Objectivist Esthetics, R.I.P.

[anthony]

1 hour ago, Jonathan said:

"We don’t need no stinkin’ proof or logic! Proof is bad, and anyone who asks us to prove our positions is an empiricist!"

Hahahaha!

J

"Objectivist Esthetics, R.I.P."

Twain:

"The rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated".

[Brant Gaede]

There is no way to integrate any esthetics into the Objectivist philosophy and there is therefore no such thing as an "Objectivist Esthetics." There is--maybe--in Rand's personal philosophy. Where did she ever use such terminology? (Not saying she didn't.)

Call it/them "Rand's esthetics." She sure had it/them. (The plural is best here.)

She did the most to make a mess of this by inadequately providing differentation. I think she did some--a little, with music.

--Brant

[Jon Letendre]

Honestly, the Manifesto was all jibberish to me. I am not very esthetic and I don't like the non-functional requirement.

Gearboxes are beautiful. I stare and contemplate and truly enjoy the experience. The very real and useful tricks they accomplish are integral to the experience.

Nuclear power plants are beautiful. If you told me the facility was a non-functional art installation, I would be utterly devastated.

Would any sculpture lovers be devastated if all sculpture tomorrow somehow became functional? David might turn out to be a house-cleaning robot who we've previously known only in its charging/still state. Perhaps some would, and that is strange to me. I would suddenly become very interested in sculpture.

[Jonathan]

15 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

The solution is the doctrine of falsification.  By all means use reason + facts to produce a hypothesis.   Then test predictions logically implied by the hypothesis against observed fact.  If the prediction is falsified by the observation then some element of the hypothesis is false.

Indeed, and the issue of falsifiability is another set of problems that the Objectivist Esthetics runs into when Rand's followers are challenged in reality. They allow for no possible outcomes which would falsify their positions. They use a variety of tactics to smuggle in nonfalsifiability, such as declaring that they know the artists' minds and motivations better than the artists know them, or that others who interpret artworks differently than the Rand-follower authorities are not interpreting the art's "true, objective meaning" due to their interpretations being distorted by their inferior "senses of life."

The fun part comes in when two pompous, posing Rand-follower authorities have differing interpretations of a work of art, and they're both trying to out sense of life each other and out know the other's mind and motivations. It's just a total abandonment of Objectivist epistemological principles.

J

[Jonathan]

14 hours ago, anthony said:

"Objectivist Esthetics, R.I.P."

Twain:

"The rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated".

No, it's dead. None of you have answers to the questions that I've challenged you with. Worse than that, you're not even trying to grasp the relevance of the questions or trying to contemplate how you might go about answering them after a lot of work in the future. Instead, you're just trying to wish them out of existence, deny reality, evade, squirm, pout and distract.

You're not offering even the slightest sign of life for the Objectivist Esthetics.

J

[Jonathan]

11 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

There is no way to integrate any esthetics into the Objectivist philosophy and there is therefore no such thing as an "Objectivist Esthetics." There is--maybe--in Rand's personal philosophy. Where did she ever use such terminology? (Not saying she didn't.)

Call it/them "Rand's esthetics." She sure had it/them. (The plural is best here.)

She did the most to make a mess of this by inadequately providing differentation. I think she did some--a little, with music.

--Brant

There could be a truly Objectivist aesthetics if someone were to philosophize about the field of aesthetics from an actual objective mindset, rather than from the mindset that Rand and her followers use.

J

[BaalChatzaf]

2 minutes ago, Jonathan said:

There could be a truly Objectivist aesthetics if someone were to philosophize about the field of aesthetics from an actual objective mindset, rather than from the mindset that Rand and her followers use.

J

Aesthetics is about tastes and preferences which are subjective to the core.  How can there be an objective aesthetics let alone an Objectivist aesthetics?

[Jonathan]

3 hours ago, Jon Letendre said:

Honestly, the Manifesto was all jibberish to me. I am not very esthetic and I don't like the non-functional requirement.

Gearboxes are beautiful. I stare and contemplate and truly enjoy the experience. The very real and useful tricks they accomplish are integral to the experience.

