hilosophy of art studies the nature of art and how individual art pieces are evaluated and experienced.
Aesthetics is the study of beauty and taste, though ill-defined. — Lionino

So neither is the study of how art is made, or what prompts some of us to make it?

At this point, for me the most sublime experiences I’ve had of art feel like fleeting glimpses into the nature of reality that a lifetime of philosophical study might never achieve (but maybe it can for some). Of course, philosophy is generally seeking more like the whole picture, rather than a glimpse. — Noble Dust

I think what you describe is what I'd assert is the difference between art and philosophy. Art, or at least great art, evokes, sometimes only in a fleeting way; it doesn't explain. Our reaction to it isn't thoughtful, or careful.

Now I'm inclined to think of this institutional theory of art as in opposition to theories of art which rely upon defining art by our feelings, at least, but I can't say I'm certain you do -- you're attempting to apply the pragmatic principle in defining art, and then offering "feelings" as a possible effect, but would still include institutional acts and effects? — Moliere

It would seem to be an effect, in that it would be a reaction to art, or the result of our reaction to it.

Damnation. Sorry. Well, this way I can claim it as my own.

"More affective than effective." Well put.

A more traditional view, perhaps, but suggestive. Maybe Philosophy of Art is an inquiry into why and how what is shown or is done by artists effects us as it does.

I hate being conventional. But I see what you mean.

Say art is an act, for the sake of argument. Something done remarkably well. Great athletes do things most cannot do. It's not something that can be explained except in a trivial sense; but they posses an ability or talent at which we marvel.

Is there such a thing as the Philosophy of Sport? Should there be?

Thanks. Must read.

Difficult questions, I admit. And very annoying, the more I think of them. Are they the kind of questions Wittgenstein spoke of, regarding which we must, or should, be silent?

Maybe art is something which must be shown, or more broadly experienced, or felt.

Well, we know what Plato thought of artists, and poets in particular. I think he does more to demonstrate the distinction between art and philosophy than I ever could, banishing artiists from his grim Republic. Lucretius was a poet who expressed philosophical thoughts of Epicurus in his poetry. I think it's far easier for an artist to do that than it is for a philosopher to create a work of art.

A philosopher may write a novel, or a poem, or paint a picture or compose music, but I suspect that philosopher would distinguish between them and works devoted to philosophy.

As you say, there's a difference between art and philosophy. Art need not address philosophical subjects, and if it does it's not expository; it doesn't explain. It evokes in a way that isn't prosaic, through music, sculpture, painting, and language which inspires and elicits feelings and emotions.

Consider, though, that if we contend that anything is a work of art if it's done very well (e.g. Grant's memoirs) or that anyone who writes very well is an artist, we may be broadening the definition of art to a point where most any talented person is an artist, and any well-crafted product becomes a work of art. That seems to me to be a misuse of "art" and "artist" or at least an exaggerated use of those words. I don't think it makes much difference to say that is the case only with respect to something very, very well written or a person who writes really, really well.

But I suppose to continue this discussion we should do so in another thread.

Literature, though, can simply mean prose, or writing, which includes more than art. Someone can write well and not be an artist. U.S. Grant wrote very well (in his memoirs), but isn't considered an artist. Christopher Hitchens wrote excellent essays, but wasn't an artist. We speak of legal literature, medical literature, etc., without meaning to refer to art or artists. Literature as art would more properly refer to novels and short stories, I think.

But you're correct that if we start debating what art is, we'll be going on a journey beyond the scope of this thread and one that may never end.

Growing up, art was a talent that came naturally to me — Joshs

I envy you, then.

I'm quite willing to acknowledge there can be an overlap. Santayana's three philosophical poets no doubt address philosophical issues. But I think there's a difference between evocation and exposition. I shouldn't say a philosopher can't be a poet. I know that a lawyer can be one, as Wallace Stevens was a great one, though an insurance lawyer. I find that astonishing and so believe it's very rare, though some lawyers enjoy quoting poets and especially Shakespeare. Lawyers and philosophers are prosaic, ultimately. The creation of beauty is beyond them; analysis is no friend to expression.

I think my request for examples of the great philosophical works of imagination akin to art will go unanswered, and with good reason. As for Nietzsche, he was a cultural critic, and a critic of art, but I wouldn't call him an artist. His Zarathustra is more like one of the prophetical books of the Old Testament than art.

It's interesting that artists have sometimes been called "philosophical" but philosophers haven't, to my knowledge, been called artistic. Santayana thought that Dante, Goethe and Lucretius were philosophical poets, for example.

Art is distinguishable from philosophy because it is evocative, and can be supremely so through the ability of an artist. Philosophy tries to explain, sometimes in dull detail. These are different things. When philosophers try to be artists, they fail miserably because they don't have the talent.

Take Munch's The Scream. It achieves in a single image what page after page of plodding, repetitive, self-pitying descriptions of angst and existential dread cranked out by some philosophers seek to explain and expound on. Take Picasso's Guernica, and imagine a philosopher trying to describe, let alone explain, what it evokes, about modern warfare and fascism. Take Wallace Stevens' Sunday Morning and try to imagine a philosopher addressing with such subtlety and in such a memorable way the failure of Christianity in the modern world and the preference for pagan naturalism which arises in its place.

I'd be interested to know what those may be. But I think it takes more than imagination to create a work of art.

God's teeth. Let's not sully art by claiming philosophers are artists.

I confess I got carried away somewhat.

I was trying to respond to your claim that analytic philosophy somehow nearly killed philosophy by "cutting off its relevance to how people live and what they care about." I don't think it did nor that it could do so, because I think it and OLP primarily address the dissolution of problems which most people don't care about and have nothing to do with how they live, but have become typical philosophical problems. Which is to say metaphysical and epistemological problems peculiar to philosophers like those addressed by such as Ryle and Austin. They're valuable in that respect, and I think the clarity, precision and close analysis used in that task have value generally.

I know that Marcuse thought as it seems you do, but I think he overreacted and didn't understand the focus of analytic philosophy and OLP. I view them as concerned primarily with method.

I think philosophy starting becoming irrelevant to how we live and the problems of living long before analytic philosophy and OLP arose. I don't think that Descartes or Kant, to name a few, have much to say of any relevance to how we live or should live.

As for contemporary philosophers who address matters of concern in living our lives, I'd mention Martha Nussbaum and Susan Haack as among them. The former has an affinity for Stoicism and other ancient schools, and the latter is a pragmatist, which no doubt explains why I refer to them.

It's quite possible for philosophy to address how people live and what they care about without having recourse to the kind of obscurity, and sometimes even esotericism, analytic philosophy and OLP were and are intended to expose and avoid. But in any case their therapeutic value applies primarily to metaphysics and epistemology.

I enjoyed the reference to the "scriptures" of Hegel.

But I tend to doubt that people find philosophy to be idle merely because you find in it contradictory positions. You can find that to be the case in law, medicine, engineering, sociology, psychology; most any human endeavor in which expertise is claimed, in fact.

They may be more inclined to find it to be idle because much of it has no bearing on how we live. That wasn't always the case, and isn't entirely the case now, but I think that would be a fairly common belief.

The general issue then is: are there regularities in nature or are we only imposing them to be able to better plan our lives. — Pez

I wonder just how we would "plan our lives" if there were no regularities in nature. Very ineffectively, I would think.

If this is the issue, I also wonder if it has ever been asked just how likely it is that what is useful to us in planning our lives--in living--would be in some sense inconsistent with or at odds with nature. This would require, for one thing, an assumption that we're not part of nature, or not wholly part of it, which sadly is an assumption that's been made too often with unfortunate results (including the belief that there's an "external world" separate from us). But much as some would like to think we are apart from nature, I fear we're a part of it like everything else. And as parts of nature we interact with the rest of it necessarily, are formed by the rest of it and form the rest of it as well in some respects as part of that interaction.

This thread is just a dream. Do not trouble to respond, folks. — unenlightened

More a disturbingly recurring nightmare, surely. Sorry for calling you "Shirley."

Sorry, that You can see these questions as mere 'maundering'. I am interested in serious discussion, so, if You can, come up with something less idle talk. — Pez

Ah, but I am serious and I ask a serious question: How have a serious discussion over something (like Kant's thing-in-itself, or Hume on causation) which our conduct demonstrates we don't take seriously? And indeed something which there is no reason to take seriously during the course of our lives?

From the standpoint of our conduct, we never normally think or act as if what we interact with all the time isn't what we think it to be or use it as, except in extraordinary circumstances. So, I didn't wonder what my car really is when I drove to the office this morning, neither did I wonder whether it is something like a car, which does just what a car does, but is something different from a car, which cannot be ascertained.

