I think you two are talking past each other because you have different ideas on what constitutes an aesthetic or artistic experience.

Almost all of what I know in philosophy or elsewhere is what I've cobbled together from others, and I certainly don't have the hubris to even try and pass it off as my own. — StreetlightX

Well, Noble Dust, some people are smart bookworms, and others are wise. There is a difference there, since wisdom cannot be gained merely by the accumulation of 'knowledge'. It's also something to be skeptical of that reading alone can produce knowledge.

I hope I never become wise. Wisdom is the mummification of philosophical adventure.

I appreciate the referee-ism, but I think @StreetlightX and I are only talking past one another in the sense that I'm trying to illicit specific aesthetic positions, whereas SLX is only pontificating talking points from his home-boys. Correct me if I'm wrong, anyone. I just want a real fucking aesthetic debate. I'm tired of the lack of real aesthetic debate around here. Everyone's views on aesthetics is fucking poor. Apologies for the emotional response. I'm aware of it, and I'm not going to edit it.

I meant "when has it" as in "when has it in history". I'm asking you for specific, real life examples, not theory.

But, that said, what do you mean by "confessional"?

Indeed. Not only that, but it's easy to judge others as "unwise".

I hope you do become wise.

Meanie.

:100:

I am traveling but I recall Adorno`'s statement in his Aesthetics where he asks who could fail to be moved by the song of a Robin after a rain in the spring. He suggested that the bird is caught in the spirit of its song which we oddly find beautiful.

There have been a number of studies of the song of song birds. They indicate that baby birds learn their songs from their parents and birds that don't learn (there is a specific time period) will not be able to attract a mate. Other studies have followed how these songs have changed over several generations.

I read a recent study of Finch`s song, apparently the male Finch has brain structure that enable its vocalizations these structures are not found in the female Finch. The study suggested that the female Finch chooses a mate based on their appreciation of the song of competing males.

So yes, I think animals like these birds make choices based on their instinctual reactions to what is aesthetic available to them. This is an instinctual process and it may have some relationship to what is described as the aesthetic effect in humans (note some cave paintings in Europe now dated back 64,000 yrs), however no animal paints images like man.

I am traveling but I recall Adorno`'s statement in his Aesthetics where he asks who could fail to be moved by the song of a Robin after a rain in the spring. He suggested that the bird is caught in the spirit of its song which we oddly find beautiful. — Cavacava

:up: We find this to be beautiful; we know nothing yet, epistemologically, starting with this anecdote, about the experience of the bird itself.

There have been a number of studies of the song of song birds. They indicate that baby birds learn their songs from their parents and birds that don't learn (there is a specific time period) will not be able to attract a mate. Other studies have followed how these songs have changed over several generations. — Cavacava

So far, this is an indication that learning a mating call serves the purpose of attracting a mate. Again, there's no evidence so far that the bird experiences anything like an aesthetic experience, as anthropomophrically understood by us humans who have said aesthetic experiences.

I read a recent study of Finch`s song, apparently the male Finch has brain structure the enable its vocalizations these structures are not found in the female Finch. The study suggested that the female Finch chooses a mate based on their appreciation of the song of competing males. — Cavacava

Again, no trace of aesthetics as we understand aesthetics as humans. The female responding to the better male call says nothing about aesthetics within the context of the birds themselves, because there's no way to know if birds have any aesthetic understanding.

So yes, I think animals like these birds make choices based on their instinctual reactions to what is aesthetic available to them. This is an instinctual process and it may have some relationship to what is described as the aesthetic effect in humans (note some cave paintings in Europe now dated back 64,000 yrs), however no animal paints images like man. — Cavacava

How does this follow? I can't see how it does..

If you are suggesting that we can not appreciate animal behavior as an animal appreciates it, I agree. Yet it is apparent to me that their behavior is an instinctual reaction to what they can sense.

All good art is crafted. There is no good art without craft. When I make art, I MAKE it. I get dirt under my nails.
Some of the most "accomplished" modern artists (so-called) have an idea and tell others to do the work; others just drag some shit out of a skip; and others shit into a bag.
For my money these examples simply do not qualify as art.

He's talking bollocks. I don't think he is very bright. slow and a bit confused. Not even sure he knows what subjective and objective mean.
Subjective and object is about relationship. All objects of art are objective in that they are material. They are also ALL subjective as to their meanings.

"I despise a world which does not feel that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy." (from a musician, and also philosopher? Ludwig van Beethoven) :wink:

That's such a poor response. What evidence did you give to site your statements that "birds - and other animals - discriminate between potential partners on the basis of aesthetics", and, again, where in the Prum quote is any actual evidence presented that suggests that animals experience aesthetics? Come on man, I know you're way smarter and well-read than me. — Noble Dust

I could at least imagine such evidence and I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes available in the not-too-distant future. Next Sunday AD. If birds can be subjected to MRIs, PET scans and all those other magic sciency things cognitive scientists are using these days to understand human cognition, we could find out if their brains are processing things we think of as beautiful in ways similar to how humans do it. Then we would have an answer, or at least something definite to talk about.

I agree. But Jeff Koons and co represent what art has become; that art is a direct result of the art that we love. The ever-increasing experimentation of art that began...during the late romantic period (in music; that's my reference point), was inevitable. Musically, it's only logical that Messiaen followed Ravel's experimental period, and then Boulez. We can't really be angry about that art if we love the art that came before. That transitional period, for instance, of Ravel, was a period of tension and a latent emotional upheaval; now we see the results of the exposition of that latency when we see Koons, Abramovich, et. al.

I would still worry that it would be an anthropomorphization. It just seems so obviously, intuitively, absurd to me, to imagine birds experiencing their own beauty in the way in which we experience their beauty. I made a whole thread about that notion.

Non-argumentative, I suppose. It does not try to refute or prove something, it describes and narrates, it offers an alternative way of looking at things. — Πετροκότσυφας

I think the best art (real art, really) is "confessional" in the way you describe it. What do you think?

Always, I'd say. To the point that different pieces of art suggest different understandings of something, the work is done. — Πετροκότσυφας

I'm not sure I follow your line of reasoning here.

What do you think about the idea that music is higher than wisdom and philosophy?

Try to listen to the song while watching the picture.
I do feel like, someone's quoting someone.

I would still worry that it would be an anthropomorphization. It just seems so obviously, intuitively, absurd to me, to imagine birds experiencing their own beauty in the way in which we experience their beauty. — Noble Dust

I think there is appropriate anthropomorphism and inappropriate. The fact is, we're animals. We're like other animals more than we're different. Our DNA is the same and, for those close to us on the bush, our evolutionary pathway is too. A simplistic comparison of behaviors, e.g. sociobiology, where ducks sexual behavior is directly connected to human rape, is worse than silly. But - I look at animals and I find it hard to imagine they don't feel things; some things, not all things; the same way we do.

What do you think about the idea that music is higher than wisdom and philosophy? — Noble Dust

I think its a bit too dualistic to think about these things as separate. I think philosophy and music converge at their best moments. Beethoven's music expresses his understanding of the world and of life. For the record this isn't the exact quote I was looking for but I thought it was decent enough to post. I really wanted to find the quote I think from Schopenhauer that places music as the highest form of art.

I think there is appropriate anthropomorphism and inappropriate. The fact is, we're animals. We're like other animals more than we're different. Our DNA is the same and, for those close to us on the bush, our evolutionary pathway is too. — T Clark

I disagree; to presume that a bird's experience of aesthetics is the same, or even similar to ours seem just as inappropriate. What leads you think that might be so?

I look at animals and I find it hard to imagine they don't feel things; some things, not all things; the same way we do. — T Clark

Yeah, epistemologically, I surely think knowledge is a continuum. But that doesn't mean the knowledge of a dog, vs. the knowledge of a human, is anywhere close to being similar.

It's a nice sentiment; maybe you could expand more on your own personal views on the subject?

It's kind of ugly to talk about art in a philosophical way, but seeing as I was invited, here are some fairly random thoughts...No quote either, just jumping in on the anthropomorphism bit.

It might be useful in tackling the question of what we have in common with animals in our appreciation of aesthetic qualities to draw some distinctions between the terms 'aesthetics', 'beauty' and 'art'. For me the trio represent in order an increasing level of social mediation, and in the case of 'art' an inevitable institutional pollution. So, aesthetics can refer to basic sensory perceptions of form as well as more advanced conscious judgments. It's hard to deny that we share some of this with animals, but we can't readily disentangle the basic sensory perceptions that attract us to or repel us from some particular object or organism from the higher level interference of conscious judgment that we're "burdened" with. We see some harmonious arrangement of pattern and/or colour etc. and it resonates with us on initially a visceral and then on a more conscious level, filters up through us in a way, and we think, "that's beautiful' (or whatever). And so we're on beauty then, a more emotionally loaded term, broader, more personally and socially mediated, more prone to historical trends, cultural differences etc., and suggestive but not illustrative of that base-level harmony of form that goes beyond all judgment. From there then we progress to "art" which is never really "art" until its designated so and has no necessary relationship at all to aesthetics or beauty, a kind of free-floating value with the main criteria being that it be "useless", communicative of some emotionally accessible state, and institutionally positioned either physically or in the abstract. Here we've left the non-human aspect of aesthetics far behind, and I tend to agree there's not a lot of interest we can sensibly say about that (notwithstanding possible future scientific discoveries) without falling into clumsy anthropomorphism. Our vessels are likely too full of the bigger picture of beauty to appreciate the most distilled nature of aesthetics.

I'm reading "seeing the invisible on Kandinsky" by Michel Henry

Because the truth of art is a transformation of the individual's life, aesthetic experience contracts an indissoluble link with ethics. It is itself an ethics, a 'practice', a mode of actualizing life. The internal connection between the invisible aesthetic life and the ethical life is what Kandinsky calls the "spiritual".

Expressing the inexpressible.

I disagree; to presume that a bird's experience of aesthetics is the same, or even similar to ours seem just as inappropriate. What leads you think that might be so? — Noble Dust

I didn't presume anything. I said 1) it seems plausible to me that an animal's sense of beauty might have something in common with ours and 2) there may scientific ways to evaluate the possibility soon.

I look at animals and I find it hard to imagine they don't feel things; some things, not all things; the same way we do.
— T Clark

Yeah, epistemologically, I surely think knowledge is a continuum. But that doesn't mean the knowledge of a dog, vs. the knowledge of a human, is anywhere close to being similar. — Noble Dust

You said knowledge, I said feelings. Not the same thing.

Why would I look at a person and judge she was having some particular feelings and then look at an animal behaving similarly and not at least consider it was feeling the same thing? You don't think mother cats love their kittens? You don't think dogs wagging their tails are happy?