Nuclear power plants are beautiful. If you told me the facility was a non-functional art installation, I would be utterly devastated.

Would any sculpture lovers be devastated if all sculpture tomorrow somehow became functional? David might turn out to be a house-cleaning robot who we've previously known only in its charging/still state. Perhaps some would, and that is strange to me. I would suddenly become very interested in sculpture.

Take note, Rand-followers. The above is how to do it. Notice that Jon described his feelings, responses and mindset as precisely that -- his! He did not try to universalize them, impose them as the objective cognitive standard and limit of all mankind, and he did not deny the validity of others' differing views. He's man enough to be comfortable admitting that he's "not very esthetic," and that certain art forms don't do much for him. He doesn't need to feel insulted and attacked if someone experiences what he doesn't. He's not angry about others having a different take, but instead a little curious about what might be strange to him but not to others.

Reasonable, calm, not frantically accusatory or insecure.

J

[Jonathan]

11 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Aesthetics is about tastes and preferences which are subjective to the core.  How can there be an objective aesthetics let alone an Objectivist aesthetics?

The act of identifying tastes and preferences as being subjective is an objective act, that's how. A truly objective theory of aesthetics would simply recognize the objective reality that the field of aesthetics is subjective.

J

[anthony]

"Falsification"!

But, quite - empiricism brought to art, collapses, and offers only the "subjective" answer...of course!

Art-empiricism - empirical artists : jeez! What a contradiction in terms.

Next, we'll see Paint-By-Numbers.

"To understand the nature and function of art, one must understand the nature and function of concepts".

(To understand the nature and function of objectivity, ditto. One can read all about it in TRM, preferably with a non-empirical, a-skeptical approach).

"Consider the long, conceptual chain that starts from simple, ostensive definitions and rises to higher and still higher concepts forming a hierarchical structure of knowledge so complex that no computer could approach it. It is by means of such chains that man has to acquire and retain his knowledge of reality".

This above, might be the simplest and most eloquent explanation of Reason around.

Seems, it's not only esthetics that is dying, it's reason.. Thanks, fellows.

[anthony]

20 hours ago, Jonathan said:

No, it's dead. None of you have answers to the questions that I've challenged you with. Worse than that, you're not even trying to grasp the relevance of the questions or trying to contemplate how you might go about answering them after a lot of work in the future. Instead, you're just trying to wish them out of existence, deny reality, evade, squirm, pout and distract.

You're not offering even the slightest sign of life for the Objectivist Esthetics.

J

Bluster and bluff. By now you've heard enough and read enough of Rand's theory to understand her "conceptual" discovery and contribution to art, its nature, and indispensable purpose. Yet you continue to avoid confronting that knowledge, reverting to lightweight, empirical questions, your empirical 'tests'. The scope and range of Rand on art ~far~ exceeds what is "dream't of in your philosophy"  - while also including yours too, implicitly or explicitly. If you won't understand "objectivity", the rest follows.

[anthony]

You "see" an art work - you apprehend it. You "know" it's a man-made re-presentation of "some thing" in and from reality. (Maybe...not always). You "see" WHAT the represented content "is". You "see" HOW it was represented (stylized and treated). In an instant you are already integrating this new existent into your mind's existing concepts. You quickly "judge" the what and how of the image as "good, so-so, bad" for your life and mind, according to how you "view" - value, or disvalue life and reality (i.e. your *standards* and moral purpose, whether objective or subjective). You feel then a most personal, 'automated' emotion, according to the content of the art work AND to your unique, individual values; values, either mostly subjective or mostly objective and rational.

Self-evidently, all this happens within a few seconds as to appear almost unconscious. In a flash, it seems, one already feels some or other emotion. And your corresponding emotion is literally what you earn and deserve. But it is precisely what occurs in consciousness when meeting ANY existent in reality: "Is such-and-such good, or bad - for life and mind?"

Anyone have a reply to this:

Is there any reason the contemplation of art should differ from looking at reality? And ~especially~ with art: a real existent made purposefully by an individual for an individual, for his senses and his mind?

