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

Can consciousness and self-organization rightly be called a theory? It seems a bit slender to me.

Seems to me Dewey is saying "Free individuality" is the essence of art, which aligns with my view that it is consciousness, and more specifically self organization. — Pop

I didn't really understand what Dewey meant but I thought it was an interesting perspective given your angle.

You seem to keep shoehorning consciousness into anything before you.

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? How does this possibly assist us in gaining any clarity about art?

:up:

Hmm. I've known a lot of people who think they have lived with suffering and depravation and frankly, their only real problem is a tendency towards theatrical pessimism, a slavish devotion to social media and consumer goods, and the never-ending regret they weren't born wealthy.

Kind of. There's a pretty good discussion of this by David Tong @ the Royal Institution on YouTube. It's calledQuantum Fields The Real Building Blocks of The Universe

Yep. So in the end we're back to that old fashioned notion of personal taste.
— Tom Storm

But now we know what that means? — Pop

We've never not known. :wink:

People who listen to music (as opposed to merely hearing it - another topic) will have recognized that music and the interpretation of music, while seeming at first the same thing, indistinguishable, are two different things. — tim wood

That's a significant point. Interpretations of a musical text can transform it in either direction. I love Richard Strauss' Four Last Songs, but it's the Jessie Norman 1983 Kurt Masur version that really transports me.

The significance of performance/interpretation reminds me of the joke about an insufferable ham actor doing Shakespeare in a theater in a city somewhere in the mid 20th century. His performance was so dire that the audience started booing him and throwing things. The actor turned to them and yelled, "Hey, don't blame me, I didn't write this shit!"

Likewise Rap symbolizes a certain cultural view, but it is not one I can warm to, so I do not listen to it. — Pop

Yep. So in the end we're back to that old fashioned notion of personal taste.

That our myths are fictional does not impact their truth — Hanover

Well it does if you are basing you entire life, and that of your family, upon literalism. No one looses anything if Tiny Tim is a fiction. It's a tall tale. If we lose Jesus, the cost is considerably higher (for most believers).

Those who smugly prove that Washington never chopped down a cherry tree really miss the point. — Hanover

True. But consider the ramifications if Washington himself was proven not to exist...

Also, I don't think philosophy asks for disruptions and upheavals. It's just the task of the philosopher to question. — Shawn

I hear you, but pretty often, if you keep following questions, you end up in potentially unsettling situations. Ask any competent journalist. And, I guess if you are an atheist skeptic and (hypothetically) you discover idealism is true, there's a massive personal upheaval as your belief systems collapse or change. My gut feeling is that although philosophy does not set out to be disruptive, it is pretty much guaranteed to do so if you take it seriously - at the very least, to use Kant's worn out phrase, you'll awaken from a dogmatic slumber.

You give me an insight into your intelligence, your intent, your sympathies, your talent, your demographic, your politics, your spiritual beliefs, etc, etc. A whole bunch of information which I have to interpret with my consciousness, just like a conversation on TPF. — Pop

I'm partly in sympathy with this except that a genuine conversation has more clarity and is an exchange and we can ask for clarifications - art is often deliberately irrational and symbolic and hard to discern. Also, artists can notoriously disguise their true selves behind a wall of craft.

Art is about mind meeting mind, so an expression of consciousness. — Pop

But doesn't this also describe any experience humans have, art being just one of an endless possibility? It doesn't help us understand art in any way as you could use this lens to view even a basic conversation between people.

I really don't think this is true. It's more like an artist's work is like a seed. Something grows from that seed in the viewer or listener. — frank

The problem for me is that this fact is not unique to art, it describes almost anything you care to experience. Seems to me there's no difference between looking at a tree in the twilight and looking at the Mona Lisa.

Art is about mind meeting mind, so an expression of consciousness. — Pop

And then what? What does this insight provide us with?

All you are saying is fairly interesting but what does it bring us in real terms? So we have yet more theory about art - a subject that virtually hemorrhages theory. What do we do with it?

The problem is that Christianity is presented here as to have a "privilege" in intolerance compared to other religions — dimosthenis9

I think you're right. Most religions ask unacceptable behavior from followers and seek to impose their often bigoted and unsophisticated views on the world. Christianity comes up here most often because that's the dominant and priviledged religion of the West and the one that's crashed into us (often to our cost) the most.

