Eh, I've always liked Neitzsche' quip that thinking is not something that anyone does but is that which befalls them. I have no claim to mastery over my own thoughts. It's certainly the oddest cage you might come across. — StreetlightX

It's a good axiom. It doesn't mean you and I can't have original thoughts. You're better than that; you have some interesting thoughts of your own inside you; you just need to let them out.

I provided a quote from an article which I linked to. It's blue and everything. Did you read the article? I could copy and paste the article, but I don't think it would make for a great forum post. — StreetlightX

I haven't read it yet; I'm happy to. The point is that 1) you provided a quote which didn't actually make your point, and 2) you then complained that I didn't read the article, etc. The remedy is to post a better quote next time, which I've said several times now.

And you asking this in a thread about quotes from other people? Come on. — StreetlightX

Yup, I asked for quotes on art for the sake of "contemplation and discussion". You apparently don't do well when your offered quotes get scrutinized with discussion.

Most of what I think is not my own! 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. I niether think it desireable nor admirable to vie for any kind of lofty 'ideas of my own' in a field as interesting and rich as philospohy, or even science. I'm a cobbler, nothing more. — StreetlightX

Fascinating! We're the opposite. I wouldn't do my own intuition such a dis-service as to deny it it's natural function. Of course my aesthetics are informed by many other thinkers; but my aesthetics are uniquely my own. It's easy to throw around the term hubris; but it's harder to allow oneself the freedom of realizing the singularity of one's own intuition with regards to aesthetics. You're remaining in a cage if you can't allow this for yourself. The cult of specialities prevents the reality of generalities, and the reality of aesthetic intuition. It sounds like you're devoid of this ability. Indeed, you concede that most of what you think is not your own. Not most of what you know is not your own (which would be more accurate), but most of what you think is not your own. In other words, you don't think for yourself.

And my point is that sexual selection - which is a mechanism of evolution - provides evidence that animals experience aesthetics. And sexual selection is well studied, much discussed, well documented subject of study. If you want to argue about the invocation of sexual selection as evidence, then by all means. But other than showing you where you can do your own research, I'm simply not going to give you a evolutionary biology 102 lesson. At least not with a fee! — StreetlightX

All you have to do is provide a better quote than the one you provided which demonstrates that animals experience aesthetics. You're backtracking and making me look uneducated because you didn't provide a good quote.

Edited for blatant clarity, apologies. Was typing quickly.

But these aren't my ideas about aesthetics. These are other people's ideas, supported by a bunch of evidence. — StreetlightX

The problem is that you've provided quotes, but no quotes that actually depict that evidence. I would assume it would be easy for you to do so, but so far you apparently haven't bothered.

Furthermore, if you have no ideas about aesthetics of your own, your own unique take on what aesthetics is, within the context of philosophy, then I've certainly lost some amount of respect for you, despite your vast knowledge (as proved by your tome of a post in the currently reading section). You can read all day, and have nothing to say.

It's like someone asking me to prove that natural selection is a thing. — StreetlightX

Me asking you whether animals experience aesthetics is patently not the same as me asking you whether natural selection is a thing. You're grandstanding here; seeking emotional support for your emotional positions.

I want a discussion of ideas where you present your ideas about aesthetics, not citations of entire books. You seem incapable of even presenting your own unique aesthetic position. I can site entire books too! Have you read Berdyaev's The Meaning of The Creative Act?? Of course you haven't! Shame!

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.

there is ample evidence that birds - and other animals - discriminate between potential partners on the basis of aesthetics — StreetlightX

Great; I'd love to see it.

"Today, Darwin’s choice of aesthetic language can seem quaint, anthropomorphic, and possibly even embarrassingly silly. Clearly, Darwin did not have our contemporary fear of anthropomorphism. Indeed, he was engaged in breaking down the previously unquestioned barrier between humans and other forms of life. Darwin’s use of aesthetic language was not just a curious mannerism, or a quaint Victorian affectation, but an integral feature of his scientific argument about the nature of evolutionary process. Darwin used ordinary aesthetic language to make an extraordinary scientific claim: mate choices based on the subjective evaluations of animals drive the evolution of sexual ornaments in nature. By using the words beauty, taste, charm, appreciate, admire, and love, Darwin proposed that mating preferences evolved for displays that had no utilitarian value, other than the pleasure they evoked to the chooser." (Richard Prum, Beauty Happens). — StreetlightX

So Darwin used aesthetic language, and thus, animals experience aesthetics? That's all I'm finding in that quote.