The emotion experienced in a flash, I think promotes the fallacy of "causeless emotions" - or, the error that one made an emotional and subjective - or "mystical" - contemplation (which taints art as being "mystical", a la the Sublimists).

Certainly not. You first have "to see" an entity - to identify and to evaluate it - to feel a specific emotion. The brief but definite, sensory-->understanding-->emotional activity can be measured empirically by part of a second, and has.

 

[Brant Gaede]

59 minutes ago, anthony said:

You "see" an art work - you apprehend it. You "know" it's a man-made re-presentation of "some thing" in and from reality. (Maybe...not always). You "see" WHAT the represented content "is". You "see" HOW it was represented (stylized and treated). In an instant you are already integrating this new existent into your mind's existing concepts. You quickly "judge" the what and how of the image as "good, so-so, bad" for your life and mind, according to how you "view" - value, or disvalue life and reality (i.e. your *standards* and moral purpose, whether objective or subjective). You feel then a most personal, 'automated' emotion, according to the content of the art work AND to your unique, individual values; values, either mostly subjective or mostly objective and rational.

Self-evidently, all this happens within a few seconds as to appear almost unconscious. In a flash, it seems, one already feels some or other emotion. And your corresponding emotion is literally what you earn and deserve. But it is precisely what occurs in consciousness when meeting ANY existent in reality: "Is such-and-such good, or bad - for life and mind?"

Anyone have a reply to this:

Is there any reason the contemplation of art should differ from looking at reality? And ~especially~ with art: a real existent made purposefully by an individual for an individual, for his senses and his mind?

The emotion experienced in a flash, I think promotes the fallacy of "causeless emotions" - or, the error that one made an emotional and subjective - or "mystical" - contemplation (which taints art as being "mystical", a la the Sublimists).

Certainly not. You first have "to see" an entity - to identify and to evaluate it - to feel a specific emotion. The brief but definite, sensory-->understanding-->emotional activity can be measured empirically by part of a second, and has.

 

Why does a work of art have to be  "selective recreation of reality"? It might be, of course.

You do seem to be involved in a selective recreation of Ayn Rand which, frankly, is harmless.

--Brant

 

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

Why does a work of art have to be  "selective recreation of reality"? It might be, of course.

You do seem to be involved in a selective recreation of Ayn Rand which, frankly, is harmless.

--Brant

 

It doesn't.  Art can be  a selective creation of unreality.   It can be whatever amuses the artist.

[william.scherk]

On 9/15/2016 at 4:57 PM, anthony said:

"The source of art lies in the fact that man's cognitive faculty is *conceptual*--i.e. that man acquires knowledge and guides his actions, not by means of single, isolated percepts, but by means of *abstractions*.

3 hours ago, anthony said:

You "see" an art work - you apprehend it. You "know" it's a man-made re-presentation of "some thing" in and from reality. (Maybe...not always). You "see" WHAT the represented content "is". You "see" HOW it was represented (stylized and treated).

Quote

In an instant you are already integrating this new existent into your mind's existing concepts. You quickly "judge" the what and how of the image as "good, so-so, bad" for your life and mind, according to how you "view" - value, or disvalue life and reality (i.e. your *standards* and moral purpose, whether objective or subjective).

Quote

You feel then a most personal, 'automated' emotion, according to the content of the art work AND to your unique, individual values; values, either mostly subjective or mostly objective and rational.

Quote

Self-evidently, all this happens within a few seconds as to appear almost unconscious. In a flash, it seems, one already feels some or other emotion. And your corresponding emotion is literally what you earn and deserve. But it is precisely what occurs in consciousness when meeting ANY existent in reality: "Is such-and-such good, or bad - for life and mind?"

Quote

Anyone have a reply to this:

Is there any reason the contemplation of art should differ from looking at reality? And ~especially~ with art: a real existent made purposefully by an individual for an individual, for his senses and his mind?

Quote

The emotion experienced in a flash, I think promotes the fallacy of "causeless emotions" - or, the error that one made an emotional and subjective - or "mystical" - contemplation (which taints art as being "mystical", a la the Sublimists).

