ARS - "The Objectivity of Esthetic Value"

[Guyau]

The Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association will be held December 27-30, 2008, in Philadelphia at the Marriott Hotel. The topic for the session of the Ayn Rand Society will be “The Objectivity of Esthetic Value,” which will pertain to material in the first four chapters of The Romantic Manifesto.

Harry Binswanger will speak on “Art and Metaphysical Values.” There will be two contributors from the wider philosophical community. One will be Mitchell S. Green from the University of Virginia. His topic will be “Rand, Art, and Metaphysical Mirroring.” The other contributor will be Bill Brewer of the University of Warwick. He will be speaking on “Objectivity and Esthetic Value.”

I have studied the work of Bill Brewer with intense interest, and I am thrilled that he will be a participant.

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/philosophy/staff/brewer/

Edited July 11, 2008 by Stephen Boydstun

[Roger Bissell]

The Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association will be held December 27-30, 2008, in Philadelphia at the Marriott Hotel. The topic for the session of the Ayn Rand Society will be “The Objectivity of Esthetic Value,” which will pertain to material in the first four chapters of The Romantic Manifesto.

Harry Binswanger will speak on “Art and Metaphysical Values.” There will be two contributors from the wider philosophical community. One will be Mitchell S. Green from the University of Virginia. His topic will be “Rand, Art, and Metaphysical Mirroring.” The other contributor will be Bill Brewer of the University of Warwick. He will be speaking on “Objectivity and Esthetic Value.”

I have studied the work of Bill Brewer with intense interest, and I am thrilled that he will be a participant.

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/philosophy/staff/brewer/

Thanks for posting this, Stephen. I received the email and attachment from ARS earlier this week and have been mulling over the feasibility of my taking time off from Disneyland (with so many other music performance absences looming both before and after the Christmas holidays), in order to attend this meeting.

It does look stimulating, perhaps even possibly pushing the discussion further toward clarification of Rand's position, which is too often misunderstood by people as an overgeneralization of her philosophy of literature. While I don't think she understood either music or literature well enough (see my "Art as Microcosm" essay in JARS, also posted elsewhere at OL), I think she had a broader model of what the arts are and meansthan just a bunch of poor relatives of literary art.

So, while I don't know yet whether I'm going to attend, it is the first Objectivist event I've been able to get up much enthusiasm for in the past couple of years.

REB

[anonrobt]

I trust these will later be able to be read by those unable to attend?

[BaalChatzaf]

Harry Binswanger will speak on “Art and Metaphysical Values.” There will be two contributors from the wider philosophical community. One will be Mitchell S. Green from the University of Virginia. His topic will be “Rand, Art, and Metaphysical Mirroring.” The other contributor will be Bill Brewer of the University of Warwick. He will be speaking on “Objectivity and Esthetic Value.”

How can a matter of taste be objective?

De gustabus non disputandem est.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

How can a matter of taste be objective?

Bob,

I don't read you actually asking this question.

I read it as follows: "How can anyone believe that a matter of taste be objective, since it can't be."

Correct me if I am wrong.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

I just shared a carne asada burrito with sour cream. It was great! I ate, you all talked. Fools.

--Brant

[anonrobt]

How can a matter of taste be objective?

Bob,

I don't read you actually asking this question.

I read it as follows: "How can anyone believe that a matter of taste be objective, since it can't be."

Correct me if I am wrong.

Michael

Of course the first error is the presumption it is a matter of taste [that it is, it seems, a mindless emotionalism]...

is taste without substance, willy-nilly, or is there a reason [or reasons] for that taste - contextual objectivity, however personal it might be...

Edited November 24, 2008 by anonrobt

[Guyau]

Ayn Rand Society – 28 December 2008

“Art and Metaphysical Values” – Harry Binswanger

I. Introduction: Art and Reason

II. The Essence: Art Is the Voice of Philosophy

III. The Function Art Performs

IV. Integration with Rand’s Epistemology

V. The Definition of Art

“Rand, Art, and Metaphysical Mirroring” – Mitchell Green

I. The Comprehensive View

II. Babbitts, Hamlets, and the “Sense of Life”

“Esthetics and Metaphysics: Reflections on Rand’s Romantic Manifesto” – Bill Brewer

“A key claim at the heart of Rand’s Romantic Manifesto is that art is a concrete manifestation or presentation of metaphysics, in particular, of certain metaphysical value-judgments. This is a striking and original idea; and in what follows I pursue a series of questions and puzzles that came up for me in trying to understand and assess it.

. . .

Most of my problems concern the precise relationship proposed here between an art-work and its associated system of metaphysical value-judgments . . . .”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I trust these will later be able to be read by those unable to attend?

Robert, the papers are available only to members of the Society or to people who attend the session. Harry Binswanger’s presentation is based on a chapter he is writing for Ayn Rand: A Companion to Her Works and Thought, which is scheduled for publication by Blackwell in 2010. Gregory Salmieri and Allan Gotthelf are the editors of that volume.

[BaalChatzaf]

How can a matter of taste be objective?

Bob,

I don't read you actually asking this question.

