any other context you can imagine; but put those aside and consider only the pain itself, pain simpliciter, qualia-pain if you like, or, the phenomenon of pain eidetically free, or context free. Forget about whether you think this is possible (Dennett doesn't, but that is another argument) for it being there AT ALL is a context, you can, and many do, including myself, argue. But IN this most foundational context of observing the pain just as pain and not of or in this or that, the pain can be seen most vividly for what it is, and not for what something tells us it is.

    This presence is, I argue, pure, or close to pure. Entangled, yes, but here in this "reduction" it stands before one as a pure presence, what it IS as presence prior, that is, logically prior, for you can't even think of Hitler's genocidal cruelty without know what pain is to begin with that makes the whole affair so horrible.
    This is what I have in mind.
  • The definition of art
    Art is an expression of consciousness. At it's simplest, consciousness is mind activity. Although art is not exclusively an expression of mind activity, this is the singular thing we find in works of art - always. Every work of art ever made has to be an expression of mind activity, agreed? — Pop

    Okay.

    Mind activity is experiential. Phenomenology elucidates mind activity very well. It elucidates how human consciousness self organizes. How cognition is a disturbance in a state, how an emotion is felt due to the implications of the disturbance, and how the state reintegrates. it outlines how a self realigns itself due to this process, and so is a product of this process, agreed? — Pop

    AS stated, phenomenology can be consistent with this as long as you don't bring empirical sciences and their categories into it. These are to be suspended, and, by some post, post moderns like Michel Henry's thinking, this suspension can go all the way down to presence as such.
    So, art is an expression of mind activity, and mind activity is experiential, agreed? — Pop

    Okay.

    The experiential mind activity that creates consciousness is endlessly variable and open ended - we can see this in the art it creates - how it is always evolving- with no end in sight. Agreed? So it is not possible to define anything in terms of this, as it is endlessly variable, and open ended! And will continue to evolve into things we cannot possibly imagine. — Pop

    If you follow the arguments laid out by Hegel and later, art has a place, a limit, and art's true p0urpose is to represent/reflect spirit and profound metaphysical intimations. Art became secular and lost its course because it became, as you say, open ended. Medieval art art was deeply religious and authentic. Renaissance art turned toward culture and human affairs because art cannot pass beyond the symbolic limitations of representation. NOW it is free and open and looking for its own consummation, never to be found in culture.
    I think this an interesting idea, really.
    AS to evolving into things unimaginable, perhaps; I mean, art, as with all things, is driven by existing paradigms. Kuhn's Structures does not apply only to science. All things progress like this. Not sure what there is in art to evolve into, but likely it will be just an extension of what is known and worked out. High tech versions of what we already know, as with music: did Schoenberg and others REALLY change the face of music? No. We are rather stuck with the basics and their intuitive possibilities.

    So we are left with only mind activity to define art with. Agreed? — Pop

    With the one caveat that a term like "mind" we have in itself an open question. Heidegger used dasein, then there is the transcendental ego of Husserl, the generative source of the grounding of all things of Eugene Fink, the Citta of the Pali canon, and so on. It could be that the real unlimitedness is as Hegel said, without the rationalism: beyond art into foundation of experience itself. A move away from art. Art has the same destiny as all things: annihilation in the move toward finality and consummation in Being (aka, God).
    Hence art work is information about the artist's consciousness - This is all we can say that is. This information is present in every work of art. We cannot reduce this any further, and we can not add to it. Anything we add to this expression is not a constant of art. Only this expression is constant in art. So it is the only way to define art. Art can be defined to this extent and no further,. — Pop

    You mean, the artwork being external to the events within the artist or art observer, it can only indicate, be a signifier, for what is REAL, which can only be the experience itself. One should look at the artwork as the outward manifestation of an actual consciousness, and its value reducible to palpable consciousness.

    SO. look at the Munch's Scream or listen to Ravel's Bolero, the actual painting or musical sounds/auditory vibrations, are NOT the actuality, just information about the reality, which is consciousness. And the aesthetic is just one feature of what art information can be about. The Scream's look of horror, the frustrated relationship of Bret and Jake in the Sun Also Rises and all the rest: these are information ABOUT internal affairs?

    Is this what you are saying? If so, how do you separate the artwork (information) from consciousness? It would be like separating language from consciousness" Consciousness in the world (putting metaphysics aside) IS language, and language is not information about consciousness. Thus, The Scream certainly is an expression of mood, affect, but the painting is not reducible to this, for the painting is itself incorporated into the structure of consciousness.
    If you are going to call something information, then it has to information ABOUT something. What is that? If it is consciousness, then you have to, in your descriptive account, explain where one ends and the other begins. Where is the to be drawn between information and what is real? Is it ALL information? Then nothing is information. Will you turn to hermeneutics?
  • The definition of art
    Consciousness requires the story arc which inevitably contains grief, rage, disappointment, etc. If the production and consumption of art is about experience, then it necessarily centers around evil.

    Nietzsche didn't think we could overcome this. He thought we need to learn to embrace it, I think.     — frank

    Embrace it, or sublimate it, make it yield to our needs. I never found Nietzsche interesting enough to study. He is the post modern hero because he denies the primacy of "truth" and embraces the irrational features of our existence. His claim that human existence is a constructed enterprise is an existential defining notion (essence precedes existence, e.g.) but I find Kierkegaard more challenging. Hegel is much more interesting these days to me, since I realized Kierkegaard lifted his dialectics from him. Hegel is Derrida's key inspiration/progenitor.
    Of course, there is in this religious metaphysics pounding away, but it's not stupid metaphysics. Just unfamiliar. There is such a thing as authentic metaphysics.
    As to grief, rage, etc, there is something of this in Dewey given that a life empty of trouble never develops, and meaning never is produced, since meaning emerges out of problem solving and no trouble, no problems, then no meaning and no aesthetics.
    But then, this takes a philosophical turn: Let's say you're right about evil narratives at the center of consciousness. I would prefer, simply, trouble, for "evil" is connotatively thick and I don't want to make matters unduly weird. At the most basic level, the trouble an inquiring mind faces is religio-philosophical. The final trouble, problem to solve. It needs to be looked at as a problem to solve, not as empty metaphysics.
  • The definition of art
    For starters, I don't think it's a good way to start an analysis by assuming something that is unverifiable. How could anyone really know how Hiter felt during the holocaust, much less 80 years after it occurred. You even go so far as to say that your claim about his feelings is indisputable.

    You say that by itself his genocidal glee is good. This is your evaluation and can only mean that you think genocidal glee is good. You value genocide to a degree that it inspires delight in you.

    You go on to say that genocidal glee is bad in context. This seems to mean that you value the feeling of delight that the idea of genocide inspires in you but in practice (any actual context) would be bad. This can only mean that you know that genocide is immoral and that it would be bad to practice because it's immoral or because society (other minds) consider it unacceptable and do not delight in the idea or practice of it.     — praxis

    Not about Hitler. He was just there as an illustration. It could have been Genghis Khan or some schizophrenic. People do have, and have had, pleasurable feeling doing harm to others. That is it.

    No, I am not saying his "genocidal" glee is good. Careful, lest you misconstruct the idea: Glee is a feeling that is what it is in all cases, hence the genereal concept. A child's glee, my glee when I see a friend, Hitler's glee when he eradicates those who he thinks interfere with his perfect world. Glee as such is just what it is, just as reason is what it is, not contingent on this or that problem solving. Modus ponens is the same essential logic whether Hitler uses it for more effective extermination techniques or Santa uses it to improve present delivery.

    The unacceptableness remains the same. No one is arguing otherwise. But the question here is metaethical: what is the Good? and what is the Bad? in ethical matters. Moore thought the Good, qua phenomenon, to be a non natural quality: look at the pain and you can identify it as a fact and you can crowd the matter with explanatory context with talk about neuronal connectivity, C fibers firing, and so forth. But the pain as such, as it appears is irreducible. Here, we witness the Bad, the ethicall bad (not like a bad couch, e.g.).
    This is how I am treating glee: Prior to entangled talk about the Third Reich, there is the more basic analysis of the phenomenon itself. Entanglements come after, and THEN we see the basis for condemnation. Oh! You mean glee that is about torture and murder!!!! That makes the case ethical.
  • The definition of art
    I meant the context of the use of the word, "art".

    For Nietzsche, we ourselves are the work of art, the challenge being to become conscious of this.

    What was it for Heidegger? A fusion of purpose and matter?

