Friday, 13 November 2009

critical studies lecture one asethetics and taste

some problems of knowing

rules of beauty-aesthetics

how do we require knowledge? 1) a knower 2) something to be known

do i know that i exist?

do i know that the world exists?

Rene Descartes-"i think therefore i am" certainty he was thinking.

part material part immaterial-mind and body

body is the vehicle of the mind

mind names sensations and objects of external world.

BEAUTY AND TASTE

"no object is so beautiful that under certain conditions it will not look ugly" - Oscar Wilde.

Plato-truth

reality is an imperfect copy of the forms (truths) art therefore is a much less perfect copy of a copy

PLATO'S CAVE
Plato imagines a group of people who have lived chained in a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them, and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows. According to Plato, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to seeing reality. He then explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not constitutive of reality at all, as he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners.

Aristotle - art whilst largely mimetic could purge the soul

the Kantian revolution

radical explorations of the condition of knowledge what does it mean to know and what is the result of that knowing

the mind contributes to the experience of objects.

the thing- the thing in itself

noumenon-phenomenon

things in themselves can be known only in the imagination

where is beauty?

not in the object of observation?

nor is it in a reasoned response ?

disinterested not to be confused with uninterested

disinterested-having no interest direct engagement with.

read Rousseau so long until the beauty of expression no longer interferes only then kovnt.

Hegel content v form
- no such thing as the thing in itself

everything in the universe building to something else

art is evidence of revelation of spirit

what cannot be known is nothing

there is no unbreakable thing in itself.

phenomenology- an examination of consciousness and the structures that underpin experience.

what does experience feel like?

what does our life world contain?

HEIDEGGER

thinking begins only when we have come to know that reason glorified for centuries is the stiff necked adversary of thought.

the origin of the work of art 1935-1937

Artworks, Heidegger contends, are things, a definition that raises the question of the meaning of a "thing." As this concept is so broad, he narrows down the definition to "mere things," meaning inanimate objects. He then chooses to examine a pair of shoes painted by Vincent Van Gogh, looking to the work to establish a distinction between artwork and other "things." This was actually typical of Heidegger as he often chose to study shoes and shoe maker shops as an example for the analysis of a culture. Heidegger explains the viewer's responsibility to consider the variety of questions about the shoes, asking not only about form and matter—what are the shoes made of?—but bestowing the piece with life by asking of purpose—what are the shoes for?

a painting is a thing of a certain type.
wearing shoes is different from seeing.
the being of shoes of their usefulness
painted shoes reveal the truth about shoes

LANGUAGE AND WITTGENSTEIN

big questions

how do we understand the world?
is the limit to that understanding?
if so how are parameters to be defined?

TRACTUS 1921

"whereof one cannot speak there of one must be silent"-Wittgenstein

language cannot say everything
language and the world share a common form.

art, god ethics etc reside. outside of language (occupying the realm of the mystical.)

"the limits of my language are the of my world?"-Wittgenstein

language games
meaning is a social activity words are not pictures of objects, ideas and situations they mean only in so far as they can be used.

god, beauty, good etc don't exist (in the platonic sense)
they mean what they do only in the context of how they are used.

MEANING IS USE

beauty is not property that we can come to know

nor is it a type of a response but we know how when and where to use it.

No comments: