Also as RussellA has pointed out aesthetics do not reside in the art work itself, but in the interaction
of art work and observer - they are the result of this experience. You can not define this experience - ever. True it always exists, but it does nor exist in any constant way. Hence art that is beautiful to one person, can be ugly to the next. What is a urinal in one era, is great art in the next. — Pop

I am going to take issue with this. What you cannot define is emotion, affect. This is a given, irreducible. But even if we are willing to call the significant aesthetic affect, then we can at least rule out, not that anything can be art, but what it is IN the art that makes it art, which is, as I see it, the point. Shitting can be art, I think Dewey would have to admit, because the act of shitting and the follow through is learned, and as a young child this was a problem to solve, to work through until there was a resolution, and this resolution "wrought out" the ability to follow through with toilet tissue and so on. It is, as all things are, inherently aesthetic, the satisfaction that it was done well, completely. NOT that it is art, because art takes what is basic, like this, and amplifies the aesthetic; but rather, that it is essentially aesthetic.

The thing that everybody is missing is that a definition of art requires the identification of an attribute that is constantly present in art. There is only one thing constantly present in art, and everything else is variable, and optionally present. The constant is the mind activity expressed in the form of the art.
That is it! that is all that is constantly present. As we analyze this mind activity, we find it is to do with self organization - the artist makes art in the course of life, and the art reveals their attitude to life in it's form, broadly speaking. — Pop

No, no. The mind activity is vague. What in the mind activity is aesthetic? Reason simpliciter is not aesthetic. The aesthetic requires the full experience, and it is IN this the aesthetic is allowed to make an appearance. The aesthetic is affect, though this is not to say if one screams in contempt she is making art. It is to say that when one takes up an object AS art, the screaming in contempt can be art.

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.

The aesthetic is affect, though this is not to say if one screams in contempt she is making art. It is to say that when one takes up an object AS art, the screaming in contempt can be art. — Constance

I am going to take issue with this. What you cannot define is emotion, affect. This is a given, irreducible. — Constance

The thing that everybody is missing is that a definition of art requires the identification of an attribute that is constantly present in art. There is only one thing constantly present in art, and everything else is variable, and optionally present. The constant is the mind activity expressed in the form of the art. — Pop

**The form of the artist's consciousness, creates the form of the art, which effects the form of the observers consciousness, on, and on.
This is how information works - it changes the form of the system it interacts with.

We tend to conflate what is art with what is good art. I am fine with piles of bricks, unmade beds and urinals... it is art if it is put on display as such. But it may not be good art, which is a separate matter entirely. — Tom Storm

But what is it you are fine with? I mean, what is it about art that makes it art such that a pile of bricks can be art? This issue presses forth. I say it is affect in art. Take shitting once more. As such, it is not art at all, nor is my pen or my cat. But if we are asked to consider my cat AS art, the context changes altogether. The question that haunts this issue is this "what it is that makes the encounter one of art."

A dozen people could do the same kit and all the resulting paintings would be rather indistinguishable. — praxis

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

But wouldn't this situation be an expression of their consciousness rather then aesthetics?

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. — praxis

Commercial art is still an expression of consciousness, but this time in respect to achieving the aims of the client. It is still an expression of your self organization, in that this is how you have chosen to organize your life

The thing that everybody is missing is that a definition of art requires the identification of an attribute that is constantly present in art. There is only one thing constantly present in art, and everything else is variable, and optionally present. The constant is the mind activity expressed in the form of the art. — Pop

But mind activity is nonspecific. What, in the mind activity, is aesthetic? This begs for analysis, for mind activity is like Dewey saying it is all experience. He doesn't do this. He wrote a book about it. So what are you saying it is? Information? Obviously not, for this is more vague than "mind activity".
If you agree with Dewey, then say so, and then show how you improve on Art As Experience's essential claims. But again, Dewey had a specific idea as to what the aesthetic was.

I mean, what is it about art that makes it art such that a pile of bricks can be art? — Constance

I think this point will make more sense to people who are into conceptual art. "Art" has different meanings depending on context of use, right?

But mind activity is nonspecific — Constance

It is specifically self organization - mind activity is always self organization. Consciousness is an evolving process of self organization. But the next question will be - what is self organization? This I don't know exactly, but it is the thing that causes the self assembly of everything in the universe. Ultimately this is what art is expressing.

This is a very useful thread. It demonstrates how philosophers can take a relatively simple phenomenon and turn it into complete bullshit. The truly impressive part is that four or five people have accomplished this in completely different ways. I'm overwhelmed with admiration.

What the fuck? Self-organization! What does that even mean in this context.

Meanwhile you and praxis have become enraged over the problem. Really?

I think this point will make more sense to people who are into conceptual art. "Art" has different meanings depending on context of use, right? — frank

I think art can be anything at all. Context of use would be the context of considering the object AS art. Other contexts, like taking the object as a weapon or as a door stop and so forth, are not contextualizing as art.

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.

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

Welcome to the art world. :lol:

But what is it you are fine with? I mean, what is it about art that makes it art such that a pile of bricks can be art? — Constance

This has been answered a few times both directly and indirectly. If it's on display as art it's art. You are being invited to consider something as an aesthetic experience. @Praxis put this well via @T Clark early in the thread. Whether that something is any good is a separate matter. It' s not my job to tell the world what can be considered art. But I know what I like (referencing earlier comment by O Welles).

What the fuck? Self-organization! What does that even mean in this context. — T Clark

Exactly.

Context of use would be the context of considering the object AS art. — Constance

I meant the context of the use of the word, "art".

For Nietzsche, we ourselves are the work of art, the challenge being to become conscious of this.

What was it for Heidegger? A fusion of purpose and matter?

I read once that philosophers usually write simplified synopses of their ideas when they talk about art. I wonder why?

Part of the problem when discussing "art" are problems with terminology. As I see it:

There are two meanings of aesthetics
Aesthetic as a verb means the study of beauty.
Aesthetic as a noun means a particular formal unity of parts within a complex and varied whole

There are two main definitions of art
Art as modernism, where aesthetic form and pictographic representative content have equal roles. An art going back the Lascaux cave paintings and beyond.
Art as postmodernism, where aesthetic form is deliberately excluded and the representation is symbolic. An art that originated in the 1960's.

Art as modernism can be further subdivided into Modernism, Expressionism, Baroque, etc.
Art as postmodernism can be further subdivided into Conceptual, Contemporary, Performance, etc.

There are two meanings of modernism
There is the modernism as an approach going back to the Lascaux cave paintings and beyond.
There is the Modernism of Monet and the Impressionists where the representation was of contemporary society rather than historical subject.

There are two meaning of contemporary
A contemporary artist can mean any artist currently living and who can be working in a variety of styles.
A Contemporary art is a subdivision of postmodernism, where artists from the 1960's onwards wanted to reconnect art with contemporary life.

There are two meanings of "an artwork has value"
It can mean that there is an object that can have aesthetic value independently of any observer.
It can mean that objects cannot have aesthetic value independently of any observer, but only in the mind of an observer.

The meaning of words can change with time
When today we use the word aesthetic, Kant in the 18th C would have used the term "free beauty"
When today we use the word beauty, Kant would have used the term "adherent beauty".

Things are complicated when contemporary commentators on Kant replace the term "free beauty" by "beauty"

The aesthetic and beauty have different meanings
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.
The violence of a war can have an aesthetic and be ugly.
The serenity of a garden can have an aesthetic and be beautiful.

The "Artworld" is not "The Art World"
The "Artworld" has been hijacked by the postmodernists. This can be dated back to Arthur Danto's The Artworld, which gave the "institutional definition of art", defining art as whatever art schools, museums, wealthy collectors and the media say it is.
"The Art World" is the world of most everyday practising professional and non-professional artists, predominantly working in the modernist style .


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

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.

It is specifically self organization - mind activity is always self organization. Consciousness is an evolving process of self organization. But the next question will be - what is self organization? This I don't know exactly, but it is the thing that causes the self assembly of everything in the universe. Ultimately this is what art is expressing. — Pop

I have to disagree. The next question is not, what is self organization? It is, what is it IN self organization that makes art, art? It is not as if art AS cognition is art. Art as cognition is thought, concepts, propositions, meaning in connotation, denotation, (not to forget, deference and difference) and so on. I know my cat is on the sofa. I would claim this propositional knowing in the act of thinking it is inherently aesthetic, but AS cognition simpliciter, in the singular analysis of what a concept is, it is not aesthetic. This analytic treatment is abstract, of course, that is what analysis is: it abstracts from whole context to identify, explain, further analyze, a part.
Experience needs analysis to determine the existential foundation or art, a determination at the level of the most basic questions. I agree with Dewey in a qualified way: analyses like this look to experience as a whole. He thinks this is pragmatics, what you might call self processing information, and I don't disagree. But then he makes the critical move toward the aesthetic IN experience. You are not willing to this, it seems.

Analysis is about making sense, not nonsense. — praxis

Vague reply. Don't be shy, tell me what you think in more detail.

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.

I meant the context of the use of the word, "art".

For Nietzsche, we ourselves are the work of art, the challenge being to become conscious of this.

What was it for Heidegger? A fusion of purpose and matter?

I read once that philosophers usually write simplified synopses of their ideas when they talk about art. I wonder why? — frank

Yes, he talk like that, I read. I have always thought N had to spend his life struggling, literally. Nothing but miserable health, and he had to overcome these to even write at all. Thus, we get overcoming as a principle theme. He had to "make" himself where others could relax.
Heidegger is too difficult to talk about causally. There is The Origin of the Work of Art and Question Concerning Technology that both come to mind. I'm reading Karsten Harries Art Matters that focuses on Heidegger's Origin. WIsh I could send it to you to talk about it. There is a strain of Hegel that runs through his thinking that says the art world has reached its end, and has divided: there is the disclosure of truth through art, then there is, well, Kitchy, ornamental, decorative aesthetic. Hegel though art had reached its end and can no longer contain spirit, having reached the length of its finitude. "Modern" art loses its spiritual dimension. Talking here about Renaissance art, genre painting and the absence of religious themes. Heidegger is not religious but does see modern art (here, early 20th century. Very erratic, scattered) as having lost something, just as he thinks WE, human dasein, gets lost in its own trivialities.
Purpose and matter? I's have to go back and read what he said about those Van Gogh shoes.

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. — praxis

Not about Hitler. He was just there as an illustration. It could have been Genghis Khan or some schizophrenic. People do have, and have had, pleasurable feeling doing harm to others. That is it.

No, I am not saying his "genocidal" glee is good. Careful, lest you misconstruct the idea: Glee is a feeling that is what it is in all cases, hence the genereal concept. A child's glee, my glee when I see a friend, Hitler's glee when he eradicates those who he thinks interfere with his perfect world. Glee as such is just what it is, just as reason is what it is, not contingent on this or that problem solving. Modus ponens is the same essential logic whether Hitler uses it for more effective extermination techniques or Santa uses it to improve present delivery.

The unacceptableness remains the same. No one is arguing otherwise. But the question here is metaethical: what is the Good? and what is the Bad? in ethical matters. Moore thought the Good, qua phenomenon, to be a non natural quality: look at the pain and you can identify it as a fact and you can crowd the matter with explanatory context with talk about neuronal connectivity, C fibers firing, and so forth. But the pain as such, as it appears is irreducible. Here, we witness the Bad, the ethicall bad (not like a bad couch, e.g.).
This is how I am treating glee: Prior to entangled talk about the Third Reich, there is the more basic analysis of the phenomenon itself. Entanglements come after, and THEN we see the basis for condemnation. Oh! You mean glee that is about torture and murder!!!! That makes the case ethical.

Yes, he talk like that, I read. I have always thought N had to spend his life struggling, literally. Nothing but miserable health, and he had to overcome these to even write at all. Thus, we get overcoming as a principle theme. He had to "make" himself where others could relax. — Constance

He saw that in both Christianity and Schopenhauer, the Good is in the direction of the grave.

Consciousness requires the story arc which inevitably contains grief, rage, disappointment, etc. If the production and consumption of art is about experience, then it necessarily centers around evil.

Nietzsche didn't think we could overcome this. He thought we need to learn to embrace it, I think.

'm reading Karsten Harries Art Matters that focuses on Heidegger's Origin. WIsh I could send it to you to talk about it. — Constance

Me too.

Modern" art loses its spiritual dimension. Talking here about Renaissance art, genre painting and the absence of religious themes. Heidegger is not religious but does see modern art (here, early 20th century. Very erratic, scattered) as having lost something, just as he thinks WE, human dasein, gets lost in its own trivialities. — Constance

But the whole time we were talking about how anything can be art, I was thinking of Andy Warhol, who became one of my favorites recently. The actual artifacts he left behind are a fairly small part of what his art is. It's all about the features of mundane experience.

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.

He thinks this is pragmatics, what you might call self processing information, and I don't disagree. But then he makes the critical move toward the aesthetic IN experience. You are not willing to this, it seems. — Constance

Art is an expression of consciousness. At it's simplest, consciousness is mind activity. Although art is not exclusively an expression of mind activity, this is the singular thing we find in works of art - always. Every work of art ever made has to be an expression of mind activity, agreed?

Mind activity is experiential. Phenomenology elucidates mind activity very well. It elucidates how human consciousness self organizes. How cognition is a disturbance in a state, how an emotion is felt due to the implications of the disturbance, and how the state reintegrates. it outlines how a self realigns itself due to this process, and so is a product of this process, agreed?

So, art is an expression of mind activity, and mind activity is experiential, agreed?

The term consciousness already encompasses the experiential mind activity that composes it.

The experiential mind activity that creates consciousness is endlessly variable and open ended - we can see this in the art it creates - how it is always evolving- with no end in sight. Agreed? So it is not possible to define anything in terms of this, as it is endlessly variable, and open ended! And will continue to evolve into things we cannot possibly imagine.

So we are left with only mind activity to define art with. Agreed?

Hence art work is information about the artist's consciousness - This is all we can say that is. This information is present in every work of art. We cannot reduce this any further, and we can not add to it. Anything we add to this expression is not a constant of art. Only this expression is constant in art. So it is the only way to define art. Art can be defined to this extent and no further,.

Good Art - Bad Art

Consciousness is also about awareness. The difference between good art and bad art is the awareness of the artist. Great art displays an unusual - far from usual awareness of it's subject matter. Great art exceeds the normal expectation of art through the artists awareness of an extra dimension to the subject matter, that normal art does not see. This way great art can result in a shift in paradigm, about it's subject matter. We can not predict what the subject matter will be, but we can predict great art will have a mastery of it, and will provide avenues to go beyond the norm. So it is an expansion of consciousness about a subject matter. Human consciousness exists in a paradigm, and great art is enlightened compared to the norm, and can be a shift in paradigm. This is the story of art historically. This is how art progressed historically, and then post modernism put a spanner in the works :sad: but nevertheless art continues to progress in this way as it is a function of human consciousness, and this is what human consciousness does - it evolves and progresses. How can art not be information about this?

Consciousness is also about awareness. The difference between good art and bad art is the awareness of the artist. Great art displays an unusual - far from usual awareness of it's subject matter. Great art exceeds the normal expectation of art through the artists awareness of an extra dimension to the subject matter, that normal art does not see. This way great art can result in a shift in paradigm, about it's subject matter. We can not predict what the subject matter will be, but we can predict great art will have a mastery of it, and will provide avenues to go beyond it. — Pop

Goodness... Sorry but his sounds like vague and confused thinking. You still have unfinished work in explaining why consciousness and self-organization matters to this discussion since these two things could explain all human behavior. So what's specific about them in relation to art?

Now you talk about 'great art' in equally imprecise and empty terms.

Please provide an example of a work of great art and demonstrate how the below can be applied in our understanding of the work:

Great art displays an unusual - far from usual awareness of it's subject matter. — Pop

It seems to me there are people actually defining art as: Everything, or anything.

It seems to me there are people actually defining art as: Everything, or anything — Santiago

A definition requires a constant. Strictly speaking art can be anything deemed to be art, but to do this would be an expression of consciousness. Of course everything is an expression of consciousness, so it is also a constant in art - this allows a definition of art in terms of consciousness. When we examine what consciousness is, we find we are expressing self organization. Of course, what else could we possibly be expressing?

People can accept that everything can be art. And they can accept that everything is an expression of consciousness. But many cannot accept that therefore: art is an expression of consciousness.

Well, may not everybody is actually considering it an expression of conscience. I mean there are galerist that are interested in some kind of "medium" like doing the things by their own and the artist is just a hand. Of course those galerists are versed in abstract art. I mean I found my self as artist being suggested to act like this, so like don't thing or to take the led. Like demanding than a "real" artist is something like a "medium" that is guided by who knows who. If cours that is not ruling out your intention, or what it seems to me to be your intention. Than looks quite opposed to theirs. As far as I understand you are suggesting that art is something conscientiously done by an artist and is consequently linked to its conscience.

@Pop

The way it seems to me is philosophy of art is in the business of, ultimately, constraining art by defining it; a definition although good to have - we can know with 100% certainty what is and is not art, paving the way for deeper philosophical study of the subject - is, if one gives it some thought, a straitjacket - restricts/constrains/limits/ the artist by having to conform to the definition whatever that is.

Realize that the absence of a good definition of art is because artists have a finger in every pie - no domain of human experience remains untouched by artists. In other words, the so-called artistic license, a synonym for carte blanche, in English, do whatever the hell you want, results in a such diversity in the art world that philosophers of art can't, even if their life depended on it, pin down art, what it is.

Given all that, don't you think it's better not to define art? Why corral artists in the pen of a definition when you could let them roam wild, in complete freedom?