    I read once that philosophers usually write simplified synopses of their ideas when they talk about art. I wonder why?     — frank
    Yes, he talk like that, I read. I have always thought N had to spend his life struggling, literally. Nothing but miserable health, and he had to overcome these to even write at all. Thus, we get overcoming as a principle theme. He had to "make" himself where others could relax.
    Heidegger is too difficult to talk about causally. There is The Origin of the Work of Art and Question Concerning Technology that both come to mind. I'm reading Karsten Harries Art Matters that focuses on Heidegger's Origin. WIsh I could send it to you to talk about it. There is a strain of Hegel that runs through his thinking that says the art world has reached its end, and has divided: there is the disclosure of truth through art, then there is, well, Kitchy, ornamental, decorative aesthetic. Hegel though art had reached its end and can no longer contain spirit, having reached the length of its finitude. "Modern" art loses its spiritual dimension. Talking here about Renaissance art, genre painting and the absence of religious themes. Heidegger is not religious but does see modern art (here, early 20th century. Very erratic, scattered) as having lost something, just as he thinks WE, human dasein, gets lost in its own trivialities.
    Purpose and matter? I's have to go back and read what he said about those Van Gogh shoes.
  • The definition of art
    Analysis is about making sense, not nonsense. — praxis

    Vague reply. Don't be shy, tell me what you think in more detail.
  • The definition of art
    It is specifically self organization - mind activity is always self organization. Consciousness is an evolving process of self organization. But the next question will be - what is self organization? This I don't know exactly, but it is the thing that causes the self assembly of everything in the universe. Ultimately this is what art is expressing. — Pop

    I have to disagree. The next question is not, what is self organization? It is, what is it IN self organization that makes art, art? It is not as if art AS cognition is art. Art as cognition is thought, concepts, propositions, meaning in connotation, denotation, (not to forget, deference and difference) and so on. I know my cat is on the sofa. I would claim this propositional knowing in the act of thinking it is inherently aesthetic, but AS cognition simpliciter, in the singular analysis of what a concept is, it is not aesthetic. This analytic treatment is abstract, of course, that is what analysis is: it abstracts from whole context to identify, explain, further analyze, a part.
    Experience needs analysis to determine the existential foundation or art, a determination at the level of the most basic questions. I agree with Dewey in a qualified way: analyses like this look to experience as a whole. He thinks this is pragmatics, what you might call self processing information, and I don't disagree. But then he makes the critical move toward the aesthetic IN experience. You are not willing to this, it seems.
  • The definition of art
    I think this point will make more sense to people who are into conceptual art. "Art" has different meanings depending on context of use, right? — frank

    I think art can be anything at all. Context of use would be the context of considering the object AS art. Other contexts, like taking the object as a weapon or as a door stop and so forth, are not contextualizing as art.
  • The definition of art
    The thing that everybody is missing is that a definition of art requires the identification of an attribute that is constantly present in art. There is only one thing constantly present in art, and everything else is variable, and optionally present. The constant is the mind activity expressed in the form of the art. — Pop

    But mind activity is nonspecific. What, in the mind activity, is aesthetic? This begs for analysis, for mind activity is like Dewey saying it is all experience. He doesn't do this. He wrote a book about it. So what are you saying it is? Information? Obviously not, for this is more vague than "mind activity".
    If you agree with Dewey, then say so, and then show how you improve on Art As Experience's essential claims. But again, Dewey had a specific idea as to what the aesthetic was.
  • The definition of art
    We tend to conflate what is art with what is good art. I am fine with piles of bricks, unmade beds and urinals... it is art if it is put on display as such. But it may not be good art, which is a separate matter entirely. — Tom Storm

    But what is it you are fine with? I mean, what is it about art that makes it art such that a pile of bricks can be art? This issue presses forth. I say it is affect in art. Take shitting once more. As such, it is not art at all, nor is my pen or my cat. But if we are asked to consider my cat AS art, the context changes altogether. The question that haunts this issue is this "what it is that makes the encounter one of art."
  • The definition of art
    This is nonsensical. You cannot have an out-of-context experience. — praxis

    No. The context is taking up a thing apart from others. Kant did this with reason. It is not that Kant thought reason could be conceived independently of context, but that putting selected contexts at bay in order to give analysis to one feature is what analysis is all about.
  • The definition of art
    Also as RussellA has pointed out aesthetics do not reside in the art work itself, but in the interaction
    of art work and observer - they are the result of this experience. You can not define this experience - ever. True it always exists, but it does nor exist in any constant way. Hence art that is beautiful to one person, can be ugly to the next. What is a urinal in one era, is great art in the next.     — Pop

    I am going to take issue with this. What you cannot define is emotion, affect. This is a given, irreducible. But even if we are willing to call the significant aesthetic affect, then we can at least rule out, not that anything can be art, but what it is IN the art that makes it art, which is, as I see it, the point. Shitting can be art, I think Dewey would have to admit, because the act of shitting and the follow through is learned, and as a young child this was a problem to solve, to work through until there was a resolution, and this resolution "wrought out" the ability to follow through with toilet tissue and so on. It is, as all things are, inherently aesthetic, the satisfaction that it was done well, completely. NOT that it is art, because art takes what is basic, like this, and amplifies the aesthetic; but rather, that it is essentially aesthetic.
    The thing that everybody is missing is that a definition of art requires the identification of an attribute that is constantly present in art. There is only one thing constantly present in art, and everything else is variable, and optionally present. The constant is the mind activity expressed in the form of the art.
    That is it! that is all that is constantly present. As we analyze this mind activity, we find it is to do with self organization - the artist makes art in the course of life, and the art reveals their attitude to life in it's form, broadly speaking.     — Pop

    No, no. The mind activity is vague. What in the mind activity is aesthetic? Reason simpliciter is not aesthetic. The aesthetic requires the full experience, and it is IN this the aesthetic is allowed to make an appearance. The aesthetic is affect, though this is not to say if one screams in contempt she is making art. It is to say that when one takes up an object AS art, the screaming in contempt can be art.
  • The definition of art
    You still haven't explained (as far as I can tell) why consciousness matters here? If art is consciousness and self-organization, then what? Isn't everything? Taking a shit is consciousness and self-organization and so is Rembrandt's The Night Watch - reconcile the two for us? — Tom Storm

    But then, and your example is especially telling because it sets itself apart from anything we want to cll art; I mean, shitting and Bach, together in the same category?
    But this is why Dewey's thinking is strong here: Art is no longer "the beautiful" in the modern thinking. Now,maybe it should be, but the art world has a different take. It allows shit to be art, literally. It allows the artist's prestige to drive the value of an artwork. So, part of the the trouble lies in the promiscuous inclusion, and here it is just people and the concept of art in the artworld, and "art" is simply tossed around arbitrarily, giving us this intractable idea of art and trying to endlessly redefine it. Maybe we should tell the the artworld to F*** off, and just because it was Picasso who rearranged a bicycle wheel and handle bars to look like a bull does not establish a new paradigm of what art can be, Duchamp notwithstanding.
    Maybe Dewey is closer to being right than the artworld's aimless mission to make money through the critic's valorations of bullsh*t. Because Dewey believes in the aesthetic as something concrete, produced IN experience and grounded in something substantive.
  • The definition of art
    Right, you appear to be claiming that aesthetic experience or art is embedded in experience, which is like saying that 'good' is embedded in experience. It's like saying that everything from gummy bears to guns IS inherently good, and it's just that in some circumstances we don't realize that they're good. — praxis

    Look at this phenomenologically. Take a simply matter: the gummy bears. How can gummy bears be taken up ethically at all? There has to be some original value that is at stake. Someone must want them, love them, or hate them, is revolted by them. If something of this kind is not there, then no ethical problem can possibly arise. Such "value" makes ethics possible. It is the entanglements in nonvaluative affairs, i.e., factual affairs, that make ethics problematic in ordinary experiences.Value is art is exactly the same. Art's value lies in this foundational, phenomenological "presence" the many yums and ughs of the world. Phenomenologically: take the glee Hitler experienced as he gassed Jews. His glee is as a value experience is unassailable. It is simply a fact that he experienced this glee, say, and by itself, phenomenologically, that is, it is Good. What makes it bad is the context.
    One cannot deny the phenomenologically given and its manifest properties, and it is here, at this primordial presentation that we find the essence of ethics and aesthetics. This essential concrete goodness and badness is in experience itself, and it is what is in play when judgments are made. Again, judgment is a very, very entangled business, not one denies this. But to go to art's and ethics' essence is reductive to the phenomenon.
  • The definition of art
    There's no "already there" structure in the universe that makes guns only good or only bad. — praxis

    The good and the bad is not about guns, but about the bad or good that is embedded in experience. Before guns get our attention as being good or bad, there has to be an experiential foundation of this for the discussion to make any sense. THIS is where phenomenology finds it place, at the foundation fo the given of the world that is always, already there prior to any specifics coming under review.
  • The definition of art
    ... art is not some special feature, or assembly of features, but something we bring into the object as an object, Something, already there, in the structure of experience itself.
    — Constance

    You're making the same fundamental assumption as RussellA, that inherent value exists in all things, which I suppose is some form of idealism.