I read it as follows: "How can anyone believe that a matter of taste be objective, since it can't be."

Correct me if I am wrong.

Michael

I asked a straightforward and fair question to which I have not yet received an answer. I understand that aesthetics and beauty can be based on convention and that conventions can be clearly defined and understood. But conventions can be and often are arbitrary. So what makes one standard of beauty better or more valid than another? The only objective basis for grounding beauty is to derives the laws of beauty from the empirically verified laws of physics or from our basic biological nature which are the rules correctly and objectively describing how the world and we work. I will accept as an objective non-arbitrary definition of beauty a clear link between the rules of beauty and our biological make up. Does such a link exist? If so where is it described? Can you provide a reference?

I think aesthetics ought to be as well founded and well grounded as medicine. We judge medicine on how well it maintains or restores our proper biological functioning. Can we do the same for music, for the visual arts, for the plastic arts?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Guyau]

Firstly

Slightest rise the sun

sparkle on the pane.

Swiftest past the noon

solstice kiss again.

–Stephen

Bob, you might find the following thread and some of its links informative and insightful, or at least stimulating.

http://www.solopassion.com/node/2390#comment-30329

If you could get over to Philly, I think you would find this ARS session terrific. The following link will lead you to all the other riches to be enjoyed there at the APS Eastern Division Meeting. (Only $60 for admission, for three days of intellectual adventure and growth.)

http://www.apaonline.org/divisions/eastern/V82_1.aspx

[anonrobt]

You might find this of interest, too....

http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/071222_beauty.htm

[Guyau]

Why humans make art is among the questions tackled in this hefty new tome:

Art without Borders

A Philosophical Exploration of Art and Humanity

Ben-Ami Scharfstein

(Chicago 2009)

This new work could be either a good complement or a good challenge to Rand’s ideas on that question.

[Reidy]

Re #4 and the followups: I never heard anyone say that matters of taste are objective. The standard Objectivist line (which I presume the APA speakers agree with) is that esthetic judgements are objective.

[Christopher]

I think if we are to define aesthetic preferences Objectively, we need objective definitions:

Art represents an abstraction of reality

An emotion is an unconscious value judgment

Aesthetic beauty is a positive emotional reaction to art

Therefore, those who consider specific artwork beautiful perceive the values within the abstraction as good. As such, we can understand (and judge) people according to their aesthetic preferences because those preferences inform us about their values.

Of course, the catch is that we interpret art differently, so such a judgment is premature. Is there an objective interpretation? Perhaps. Art is a dialogue between the artist and the observer. In order to understand the meaning of the symbolism within art and thus capture the abstraction as it was meant to be represented, the observer should have an understanding of the artist's character and of the culture in which the artist was living. Through this understanding, we can take the artists position, reconstruct the abstraction as the artist meant it to be, and then feel beauty or not.

Biological justifications of beauty are just the same, except that automatic values such as facial symmetry and "average looks" represent evolutionary values built into our lowest level of awareness (much like automatic fear of spiders).

[Ralph Hertle]

How can a matter of taste be objective?

Bob,

I don't read you actually asking this question.

I read it as follows: "How can anyone believe that a matter of taste be objective, since it can't be."

Correct me if I am wrong.

Michael

Michael:

YOU'RE WRONG. You asked.

A simple reading shows that he is merely asking a simple question regarding the method by which taste is related to the principle of objectivity.

You have assumed that objectivity is impossible, and that as a result the question of a relationship of objectivity and taste is unbeleivable.

The original question refers to what means exists that the objects of art "out there" may have what amount of importance to the individual and his/her happiness "in here" or ego.

Now, I won't ask how to solve the problem. however, Ayn Rand suggested two relevant concepts that may bear upon the problem.

1. She insists [and I paraphrase from sources] that in every discussion the principle of "either or" be evaluated.

2. She, at other places, suggests that the idea of amount, or "how much", be considered, for example, where someone asked her, "can love be measured?", she replied, "And how."

Is what that is [a value be] important to me, and if so by just how much?

Taste may, also, be a matter of choice and evaluation by the individual.

Taste is not a matter for a collective.

Additionally, it is sometimes said that, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." I would say, instead, that it might be more appropriate to say that, "taste is a matter for the individual." Beauty needs specific definitions, and Objectivism, hasn't really addressed that problem to date. I would venture that Objectivism hasn't arrived at the definitions for the concept, beauty, because it is busy with evaluations of representative subject matter, cognitive concepts, and related concepts, and has not been able to deal with the problems of the logical moral or logical design issues that are found in the realm of normative abstractions. Concepts of order, proportion, value measurement and emotional logic can then be dealt with. Beauty is then possible to identify.

Possibly, the concept of taste may then be evaluated.

Ralph Hertle

[Ralph Hertle]

How can a matter of taste be objective?

Bob,

I don't read you actually asking this question.

I read it as follows: "How can anyone believe that a matter of taste be objective, since it can't be."

Correct me if I am wrong.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ralph,

I'm sorry for the delay. I just saw this.

My comment was not about the question as worded, but what was between the lines.

There is some history involved.

Michael