Objectivist Esthetics, R.I.P.


Jonathan

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3 hours ago, Jonathan said:

That's what "subjective" means.

NO! That's no what subjective means. This terrible confusion introduced by certain "economists" and some academic philosophers is totally wrong.

I've already addressed the mistake in my previous post.

"Subjective," does not mean whatever occurs in an individual's mind else there would be no such thing as objective reason which only occurs in individual minds. What determines whether something is objective or subjective is what one's reasons and evaluations are based on, whether is based on reason alone from the evidence of objective reality (objective) or is based on one's feelings, desires, superstitions, and prejudices (subjective).

If I have a specific physical condition that makes me incapable of tolerating certain foods, my evaluation of those foods as harmful to me is not subjective, but objective, even though that evaluation is made in my mind and only pertains to me. If I evaluate some food I've never tried as harmful to me because I imagine it's yucky from the way it looks, that is a subjective evaluation. It's not the fact that an evaluation is mine that makes it subjective, it is what I base that evaluation on.

Objectively identifying a characteristic of one's own personality is not subjective, and evaluating things in relationship to one's own nature is not subjective.

I think that is easy enough to understand, but if I've not made it clear, feel free to ask questions or criticize.

Randy

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3 hours ago, Jonathan said:

Aesthetic responses are subjective.

What are, "aesthetic responses?" If such things actually exist they have an objective identification. If they do not have an objective identifcation, they do not exist.

If you label everything that is experienced consciously, "subjective," there is nothing objective because the entire universe is only known by means of our "subjective" conscious perception of it. Every thought we have, all the reasoning we do and every choice we make becomes subjective because we do those thing in our own private consciousness.  You can see how absurd it becomes if everything is subjective just because it occurs in our own consciousness--it makes objectivity impossible. There would be no such thing as an objective thought, and objective concept, or an objective choice.

Is everything you just wrote subjective because it all came from your, "subjective," mind? Of course it isn't because that is not what determines what is subjetive and what is objective.

Randy

 

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2 hours ago, regi said:

NO! That's no what subjective means. This terrible confusion introduced by certain "economists" and some academic philosophers is totally wrong.

I've already addressed the mistake in my previous post.

"Subjective," does not mean whatever occurs in an individual's mind else there would be no such thing as objective reason which only occurs in individual minds. What determines whether something is objective or subjective is what one's reasons and evaluations are based on, whether is based on reason alone from the evidence of objective reality (objective) or is based on one's feelings, desires, superstitions, and prejudices (subjective).

If I have a specific physical condition that makes me incapable of tolerating certain foods, my evaluation of those foods as harmful to me is not subjective, but objective, even though that evaluation is made in my mind and only pertains to me. If I evaluate some food I've never tried as harmful to me because I imagine it's yucky from the way it looks, that is a subjective evaluation. It's not the fact that an evaluation is mine that makes it subjective, it is what I base that evaluation on.

Objectively identifying a characteristic of one's own personality is not subjective, and evaluating things in relationship to one's own nature is not subjective.

I think that is easy enough to understand, but if I've not made it clear, feel free to ask questions or criticize.

Randy

Well, you can objectively reason to a wrong conclusion. GIGO. Also, subjective reason(ing) is an oxymoron. Therefore, objective reason(ing) is a redundancy. The objectivity is in the logical structure. Reason is the search for objectivity. Science is mostly verified by workable technology. However, that doesn't mean the science is right. A better theory may arise. You don't refute Einstein--you replace him. You don't refute QM--you replace it. In the meantime certain things work or are supported by Einstein and QM. Same with Newton. What we call "gravity" may not be gravity; it may not exist. Same with "instinct." But something does.

Reality is objective--that is, it is what it is. In that sense it's immutable. Reasoning is not because of the importation of data into logic. Then there are flights of fancy with weak or no data. Creativity. Something (epistemological) out of nothing (metaphysical) which may become nothing but art (created becomes objective) or something that didn't exist before (smarty phone). Etc.

Rand said rational men have no arguments except from errors of knowledge. Thus the central conflict in Atlas Shrugged between the men of the mind. Unfortunately, she found too many truths that aren't there well camouflaged by her by those many that are. The latter are much more important.

--Brant

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59 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

Reality is objective--that is, it is what it is. In that sense it's immutable.

