It means art for arts sake. — Pop

What's the problem with it? I basically interpret it to mean 'art for aesthetics' as opposed to art for profit, or art for deliberate messaging as in politizing, or art for any other utilitarian purpose. Of course, capitalist societies are loathe to the idea.

Your point is still far from clear. I've heard of 'art for art's sake', but I've never heard the expression 'art about art' and I don't know what it's supposed to mean beyond what it means at face value.

We can make art about art and philosophize about philosophizing, or make art about philosophizing and philosophize about art. Use your imagination.
— praxis

So if I was to say the comment you just made is words about words - you would be satisfied? — Pop

It wasn't about words, so no, I wouldn't be satisfied with that erroneous assessment. I could post something about words and then you could accurately say that I posted words about words.

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. — Constance

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.

This is true regarding the violinist, but notions such as art about art are so dim witted! :grimace: Similar to philosophy saying - life is about life, no more needs to be said! — Pop

We can make art about art and philosophize about philosophizing, or make art about philosophizing and philosophize about art. Use your imagination.

The color is not in the object but on the object.
— Khalif

Supposing that humans didn't exist, would the colour red still be on the object ? — RussellA

Suppose that no human ever bothered to distinguish the color of red from other colors. They would need to learn the distinction as well as learn the word for red.

IE, the aesthetic and Uniformity within Variety are both innate parts of the structure of the brain as Kantian a priori knowledge. — RussellA

We all know that people have the capacity for aesthetic experience. Was that ever in dispute?

Remarkably, in that long post you didn't use the word 'context' even once.

Without a definition anybody can just BS about art as they please. — Pop

You may have noticed that people can and often do BS as they please about all sorts of things, well defined or not. Art should probably be the least of our concerns when it comes to bullshitting. The only objective value in art is the skill in which it is executed, if the concern is with value. No one is fooled by an untrained violinist pretending to be a master, for instance.

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.

If you mean to try making sense out of nonsense, we'll need to go back to what you wrote earlier:

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.

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.

IE, in discussions about art, as with philosophy in general, communication can break down when different contributors attach different meanings to the same words. — RussellA

Indeed, you seem to have made up your own meaning of aesthetic.

The aesthetic form of an object is independent of the object's context, as an object's aesthetic is the formal arrangement of the parts within the object, not any external context. — RussellA

I’ll wager that you can’t explain what this is supposed to mean.

take a relatively simple phenomenon and turn it into complete bullshit — T Clark

Welcome to the art world. :lol:

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. — Constance

Analysis is about making sense, not nonsense.

An artist is free to choose the form of their art, including paint by numbers (which I think has been done) but the choice they make reveals their person - it reveals where their heads are at, so expresses their consciousness. It expresses how they think, what they have been influenced by, their attitudes to life - it expresses how information they have been shaped by has formed them - they in turn re-present this information in the form of their art. — Pop

Obviously, a painting done yourself reveals a lot more about a person than a painting done from a paint-by-numbers kit. A dozen people could do the same kit and all the resulting paintings would be rather indistinguishable. And yet any of those dozen could hang their picture on the wall and call it art, and it is art, merely because they've presented it as such. If anyone disagrees and can't see it that way it is their own failing, their own refusal or inability to accept the invitation to an aesthetic experience.

Original artwork can express a lot about a person, including their skill at expressing themselves.

Understanding the background - the context that the art is made in is important to understanding the art. In the instance you bring up, you understand the artist needs to make a buck, and so the work should be viewed in this light. The art is still information about the artists self organization? — Pop

Not necessarily, no. In commercial art, the intention is to express the values of the client in a way that will resonate with a particular audience, for the purpose of making money.

The constant is the mind activity expressed in the form of the art. — Pop

Mind activity is expressed in everything we do, so you must mean a specific kind of activity. Let's call it 'neural art activity' or NAA for convenience. Now if I were to buy a paint-by-numbers kit and I followed it to the letter, would the resulting painting be an artwork? To others, it could certainly be regarded as artwork because it looks like artwork.

You might say that the NAA came from the people who designed the paint-by-numbers kit, but they might have simply used a photograph and a computer algorithm to produce it, and their efforts were solely for the purpose of producing paint-by-number kits and making a profit.

You need a theory that can distinguish things like fine art, commercial art, design, decoration, etc.

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. — Constance

This is nonsensical. You cannot have an out-of-context experience.

The good and the bad is not about guns, but about the bad or good that is embedded in experience. — Constance

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.

People who make claims like this are motivated by a desire to control the views of others, so that they can be perceived as an authority. Creepy as fuck but all too common.

