Questions tagged [aesthetics]
Aesthetics is the study of the beautiful. It is one of the classical sub-disciplines of philosophy.
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Isn't "modern art" kind of discriminating?
Let's say we have a person who likes to draw. He does it for some time and considers himself "doing art". But all people can draw, everyone has been drawing something in childhood or later ...
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Can the product of creativity always be classified as analogy?
Without concepts there can be no thought, and without
analogies there can be no concepts.
—Hofstadter and Sander
Part of the creative process of a sculpter is to visualize a shape within a stone and ...
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Identification of light with existence and darkness with non-existence [closed]
Is it true that in ancient times many thinkers identified light with existence (essence), and darkness with non-existence?
Examples include Pythagoreanism, Neoplatonism, the ontology of light as-...
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Does Endgame make sense?
I believe that Beckett's Endgame is meant to be the epitome of meaningless literature. Some seem to think that the critical theorist Adorno thinks that art is a meaningless brand that shows itself to ...
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Authenticity in art
I know the question some how tricky if not even boring, but the other day during a conference about Guido Reni and Caravaggio’s Saint Peter a group of scholars were discussing if a philological ...
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Are artworks created or discovered?
I am trying to deny Joseph Margolis' argument that pieces of art are not 'universals'. Particularly, I want to say that types (in the tokens-of-a-type sense) are essentially the same thing as ...
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Philosophy of storytelling from non-western cultures
In the west, most of our thoughts on storytelling seem to originate and be influenced by Aristotle's Poetics, in one form or another.
However, it seems that in other cultures storytelling is often ...
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Why is literature a problem for aesthetic formalism?
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy claims literature is a problem for aesthetic formalism (which says aesthetic value comprises perceptual properties):
Suppose you praise a short story for the ...
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Philosophy and stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedians - such as Doug Stanhope, Bill Hicks, George Carlin, Sarah Silverman, Ricky Gervais, Amy Schumer and Bill Burr - frequently work in a philosophical realm, in that they reflect upon ...
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How does aesthetic relate to structure?
If we are to take a subject say mathematics, then often mathematicians may attribute to the well defined structure and precision in describing its theories. I believe there are also other things like ...
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Is it the content or the source of an obligation that determines whether it is moral or aesthetic?
Is it the content or the source of an obligation that determines whether it is moral or aesthetic?
Consider the following statement reflecting a perceived obligation: "I must save the beautiful ...
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Does Kant implicitly (or maybe even explicitly?) hold to a propositional-operator gloss of aesthetics?
Now sometimes it is said that knowledge is primarily knowledge-that, i.e. some elementary epistemic operator is a propositional operator/"attitude report". Or at least there is an invoked ...
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Is Architecture a Language?
I am puzzling over this question awhile, and I can’t find any good, clear reference on the topic without going way to deep into linguistics and getting too abstract. Can anybody explain to me if ...
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What does Heidegger mean "the closedness of earth"?
What does Heidegger mean "the closedness of earth" in 'the origin of the work of art' aka 'Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes'?
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Are "aesthetic experiences" limited to art and music?
I was wondering whether philosophers consider aesthetic experiences to be something that permeate through a range of day to day experiences or if they're limited to art.
For example, can learning/...
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What does "Normative" Mean?
I was reading the SEP articles on aesthetic judgment and had a really hard time understanding some parts. What it came down to is that they were using a definition of 'normative' I did not know. The ...
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What in mathematics has the property of beauty?
I might or might not be at an impasse in my writing... I have around 200 pages of notes, and I finally sat down and tried to compile some of the material, but I feel like the presentation is off ...
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Is beauty a basic human need?
Did any philosopher argue that beauty is a basic human need?
By "beauty" (pulchritudo) I mean, as St. Thomas Aquinas defines it ([II-II q. 145 a. 2][4] co.), that which
results from the ...
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Would sublime landscapes give Coleridge "humble feelings" or "sublime feelings"?
Lately I've been reading and rereading The Abolition of Man, by C. S. Lewis. He opens by discussing "the well-known story of Coleridge at the waterfall" and the way that an English textbook ...
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Defending the Unpopular: Aesthetic Realism
Aesthetic realism is the belief that there are things that are objectively more beautiful than other things. This implies beauty is not subjective, and if one believes an actually beautiful thing is ...
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Where does Nietzsche state that destruction is necessary to creation?
I've read somewhere that Nietzsche argues that destruction is always necessary in order to create, I think that the reference was to "thus spoke Zarathustra" but I couldn't find it myself.
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Can morally good actions be considered beautiful/aesthetic?
Ive been trying to find resources on whether morality can be considered aesthetic.
I found philosophers who suggest ideas can be aesthetic, so I was wondering whether something as abstract could be ...
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Why does Nietzsche affirm excellence so much?
A recurring theme in Nietzsche's writings seems to be that humans should strive for excellence “the highest power and splendor possible to the type man”.
Im just wondering what it is about excellence ...
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Why in the academic fields of art and design, the philosophy taught or mentioned is often Continental philosophy?
Is there any rationale to prefer, in academic fields of art, Continental philosophy over Analytic philosophy? I guess there might be a historical reason why philosophy evolved into two approaches but ...
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What is the relationship between appraising art and philosophy?
I'm not quite sure of the relationship between philosophical systems and the appraisal of art. I know philosophy encompasses aesthetics, but I don't know if a system telling you how to appraise art is ...
