But I don't want to derail the thread. — Wayfarer

You are so proper. Come on... live on the edge...Do it!

This is an old view of what science and philosophy do, harking back to Kant. Popper’s falsificationist philosophy of science is a representation of this modernist idea of scientific progress. With Putnam , Kuhn and Rorty we see a shift in thinking away from Kant toward a conceptual relativism that forms the basis of newer work in psychology. You are reading Nietzsche
as a modernist, but these days he tends to be read as a postmodernist. — Joshs

Very good. Of, course we are debating about progress in philosophy, and I'm assuming a position opposite from your's, but I don't necessarily disagree with the point your making (after all, progress in philosophy could mean anything). If there is a solid argument for progress in philosophy, yours is as good as any. So keep it up, it is a philosophical delight speaking with you. Let's continue...

So then...I see philosophical theories like conceptual relativism, and see older philosophical ideas echoed in them (whether it is an idea rehashed in more contemporary language, or something implied that becomes fleshed out in greater detail.) Now, I will admit that conceptual relativism is a piece of top notch philosophy, and its inventors/discoverers are philosophical geniuses, but I would not say it advanced philosophy significantly. It is basically a synthesis of Nietzsche's perspectivism and Kant's a posterioiri knowledge.

In contrast, look at the supreme philosophers that advanced philosophy, Socrates, Descartes, Kant, Nietzsche. The next tier would include guys like Plato, Locke, Hume, Hegel, and Wittgenstein. After that we have myriad philosophers that would have been included with the aforementioned (like Popper, Putnam, Kuhn and Rorty) but they were born too late. The (so-called) third tier philosophers have contributed some of the most original thought in philosophy, amazingly genius stuff, and perhaps some of their combined contributions have, at times, culminated in philosophical progress, but I would not say that any of their contributions alone have advanced philosophy in any significant way.

If only we could agree about what constitutes philosophical progress? But that would take another thread. I would prefer to digress here, if necessary.

Agree. Andy Warhol makes me :vomit: — Wayfarer

Sometime in the ealy 20th century, the art world fell victim to slave morality.

How has art declined in the past century? Can you give some examples? — Jackson

Popart and dadaism are two that come to mind.

In sum, ideas from the last 100 of philosophical work have made possible entirely new approaches within psychology and to some extent biology. — Joshs

I can agree that those are significant contributions of philosophical thought to science. But they did little to move philosophy forward like the Dionysian. To a much lesser degree, I would give Wittgenstein some credit for making a significant contribution with the tractatatus. But it was nowhere near as big as Nietzsche's. It's too bad Wittgenstein abandoned that line of thought, he was onto something big.

Thank you :blush:

Tell me what you think constitutes the last significant innovation in philosophy, and the most important recent advances in the sciences (not technology, but basic theoretical models like Relativity or Darwinian evolution). — Joshs

Nietzsche's dionysian is the last great philosophical contribution.
More recently, the human genome project was pretty significant.

Methodology plays a major factor. The scientific method is much stricter than any methodology philosophy has to offer, and for that reason its progress is more apparent. Moreover, philosophy challenges its own methods and becomes mired in its own complexities, often leading to mind twisting paradoxes, whereas science takes its method and moves forward, achieving concrete results.

Even if science can integrate phenolenalism into naturalism and give birth to a new scientific paradigm that yeilds revolutionary new discoveries in the natural world, the deep philosophical problems of phenomenology will continue to remain unresolved. Hence, progress in philosophy is not correlated with advances in science.

I believe that the root of our disagreement is that you and I are not reading the same philosophers or scientists. Tell me what you think constitutes the last significant innovation in philosophy, and the most important recent advances in the sciences (not technology, but basic theoretical models like Relativity or Darwinian evolution). — Joshs

I doubt many users on TPF are reading the same material as you and I.

Lets not jump ahead. You have been avoiding the issue I raised earlier.

Husserl, Heidegger, Derrida, Kuhn, Rorty, Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Wittgenstein — Joshs

Name f̶i̶v̶e̶ one contribution from any of those philosophers that have significantly advanced philosophy.

If your position is remotely correct, you should easily be able to name at least one significant contribution made by eight world class philosophers.

Their textbooks are different colors, too. — Joshs

Yes, they are put in separate books for a reason, because they are separate disciplines. Just because a cutting edge scientists is philosophically minded, it does not make him a cutting edge philosopher

Because all these cultural
modes of creativity are interdependent;reciprocally sharing, translating and reproducing what the others are producing via their one vocabulary. — Joshs

But they do not all advance at the same rate. I would go so far as to argue that philosophy and art have declined over the past century, all while scientific advances have increased extensively. I see this reflected in the decadence of our generation, with this schizoid culture whose technology is far outrunning its wisdom.

What is this one vocabulary you speak of?

BTW, what other thread are you referring to besides "Is there an external material world?" ? — Alkis Piskas

dialectical-materialism is a recent one

You would first have to have read and understood these writers, or those contributing today to the leading edge of empirical research who find the work of these philosophers indispensable to their investigations. My simply naming contributions, which I could easily do, would make no sense otherwise. — Joshs

Excuses eh? Can't even name one? Doesn't make for a very strong argument for your position.

You assume science advances but philosophy hasn’t in the past 100 years. I am arguing that all scientific paradigms are examples of philosophical discourse , worldviews rendered into a more conventional language. — Joshs

That is a stretch. Science and philosophy are completely separate. That is why universities usually have separate buildings for each. In your reasoning, there is no reason we cant say the same of advances in art and music or althetics - as rendering philosophy into more conventional language.

So the advance of science presupposes the advance of philosophy. Furthermore, in any historical period one can find cross-over writers who move back and forth between a scientific and philosophical form of exposition, showing the rest of us the relevance of philosophical work to science. — Joshs

No, it does not presuppose the advance of philosophy, because while science continues to advance, philosophy is going nowhere. A philosopher-scientist can go to the science building and make the most innovative and novel discoveries, but when he returns to the philosophy building, they will be covering the same old material as always. Any correlation one can percieve between scientific and philosophical progress is pure contrivance.

Religion is just people's opinion regarding what god/s want. So it is the best and worst of us, just like secular morality. Both secular ethics and religious ethics rely upon the subjective (or intersubjective) preferences of human beings. — Tom Storm

Religion is much more than people's opinion of what god wants. Religious ethics is very different from actual religion. Religion proper is entirely subjective, it is a reality that absolutely exists for the individual, but which is invisible to everyone else. It is hard to talk about actual religion without spilling over into talking about religious culture. But the distinctions are important.

Husserl, Heidegger, Derrida, Kuhn, Rorty, Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Wittgenstein — Joshs

Name five contributions from any of those philosophers that have significantly advanced philosophy. Then we can argue about what constitutes a significant philosophical advancement.

So that must mean there must have been very few significant scientific advances in the past 100 years. — Joshs

I disagree. I would be interested to see how you came up with that meaning from what i wrote.

I just observed that the topic "Is there an external material world?" at the moment of writing this has reached 33 pages and is very close to 1000 responses! — Alkis Piskas

I posted some nonsense in that thread. I think the advantage of those threads, is that it gives us living philosophers occassion to test our understanding of the history of philosophy and retread classical debates. But nothing new comes from it, it is more of an exercise to sharpen one's philosophical acumen.

Science is advancing. This is very obvious. But is philosophy? — Alkis Piskas

There have been very few significant philosophical advances in the past 100 years. At this point in history, philosophy is definitely not advancing.

As for rape pregnancies, what are the stats on that? I'm fairly certain that only a handful of abortion requests are for rape pregnancies. — Agent Smith

Many rape victims are scared to admit it, so the amount of abortionion requests for rape pregnancies will likely be diminished in contrast to the actual quantity of rape victims that would request abortion if shame were not a factor.

Can't rule out metempsychosis now, can we? — Agent Smith

It seems more efficient for the universe to recycle souls than to create a new one for every individual. But, of course, that is assuming that the universe is meant to be efficient in some way or another.

I like the discordian idea that everything is simply chaos. Doesn't matter to me either way.

Any chance to bring back Street? :grin:

I wonder how we could explain talent/gift without resorting to woo-woo like reincarnation/metempyschosis (the child prodigy simply recalls lessons he took in his/her previous life)? — Agent Smith

@Noble Dust already suggested that it is a product of environment and psychological predisposition. I agree. But then again, some of the stuff that is created by the most talented artists with masterful skills, you will keep room for the woo-woo explanations. They are otherworldy.

I have often entertained the idea of metempsychosis in geniuses. I don't puch much weight in speculative theories, but it is a potential explanation for why certain individuals are so much better than everyone else.

One has inborn talent and the other has to, well, trudge through art school. Can you name some artists of both types? — Agent Smith

I can't say I know of any master artist, no matter how talented, that did not have to acquire skills in perspective and anatomy before their work was considered masterful. But I don't know the story of every master artist, so there may be some exceptions. Design skill seems to be the most apparent in talented artists with little to no training.

Between skill and technique which of the two, perhaps both, can be congenital? It's quite fascinating to see a child paint at par with an adult who's spent thousands of dollar-hours learning painting.

Absolutely, technique. A talented artist with no training can pull off the most masterful techniques. In my opinion, it is pathetic. There is no reason a trained adult (even with shitty technique) should not be able to paint circles around the most talented child . But many, if not most, artschools are scams and do not train in any classical art whatsoever. And they mostly produce artists that cannot outpaint talented children. This is the state of art in our generation.

However. What sets the classical laws of art in place?

The philosophy of the time in which they were born sets them in place. Are we philosophically living in the age of the enlightenment where all of those rules comes from? No. So why should we keep those old rules in place? — Noble Dust

Yes, history and tradition. Those are precisely what modernism rebelled against, and I cannot agree that they discovered something superior. We should keep the classical rules in place for the simple fact that it produces superior artists that can transcend any genre. The problem with artists that rely entirely on talent is that they are stuck in their tiny sphere of expertise. It is really obvious how classical training expands the horizons of an artist.

One could argue that these laws are universal laws proved by art itself. That's an intriguing perspective, but how do you measure universality?

Very interesting. I never thought of it that way, but It would describe my predisposition exactly.

As for measuring universality, it would be the principles and techniques that comprise the classical school. I wonder, what are some of the key principles of modern art that differ from classical art which might lend to its superiority? My theory is that modernism diminishes the tools with which the artist has to work with, and produces an overall inferior quality of artwork.

For me the trick is not to dismiss the stuff I don't get as a defensive reflex action. I like much modernist art and most abstract art. To come back to the OP - I am not overly interested in the quality of draftsmanship or demonstration of skills when it comes to painting or sculpture. Skills here don't really move me. — Tom Storm

Aha, so as I thought, you don't like this stuff. In some ways I'm partial. — Noble Dust

I don't dislike all modernism, such as plein air and impressionism, but these genres draw heavily from classical technique. I also really appreciate graffiti.

I am very interested in the quality of draftsmanship and demonstration of skills when it comes to painting or sculpture. The criterion established in classical art gives a standard by which the artist can be judged for his skill in drawing, painting, and/or sculpture.

Most expressive and abstract artists produce no work that demonstrates that they have developed complex skillsets (like anatomy and perpective). Such work is indistinguishable from the most amateurish work of children and rookies in classical art training. I will admit that some of that work is exceptional, but I can only attribute that to raw talent, which is not very impressive compared to the talentless artist that develops the essential skills to repeatedly produce successful artwork, and not by accident.

Skill: Synonymous with proficiency i.e. how familiar one is with the tools/instruments (of art). Requires practice, has to be learned that is and is generic. — Agent Smith

You are always wise

I see how you might argue this and I am not saying you are wrong. I just feel uneasy about saying what is and what is not art - it's a thin line from this to the Nazi's Degenerate Art exhibition (1937). — Tom Storm

As long as you are not a bigoted piece of shit, you can be as critical about art as you want. No reason to feel uneasy.

I agree with the Nazi's about the inferiority of modernism. Broken clocks, you know? But where they attribute the inferiority to an incursion of undesirable cultures, I attribute the inferiority of modernism to a lack of artistic skill in the work itself (based on the criterion of the classical tradition).

Imagine the throngs who would clog up a gallery to sneek a glimpse of Picasso poo. — Tom Storm

:lol:

The real question with such an example is not whether it is art, but whether it's any good, subject to whatever criteria you wish to apply. — Tom Storm

Criteria is the key. It definitely relates to the notion of intention. When a person uses no criterion to establish his artistic intention, we can say the intention was to not follow any criterion, and then we can pass off anything this person does, with zero skill, as art.

I have no issue with such a person making a fortune off of such a charade, but let's not fool ourselves into believing that this person is an actual artist who creates actual art.

On the skill vs. talent debate, I guess I think anyone can learn a skill. Guitar, painting, writing, whatever. Anyone can learn a set of rules that produce a desired result. But I think this idea of "talent" isn't so much a result of some vague concept of being "born with it", but more a product of one's environment, and one's psychological makeup. — Noble Dust

I can agree with that. Environment and predisposition are exactly what comprise talent. I know that in art, the "great masters" all followed certain rules (more or less), and it is those rules that the greatest art teachers in the world today use to teach what sometimes come to be the greatest artists in the world today. Only in the advent of postmodernist and modernist art did those classical rules become obsolete. So, now, in our generation, art requires no skill or training, everyone is an artist and everything is art.

Those articles are really downplaying the fact that a ten year old was raped, eh? I wonder, did they catch the piece of shit that did it, or have they even got a suspect?

10-year-old girl denied abortion in Ohio — Michael

How did a 10 year old get pregnant? That's just creepy and weird

These are what I've dubbed The Siamese Twin Conundrum: Keep one, keep both; Lose one, lose both! — Agent Smith

:lol: I like that.

mods cannot be expected to go through every post of a long term and prolific poster forever; this decision is long overdue, and has been delayed because of the one in six excellent contributions. — unenlightened

What about the zero in a thousand, like most every contributor on TPF , including you and @Baden. we should ban all of us :joke:

Someone besides you has to care. — Jackson

And who that someone is, is very important, wouldn't you agree? I mean a colorblind person would not be the best judge of impressionism.

I had the idea of a shit. I took a dump and it became actual and sensuous. Is it art?

It's the idea made sensuous. That is what art is. — Jackson

It's the idea made sensuous. That is what art is. — Jackson

The idea made actual/concrete/sensual is what I equate to "becoming". It is part of the dialectical process of the aesthetic. But art requires more than simply making the idea actual. It also involves apprehending and assimilating the actuality back into thought as an idea.

And that is where intention and skill come into play with art. It requires skill to make an intentional idea as actual, and then to have an independent audience recieve the idea though the actuality alone... this is art...or at least art done with skill.

I think that is true in one sense, but only if you take a panoptic overview of art as a subject. Given the diversity of the history of artistic expression, it looks like there are no rules. But if you are talking about expressions of particular art forms; Greek attic painting or Japanese art or 19th century realism, or pop art, there were very strict conventions that must be observed. — Tom Storm

I agree with you. Just read the next line I wrote. Like basketball, their are many versions, (like trashcan basketball,) and the conventions for each are more or less specific. The call oneself highly skilled means to have mastered the conventions.

True, there are no rules in art. As the master vilppu said there are no rules, only tools. Yet there are rules for the tools, and these relate directly to intention and skill. Take linear perspective [...] — Merkwurdichliebe

"beauty is the Idea made real in the sensuous and actual world" Hegel, Lectures on Art.

How I think of art. An idea made material. — Jackson

Love me some Hegel. For me, i consider the "idea made material" to be aesthetic in nature (philosophically speaking), but I wouldn't classify every "idea made material" as art. I personally do not consider trashcan basketball as true basketball, even though they are identical in all the right ways.

I consider this talented guitar playing; it doesn't require that much skill though. It's probably my favorite style of guitar playing. — Noble Dust

Nice jam.

But it requires some skills doesn't it? I definitely don’t have the talent or skill to do that. If it is a style, then there are probably a few techniques for making that style. Did you possess all those techniques from the start, or did you have to develop certain skills to achieve them?

Except that it is what you said. — T Clark

Where are the quotations?

I assume you know how to read, so you obviously did not understand what I said? If you ask nicely I will directly quote myself to clarify for you.

Thanks for being forthright. I do not think most art is garbage. — Jackson

Your welcome.

Just look at any art forum on the interwebs, 99% shit. Even artstation, with all its quality control, is 99% shit.

Im not understanding the difference, or how you could determine the difference, between skill and talent. For example, could you explain the difference between a talented guitarist with little skill, and a skilled guitarist with little talent? It seems circular somehow. You can’t know if you have the talent to perform a particular guitar technique (tremolo picking, for example), until you’ve learned what that technique is and know how to do it. — Pinprick

A skilled guitarist with no talent will probably take longer to acquire his skills than the talented one. The talented one is talented because he can mimic techniques without acually knowing what is involved in doing it. It is very common to see talented artists think they are creating new techniques when they are simply reinventing the wheel. The bottom line is that skill can instruct and improve talent, whereas talent is whatever artistic merit you start with.

There is also the case when a person is so talented, that their work is indistinguishable from those with advanced skill. These people are very rare.

Anything can be art. Now try to sell it or get a gallery to show your work. Same with basketball. Are you good enough to play in the NBA? Compete. — Jackson

Can anything be basketball? I feel like we can call anything basketball if there is an object that scores when it goes through a ring. But to play in the nba, you must be able to actually play basketball in the proper setting and under the proper restrictions, and with very specific equipment. Alhough I play basketball all day when I throw balls of paper into the trashcan, one thing I can guarantee, no one is interested in watching trashcan basketball.

Its the same with art I suppose. Some of it is skilled, most of it garbage.

That is not what he said. — Jackson

Thank you
:pray:

I'm a writer. — T Clark

I assume you mean creative writing.

Have you ever watched a realtime artist demo on youtube, or taken a figure drawing or design class to get a direct window into the training of an artist?

I have never done that with creative writing, although I assume that there is much training that goes into becoming a good writer. (Or can anything be considered good writing if the person claims to be a creative writer?)

I can appreciate good writing, but I have no idea what it takes to make good writing, and that alone makes me incapable of appreciating the skills of the writer. But I do know he is skilled if he writes good.