"Romanticist Art" Is Not The Essence Of The Objectivist Esthetics


Jonathan

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At Peikoff's website, I listened to his top rated podcast in which he answers the question, "I disagree with Ayn Rand on architecture as an art form and on the nature of femininity and masculinity, but I accept objective reality, reason, self-interest, and capitalism. Am I still an Objectivist?"


In his answer (which, overall, is a pretty good answer), Peikoff confirms that objective reality, reason, self-interest, and capitalism are indeed the essentials of the branches of the Objectivist philosophy, but erroneously adds "Romanticist art" as the essence of the Objectivist Esthetics.


No wonder that so many Objectivists still confuse Rand's ethical preferences and judgments of art with her aesthetics! If her heir and self-proclaimed "world's foremost authority on Objectivism" can't get it right, how can mere "students of Objectivism" be expected to?


J




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However, I think that you don't quite get it right yourself, since I think what you've said is that Rand's requirement of esthetic evaluation is that one identify the artist's sense of life and take that as criterion, whereas she actually said "the artist's theme." You might fudge it because of her then using the wording "his view of life," but I think she means something more cognitively explicit by that than the emotional "sense of life."

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/esthetic_judgment.html

Ellen

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I don't think that I've ever said that Rand's requirement of aesthetic judgment is that one is to identify the artist's sense of life. In fact, I frequently quote her comments on identifying "the artist's theme."

I've also often been critical of Rand's (and many of her followers') inappropriately claiming to know artists' senses of life based on her personal interpretations of works of art – I think that her doing so is inappropriate not only by my standards, but also according to her own statements about our inability to know others' senses of life based on such limited information.

J

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I thought you said, in an objection to something Stephen had said, that the O'ist esthetic standard was how well the artist conveys his/her sense of life. Also that you said that on some sort of thread where you were doing a victory dance about posts of yours being deleted on OO. But maybe I'm misremembering what you claimed substantively.

Ellen

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At Peikoff's website, I listened to his top rated podcast in which he answers the question, "I disagree with Ayn Rand on architecture as an art form and on the nature of femininity and masculinity, but I accept objective reality, reason, self-interest, and capitalism. Am I still an Objectivist?"
In his answer (which, overall, is a pretty good answer), Peikoff confirms that objective reality, reason, self-interest, and capitalism are indeed the essentials of the branches of the Objectivist philosophy, but erroneously adds "Romanticist art" as the essence of the Objectivist Esthetics.
No wonder that so many Objectivists still confuse Rand's ethical preferences and judgments of art with her aesthetics! If her heir and self-proclaimed "world's foremost authority on Objectivism" can't get it right, how can mere "students of Objectivism" be expected to?
J

Can you define your terms? For example, can you define:

essence?

esthetics?

Objectivist esthetics?

Romanticist art?

ethics?

Objectivist ethics?

Once you have your definitions in place, can you reason from your definitions to your conclusion that Romanticist art is not the essence of Objectivist esthetics?

If you want Objectivist definitions, you can get them from: http://aynrandlexicon.com/

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I thought you said, in an objection to something Stephen had said, that the O'ist esthetic standard was how well the artist conveys his/her sense of life. Also that you said that on some sort of thread where you were doing a victory dance about posts of yours being deleted on OO. But maybe I'm misremembering what you claimed substantively.

Ellen

Victory dance? Heh. My sharing the humor of an OO moderator's opposing Objectivism by deleting my summarizing Rand's views wasn't a victory dance. I don't think of dealing with such stupidity as an intellectual challenge worthy of a victory dance.

On the OL thread in question, I said that the Objectivist position is that we are to judge how well the artist has conveyed his views, not his sense of life. People at OO had been claiming that "man's life" was the Objectivist standard of value by which to judge everything, including beauty and art, and I was simply reporting here on OL the argument that I offered on OO in rejecting that claim.

J

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At Peikoff's website, I listened to his top rated podcast in which he answers the question, "I disagree with Ayn Rand on architecture as an art form and on the nature of femininity and masculinity, but I accept objective reality, reason, self-interest, and capitalism. Am I still an Objectivist?"

In his answer (which, overall, is a pretty good answer), Peikoff confirms that objective reality, reason, self-interest, and capitalism are indeed the essentials of the branches of the Objectivist philosophy, but erroneously adds "Romanticist art" as the essence of the Objectivist Esthetics.

No wonder that so many Objectivists still confuse Rand's ethical preferences and judgments of art with her aesthetics! If her heir and self-proclaimed "world's foremost authority on Objectivism" can't get it right, how can mere "students of Objectivism" be expected to?

J

Can you define your terms? For example, can you define:

essence?

esthetics?

Objectivist esthetics?

Romanticist art?

ethics?

Objectivist ethics?

Once you have your definitions in place, can you reason from your definitions to your conclusion that Romanticist art is not the essence of Objectivist esthetics?

If you want Objectivist definitions, you can get them from: http://aynrandlexicon.com/

Is that you, Phil? You sound a lot like Phil. I haven't been given moronically pointless homework assignments since Phil left.

If you're not Phil, and you're actually interested in the subject at hand, I would suggest that you follow your own link to the Ayn Rand lexicon and look up the entry for "esthetic judgment," and focus on understanding the second and third paragraphs.

J

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What were the OO people, and what were you, taking to be the meaning of "Man" in Rand's "Man's Life"?

I take her meaning to be an entity which I consider imaginary - "a being of volitional consciousness" - which being doesn't include all humans but only those who have activated a particular form of consciousness.

So possibly "Man's Life" would be considered the correct standard of beauty, though I don't see how it could be for esthetic merit in the technical sense (how well executed an art work is).

Ellen

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Can you define your terms? For example, can you define:

essence?

esthetics?

Objectivist esthetics?

Romanticist art?

ethics?

Objectivist ethics?

Once you have your definitions in place, can you reason from your definitions to your conclusion that Romanticist art is not the essence of Objectivist esthetics?

If you want Objectivist definitions, you can get them from: http://aynrandlexicon.com/

Is that you, Phil? You sound a lot like Phil. I haven't been given moronically pointless homework assignments since Phil left.

If you're not Phil, and you're actually interested in the subject at hand, I would suggest that you follow your own link to the Ayn Rand lexicon and look up the entry for "esthetic judgment," and focus on understanding the second and third paragraphs.

J

I am not Phil. And the 'assignment', if you want to call it that, is neither moronic nor pointless. It is an attempt to get you to explain your reasoning.

Here are the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs under esthetic judgment.

The fact that one agrees or disagrees with an artist’s philosophy is irrelevant to an estheticappraisal of his work qua art. One does not have to agree with an artist (nor even to enjoy him) in order to evaluate his work. In essence, an objective evaluation requires that one identify the artist’s theme, the abstract meaning of his work (exclusively by identifying the evidence contained in the work and allowing no other, outside considerations), then evaluate the means by which he conveys it—i.e., taking his theme as criterion, evaluate the purely esthetic elements of the work, the technical mastery (or lack of it) with which he projects (or fails to project) his view of life . . . .

Since art is a philosophical composite, it is not a contradiction to say: “This is a great work of art, but I don’t like it,” provided one defines the exact meaning of that statement: the first part refers to a purely esthetic appraisal, the second to a deeper philosophical level which includes more than esthetic values.

How do you connect these 2 paragraphs to your statement that Romanticist art is not the essence of Objectivist esthetics?

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Can you define your terms? For example, can you define:

essence?

esthetics?

Objectivist esthetics?

Romanticist art?

ethics?

Objectivist ethics?

Once you have your definitions in place, can you reason from your definitions to your conclusion that Romanticist art is not the essence of Objectivist esthetics?

If you want Objectivist definitions, you can get them from: http://aynrandlexicon.com/

Is that you, Phil? You sound a lot like Phil. I haven't been given moronically pointless homework assignments since Phil left.

If you're not Phil, and you're actually interested in the subject at hand, I would suggest that you follow your own link to the Ayn Rand lexicon and look up the entry for "esthetic judgment," and focus on understanding the second and third paragraphs.

J

I am not Phil. And the 'assignment', if you want to call it that, is neither moronic nor pointless. It is an attempt to get you to explain your reasoning.

Here are the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs under esthetic judgment.

The fact that one agrees or disagrees with an artist’s philosophy is irrelevant to an estheticappraisal of his work qua art. One does not have to agree with an artist (nor even to enjoy him) in order to evaluate his work. In essence, an objective evaluation requires that one identify the artist’s theme, the abstract meaning of his work (exclusively by identifying the evidence contained in the work and allowing no other, outside considerations), then evaluate the means by which he conveys it—i.e., taking his theme as criterion, evaluate the purely esthetic elements of the work, the technical mastery (or lack of it) with which he projects (or fails to project) his view of life . . . .

Since art is a philosophical composite, it is not a contradiction to say: “This is a great work of art, but I don’t like it,” provided one defines the exact meaning of that statement: the first part refers to a purely esthetic appraisal, the second to a deeper philosophical level which includes more than esthetic values.

How do you connect these 2 paragraphs to your statement that Romanticist art is not the essence of Objectivist esthetics?

The "deeper philosophical level I would interpret as, 'what I say, goes' "
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Can you define your terms? For example, can you define:

essence?

esthetics?

Objectivist esthetics?

Romanticist art?

ethics?

Objectivist ethics?

Once you have your definitions in place, can you reason from your definitions to your conclusion that Romanticist art is not the essence of Objectivist esthetics?

If you want Objectivist definitions, you can get them from: http://aynrandlexicon.com/

Is that you, Phil? You sound a lot like Phil. I haven't been given moronically pointless homework assignments since Phil left.

If you're not Phil, and you're actually interested in the subject at hand, I would suggest that you follow your own link to the Ayn Rand lexicon and look up the entry for "esthetic judgment," and focus on understanding the second and third paragraphs.

J

I am not Phil. And the 'assignment', if you want to call it that, is neither moronic nor pointless. It is an attempt to get you to explain your reasoning.

Here are the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs under esthetic judgment.

The fact that one agrees or disagrees with an artist’s philosophy is irrelevant to an estheticappraisal of his work qua art. One does not have to agree with an artist (nor even to enjoy him) in order to evaluate his work. In essence, an objective evaluation requires that one identify the artist’s theme, the abstract meaning of his work (exclusively by identifying the evidence contained in the work and allowing no other, outside considerations), then evaluate the means by which he conveys it—i.e., taking his theme as criterion, evaluate the purely esthetic elements of the work, the technical mastery (or lack of it) with which he projects (or fails to project) his view of life . . . .

Since art is a philosophical composite, it is not a contradiction to say: “This is a great work of art, but I don’t like it,” provided one defines the exact meaning of that statement: the first part refers to a purely esthetic appraisal, the second to a deeper philosophical level which includes more than esthetic values.

How do you connect these 2 paragraphs to your statement that Romanticist art is not the essence of Objectivist esthetics?

The "deeper philosophical level" I would interpret as, "what I say, goes" "
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What were the OO people, and what were you, taking to be the meaning of "Man" in Rand's "Man's Life"?

I take her meaning to be an entity which I consider imaginary - "a being of volitional consciousness" - which being doesn't include all humans but only those who have activated a particular form of consciousness.

So possibly "Man's Life" would be considered the correct standard of beauty, though I don't see how it could be for esthetic merit in the technical sense (how well executed an art work is).

Ellen

I think you get explicitly volitional individuals and implicitly volitional ones, but either way, like it or not, know it or not, man is a

being of volitional consciousness: all men, for all time. So Ellen, I can't agree with it being this exclusionary, for a "particular form

of consciousness", though I'd accept a continuum between both ends.

That man can and must develop the contents of his concepts, and choose his purpose and character - through effort - necessitates that he has entities, concretized in art forms, to show him that his efforts will be rewarded. An artwork is an end in itself as he is, representing the value-judgments of its artist, as his life does..

I don't recall if Rand put it this way, but Romanticist art, by showing what man is capable of being ("should" be), bridges the is-ought gap, enabling him to do the same.

J. I'm missing something. If Romanticist art is not the essence of O'ist aesthetics, what else is?

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Can you define your terms? For example, can you define:

essence?

esthetics?

Objectivist esthetics?

Romanticist art?

ethics?

Objectivist ethics?

Once you have your definitions in place, can you reason from your definitions to your conclusion that Romanticist art is not the essence of Objectivist esthetics?

If you want Objectivist definitions, you can get them from: http://aynrandlexicon.com/

Is that you, Phil? You sound a lot like Phil. I haven't been given moronically pointless homework assignments since Phil left.

If you're not Phil, and you're actually interested in the subject at hand, I would suggest that you follow your own link to the Ayn Rand lexicon and look up the entry for "esthetic judgment," and focus on understanding the second and third paragraphs.

J

I am not Phil. And the 'assignment', if you want to call it that, is neither moronic nor pointless. It is an attempt to get you to explain your reasoning.

Here are the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs under esthetic judgment.

The fact that one agrees or disagrees with an artist’s philosophy is irrelevant to an estheticappraisal of his work qua art. One does not have to agree with an artist (nor even to enjoy him) in order to evaluate his work. In essence, an objective evaluation requires that one identify the artist’s theme, the abstract meaning of his work (exclusively by identifying the evidence contained in the work and allowing no other, outside considerations), then evaluate the means by which he conveys it—i.e., taking his theme as criterion, evaluate the purely esthetic elements of the work, the technical mastery (or lack of it) with which he projects (or fails to project) his view of life . . . .

Since art is a philosophical composite, it is not a contradiction to say: “This is a great work of art, but I don’t like it,” provided one defines the exact meaning of that statement: the first part refers to a purely esthetic appraisal, the second to a deeper philosophical level which includes more than esthetic values.

How do you connect these 2 paragraphs to your statement that Romanticist art is not the essence of Objectivist esthetics?

The "deeper philosophical level I would interpret as, 'what I say, goes' "

Not so. The deeper levels are reality and reason, the human spirit, and all that. Notwithstanding that AR had her preferences, which are like the outer skin of the onion and could easily be discarded. To give her a 'charitable' chance, you have to cut to the deeper layers. Have you read The Romantic Manifesto? It may surprise you.

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I think you get explicitly volitional individuals and implicitly volitional ones, but either way, like it or not, know it or not, man is a

being of volitional consciousness: all men, for all time. So Ellen, I can't agree with it being this exclusionary, for a "particular form

of consciousness", though I'd accept a continuum between both ends

What are "explicitly" and "implicitly" volitional individuals?

What is it you think "volitional consciousness" means in Rand's formulation?

Jonathan is always noting that O'ists don't seem to know what Rand said about esthetic judgment.

I have noticed, time and time again, that O'ists don't seem to have ever read what she said, in both Galt's Speech and "The Objectivist Ethics," on volitional consciousness and the requirement to activate same in order to qualify as properly human.

Ellen

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J,

Do you have a copy of Heller's bio?

If yes, I wonder if you could take and post a picture of the drawing of Cyrus which is shown in the photo section.

That drawing is the quintessential kernel of Rand's "man qua man," the "Man" of her "Man's Life."

Ellen

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I think you get explicitly volitional individuals and implicitly volitional ones, but either way, like it or not, know it or not, man is a

being of volitional consciousness: all men, for all time. So Ellen, I can't agree with it being this exclusionary, for a "particular form

of consciousness", though I'd accept a continuum between both ends

What are "explicitly" and "implicitly" volitional individuals?

What is it you think "volitional consciousness" means in Rand's formulation?

Jonathan is always noting that O'ists don't seem to know what Rand said about esthetic judgment.

I have noticed, time and time again, that O'ists don't seem to have ever read what she said, in both Galt's Speech and "The Objectivist Ethics," on volitional consciousness and the requirement to activate same in order to qualify as properly human.

Ellen

I really see no difference between conceptual consciousness and her idea of volitional consciousness as stated by you, but volition seems to be the level of focus which--while it can be automatic--can be chosen. It's the free-will thingy. There is no choice on the think or not to think level--you will think--but on what you think about when it's optional. She did divide humanity into the "missing link" and those of us who are conceptualists, but that article wasn't her best to say the least. I simply think of people as rational or irrational, but rational people can be irrational and vice versa, depending. It's more accurate to say someone is predominantly this or that. This goes all the way back to her disowning the capacity for evil or wrong-doing in her heroes. The major weak exceptions were Hank and Dagny--errors of knowledge but good psychology--and, more interesting, Dominique (psychology plus her big wrong notion about the power of evil) and Gail (messed up with messed up philosophy too good to be evil and too bad to survive his exposure to Roark).

--Brant

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I think you get explicitly volitional individuals and implicitly volitional ones, but either way, like it or not, know it or not, man is a

being of volitional consciousness: all men, for all time. So Ellen, I can't agree with it being this exclusionary, for a "particular form

of consciousness", though I'd accept a continuum between both ends

What are "explicitly" and "implicitly" volitional individuals?

What is it you think "volitional consciousness" means in Rand's formulation?

Jonathan is always noting that O'ists don't seem to know what Rand said about esthetic judgment.

I have noticed, time and time again, that O'ists don't seem to have ever read what she said, in both Galt's Speech and "The Objectivist Ethics," on volitional consciousness and the requirement to activate same in order to qualify as properly human.

Ellen

Hey, I think a man can escape his fundamental nature (rational, volitional...selfish) to varying degrees - and structures of society today seem to encourage/aid automatons, d'ja notice? :smile: - but carried out completely would mean the end of his life. So while I do not doubt there's a huge spectrum between someone 'switching on' to full focus - and his being "at the mercy of his undirected sensory-perceptual mechanism..."[AR] many people live by mixed premises contradictory to their explicit convictions.

Man's nature remains, whatever the denial and evasion of the individual - it's tantamount to arguing that Romanticist art can only be appreciated by Objectivists: rather than of value to anyone, to the degree of their consciousness.

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Can you define your terms? For example, can you define:

essence?

esthetics?

Objectivist esthetics?

Romanticist art?

ethics?

Objectivist ethics?

Once you have your definitions in place, can you reason from your definitions to your conclusion that Romanticist art is not the essence of Objectivist esthetics?

If you want Objectivist definitions, you can get them from: http://aynrandlexicon.com/

Is that you, Phil? You sound a lot like Phil. I haven't been given moronically pointless homework assignments since Phil left.

If you're not Phil, and you're actually interested in the subject at hand, I would suggest that you follow your own link to the Ayn Rand lexicon and look up the entry for "esthetic judgment," and focus on understanding the second and third paragraphs.

J

I am not Phil. And the 'assignment', if you want to call it that, is neither moronic nor pointless. It is an attempt to get you to explain your reasoning.

Here are the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs under esthetic judgment.

The fact that one agrees or disagrees with an artist’s philosophy is irrelevant to an estheticappraisal of his work qua art. One does not have to agree with an artist (nor even to enjoy him) in order to evaluate his work. In essence, an objective evaluation requires that one identify the artist’s theme, the abstract meaning of his work (exclusively by identifying the evidence contained in the work and allowing no other, outside considerations), then evaluate the means by which he conveys it—i.e., taking his theme as criterion, evaluate the purely esthetic elements of the work, the technical mastery (or lack of it) with which he projects (or fails to project) his view of life . . . .

Since art is a philosophical composite, it is not a contradiction to say: “This is a great work of art, but I don’t like it,” provided one defines the exact meaning of that statement: the first part refers to a purely esthetic appraisal, the second to a deeper philosophical level which includes more than esthetic values.

How do you connect these 2 paragraphs to your statement that Romanticist art is not the essence of Objectivist esthetics?

The "deeper philosophical level I would interpret as, 'what I say, goes' "
Not so. The deeper levels are reality and reason, the human spirit, and all that. Notwithstanding that AR had her preferences, which are like the outer skin of the onion and could easily be discarded. To give her a 'charitable' chance, you have to cut to the deeper layers. Have you read The Romantic Manifesto? It may surprise you.
Tony, I have read it but so long ago I don't remember anything from it. The impression that remains is what I registered above - it all derives, from A is A, and A is what I say it is.
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She did divide humanity into the "missing link" and those of us who are conceptualists, but that article wasn't her best to say the least.

I recommend rereading Galt's Speech. The difference between the speech and the article is the silly reference to "the missing link," which demonstrates amply that Rand really and truly was not a student of evolution and didn't know what the missing link issue was about, but the human and sub-human idea is in Galt's Speech.

As I said, I wonder how many O'ists have read what she said on the issue - as distinct from just picking up the phrase "volitional consciousness" (not that you're an O'ist, but you as well as Tony are filling in notions of your own and leaving aside what Rand actually wrote).

Ellen

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What were the OO people, and what were you, taking to be the meaning of "Man" in Rand's "Man's Life"?

In O-land discussions on "man's life", I generally assume that we're using Rand's definition of "man":

"[The] valid definition of man, within the context of his knowledge and of all of mankinds knowledge to-date [is]: 'A rational animal.' (Rational, in this context, does not mean 'acting invariably in accordance with reason'; it means 'possessing the faculty of reason.' A full biological definition of man would include many subcategories of 'animal,' but the general category and the ultimate definition remain the same.)"

I take her meaning to be an entity which I consider imaginary - "a being of volitional consciousness" - which being doesn't include all humans but only those who have activated a particular form of consciousness.

Even if "man" is defined as a being of volitional consciousness, it doesn't change anything when it comes to aesthetic judgment and the fact that "Romanticist art" is not the essence of the Objectivist Esthetics. According to Objectivism, an aesthetic appraisal isn't based on one's own preferences or premises, no matter how volitionally and rationally they were chosen, but on how well the artist presented his theme and his views in his work. He can be a naturalist/determinist who presents anti-man, anti-life themes and views in his art which could nevertheless qualify as being aesthetically great according to Objectivism.

But, having said that, I have addressed the issue of the Objectivist concept of volition in judgments of beauty by challenging those at OO the with same challenge that I later presented to Roger: "Objectivism's notion of objectivity is that it is the act of volitionally applying clearly identified objective standards of judgment by means of logic and reason, so, please identify the objective standard of judging beauty, and demonstrate how judgments of beauty employ logic and reason."

No one -- including those who believe that they've activated that particular form of consciousness which you consider imaginary -- has answered the challenge. That's because they, and everyone else, are not judging beauty by volitionally applying clearly identified objective standards of judgment by means of logic and reason. Instead, they're attempting to rate their own subjective pleasure responses to visual phenomena.

So possibly "Man's Life" would be considered the correct standard of beauty...

You might be interested in reading a few of my comments from the old OO discussion on the subject of "man's life" as the proposed standard of aesthetic judgment:

Btw, notice that Rand, unlike Hsieh, does not attempt to tie beauty to health. Instead, she discusses judgments of the types of proportions and relationships that Jennifer [unintentionally] earlier correctly identified as being subjective. Facial asymmetry, an indefinite jawline, small eyes and a long nose are not health issues (nor are they necessarily ugly -- ask the average caricaturist to draw a face which is lopsided, small-eyed and long-nosed, and yet beautiful, and he'll have no difficulty doing so).

So, Hsieh's foray into attempting to objectify her subjective aesthetic tastes by equating beauty with health is a deviation from Rand's Objectivism.

In the above, you've eliminated the concept of beauty and replaced it with the concept of health and fitness. Your having done so is an inadvertent admission that beauty is not objectively measurable. All that you've done is found something that is measurable and renamed it "beauty." In doing so, you're not talking about the same thing that Rand was talking about when discussing beauty.

Let's apply your proposed standard of beauty to Rand's example which I quoted earlier. Are you taking the position that proportionally smaller eyes, longer noses and indefinite jaw lines "can shorten a man's

life, and be considered bad"? Including when exhibited by healthy octogenarians who, by definition, haven't had shortened lives?

Eleanor Roosevelt is almost universally considered to have been very ugly, yet her features didn't deviate from any limited range of health and fitness. Her ugly features were not in any way visual manifestations of illness or shortness of life. In fact, her ugliness, and that of similar-looking people, often gives people the impression of a sort of rugged durability. Conversely, delicate things are often beautiful.

So, what you've done, in addition to replacing the concept of beauty with the concept of health and fitness, is to engage in confirmation bias -- you haven't gone out looking for examples of beauty or ugliness which falsify your proposed health-based standard of beauty.