... 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.

when I am in the presence of any object, even though all objects have a temperature, I am not always appreciating that object's temperature. — RussellA

This is a very poor simile because temperature is a physical fact and in that way objective. Under the same conditions, anyone can measure the temperature of an object and it will be the same, though we may subjectively experience the temperature of the object differently relative to our own temperature.

So it's like you're saying that all things have a factually objective aesthetic value in the same way that an object has a factually objective temperature. If that's what you believe, do you also believe that all things have a factually objective moral value?

I would guess that our aesthetic sense is determined by natural aesthetic intuition, culture, and our own individual development.

What may induce an aesthetic experience in one individual may inexplicably cause a panic attack in another. If you've ever had a panic attack you would know just how unaesthetic an experience it can be.

Summary
Every observed object is an artwork and has an aesthetic, but the aesthetic value of some artworks is higher than others. — RussellA

This is like saying that all people are sexy and some are just sexier than others. The fact of the matter is that we don’t always view others in terms of sexuality. When you’re in the presence of your mother are you always appreciating her sexuality, for example?

Also, you say the aesthetic value of some artworks is higher than others, but also say “the aesthetic experience is subjective rather than objective” and “there may be general agreement between different observer's as to the aesthetic value of a particular object.” I think this indicates a few important points:

• Failure to have an aesthetic experience rests entirely on the individual.
• Individual aesthetic experience is constrained by culture.
• Some individuals are more constrained by their culture/society than others.

Why the fuck would anyone want to constrain their aesthetic experience? In a word, because they’re insecure.

Dewey held that as we live and breathe, we experience the world aesthetically, AS art, if you will. — Constance

That is obviously not true, and Dewey doesn’t hold to this. I spent a few minutes reading about Dewey this morning and he appears to claim that there’s always the potential for aesthetic experience. It is plain silly to say that we always experience the world this way.

I can’t tell if you’re having language trouble, or understanding Dewey trouble, or just goofing.

You've never had an aesthetic experience?

So I experience the poor garden. In the most basic sense it could be said that I'm aware of the garden, and that I'm aware of how I feel about the poor garden experience. It is not an aesthetic experience though it could be under different circumstances or if it were 'framed' propely for someone with my sensibilities, I suppose.

I did a bit of reading on Dewey just now since our new friend Constance is apparently incapable of relating Dewey's ideas well. I copied this bit from Stanford.edu:

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.

Are you saying that by failing to experience the world aesthetically we are, in a sense, not fully experiencing it?

Surely you're aware of the poor garden, so you're perceiving it. But in another sense, you aren't seeing it. — frank

I don't know what you mean.

Vaguely.

The "artwork" lies in taking something AS art. But then the final question remains a mystery: what is it to take something as art? — Constance

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.

The way I see it, the pothole in front of my house is a nuisance and an obstacle to my daily affairs … we forget it's art. It's a rug. — Constance

What about your claim that the aesthetic is an integral part of experience itself? You seem to be describing situations where there is not an aesthetic experience.

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.

... the aesthetic is an integral part of experience itself ... everything already IS art. — Constance

This could use some explaining, don't you think?

Ice is just slow H20, smart guy.

… like pointing out that water is not dry. — javra

Except when it's not (as when frozen), of course. :razz:

No-self is just a common term in the enlightenment biz and nothing to get especially excited about. Empty doesn't mean non-existent, or rather it means both existent and non-existent, and neither existent nor non-existent... and I've gone crosseyed. Anyway, I'm still curious about what @Alkis Piskas thinks about all this emptiness boloney.

I’m pretty sure that most Buddhists don’t claim to be their bodies.

What is important is that there is a possibility they actually believe there's a spirit which is connected to a body. — Alkis Piskas

I'm curious what you think of Buddhism and other Eastern belief systems, which have existed for thousands of years, and its doctrine of no-self. They believe that this intuition that you hold so highly is the primary cause of all human suffering. Are the millions who've held such a belief throughout history all deluded fools or are they on to something important?

The global financial ponzi scheme depends on economic growth.

There’s some ‘degrowth’ movements cropping up, mostly in Europe, I believe.

They were generally technical reports. They required as much of my creativity as the poetry I've written did. — T Clark

Cool to hear someone describe it this way, as being creative is so commonly only associated with the arTIST.

Not sure how else to respond to the claim that Theravada Buddhists don't believe in emptiness.

If your true nature is to be a Mahayani, yes. — baker

Theravadins also believe in the twelve links of dependent origination.

What a stupid and overdramatically grandiose OP!

Jeez,some of you need to get out more or look at the considerable motes in your own eyes.

Tim is watching too much TV and consuming too much American media.
Relax Timothy. — Ambrosia

You’ve taken it personally. I wonder why? :chin: