Can aesthetics be objective?
At least to myself it seems that aesthetic feelings are dependent upon the person. If two people disagree about the status of the aesthetic they are experiencing, then there cannot be one that is right and one that is wrong.
However, aesthetic objects themselves may actually exist. There may be actual objective aesthetics that invoke a subjective aesthetic experience within someone. But the value of this aesthetic, the identity of the aesthetic, depends upon the individual.
So the painting in front of me and you is the aesthetic object. It invokes a feeling of sadness to me, and a feeling of hope to you, which are subjective experiences that cannot be right or wrong.
However, aesthetic objects themselves may actually exist. There may be actual objective aesthetics that invoke a subjective aesthetic experience within someone. But the value of this aesthetic, the identity of the aesthetic, depends upon the individual.
So the painting in front of me and you is the aesthetic object. It invokes a feeling of sadness to me, and a feeling of hope to you, which are subjective experiences that cannot be right or wrong.
Comments (85)
I think, also, that if aesthetics is objective as usually understood by that term, then an art-object is objectively good or bad -- rather than right or wrong. Your subjective experiences can be neither right nor wrong, but supposing you were to react to the plight of Oedipus with laughter then it might still make sense to say that your taste is bad.
Once we break down all these terms, it would seem the real question (if it's ever addressed during the definitional analysis) is "is beauty objective"? To say that it is not suggests I cannot create a coherent argument for why something is beautiful beyond simply saying that it appears that way to me. Yet we do in fact present arguments as to why something is or is not beautiful, as if we're trying to convince the other of our viewpoint. To say that beauty is objective is equally problematic as it suggests that the beauty would exist even if no one thought it beautiful. Such is the quandary I believe, as opposed to the definitional issues that were brought up.
But I could see an argument for a particular aesthetic, in the same vein that we might conceive of a particular ethic, counting as "objective", depending on what we mean by the latter term. If we mean that it has some sort of independence then it's a bit harder to push, but if we mean, as you say, that we require others to see things as we do -- then there's a good case, though "objective" is weakened in that case.
I will say that I don't think aesthetics is the same as ice cream, if that's all that we mean by subjective -- where you may like vanilla and I like chocolate, and there's nothing more to it than that, I'd say that aesthetics is more complicated than whether or not we happen to like this or that composer.
I think form is the universal, the limit of a thing, it is the objective, it can be described mathematically. The content--mater is sensible, intuited, in-process, it is subjective & particular. We correlate the pair on a normative basis all the time.
We could apply the above criteria (and many additional ones) to any landscape we might find in a gallery, and decide whether it is a good painting or not. If our criteria also specify what is "beautiful", we can determine whether the painting meets the criteria of "beauty".
In Painting by Numbers Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid surveyed diverse groups of people to determine what they consider "beautiful paintings". They then arranged to produce a series of landscape paintings which did, and did not, meet the criteria.
The "made to order" paintings were then presented to the same set of diverse groups (but different individuals), who were asked to rate the paintings. Sure enough, people liked the paintings most that corresponded to their group's specifications.
For instance, some people put much more emphasis on animals and children in paintings. Others preferred mountains and water. Most groups strongly disliked abstract paintings. Figurative art was received much more positively. "they discovered that what Americans want in art, regardless of class, race, or gender, is exactly what the art world disdains—a tranquil, realistic, blue landscape"
If this theory holds water, and I think it does to some extent, then aesthetics can be judged at least somewhat objectively. I also think that what art sellers and art critics say about a work of art should be taken with several grains of salt. They may be lying in order to enhance the value of a canvas.
[quote=Shakespeare]Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder[/quote]
?
That quote endorses the view that beauty is subjective. Such a standpoint, in my humble opinion, has to contend with the fact that some "objects" - beauty pageant participants, supermodels and the like - have an aesthetic appeal that's near universal i.e. many if not all see eye to eye when it comes to certain women and their beauty. This can only be if beauty is objective at some level for it implies that an "object" has the quality of being beautiful that we then perceive. It's not all in the mind so to speak.
So, two conflicting points of view on the matter of aesthetics. Perhaps it's a bit of both...
I would agree with @Thorongil that Kant's description of our judgment of what he terms the Beautiful allows for rational discussion (apart from just personal feelings or value judgments, etc.). Although we are not assured of aesthetic agreement (not just agreement in taste or value), we do have internal criteria (to the art) for what constitutes a beautiful painting or a movie that is well-made, etc.
Quoting darthbarracuda
There is judgment just based on personal taste, but its existence does not negate the possibility of a different category of aesthetic discussion and agreement (you are entitled to "your" "opinion", but there is also the possibility of "informed judgment").
Part of the structure of an aesthetic claim to Beauty according to Kant (and drawn out by Cavell in "Aesthetic Problems in Modern Philosophy") is that I am making such a claim in a universal voice. I am making a claim (with rationale) on behalf of everyone for others to accept or discuss even though the outcome is not predetermined to be an absolute, certain conclusion (this is not an "objective" object, to the extent there are any). The art critic does not have better knowledge of the art, so much as a deeper perspective--their goal is to get you to see what they see (as @Moliere points out).
And I would tweak @Bitter Crank and @TheMadFool's emphasis on popular criteria (or "agreement"), to aspire to judgment based on the terms of that art (photography, modern dance, etc.--each having its own). A disagreement that regresses to simply unsubstantiated agreement (or personal taste) ignores the rational structure and evidence in art (as @Hanover points out).
Quoting darthbarracuda
We are also not making a judgment of value (as it were, that the critic has better taste; simply the authority to label a work "good" or "bad"). If there is an insightful critique, would we say it was "good" or "bad" (see @Moliere above) or are we more likely to say the critic is, in a sense, "right" or "wrong"? (Of course, these are different senses of the terms than someone solving a math equation.) In other words, if we say they are wrong, we can, for instance, discuss in what way they are not justified based on the entire context of the evidence in the work within the forms and terms and methods for that art, i.e., rationally.
This is the kind of claim that Wittgenstein is making when he describes the Grammar (criteria) for our ordinary use of concepts (each one, their own). He is postulating something which may be disputed based on the contextual evidence or a misunderstanding of the importance of, and what counts for, a concept (its criteria). The open-ended nature of aesthetic discussion leave some to dismiss it as "subjective" or irrational or emotional, but this may only be the desire for a standard of universal, absolute rationality (or to deny any rationality to art, actions, morality, etc.).
The aesthetic experience is ‘objective’ only when we refrain from judgement.
I think you might be thinking of the pleasant, not the beautiful. The "concept" of beauty is not determined (not an "object" in Kant's terms), and it is disinterested: not related to any individual "experience".
“Consequently the judgement [of the beautiful]... must claim validity for every one, without this universality depending on Objects. That is, there must be bound up with it a title to subjective universality” Sec. 6.
Compared to the pleasant: “As regards the Pleasant every one is content that his judgement, which he bases upon private feeling, and by which he says of an object that it pleases him, should be limited merely to his own person” Sec. 7.
I hope my (Kant's) point is clear about the nature of the claim here. “[ B ]ut if he gives out anything as beautiful, he supposes in others the same satisfaction—he judges not merely for himself, but for every one... which can make a rightful claim upon every one’s assent. ...the beautiful undertakes or lays claim to [the universal].” Id.
As to the criteria of our art forms: “It is not what gratifies in sensation but what pleases by means of its form... [that] is... the only [element] of these representations which admits with certainty of universal communicability” Sec. 10.
Universal validity/communicability is not objectivity.
And while it's fashionable to try to define standards of human beauty as arbitrary cultural creations, a lot of factors are cross cultural, for example good luck finding a culture that prizes acne over smooth skin.
There are similar fundamental instincts that drive us to like clear water, green grass and even some architectural features. The more specific we get, the more subjective it gets though. And of course most of us value novelty. So even if, let's say, the letter "X" presses our innate hard-wired desires better than any other letter of the alphabet, if we were surrounded by "X", then "S" might become the most desired letter, or whatever.
Well, I understand the part about the sublime delight in art's transcendence, but the Sublime does not negate the Beautiful. The Beautiful is still a rational discussion of claims to (for) everyone about what is correct/felicitous ("right") about an art's relation to its art form.
Quoting Possibility
So if we agree on the first part, how is it "not objective"? I (and Kant) have already granted that it does not have an "object"--which I take in Kantian terms to mean there is no absolute, certain, pre-determined "right"--but does not having a final fixed point obviscate our ability to rationally discuss art? Maybe if we let go of the "objective"/"subjective" dichotomy, we can allow ourselves the grey areas (Witt. post-Tractatus). In other words, does the possibility of failure make discussion impossible/hopeless?
Quoting Tom1352
Yes, an art "object" can invoke "subjective [first-hand] experiences." Categorically, this is what Kant calls, the Pleasant--an experience that it is nice (say when you look at it), or whatever personal "feelings" you have . And Kant also allows that an art "object" can have good/bad "value" for us (@Tom1352)(although, again, "object-ive" is not a possibility there either). These two categories of the possibility of art do not wipe out the third means of addressing art, which is called the Beautiful (don't get caught up in the ordinary words--focus on the distinctions). It is not the "experience" of right or wrong, it is the rational discussion that is right/wrong (this is a rational category; not the kind of fixed Right!/Wrong! you may be thinking of); this is not in reference to the object, or its "objective" or "subjective" value. The thing to focus on is the form of the art--the way in which a story is told (think Northrup Frye's Modes and Genres); or the possibilities of the camera, the method, processes, framing, etc. in photography. These are the tools that a critic rationally uses to get us to try to see his insight into a work of art. For example, Cavell claims that the "modern" is now the discussion of the form through the work of art. The rest follows from my arguments above.
Quoting Mijin
We are bumping up against the limits of neuroscience (and sociology) here; and there is a categorical confusion here. What we can say about art through science refers either to the sensations of the Pleasant, or the value of the Good (popularity--@TheMadFool @Bitter Crank). What I am discussing is not a standard to judge the object, it is the ways a type of art has as its means. This is not a standard or "cultural creation" (as opposed to some "thing" created outside of culture?). And the more "specific" the claim gets, usually the better its argument--the more evidence it incorporates, the deeper the insight, etc. The Weltanschauung Wittgenstein would say, the comprehensive view. Of course, you may mean the more specific as the more personal (merely pleasant or good), and I would agree, but let's not mash everything together.
I don't understand any of that.
Can you give an example of the distinction(s)?
The ability to discuss anything rationally is not necessarily objective. When we render aesthetics in discussion, reduced to a particular language structure, objectivity often defers to certainty.
Still, rational is not always logical. I don’t believe the possibility of failure makes discussion hopeless, only uncertain. When we allow for this uncertainty - acknowledging purposiveness without agreeing on a stated end or purpose, or exemplary beauty/sublimity without agreeing on what is correct about its relation to form - the discussion itself allows for a relation between perspectives to approach objectivity in meaning beyond inter-subjective significance. This aspect of the discussion is irreducible, however.
Quoting Mijin
I'm not quite sure it's unfair (or even rude) to say you're going to have to try harder. First, you say that you "don't understand any of that", which is grammatically referred to as a "naked this". What is the referent? Everything? The Pleasant and the Good? And so I'm not sure as well the distinction(s) to which you are referring? Also, do you mean you would like a scenario which better explains the distinction(s)? Or examples of (maybe?) judgments of each type? It might help to read my last threeposts, the first with quotes from Kant.
Quoting Possibility
I concede that aesthetic rationality is not "objective" (another post I think to argue that standard is based on Kant's desire to empower some judgment to be, say, irrefutable, but not based on a "real" "universal" object; however, I don't need agreement on either of those contentions to make my point here.
And I do allow for uncertainty, but only in the sense that it is uncertain that you will see what I see. I do claim that aesthetic rationale has a logic to it, though not a logic that ensures agreement or certainty in conclusions (not the logic you may want). This is an internal logic to the form of the art, the terms and means and structure--what makes a difference in sculpture compared to dance. Wittgenstein and Emerson inherit Kant but make every concept (here every form of art) categorical; each with its own class and criteria.
Quoting Possibility
And I allow that we might not agree (on the end of purposiveness--though I'd want to re-read my Kant--or exemplariness of the art form) but the "uncertainty" of agreement here is not corrosive to the possibility of agreement (or even just "approaching" agreement), it does not make the discussion of art irrational or illogical. We do not "agree" on the terms and forms of art (though we may disagree about one criteria's "significance" over another in a certain work). Our "perspective" is not something personal (the art's "significance" to us) so much as seeing the art, for example, thoroughly, within the history of its form, taking in all available evidence, etc. It's not what matters to me, it's what matters in, say, making that art--what is meaningful to the art form. I'm not sure this reduces anything so much as broadens our stifled philosophical terms and conditions.
I would say so.
My post gave multiple examples illustrating exactly what I was talking about.
Asking for one example of what you mean by "sensations of the Pleasant, or the value of the Good" is not unreasonable.
Quoting Mijin
It's not that there needed to be a reason; just some specificity--which you have now provided. I did suggest reviewing Kant's description of the Pleasant: "As regards the Pleasant every one is content that his judgement, which he bases upon private feeling, and by which he says of an object that it pleases him, should be limited merely to his own person” Sec. 7. As I noted above, this would be that you have a sensation, say, feeling sad or pleased by an object of art, that you may feel without anyone disagreeing.
The Good (taste) is “that which is ESTEEMED [or approved] by him, i.e. that to which he accords an objective worth, is good." Sec. 7. It is the value of the art or of its purpose, assigned by the individual based on their approval of an object, say, one with an exemplar, which others can agree regarding its worth, or interest.
They are both similar categorically, only to say your experience of art (it's pleasantness) may lead to the judgment that it has value (or good). The Pleasant would be the sensation, and the Good would be its popularity. Both are in consideration of the artwork (as an object), and both are attributable in their same manner to any object (a flower, a horse, a painting, etc.).
Of course, my point in beginning my remarks only concerned these concepts in contrast to the disinterested, impersonal, intelligible rationality that the judgement of the Beautiful has.
I would argue that Kant is referring here not to some judgement, but to the self-conscious faculty of judgement as apodictic. Pure aesthetic judgement seems to me a deliberate refrain.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I do agree that aesthetic rationale applies an internal logic to the form, terms, means and structure in talking about art. But this logic serves to constrain the aesthetic in art, as it does in nature - there remains an aspect that transcends and even dissolves these categories of sculpture, dance, visual art, language or music. I think Kant refers to this as ‘the aesthetic idea’ - in relation to which all concepts, all thoughts and indeed all art, is but a rational approximation.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I agree with all of this - but a rational discussion of art is still not objective. However, it is not ‘rational discussion of art’ that this thread refers to, but aesthetics in general - and it’s about this subtle distinction that I’m continuing to quibble with you. I think that aesthetics could be objective - but any discussion of it can only approach this possibility through uncertainty and a self-conscious capacity to transcend the laws of logic.
I agree if this is to say not everything about the aesthetic can by captured in critique (or even words), i.e., the Sublime, but I think it's a scapegoat to throw the baby out with the bathwater to say that we are only "approximating" an idea (as it were, that taking the same unknowable place of the "object"--except if you only want to accept a certain type of rationality, logic, or end-place). Also, I'm not sure what "constrain" accomplishes other than to also say it does not meet a particular standard--one which changes nothing about our ability to discuss the aesthetic for everyone to see the public criteria of the form we have pointed out in a universal voice. It is not up to us to assent to the criteria, or an ultimate "idea", only to the critique--only that is subject to agreement.
Quoting Possibility
Well if we have to discuss the hangup with "objectivity"/("subjectivity") we must--I believe Kant starts the death-nell (started by the idea of the metaphysical "object" with Plato) for "objectivity" by shriveling its application to only certain standards (self-contained, impersonal, certain, universal, pre-determined, having moral force, etc.) I get his desire to distinguish out the "subjective", as feeling, inclination, and all the other failings of the particular human; but, in doing so, he entirely removed the human voice and the natural human condition dictated by the limits of knowledge, our separateness from each other (which I discuss in my post about Wittgenstein's lion quote), and the powerlessness of rules/logic/rationality. Modern philosophy (Wittgenstein, Emerson, Heidegger, Nietzsche) puts a nail in the coffin by making the "object", "reality", etc. obsolete, and dialectically filling the object/subject distinction in with our ordinary criteria.
With the judgement of the Beautiful to aesthetics, however, Kant claims the standard of "objectivity" is not even used--we are not discussing the "object" (or the "idea"), we are not applying criteria for its identity or its certainty, universality, its "existence" apart from us. My whole point is that we give up "objectivity" but still have a logical rational discussion--we have everything else except the certainty that we will agree (or force to make us). Who needs the approximation other than to ignore the possibility of the voice of the other to speak for all of us, and to make us responsible for a cogent, rational response--we are answerable to each other; what are we missing?
But I guess beauty for other creature like animals or aliens would be very different from our definition of beauty.
I'm still not sure I entirely follow, as you still have not provided a concrete example.
When people talk about a beautiful face, and we can point to features of our neurology that make humans basically hard-wired to like certain aspects of a face, like symmetry, is your view that that is not *true* beauty? That true beauty has to be based on rationality?
And bear in mind that for the question of the OP, I do not need to show that all aesthetics can be shown to be objective. Merely that any can.
I hear what you’re saying - but I don’t believe I’m throwing anything out. Incidentally, if I reveal that my position in this discussion is as an artist, not a critic, would that change how you perceive my argument?
Quoting Antony Nickles
My understanding of objectivity is not in dichotomous relation to subjectivity, so your interpretation of a ‘subject-object distinction’ is quite different to mine. When I argue that a logical, rational discussion of art is not ‘objective’, I’m not arguing that it is instead ‘subjective’, only that its claim to objectivity is limited. This is due in part to Thomas Nagel, and in part to my examining Kant in the ‘wrong’ order. Inter-subjectivity, for me, constructs the dimensional aspects of our reality, so my view of Kant’s aesthetics abandons no ‘standards of objectivity’ to begin with, but rather strives towards the possibility of a more complete objectivity.
This approximation, therefore, is more than just “an exhibition of rational ideas” - it’s a call not to agree so much as to engage in a shared relational ‘space’, in which differing systems and structures of rationality, logic or end-place can be understood and restructured in relation to others without consolidation or conflict based on significance. Without this approximation, which expresses an awareness of its incompleteness through aesthetics (whether intentional or not), how do we acknowledge and respond to the call in the first place?
Quoting Mijin
Yes, Kant's judgement of the Beautiful is rational, and universal, in a sense. And I wanted to make clear that, according to Kant, any "object" can be an example for the judgement of the Pleasant (a pleasing feeling) or the Good (popular), so we could pick literally any thing. You've chosen a face. As an object it is categorically not a subject for Kant's judgement of the Beautiful--he uses ordinary words as terms, I know, it's annoying; let's call it pretty or attractive to make it easier. You say everyone is hard-wired to "like" symmetric faces, sure, fine. We could say it's the pleasing feeling of it ("oh, pretty!" the brain says), and we could try to call the feeling the "reason" we find it pretty, but, just as one point, is there any space for that reason/feeling to be mine? other than it is my body, or is the "reason" in the face?
Now we can judge a face (or faces) to be attractive ("I like that!"), but my valuing that face over another is my choice, i.e., any rationale would be "my" reasons, not universal, external (objective?) rationale. Even if we all value that face, does popularity lead to rationality? We could all have different reasons, or the exact same (say, the same feeling).
Now Kant's idea of the Beautiful is judged by the criteria of the form not the object, for example, an art form, say, literature. Above I explain and quote Kant's process and basis for the rationality of the Beautiful, but, roughly, I make a universal claim for all of us based on the external criteria of the form, though your assent to that claim is uncertain. Here, imagine literary criticism that rises above what is pleasant or popular to use the criteria of written story to try to get you to accept what I see is correct based on the textual evidence and ways in which stories work.
Again, above I argue against the popular but outdated objective/subjective distinction: is the feeling of the pleasant more, or less "objective" than the use of public criteria to reach agreement that I am right in what I see and say about the aesthetic? But if we will only accept certain, determined, necessary solutions beyond the human voice, then we could call the feeling of pleasure an "objective" judgment of the aesthetic--Oh, pretty! Yay!
https://mathworld.wolfram.com/GoldenRatio.html
What's interesting is its an irrational number, which means it technically can be approached, but not truly obtained.
It sounds a bit like true scotsman. You or I might consider something beautiful, but it's not true beauty, according to the conceptions of Kant. Well, I have no reason to suppose these conceptions are the correct framing; it's just a proposition that I either accept or reject. It can't be used as an argument to convince anyone of anything.
Quoting Mijin
I get what you're saying; Kant can be esoteric. I usually work from ordinary language (its ordinary criteria), but, if you let go of the personal use of the words as terms, the categories of judgement themselves regarding aesthetics are part of our world, just the names don't line up. In other words, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The criteria aren't Kant's opinions or "conceptions", these are categories he is observing; he isn't making this stuff up (except, of course, that is, the names).
That is to say, you can consider something whatever you want ("beautiful"), but it's just your feeling or opinion until we have some external criteria to agree or disagree about it over. And we are not discussing whether something is actually beautiful, but discussing the categories of judging (say, how it is determined to be beautiful). And true and false do not come into an aesthetic discussion, i.e., "true" beauty (the claims aren't propositional statements).
Quoting Mijin
I just gave a ton of reasons! Throughout this thread! And yes, just as with most claims to our shared criteria, you can, of course, reject my (Kant's) claim (again, not a proposition). You are, however, answerable for that rejection, the lack of depth of it**, the refusal to address the distinctions, the impatience with any standard/terms but your own, etc. Maybe you no longer care, maybe you're attacking the method because you don't want to accept the conclusions, I don't know (maybe I'm not sure I care anymore.) And here is where we may be at the end of the rope with any claim about our shared criteria (as Wittgenstein says), which is the same failure that can happen with an aesthetic claim of the judgement of the beautiful. But this end is our failure more than just the possibility for it in the nature of the judgement of the aesthetic (or the philosophical).