That's my premise. I don't think we disagree. I was only addressing the misuse of the word subjective to mean what occurs in an individual's consciousness.

I quite agree that "objective reason" is a redundancy, but the mechanics of reason can be used irrationally (rationalization and sophistry for example), so sometimes the redundancy is necessary to differentiate the correct use of the rational process from the incorrect use.

I certainly don't agree that you can get something, "epistemological,"  out of nothing, unless you believe the content of dreams are ontologically real.

I have no idea what you mean by "metaphysical." In philosophy, the metaphysical is objective reality--the immutable what is. There is a different meaning of the word metaphysical but it is only used by various mystics and spiritualists.

Randy

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1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

Well, you can objectively reason to a wrong conclusion. GIGO.

By the way, that is wrong. If your premises are wrong (garbage in) your reasoning is not objective. Unlike formal logic, objective reason includes the necessity of insuring your premises are based on reality or derived by reason from the  facts of reality. Any reasoning based on false premises, on faith, or prejudice, or feelings, or whims, or mystic beliefs or assumptions or guesses is not objective reasoning. Objective means based on observable evidence of reality or other knowledge established by objective reason from observable evidence of reality.

Randy

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9 hours ago, regi said:

By the way, that is wrong. If your premises are wrong (garbage in) your reasoning is not objective. Unlike formal logic, objective reason includes the necessity of insuring your premises are based on reality or derived by reason from the  facts of reality. Any reasoning based on false premises, on faith, or prejudice, or feelings, or whims, or mystic beliefs or assumptions or guesses is not objective reasoning. Objective means based on observable evidence of reality or other knowledge established by objective reason from observable evidence of reality.

Randy

I consider this a rationalization, but out of respect to you I'll Additionally reply tomorrow when I'm sober.

--Brant

premises are not garbage in, BTW, "data" is--or could be

(cap't Morgan spiced rum)

edit: nothing to add

Edited by Brant Gaede
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12 hours ago, regi said:

What are, "aesthetic responses?" If such things actually exist they have an objective identification. If they do not have an objective identifcation, they do not exist.

 

They do have an objective identification. Their objective identification is that they are subjective.

The concept "subjective" also has an objective identification. The fact that it has an objective identification doesn't make subjective judgments objective. You seem to be confusing the classification of the judgment with the judgment itself. 

Now, you ask "What are 'aesthetic responses'?" They are judgments of beauty, taste, sentiment, etc.

Let's go with beauty for a little test run. If you believe that judgments of beauty are objective, then demonstrate the objective process of measuring beauty using logic and reason via an objective standard.

Um, having a feeling, and then objectively identifying the fact that you had a feeling doesn't make the feeling itself objective. It only makes the after-the-fact identification of the feeling objective. 

12 hours ago, regi said:

If you label everything that is experienced consciously, "subjective,"...

 

I don't.

 

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23 hours ago, Jonathan said:

Your wishing to hear it doesn't make it true. Fucking subjectivist.

More of your blubbering and constructing straw men and your evasions won't make the missing objective means of aesthetic judgment appear.

Bluffing and distractions aren't going to work, just like Rand's posing and condemning others for not delivering what she also didn't deliver didn't work.

Quit trying to sell your subjectivist bullshit, Tony. Put up or shut up. Deliver the missing means of objective aesthetic judgment.

You've got nothing. Even Rand's followers who are multiple times more knowledgeable and intelligent than you also have nothing. It's all bluff and bullshit.

The funny thing is that you're too stupid to know when to shut up. Your betters at least know when to exit the conversation with one lame excuse or another, or to use the last resort tactic of banning critics from their sites. 

J

 

There's no such thing as "beauty" existing alone. Some ~thing~ has to be beautiful, or you have no more than a neo-mystical abstraction. "Beautiful" is your subjective standard, and what you hold as "aesthetic judgment" is all to do with sensations not based upon real "things" -- and therefore not objective.

Before one can see and know what some thing IS - identity, identification - whether a positive affirmation or a negative threat to one according to one's personal, individual, objective value-system - one CANNOT experience an emotion. Logic. Sensations are not emotions, again. Bearing this out, a shallow "sensationalism" appearing more in film and popular music and art works has trivialised, devalued and to a degree, replaced the genuine emotions of people.