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How do philosophers differentiate between change and progress at the intersection of art, design, and business management?
I do Theory of Knowledge (IBDP) at school and in regards to the subject areas, I was thinking of linking the arts and design (humanities? design of products?) to reason, sense perception, intuition, ...
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How do ethical values shape one's aesthetics?
I have been struggling through an idea for the past several months regarding the order of values and its influence upon art. It started with a quick tour of an online art gallery showcasing Rafael, ...
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Does postmodernism in art criticism collapse into relativism? What's its merit?
Postmodernism rejects the idea of a universal truth and in context of literary art criticism it shifts the focus from the writer or the author to the audience and from constant meaning to unstable one ...
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What does Danto mean when he writes that artworks are "embodied meanings"?
In his paper "The Art World Revisited" Arthur Danto writes:
The thesis which emerged from my book The Transfiguration of the
Commonplace is that works of art are symbolic expressions, and ...
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Where should I start reading about aesthetics philosophy?
I am totally new to philosophy (actually studying engineering) but the philosophy of aesthetics fascinates me.
Which books should I start reading to study about the way socio-economic factors ...
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What is the Schillerian concept for sublime that at the same time means attraction and repulsion?
There is German word that Schiller uses to explain beauty, a word that at the same time means attraction and repulse.
He uses that word instead of the Kantian "awe" for The Sublime.
Does anyone ...
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the threatened return of the look
The following text is from Art and Psychoanalysis by Maria Walsh. Does anybody know what threatens the return of the look in the bold section?
Context:
The other, as black man, acts as both a ...
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heteropathic and idiopathic identification
Reading the book "Art and Psychoanalysis" by Maria Walsh on modern art criticism and philosophy, I encountered the words "heteropathic identification" and "idiopathic identification". Do they mean ...
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Julia Kristeva's idea about abjection and aesthetics
Can any body explain what Julia Kristeva means in the text below? Can anybody write it in more understandable plain English?
Text:
In a world in which the Other has collapsed, the aesthetic task -a ...
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Harm Principle and the eventual harm of creating needs
A necessity or a need is a necessary condition for something else.
A need in Economics and particularly a consumer need is something needed to be consumed, a necessary condition for achieving higher ...
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Does a work of art contain any meaning one can come up with?
I've read in some blog that any piece of art contains any meaning that any reader or spectator may find in it.
Has something similar been explored in philosophical works, or was it an 'original' ...
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Reference Request: Where can I read about philosophy of the digital arts?
I am interested in reading about ways to evaluate art that are done solely by computers (computer generated art) or otherwise by the help of computers or by the usage of computers such as in digital ...
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What does the philosopher Bruno Latour mean when he claims that we have never been modern?
I am trying to read Bruno Latour's paper "A cautious Prometheus? A few steps towards philosophy of design" but have no background in philosophy and so would be happy if someone could help me ...
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Why does my appreciation of female physical beauty tend to be presumed to be sexual?
Apologies for the topic; I could not find a way to say it any better.
Anyway, as a male I would like to be able to admire women's physical aspects purely aesthetically; I have no sexual intent of ...
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Is Deleuze saying that the "virtual" generates beauty and lies outside affect?
This article says
All this is most fully worked out in Difference and
Repetition(1994). What Deleuze calls the virtual is the there posed as
the transcendental condition of all ...
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Is the laughable person beautiful?
All of us when see a laughable comedy star, for example: a fatty actor having a laughable face, i.e: physically laughable whose appearance makes us smile or laugh, we feel happiness and joy. Does this ...
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What were the moral and aesthetic ideas that Camus was interested in?
I have read most of the books by Albert Camus thoroughly. I know that Camus' theory is absurdity but I want to know his take on morality. I mean, what were the moral and aesthetic ideas that Camus was ...
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How to make philosophically sound argument regarding something being beautiful?
We often hear people speak of something as being beautiful. For example, many believe that mathematics is a beautiful subject. What they mean by being beautiful varies by context, and is often ...
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What is autonomy in art, where does it come from?
What is autonomy in recent art, where does it come from?
I've encountered the concept in contemporary literary criticism, but recall little beyond it being prized by contemporary modernists, it ...
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Aesthetics: why is "formalism" used as a pejorative term?
Socialist realism regarded the avant-garde movements as "formalist".
Modern styles like Cubism and Impressionism were considered non-representative forms of art, therefore hard to understand by the ...
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Is true beauty long lasting (through long periods of time)? Is beauty therefore objective?
When people think of objects that are considered "beautiful," people think of gold, diamonds, and crystals. These objects are resistant to change over time and tend to last in their original forms. ...
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Are there central theories on aesthetics?
Are there central theories on aesthetics? I am looking to see if there were any significant philosophers by significant I mean people who often are discussed among university circles today or in the ...
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Trichotomy in philosophy
In many philosophical works and ideas*, it seems like the number 3 gets a major, unexplained emphasis (mostly as a trichotomy).
One of the major ideas that uses trichotomy is the Thesis-Antithesis-...
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Is there a theory about art as a perception(way to "see" things?)
Art as a perception as in looking at an object,environment,experience in a thoughtful and slow way ,"appreciating" it,thus letting an object become art.
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Is art a form of communication?
I recently got into a discussion where the other person claimed that art is a form of communication. Bearing in mind that the definition of art is disputed, did any philosophers argue that a work ...
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