**I'm not sure it makes sense to say I "can't" use whatever it is you're saying; maybe you mean that Kant's argument is not going to convince "anyone" (no one? harsh) of "anything" (wow, none of it?); or maybe you mean necessarily convince, say, everyone--and when is that possible? / if ever a requirement? Ooooohhhh, wait! are we doing science?!
[quote="Possibility;485687]If I reveal that my position in this discussion is as an artist, not a critic, would that change how you perceive my argument?[/quote]
I can only say for sure that although the artist may understand the workings of the form as well or better than the critic, I would say the critic understands the explicit criteria, the history of the art form, and is more deliberate, thoughtful, and comprehensive in his investigation into a work (though of course the artist could do this too, but then: is he an artist? or a critic?). That's not to say there aren't sensationalist, or populist, or just bad critics, or that the good ones aren't sometimes wrong. But I don't put any stock necessarily in the artist's position--his goal or intention, etc.
Quoting Possibility
Well "objective" gets used a lot without it being clear why. The "claim" of the discussion of art is not "limited" (it is, say, unguarded to the Other's rejection); it is not making a claim "to objectivity". Also not sure what a "standard of objectivity" is--certain, predictable, enforceable? Here Kant is saying we have a universal claim (acceptable by anyone) and impersonal criteria (though not certainty of agreement). How can we approach? Towards what? What would make this "more complete"? I would point out that the "more complete" a critique of art (the more evidence used, the more implications followed through, the more questions/objections addressed, etc.) its possible the more people may see it the same way, agree that all those determinations, the critique, are right/correct. Now, could we also deepen/broaden our criteria of a form? sure. Stanley Cavell's observations in "The World Viewed" about the nature of film bring to light criteria I don't think film critics even considered before; and Northrup Frye's "Anatomy of Criticism" is such a fundamental framework of the structure of literature, people call it the bible. (I will note that both of these works investigate the "forms" of these arts.)
Quoting Possibility
I like the idea of a call: the work draws us in, it speaks to us through the criteria of its form, and our critique beckons the Other for their assent. Are these all not "space" enough? A discussion of the form of art does not require or allow for "differing systems and structures of rationality", as in, different rationality than: criteria of a form. But we also don't create the criteria nor change them (arbitrarily; say, without the art form changing). Where is the need for an "end-place"? Modern art expands and re-examines its own rational criteria in the making of the art--it's become its own critic. The criteria are not "incomplete", or unfinished, or, as of yet, only of a lower order (only an approximation?). A discussion of them need not end or be resolved or bettered for the rational conversation of art to begin--the one is the means to the other. We will have no other, better ("objective"?) means, to, say, have a particular, better ("objective"?) end. The frailty of the possibility of agreement in a discussion of art is its triumph, not its lack.
Quoting Possibility
Yes, we'll need a full accounting of this.
Would creative genius be content with inspiring critical assent?
You say that “modern art expands and re-examines its own rational criteria in the making of art” - how do you think it does this, without pointing to an aspect that exists in a relational ‘space’ beyond the criteria of the form? This is how the work draws us in - through transcendence. A discussion which acknowledges this transcendence also acknowledges the nature of its approximation within the criteria of the form. It is in our aesthetic relation to the work beyond this capacity for a ‘rational conversation of art’ that a critical interaction on the form of art in relation to the aesthetic idea begins with the artist themselves.
Most modern art falls short of this, and is content to engage the critic without challenging their perspective. Their passive call to those well-versed in the art form, its criteria and history is to discuss the commercial/cultural value or potential of the work and the artist. For the rest of us, art actively draws us in (through transcendence) to a ‘space’ that challenges our capacity to rationally discuss what we perceive. Those who do not allow for broader systems and structures of rationality (such as aesthetics) limit their ability to engage with the work, in the same way that “a discussion of the form of art does not require or allow for... different rationality than: criteria of a form.”
Quoting Antony Nickles
Agreed - but why rest on those laurels while modern art continues to shift the sands beneath you?
I am notifying the following participants (and others that may have an interest), in the hope of rounding out @darthbarracuda 's PO with any other concerns: I would bring up again that my contention (in a nutshell but stated more accurately and clarified over this whole thread) is that all the qualities of "objectivity", including right and wrong, are possible in aesthetics apart from an "object", except agreement on a claim of judgement. @Moliere @Hanover @Thorongil @Tom1352 @Banno @Number2018
Here and above, @Possibility and I are having a discussion I would characterize as: the play between art (and our relation to it) and the judgement (rationality) of aesthetics; the possibility and totality of rationality without something other than (say, an idea), or beyond (say, a place), Kant's "forms" of aesthetics.
Quoting Possibility
The evolution of art is an appropriate topic and this is well taken; in pushing too hard on the fact of rational judgement at all, I only peripherally addressed the way art changes, and thus changes its rationale. Wittgenstein would, roughly, refer to this as projecting a concept into a wider or new context (perhaps akin to your "space", without an aspect), and with the process of "continuing a series", there, with a student (see PI Index "Series - of numbers).
I would first point out that extenuation or expansion presupposes the actuality of the workings of art (reflected in the criteria of its form). The criteria of the form express (Witt's term) the means of art, are the launching point or touchstone; there is no "beyond" or "aspect" that they are pointing "to"; the form moves itself ahead drawing out, and on, the means of the work, without an end. "Purposefulness" is not to a purpose, but only to say that art has rational but open-ended ways of being meaningful. This is not capturing, or transcending to, an "aesthetic idea"; it is, as it were, on a path (cubism comes from portraiture) but without destination. Emerson says (roughly) we must live fuzzy in front (Wittgenstein talks of concepts with "blurred edges" #71). The context here is the painter, say, with their canvas blank and the means at their disposal; but are we denying history (even in revolutionizing)? And of course this is acknowledging that, if anywhere, art may break or defy or abandon any of its methods of meaning; ahead of its time, waiting to be explicated--yet to find its words, or voice, or audience.
Quoting Possibility
I would, again, argue there is no "other" rationality in the judgement of aesthetics, no "broader systems and structures of rationality"; again, the discussion is not an "approximation", not (as that is defined by Webster's) "nearly" correct, as if the Sublime (or transcendent) were an eventual or separate correct destination to which we have a different rational relation.
Quoting Possibility
And here I absolutely agree. I believe this is Kant's experience of the Sublime (though I believe in the value of trying to, and the ability to, meet that "challenge"). Though I am left with the impression you feel the need to defend that there is something more, greater, that you feel I am taking away, or denying. Maybe it helps to say, the rationality of the judgement of art does not take away from the transcendent experience or creation of art. This fear of denial reminds me of Wittgenstein's consolation to the metaphysical skeptic (my italics):
And here I want to end this quote instead with: the extension of the form (instead of "the use of the word remembering"). Witt talks of this picture (there, an inner process; here, an "aesthetic idea") getting in the way of seeing the use of the word "remembering" as it is (here, the rationality and progression of art's forms with the workings of the art, and their change). All this is to say, the desire to have a special access to aesthetics (say, to some idea of it) gets in the way of beginning a conversation. The fear that it might constrain, say, a desire to have some connection with art that is special, ineffable, is not to say discussion is not possible (however threatening, subject to philistines). Another way to look at it, again, is the fact we might end without agreement is not proof that we have no way to try (that art is unintelligible), or that there is some better way, or that the attempt is structurally flawed.
Quoting Possibility
The work of criticism is separate but rooted in ("dependent" on), and in the service of, art (not parasitic to it, or indistinguishable thus irrational, as Derrida suggests); the artist, with hope, works for the art, and its creation--in and for its possibilities. Is art only that which criticism says it is? Of course not. But are we not discussing the rational judgment of aesthetics? The agreement (assent) is not between the artist and critic, but the critic and anyone who wishes to see more in art than their own feelings and their valuation/opinion, though the critic can be as degenerate as the viewer. Nevertheless, without the critic (or them within us), we (the viewers) are ignorant in a sense, blind, or at least without depth perception; unable to access the richness and fullness of the awe and wonder of art. Here I would suggest Stanley Cavell's essay Aesthetic Problems in Modern Philosophy. In truth most of this is in that work, including the Kant. He starts by justifying the ability to paraphrase poetry, so you'll have something to chew on.
I thank you for your diligence and consideration.
Wittgenstein’s example of ‘continuing a series’ refers to the difference between perceiving the properties of a variation occurring in a particular event (consisting of consolidated ‘objects’), and consolidating the ‘concept’ by which that variation has the potential to occur in other events. But consider an alternative perspective (one that departs markedly from analytical views such as Wittgenstein): perceiving the relational structure in which an ‘event’ (itself consisting of relational structure) is open to variability.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I’m not alluding to a particular end or destination, only to relational structures of possibility. I have explained before that I’m referring not just to the rational judgement of art but to the faculty of judgement, including the state of ‘free play’ with imagination and understanding - the fourth moment of Kant’s aesthetics. To be seen to ‘move itself ahead’ purposefully, a process has a relative momentum and direction, hence the ‘beyond’ and ‘pointing’, but this consolidated ‘touchstone’ is arbitrary - it is the viewer/critic who determines the ‘launching point’, not the art or artist.
My understanding of Kant’s ‘aesthetic idea’ is not a ‘concept’, but unconsolidated (formless) representation of the imagination, from which the artist gives form to possible ways of being meaningful.
I like the idea that ‘we must live forward fuzzy in front’, but I think limiting this to a temporal sense of ‘forward’ might be missing the point. For the artist, this fuzziness is everywhere we look, including history. So cubism does not leave portraiture behind, or deny its history by ‘revolutionising’ it - that would assume a consolidated perspective of history. The painter who consolidates history or even the criteria of form in the face of a blank canvas is limiting their participation in the creative process before they even begin. This is not to say that an artist should ignore either history or the criteria of form, but rather recognise their potential to increase awareness, connection and collaboration with the relational structure in which a perspective of history, or even this criteria of form, is open to variability.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Not in the judgement of aesthetics, no. But a discussion is likely to involve two people with slightly or even drastically different understandings of this rationality in the judgement of aesthetics, despite the belief that ‘criteria of form’ is objective and you’re having a ‘logical’ discussion. In most discussions, this doesn’t appear as a ‘different’ rationality so much as misunderstanding, misinterpretation or talking across purposes at the level of meaning. Occasions of disagreement at this level can be interpreted as suggesting a broader relational structure in which increasing awareness, connection and collaboration with the variability in this rational relation might bring possibility of agreement. In that sense, these differing perspectives can be understood as ‘nearly correct’ in relation to this possibility of agreement.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Again, I agree with all of this, except your impression of what I am trying to achieve. You’ve clarified in this post, a couple of times, that you’re referring specifically to the judgement of art, whereas I have also tried to previously clarify that the OP interest here is with aesthetics - which, in my view (and I think Kant’s) is inclusive of a non-judgemental relation to art, as an aspect of the faculty of judgement (a more accurate translation of his title). You refer to this as the ‘transcendent experience or creation of art’, suggesting that it is somehow separate from this faculty of judgement, which I think is an error of exclusion (albeit a commonly accepted one).