You have earlier made the unsupportable claim that "an attribute" can exist without an existent (e.g. abstract art) which is simple primacy of consciousness, subjectivity. If you are subjective, then your responses to art, at least, will also be subjective. IOW: Speak for yourself.

In  nice, simple terms, here is the objective validation according to an objective standard and the reality of man's mind, which you request : 

 

"Literature re-creates reality by means of language--Painting, by means of color on a two-dimensional surface--Sculpture, by means of a three-dimensional form made of a solid material [...]

"Now observe the relation of these arts to man's cognitive faculty: Literature deals with the field of *concepts*--Painting with the field of *sight* [...]

"The development of human cognition starts with the ability to see *things*, i.e. entities. Of man's five cognitive senses, only two provide him with a direct awareness of entities: sight and touch. [...]

"The concept "entity" is implicitly the start of man's conceptual development and the building-block of his entire conceptual structure. It is by perceiving entities that man perceives the universe.

"And ~ IN ORDER TO CONCRETIZE HIS VIEW OF EXISTENCE, it is by means of concepts (language) or by means of his entity-perceiving senses (sight and touch) that he has to do it*". [p.46, TRM]

 

Easy enough - do you follow the sequential logic: senses -> concepts?  

OR - is it the case by you that paintings in particular - do not contain, and need not contain "entities"? Are they full of "beauty" - without content? Do they depend on "attributes-without-entities" which the confused viewer has to guess about? Must one approach and view a picture by some mysterious means of insight, or sensory ability, beyond human vision? And then, it follows, to hell with mankind and their "concretized view of existence". Heh!

Because it's clear to me that it is not Rand on art, per se, that you can't fathom and constantly condemn, instead it is the Objectivist epistemology you haven't understood and oppose. You haven't grasped objectivity nor conceptualization. If you'd like to challenge the O'ist epistemology, let's hear.

If anyone claims that cognition and epistemology have nothing to do with art, and that there is no objective basis in art, J has unwittingly proved the claim wrong.

 

 

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15 hours ago, regi said:

By the way, that is wrong. If your premises are wrong (garbage in) your reasoning is not objective. Unlike formal logic, objective reason includes the necessity of insuring your premises are based on reality or derived by reason from the  facts of reality. Any reasoning based on false premises, on faith, or prejudice, or feelings, or whims, or mystic beliefs or assumptions or guesses is not objective reasoning. Objective means based on observable evidence of reality or other knowledge established by objective reason from observable evidence of reality.

Randy

Really? What if you don't know that they're wrong? What if you've done everything within your power and knowledge to verify your premise, but were unknowingly mistaken? You seem to be advocating some brand of infallibility or omniscience. No room for innocent error?

So, we would never really be able to know for certain whether or not any of our sincere applications of reason and logic to any given issue were truly objective, because if someone in the future were to discover new knowledge which falsified one of our premises, then our thought process would be retroactively declared to have been non-objective.

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24 minutes ago, anthony said:

There's no such thing as "beauty" existing alone.

Did someone suggest that there was such a thing as beauty existing alone?

Can thought be beautiful? If an artist envisions a scene of great beauty before painting it, does his imagined image not count as being beautiful? Does an imagined thing count as being a thing? Or is his thought a "thing"? Are you saying that no one can imagine things? In the situation I just described, is the beauty "existing alone"? What do you mean by "existing alone?" Do you even know what you mean?

 

25 minutes ago, anthony said:

Some ~thing~ has to be beautiful, or you have no more than a neo-mystical abstraction.

There are a lot of things which can be beautiful, including shapes, colored surfaces, and textures, all of which are things. Decorations can be beautiful, which is why people like them. Rand recognized that decorations can be beautiful. Were you unaware of that? With your anger at abstract art, you've apparently come to the idiotic conclusion that only representational drawings can be beautiful, and that Rand shared that stupid opinion.

She didn't.

And there's no need to have arguments with the people who live in your head and preach "neo-mysticism."

 

32 minutes ago, anthony said:

If one can't see and know what some thing IS - whether a positive affirmation or a negative threat according to one's personal, individual, objective value-system - one CANNOT experience an emotion. Logic. Sensations are not emotions, again. Bearing this out, the "sensationalism" appearing more in film and popular music and art works has trivialised, devalued and to a degree, replaced genuine emotions of people.