But again I agree - human beings don't need religion to be dreadful - politics and business can produce similarly dire behaviors. But the difference with religion is it makes unverifiable claims about bettering the world. It persistently makes claims that belief in god is somehow a positive, transformative power and the evidence for this never stacks up.

Religions should stop playing the morality card and recognize that they have nothing to offer that any social club can't offer too. Although not all that many social clubs seem to institutionalize child abuse and misogyny to the same high levels... but you get my point.

We all know Nozick's experience machine, Brave New World...just because people think they have a good life doesn't mean they actually do. — darthbarracuda

And conversely, just because people think they have a bad life doesn't mean they do.

But could an object have either meaning or quality if no-one ever had knowledge of its existence ? — RussellA

Isn't that just a variation of the old - 'Does a falling tree make a sound if no one is there to hear it?'

Yes. Derain in 1905 created the object Estaque which provides the observer's mind with something to consider, thereby allowing the concepts meaning and quality to be applied. — RussellA

I would have thought that all art effects people's minds when they consider it. There has to be something for the mind to reconstruct.

And all the days of Adam that he lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died.
— Genesis 5:5

Clearly factual. — Hermeticus

I called alternative facts when the talking snake showed up...

- Genesis 3

Summary
For both postmodernism and modernism, as the meaning of any artwork resides in the mind of the artist or observer and not the artwork, and as quality is a mental concept, then the quality of the artwork resides not in the artwork but in the mind of the artist, or observer — RussellA

How do you understand a given artistic work through this position? Does a work not provide the observer's mind with something to consider?

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Why is this so? Why can't the prisoner unshackle and free himself? Why is philosophy still associated with no inherent value, or even more practically, valued so little? — Shawn

My sympathy is always with the folk in the cave. Why would you leave when things are predictable and familiar? There is no great psychological benefit to be found in disruptions and upheavals. Further, most of us are not looking for truth or deliverance, we are looking for safety.

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

It's not much of a mystery. What is it to take anything as anything, as people are wont to do? Humans are meaning making creatures and we like decorative things and we enjoy making statements and we see patterns and meaning in ordinary items. We have a ready facility towards the aesthetic and it takes little to activate this.

:gasp: I'll try to make sense of this and see if I can handle it.

When a guy tells a woman she's beautiful and she either says that she knows or gives an unmoved expression that indicates that the sentiment isn't worth much is this just straight up hubris? — TiredThinker

This is not my experience. Your observations read like you have some resentment towards women.

My first wife was a model and attractive. You never, ever commented on her beauty. She'd been hit on by sleazy men since she was 14 years-old and preferred not to engage about her appearance at all. Worked fine with me. My experience is that attractive people tend to attract the wrong kinds of attention from the wrong people and are often lonely.

I was serious. I'm aware of St A's version of the argument but I have never studied any type of logic. It seems so tedious.

Perhaps I'm the only one, but I have no idea what any of this means.

So I maintain with good reason that there is a distinct difference in kind between how polytheistic and monotheistic religions treat their rival beliefs. — Banno

Indeed.

"I regard monotheism as the greatest disaster ever to befall the human race. I see no good in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam -- good people, yes, but any religion based on a single, well, frenzied and virulent god, is not as useful to the human race as, say, Confucianism, which is not a religion but an ethical and educational system."

Gore Vidal

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

I often find myself making a distinction between craft and art. Is a pair of exquisite, hand made shoes an example of art or craft? I tend to go with the latter, because the experience isn't just aesthetic, but must also be practical and be located in a lineage of other such traditional artifacts. Is a great and talented chef an artist or a craftsperson? We often throw the word 'artist' around as a type of free-range compliment - the barista down the road from me is called an artist by people in our office, etc.

You provided an example already. Women who think Covid vax will make them infertile (there is no evidence for this).

But others include; people with mental illness who think that covid medication will allow the police to control their behaviour. Because of negative experiences with involuntary psychiatric medication in their past.