I don’t believe that art is unintelligible, but I do believe an aspect of that intelligibility is possible only in an irreducible relation between perspectives - that, to me, is worth the effort.
Do you have in mind a kind of hermeneutic process of fusing of horizons?
Sort of. We can think of it similar to a system’s capacity to render a three-dimensional image from photographs - the possibility of three-dimensional relational structure must be an aspect of the system first. So it’s not just a fusing of horizons, but awareness, in the qualitative variability of perspective, of an additional aspect to the structure.
The second way I can read this is that the structure you’re referring to is interpersonal. The other and my self are poles of a normative social structure of understanding,
Given that we are constituted the way we are, there must be aesthetic activities, in principle, that could exist that we could not appreciate, in the same way a Bonobo won't stare at Picasso or Kandinsky. We even have interesting cases in our ordinary lives: we may like certain genre's of music. But then we hear something on the radio, and it sounds like total noise and maybe even gibberish. I don't think it's the case that in all musical styles we don't appreciate, it's only because of a lack of exposure that we don't understand it. This is sometimes the case, but far from always.
But from saying this, to arguing that, for example, Mozart is better than The Beatles or that Pollock is inferior to Van Gogh, is practically impossible, however strong we may feel about a specific case.
I started reading this today and it seems to follow on in some ways to the thread on is art creative and I was in agreement with you on the qualitative aspect. However, I read @Manuel s post above because I ran into difficulty when the discussion ran into music when The Beatles and Mozart were compared. My first thought was that of course Mozart is not better because I do not like classical music.
Of course, your categories of originality, popularity, comprehensibility and truth/ accuracy are probably important here, and of course, The Beatles are popular but at the same time I think that some of their music, especially that of John Lennon does go deep. I also believe that some of the obscure music I listen to does go into other dimensions. For example, I think of higher states of consciousness when listening to the music artist Avicii, especially the track 'levels', but this is possibly my subjective experience, so how do we know if the aesthetic meaning we see is objective or based on the projections of our subjectivity.
This touches on the question of expertise. Someone who knows music well, will be able to appreciate Mozart in a way that most people born after WWII-ish would not. I think there's an argument to be made the Mozart is more sophisticated, complex and arouses more subtle emotion than The Beatles or Led Zeppelin. As for me, aside from a few pieces of classical music, I don't share the same level of appreciation.
When you go to the level of electronic dance music, one could argue that one is dealing with surface level aspects of music, which by no means makes it bad, I for one enjoy them a lot too. And sometimes the surface of a lake is gorgeous, but if you start going down below, it isn't as pretty. But I also cannot deny that with other electronic music, I felt very deep emotions, which would be laughable from the perspective of some music experts. But as to what's objective, that's so hard. On the other hand, you can listen to more contemporary music which apparently has no redeeming qualities, a beat that I could create with a program, and lyrics that could be written after several drinks, or as a joke.
But even in this last instance, some people find value in any music, so it's not trivial to say this is garbage, even if we may want to. I guess there are cases where one could say this, but its a tad obscure.
Yes - in the first reading, we recognise that we perceive another person’s viewpoint from within our own, and so its perceived structure is based on difference. In the second, we recognise that neither my position nor the other’s is central to a normative understanding.
I'm assuming you want to keep both readings. So let me ask you this: Do you really think that neither my position nor the other's is central to a normative understanding. To be more specific, don't each of us interpret the norm relative to our own pre-understanding? Wouldn't that then mean that , whether i like it or not, my position will be central to my experience of norm, just as the other's is for them?
Appreciation for music can be viewed similar to ignorance regarding members of a particular ethnic appearance, that they ‘all look alike’ - we haven’t learned to appreciate the subtleties of the genre in relation to different structures of qualitative variability, and we aren’t willing - in the moment - to commit attention and effort to do so. It’s not just about exposure, but a willingness to suspend judgement (based on prior expectations) with regard to what differentiates one sound or visual quality from another, and direct more attention and effort to acquiring broader sensory information and exploring alternative methods of refinement.
There is so much sensory information available in every experience that we develop and refine complex reductionist methodologies for making sense of the ‘noise’, which are tailored to particular experiential conditions.
No - what it means is that I inaccurately perceive my position as central to a normative understanding. How do you think Copernicus was able to structure the solar system without leaving Earth’s atmosphere?
I don’t think we DO know for certain, because it will always be a mixture of both. Our subjectivity is the position from which we perceive meaning. We can construct an intersubjective position based on socio-cultural aspects of our conceptual reality - logic is one such position - but even logic is not central to a normative understanding that is inclusive of non-human interaction. That the majority of existence cannot differentiate between meaning, value, event, object, gradient, direction or energy does not necessitate exclusion of their perspective of meaning from a normative understanding - that’s where our real challenge lies.
Quoting Possibility
I am doing my best here to understand what you are saying (perhaps not well) but also, I'm not sure how you think this needs to negate my contention about the actual OP about "objectivity"--our how aesthetics holds any sense of "rationality" for Kant at all. In the end, I believe it appears we are talking about two different things, and then I would not deny that the Sublime has a separate relation to aesthetics (nature, awe, bigness, respect, etc.) and that it, along with the Beautiful, has a relation without an object—I would even grant it is a “faculty” though I don’t know what the implications of that are other than an ability to have that experience. However, "categorically" Kant says (Gramatically Witt would say) that relation is not a rational relation—it is without a concept/form (there is no “structure” in that sense) as similarly, with Taste and the Pleasant. And, as much as Witt's term "Concept" is similar to the idea of Kant's "Form", those two are both, "open to variability" (though I'm not sure of this as a term), even rationally (if only eventually). I brought up the continuation of the series to focus on the conceptual jump that can be made between teacher and student--outside of numbers--they are not "consolidating the concept"--it can be moved to a new context, broadened.
I feel I have connected the Beautiful to the Sublime in its role to creativity and inspiration but this is not a rational connection. The judgment of the Beautiful and the Form of art work together extend it into further possibilities (from itself) and, I believe, covers all the ground you need to have everything you want of the Sublime. Though I may not have pegged your claims correctly, I feel as if you are not allowing my claim all the consequences of its open-ended relation to art. So I feel an impasse that I believe is unnecessary—what is the fear that I am denying anything? Why must there be a separate rational relationship to aesthetics? Why and how is “variability” different/necessary? (I believe this would be a different post but I wonder if we aren’t floating into Derrida’s creation of “Metaphysical Presence” instead of addressing Logocentrism head on and in denying a concept's actual flexibility—“variability” being an excuse to open a separate door, or a justification to politically attack the whole idea of tradition, concepts, form, and language itself.)
[“Possibility;486311"]...this consolidated ‘touchstone’ is arbitrary - it is the viewer/critic who determines the ‘launching point’, not the art or artist.[/quote]
The clarification in your second paragraph is also well taken, thank you. I only point out that Forms (concepts) are not arbitrary, although, as you say, this is no constraint on the art or artist (when is painting not painting is also an open question for art—though still intelligible in contrast to the structure of the Form). To say that the possibility of misunderstanding is cause to assume individual “perspective” is to misunderstand that the forms of art are public. No one is reasoning from outside (completely apart) of the forms and context (without debasing the discussion to taste or personal experience). It feels like a desire for individuality; art can be a private language, however, until we find a way to discuss it in relation to how art works, it is simply the expression of the pleasant or sublime experience, or is valuable or not. Thus why art is close to madness sometimes.
I agree with the brief third, and the fourth, paragraphs. I think just after that when you discuss "misunderstanding"... "at the level of meaning", here I would say is an example of trying to step out of the rationality by imagining something individual. If you misunderstand what I meant, then you ask, "Did you mean the trope, or its analogous nature?" In other words, there are rational ways of clarifiying disagreement: collecting more evidence, clearing up terms, and sure I guess "increasing awareness, connection, and collaboration", but in none of this is a "broader relational structure" necessary (if even possible)--sometimes we are just going to disagree: perhaps I feel you are wrong in your reading of the disowning of love in the opening scene of King Lear. You feel you have tried all you'd like to point to the text, tie it to other occurances in the play that echo it, etc. This is not a "variability in... rational relation"--this a conversation coming to a dead-end. These aren't different "perspectives", they are different rational claims about the art; the "possibility of agreement" is not in "perspectives"; that is not rational, as is a reading connected to the Form, which can be "wrong", say, being simply conjecture, personal opinon (taste), lacking evidence, not accounting for history at all, etc. These things don't have anything to do with one's "perspective". And I would agree that we can have a non-judgemental relation to art; but would we call it rational (would Kant?). You can have your opinion and hold your words to yourself as a perspective, say, an observation, but no one can disagree with you in the way possible through the Form (concept). There is no "language" to use together, and we are left "talking at cross purposes", because your "purpose"--your perspective--is more important than being answerable to me and responsive (responsible) to the text (art).
I appreciate the efforts you are making here - my approach to this is far from conventional, so I’d never expect to be easily understood. Unfortunately my time at the moment is limited, so I will touch on only a couple of points - the first being that I don’t mean to negate your contention regarding objectivity, but to challenge the limitations of your perspective, and work towards a synthesis. It seems natural in moments of disagreement to consolidate perspectives, but I’ve never been very good at debates.
Quoting Antony Nickles
This disagreement you’ve offered as an example is not a rational relation: it is a perception of difference from a centralised position, and a challenge to that position from a dissenting perspective. Each participant believes themselves wholly rational, and yet both judge this as a dead-end based on feeling. They are faced with the limitations of their own rationality, an event horizon beyond which all is deemed irrational, illogical, emotional.
Now, let’s say that one of them recognises this limitation, and humbly entertains the possibility that they might be disconnected from, or even ignorant of, certain qualitative aspects of the text which may be apparent to the other, perhaps owing to their personal experiences of love. Now we’re exploring an aspect of existence beyond what either would consider ‘rational’ from their limited perspective. There’s no rational criteria with which to navigate this relational ‘space’, and yet the difference is undeniable.
As in my discussion with @Joshs, this can lead us to a rational idea that we inaccurately perceive our own viewpoint as central to a normative understanding. There’s certainly precedent in the history of human perception and knowledge (what I think Kant refers to as a ‘Copernican Turn’). In order to return to a rational relation, we need to account for this qualitative relativity. Carlo Rovelli’s ‘The Order of Time’ is an example of how we might approach a decentralising of irreconcilable perspectives. The result for physics is a description of reality as a series of ‘interrelated events’ in a potential ‘block universe’, rather than objects in spacetime. I’m proposing that a similar paradigm shift might be achieved here.
According to Piaget, he decentered his thinking, by the same process that a child eventually learns that the moon doesn’t actually follow him when he walks. But the developing process of differentiation and decentration in one’s thinking doesn’t necessarily lead one to a normative perspective shared by others. For instance, new scientific paradigms, philosophical positions, artistic movements often begin with one or a handful of individuals. They break away from normative conventions of thought in order to arrive at their newly decentered theoretical or aesthetic perspective.
So while periods of work of relatively shared values within normative communities , such as the normal
science that Kuhn talks about, is an important contributor to innovation, equally important is the deviation from those norms.
I also believe that we cannot know for certain what lies within the meanings we see within the works of the arts, whether it is really there or in our own imagination. That is the problem with aesthetic judgments and when people make claims that certain works being superior.
I can remember once getting into an almost argument with someone who was trying to say that the music of Hawkwind was more advanced than almost any other band. My friend was saying that the music led people into certain dimensions which were real, and I was trying to query whether everyone who listened to the music would have the same experience. I know personally that my own experience of listening to a piece of music or viewing a piece of art varies according to the emotional mindset at that time.
I think that the emotional state of the person partaking in perceiving any form of art is critical and makes it difficult to come to a position of objective aesthetics. This is because aesthetics, more than knowledge by reason, is dependent on emotions, which involve sensory experiences and life experiences.
I have no training in music but I gravitated towards record shops at about 8 years old and would have loved to work in one.
I do believe that music is such a subjective taste and I leap backwards and forwards in genres. You say that you are interested in electronic and dance music and think that some of only touches the surfaces. I can see what you mean in some ways but I think there are some which go fairly deep. Artists I find inspirational are Daft Punk, Four Tet and Caribou, but of course that is my subjective taste. I did like Avicci and I was very sad when I found out that he had committed suicide. Apart from his music, I did not know much about him or what personal struggles he had.
Generally, I think that some of the rock music which is made on digital devices does not capture the depths of music made in recording studios and that is why people often prefer albums made decades ago. It also depends on what speakers one has and that is why people think that CDs don't sound as good as records. They just need good speakers for their players as it is about capturing the frequencies. I have tried music on different systems and it sounds so different. Of course, it does depend on artistry put into work, but sometimes some might bring forth wonderful work without too much effort.
Quoting Possibility
Well, I am not making a claim to "objectivity"--only rationality--as Kant's term is an out-dated concept (as is "subjectivity"--instead of the personal); and, again, I believe there is everything here that is desired in the idea of "objectivity" except the "object" and that there is no "approximation" of our personal opinions to the unknowable yet certain "thing-in-itself". And I will admit to "limitations", namely, that this is not to encapsulate the Sublime experience (immediately), or is not subject to degradation into mere opinion (taste) and personal experience (the Pleasant), and most importantly, that it is open and vulnerable to the discussion coming to an end. Though this is not a "synthesis" of, say, (beginning) perspectives--points-of-"view" (viewpoints); it is the rational distinction of one claim from another; that a claim is incorrect or wrong, subject to evidence and rational resolution or disagreement. Again, we are not "consolidating perspectives" because we are discussing something public based on the overt and explicit ways (criteria of the form) in which art makes its point, what methods are inherent in it, etc. You attribute this as well to our philosophical discussion, but, apart from getting clear about terms, realizing we simply have difference interests, or are talking about different (not-overlapping) points, etc. one of us can be wrong--that is rationality in the sense I am discussing; one of us must learn something correct from the other--we are not just swapping opinions. This, again, is not to say the conversation can not be cut short, frustrated, relinquished, not conceded, etc. As Cavell says, we are separate, but nothing separates us, so we are answerable for everything that comes between us.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Quoting Possibility
The use of the word "feeling" is misleading here. You skip over the rational claims that they have asserted; there I am only making the point that, at some point, I "feel" I have done all I can; though this endpoint/giving up is always my call, the reasons I have claimed are not my call (subject to my "feelings"). Witt's teacher hits bedrock with the student, but most people miss that the teacher is only "inclined" to shut the door on more discussion--this does not change our obligation to be answerable to the Other and ourselves, nor does it change the nature of the discussion. The two people in a sense meet on the same ground of the concept of the form of art; they don't "believe themselves wholly rational"; the Form is the rationality--we can, as I have said, make arguments not on that field (option, taste). The "event horizon" is a construction of Kant's to try to separate what is certain, universal, etc. from that which he believes can not be. Positivists (think Witt's first book) and others took this to the extreme to throw out everything else, including the aesthetic, and call it "irrational", "emotional". There are human reasons for this that I go over in my post on Wittgenstein's lion-quote.
Quoting Possibility
The "distance" is manufactured by one's desire to have an "internal" experience that could also be "explored". Now, if someone wants to have a feeling or experience of love, of course that is fine; this is the experience of the Pleasant (or Sublime) in terms of the aesthetic. Why do we keep confusing the other categories and imagining that they somehow affect the rational discussion of the form of the Beautiful? Maybe it helps to point out that the expression of an inner experience is different than the desire for "knowledge" of it, and that the "space" between us is fundamentally (unless manufactured) between our separate bodies, so the difference is a moral moment defining one to the other--bridgeable in our reaction to the Other (again, I take this up in that other post).
Quoting Possibility
Well, here, I will leave it to you and @Joshs; I take this mostly as a separate discussion. In relation to my point, we do not create the rational (our "ideas" are not--"perceived" to be: rational or just feelings); what is rational is the external criteria of the Form (from the method of the art). Also, the idea of "normative" is muddled and based on this misunderstanding of our own place and power (lack thereof) in and over language. The misconception of "reality" (say, Plato's forms, the "objective") leads to a sense of "qualitative relativity" when, if we remove ourselves from rationality and "meaning" (as if we create that, or that "words" are tied to "meanings"), how things relate to each other is much less swirled together (as if there was one problem of relativity, instead of each concept having its on world of criteria, which in each context, involves an ordinary rational discussion). Again, this is to confuse a discussion of coming to terms in each form of art, with imagining some abstract overarching rift and thus believing that everybody has their own starting point (them)--which I simply take as one wanting to keep their own opinion (making it unassailable, or unique), when that is simply a refusal to participate in the forms of rationality. As I have said, you MAY do this, but that refusal is your call, not a comment on the possibility of the rational discussion of our claims about the aesthetic.
Yes, I said that about electronic music, but I cannot substantiate because it remains an intuition. But I wouldn't say that because of this, it can't evoke powerful emotions, it clearly can, and some of the more obscure DJ's have created very good songs. I know Daft Punk as well, they have some good songs. Generally speaking, we'll tend to like the music we grew up with more or less from age 12-20 or so, at least, that is how it has looked like to me. I doubt as of now, I would go through the effort of listening to some music I didn't previously like, because I have so many that I do like.
Sure, having good sound equipment helps, though my impression has been that if I like a song, I don't mind where the music is coming from. From a classical music perspective, it must look like we are talking about toy cars, instead of actual vehicles. But again, a good portion of that genre is just very boring to me, but I won't deny it is likely much more sophisticated than much of 20th century music.
Hang on - I’m not talking about a normative perspective, but the possibility of a normative understanding (a developing rationality) that seeks to orient differentiated perspectives in a rational, overarching (and irreducible) structure. It’s a proposed dimensional shift in awareness, a synthesis that would be inaccurate (and remain a theoretical perspective or position) as long as it lacks awareness, connection or collaboration with more limited perspectives within its structure.
We can understand, for example, that the earth appears flat AND that it is spherical, or that the sun appears to move across the sky AND that the earth instead rotates on its axis. We can argue rationally that these limited perspectives are in error, but only from this position of normative understanding that de-centres and integrates our own limited perspective within a rational structure, which we now take for granted. But if you’ve ever tried to argue against a ‘flat earth-er’, you’ll realise that they don’t acknowledge this broader rational structure you’re arguing within. They’re arguing instead from a perspective that assumes a centralised position, and so your rationality is, to them, just a difference in perspective. To have any hope of convincing them, you need to allow for the dimensional shift between this normative understanding and your own limited perspective, as well as the difference between your limited perspective and their perception of your limited perspective. In other words, you need to acknowledge that your position - at the dimensional level they perceive it - is just as ‘wrong’ as theirs. But instead we tend to argue from a perspective assumed as the centralised position or ‘correct’ rationality.
For Kant’s shift to take effect, we must imagine a reality in which appearances are a limited perspective AND in which the perceiving subject is also a participant - not just de-centred but also moveable, like the Earth. But Kant was missing a step: Darwin’s paradigm shift - de-centring our perspective of temporal reality by rejecting the assumption that the existence of humans (and their rationality) was the plan or purpose of eternity - had yet to occur.
Most judgements of art are not pure aesthetic judgements, but judgements of the agreeable or the good. That’s not to say the meaningfulness your friend is referring to is only in his imagination. He’s just hasn’t distinguished a disinterested character of feeling from what he likes or finds pleasing - he’s subsuming the work under a subjective account of experience, instead of describing any universal quality in the music.
Claims regarding the superiority of certain works can only be evaluated in relation to a particular quality. Saying that the music inspired a particular dimensional awareness in ‘people’ is not to claim that other music is inferior because it doesn’t inspire the same awareness in the same ‘people’. There’s a lot of subjectivity in that claim, which I think he’d need to acknowledge as a personal or collective position in order to distinguish any universal validity (an aesthetic judgement) from what anyone likes or finds pleasing about their personal experience of the music.
I would argue that aesthetics by reason (which Kant demonstrates is achievable to an extent) is neither more nor less dependent on the ‘emotion’ or affect of sensory and life experiences than knowledge by reason. It is (human) reason itself that serves as the limitation. And it is our capacity to recognise and own this subjectivity that enables us to develop and refine rational structures of relation to more closely approximate reality.
This is not, as I think @Antony Nickles suggests, wanting to keep one’s own opinion (a passionate plea for individuality), but rather recognising that we only arbitrarily isolate both the artwork and aesthetic judgement from our subjective relation to it. In my view, it is awareness of the variability in our qualitative relation to knowledge such as criteria of the Form that orients it in the possibility of a rational ontological structure which could make claims to objectivity, and from which we can restructure and refine a more accurate epistemology.
First, if it is we seeking an investigative domain, I don’t see how it could be otherwise than it is we who are central to it. De-centralizing our perspective, whether of temporal reality or anything else, would seem to immediately negate the validity of our investigations, the correctness of them being as it may.
Second, is “Kant’s shift” the same as your so-called “Copernican turn” of a day or so ago, and if so, wherein, as laid out in CPR Bxvii, and from subsequent speculative justifications in relation to it, is the implication that the “plan or purpose of eternity” is precisely that humans should exist because of it? I submit there is no such implication, which then suggests “Kant’s shift”, the one that hasn’t taken effect, lays in some other conceptual scheme, in which may be found the assumption “the existence of humans was the purpose of eternity”, that should have been rejected, such that that shift would take effect. So...if that was Darwin’s position, how could it have been used by Kant? What Kantian “shift” possibly would have occurred had Kant only theorized as Darwin did?
Does academia nowadays consider Darwin an Enlightenment transcendental philosopher? If not, why would anyone think his empirical anthropology theories would find standing in Kantian speculative epistemology?
I’m following the ongoing dialectic with respect to the Critique of Judgement, which I appreciate, insofar as hardly anyone does that. Guess I got confused as to how the CPR, having to do with the possibility of a priori knowledge, could have any relation to the CJ, which has to do merely with “feeling” in a certain sense only, and from which no knowledge is at all possible.
Anyway.....just wondering.
I have read your reply a few times. I have done some more reading of Kant on knowledge and morals, but I have not read his writings on aesthetics at all.
I understand that you are saying that there are objective aesthetic truths. What I am wondering is, as we all have our own subjective tastes, whether it matters if there are objective ones. I can see that it is worth exploring objective knowledge of knowledge and morality because it alters the way we behave, but with aesthetics is it worth trying to find the objective ones at all.
I am wondering what benefits it would have for appreciation of arts and for making it. Even if someone showed me the objective beauty of Beethoven over metal and dance music I would probably still not favour Beethoven. The worst scenario would be that the objective aesthetics would be used by some to justify a certain superiority of taste. I knew someone who studied English literature at Cambridge and he frowned upon the fiction I read, seeing fantasy writing in the category of drug inspired writing.
So, for me, I am not saying that there are no objective aesthetics if we look for them but is it worthwhile seeking this?. Do the objective standards have any value for us as subjective beings?
Quoting Possibility
As this is not directed at me, it feels odd to cast in, but I believe focusing on my (Witt's) conjecture/speculation as to the motivation to hang on to any rational "subjective relation" to art and our aesthetic judgement, detracts from my greater point. Basically, I think maybe the disagreement comes down to a confusion in terms. I suggest that "human reason itself" is different than the rationality inherent in the forms of art. Cavell would call the Forms the structure of support of aesthetic claims--their rationality is not "arbitrarily isolate[d]" by us; they are categorically independent from us, wrapped up in the means of art; free, if not from our opinion, from our control (our "meaning"), from our arbitrariness, and our falling into taste or mere experience. Whatever the reason you want/need to maintain a "subjective relation" (not captured in the Pleasant and the Sublime) we do not have a "variable" "relation" to knowledge of the forms of art. When I speak of possibilities of the forms, it is not a possibility to be rational, it is the open-ended possibilities of their rationality. The possibility is for you to see for yourself the rationality I shine a light on, or not. And, again, this is not an "ontological" structure; there is no "object" in relation to the Beautiful (Witt's analogous "concepts" are not of a metaphysical or "objective" world). We do not make claims to "objectivity", we can make claims about art because of the rationality in their forms, claims that would speak for all of us, not just my reasons/relation--you seeing it on your own. A main point of mine is that there is rationality without the idea of "objectivity". In concert, our epistemology does not have to be more "accurate" (of/to something) so much as realize that knowledge in aesthetics does not ensure agreement, certainty, universality, etc. (what we philosophically have wanted from knowledge). This does not eat away at its sense of rationality as much as leave those things in our hands, up to our skills to evoke that rationality for all to see. Again, maybe this comes down to a misunderstanding that the rationality of the forms of art should not be confused with the critic giving us "reasons"--evidence, perspective, connections, etc.--to see the rationality inherent in the forms of art in the example of a work. We do not vary the structure, we vary in our capability or desire to discuss art in relation to its rational, formal structure.
p.s. @Jack Cummins obviously does not understand/value the desire for the aesthetic discussion, which is fine--everyone has their interests (philosophy is also powerless to prove its relevance); only to say, Cavell picks a point with Hume that if you presume taste you should have the discipline to account for it. I would, in trying to tempt anyone--controversially!--point out that the Forms of art are similar to Wittgenstein's Concepts, with their categorical identity and possibilities, the rationality of their criteria--their Grammar. And these concepts include ones that affect our moral moments; thus the "irrational", "emotional", "subjective" presumed about aesthetics is related to our dismissal of the rationality of our moral relation to each Other and our actions, etc. Also, the methodology of making a claim about the rationality of a form of art is structurely similar to the kind of claim used in Ordinary Langauge Philosophy in investigating what is said when..., or what we ordinarily say and do, as philosophical data.
I don’t think it negates the validity of our investigations, it only renders those investigations a distortion of reality. They’re still valid, but we have to account for the distortion in order to integrate them into a rational structure of reality.
Quoting Mww
I haven’t explained myself very well here, sorry. Let me try to clarify. Kant’s perspective on knowledge is decidedly anthropocentric, which is where much of the confusion regarding his reference to Copernicus comes from. Copernicus’ revolution, for Kant, was more about the moveability of the spectator than its de-centralisation - even though arguably the most significant effect of that revolution was to de-centralise the limited human perception (empiricism) in relation to knowledge of reality. So when Kant proposes “to do just what Copernicus did”, I’m not sure that he recognised the full effect of the paradigm shift that initially occurred because, by that time, the human perspective all but assumed some kind of relation between sense and reason, although its structure was still contested, and ‘human knowledge’ was being perceived as a rationalisation of the senses. So Kant synthesised human knowledge from empiricism and rationalism, defined its limitations (of sense and reason) and even rendered it moveable (by phenomena) in relation to possible knowledge of reality (noumena) - but had no means to de-centralise this perspective. His transcendental or synthetic a priori knowledge (imagination in relation to understanding and judgement) was an anthropocentric perspective of the conditions for knowledge of reality. In my view, his revolution was not quite complete, and my interpretations of CofJ above are an attempt to highlight this.
Darwin’s Evolution of the Species provided the ‘stationary stars’ to de-centralise the limitations of human experience in relation to possible knowledge of reality: nature’s experience of evolutionary process. But essentialism assumes that the conditions for knowledge of reality are exclusive to human experience, and relativism assumes that no objective knowledge of reality could be achieved. Both of these assumptions hark back to interpretations of Kant’s metaphysics, and yet I would argue that there is enough room, in light of Darwin, to dispute them both and begin to reconcile his conditions for knowledge with the scientific method. But I’m obviously an amateur, forming speculative ideas. The discussion is helping, and your questions in particular have challenged the way I previously understood Kant’s relation to Copernicus.
Quoting Mww
I find that’s a common perception of CofJ, and does much to explain the lack of dialectic. My main interest is in the relational structure of Kant’s metaphysics, so I find that CofJ sheds more light on the conditions for synthesising a priori knowledge than CPR. It might be just my perspective, having explored CofJ before looking into the two previous Critiques, but I get the sense that by the third he’d realised that the structure of metaphysics was more dependent upon ‘feeling’ than he had anticipated. It’s more that no knowledge is at all possible without ‘feeling’.
I just noticed that you have just claimed that I do not 'understand/ value the desire for the aesthetic discussion' in your recent post and I was rather struck by it wondering if it is true. I began reading the thread a couple of days ago and probably started responding to it because in some ways it followed on from some ideas about art and creativity.
I admit that while I read a lot on philosophy I have not read that much on aesthetics. I am not sure if that is because I don't find the discussion important enough or because at this point I have not discovered a book on it which has appealed to me strongly. Yet, I think about the arts on a daily basis and one of main interests is art and creative writing. I care about quality of those and do read books about the techniques of those crafts for improving quality and a certain appreciation of aesthetics but slightly different I would imagine from the 'official' philosophy discussion of aesthetics.
Perhaps I should begin to read more on the philosophy of aesthetics. However, I am not sure whether aesthetics is best as a philosophical quest or whether it is best explored an artistic pursuit, as expressed in many creative writing books, 'show don't tell'. I am not wishing to dismiss the philosophy of aesthetics but I would want to approach it with a view to an enhanced appreciation of perception,and rather than abstract arguments, and one which can enhance artistic creation.
Well, I could only make the case for the broader analytical implications because that's what I'm trained in. And, though Stanley Cavell is both a philosopher and an art critic, notably film and Shakespeare, he is not an artist. I don't know if reading art critiques at that level "enhance artistic creation"' however.
What Copernicus proposed was indeed about the movability....the motion....of observers relative to a stationary Universe, in opposition to the standing general consensus. And now I see what you meant by de-centralizing the limited human perception, insofar as the seed being sown that we ourselves are not The Big Picture, so to speak.
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Even so, with that moveability, which I understand, I am left with this seemingly unrelated moveability, which I do not......
Quoting Possibility
......insofar as, according to Kant, there is no knowledge of noumenal reality possible for intelligences imbued with merely discursive understanding, such as is claimed for humans. Would I be correct in supposing you mean, that because of the speculative predication of phenomena, human knowledge is restricted to a sensory-determinant empirical domain, in effect removing it from any noumenal reality? That actually does make sense to me, in spite of the inconsistency explicit in the concept of “moveability”.
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Quoting Possibility
Interesting take on a fairly well-hidden gem in Kantian metaphysics. Other than appreciating your familiarity, I might say your proposition only works when the proper imagination is tacitly implied. I say that because, while productive imagination is the relation between intuition and understanding/judgement, and can be thought as an anthropocentric perspective of the conditions of empirical knowledge, it is not itself a priori knowledge, which requires an object consciously known as such. This is relevant because if it is true Kant realized......
Quoting Possibility
.....and it had already been proven feelings are not to be considered the same way as are cognitions, and because it had already been proven judgements are absolutely necessary constituents of the entire human rational system, there must be another kind of imagination, iff some form of synthesis is required in order to facilitate judgement based on feelings alone, and iff imagination is still necessarily responsible making these kinds of judgements both possible and authoritative.
I don’t think Kant realized that metaphysics depended more on feelings than he anticipated, which implies the CofJ was a stop-gap treatise, when in fact he already had in mind a tripartite doctrine to cover all aspects of the human cognitive system, from the very beginning. To say otherwise says Kant denied human feelings, which of course he couldn’t do and still call himself a proper philosopher.
Long story short, the affect on the pure subjective condition by objects of sense, which is what we call feelings, or, how we are internally affected by something of perception, which is different than how we think about the object as it is, implies a judgement. But the faculty of judgement, the connection/conjunction between understanding and reason with respect to cognition of objects leading to possible knowledge of them, is consequentially very far from the methodological chronology of merely being subjectively affected by them. Therefore, there must be a kind of judgement intrinsic to the system which serves to connect such pure affect on us as subjects with feelings from the empirical affect on us as subjects with cognitions, with respect to one and the same object. From there, its off to Never-Never Land!!!
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Quoting Possibility
I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said so far, as much as I disagree with that.
At any rate, thanks for helping me out with that de-centralizing, moveability thing.
I think perhaps most of this disagreement comes from my perspective as an artist, mainly because you (and, it appears, also Kant) talk about art as if the artist’s relation to the work is excluded, which I find difficult to reconcile to my own understanding of art. When I interpret Kant’s aesthetics, I tend to read that relation back into it. Needless to say, that’s my issue, not yours.
I agree with your point that “there is rationality without the idea of ‘objectivity’”, and I think I have acknowledged this, while also pointing out that the OP question is regarding objectivity, not rationality. None of what I’m referring to is necessary for a rational discussion of art, but I think it’s relevant to a discussion of whether aesthetics can be objective. It seems, however, that this aspect does not concern you. From a critic’s view, the rationality of art is equal to its forms. From an artist’s view, the possibilities of aesthetic rationality may be constrained by the formal structures of art and aesthetic judgement.
I appreciate your resolve, but I believe I have addressed these concerns already. My point in all this was to shed light on the possibility of discussing art in a rational way. I have (Kant has) shown that there is more "objectivity" in aesthetics than most people would grant. Whatever you believe is excluded or constrained, I would only suggest that there is nothing left of that concept except the desire for the type of conclusions which created it.
Would I be correct in assuming that you are a realist( I understand there are many varieties of it)? In other words, that you believe with Kant that , while we can never attain the thing in itself, progress in human knowledge possible as an asymptotic goal via successive approximations? More specifically, do you believe that our models attempt to mirror or correspond to an independently existing reality?
If so, then I assume you reject various relativisms( postmodernism, etc) that argue reason and logic rest
on arbitrary , ungroundable assumptions , and that you prefer Popper’s Kantian notion of scientific process through falsification over Kuhn and Feyerabend’s post-Hegelian claims that science does not ‘progress’ but changes in arbitrary ways through paradigm shifts?
A structural realist - I believe that the ‘independently existing reality’ we attempt to render is ontologically a relational structure, and nothing more. Successive approximations of knowledge can be viewed as heuristic devices in navigating this structure of relations.
Quoting Joshs
Not reject, no. I think that relativistic thought is as important to progress in human knowledge as approximations of that knowledge, and that the constraints of reason and logic constitute a limited view of potentiality that amounts to quanta-like ‘paradigm shifts’ in the observation of scientific change.
I may be reading more into Kant than is warranted, but I don’t think he believed humans were as constrained by discursive understanding as CPR suggested with regard to noumena. Nevertheless, by isolating human perspective as a rational structure from noumenal reality - in the same way that Copernicus used mathematics - the qualitative aspects of phenomenal experience are rendered as an unstructured variability or indeterminacy in our knowledge of the nature of objects. Where Copernicus structured this variability in the temporal dimension (as motion), Kant structured this aspect of human perception in an additional dimension of affect or feeling.
Hmmm....yeah, I can see that. Understanding itself is not constrained with respect to noumena; it is allowed that understanding thinks objects belonging to the categories, and those objects would be called noumena. On the other hand, if the categories can only apply to phenomena, and phenomena are the only possible objects of experience, and objects of understanding called noumena are themselves not phenomena, then it follows noumena cannot be cognized as objects of experience.
“....But, in this case, a noumenon is not a particular intelligible object for our understanding; on the contrary, the kind of understanding to which it could belong is itself a problem, for we cannot form the most distant conception of the possibility of an understanding which should cognize an object, not discursively by means of categories, but intuitively in a non-sensuous intuition....”
So we are constrained by discursive understanding with respect to cognitions, but understanding itself is not constrained with respect to noumena as general conceptions.
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Quoting Possibility
Yes, he did. But at the same time, he had precious little respect for the burgeoning science of psychology, which makes me wonder why he felt the need to examine purely subjective conditions with which this aspect of human perception concerns itself, albeit outside moral considerations. Transcendental moral philosophy is necessarily predicated on subjective conditions, sure, but knowledge of calculus and dump trucks? Or, our feeling of the beautiful/sublime inspired by them? Ehhh.....not so sure about that. Seems all he did was take the transcendental doctrine of a faculty of judgement with respect to empirical cognitions, and transplanted it into an a priori ground for something beyond itself.
Still, in the preface to the A critique, he made it a point to have “.....the intention of erecting a complete and solid edifice of metaphysical science...”, elaborated in the B preface, “.....attempt to introduce a complete revolution in the procedure of metaphysics, after the example of the geometricians and natural philosophers....”.
So I suppose all that in the CofJ is how such completion is attained.
By the same token, we are constrained by determining judgement with respect to objects of sense, but judgement itself (on reflection) is not constrained with respect to noumena as aesthetics.
Quoting Mww
I think psychology in Kant’s time was based on introspection and the equivocation of rational and empirical information, so it isn’t surprising that he saw little there in the way of science. And I don’t think Kant saw his approach to feeling as examining ‘purely subjective’ conditions, but instead he perceived in their variability (when isolated/abstracted from noumenal reality and attributed to our knowledge of objects/concepts) the possibility of building on our rational structures of knowledge, just as Copernicus did.
I would argue that human knowledge of calculus and dump trucks were both originally predicated on ‘subjective’ conditions - those conditions built on rational structure when we attributed their variability (differentiation) to previously consolidated knowledge. This is the point that CofJ approaches but doesn’t follow through on: for Kant, all human knowledge is a rational structure abstracted from noumenal reality through a process that is most accurately predicated on the qualitative variability of conditions for integrating information being attributed to previously consolidated knowledge - variation in our perspective of knowledge, rather than as external ‘forces’. Kant argues that a priori knowledge (what we appear to ‘just know’) can be synthetic, and demonstrates this synthesis by converting qualitative variability in phenomenal experience into a rational structure. In my own constructionist view this allows for all a priori knowledge to be understood as synthetic - but there is no allowance for this in Kant’s anthropocentric perspective of knowledge.
We are so accustomed to learning via the rational structure of knowledge that we sometimes forget how much we learned to identify initially by qualitative relation: including early language and objects, shapes, colours, faces, sounds, etc. A look at Lisa Feldman Barrett’s theory of constructed emotion might shed some neuroscientific light on this argument, but I digress...
Quoting Mww
I think the change in his use of terms here is interesting. In the A preface, his intention was to complete the structure itself; in the B preface, his intention was to complete a revolution of the procedure - suggesting a recognition that his intended structure may not be as ‘solid’ or ‘complete’ as he had presumed - or perhaps that it was more of a scientific process rather than a fixed body of knowledge.
CofJ journeys through the four moments of aesthetics to a state of ‘free play’ between the faculties of imagination and understanding in relation to the faculty of judgement - suggesting that what in CPR he had described as the capacity to distinguish whether something falls under a given rule is in fact part of the process by which those rules are given.
Which is fine, depending on what you mean by constructionist, given that the concept exemplifies the difference between some speculative epistemology in metaphysics based on reason, and some psychology of learning in the physical world based on experience alone. Although, it might be hard to disseminate how all a priori knowledge is the kind of knowledge susceptible to being learned, as opposed to being merely thought. Might be what Kant had in mind with:
“....For it would be absurd to think of grounding an analytical judgement on experience....”
So does your constructionist perspective deny analytic a priori knowledge?
Yes, we learn from a young age by means of qualitative relation, and I suppose psychology has more to say about it than philosophy.
Another unrelated complication is that there is the phenomenon of painful stimuli triggering a positive response, which though quantifiable, makes the final analysis appear random as it cancels out tradition evaluation.
While I would agree with Kant’s statement, I think any assumption that analytic a priori knowledge is the essence of language concepts ignores the possibility that significant concepts such as ‘body’ and ‘extension’ may in fact be constructed from qualitative relations of experience into a consolidating capacity for self-consciousness, language and reason. Consider the notion of ‘priori/posteriori’ as a temporal relation to information, and the difference between analytic and synthetic is one of awareness with regards to consolidation. If we let go of an assumption that only humans or other self-conscious organisms can integrate information we consolidate as ‘knowledge’, and recognise the capacity of simpler organisms to synthesise (without necessarily consolidating) information we consider to be ‘a priori knowledge’, then this speculation may not be so much of a stretch. I’m afraid there’s a lot to unpack here, though.
Still, I’m intrigued by this seeming reluctance of philosophers to venture into the domain of psychology. Are they worried about what they might find, or simply resisting based on the historical criticisms that Kant espoused? I think that grounding a psychological theory of conceptual development on empirical neuroscientific research in relation to the possibility of rational structures of affect/introspection may be an approach of which even Kant would approve (which is partly why I find Barrett’s theory so compelling).
Engaging in the pathology of what recorded version of the play, Hamlet, is "objectively" the best for long enough never to want to think along such lines again is how you can liberate yourself from ever feeling the need to ask such an absurd question.
One informs the intellect, the other insults it? Opinion only, of course.
Philosopher: I can tell you how I think.
Psychologist: I can tell you how you think.
Kant would never concede a relation between empirical neurological research and pure reason. At the same time, if he had any knowledge of empirical neurological research, it is unlikely he would have spent 12 years developing transcendental philosophy. Still, that particular bell can never be unrung.
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Quoting Possibility
True enough, and starting with the recognition of anthropomorphism. The bane of good philosophy, but conveniently overlooked in the other sciences. What warrant have we to classify the mental capacities of lesser animals, ref. Nagel, 1974. No matter what we think about how lesser animals process information, such thinking is only possible from the way we think about anything at all. It looks to us as if dolphins enjoy surfing, and it looks to us like eagles play catch with their catch. Might be nothing but another kind of observer problem.
You ask what if we let go of the assumption only higher intelligence animals synthesize information a priori; I say the strictly human criteria by which lesser animals synthesize information a priori, can never be met.
Still fun to talk about, though. As long as nobody claims to have all the answers.
Sneakers and loafers are both shoes, but they are different kinds of shoes. A size 3 shoe is different in degree than a size 11 shoe of the same kind, but neither of them fit a size 9 foot.
Report that a car just hit a mailbox, first thing you’ll be asked is....what kind of car was it? If degree was more important, you would have been asked....how hard was the mailbox hit?
Doesn’t matter the degree of a brain; it matters what it is capable of, and kinds of brains have different kinds of capabilities. Degree would matter regarding the same kind of brain, it’s general capabilities being developmentally predicated on evolution, long term, or merely common experience, short term. A hummingbird brain is never going to evolve enough, nor experience the requisite preliminaries, to do calculus.
Yeah, yeah, I know. Complexity is just another word for degree. Did you know and elephant has more neural connections than a human, and he can’t even write his own name. An orangutan has only slightly fewer neural connections in a brain roughly the same size as a human, but he picks his nose in public, fercrissakes!!!!
Territorial animals will kill interlopers of their own kind, and matriarch lionesses apparently torture an interloping female lion before allowing the rest of the pride to kill it. Does that grant a human the warrant to suppose such animals have a moral disposition, when, as far as he knows, it is only himself that supposes moral dispositions per se?
A whale dives hundreds of feet for squid. Does that grant a human warrant to suppose a whale knows a priori, to hold his breath, when a human knows a priori, not that he must hold his breath underwater, that being merely instinct, but rather, what will happen if he doesn’t? Odd, isn’t it, that young whales don’t attempt to dive with the adults, but does that give a human the warrant to suppose the youngster thereby knows a priori he is at the mercy of orcas?