Whoever the 'we' are that you invoke in your claim that 'that's all we know', it isn't the 'we' of biological science. It sounds a great deal more like an 'I'. — StreetlightX

Indeed, your appeal to Prum and Darwin sound a great deal like "I" as well.

When has it?

Can you understand that your experience and the conclusions it might lead to are meaningless to others without explanation? — Janus

Doubtful, but valiant effort.

What role does craft play in art, then? It's unclear what you mean, and the bold type didn't help.

A painting could be considered an example of skilled, honest labor, although some art doesn't seem to care much about skill - technique. Is that a related question - does good art require technical skill? — T Clark

Labor to me means work that serves a specific purpose. So a painting doesn't fall into that category. The welder did the welding so the bike would run properly, allowing the biker to travel. A painter paints a painting for unclear reasons, and the potential reasons are endless.

In what way is Picasso different from a mechanic? That's the question Pirsig raises for me. — T Clark

See above.

Effortlessness in that if flows directly from the heart onto the canvas? Effortless technical skill? — T Clark

Yes and yes?

I'm not sure about the whole "no utilitarian meaning," thing. Are self-expression and communication utilitarian? Is displaying the majesty of God utilitarian? — T Clark

They aren't those things to the extent that I understand the term "utilitarian". Actually, I am a bit sick of that distinction. What I want to say is that art doesn't serve any specific purpose, or fill any "role" in culture. Art makes culture. It's like the backdrop upon which culture is draped; it creates the story of culture. I'm just spit-balling here; I always fall short when trying to describe this sort of thing.

I like it because it says the world is created not by God only, but also by man, which is the deepest foundation of my understanding of the world. — T Clark

:up:

Hmmm, I'll have to think on that for awhile. I don't really get it.

The haunting beauty of birdsong, the provocative performance of erotic display in primates, the attraction of insects to the perfume of plants are all in excess of mere survival, which Darwin understands in terms of natural selection: these forms of sexual selection, sexual attraction, affirm the excessiveness of the body and the natural order, their capacity to bring out in each other what surprises, what is of no use but nevertheless attracts and appeals. Each affirms an overabundance of resources beyond the need for mere survival, which is to say, to the capacity of both matter and life to exchange with each other, to enter into becomings that transform each". (Chaos, Territory, Art) — StreetlightX

This is clearly a poor anthropomorphization; the only thing artistic about those things is our perception of the beauty of those things. Does a bird hear a sexual mating call as beautiful? There's no answer because that question is meaningless. The bird hear's the call, and there is a sexual response. That's all we know. It's meaningless to even ask the question whether the bird perceives the call as beautiful, and therefore, artistic. Hence the poor anthropomorphization.

Also, what do you think about Grosz's concept of chaos, against Berdyaev's, found in my OP quote?

Also, because aesthetics is such an underrepresented branch on the forum (and historically, this also seems to be true, philosophically), I wanted to extend the invitation to @Baden @Πετροκότσυφας, @Bitter Crank, @Janus, @Terrapin Station, and anyone else interested in aesthetics to jump in. If this counts as boosting my own thread, then... :100:

Thanks! I considered posting the initial Berdyaev quote in the quote cabinet, but then I visited that thread and noticed that the most recent post was from me, from about 20 days ago, and it was about Christian mysticism; and so, instead, I figured this would be a decent time to open a thread where we can share quotes specifically about art, aesthetics, and the philosophy of art. We can marvel at them, barf at them, question them, criticize them, etc.

(Sorry for the ensuing skiffing...is that what it's called these days? skilfing? Shiffing? I'm not that good at it, whatever it is)

Art is the opening up of the universe to becoming-other — StreetlightX

Yeah! But what other?

[It] is the way that the universe most directly intensifies life, enervates organs, mobilizes forces. — StreetlightX

Does the universe do that, or do people do that?

What philosophy can offer art is not a theory of art, an elaboration of its silent or undeveloped concepts, but what philosophy and art share in common — their rootedness in chaos, their capacity to ride the waves of a vibratory universe without direction or purpose, in short, their capacity to enlarge the universe by enabling its potential to be otherwise, to be framed through concepts and affects. — StreetlightX

Saying philosophy can, at it's best, only offer art what philosophy and art have in common sounds pretty disingenuous to me. It sounds like a mild concession to the creative act to "have it's way"; essentially the weird kid in the corner who somehow always get's the A's. Now, are philosophy and art rooted in "chaos"? It sounds pretty!; maybe. Who knows? You can't know, when you're dealing with chaos...

Now, if both philosophy and art have an ability to "enlarge the universe by enabling its potential to be otherwise, to be framed through concepts and affects", then what exactly is this concept framed against?

...The world is created not by God only, but also by man. Creation is a divine-human work. And the crowning point of world creation is the end of this world."... - The Beginning And The End Ch. 7, Nikolai Berdyaev
— Noble Dust

I like this. Here are some more: — T Clark

Actually, I was curious, why do you like this? Does it have to do with being an engineer? I like it too, but that's because I'm a songwriter/composer/music maker. I don't know you as a theist; what do you like about this? I'm genuinely interested, and I didn't notice the potential interest until just now, as I was re-reading the thread. How do you interpret Berdyaev there, for instance?

A guy named Terry Allen. I know nothing about him except this song. Have you considered taking up country music? — T Clark

No; it would be disingenuous :lol: Old School Country And Western is great, though.

Apparently welding sheet metal can be difficult. He went to a welder in a small town along the way. The welder fixed his problem quickly and cleanly and, what impressed Pirsig, beautifully. No self-consciousness. Just good work from the heart. — T Clark

That sounds like skilled, honest labor to me. Something rare indeed. An honest mechanic is worth...no, is priceless. But art? Why call that art? If you want to call that art, can't I call a painting a good example of fixing a busted engine? No, of course not; only if the painting represents that idea. what you see in a skilled mechanic isn't the same thing you see in Picasso's sculptures.. It's categorically different. But, what you might see is effortlessness. You see someone doing something seemingly without effort (rare on the forum, for instance, but @Sam26 comes to mind as a philosopher who has approached effortlessness, just as an example), and yet, you know that supreme effort was required to arrive at the point of effortlessness. Now, that principle exists all across the grand medium of human effort. But art is that moment where that effortlessness has no utilitarian meaning, but rather, only obtains meaning through a symbolical suggestion....art is sheer childlikeness. The grandest art is the art that reminds you of the days you spent digging in the mud with your brother in the springtime.

In line with my metaphysics, rules are not faulty. It's just a matter of preference and usefulness. Also - I like it here. I want to play with the people on this forum. I need to make allowances for how things are done here. — T Clark

You probably score higher on "agreeableness" than I do on most personality tests, then. Good on ya'.

So if rules (no rules, no matter what?) are not faulty, then what's the issue? It seems like you have some issues with some rules, contrary to what you replied to me here. Preference and usefulness could be applied to...anything, without dragging out the corpses of obvious moral dilemmas. When it comes to metaphysics, I would think something more than preference, and perhaps something more precise than usefulness, would be in play.

Now, applying that to myself, when would it be appropriate to call my own philosophy a Neo-Schopenhauerean one.. besides the lame answer of "Call your philosophy whatever you want". — schopenhauer1

That's the point of the thread, right? Are you a Neo-Schopenhauerean, or a Post-Schope?

Who cares? Why define your own views against your mentor's views? You remain in Shope's shadow, preventing you from forming your own distinct philosophy, independent from Shopey. Am I a Neo-Berdyaevian? A post-Biblicalist? A Neo-existentialist? Am I a neo-classicalist-mystic? Am I syncretistic skeptic? Who cares? I don't.

I recognize I have to play by the rules of the game set up by the people I want to play with. — T Clark

Why play if the rules are faulty?

I think inspiration transcends its time in the sens of Kairos entering Chronos; “The stars turn, and a time presents itself”, to quote Twin Peaks. The same moment of transcendence during meditation. An explanation that involves brain chemistry is fine, but not incompatible, and ultimately insufficient, I think. The only example is experience. I’ve experienced it, for one. So it’s a philosophy of experience, hence why it doesn’t get much credence around these parts (to be fair, you and I and some others are the only ones who seem interested in aesthetics in general. I wish there was a larger constituent of aesthetics people around).

The world must be turned into an image of beauty, — Noble Dust

What do you all think of this? This idea and it’s brashness struck me the most, out of the quote.

