I sometimes stop to wonder why this is my favourite mug or t-shirt or sword. — Jamal

I have a fairly intense reaction to some daily objects, e.g. those glasses I showed. I think they look beautiful. The pastel colors go well with the thinness of the glass. I love the way they feel in my hand and they way they feel when I lift them to my mouth. I love the way I can feel their weight and balance when I only look at them. Just writing about them here I can feel how the glass feels on my tongue as the cool lemonade goes in my mouth. I can taste the lemons. I love that they are easily breakable.

And then there's my New England Patriots sweatshirt which I love because my son gave it to me when he was 15.

What it might say is that conceptual art is a mistaken or ill-conceived separation of the two, that it's the exemplar of a belief in the false equation, art = [craft, skill, and technique] + [vision, emotional investment, imagination]. And this belief could be the result of the inflated status of the artist as creator, which is an ecomonic and sociological phenomenon. — Jamal

Conceptual art can be fun and interesting. Some can even be moving and intellectually disorienting. But much, most, of it feels sterile to me. Lots of head but no heart.

Sorry. Not good with logical symbology.

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. — Jamal

I think that's right. That's why I included all three because I don't think any one addressed everything I wanted to question.

I wouldn't want to say that art = [craft, skill, and technique] + [vision, emotional investment, imagination], because it seems simplistic and reductive, but it might be a way of looking at it. — Jamal

Yes, this is where I came in. My question is can you have good art without good skill, craft, technique. Or maybe which matters more.

Ultimately, in a grand sense, there are no rules in music, whereas something like writing has to adhere to or at least be aware of the rules of grammar. I guess you can argue that in music you need to adhere to or at least be aware of the rules of harmony and rhythm, but I would even call that into question, personally. Music has the potential for reinventing itself way outside of the lines of its usual definition, I think. — Noble Dust

The distinction you are making between literature and music as art or as craft don't make much sense to me. All music has rules. Maybe different types of music have different rules, but still... If it doesn't, I think it just becomes conceptual art, which to me is like the liar's sentence of art.

Cool story. I like the idea of being willing to let good glassware go. The transience and it's relation to your aesthetic appreciation of it; your emotional tie to it...the transience of the emotional tie. Interesting. I need to think about it. — Noble Dust

Sometime I'll tell you my aesthetic theory of Christmas tree ornaments.

Nice silverware and cups are not art, no. Craft appears to be judged more on it's use; art on it's aesthetic appeal. Again, I'm contending that skill is key to art, but skill doesn't just mean technical ability. — Noble Dust

Craft, as an activity separate from art, aims to produce useful objects, which are more or less fit for purpose and more or less beautiful. Art aims to produce objects solely for aesthetic appreciation (which are therefore more difficult to judge).

Craft, as a part of art, is the application of traditional skills that the artist has been trained in. Or more loosely, it is the skill or technique involved in making a work of art. How important is it? I'd say very important, but it's more complicated than a linear scale of skillfulness. — Jamal

I don't necessarily disagree with either of you, at least broadly, but the Collingwood quote I put in the OP set me thinking. According to him, some of the greatest art ever made isn't art at all, or at least was not considered such by those who made it. Here's more from Collingwood:

If people have no word for a certain kind of thing, it is because they are not aware of it as a distinct kind. Admiring as we do the art of the ancient Greeks, we naturally suppose that they admired it in the same kind of spirit as ourselves. But we admire it as a kind of art, where the word ‘art’ carries with it all the subtle and elaborate implications of the modern European aesthetic consciousness. We can be perfectly certain that the Greeks did not admire it in any such way.

The bold is mine. So how does that change things. Perhaps it doesn't for you, but I think it at least puts some strain on Jamal's distinction between craft as work product and craft as skill.

There are paradoxes that are not self-referential. — Banno

This is true, but Fitch's paradox is self-referential. Actually, after looking at it more, including SEP, I'm not sure it is. It seems more like a tautology, or at least a trivial statement, a language game. Calling a particular statement a truth means the same thing as saying it is true. If I know something is true, it isn't unknown.

Don't listen to philosophers.

I wonder if this is because I appreciate the craft, but don't respond emotionally to the art. — Tom Storm

I think the prime example for me is jazz. I used to listen to it quite a bit because there were people where I worked who liked it. I could tell it was good from listening - complex rhythms and melodies and very skilled musicians. People I like and respect love it. Also, jazz DJs are just about the best around. I enjoyed hearing them talk about it more than I did listening to it.

My children were the people they came to be the minute they were born - temperament and personality. I've talked to a lot of other parents and most agree. You can fuck children up, but you can't change who they are.

With other arts it is so variable with different segments. For example, someone trained in classical music may look down on the music of Oasis or Ed Sheeran, for example, but some may not. There is popular culture and so many genres and it is likely that each have different criteria for evaluating skills. — Jack Cummins

Sorry it took me so long to reply.

I think many people can separate what they like from what they respect. There's music I don't especially enjoy listening to - jazz, rap, some classical - but I can still see that it has value and the musicians have skill and talent. Clearly many popular musicians are very skilled, e.g. the Ricky Scaggs song I played.

Even with fiction books there are so many different ways of thinking about skill and technique, with the tension between popular, the many specialist genres, as well as classical fiction and literary fiction. There may be a change in emphasis on technique and skill as more people are publishing their own work online. — Jack Cummins

I often will say that something is well-written but when I step back, I can't really say why. That goes for my own writing. I know when I'm satisfied with what I've written, but I can't tell you why. My own reading is usually genre fiction. In terms of skill, story, and heart, I'll put John LeCarre's George Smiley books up against any modern literary writer.

Now the reason I say it isn't just about emotion is that I can listen to 100 pop songs and none will hit target. But a Waits song will. — Tom Storm

Love Waits. My favorite:

Ok, I think I'm starting to get a sense of "craft". Craft seems separate from artistic. — Noble Dust

I think Collingwood's point is that there are people who don't see them as separate. Or maybe who think there is no art and only craft. Or for whom the distinction never crosses their mind. And while it's easy for me to think of something not skillfully made as art, it's hard for me to think of something that isn't as craft.

I know people that love beautiful glassware, cabinetry, motorcycles, etc. — Noble Dust

I love what they call the "decorative arts." I always loved that section of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Furniture, silver, stained glass, clothing.



Is that art? That's the question at hand. If we use my criteria - art is something presented to be judged aesthetically - maybe not. But that brings us back to my original question - how important is skill to art? I'm confused. This is fun. Just what I wanted to talk about.

I'm not the type of person who appreciates that; I've been a musician since I was a kid, so my appreciation of aesthetics tends to be pretty heavily focused on art for arts sake. — Noble Dust

@Tom Storm wrote earlier he sees good writing as craft. I agree. Can't the same can be said for music?

I guess I do like good glassware. But when I break a piece, I'm annoyed for a day or two, and then I forget it existed. — Noble Dust

For me, one of the best things about glassware is that it's breakable. In order to love it, you have to be ready to let it go. I made a Christmas tree ornament for my daughter. It's a small cardboard box. Inside is a broken glass ornament. If you shake it you can hear the pieces jangle. On the cover is a label that says "Is this art?" When I gave it to her I gave her a picture of what was inside. Now, whether or not that is art, I think it is clearly not craft, except maybe in the sense we mean it when kindergarteners make napkin rings from old cardboard toilet paper tubes.

Fitch's "paradox" of knowability — Luke

How is this any different than the liar's sentence: "This sentence is false?" It's a grammatically correct sentence that no one would ever speak in real life. Or can you think of a reason for anyone but a philosopher, a13-year-old boy, or a 13-year-old philosopher to say or write it. We've discussed that many times here on the forum. My conclusion - self-referential "paradoxes" are just word games with no intellectual or philosophical significance.

I never said that, do not lie. — Jackson

I will just ignore you from now on. — Jackson

Sorry, but I ignore people who think dictionaries and wiki are philosophical arguments. — Jackson

You keep saying you're not going to pay attention to me any more, but then you keep sticking your $0.02 in.

As I said, reducing aesthetics to beauty is wrong. — Jackson

You can make any word mean anything you want it to mean by waving your hand at it. Generally, though, when you use a word it makes sense to use it as it is commonly understood. Otherwise you're just talking to yourself.

Aesthetics, or esthetics (/ɛsˈθɛtɪks, iːs-, æs-/), is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics).[1] It examines aesthetic values, often expressed through judgments of taste.[2] — Wikipedia

Aesthetics may be defined narrowly as the theory of beauty, or more broadly as that together with the philosophy of art. — IEP

dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste and with the creation and appreciation of beauty — Merriam-Webster

I've pondered this for some years. My imperfect answer is that such objects are craft works, not art works. One area where this gets tricky is in what is often called 'art of the ancient world'. Two items spring to mind - an Egyptian sarcophagus made of cartonage, painted, colourful and decorative; and an Athenian painted vase vase. They are both objects primarily designed to have a function - a coffin and a jug respectively. They they are now admired solely for the art they reveal. Are they everyday crafted objects which have transcended their status is some way? Or are do they embody a kind of dualism of purpose - equally both art and craft? — Tom Storm

I brought Collingwood into this discussion because of the distinction between art and craft he made and because he writes that ancient Greeks didn't think about art the way we do. That makes me think of some ancient Chinese writing where they look to skilled butchers and other craftsmen as embodying spiritual values. Since the subject of this thread is the role of skill in art, the question that comes to mind is what, beyond skill, makes craft.

So, you don't care. ok. — Jackson

There you go, being all grouchy and sarcastic and dismissive and stuff.

Oh. Why do you think art is only about beauty? — Jackson

I don't think that's all there is to it, but I think the definition I gave makes sense. Lot's of others don't agree. We've had long discussions of that in the past.

What you do you mean by "aesthetics?" — Jackson

"Of or concerning the appreciation of beauty."

Silence and Beauty, Makoto Fujimura
— 180 Proof

Interesting choice, he was a big influence on me as an artist back in my Christian daze. I still respect him, and his art is incredible. — Noble Dust

I looked him up. I really like the paintings I saw. They all looked like book covers for dystopian science fiction novels.

True, but in classical music, for example, interpretation is so key. Especially in what I consider the golden age, the late romantic to early modern period; the music of that era is so malleable that interpretation becomes everything. A lot of the music from that era is so damn hard to play that a faithful interpretation is just rare. Pogorelich is an example of a master who, in my opinion, played Ravel properly and was able to coax out the emotional content while also being a virtuoso and able to play impossible music properly. — Noble Dust

Classical music was one of the main things I was thinking about when I started this thread. It seems like the place where skill and art come as close as possible. I don't have much to say because it isn't my music. The most I can say is "Me like. Sound purty." I was hoping someone would bring it up.

So if craft is important to you, it's probably because you already like well executed things. — Tom Storm

Can you define "craft"? I still don't understand this word. — Noble Dust

I love bridges. Well-built stone structures - Machu Picchu is the most beautiful thing in the world. 2000 year old Roman aqueducts. New England is a good place for that. I like things that are like stone walls - arguments laid out like bricks to build a wall of evidence. That's one of the reasons I loved "Origin of species." When I write non-fiction, I try to write like that. I love houses. Small towns. Big cities. Things made with workmanlike economy for practical purposes without cutting corners. Structures that grow organically and fit in with their neighbors. Things that are beautiful because they are well-made. I guess that's what craft means to me. I think this is what Pirsig meant when he said art is high-quality endeavor.

For me craft focuses on skill - a work is loosely or strictly based upon a pattern or formula (eg, song writing, journalism, ship building, making a table). Making a pair of boots is a craft - there is a pattern to follow. Some craftspeople go a step or two further and can make a pair of boots a thing of beauty. Perhaps this is high craft, some might even call it art at that level. But none of this is exact and this is only my working definition. — Tom Storm

This gets to the heart of it for me. If you believe, as I do, that art is anything made to be judged aesthetically, how do you classify things that are made to be useful, comfortable, and reliable for which aesthetics is secondary at most?

Let's see. The guy sitting in the middle back with the big wig is clearly Trump. The guy standing over him with his glass raised is Giuliani. The guy on the floor in front is Jeffrey Clark. Not sure who the rest are. I guess I don't recognize them because they all plead the 5th and didn't show up in the videos. I think this is the meeting when they were all asking for a pardon.

that would be no more a simulation of the universe than an iPhone is a simulation of an iPhone — hypericin

A simulation imitates the operation of real world processes or systems with the use of models. The model represents the key behaviours and characteristics of the selected process or system while the simulation represents how the model evolves under different conditions over time. — TWI

You can't get any better model of something than an artificial copy of it.

The unexamined life isn't worth painting. — Bitter Crank

I've thought about this. The only real skill I have is writing, but not the kind of writing that would typically be called artistic. I am not particularly self-conscious about where the words, spoken or written, come from. I feel them coming out. I reread them and see if they make sense and edit if necessary. I don't think there's much examining going on when most artists create. From what I've seen in interviews, many of them are not particularly articulate about the process.

It's not Collinwood's fault that the Greeks and Romans used media that rotted in dampness instead of baked clay tablets. — Bitter Crank

I have more confidence in Collingwood's understanding of classical art than I do in yours.

In computer science it is known that it takes more computational power to simulate a computer system than the computer system itself has; typically, much more. — hypericin

Is this true? Do you have a source for that statement? Seems to me if I could create a perfect copy of the universe, it would be a complete analog simulation of the original and would be no more complex.

I don't think so. Hampton's "Throne" looks very skillfully made to me (I was unaware of it by the way, thanks for turning me on to it). — Noble Dust

Here's a close-up of one part of the sculpture.



I don't mean this as criticism at all, but it doesn't look skillful to me. Beautiful, yes.

I think people apply this fantasy to art because they don't understand art or the creative process. If they did, they wouldn't make the mistake. People like myself have put thousands of hours of work into what we do; years and years of work. This week alone I've spent probably around 12 hours total notating a solo piano piece that's five minutes long. I'm not done yet and this is just the first draft. I'll probably spend at least 5 hours fine tuning it and redoing parts of it. This is just the musical notation, not a performance of the piece. Anyway, I hope you get the idea of my point here. — Noble Dust

As I noted in the OP, my thinking was set off by an example of what I consider a very skillful piece of music. In "Missing Vassar" my pleasure would not have been nearly as strong if it were played poorly. On the other hand, I find this much less polished performance very moving.

Anyway, the point I was going to make before I went on a rant is that I think even art that appears to not require much skill requires more than you think. Simplicity is often harder to pull off than complexity. Simplicity requires a different skill set. — Noble Dust

What are your thoughts on the Woody Guthrie video?

Thinking out loud here (sorry for the spam), I think what's missing is that creativity itself is a skill. Skill isn't just technical competence; the ability to look at the world from a specific viewpoint in order to bring something creatively unique into existence is absolutely a skill; so whether the result is something complex or simple isn't important. — Noble Dust

Sure. That's sort of my point, or at least my question. How much does vision and creativity make up for lack of technical skill

Picture looking around, art is the heat of that moment if, you, the looker, is thinking creatively; so what I ask is the art of looking around?(it can be different). — Varde

I don't understand.

Luck is also an attribute, such as having a good idea ~pop into your mind. Have many artists drew something without prior experience with art/craft? — Varde

I have ideas all the time. I'm pretty good at putting them into words, but normally I could not express them musically or visually. Even when what is in my mind is visual I can express it better in words than in images.

It takes a lot of practice, practice, practice to get to Carnegie Hall--to perfect one's artistic performance to a level where expert musicians and connoisseurs will say, "Well done!" What is true for music is true for other arts; no great novel is a first draft; no great painting is the first sketch; one's home videos will never make it to Cannes or the Oscars. — Bitter Crank

Expert artists and connoisseurs are not the only or the primary audiences for most art. Technically perfect art without vision and feeling are sterile. Collingwood again:

What is meant by saying that the painter ‘records’ in his picture the experience which he had in painting it? With this question we come to the subject of the audience, for the audience consists of anybody and everybody to whom such records are significant.

It means that 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.

I agree with Collingwood on this. I think art tries to convey one person's experience to another. I guess good art succeeds in that effort. To make good art, you have to have an experience worth conveying.

As for this Collinwood ("the best known neglected thinker of our time"), I tend to be suspicious of statements like "The Greeks and Romans had no conception of what we call art as something different from craft." Perhaps, but what the Greeks valued as "craft" was pretty damn great. — Bitter Crank

For what it's worth, Collingwood was a philosopher as well as a practicing historian and archeologist. Skeptical or not, I think what he says is worth listening to.

Besides, we go round and round trying to decide what we will call art. — Bitter Crank711962

As indicated in the OP, I don't intend this to be a discussion of the definition of art.

As an artist, skill, craft and technique are crucial to what I do. Skill helps me realize what I want to create. Craft is a bit of a vague word to me, but technique is an aspect of skill. They're all very important. This is true across mediums and skill levels; to say that these things are important in making good art doesn't mean that only artists with an advanced level of knowledge and experience are good. — Noble Dust

Yes, I'm sure skill is important to you as an artist, but is there art you would call good for which not much skill is needed? I point back to my post on visionary art.

"I can splash paint on a canvas," does not make you an artist. — Jackson

On the other hand:

The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly is a complex work of art created by James Hampton over a period of fourteen years. Hampton made the array based on several religious visions that prompted him to prepare for Christ’s return to earth. His reference to the ​“third heaven” is based on scriptures citing it as the ​“heaven of heavens” — God’s realm.

Hampton created his masterpiece in a rented carriage house, transforming its drab interior into a resplendent world. He hand-crafted many of the elements from cardboard and plastic, but added structure with found objects from his neighborhood, such as old furniture and jelly jars, and discards like light bulbs from the federal office buildings in which he worked. Hampton selected shimmering metallic foils, purple paper (now faded to tan), and other materials to evoke spiritual awe and splendor. — Smithsonian American Art Museum

I find this beautiful and moving.

Materialism was the view that the universe consists in bits of matter banging into each other in a void. It was rejected after Newton made such effective use of action at a distance. What is being defended here might be better called physicalism - the notion that the laws of physics are adequate to explain the way things are - than materialism. — Banno

This thread is not for discussion of the validity of materialism. You guys all know that but you’re doing it anyway.

Dispensing with all underlying metaphysical assumptions is not the issue though. The issue is the consequences of science proceeding from false metaphysical assumptions. So it is not a matter of removing all such assumptions, and proceeding with none, it is a matter of subjecting them all to a rigorous form of skepticism, and proceeding only from those which pass. — Metaphysician Undercover

Seems I misunderstood what you were trying to say.

PS__Why do you limit this discussion to Classical Physics? Do you have an agenda? Just asking. — Gnomon

Have you read the OP? Have you read the rest of the posts on this thread? If you don't want to play by the terms of discussion I set down, you should go to another thread or start your own.

[2] is at the root of most of our interminable debates. Disagreements on the other items may depend on degree of commitment to Materialistic or Spiritualistic worldviews — Gnomon

As I said in my original post, the validity of materialism is not the subject of this discussion. It's purpose is to try to identify the absolute presuppositions of a materialist view point, i.e. materialism is assumed for the purposes of this discussion.

2] The universe consists entirely of physical substances - matter and energy.
Note ---Since the advent of Quantum & Information theories in Science, the physical foundation of the world was been undermined. What was classically presumed to be absolute, now seems to be indeterminate & uncertain. — Gnomon

As the OP indicates, this discussion is based on classical physics, in particular what was known in 1905, before quantum mechanics had been discovered.

Again, remove (6) and there is no need for a first cause. (2) says that there is stuff, so the issue is resolved. — Banno

As we have discussed, you and I share an understanding that the idea of causality may not be a useful one. But still, causality has been an important metaphysical principle and I think most people believed it is valid in 1905 and probably still today. I'm reluctant to take it off the list. As for my new item on the list - Something can not come from nothing - it may be that, if I keep causality, I don't need it. But I still want to, even if only so I can have an even 10 items on my list.

Anyway, we seem to disagree. I've had my say and if I hop in again I focus on something else. — Bylaw

I feel guilty not responding in detail to your post, but, consistent with what you've written, I'll leave it at that.

How can you discuss the viewpoint of materialism without discussing it's validity? In discussing materialism you are inherently discussing its validity. — Harry Hindu

The "Is there an external physical world" thread is in the middle of a discussion of the validity of materialism right now. I suggest you take your issues there.

You missed the point. In discussing materialism you inevitably get to the point of realizing it has no merit. — Harry Hindu

As I've written many times in this thread, this is not a discussion of the validity of a materialist viewpoint.