Aboriginal Australians thinking the medication with kill them or make them sick because of negative experiences with 'white medicine' in the past. Incidentally I am working with Aboriginal staff and elders to encourage Aboriginal people to have their vaccinations.

People with alcohol misuse who believe that alcohol helps them to survive life (they can drink away traumatic memories). Here's the tip - it doesn't work.

All of these appear to be reasonable positions to hold but are ultimately unhelpful.

And people may behave on reasons which are not sound but make sense in the context of survival.
— Tom Storm

What a strange thing to say.

Surely the reasons that make sense in the context of survival are the most relevant ones! — baker

Not at all. People might act on reasons which they believe are in the best interests for their survival. But their beliefs may be based on reasons that are false.

Cool, maybe we'll crash into each other using Dewey as a banana peel...

Incidentally, it interests me how often the question 'what is good art?' is often mistaken for the question, 'what is art?'. It’s as if a work can only be classified as art if it is 'good' - whatever that means. Which is why you might hear some person fulminate about Jackson Pollock - ‘That’s rubbish, my 8 year-old does better work!’ and all the usual inchoate cliches about the decadent and bereft qualities of modern, non-representational art.

Orson Welles, who I consider to be one of the great artists of the 20th century, stated in an interview (was it with Dick Cavett?) that he was one of those people of whom - 'I don't know anything about art but I know what I like.' - applies. If it's good enough for him...

John Dewey has interesting things to say about art.

"Art is not the possession of the few who are recognized writers, painters, musicians; it is the authentic expression of any and all individuality. Those who have the gift of creative expression in unusually large measure disclose the meaning of the individuality of others to those others. In participating in the work of art, they become artists in their activity. They learn to know and honor individuality in whatever form it appears. The fountains of creative activity are discovered and released. The free individuality which is the source of art is also the final source of creative development in time." Time and Individuality

Why default to the belief that these young women are not being rational when they refuse to get vaccinated against covid? — baker

So my quote above was a hypothetical question to Joshs, reflecting some of the themes he introduces.

I don't elevate rationalism as such. The point is to identify the best reasons, not just reasons. This is not always easy, especially in a world of flawed epistemologies and disinformation. And people may behave on reasons which are not sound but make sense in the context of survival.

I find this a really interesting subject and I've thought about it a lot. Once, while visiting a contemporary art museum with a visual artist friend, we got in a discussion with one of the museum guides about what art means. I took the position that art doesn't mean anything. — T Clark

Thanks for the thoughtful comments. Yes, I share Praxis' view and I was just throwing out a quick and dirty definition, mainly because I was slightly dismayed by the needlessly mystifying and lengthy account provided earlier. Second to religion, there is probably more cloying nonsense written about art than any other subject.

* duplicate post

Good or bad, arguments are competitive by its very nature. In my opinion, philosophy is often used as a tool to churn out arguments.

What do you think? Does philosophy weaponize our language to turn them into arguments? Do I have a point? — Wheatley

The fact that this might not be the case never occurred to me.

I'm fond of that 'woman-truth' metaphor as well — 180 Proof

Thanks for clarifying it. It's beyond me but good to know.

Freed from the classification of consciousness, Vaccha, the Tathagata is deep, boundless, hard to fathom, like the sea. — The Buddha

Indeed Mr Buddha... I suspect that deep is a metaphor that has almost gotten the better of us.

"To me the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."
- William Wordsworth

Art is information about the artist's evolving process of self organization.

Philosophy is information about the philosopher's evolving process of self organization.

These are the constant elements in art and philosophy, everything else is optional - endlessly variable and open ended. — Pop

Sorry, still doesn't work for me. There's nothing in the use of the word information or self-organization that informs the idea of art or philosophy. Again, you could equally say that 'all is information about the evolving process of personality' (which seems just as blandly true to me).

But the issue for me is, so what? What are you saying this concept provides you?

I also think there are additional problems in comparing philosophy with art. Can you compare say Rembrandt's The Night Watch with Kant's Critique of Pure Reason? They provide quite different experiences and share no common properties. To say they are both the product of the creator's evolving process of self-organization is kind of meaningless since it provides no insight into the creative process. Seems to me you're just renaming creativity as a process which it already is...

Maybe we can come to some other aspect at a later point. Take care.