From the philosophical standpoint, Kant's "thing" (for example) is a perfect example of a "difference which makes no difference" to paraphrase Wild Bill James, or somebody. Peirce admired Kant, but knew maunderings (slow, idle wanderings) when he saw them. So, according to Peirce: "The Ding an sich...can neither be indicated nor found. Consequently, no proposition can refer to it, and nothing true or false can be predicated of it. Therefore, all reference to it must be thrown out as meaningless surplusage."

So, let's just agree that you take seriously what I don't as respects Kant and Hume.

But though I understand civil law quite well, at least as someone who has practiced it for many years, and you seem interested in it and whether it has any relation to natural law, I suspect the views of a mere lawyer wouldn't be welcome in that discussion either.

I tend to look at maunderings of these kinds as a kind of affectation, or residue of the belief that the only true knowledge is absolute, certain knowledge which we poor humans cannot obtain, because we're humans and not something else, often God, but in any case something that isn't human. So we forever remain "only human" and thus inferior beings to thinkers of this kind. But if they're correct true knowledge and certainty, if there are such things, are unattainable and simply irrelevant. Much like Kant and Hume themselves in certain respects.

Acceptance of the lack of certainty, and the lack of any need for it, alters the conception of natural law. The most interesting view of natural law I've come across is the "evolutionary view" of natural law favored by C.S. Peirce. It happens that the universe evolved the way it did, and as a consequence certain "habits" developed on which we can rely (statistically, but not as absolute laws), but in other respects the universe remains subject to inquiry and undetermined.

How many, and which, acts are involved depends on what one is doing with the description... — Banno

I'm late to this (language?) game.

But I'd say it more properly has to do with context. "I promise" may create a contract, for example. What the act is depends on what it's for, in a given set of circumstances.

Stoicism appeals to me because of its simplicity. No visions, no frenzy, no ennui; a simple and sensible acknowledgement of the folly of disturbing yourself with matters over which you have no control, and determination to govern yourself instead of trying to govern others, or events.

I wonder whether any of this amounts to more than the not very profound claim that we're human beings, and interact with our environment as human beings do.

Should we ditch Stoicism or the descriptor of "Stoic" or Epicureanism and the descriptor of "Epicurean" for similar reasons? — schopenhauer1

I don't know. It may be too late for that. They seem to be far older than philosophical pessimism. But Stoicism has also been called "Zenoism" or "Zenonism" after the school's founder, Zeno of Citium, and I'm not adverse to calling it either one of those names if it pleases you.

Right, but I guess I am perplexed because no one (Ligotti or I at least) is saying that you can't make a "the worst" anticipation of a negative outcome without "making a general judgement regarding life or the world"... So I am not sure what it is this straw man you are arguing against, as no one as I see it, is claiming thus. — schopenhauer1

I think the fact a word like "pessimism" means something in ordinary discourse makes its use to describe a philosophical position inadvisable, as confusing, but say no more than that regarding philosophical pessimism at this time. In other words, I think "pessimism" as it's apparently used in philosophy is something of a misnomer. That I'm not a philosophical pessimist should be obvious, and I think I've said why that's the case already.

To mix the two up would be intentional for rhetorical purposes in a debate to deny Pessimism its proper place in philosophy, or it is simply ignorance of the difference. Which is it for you? Or am I missing what you have done here in your mixing the two? — schopenhauer1

I didn't think I was mixing them. I merely say that "pessimism" as I understand it, as I would use it in a sentence, isn't "philosophical pessimism" as I understand it. One can anticipate negative outcomes, or think that "the worst" will more likely happen than not, without making a general judgment regarding life or the world. I don't question whether there's such a thing as "philosophical pessimism."

I tend to interpret "pessimist" and "optimist" according to their more common, less philosophical, meanings. I think I can be called a pessimist because I don't expect a good, or the best, result in practical matters of the world, nor do I expect the best of people in such matters. Years of practicing law and seeing the mess we can make of matters and each other may have contributed to the development of that point of view. But this is a view of people and what to expect of them. It's not something which constitutes a view of the greater world. I'm not "pessimistic" regarding the world; I don't think it will act in its own self-interest, or is lazy, or malicious, or inclined to act badly--those are human attributes.

Not everything. Just the parts that are smug and parochial.

My point is simply that the Crusades were holy wars waged in the name of God, like jihad, and the crusaders were promised heaven if they died while waging war, as it seems jihadists are promised. I don't consider holy war, killing in the name of God, "noble and good", regardless of the God invoked, but you are of course free to do so. I think war fought for reasons of religion disturbing.

Urban II called for the freeing of the Holy Sepulchre from the infidels, and offered the remission of sins to those who died while partipating in the Crusades. That sounds rather like a holy war to me.

No doubt other factors played a part in fostering the crusades But if you think jihad is motivated solely by the desire to kill Christians, I think you're mistaken.

Not bandits, but the entire army of the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople instead of proceeding to Jeusalem, together with the fleet of Venice. Those Crusaders backed a rival of the emperor ruling at that time, who it was hoped would be more cooperative and would pay a large sum to the Crusading army. It was also hoped that the Eastern Church would acknowledge the Pope as the head of the Christian Church. Payment wasn't forthcoming and there was no unification of the Churches.The sack was so violent and destructive Constantinople never recovered, and was eventually conquered by the Ottomans.

I assumed you were referring to what philosophers have called "the external world" (those parts of the world we interact with everyday), not the entire world or the entire universe.

Indeed I have. The most popular if one can call it that, and successful of them, the Third Crusade, is of course a favorite as it featured Richard the Lionhearted, Philip Augustus, Frederick Barbarossa (who drowned in a river on the way) and Saladin. It has made for fun movies, and Romances. But after the Pontifex Maximus, Urban II, proclaimed Deus Vult! there followed two centuries of mayhem as various and sundry Europeans invaded and wrecked havoc in the Holy Land and beyond. They even sacked Constantinople, though it was a "Christian" city.

Thinking something, as an idea, under certain concepts. concept-ualise. I take this to mean a something made into an intellectual intuition by way of concepts. — AmadeusD

And in what way is this supposed to differ from experiencing the world? Do you claim that thinking somehow removes us from the universe?

It seems to me that if we're part of the universe, we think, and conceptualise as you call it, as a living organism interacting with the rest of the universe, necessarily. It's what we do as parts of the universe. In other words, it's a function of our existence and is part of experiencing the rest of the universe.

Or perhaps you think that we're not part of the universe; we're somewhere else, thinking.

we don’t experience the universe, just conceptualise it. — AmadeusD

Oh dear. And what does "conceptualise" mean?

Avowed Christians have been ignoring the teachings of Jesus as stated in the Gospels as it suits them since they were written. But a little history:

Spartacus was not afraid of the roman legions and he lived only a few years before the Christians would burst onto the scene. — Average

He died in 71 B.C.E., most likely in the final battle which ended the revolt. That's at least 100 years before Jesus is said to have been crucified. Marcus Crassus, who lead the Roman army which defeated Spartacus' is said to have crucified 6,000 of the rebels along the Appian Way back to Rome. If Spartacus didn't fear the legions, he should have.

Christian theory and practice seems to have revolved around the persecution they faced in the world for their loyalty to an otherworldly master but they didn't embrace the idea of a Jihad like the muslims. I know of no documented cases where christians waged war against the roman emperors who so viciously attacked them. — Average

You might want to read up a bit on the Crusades.

The claims regarding the persecution of the early Christians by Imperial Rome prior to the reign of Constantine are largely mythical, as modern scholarship has shown. There's little or no evidence of the many martyrs claimed by Christianity, and persecution was localized and sporadic, though a more serious effort was made during the reigns of Decius and Diocletian, but by that time it was far too late to prevent Christian assimilation of the Roman state.

They fetter us with their sniveling. — Ligotti- CATHR

Wow. Even I wouldn't go that far. But I must find a way to use this sentence in court. It's marvelous.

Maybe the ancients were wiser than we are.
— Ciceronianus

The more I read and the more I live the more I am convinced of that. Or perhaps it is survivorship bias. — Lionino

Perhaps. But I think that "what is the meaning of life?" is a question which wasn't asked antiquity in the sense it's asked now because it arises in the modern sense due to the "triumph" of Christianity, which effectively (though not immediately) extinguished the ancient world. With Christianity (and perhaps monotheism in general) came the belief that we're made for a particular purpose, associated with God/Christ. Thus, the old Baltimore Catechism of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, on which I was raised, provided a simple answer:

Q. Why did God make you?
A. God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him for ever in heaven.
Q. What must we do to save our souls?
A. To save our souls, we must worship God by faith, hope, and charity; that is, we must believe in Him, hope in
Him, and love Him with all our heart.

There you have it. The meaning of life is clear. What happens, though, when that God no longer serves, as began to be the case for many from roughly the 17th century and continues for many now? There must be some other "meaning of life" to take its place, and so we seek an answer to the question,

This of course relates to the history Europe and where Christianity and monotheism extended, not to the East, of which I know very little.