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Quoting tim wood
....and whatever you’ve seen, and therefore anything derived from it, is bound by your own cognitive system. You have not the means to judge by any other system whatsoever. So......what exactly have you seen? Nothing but that which is within the bounds of your system to report, which can tell you nothing about any other reporting system unlike yours. Which is what we’re talking about here, at bottom: @possibility and his a priori information synthesizing capabilities.
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Nagel 1974: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/study/ugmodules/humananimalstudies/lectures/32/nagel_bat.pdf
Reason by what standard? If ours, then surely not; we don’t know how our own reason works, assuming there is such a thing that isn’t merely a premise in a metaphysical theory. That something is happening between our ears there can be no doubt, but whatever is happening is at the same time the very thing that tells us what is happening, so we have a thing representing itself. In other words, we’re telling ourselves what ourselves are telling us. So we’re going to gain something, are we, by using that gross circularity to tell us about the exact same thing but in a different situation under different conditions? I think not, mon ami.
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Quoting tim wood
There is no use whatsoever for inventing concepts like understanding, consciousness, synthesis, experience, knowledge.....reason itself, except as means for US, as humans, to relate to other things. So presumptuous of us, on the one hand, and absolutely necessary on the other, if you ask me, to use concepts relating to humans for their own purpose, in observing the operation of animals nothing like us except for being of alive and taking up space.
It would be impossible to talk about experiences in other animals, if we hadn’t already determined what the concept entails, and we can only determine what the concept entails, when we relate it to ourselves. We invented it....what else could it be applied to, sufficient to justify its invention?
Is there another kind of reason in other kinds of animals? Could be, but....so what? We can’t do anything with it, we can only make inferences pursuant to observation, from which we know nothing of its reasoning, that isn’t in fact contingent on our own. As you say...cat for cat, dog for dog, and so forth.
Now, the common rejoinder is, because all biological entities are composed of the same elemental chemistry, they must obey the same physical laws. It follows that because all brains operate under the same physical conditions, it must be the case that the manifestations of their operations must have an intrinsic congruence. But logic informs us that a condition being necessary is not the same as being sufficient, which means if we can find a situation of disparity for similar possibilities, it may simply be a case of insufficiency. Now it becomes a matter of lesser animals meeting the condition of necessity, but lacking the condition of sufficiency, and BOO-YA!!!....animals in fact might reason, just of a different kind than, and therefore unavailable to fundamental examination by, humans.
But I ramble. Old people do that a lot, I’m here to tell ya.
Oh.......did you see the fireworks in DC last night? Man, that was the most intense display I’ve ever seen. Most impressive, I must say. ‘Course...I don’t get out much, so there is that.
Horatio here, and all I’m sayin’ is, given gross circularity, that which is derived from it cannot be any more certain then the circularity itself permits. It is still the case that reason tells us what reason is, which is the gross part of the circularity. Poor choice of adjective, maybe.
(years ago, a guy initiated me on the geometry of asymtotic lines. I had thought reason to be circular, but what if it was generally circular but at the same time asymtotic, which gives a spiral? It would seem from this that reason could be the cause of itself but still progress be means of itself. Then I got lost in the complexities and didn’t follow through on it. Anyway.....)
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Quoting tim wood
Relation is a cognitive term, so relation only means anything when thought is involved. To ask whether things relate when we don’t think abut them doesn’t make any sense. Best we can do is profess ignorance.
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Quoting tim wood
It is the master of our kind of thinking. Theoretically anyway. Can there be a method for human thinking that has no logical base?
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Quoting tim wood
In what way? Where would I start? Help me out?
Actually, I’m only reserving reason we can know about, to humans. I did say animals may have their own kind of reason, but even if they did, we couldn’t do anything with it.
Quoting tim wood
Incapable of reason as it is understood by humans.
Quoting tim wood
Oh hell no!!! But of all the creatures we know about, and in consideration of what we know about them, we are the only ones with the capacity to consciously create both the means and the ends of our behaviors, as opposed to mere reaction to instinct or training.
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Quoting tim wood
What I consider certain is the impossibility of it being otherwise. From there, the only things I consider certain are the three laws of logical thought. I don’t think the laws are subject to the same critique as that to which the laws apply, but they are subject to the same circularity. Reason tells us what the laws are, then uses the laws to tells us what reason does. Do I now feel less certain? No, I can’t allow myself that, because if I do, I have no ground whatsoever on which to justify anything at all.
You know....The Esteemed Professor himself says, just because we think the world a certain way doesn’t mean it couldn’t be any other way.
I bow to your esteemed Admiral-ness. I have not the range nor caliber for such registry.
I might request you trounce that pretentious Kantian wannabe over yonder, for I, but for being entrenched in this rotten Manila harbor, fain would myself sally forth to partake of particularly destructive broadsides.
HA!!! That was fun. Silly....but fun.
I can see that, sure - but I would argue that it is this territory that still needs to be mapped if we’re to bridge the gap between philosophy and science. This, I think, is why Kant ventured an exploration of affect.
Quoting Mww
Point taken.
Quoting Mww
Why must it be strictly human criteria, though? I agree that there may be a kind of observer problem occurring here - this is why I keep going back to Copernicus. No matter what Copernicus could observe in how the planets moved, such observations were only possible from the way he observed anything at all. But he recognised that the variability in the way he observed the motion of the planets was one of many possible perspectives of the same system. So he structured the relativity of conditions under which we made observations of heavenly bodies to inform our prediction of motion. From that relational structure, he was able to imagine similar conditions for alternative perspectives, and develop a broader rational structure that more accurately predicted our observations.
There’s no reason why we can’t do the same thing here. Copernicus enabled us to structure a human perspective of a body’s motion in a consolidation of space, then Newton adjusted for this and restructured it in a broader awareness of time. Darwin enabled us to structure a human perspective of potential in a consolidation of change, then Einstein adjusted for this and restructured time’s relativity in a broader awareness of potential. Kant enabled us to structure a human perspective of knowledge, value and potential in a consolidation of reason. What is required now is to adjust for and restructure the relativity of those conditions for human reasoning in a broader awareness of knowledge, value or potential. Kant’s aesthetics - despite his anthropocentric conclusions - allows us to imagine possible non-human conditions for alternative perspectives of meaning, and develop a broader rational structure that more accurately predicts how we conceptualise reality.
We cannot make claims about what animals ‘know’, how they ‘think’ or what they ‘feel’. But then, we can’t make these claims about each other, either (a la psychology). I cannot even make consistent claims about what I know, think or feel with any certainty. It is the qualitative variability in these claims - how what I ‘feel’ affects what I can ‘think’ and what I can ‘know’ in each moment - which Barrett re-structures into a rational theory that, unlike Kant, plugs back into empirical intuition. She has Kant’s aesthetics to thank for the sense her theory makes at the philosophical/idealism end, and current neuroscience to thank for the sense it makes at the scientific/materialism end.
I’m confident that information and quantum theories - as much as I understand the reluctance to bring these into philosophical discussions - are also important contributors to this endeavour. The reason they’re so troublesome is the same reason we haven’t progressed much from Kant: our structures of language and grammar fail us for certainty at this level. But what these theories do is structure alternative perspectives of knowledge, value and potential that transcend Kant’s consolidation of human reason.
I’ll make a comment on your interesting discussion with @tim wood here, if I may:
Quoting Mww
I don’t see relation as an exclusively cognitive term - just because we’re not thinking about a relation, doesn’t mean we don’t feel it, or that it has no effect on our intuition, and therefore our structure of knowledge, value or potential. We may not achieve justifiable certainty, but we can’t afford to plead ignorance here, either. Kant’s aesthetics structures the capacity for what we feel to interact with our faculties of imagination and understanding without interference from judgement. Barrett then re-structures this affect in terms of attention and effort, enabling it to inform both empirical and cognitive intuition from the interoceptive network. Ignorance is not the best we can do - not by a long shot. That’s been my point.
All good and well said. If anything, I might take exception to your statement with this:
“....Whether now the Judgement, which in the order of our cognitive faculties forms a mediating link between Understanding and Reason, has also principles a priori for itself; whether these are constitutive or merely regulative (thus indicating no special realm); and whether they give a rule a priori to the feeling of pleasure and pain, as the mediating link between the cognitive faculty and the faculty of desire (just as the Understanding prescribes laws a priori to the first, Reason to the second); these are the questions with which the present Critique of Judgement is concerned....”
It is clear Kant attributes to judgement different areas of concern, one area definitely given in the cognitive, the other of no special area in the aesthetic. Buried in the text is the exposition that regulative judgment does interfere.....arbitrate?....so to speak, regarding the condition given from the appearance of an object and how the subject feels about it.
“....because the Understanding necessarily proceeds according to its nature without any design; yet, on the other hand, the discovery that two or more empirical heterogeneous laws of nature may be combined under one principle comprehending them both, is the ground of a very marked pleasure, often even of an admiration, which does not cease, though we may be already quite familiar with the objects of it. (....) There is then something in our judgements upon nature which makes us attentive to its purposiveness for our Understanding — an endeavour to bring, where possible, its dissimilar laws under higher ones, though still always empirical — and thus, if successful, makes us feel pleasure in that harmony of these with our cognitive faculty...”
And because we already know imagination is responsible for the synthesis upon which judgement acts, and feelings of pleasure is a synthesis, it follows that judgement acts on feelings. It’s all in the text, if one can dig it out, and then accept what’s dug out.
And here’s why. I guess. Seems to me anyway. The account for any term of art whatsoever, are all necessarily derivable a priori from phenomena, yet objects themselves merely from the properties by which they are known, cannot render to us our feelings, our subjective condition, illicited because of those properties alone. We are hardly amazed that a basketball is spherical, but we may be stupefied to cause a spheroid to drop through a circle 50 feet away.
CofJ is long and dense to the point of impenetrability, so I might have it all wrong, or at least arguable. I don’t claim to be certain, so forgive me for appearing that way.
I guess my interpretation of Kant is geared towards finding the potential in the relational structure he articulates, rather than the conclusions he draws from it based on assumptions that he has regarding human reason. I accept that Kant himself doesn’t recognise (almost to the point of explicitly denying) the possibilities that his theoretical structure of reason allows for beyond this relatively human structuring of its faculties.
FWIW, I don’t see judgement as acting on feelings necessarily - this is a condition of human reason rather than the relational structure between the faculties themselves. The distinction between judgement per se and the faculty of judgement is one of apparent necessity - Kant reaches the fourth moment, that point at which the question of necessity is asked, and makes an anthropocentric assumption that limits this faculty to his understanding of human reason. It is in this fourth moment, in his confusing account of the sublime and in his horizon of artistic ‘genius’, that Kant’s anthropocentric assumption is most apparent.
I find it intriguing that CofJ is often considered separate from the other two critiques, with judgement operating outside of reason as well as firmly within it. The way I see it, only ‘minor’ tweaks to Kant’s overall structure are required (along the lines of Copernicus shifting the centre from the earth to the sun) to position the faculties of imagination, understanding and judgement in a relational trinity that is inclusive of, but not limited to, the human conditions for reason he describes.