Quote

Certainly not. You first have "to see" an entity - to identify and to evaluate it - to feel a specific emotion. The brief but definite, sensory-->understanding-->emotional activity can be measured empirically by part of a second, and has.

 

Edited September 17, 2016 by william.scherk
Fixed fritzed image URL

[anthony]

1 hour ago, BaalChatzaf said:

It doesn't.  Art can be  a selective creation of unreality.   It can be whatever amuses the artist.

"Art" is whatever the "artist" chooses to construct. Is that correct, by you?

But, what is "an artist"? One who makes art, of course. But what is "art"? What is made by an artist... And so on...

(it amuses me to drive a fast car at speed. I am therefore a "racing driver"?)

[BaalChatzaf]

1 minute ago, anthony said:

"Art" is whatever the "artist" chooses to construct. Is that correct, by you?

But, what is "an artist"? One who makes art, of course. But what is "art"? What is made by an artist... And so on...

(it amuses me to drive a fast car at speed. I am therefore a "racing driver"?)

You are a racing driver.  You should do that at a race track,  not on the public streets.

To get back the art issue,  anyone who sells what they do as art  and does so successfully is, in effect, an artist. 

You may not like  what this self anointed artist is producing.  In that case,  don't buy it. 

[anthony]

Oh good. Wordless William has finally shown some abstract art, as foil to all his previous samples of good and terrific realist art. Not every one - 1, 3, and 6, are 'abstract' - while the remainder contain referents to reality in them, to a greater and lesser degree. Only suggestions of reality, in a few cases.

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, william.scherk said:

 

I liked most of them  Especially the ones without sharp boundary lines...

[anthony]

34 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

You are a racing driver.  You should do that at a race track,  not on the public streets.

To get back the art issue,  anyone who sells what they do as art  and does so successfully is, in effect, an artist. 

You may not like  what this self anointed artist is producing.  In that case,  don't buy it. 

(For something close to your heart). By your standard, does that mean that any scientist/bureaucrat who "sells" AGW and successfully makes big bucks out of alarming the gullible public, is in effect a - what?. A fraud, perhaps? Do you believe money is the final measure of success? Nuh, I won't "buy" either but I may speak my mind about both.

[anthony]

4 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Why does a work of art have to be  "selective recreation of reality"? It might be, of course.

--Brant

 

Because definitions matter. (The alternate question is, why must everything manmade be "art"? There are other good words for attractive works). But broadly, when everything made with paint (etc.) "is art", then eventually, nothing is art.

Without parameters of definition - 1. the currency of realist artwork becomes mentally devalued. 2. The word-concept, "art" is diminished.

We can't communicate with each other, having different (maybe subjective, changeable) 'definitions' - and mostly, one can't distinguish and differentiate the concepts in one's mind.

With no firm identity perceived, no definitions possible. No definitions, no identifications. Lacking identification, one can't know what, why, or how "to value", so compromising one's values. The objective identities, 'you', 'me', 'yours' or 'mine' become subjective ~anything goes~, when a blurred 'definition' of "life" and "property" is widely permitted (for an example).

At an extreme, a man's or child's life can be seen to be as unimportant as an insect's, when identification disappears.

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, anthony said:

(For something close to your heart). By your standard, does that mean that any scientist/bureaucrat who "sells" AGW and successfully makes big bucks out of alarming the gullible public, is in effect a - what?. A fraud, perhaps? Do you believe money is the final measure of success? Nuh, I won't "buy" either but I may speak my mind about both.

I think their conclusion is mistaken, but that does not necessarily mean they are being unscientific.  And these people are not selling their views as wares.  They are publishing papers in journals.  In the case of warming which has being going on since before 1600 c.e.  there are natural drivers and man-made drivers.  How much of each is the question.  On this question there are differing view.  

For example Richard Muller a top of the line physicist  is a lukewarmist.  His physics is first rate and he has proved his worth many times in other areas.  The earth as a thermodynamic system is far more complicated than  the basic field and particle physics they do at CERN.   People are coming to different conclusion for sound reasons. Thermodynamics is a fairly young science.  It was put on a solid basis by Kelvin,  Joule and Clausius in the 1860's.  I am not surprised there are differing judgments on what is driving our climate.  We still do not have the full story on ocean effects and cloud formation.  