    All observable things and their features can be art.
    — Constance

    All observable things and their features can be seen as good, or be seen as bad. It depends on what our motivation or purpose is, amongst other factors. Guns can protect us, so they're good. :up: Guns can harm us so they're bad. :down: There's no "already there" structure in the universe that makes guns only good or only bad.     — praxis

    So first, see what I wrote just above this posting. I pretty well know Dewey, though he is not the be all and end all for me at all.
    Idealism? Is Dewey an idealist? Tricky question. Is Wittgenstein? Another.
    The "already there" part of this is rather strong for art. It is Dewey exactly, and I mean it is THE central thesis in his Art As Experience. And it works well because art, the aesthetic are entirely open questions, and they are open because experience itself is open. If the aesthetic is what issues from consummatory experiences, then what it is is going lie in an analysis of this experience, and this is a very entangled affair. Art is difficult to define because of this entanglement, and this is an issue that parallels ethics.
  • The definition of art
    From a Deweyan viewpoint, aesthetic experience, then, has roughly the following structure. The experience is set off by some factors, such as opening a book, directing a first glance at a painting, beginning to listen to a piece of music, entering a natural environment or a building, or beginning a meal or a conversation. As aesthetic experience is temporal, the material of the experience does not remain unchanged, but the elements initiating the experience, like reading the first lines of a book or hearing the first chord of a symphony, merge into new ones as the experience proceeds and complex relationships are formed between its past and newer phases. When these different parts form a distinctive kind of orderly developing unity that stands out from the general experiential stream of our lives, the experience in question is aesthetic.

    What this describes is the consummatory experience, a "real" experience as opposed to some routine, which is the enemy of the aesthetic. Here it say the developing unity stands out from the general experiential stream of our lives, the distinctive kind has to do with the way the aesthetic naturally occurs in experience in the most fundamental structural feature of pragmatism: problem solving. You have to read Art As Experience for this: see his description of the organism encountering an obstacle, bringing resources to bear, finally solving the issue (whew!), then incorporating the new affair's events into existing resources for future ordeals. This "whew" is the foundation of the aesthetic, as it is of cognition and any and all understanding.
    Look especially at the temporal nature of the aesthetic experience: pragmatics is a forward looking theory, and the outcome is the meaning yielded. What is nitroglycerin? It is: IF it is thrown at such and such a velocity and impacts with such and such force, THEN there will be a release of energy on impact, etc. etc. That is what nitro IS. There IS of a thing is bound up with the event, and the successful execution both gives us cognitive meaning, what the understanding really understands is the result, as well as the aesthetic, the ????????? For the aesthetic's "what IS it" is also bound up with the event, and events do not tell us what such things are, like affect, or taste, touch and the rest. They only tell us what will happen under certain conditions.
    Dewey has been criticized: when a boxer smashes his fist into his opponent's face, is THIS aesthetic? But then, this may be the real strength of this theory, because art is, after all, everything, or IN everything, for all things are events. One has to put aside the impossible ontology of presence, just like Heidegger said.
    So anyway, take reading the first lines of a book: what is there? anticipation with possibilities. The writer strives for the aesthetic of literature, and as with all art, the aesthetic is "wrought out" of the work done. Here, it would be constructing a narrative of human affairs with tensions, ambiguities, and ironies and so forth, which would all play out and resolve in, you guessed it, the consummatory denouement!
    Note how narratives that don't have this, but keep the reader in unresolved conflict, are inherently unsettling, the anti-aesthetic: IS THIS art? Dewey would call it anti art, I would think. Interesting to consider.
  • The definition of art
    None of that explains how “the aesthetic is an integral part of experience itself.” In the etymology of the word aesthetic, it at first only meant perception. Maybe you mean it like that? Perception is an integral part experience. — praxis

    Well, as with all things, if you want to get to an understanding at the level of basic questions, you have to ask, what is it that is there, in our midst that gives rise to whatever there is that wants examining? The solid basis of the thing that people are theorizing about. In art, what is it that a thing has that without it, it would no longer be art? We find that an examination of physical features will not do; it's not like asking what a violin is, say, which is easy because the observable features are so clear (though ambiguity can arise when these features are distorted, extended, whatever). All observable things and their features can be art.
    Then it has to be something universal if all things can be that, and universality looks not to the particular object, but what is in being an object as such. Kant did this with reason, looking not at this example or that, but judgment itself, and this goes to the structure of experience itself. Here, it is the same: art is not some special feature, or assembly of features, but something we bring into the object as an object, Something, already there, in the structure of experience itself.

    See Dewey. But Dewey fails to understand the aesthetic. This is what is underdetermined, because the aesthetic is as rich and varied as objects can be rich and varied.
  • The definition of art
    How is a "self" different to one's consciousness? If art is an expression of consciousness, then art is also an expression of self. Art work is information about the artist's "self".

    In systems theory, a self is an artefact of the self organizing process. All natural systems are self organizing, and the result of this organization is the production of a self. A self can be an individual, a group of people like a family, a collective of people - like the characters of this forum - when considered as a whole interactive community, or a really complex system like a an economy. All self organizing systems integrate information much like a black hole, where the information that defines a system becomes more and more dense, such as to distinguish a self.

    In information theory ( my personal interpretation ) a "self" is information about the way information has organized itself.

    In phenomenology, a self evolves with the experiential process, where cognition disturbs the state of a system, a corresponding emotion is felt, and the system reintegrates. A self aligns itself to meet the consequences of the experience - so is the result of this process, in an endlessly evolving fashion.     — Pop

    First, this sounds like some kind of information take on Hegelian phenomenology. Disturbance? Is this meant to be the negation, while reintegration is the synthesis? This is not, of course, at all what Hegel had in mind.
    But really, this about the self is just a marginal point. The real point is your lack of a clear idea of what art is when your whole intention is give a definition of art. You can't say you are aligned with Dewey if you don't think the aesthetic is a concept that figures significantly into this since Dewey's consummatory experience is inherently aesthetic (as it is cognitive. But this is not to say of art that analysis does not have the aesthetic feature as its definitional aspect. Analysis talks like this because its job is to examine the whole and find its parts. Even if it is assumed that the parts as analytically considered are abstractions from the original whole. Dewey holds the aesthetic to be the essence of art. It is the consummatory affect of problem solved, which is taken up and amplified by the artist.
  • The definition of art
    To see something aesthetically.

    You’ve claimed that the aesthetic is an integral part of experience itself, however, which seems to mean that we always view things aesthetically. Clearly that is not the case, so once again I’m asking what you mean by that claim.     — praxis

    But the idea is that to perceive at all is inherently aesthetic. to put this pencil to use or operate a forklift is aesthetic in that the applied skills are motivated, interesting, valuable, and so on. Speech itself is all of this, so when I speak, I confirm an idea and this is not exclusively a cognitive matter. It is real, a meaningful, the taking up of something that was learned, and in the learning, a thing of value. Dewey held that as we live and breathe, we experience the world aesthetically, AS art, if you will.

    None of that explains how “the aesthetic is an integral part of experience itself.” In the etymology of the word aesthetic, it at first only meant perception. Maybe you mean it like that? Perception is an integral part experience. — praxis

    I do qualifiedly follow Dewey: To find the essence of art, one must examine experience. But since experience is an entangled affair, not given to us in parts, but as a whole, with cognition and affect, we analytically dismiss the arational parts, and miss that to do logic or math is to care about doing his, to be engaged fully interested.
  • The definition of art
    In systems theory what is always there - what is common to all systems, is self organization.
    In information theory, it is information that self organizes. In Yogic logic this self organizing element present in everything is consciousness.

    I have said art work is information about an artists consciousness, and I have defined consciousness as an evolving process of self organization. So art work is an expression of the artists evolving process of self organization. This IS the something that is always there. There are no other somethings always there. All the other somethings are variable, and open ended - and continually emerging.

    I think we just misunderstand each other rather then disagree. Perhaps disagree on expressive style.     — Pop

    If you want to describe what goes on in in experience as self organizing, you will have further trouble accounting for what this self is that is autonomously at work. Are you treating the self as something that is its own presupposition? I mean, something that the analysis of which does not reveal something more basic because it is already a singular basis for all other things? "Self organizing" is a strong claim, after all, where did the organizing self get is motivations and contents? There is the counterclaim that says this self is a construct and self organizing really has no self at all. And if there is a self, it is not to be identified with all it does.
    When I talk about always, already there, in this context, what is meant is that art built out of experience, and an artwork is part and parcel of the structure of experience itself. Dewey's key concept is "consummation". A pragmatist, he defined art in pragmatic terms, so the essential structure of successful problem solving yields aesthetics, cognition, affect, consciousness and everything you can imagine. A self IS a pragmatic construction.
  • The definition of art
    I agree, but would add that art usually has a frame around it, or a museum to hold it, a display case over it, etc. Something to hand it forward for the consideration of the audience.

    You can put your own invisible frame around the lines on the highway if you like, I suppose, but then it's your own private art.     — frank

    The way I see it, the pothole in front of my house is a nuisance and an obstacle to my daily affairs. But then, ask me what I think of it from the perspective of art, and I will say, hmmm, let me see, the curvature of the line meets the dark middle, suggestive of mystery, and the cloudy middle a kind of abstract aquatic whatever.....; whatever. I say this is exactly what happens when we see the Mona Lisa. I know I am in the Louvre, I know Devinci painted it, and it is art, so I am there to assess what is before me AS art. But make a print of it. put it on a rug where I feet are wiped and we forget it's art. It's a rug. An intruder enters the house and I grab the rug an assault him.
    The "artwork" lies in taking something AS art.
  • The definition of art
    I agree, but would add that art usually has a frame around it, or a museum to hold it, a display case over it, etc. Something to hand it forward for the consideration of the audience.

    You can put your own invisible frame around the lines on the highway if you like, I suppose, but then it's your own private art.     — frank

    The way I see it, the pothole in front of my house is a nuisance and an obstacle to my daily affairs. But then, ask me what I think of it from the perspective of art, and I will say, hmmm, let me see, the curvature of the line meets the dark middle, reminiscent of a spider's web, and the cloudy middle a kind of abstract lair.....; whatever. I say this is exactly what happens when we see the Mona Lisa. I know I am in the Louvre, I know Devinci painted it, and it is art, so I am there to assess what is before me AS art. But make a print of it. put it on a rug where I feet are wiped and we forget it's art. It's a rug. An intruder enters the house and I grab the rug an assault him.
    The "artwork" lies in taking something AS art. But then the final question remains a mystery: what is it to take something as art?
  • The definition of art
    This could use some explaining, don't you think? — praxis

    Yes, of course:

    All experience, whether I am pondering a thesis,peeling potatoes or painting a masterpiece, is inherently aesthetic. The artist is the one who takes this inherent aesthetic and brings it out, showcases it, amplifies it. Picasso paints the Old Guitarist and what has he done? He augments with the lowered head, the waste of ages etched in his emaciated features. We all feel this, know this without being artists, but Picasso really laid it out there, made this empathy into a spectacle. That is what art does. Whistle a tune and it's catchy. Now let Dvorak take it to romantic heights. The art is always, already there, you could say, in the world, in the interest we take in things mundane or profound, in the tying of a shoe properly, andin the our gait as we stride down the street (but the dancer with grace and expression sets the heart aglow).

    Art is not to be defined not because everything can be art (though this is true) but because everything already IS art. Even the concept and the proposition. Art IS this emotion, this ghastly reaction: Is that really a can of human shit?? (Piero Manzoni). It issues from what is always already there.
  • The definition of art
    Art is an umbrella term,a flexible word for expressions that are beautiful,funny or entertaining. Inspiring racous passionate!

    It's obviously subjective ( as are all things!) But there is a lot of intersubjective agreement. ( for honest people! )

    To say art is information without recourse to talking about feelings and aesthetics is the height of anti artistry!

    The OP is boring,banal,non artistic,the definitional opposite of art! And far worse than duchamps urinal!

    Art is an overwhelming expression of desire and ideology!

    Anti art AKA shit art is science most politics and most philosophical discourse!!! Banal wannabe scribbling!

    Finally,for the real artists in this thread (!!!) there are two types of art. "Cruel art" and FUN Art.
    Cruel art is the bible,nietzsche,Greek tragedy.
    Fun Art is Karl Krauss,all great comics,all great Satirists all Love Poets.

    Scientists,philosophers,linguists,political administrators,academics,keep your dirty definitional hands off art! You know shit about art!!!
    Your expressions and definitions are the excrement of your Soul!!! Passionless piss!     — Gogol

    I rather like what you said here. I think Dewey was right, if you want a philosopher who, though not passionate at all, found out why art cannot be pinned: it is because the aesthetic is an integral part of experience itself. All experience, whether I am pondering a thesis,peeling potatoes or painting a masterpiece, is inherently aesthetic. The artist is the one who takes this inherent aesthetic and brings it out, showcases it, amplifies it. Picasso paints the Old Guitarist and what has he done? He augments with the lowered head, the waste of ages etched in his emaciated features. We all feel this, know this without being artists, but Picasso really laid it out there, made this empathy into a spectacle. That is what art does. Whistle a tune and it's catchy. Now let Dvorak take it to romantic heights. The art is always, already there, you could say, in the world, in the interest we take in things mundane or profound, in the tying of a shoe properly, andin the our gait as we stride down the street (but the dancer with grace and expression sets the heart aglow).

