Objectivist Esthetics, R.I.P.


Jonathan

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Start with "reality", take a dose of "consciousness", and keep going...

...those objective standards aren't hard.

I explained an approach to identifying the theme of pictures. I did it twice for a painting. Do your own work, try it out. 

You should be as pernickety about Kant's lofty, vague, non-standards of art as you are about Rand's objective standards.

One criterion for him: "beauty". Hasn't a mention of content.

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2 hours ago, anthony said:

Start with "reality", take a dose of "consciousness", and keep going...

 

It's not my job to support your assertions. It's yours.

 

2 hours ago, anthony said:

...those objective standards aren't hard.

 

Then identify them. If it's so easy to identify them, why are you not doing so?

 

2 hours ago, anthony said:

I explained an approach to identifying the theme of pictures. I did it twice for a painting. Do your own work, try it out. 

Oops, you're drifting! You're already losing track of what we're talking about. Or intentionally evading. We're not talking about identifying themes in pictures. We're talking about establishing an objective means of aesthetically judging art. We're talking about the thing that Rand had said was "outside the scope" of the discussion in which she had already discussed identifying themes -- therefore, since she had already covered the topic of identifying themes, that topic was inside the scope of the discussion, so it's not what she was referring to; rather, she was referring to the method of judging the purely aesthetic qualities of how well, how artistically, the artist conveyed "his meaning."

So, try again. Only this time, try to make your answer relevant to the issue at hand. Stay on topic. No more bluffing and evading. Try to be honest for once.

 

2 hours ago, anthony said:

You should be as pernickety about Kant's lofty, vague, non-standards of art as you are about Rand's objective standards.

Rand doesn't have any objective standards of aesthetic judgment. She said so herself! So, you're lying again.

Dumbass, in a recent post I just called your bluff, and I described exactly what your bluff was, and told you that it's not going to work anymore, and your response is to try it again???!!! Hahaha!

Rand did not identify objective standards for making aesthetic judgments. All that she did was spew bile at other thinkers who she claimed failed miserably on the subject. She didn't do the heavy lifting, and claimed that the subject was outside the scope of the then-current discussion. And she never came back to the issue; she never provided any standards herself. Her posing and preening as if she had all the answers apparently fooled you, but there are still no such standards that have been identified.

Snarling about Kant won't make them appear. Lying that Rand identified them won't make them appear.

 

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What a significant little paragraph from Kamhi and Torres' book, What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand, page 58:

Quote

"Note that, in Rand's view, the theme is to be discovered 'in the work' itself, not through any biographical evidence, commentary, or other 'outside considerations.' Since every work of art is an objectification of fundamental values, its meaning should be discernible to individuals other than its maker — at least those who share the same culture. (As to the specific 'esthetic principles…which must guide an objective evaluation,' Rand explicitly places them 'outside the scope of this discussion'…)"

In other words, exactly what I've been saying: According to Rand's theory, a work of art must communicate the artist's intended meaning, and, Rand never identified any aesthetic principles by which to judge art. She provided no means of making objective aesthetic judgments despite insisting that such a method must exist, and that her own judgments of artworks were objective.

Nothing has ever been objectively demonstrated to qualify as art by her requirement that an artwork must communicate intelligible subjects and themes/meanings, and even if someday a work of art is objectively proven to qualify as art by her criteria, it would still not be possible to objectively judge its aesthetic merits since no objective aesthetic principles have been identified.

For people who claim to be making "objective" judgments of art -- and I've seen loads and loads of these people in O-land -- there's a hell of a lot missing from the theory, and from the reasoning and proof to back it up!

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16 hours ago, Jonathan said:

What a significant little paragraph from Kamhi and Torres' book, What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand, page 58:

In other words, exactly what I've been saying: According to Rand's theory, a work of art must communicate the artist's intended meaning, and, Rand never identified any aesthetic principles by which to judge art. She provided no means of making objective aesthetic judgments despite insisting that such a method must exist, and that her own judgments of artworks were objective.

Nothing has ever been objectively demonstrated to qualify as art by her requirement that an artwork must communicate intelligible subjects and themes/meanings, and even if someday a work of art is objectively proven to qualify as art by her criteria, it would still not be possible to objectively judge its aesthetic merits since no objective aesthetic principles have been identified.

For people who claim to be making "objective" judgments of art -- and I've seen loads and loads of these people in O-land -- there's a hell of a lot missing from the theory, and from the reasoning and proof to back it up!

It must be clear by now that "aesthetic principles" are ~your~ criterion and standard of making art and of judging art. That's been the classic interpretation of aesthetics which you don't let go of:

Aesthetics: "... a branch of philosophy that explores the nature of art, beauty, and taste, with the creation and appreciation of beauty". (Wiki)

Now- what about the definition reminds you of Rand on art? Not much, eh? What does it tell you? That, while certainly, she explicitly and implicitly espoused "beauty and taste", the old aesthetics-approach is far from the core of Rand's theory. She moved on. Perhaps she reckoned it was superfluous, it has been written to death by many prior thinkers. And, perhaps she saw it as 'the given', clearly large numbers of artists can reproduce beauty with sensitivity and taste. Then, she indicates some part of the (growing) field of aesthetics is not philosophical, but a scientific study (when it gets to studies of color theory, proportion, perspective - neuro-science, psychology - and the rest). To Rand, it must seem to her readers, the past-accepted role and definition of a philosophy of art, aesthetics, was weak and hardly relevant to rational beings. 