And how would your standard of entity qua entity apply to the judgment of beauty of arrangements of inanimate objects? What would it mean to judge the beauty or ugliness of a sunset qua sunset, landscape qua landscape, or a still life of rocks qua rocks? If you were to suggest that I apply the standard of pattern qua pattern to a wallpaper design, how would that get me any closer to objectively determining that the design's forms, proportions and colors are beautiful versus ugly?

Are you proposing the idea that you're going to try to measure the beauty of a bouquet of flowers as lesser than that of a bouquet of weeds based on the science which reveals that the weeds' forms are better suited to their function -- that the weeds' forms make them much more durable and prolific -- and therefore more successful -- than the flowers? If so, you're not investigating the concept of beauty, but deviating from it, or even eliminating it.

J

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Can you define your terms? For example, can you define:

essence?

esthetics?

Objectivist esthetics?

Romanticist art?

ethics?

Objectivist ethics?

Once you have your definitions in place, can you reason from your definitions to your conclusion that Romanticist art is not the essence of Objectivist esthetics?

If you want Objectivist definitions, you can get them from: http://aynrandlexicon.com/

Is that you, Phil? You sound a lot like Phil. I haven't been given moronically pointless homework assignments since Phil left.

If you're not Phil, and you're actually interested in the subject at hand, I would suggest that you follow your own link to the Ayn Rand lexicon and look up the entry for "esthetic judgment," and focus on understanding the second and third paragraphs.

J

I am not Phil. And the 'assignment', if you want to call it that, is neither moronic nor pointless. It is an attempt to get you to explain your reasoning.

Here are the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs under esthetic judgment.

The fact that one agrees or disagrees with an artist’s philosophy is irrelevant to an estheticappraisal of his work qua art. One does not have to agree with an artist (nor even to enjoy him) in order to evaluate his work. In essence, an objective evaluation requires that one identify the artist’s theme, the abstract meaning of his work (exclusively by identifying the evidence contained in the work and allowing no other, outside considerations), then evaluate the means by which he conveys it—i.e., taking his theme as criterion, evaluate the purely esthetic elements of the work, the technical mastery (or lack of it) with which he projects (or fails to project) his view of life . . . .

Since art is a philosophical composite, it is not a contradiction to say: “This is a great work of art, but I don’t like it,” provided one defines the exact meaning of that statement: the first part refers to a purely esthetic appraisal, the second to a deeper philosophical level which includes more than esthetic values.

How do you connect these 2 paragraphs to your statement that Romanticist art is not the essence of Objectivist esthetics?

Did you read and comprehend Rand's statements? In reading them, did you not grasp the fact that non-romanticist art can qualify as being aesthetically great according to Objectivism? Did you somehow fail to understand that romanticist works of art can be rated as being aesthetically bad according to Objectivism? Objectivism's preference for romanticist art is an ETHICAL judgment. Aesthetics is not ethics. Get it?

J

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J,

Do you have a copy of Heller's bio?

If yes, I wonder if you could take and post a picture of the drawing of Cyrus which is shown in the photo section.

That drawing is the quintessential kernel of Rand's "man qua man," the "Man" of her "Man's Life."

Ellen

No, I don't have it. If you' d like though, you could take a photo of it with your iPad, e-mail it to me, and I'll upload it to my Flickr page and post the link here.

J

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Did you read and comprehend Rand's statements? In reading them, did you not grasp the fact that non-romanticist art can qualify as being aesthetically great according to Objectivism? Did you somehow fail to understand that romanticist works of art can be rated as being aesthetically bad according to Objectivism? Objectivism's preference for romanticist art is an ETHICAL judgment. Aesthetics is not ethics. Get it?

J

I'm not an expert on Objectivism and I am not an Objectivist. My guess is Objectivist aesthetics is based on Objectivist ethics and perhaps also on Objectivist politics.

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J. I'm missing something. If Romanticist art is not the essence of O'ist aesthetics, what else is?

Its essence is that it is a simulation of reality based on an artist's metaphysical value judgments, with the purpose of model-building something that the artist feels is important or worthy of being experienced and contemplated. It's a means of experiencing a condensed version of complex ideas in a manner which allows perceivers to experience them as if they were real events.

J

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