    Art is not to be defined not because everything can be art (though this is true) but because everything already IS art. Even the concept and the proposition. Art IS this emotion, this ghastly reaction: Is that really a can of human shit?? (Piero Manzoni). It issues from what is always already there.
  • The definition of art
    Please! Don't start also! I mean, Pop is a nice guy (girl?) but one pop is more than enough... :grin: — Thunderballs

    You missed the point.
    read on.
  • In the Beginning.....
    With the above said, I return to agreeing that Kierkegaard understood what Banno referred to as "action as meaning" but I don't have a handle on how you are presenting this view of the human condition to bear as a matter of philosophy in the register of Heidegger and others. — Valentinus

    Sorry, but I am having a hard time keeping up with responses.

    As to action as meaning, certainly K's analysis of Time and anxiety makes this central to his thought. Heidgger's ontology in Being and Time centers on this, and in doing so annihilates the present, for what is in the moment of apprehending an object or anything at all is the interpretative structures that we inherit in our culture. This is K, who called this our heritage, advancing a concept of sin that is twofold: there is this "brass band of loud enterprises" that is all culture presents in its distractions and indulgences; then there is Adam's sin, which is without heritage (for he was the first. Keep in mind, K only uses this biblical story to give an analysis of existential sin. He does not believe the literal take on this), which is, as I read him, the simple, primordial, and personal move away from freedom in the eternal present (presumably the existential counterpart to Eden). There is no sin at all unless one "posits" (a term K uses a lot) sin, that is, becomes aware of it by stepping OUT of the blind adherence to the world's preoccupations.
    This should sound very familiar: Read Heidegger on his "das man", "the other" which is part of dasein. It is our "throwness" into the world that constitutes what is good, bad, interesting, simply "there" as a distinct and finite world of possibilities in which we find ourselves prior to any greater apprehensions at a deeper level, ontology. Kierkegaard resonates throughout this. Of course, Husserl before him, then Hegel (see how Hegel, who I think started it all, talks about the "natural" consciousness; put Husserl's "naturalistic attitude" under this, and Kierkegaard's "qualitative leap" then you have traced a major feature of existential thought: this dramatic separation from the mundane into freedom which is not simply more of the same (as analytic philosphers would have it), but deeply important and ontologically significant. (But then how to understand this freedom? Kant, Hegel are rationalists, and freedom is a rational matter. Not so for Kierkkegaard, somewhat so for Heidegger, for, for him, language is the "house of Being" and concepts disclose the world, create meanings and intelligibility. But he would never say, the rational is the real, at all.

    So action as meaning: time is action, and all meaning is a temporal structured event. As I type, I recall how to type with every finger stroke, the meanings of terms in my head recalled;the past looms large in everything I can imagine, for imagining itself issues from t he past. To act is to recall. but (see Kierkegaard's Repetition) is there a way out of this, or am I condemned to be ventriloquized by history? Freedom is posited in the true present, and one is not in the sequence of events but standing apart from them, choosing. (Choosing ex nihilo? Another issue)
  • The definition of art
    Oh how fresh and anew this springy information structure tickling my sensory forms, making my emotion entropy rocketing skinfo high. My emotional neuronal patterns run bezerk when I breath in these moisty misty forms. Whirlings of bloodflows inside me respond intensely to the morning magic sunlight waves entering me through my glassy eyeball spheres. Projected widely and vast over the retina in full formation. I wished I could make all other structures in formation experience the same conscious patterns I experience in-and outside me, my body structure being their willing and voluntary in-between prisinor. O jah! All formations in the world, rejoyce! And be in! — Thunderballs

    Oh freddled gruntbuggly, Thy micturations are to me, As plurdled gabbleblotchits, On a lurgid bee, That mordiously hath blurted out, Its earted jurtles, grumbling Into a rancid festering confectious organ squealer. [drowned out by moaning and screaming] Now the jurpling slayjid agrocrustles, Are slurping hagrilly up the axlegrurts, And living glupules frart and stipulate, Like jowling meated liverslime, Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes, And hooptiously drangle me, With crinkly bindlewurdles,mashurbitries. Or else I shall rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, See if I don't!
    RIP Douglas Adams
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