There is no chaos of words or sounds, there are words and there are sounds, but these are rarely chaotic. Is the sound of a robin chaotic? Language is built on grammar. — Cavacava

The idea is that words, et al, bring order from chaos.

Think of how the Christianity of the Renaissance affected what Michelangelo and others did and achieved in their works, their sublime inspirations came from their view of man at the time, which was based on the role the church played in their society. I think this is an ongoing process though out history. — Cavacava

I agree, but I don’t see how this fact nessesitates that this is the only factor of how creativity is generated within the individual’s creative process.

Our experience of the world is coherent, we do not experience a buzzing mass of sense data, with little effort on our part we fit a myriad of impressions into a coherent experience. The way it is fit together suggest to me that what is manifest is structured. It is not a chaotic mass of impressions, one thing happens after another, we inductively experience and learn from cause and effect. — Cavacava

I think Berdyaev is saying our experience is coherent, but the stuff that makes up experience doesn’t have content till we experience it, and the creative act, as an experience, brings content out of the stuff of experience. That’s my interpretation.

Great quote. :up: I’m looking for philophical positions on art to potentially discuss, but these sorts of quotes also have a home here as well. Good for contemplation.

I don't think "that nature in which the forces of enmity, ruin and chaos are at work" works, nature is indifferent to enmity, ruin or chaos, these are very human characterizations. — Cavacava

True. I took the spirit of the idea to be the descriptions that follow what you quoted.

The phenomenal world appears (to me) to be structured by rules. I doubt we can experience chaos, we are by who we are, the way we are, where are to forced to structure on what we experience in order to be able to find it meaningful at all. — Cavacava

Can you expand? I’m not sure I know what you mean, or agree, if I do get it.

I think the inspiration that some artists are able to reach is based on their ability to tap into in the consciousness of the societies that nurtured them where they work. — Cavacava

So creative inspiration comes from/is contained within culture? How? What are the indications that this is so?

"Art is high quality endeavor" - Robert Pirsig. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I've gone back and forth, but I don't think I agree with this. — T Clark

Neither do I. It’s too broad. Although after fenanglng over how to define art on this forum for the past year, I’m kind of done trying to define it, for now. That’s why I started this thread, to just gather philosophical ideas about art. And that’s also why I like how Berdyaev handles it; descriptively and intuitively, and informed by his worldview.

- I hope you aren't offended - — T Clark

Not at all, I have strong, opinionated negative views on certain art as well. That said, I think all artistic expression is connected, and “necessary”, in that sense. Nothing can be thrown out, at least from a perspective of gaining a philosophical view of art situated in culture.

Yeah a Truckload of Art
Is burning near the highway
Precious objects are scattered
All over the ground
And it's a terrible sight
If a person were to see it
But there weren't nobody around — T Clark

I love this. Who wrote it?

You thought New Yorkers were dicks, wait until they've spent two weeks in February with no heat! — Akanthinos

You underestimate the pain tolerance of New Yorkers.

Huh, how is that so?

Oh, I never practice. I just write dope shit.

Oh, is it?

God, fuck off; too close to home right now. :rofl:

I'm currently wrestling with my desire to express the inward musical drive, against the insanity of Mammon himself; do I actually want to sacrifice my precious gift at his feet? Sell my soul to America?

What about it?

I know about parametric EQ!

:yawn:

Yes, also in the UK, but I like to emphasize the word's etymology, according to which it means someone who does something for the love of it, not the money. — jamalrob

Ah fuck, I just got schooled by the bossman. Whatever, I'll pretend I have a goal-post-moving argument that grabs sufficient attention so-as to prevent common knowledge of my current ass-kicking-in-progress *ca-ching* DONE :100:

Wayfarer is a musician I believe, and I noodle on a cute little curved soprano sax from time to time. — jamalrob

I do remember Wayfarer as a keyboardist of some sort; I know a few others who tinkle the keys, but I can only remember TS as someone who is/was apparently a semi/full professional musician, other than myself.

Please, I'm an amateur, not a hobbyist. — jamalrob

Seems like a dialect issue; amateur has a negative con' over here in Ammuurica.

T Clark and Agustino are the only philosophical civil engineers I know, so I'm guessing it's just a delightful coincidence. — jamalrob

Oh right, how many other aspiring career musicians do you find around here, other than old @Terrapin Station, who seems to have disappeared? :rofl:

What's the correlation between civil engineer and hobbyist philosopher? :chin: :chin: