when it comes to judging an artist's skill, the opinion of nonartist matters little to none. — Merkwurdichliebe

You do not need a special education to appreciate art, but you do need one to truly appreciate the skill it takes to produce a high quality artwork. — Merkwurdichliebe

I don't think either of these is true.

I agree with what you've written.

What is "'Artsy Fartsy?" — Jackson

I already edited that. I'm trying to be a kinder, gentler philosopher.

No, happens all the time. Like dumb people who looked at Picasso and thought a child could do it. — Jackson

I know non-artists, non-art aficionados, just regular old people who, the first time they saw a cubist painting were completely blown away. That says more for an artist than if another artist or an art critic likes it.

Regarding varying genres and styles, there are universal design principles that can be found as a common thread in all great works of art (regardless of genre or style), so we do indeed have a criterion upon which we can judge genres against each other. — Merkwurdichliebe

It would be helpful if you can give some examples of the universal design principles.

Edit - I see you provided some examples previously. Thanks.

For artists, one of the primary goals is to be recognized for their skill by their artistic peers. I would venture to say that art is something quite different for the artist than it is for nonartists. — Merkwurdichliebe

Unless something is screwy, an artist's primary audience is not other artists. I would say the significance of an artist is not his impact on them. Perhaps what's different about how artists see other artists work and how a regular person does is like wine tasting. When you taste the wine do you tell people about the traces of plum and rosemary with an aftertaste of licorice and pomegranate or do you say "That's a really nice wine?" If you need some sort of special education to appreciate a work of art, it's useless.

Sorry, @Noble Dust, I don't mean this as a swipe at your second profession.

Dude, he had some good information sometimes.. and when focused on a source text, could lead some constructive debates... but that guy pissed on everyone when he was here. And I have been here longer than him.. I will give him a positive though.. he seemed to be a fair moderator. He didn't seem to abuse his power.. At least as far as I know from my limited view. — schopenhauer1

Several years overdue. He needs therapy more than any other person I have seen on this or any other forum.

Hope he works through whatever his issues are.

I am just surprised he wasn’t done away with years ago tbh. Being knowledgeable is no excuse for open and untamed bigotry and bullying directed towards anyone who happens to share a different opinion. — I like sushi

Popular in hippy culture in my youth. — Banno

And in mine. I really hated that book. Actually, I hated almost all of Heinlein that I read. I did really like Starship Troopers. It was one book where his fascistic fantasies worked.

I say this to let everyone know this was a difficult decision, made over a long period of time, with plenty of prior warning. — Hanover

I have no problem with the decision the moderators made. I know it was hard. You've all known him longer than I have. I'm just furious with people who have contributed much, much less to the forum than he did pissing on him now that he's gone.

No.

If you want to vent, don’t make things up about me in the process. — Xtrix

I didn't make them up. I mean what I say and I think your words justify my characterization. I understand you disagree.

Pointing out a truism isn’t being dogmatic, nor pompous.

The reality is that you’re upset he was banned, and you’re looking for a fight. — Xtrix

You're trying to sound all reasonable instead of smug and self-righteous, but if you were really wise, you'd just shut up and let me vent. But I guess it's important for you to get in the last word.

So for all the talk about how intelligent he was, he was far from wise. — Xtrix

“Pontificated” is an odd way to interpret me there. — Xtrix

Pontificate - "To speak or express opinions in a pompous or dogmatic way."

I stand by my characterization.

Except for very recently, Street was always a very worthy opponent and an inspiration to read (especially his reading lists). For better or worse, banning him is definitely a loss to this community. — 180 Proof

That’s probably the vast majority of anything ever created. But the point is that the creator likely focused most on one or the other. For example, would the architect that created the bridge have sacrificed the bridge’s functionality for the sake of its beauty? — Pinprick

We've probably taken this as far as we're going to.

I’m not sure where irony fits in here. Sarcasm, perhaps? — Xtrix

Irony - "The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning."

In which case all I can say is: I never said *I* was wise. — Xtrix

You never said you were wise, but you pontificated on another's lack of wisdom.

So for all the talk about how intelligent he was, he was far from wise.

Makes you ask: What good does all this reading and studying do when you’re constantly angry, hostile, demeaning, and vulgar? — Xtrix

[irony]Thank you for your insightful comments on wisdom.[/irony]

The quality of posts on the forum has gone way down over the past year or longer. I could put up with a lot of vituperation if it meant there was some meat to chew instead of the pap we have been getting recently. There are a lot of useless, lame, insipid posts made and threads started these days. Multiple threads started one after another by people with nothing to say. One sentence OPs. People dropping into ongoing threads just to make pointless, irrelevant comments so they can hear themselves talk. The usual suspects making insubstantial snarky comments.

So, I will continue to miss @Streetlight

Streetlight has a keener philosophical intellect and both a broader and deeper knowledge of philosophy than almost anyone I've met. His contributions in that respect speak for themselves, — Baden

I agree. In addition, he was one of the top two or three forum members in his understanding of and interest in science. I always felt like I could count on him to set things straight when most everyone else was talking through their pseudo-scientific hats. I still go back and reread some of his old posts from time to time when I have a question.

Oooo. That hurts. As much as anyone streelight represented what is best in the forum. — T Clark

Oooo. That hurts. As much as anyone Streelight represented what is best in the forum to me.

Banned Streetlight — Baden

Oooo. That hurts. As much as anyone @streelight represented what is best in the forum.

But isn't Collingwood saying that we admire a work product as art precisely because we are so far removed from the practical use of the object? — Jamal

I don't think that's what he's saying. To be clear, Collingwood isn't denying that there is a difference between art and craft. He's just saying that it isn't a distinction that was made before the 1600s. He says that Da Vinci and Michelangelo considered themselves craftsmen. They did not consider what they did art in the sense we do today. We've just sprayed on an aesthetic coating to bring what they did in line with how we see things now.

it's often precisely the perfect functionality of an object that makes it aesthetically pleasing. — Jamal

Agreed.

I think maybe you sort of can, when the originality or beauty of a work outweighs the techincal flaws. I'd put this into two categories, (a) works by great artists who were nevertheless technically bad in some ways, and (b) accidentally good or interesting art made by people who are entirely unskilled and talentless. — Jamal

I don't think this covers Hampton's "The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly."

maybe the proper answer is no, you can't have good art without some kind of technique, craft, or skill. — Jamal

I'm still not sure where I come down on this.

The universe is “set up” in a rather specific way. Do laws and constants dictate the means by which the universe can operate or are the laws and constants emergent properties of a loose soup of possibility that progresses from an “anything goes” scenario towards a “stringency” model. — Benj96

Many of us believe the universe just rolls along doing it's universe thing as it has for billions of years or maybe forever. Then here we come to try to figure out what we should do next so as not to be crushed under its wheels. Scientific laws and models are the tools we invent to help us keep one step ahead, or at least no more than a few steps behind.

"grok" is a philosophical term I haven't come across before... — alan1000

@180 Proof is a science fiction nerd.

Are "reductionism vs holism" really that helpful? — musicpianoaccordion

I was a civil engineer, often a very reductionist discipline. Example - storm sewer design. When you design a sewer system to handle stormwater, i.e. water resulting from rain or snow, on a property, regulations and standards of practice say you only have to take into account the maximum flow leaving the site. That doesn't take into account the time and sequence of flow on your property and in the system as a whole. Result - inadequate capacity and flooding. A holistic approach would take into account the effects of changes in flow from your property on the system as a whole. Problem - it's very hard, and expensive, to do that.

On the other hand, if you are a particle physicist, focusing in on a very limited piece of the puzzle can be very effective and necessary. It's when principles learned from reductionist study in the laboratory or at CERN are taken out into the complex world at human scale that things can fall apart.

Here's a link to an influential article I like a lot that lays out the holistic/reductionist ways of seeing things with a focus on emergence - "More is Different." Emergence can put the kibosh on the idea of the whole being the sum of it's parts.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.177.4047.393

Here's another link to a discussion here on the forum - "Reductionism and the Hierarchy of Scale." Focus on @apokrisis's posts. He has a unique perspective, at least here on the forum. It's one I've had to work to grasp. I'm still working.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12626/reductionism-and-the-hierarchy-of-scale

I’m not sure what these images are supposed to demonstrate. I can see how beauty can be found in them, but that alone doesn’t make it art. — Pinprick

You wrote:

There isn’t, or at least doesn’t seem to be, much personal meaning in craft items like chairs or pencils, whereas artworks typically are designed with personal touches. — Pinprick

To say the examples I showed, which you call craft, don't have much personal meaning seems clearly wrong to me.

Well, what is skill? Has anyone defined that term yet? It could be that skill is the ability for the artist/craftsman to match their ideal concept of what the items purpose is. If the item is intended to be functional, then the final product should be functional and can be judged on qualities like durability or comfort or whatever. If the item is intended to be aesthetically pleasing, then it should be judged on qualities like creativity, emotional impact, etc. — Pinprick

Clearly the examples I showed are intended to be both functional and aesthetically pleasing.

So, a skilled craftsman is someone who makes very functional items, and a skilled artist is someone who makes very meaningful items. — Pinprick

Again, I think that's an oversimplification.

Ok. Now what? Why is it significant?

I think at the heart of the craft/skill/art discussion is meaning. There isn’t, or at least doesn’t seem to be, much personal meaning in craft items like chairs or pencils, whereas artworks typically are designed with personal touches. Artists intentionally choose certain colors, sounds, shapes, etc. beyond strictly what is needed for the item to be functional/useful. These choices metaphorically instill a part of the person into the item. They create meaning beyond the item’s functionality. — Pinprick

Which brings us back to the original question - how much does skill matter in art? If personal meaning is the standard by which art should be judged, then it doesn't seem like skill would matter much.

So, if you just make a wooden chair because wood is all you have available and size it so that it seats comfortably, and don’t add any decorative details, then it is a craft work. Now, that isn’t to say that others won’t find your chair aesthetically pleasing, but that isn’t what makes something an artwork. — Pinprick

There’s also the possibility to have a mixture of both; a functional chair that also contains embellishments meant to please the eye. This is more of a gray area, and is probably determined by how it is marketed or used/displayed. — Pinprick

This is a picture of furniture designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for one of his houses.



For me, this furniture is not "embellished."

I'll come back to this - I don't really disagree with what you're getting at, but I think you're oversimplifying.

There isn’t, or at least doesn’t seem to be, much personal meaning in craft items like chairs or pencils, whereas artworks typically are designed with personal touches. — Pinprick

The chords/rhythms/textures I choose when I make music are in fact very personal to me, without me even trying to make them so. — Noble Dust

I'm stealing some images from "Beautiful Things," still one of my favorite threads after all these years.













This doesn't necessarily mean you're wrong, but I think it shows your view is too narrow.

I suppose it says "in god we trust" because they can't trust each other? — Banno

Nationalist bigotry. To hell with the kangaroos. You're all back on the list when we drop the big one.

you are old enough to remember the "Impeach Earl Warren" billboards. (youth: Earl Warren was a liberal Chief Justice long long ago. — Bitter Crank

I do remember them, although I didn't really know what they meant, being 10 or 11. That's why I laugh at the current pushes to impeach Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. Same as it ever was.

Tell me why. — Tom Storm

There may be a good case to show the US doesn't have separation of church and state, but that isn't it. It's trivial. I think we do a reasonably good job, but I'm not particularly interested in starting a long conversation, but that bullshit reason pissed me off.

It's hard to see how America has meaningful church and state separation when even the fucking currency has In God We Trust emblazoned upon it. — Tom Storm

This is baloney.

As one expects, it depends on whose ox is getting gored by whom. — Bitter Crank

Conservatives feel just as strongly and as bitterly about marriage equality as liberals do about abortion. They said the same types of things about the courts as liberals are saying now.

Thanks.

Sorry, I took that to mean "as of the observations of 1905," not as "only things published before 1905." The attempt to do physics without math was driven by the Quine-Putnam indispensability argument, which came after 1905, but has nothing to do with quantum mechanics or changes to physics after 1905. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I was just trying to get a handle on how most materialist scientists and philosophers saw things before quantum mechanics and other advances were made.

There might be issues with point 4. There have been attempts to redefine physics fully in terms of relationships so as to avoid the necessity of numbers being "real." — Count Timothy von Icarus

As noted in the OP, the purpose of this discussion was to discuss the absolute presuppositions of a materialist view before 1905, before much of modern physics.

@Noble Dust @Tom Storm

I really enjoy choral and some orchestral music. The interplay of all those voices, human and otherwise, can be engrossing and moving. When you have large groups of singers and musicians performing together, what is most important for the quality and enjoyability of the experience? Does the skill of individuals matter or is it only the way everyone plays in the group? Assuming there are no unskilled participants, does only the average quality matter? Can you hear the difference a single singer or musician makes? Or is it mostly in the direction by the conductor?

why don't you put your aesthetic musings to work and join in the short story contest as a commentator? — Noble Dust

I used to love short stories. When I was young, there were many books of science fiction stories that I liked. Somewhere along the line I stopped reading them. Not sure why, but I don't find them satisfying now.

See here for an explanation in ordinary language. — Michael

Thanks.

Similarly, there have been many more technically able guitarists than Frank Zappa or Robert Fripp, but the music of, say, Yngwie Malmsteen and Steve Vai leaves me cold. Could this be because Zappa and Fripp had other skills, not particularly involved in guitar technique, that they brought to bear on their guitar playing (harmonic awareness, note choices, etc., that they got from being composers and having a natural all-round musical knowledge and musicality)? Or do we in this case want to reach for the arty stuff to explain it: conceptual vision, emotional investment, or imagination?

Some painters are terrible at painting hands but great at other things. Can we only say they are great once they've finally managed to master hands?

It becomes apparent that craft, skill, and technique are not the same thing, or can at least encompass a range of different and overlapping kinds of abilities. One answer is that craft (and possibly technique) is the set of traditional techniques that are handed down by training, whereas skill seems to be something wider or more general. — Jamal

I was thinking some more about this. This from Collingwood:

...the picture, when seen by some one else or by the painter himself subsequently, produces in him (we need not ask how) sensuous-emotional or psychical experiences which, when raised from impressions to ideas by the activity of the spectator’s consciousness, are transmuted into a total imaginative experience identical with that of the painter. This experience of the spectator’s does not repeat the comparatively poor experience of a person who merely looks at the subject; it repeats the richer and more highly organized experience of a person who has not only looked at it but has painted it as well. — Collingwood, R. G.. The Principles of Art .

That way of seeing art makes sense to me. Although this is an over-simplification, perhaps the distinction we're trying to make is between the quality of the artist's effort to share the experience as opposed to the quality of the experience itself.

You're just craft snobs — Tate

Whether or not that's true, I think we are getting at in important issue here.