Um, you're drifting again. Headed toward the heart of coo-coo-land again.

 

32 minutes ago, anthony said:

You have earlier made the unsupportable claim that "an attribute" can exist without an existent (e.g. abstract art) which is simple primacy of consciousness, subjectivity.

Retard, could yellow accurately be described as an attribute of the sun? Can yellow be presented independently of the sun?

 

32 minutes ago, anthony said:

If you are subjective, then your responses to art, at least, will also be subjective. Iow: Speak for yourself.

Oh, so you're objective when it comes to art, eh? Lovely! Then identify the objective aesthetic principles and criteria that you use when making your objective aesthetic judgments! Rand neglected to do so. Please, pick up where she left off.

 

32 minutes ago, anthony said:

 

In  nice, simple terms, here is the objective validation according to an objective standard and the reality of man's mind, which you request : 

"Literature re-creates reality by means of language--Painting, by means of color on a two-dimensional surface--Sculpture, by means of a three-dimensional form made of a solid material [...]

"Now observe the relation of these arts to man's cognitive faculty: Literature deals with the field of *concepts*--Painting with the field of *sight* [...]

"The development of human cognition starts with the ability to see *things*, i.e. entities. Of man's five cognitive senses, only two provide him with a direct awareness of entities: sight and touch. [...]

"The concept "entity" is implicitly the start of man's conceptual development and the building-block of his entire conceptual structure. It is by perceiving entities that man perceives the universe.

"And ~ in order to concretize his view of existence, it is by means of concepts (language) or by means of his entity-perceiving senses (sight and touch) that he has to do it*". [p.46, TRM]

Moron, heh, do you not realize that Rand did not recognize those definitions as being the "objective aesthetic principles" by which to aesthetically judge each of the art forms? Did you not catch the part where she stated that such principles were outside the scope of the discussion? Heh. If she had identified the principles in TRM, she wouldn't have stated that she didn't identify them and that they were outside the scope of the discussion.

Anyway, what about music, dance and architecture? What do they re-create?

 

32 minutes ago, anthony said:

OR - is it the case by you that the arts - and painting in particular - do not contain, and need not contain "entities"? Are they full of "beauty" - without content? Do they depend on "attributes-without-entities" the viewer has to guess about? Must one approach and view a picture by some mysterious means of insight, or sensory ability, beyond human vision?

As always, you left out music, architecture and dance. It's like clockwork. Reliable as hell. You will dodge and evade the issue of music, dance and architecture not meeting your own criteria.

 

32 minutes ago, anthony said:

Because it's clear to me that it is not Rand on art, per se, that you can't fathom and constantly condemn, instead it is the Objectivist epistemology you haven't understood and oppose. You haven't grasped objectivity nor conceptualization. If you'd like to challenge the O'ist epistemology, let's hear.

If anyone claims that cognition and epistemology have nothing to do with art, and there is no objective basis in art, J has unwittingly proved the claim wrong.

 

 

More bluffing. And still no "objective aesthetic principles" that Rand had skipped.

J

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51 minutes ago, anthony said:

They do have an objective identification. Their objective identification is that they are subjective.

 

 

 

Quote of the month!

Retard, do you have an objective identification of the concept "subjective"?

Oooh, I think he might be on the verge of getting it!!

J

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"Before one can see and know what some thing IS - identity, identification - whether a positive affirmation or a negative threat to one according to one's personal, individual, objective value-system - one CANNOT experience an emotion. Logic. Sensations are not emotions, again."

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8 hours ago, Jonathan said:

Um, having a feeling, and then objectively identifying the fact that you had a feeling doesn't make the feeling itself objective. It only makes the after-the-fact identification of the feeling objective.

Is seeing a tree and then objectively identifying you saw the tree not make the tree objective? A "feeling" is only a perception, like seeing, but what is being perceived is actual physiological states of the body. They are just as real, and physical by the way, as trees are.

Randy

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2 hours ago, Jonathan said:

Really? What if you don't know that they're wrong? What if you've done everything within your power and knowledge to verify your premise, but were unknowingly mistaken? You seem to be advocating some brand of infallibility or omniscience. No room for innocent error?

Then you've made a mistake. Objective reason does not require either omniscience or infallibility, it only requires honesty with oneself, that one has done the best they can to insure their premises are based on reality. But you knew that, didn't you?

Randy 

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42 minutes ago, regi said:

Is seeing a tree and then objectively identifying you saw the tree not make the tree objective? A "feeling" is only a perception, like seeing, but what is being perceived is actual physiological states of the body. They are just as real, and physical by the way, as trees are.

Randy

So, you're saying that there is no such thing as subjectivity.

J

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37 minutes ago, regi said:

Then you've made a mistake. Objective reason does not require either omniscience or infallibility, it only requires honesty with oneself, that one has done the best they can to insure their premises are based on reality. But you knew that, didn't you?

Randy 

Yes, I knew that.

You, however, did not appear to know that.

J

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3 hours ago, Jonathan said:

So, you're saying that there is no such thing as subjectivity.

Certainly not. As I wrote earlier, "What determines whether something is objective or subjective is what one's reasons and evaluation are based on, whether they are based on reason alone from the evidence of objective reality (objective) or are based on one's feelings, desires, superstitions, and prejudices alone (subjective).

I think the confusion arises from not recognizing the fact that one's feelings, desires, superstitions and prejudices are themselves facts about which we can be conscious and reason about. If one has a superstitious belief in something, any reasoning based on that belief is subjective, because there is no objective evidence for the belief. If one recognizes they have a superstitious belief and identifies it as a superstitious belief based on reasoning from objective principles, for example, that identification is objective.

Our feelings cannot be an objective basis for our thinking, but we can certainly think objectively about our feelings.

Randy

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I think too much is being made of this subject. Reason has nothing to do with what Randy is calling "subjective."

Reasoning is either rational or irrational. Reason is rational while reasoning can be either. Reasoning refers to reason for validation of the use of the process.

This discussion is drifting off esthetics.

--Brant

I admit I'm speaking off the top of my head

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11 hours ago, regi said:

I think the confusion arises from not recognizing the fact that one's feelings, desires, superstitions and prejudices are themselves facts about which we can be conscious and reason about.

No, the confusion arises elsewhere.

Apply your method, in the comment of yours that I just quoted above, to this:

A person has a subjective thought. He then objectively recognizes the fact that that subjective thought was subjective, and that his recognizing it is a fact about which he can be conscious and reason about.

Are you with me so far? Do you see what I'm doing here?

Okay, now, according to your little method that you applied to emotions above, what happens to the subjective thought in the example that I just gave? Does it retroactively become an objective thought once the person who thought it recognizes the objective fact that it was a subjective thought?

J

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8 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Reason has nothing to do with what Randy is calling "subjective."

Reasoning is either rational or irrational.

I agree with you. I almost never use the word "subjective" just because it is so ambiguous. But other people do use it, and I think the issue is worth assressing.

The question is bound to come up in a discussion of aesthetics because beauty, like humor, depends on an individuals own beliefs, values, and thoughts.

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12 minutes ago, Jonathan said:

Okay, now, according to your little method that you applied to emotions above, what happens to the subjective thought in the example that I just gave? Does it retroactively become an objective thought once the person who thought it recognizes the objective fact that it was a subjective thought?

Of course not. I know you don't realize it, but you've just made the point I was making.

Randy

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41 minutes ago, regi said:

Of course not. I know you don't realize it, but you've just made the point I was making.

Randy

Your point seemed to be to try to make your emotions objective by having a later objective recognition of the fact that the emotion existed.

In other words, you appeared to be proposing the following steps:

1. You have an emotional response/judgment.

2. You then have an objective recognition of the fact that you just had an emotional response/judgment.

Your conclusion is that your initial emotional response/judgment (1) was objective because you (2) objectively identified the fact that you had had an emotion response.

Isnt that what you were getting at? Isn't that what your point was?

J

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Anyhoo, we're still missing the objective aesthetic principles that Rand mentioned, pissed on others for not having come up with them, and then neglected to deliver them herself.

We're also still missing the proof that anything has ever qualified as art in reality by Objectivist criteria (or by the various versions of Rand's followers).

The Objectivist Esthetics just keeps getting deader and deader the more that we discuss it.

Maybe we should venture into discussions on the topic of "sense of life" next, and triple or quadruple tap this corpse.

J

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