Beauty. Where there is "beauty" there has to exist *something* which is beautiful. There can be no attribute without an existent (to be an attribute of) as you once argued for.

"The aesthetic quality", I broadly think of beauty, is always present. Even when it's absent. A beautiful subject (in itself) may be depicted un-beautifully, which has to be a deliberate rejection of beauty by an artist (unless he's most unskillful); a plain or ugly subject might also often be beautifully done. Postmodernism of course, tends to both, the un-beautiful, unbeautifully done.

Content. It should have sunk in, that Rand's is a radical, new theory on art, which I think 'expands the range' of art-appreciation hugely - making *the content* of artworks, primary. Something *of substance* which one's mind ultimately seeks and needs with the resulting emotions (yes, and sensations of beauty), and which matters most for the long run of an individual's life.

Recognize this difference or you'll carry on trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and blaming Rand for her 'deficiencies', all because you feel she should have resurrected all the obvious, dated stuff about "aesthetics".

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5 hours ago, anthony said:

It must be clear by now that "aesthetic principles" are ~your~ criterion and standard of making art and of judging art. That's been the classic interpretation of aesthetics which you don't let go of:

Heh. Um, no, they were Rand's criteria and standards:

"The fact that one agrees or disagrees with an artist’s philosophy is irrelevant to an esthetic appraisal 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."

Hahaha!  Tony, poor little goof. Attempting to jettison aesthetics from the Objectivist Esthetics is such a desperate tack. It's super-extra-retardedly-ridiculous even for you! You yourself have taken the opposite position in many past discussions and argued that your and your holy savior Rand's aesthetic tastes and judgments were objective.

Heh. And now we've reached the point where you're trying to just "blank out" Rand's own words in order to maintain the illusion of her holy perfection.

 

6 hours ago, anthony said:

Content. It should have sunk in, that Rand's is a radical, new theory on art, which I think 'expands the range' of art-appreciation hugely - making *the content* of artworks, primary. Something *of substance* which one's mind ultimately seeks and needs with the resulting emotions (yes, and sensations of beauty), and which matters most for the long run of an individual's life.

Um, no, Kant had covered all of that same ground ("...something for the senses to hold on to..."), and much more, and much deeper. Rand seems to have been unaware that she was getting her ideas on aesthetics from Kant. Either that, or she was being dishonest as hell, and consciously decided to vilify him in order to try to throw her followers off the track that she had stolen his ideas and even adopted one of them has her signature aesthetic style? I think it was mostly that she absorbed Kant's ideas without knowing it, primarily through the art that she admired. I don't think she read much Kant, but when she did, it was with severe hostility and the mindset of confirmation bias, but, even at that, some of it probably sank in subconsciously -- when she had all of her focus on willfully misinterpreting him on one issue, perhaps some part of the back of her mind resonated with his views on art providing the needed experience of feeling our complex, highest ideas and ideals as if they were real.

Tony, it is an absolute pleasure discovering each day how much more reality you're willing to deny, and, better yet, how much of Objectivism you're willing to burn so as to keep Saint Ayn's sainthood untarnished. 

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Bull. Kant made "content" the primary? Prove it. "The beautiful object" is as far as he went, as I have read anywhere.

IEP:

 

Starting in sect.43, Kant addresses himself particularly to fine art for the first time. The notion of aesthetic judgment already developed remains central. But unlike the investigation of beauty in nature, the focus shifts from the transcendental conditions for judgment of the beautiful object to the transcendental conditions of the making of fine art. In other words: how is it possible to make art? To solve this, Kant will introduce the notion of genius.

But that is not the only shift. Kant stands right in the middle of a complete historical change in the central focus of aesthetics. While formerly, philosophical aesthetics was largely content to take its primary examples of beauty and sublimity from nature, after Kant the focus is placed squarely on works of art. Now, in Kant, fine art seems to 'borrow' its beauty or sublimity from nature. Fine art is therefore a secondary concept. On the other hand, of course, in being judged aesthetically, nature is seen 'as if' purposeful, designed, or a product of an intelligence. So, in this case at least, the notion of 'nature' itself can be seen as secondary with respect to the notions of design or production, borrowed directly from art. Thus, the relation between nature and art is much more complex than it seems at first. Kant's work thus forms an important part of the historical change mentioned above. Moreover, it is clear from a number of comments that Kant makes about 'genius' that he is an aesthetic conservative reacting against, for example, the emphasis on the individual, impassioned artist characteristic of the 'Sturm und Drang' movement. But, historically, his discussion of the concept contributed to the escalation of the concept in the early 19th Century.

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From Kant we have "a genius" who is the "naturally endowed" medium and agent for nature's beauty and sublime. From Rand, the artist's consciousness is the interpolator between reality and his painting. It's the distinction between a predetermined imitator of nature - and the artist as volitional First Cause.

From above:

"Now, in Kant, fine art seems to 'borrow' its beauty or sublimity from nature. Fine art is therefore a secondary concept".

As for "reacting against ... the emphasis on the individual, impassioned artist". What does anyone make of this? The removal of the individual artist's mind - and convictions - from the frame, again?

 

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It has to be asked of Kant - where is he going with this? You get the sense that his aesthetics must lead to other things, like softening one up for his morality. So it does. This fascinating conversation with a prominent scholar of Kant, Paul Guyer, from: "Aesthetics, Immanuel Kant & Imagination".

Speaking of the imagination as ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ strongly parallels the way we generally talk of freedom. In Kant the relationship between the aesthetic and the moral is undeniable. But it’s also unclear why aesthetic experience makes an important contribution to these. You suggest that it concerns our need as sensible-affective beings for a similar kind of ‘presentation’ of the moral. How, in your view, does art have a ‘sensible-affective’ significance for our moral lives in Kant?

PG: I am convinced that it was his recognition of the moral potential of aesthetic experience that ultimately drove Kant to write a third critique and to connect aesthetic experience to a teleological attitude toward nature in that work, something he had not previously done.

Yet the relationship between aesthetic experience and its moral significance must be subtle, because the freedom of imagination that is essential to aesthetic experience and part of what makes it morally beneficial will be lost, if the aesthetic is too directly constrained by or too evidently in service of the moral. Kant’s slightly wayward disciple Friedrich Schiller recognized this point in his Letters on Aesthetic Education, arguing on the one hand that humans can become moral only through aesthetic education, but on the other that art cannot be didactic.  I tried to capture some of this complexity in earlier work (Kant and the Experience of Freedom, 1993), with the phrase ‘the interest of disinterestedness.’

Kant recognized many different ways, in which aesthetic experience can be morally beneficial although once again without being either a necessary or sufficient condition for successful moral development. In the case of art, most obviously, Kant thought that great art paradigmatically has significant moral content, thus stimulates us to think about morality and moral issues without directly telling us what to do or how to live. But art also offers many opportunities for selfishness, as in the collector’s lust for possession (think of recent sales of Francis Bacon or Picasso paintings for prices well over $100,000,000), and for that reason Kant was also leery of art and stressed the ‘intellectual’ i.e., moral interest of natural rather than artistic beauty. He argued that the experience of natural beauty prepares us to love something without personal interest, as we must do to fulfil our imperfect duty of beneficence to others (although this calls for ‘practical’ rather than ‘pathological’ love), and that the experience of the sublime prepares us to love something even contrary to our personal interest, as morality may also sometimes call upon us to do. More generally, Kant argued that the experience of the sublime makes our moral powers palpable to us, although at the same time that we must be prepared by a certain amount of moral culture to be receptive to such feelings. In his last great work, theMetaphysics of Morals of 1797, Kant argued that our attraction to the beauty of organic and inorganic nature is a disposition conducive to morality, and a spirit of wanton destructiveness toward such natural beauty will rub off on our dispositions to other human beings, the only direct objects of moral concern in Kant’s view. But it comes as a great surprise when, after having expounded his theory of aesthetic ideas as the spirit or essence of fine art in section 49 of the Critique of the Power of Judgment, in section 51 he suddenly claims that all beauty, whether of art or nature, is the ‘expression of aesthetic ideas.’ He offers no explanation of this claim. My conjecture is that he simply assumes that morality is so central in human life that we project moral significance into non-human nature even when we know rationally that non-human nature is not really a subject or object for morality. This tendency would also be the explanation of something he mentions earlier in the book, our tendency to take different colors, different animals and plants, and so on, as symbols of different virtues or moral qualities.

The experience of the sublime prepares us to love something even contrary to our personal interest, as morality may also sometimes call upon us to do

In all of this, it is important to recognize that Kant is making causal rather than conceptual claims, or in his language synthetic a posteriori rather than analytic or synthetic a priori claims, so these claims of beneficial influence are empirical, subject to empirical confirmation and no doubt true only to a degree, varying for different individuals and for different points in the lives of particular individuals.  

Perhaps one of Kant’s deepest thoughts on this subject is that while there is no essential connection between aesthetic experience and morality, morality is so important to human beings that it may be hard for beauty or art to sustain our interest without some ultimate moral significance. But again, that can only be an empirical claim

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You're in psycho retard panic babble mode, Tony. You're deflecting and evading. Desperate countermeasures. Chaff, decoys, flares. And to no effect.

The ship is sinking. You've tossed the main cargo of aesthetics as jetsam, and instead of plugging any of the many jagged holes in the hull, you're cursing a ghost who isn't there. You, Tony, are the flotsam of the wrecked scow Objectivist Esthetics.

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Not interesting to you, huh? Oh, didn't you know about the effects of Kant's aesthetics on ethics?

"He argued that the experience of natural beauty prepares us to love something without personal interest, as we must do to fulfill our imperfect duty of beneficence to others...and that the experience of the sublime prepares us to love something even contrary to our personal interest, as morality may sometimes call upon us to do."

"Without personal interest" - "Even contrary to our personal interest". All that derived from "aesthetics"?! Whew.