I have a bone to pick with the likes of Al Gore who not only did not invent the Internet  but is a total scientific ignoramus.  

[Jonathan]

1 hour ago, anthony said:

Because definitions matter.

Not to supporters of the Objectivist Esthetics. They don't comply with their own definitions, but make exceptions and selectively accept glaring contradictions and double standards. Art is a "selective re-creation of reality," except for the things which Objectivists want to qualify as art which don't "re-create reality." Art must present intelligible subjects and meanings, except in art works that Objectivist want to accept as art but in which Objectivists themselves cannot identify intelligible subjects and meanings. Definitions mean absolutely nothing to supporters of the Objectivist Esthetics.

 

1 hour ago, anthony said:

But broadly, when everything made with paint (etc.) "is art", then eventually, nothing is art.

Nothing is art by the Objectivist Esthetics. Nothing has ever been objectively proven to comply with the Objectvist Esthetcs' arbitrary criteria.

That's your goal, isn't it? The destruction of art, the denial of art! Nihilists!!! That's why so many of you love screaming "NOT ART!" at everyone.

 

1 hour ago, anthony said:

We can't communicate with each other, having different (maybe subjective, changeable) 'definitions' - and mostly, one can't distinguish and differentiate the concepts in one's mind.

You Rand-followers can't communicate via ANY art! When tested, you and Rand's other followers can't identify artists' subjects and meanings! Even in the most overtly narrative works of representational realism, Rand's followers fail to meet her criteria for art.

But you're right about the problems of muddled concepts, and you're also proof of it! You and Rand's other followers have subjective, whimsical, inconsistent and "changeable" notions of "re-creation of reality." The term means a few different contradictory things to you. Sloppy, irrational thinking.

 

1 hour ago, anthony said:

With no firm identity perceived, no definitions possible. No definitions, no identifications. Lacking identification, one can't know what, why, or how "to value", so compromising one's values. The objective identities, 'you', 'me', 'yours' or 'mine' become subjective ~anything goes~, when a blurred 'definition' of "life" and "property" is widely permitted (for an example).

The above is a perfect desription of the irrational, contradictory mess known as the Objectivist Esthetics.

J

[Brant Gaede]

2 hours ago, anthony said:

Because definitions matter. (The alternate question is, why must everything manmade be "art"? There are other good words for attractive works). But broadly, when everything made with paint (etc.) "is art", then eventually, nothing is art.

Without parameters of definition - 1. the currency of realist artwork becomes mentally devalued. 2. The word-concept, "art" is diminished.

We can't communicate with each other, having different (maybe subjective, changeable) 'definitions' - and mostly, one can't distinguish and differentiate the concepts in one's mind.

With no firm identity perceived, no definitions possible. No definitions, no identifications. Lacking identification, one can't know what, why, or how "to value", so compromising one's values. The objective identities, 'you', 'me', 'yours' or 'mine' become subjective ~anything goes~, when a blurred 'definition' of "life" and "property" is widely permitted (for an example).

At an extreme, a man's or child's life can be seen to be as unimportant as an insect's, when identification disappears.

I said definitions don't matter?

--Brant

[anthony]

16 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

I said definitions don't matter?

--Brant

Right, I got carried away again. ;) Still, the mega principle is that art is a subtle and powerful force for positive, or negative. I don't think I've met an artist who doesn't (mostly, tacitly) appreciate this fact and his/her power to influence minds-emotions through his works. I firmly believe (hell, it's clear) that many people believe that art is, to a degree, some sort of 'metaphysical given', a quasi-mystical "creation" -- not the 'man made' product, imbued with any of the human virtues, vices or errors that its very-human artist owns. Establishing what IS art, generally, is the starting point to throw light on that fallacy.

(it beats me how an artist could - both - take pride in HIS mind's accomplishment - and simultaneously - accept awe from others for being a 'mystically - inspired genius'. Cake and eat it... something in his/her psyche has to give way).