Got us trapped, coming or going - so much for beauty and the sublime, all the while setting mankind up for his notorious vision of morality (duty above all, especially duty without one's "inclination" or selfish pleasure).

Nice imagery, btw. But it is Kant's aesthetic/ethical ship which has sunk. Plainly, now anyone can see where it was headed. Who can make this up, better than he himself. Rand, who you moan about as a "hater" is a positive angel exuding benevolence, next to this. (And I still believe he had -good intentions-, simply out of touch with reality).

Kantian Aesthetics, R.I.P.

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Attacking Kant isn't going to repair the gaping holes in the Objectivist Esthetics.

Continuing to express your rage about Kant isn't a valid substitute for coming up with what he said doesn't exist: a means of judging the aesthetics of art.

It still doesn't exist, Tony. You said earlier that identifying it would be really easy. Yet you haven't followed through. You parroted some points of Rand's philosophy, apparently hoping that doing so would kickstart your brain, but then nothing came after the parroting. Your next step was to try to just get rid of aesthetics and claim that Rand did too, until I reminded you of what she had actually said on the subject.

So, now your dishonest, unoriginal pea brain is back to the ineffective tactic of attacking Kant. Your doing so hasn't resulted in any objective means of measuring aesthetics.

Next you will be declaring that the unidentified aesthetics principles that Rand mentioned but neglected to identify are axiomatic and therefore don't need to be identified?

And then back to attacking Kant.

Wiggle, squirm, twist, lie, bend, shift, and back to wiggle. Repeat incessantly.

Could you do me a favor and at least attack other thinkers, just for variety? Maybe Augustiine, Longinus, or Chomsky?

So, let's review where we are:

There are no objective criteria for making aesthetic judgments. Rand neglected to identify any, and the same is true of her followers.

Nothing has ever been objectively proven to qualify as art by the definition and criteria of the Objectivist Esthetics.

Those two facts of reality go together nicely -- there are no objective aesthetic principles by which to judge art, but, hey, no fookin worries, mate, since nothing qualifies as art so there's nothing to judge even if we had the means.

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15 hours ago, Jonathan said:

Attacking Kant isn't going to repair the gaping holes in the Objectivist Esthetics.

 

 

 

Attacking Rand isn't going to repair the gaping holes in the Kantian Aesthetics.

Fair's fair. This thread has been all about haranguing Rand/Objectivists. Take back some of your medicine.

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17 hours ago, Jonathan said:

Attacking Kant isn't going to repair the gaping holes in the Objectivist Esthetics.

Continuing to express your rage about Kant isn't a valid substitute for coming up with what he said doesn't exist: a means of judging the aesthetics of art.

It still doesn't exist, Tony. You said earlier that identifying it would be really easy. Yet you haven't followed through. You parroted some points of Rand's philosophy, apparently hoping that doing so would kickstart your brain, but then nothing came after the parroting. Your next step was to try to just get rid of aesthetics and claim that Rand did too, until I reminded you of what she had actually said on the subject.

So, now your dishonest, unoriginal pea brain is back to the ineffective tactic of attacking Kant. Your doing so hasn't resulted in any objective means of measuring aesthetics.

Next you will be declaring that the unidentified aesthetics principles that Rand mentioned but neglected to identify are axiomatic and therefore don't need to be identified?

And then back to attacking Kant.

Wiggle, squirm, twist, lie, bend, shift, and back to wiggle. Repeat incessantly.

Could you do me a favor and at least attack other thinkers, just for variety? Maybe Augustiine, Longinus, or Chomsky?

So, let's review where we are:

There are no objective criteria for making aesthetic judgments. Rand neglected to identify any, and the same is true of her followers.

Nothing has ever been objectively proven to qualify as art by the definition and criteria of the Objectivist Esthetics.

Those two facts of reality go together nicely -- there are no objective aesthetic principles by which to judge art, but, hey, no fookin worries, mate, since nothing qualifies as art so there's nothing to judge even if we had the means.

Keep those "dishonest" accusations coming. They tell me I'm on the right track.

It would seem Rand paid more respect to the individual artwork, the individual artist and the individual viewer, than any previous art philosopher. Kant (and he's not alone, e.g. Hume, I've been reading) had their fixed ideas, hardly at all touching on the artist's consciousness and choices, treating him ~almost~ an as unconscious transmitter of the beauty/sublime. Beauty, irrespective of content or subject, the only goal in their limited thinking. When Kant ~uses~ the artists' output towards anticipated ends, his duty-ethics ("prepares us to love something without personal interest") he deserves what he should get. How individual artists can accept that notion, I don't know, but you'd prefer to sweep that under the mat, or have never mentioned it, that I've seen. 

Those "unidentified aesthetic principles"? Can you name what you think they should cover? I haven't seen you do this, that I can remember.

E.g. Beauty, imagination, observation, sensibility, taste, sensitivity, masterly technique ...

well, duh!

Of course. Who said otherwise? One must take those elements pretty much for granted (until they are lacking). Gaping holes, I don't think - as I said, they are not only and purely philosophical matters. And they have been done to death. 

No matter what 'school' of art, Kantian too, every artist is and was inescapably faced with: What? shall I paint; How? shall I paint it, and Why?

Why, is because he thinks his view is important, and his chosen vocation highly important. What: is his choice of subject matter from among x number of possibilities. How, is his chosen rendition and personal styling, in y number of ways. The permutations of x and y allow him a near infinite total of conceivable outcomes, always under his control. I imagine that Rand's inductively identified this fact, first off. One sees some pictures, one can infer the essential nature of the rest of art.

You will notice: choice, choice, choice.

Given his ultimate and god-like power over his artwork, whatever is on canvas is to be taken as the artist's "truth" (by a viewer).

"...what qualifies as art?" Not again...

"Art is a selective re-creation of reality..."[therefore, chosen referents of reality reproduced in a specific medium] "...according to the artist's metaphysical value-premises"[to show what *matters* to him about existence or life].

Only Rand takes an artist this seriously - 'at his word' - and lays out an approach for one to objectively assess any painting--for one's own benefit and that alone--don't forget that. Which other philosophers have? 

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5 hours ago, anthony said:

Attacking Rand isn't going to repair the gaping holes in the Kantian Aesthetics.

Fair's fair. This thread has been all about haranguing Rand/Objectivists. Take back some of your medicine.

Idiot, I haven't been advocating or defending Kant's aesthetics.

You're so religious about Rand that you see her as God and, since she hated and vilified Kant, you see him as Satan. Your religious mindset is that if anyone blasphemes holy Ayn, they therefore must be instruments of Kant.

Retarded, Rand-zealot illogic.

I couldn't give a flying fuck if you point out holes in Kant's aesthetics, dumbfuck! I mean, it would be nice if you were to actually understand Kant's positions rather than inventing all of the Rand-kook distorted nonsense that you come up with -- it might be fun to have a conversation based in reality instead of listening to your nutty misinterpretations -- but I would have no problem discussing actual holes in any thinkers' theories.

Numbnuts, just because you are insanely emotionally invested in adoring Rand doesn't mean that if a person is critical of her ideas he must be emotionally invested in adoring her enemy.

So, knock yourself out! If you so strongly feel the need to try to lash out at me by attacking Kant, go for it! It'll have the same effect on me as your attacking, say, Spinoza, Nietzsche, Voltaire or Wittgenstein: None.  If you attack any of those others, the only thing that I ask (with wasted breath) is that you please get their positions right, rather than assigning them the batshitcrazy Rand-demented shit that you inevitably come up with.

And attacking them, and legitimately pointing out holes in their theories will accomplish nothing toward patching the gaping holes in the Objectivist Esthetics. You will have gotten no closer to identifying objective principles of aesthetic judgment, or to offering objective proof that anything has ever qualified as art by Rand's definition and criteria.

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A 3 minute break from the thread's distemper.

 

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6 hours ago, anthony said:

Keep those "dishonest" accusations coming. They tell me I'm on the right track.

It would seem Rand paid more respect to the individual artwork, the individual artist and the individual viewer, than any previous art philosopher. Kant (and he's not alone, e.g. Hume, I've been reading) had their fixed ideas, hardly at all touching on the artist's consciousness and choices, treating him ~almost~ an as unconscious transmitter of the beauty/sublime. Beauty, irrespective of content or subject, the only goal in their limited thinking. When Kant ~uses~ the artists' output towards anticipated ends, his duty-ethics ("prepares us to love something without personal interest") he deserves what he should get. How individual artists can accept that notion, I don't know, but you'd prefer to sweep that under the mat, or have never mentioned it, that I've seen. 

Those "unidentified aesthetic principles"? Can you name what you think they should cover? I haven't seen you do this, that I can remember.

E.g. Beauty, imagination, observation, sensibility, taste, sensitivity, masterly technique ...

well, duh!

Of course. Who said otherwise? One must take those elements pretty much for granted (until they are lacking). Gaping holes, I don't think - as I said, they are not only and purely philosophical matters. And they have been done to death. 

No matter what 'school' of art, Kantian too, every artist is and was inescapably faced with: What? shall I paint; How? shall I paint it, and Why?

Why, is because he thinks his view is important, and his chosen vocation highly important. What: is his choice of subject matter from among x number of possibilities. How, is his chosen rendition and personal styling, in y number of ways. The permutations of x and y allow him a near infinite total of conceivable outcomes, always under his control. I imagine that Rand's inductively identified this fact, first off. One sees some pictures, one can infer the essential nature of the rest of art.

You will notice: choice, choice, choice.

Given his ultimate and god-like power over his artwork, whatever is on canvas is to be taken as the artist's "truth" (by a viewer).

"...what qualifies as art?" Not again...

"Art is a selective re-creation of reality..."[therefore, chosen referents of reality reproduced in a specific medium] "...according to the artist's metaphysical value-premises"[to show what *matters* to him about existence or life].

Only Rand takes an artist this seriously - 'at his word' - and lays out an approach for one to objectively assess any painting--for one's own benefit and that alone--don't forget that. Which other philosophers have? 

That read more like prayer than a rational response.

Still no objective aesthetic principles identified.

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Heh.

23 hours ago, anthony said:

Those "unidentified aesthetic principles"? Can you name what you think they should cover? I haven't seen you do this, that I can remember.

E.g. Beauty, imagination, observation, sensibility, taste, sensitivity, masterly technique ...

well, duh!

Of course. Who said otherwise? One must take those elements pretty much for granted...

So, what you're trying to say, as predicted, is that the missing objective aesthetic principles are axiomatic?

Hahahaha!

"One" must take it "pretty much" for granted? "Well, duh!" Heh. What a deep and nuanced way of doing philosophy!

How would one objectively measure something like beauty or "masterly technique"? Explain the objective procedure and the standards involved. Rand wasn't a painter, and had no knowledge of technique, yet she made the "objective" judgment that Capuletti's student-grade work showed masterly technique when it didn't. See the problem? Understand? Just because someone feels that something is masterful doesn't make it "pretty much" self-evidently true.

23 hours ago, anthony said:

Gaping holes, I don't think - as I said, they are not only and purely philosophical matters. And they have been done to death. 

 

Done to death?  Great, then you should be able to easily identify the objective criteria for measuring aesthetic phenomena! Start with some of the  phenomena that you listed. Demonstrate how to objectively measure beauty, taste, imagination, and masterly technique.

i'll continue to wait. Hint: they're not axiomatic.

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11 hours ago, Jonathan said:

Heh.

So, what you're trying to say, as predicted, is that the missing objective aesthetic principles are axiomatic?

Hahahaha!

"One" must take it "pretty much" for granted? "Well, duh!" Heh. What a deep and nuanced way of doing philosophy!

 

 

I know you prefer to talk nuts and bolts, "aesthetics" and beauty, where you're comfortable. One more time, Objectivist aesthetics is not your "aesthetic principles" -- but partly includes/encompasses yours. 

(And now everything you hear is "axiomatic", ha!)

If I see an athlete perform well, I *will* take for granted (deduce) that he gruelingly trained, worked out, was coached, practiced, studied, dieted, ran physiological and neurological tests, suffered -- and everything - that brought him to his mental and physical peak. Then after all of it, all that counts in others' eyes is his performance on the day. Maybe, you believe it sorta comes about, without effort and purpose? If he is anything like as dedicated and purposeful, an artist also has to take strain to develop, observing and *processing* through his mind what he sees of existence, looking for the right subject and endlessly practicing his skills, much of the time feeling he's not getting anywhere. I take that and more, "pretty much for granted". At the end of it is a picture, and that's what matters.

Rand broke your traditional mold and extended it with something radically new, but either you don't see it, or don't want to.

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14 hours ago, anthony said:

I know you prefer to talk nuts and bolts, "aesthetics" and beauty, where you're comfortable. One more time, Objectivist aesthetics is not your "aesthetic principles" -- but partly includes/encompasses yours. 

(And now everything you hear is "axiomatic", ha!)

If I see an athlete perform well, I *will* take for granted (deduce) that he gruelingly trained, worked out, was coached, practiced, studied, dieted, ran physiological and neurological tests, suffered -- and everything - that brought him to his mental and physical peak. Then after all of it, all that counts in others' eyes is his performance on the day. Maybe, you believe it sorta comes about, without effort and purpose? If he is anything like as dedicated and purposeful, an artist also has to take strain to develop, observing and *processing* through his mind what he sees of existence, looking for the right subject and endlessly practicing his skills, much of the time feeling he's not getting anywhere. I take that and more, "pretty much for granted". At the end of it is a picture, and that's what matters.

Rand broke your traditional mold and extended it with something radically new, but either you don't see it, or don't want to.

Lots of slithering, but still no objective aesthetic principles for judging art, principles which Rand herself said are required for an objective judgment. Please stop lying, Tony. They are not my requirement, they are Rand's. We've been over this already. You've already tried this tactic near the beginning of this current page, and failed. Reread the quotes from Rand that I posted in response. Wishing won't make them go away. Ignoring them and repeating your lies won't change reality.

Now, is it time to attack Kant again as a distraction? Then back to claiming that no principles or proof are necessary because they're axiomatic, then back to claiming that Rand was so brilliant that she revolutionized aesthetics to the point where we don't need the objective principles that she herself said we do need, but which she neglected to identify, then right back to attacking Kant again...

Tony, if you're going to try to claim that Rand revolutionized the field of aesthetics, you'd have to have knowledge of the field prior to Rand. You don't. You just have lots and lots of faith in her.

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I see. I forget how technical-minded you are.

(earlier) : "We are not talking about identifying themes in pictures [no longer, not after you were showed that themes can be identified]. We're talking about establishing an objective means of aesthetically judging art". [Your favoured fall-back].

What you have resented from the first, is that ~anyone~ can look at a picture and think "how well this has been done" - or how badly. To 'judge', the viewer first needs a technical art education, right? A painting that contains real things, necessitates training for a person, to compare them to the reality he sees and knows... Is that it? Well, I call that rubbish. One's art observation skills can and should be improved with practice, but there's nothing to stop a beginner getting full value, despite not knowing anything about the artist's use of colors, proportions, perspective, etc.. If the art represents reality- and adds further visual value, 'aesthetic quality', which good artists usually will do - any aware viewer can "establish" how good it is, technically, because he has reality and its properties (colors, proportion, etc.) as his standard to compare against.

 

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12 minutes ago, anthony said:

What you have resented...

No, I don't "resent" anything. Characterizing it like that is just your ploy to emotionalize the issue, and to assign me a false motive so that you can try to justify dismissing my arguments that you can't answer rationally.

 

28 minutes ago, anthony said:

...is that ~anyone~ can look at a picture and think "how well this has been done" - or how badly. The viewer first needs a technical art education, right?

No, I'm usually only critical of pretentious authority-wannabes pretending to know what their talking about. My critical response only kicks in when a person is claiming to make expert judgments about "masterly technique" and "sheer perfection of workmanship" and such, while claiming to be speaking objectively, but while also having no knowledge of what might actually constitute actual sheer perfection of workmanship in that field, and while talking about a painting which is, in reality, student-grade work by any standard other than subjective standards.

I'm in the arts. I've been very encouraging of hearing people's takes on art works. Most people love art, and love sharing their opinions without the authority poses. It's generally only in O-land where I run into little authority wannabes, and they seem to hate art. They rarely share anything positive about it, but are usually only concerned with shouting at others "That's NOT ART!!!"

O-vish authority-wannabes aren't content to say that they like or dislike a work of art. No, they have to pose as if their opinions are so much more than that. Why, they are supreme, refined consumers of the arts, and no one could possibly experience in any work of art what the O-vishes can't. As His Royal Published Highness's wife blurted about others' responses to art which she didn't experience, "Give me a break!"

So, in other words, Tony, you're projecting. I'm opposing the pompous authority poses. I'm not telling you what you can't experience in a work of art. I'm opposing the resentment and rage that you all display toward those who get something out of a work of art that you don't. You're just upset that I blow your authority poses out of the water, and that I challenge you with simple, basic questions that you can't answer.

 

46 minutes ago, anthony said:

A painting that contains real things, necessitates training for a person, to compare them to the reality he sees and knows... Is that it? Well, I call that rubbish. One's art observation skills can and should be improved with practice, but there's nothing to stop a beginner getting full value, despite not knowing anything about the artist's use of colors, proportions, perspective, etc.. If the art represents reality- and adds further visual value, 'aesthetic quality', which good artists usually will do - any aware viewer can "establish" how good it is, technically, because he has reality (colors, proportion, etc.) as his standard to compare against.

Oops, you're forgetting about Saint Ayn's theory's emphasis on stylization, which, by definition, is a deviation from reality! See if you can work out what that means to making objective aesthetic judgments! Think about it. Think hard. If an artist is intentionally deviating from reality in some ways, as Rand says is good and important for an artist to do, then can you think of any problems that might arise in choosing reality as the standard against which to compare his art? Try to focus! Forget about immediately changing the subject to Kant and how icky he was.

If it's good for an artist to deviate from reality, what is the "objective" cutoff point for such deviation? Specifically. How would we objectively measure stylization and determine that it has gone too far in deviating from reality?

Here's another problem: When artworks don't recreate reality as Rand required, such as music, dance, architecture, etc., how would one "compare them against reality"? Didn't think of that one, did you?

Show us some examples of your use of "objective" criteria in measuring the aesthetics of works of art. Show us how to "objectively" look at one stylized representational realist painting and determine that it's stylization is an aesthetically good deviation from reality, and then contrast it to another stylized representational realist painting which is an aesthetically bad deviation from reality. And remember not to confuse ethics with aesthetics. Show how us to go about making objective "purely esthetic" appraisals, to borrow Rand's own words again.

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5 hours ago, Jonathan said:

 

Now, is it time to attack Kant again as a distraction? Then back to claiming that no principles or proof are necessary because they're axiomatic, then back to claiming that Rand was so brilliant that she revolutionized aesthetics to the point where we don't need the objective principles that she herself said we do need, but which she neglected to identify, then right back to attacking Kant again...

 

 

I'll let you keep presuming that I have Kant in my sights, merely because he IS - "Kant". Horrors! That suits your prejudices and nothing will change them. He's not even my top disliked philosopher, but the fact is he's been the greatest single influence on art - and influential in epistemology(hmm) and morality (ugh) - and can't be avoided. From Kant we hear of murky and neo-mystical dreams about the nature and function of art and artists. Rand points us the other way into clarity and understanding. (Objectivists, strangely, believe that nothing is above explanation and anything can be known, man-made things no different). Rand and Kant, then pull in opposite directions. A tug o war between knowing-ness and obfuscation, like this thread. 

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2 hours ago, anthony said:

I'll let you keep presuming that I have Kant in my sights, merely because he IS - "Kant". Horrors! 

Nice try. Have you focused on any other thinkers when trying to distract from the subject at hand? No. You don't know any of their views. Nor do you really know Kant's, but Rand trained you to hate him anyway, so that's what you do. When you can't answer challenges against the Objectivist Esthetics, you resort to attacking Kant when no one is advocating for him (and you alternate those attacks with claims of axiomatic status to that which you can't prove, or to pretending that Rand didn't require what you're trying to eliminate or deny).

 

2 hours ago, anthony said:

Rand and Kant, then pull in opposite directions.

Not in the realm of aesthetics. Rand adopted his views without knowing it. It's clear that she didn't actually read his work. I think that what happened is that one of the followers in her "inner circle" went out looking to confirm Rand's uninformed opinions on Kant, just like you do, and misread his work with absolute hostility through freaky distorted Rand Goggles™.

We've seen the phenomenon a few times here on OL. Newberry, for example, had been fond of intellectually immolating himself in the past with posts where he quoted Kant, hatefully misinterpreted what the quotes said/meant, and then when we'd go back and try to get him to focus on all of the actual words in the quote, it was as if he physically couldn't see the words which make the statement benign, if not downright Objectivistically heroic.

An example was: "Every affection of the STRENUOUS TYPE (such, that is, as excites the consciousness of our power of overcoming every resistance [animus strenuus]) is aesthetically sublime, e.g., anger, even desperation (the rage of forlorn hope but not faint-hearted despair)."

I've bolded the words that Rand's acolytes don't see, or refuse to understand.

Anyway, your statement is false. Rand was not the opposite of Kant in the area of aesthetics. Rather, she was the embodiment of his ideas. All of her works employ the Kantian Sublime as her signature aesthetic style.

And you, Tony, also love the Kantian Sublime. You're hooked on it just like most other Rand followers. You get your fix of it by making Kant into a destructive force of magnitude which allows you to "feel your will to resist," and to "regard your estate as exalted above it."

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Stop punching.

From “The New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzles Volume 43,” Puzzle 13, “Do the Splits” by Lynn Lempel: 23 across, eleven letters: Berate some guy for getting too much sun.

Answer: gooffonatangent.

What? Does she mean “goof on a tan gent?” with two many f’s?

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5 hours ago, Jonathan said:

 

 

Not in the realm of aesthetics. Rand adopted his views without knowing it. It's clear that she didn't actually read his work. I think that what happened is that one of the followers in her "inner circle" went out looking to confirm Rand's uninformed opinions on Kant, just like you do, and misread his work with absolute hostility through freaky distorted Rand Goggles™.

We've seen the phenomenon a few times here on OL. Newberry, for example, had been fond of intellectually immolating himself in the past with posts where he quoted Kant, hatefully misinterpreted what the quotes said/meant, and then when we'd go back and try to get him to focus on all of the actual words in the quote, it was as if he physically couldn't see the words which make the statement benign, if not downright Objectivistically heroic.

An example was: "Every affection of the STRENUOUS TYPE (such, that is, as excites the consciousness of our power of overcoming every resistance [animus strenuus]) is aesthetically sublime, e.g., anger, even desperation (the rage of forlorn hope but not faint-hearted despair)."

I've bolded the words that Rand's acolytes don't see, or refuse to understand.

Anyway, your statement is false. Rand was not the opposite of Kant in the area of aesthetics. Rather, she was the embodiment of his ideas. All of her works employ the Kantian Sublime as her signature aesthetic style.

And you, Tony, also love the Kantian Sublime. You're hooked on it just like most other Rand followers. You get your fix of it by making Kant into a destructive force of magnitude which allows you to "feel your will to resist," and to "regard your estate as exalted above it."

1

You are truly hooked by that gaff, aren't you? Clearly - what the Kantian Sublime is - is "a sensation" - stimulated by something extraordinary in power or size. That one has sensations, is as evident as one having senses .

Does an "affection" (i.e. "sensation") of "the strenous type" ... "excite the consciousness of our power of overcoming every resistance"?

Arbitrary and subjective nonsense. 

Kantian fantasy, 'a priori'.

 An equally subjective 'reason' of why he needed "an affection of the strenuous type"? Here is one - perhaps to penetrate from the "noumenal" world into the "phenomenal" world (consciousness). If anyone can make up what he likes, I will also.

We don't perceive reality directly (Kant asserts without the least justification) but instead make up a semblance of reality in our mind. His theory has been likened to wearing filters over our eyes, by academics, or sometimes, a "diaphanous veil".

After learning we are "entirely ignorant of the noumenal realm" - how can anyone trust Kant about reality/the mind, not to add, art?

(Of course! The artist "genius", naturally endowed, is THE one and only who can directly penetrate the noumenal realm!!) Like I say, anyone can make up his own rubbish.

Therefore: Kant's Goggles:

Phenomena and Noumena

Having seen Kant's transcendental deduction of the categories as pure concepts of the understanding applicable a priori to every possible experience, we might naturally wish to ask the further question whether these regulative principles are really true. Are there substances? Does every event have a cause? Do all things interact? Given that we must suppose them in order to have any experience, do they obtain in the world itself? To these further questions, Kant firmly refused to offer any answer.

According to Kant, it is vital always to distinguish between the distinct realms of phenomena and noumena. Phenomena are the appearances, which constitute our experience; noumena are the (presumed) things themselves, which constitute reality. All of our synthetic a priori judgments apply only to the phenomenal realm, not the noumenal. (It is only at this level, with respect to what we can experience, that we are justified in imposing the structure of our concepts onto the objects of our knowledge.) Since the thing in itself (Ding an sich) would by definition be entirely independent of our experience of it, we are utterly ignorant of the noumenal realm.

[The Philosophy Pages, by Garth Kemerling]

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