Michelle Marder Kamhi's "Who Says That's Art?"

[Newberry]

I think Michael Newberry makes perfect sense.

It either resonates or it doesn't, you buy it or leave it alone. Either way it is a personal experience of the creator and the buyer. It's a matter of indifference to everyone else.

Thanks!

Also, art is not falsifiable, like science, math, logic.

That is astute.

It is only by example and by persuasion that one can hope to convince another person in the humanities. I don't often have that skill set though, but I try.

What is the point of accepting criticism? Would you even still be able to consider yourself an artist if you "accepted" criticism and changed your creations? What is the point of criticism anyway?

Those are good questions. I wonder if Kahmi will address that in her book.

I can think of a few uses for criticism, in a positive sense:

Teaching students technique.

Analyzing works for an art historical context; placing styles in periods; understanding innovations in time; as well as digressions.

Helping the public choose what shows will be worth while.

Your thought about an artist accepting criticism and changing their work accordingly is also perceptive.

[Newberry]

Certainly I haven't seen anyone psychologized as much as Michael has been. I don't understand why.

He makes sense.

That's kind of strange, glad you noted it.

There is a sub-text running through this argument.

Underneath: Who says that's art? - there is also: Who are ~you~ to judge?

So--it is acceptable for one to 'judge reality', but art is too sacrosanct to judge, by just anybody?

Art isn't 'real'??

Nuh-uh.

If anything, unlike the chaos and confusion of life, an artist encapsulates, essentializes and simplifies existence (based on his judgment of life).

Artworks pass judgment and invite judgment, that's the nature of art. Where better for a viewer to 'practise' identifying and thinking?

Judgment is kind of tricky word. I know you're using it as gathering info, thinking, and coming to some conclusions. But here in America, many people just go straight to judging, without the troublesome and tiresome effort of thinking. : )

[william.scherk]

Another palate-cleanse, with no "outside considerations." Hat tip to Atlas Society, Stephen Hicks and Steven Ketchum.

Who will be the first to 'criticize,' heaven's sakes?

-- a detail from the canvas immediately above ...

Edited March 29, 2015 by william.scherk

[Jonathan]

Certainly I haven't seen anyone psychologized as much as Michael has been. I don't understand why.

He makes sense.

Rand's notion of "psychologizing" is that it that it is the act of excusing or condemning a person based on his psychological problems, real or invented, in the absence of or contrary to factual evidence. It is the act of judging a man based not on his actions, statements or convictions, but on his subconsciousness. No one here has done such a thing. Rather, our judgments have been specifically based on the evidence of actions, statements and convictions. For example, the actions of hypocrisy and double standards of harshly judging while expecting and demanding not to be judged.

There is a sub-text running through this argument.

Underneath: Who says that's art? - there is also: Who are ~you~ to judge?

That is indeed the attitude of Objectivish-types! Others are not to judge, and their aesthetic experiences and responses don't count. Anything that anyone claims to experience in art what Objectivish-types don't must be denied.

The argument that your opponents have made, Tony, is not "who are you to judge," but "who are you to assert that others' aesthetic experiences, respones and judgments are not valid just because you don't get anything out of the art that moves them?"

YOU, as well as Kamhi and Newberry, along with many other Rand-followers, are the ones who take the position of "Who are ~you~ to judge?"

So--it is acceptable for one to 'judge reality', but art is too sacrosanct to judge, by just anybody?

Only Newberry's art is too sacrosanct to be judged.

And Objectivish-types are the ones who take the position that "not just anybody" can judge art, but that only Rand's dedicated followers are qualified. They are the universal representatives of proper cognition, and no one can exceed their limitations.

J

[Jonathan]

"Kantian Sublimity"?

The same Kant who said:

"I have therefore found it necessary to deny *knowledge* in order to make room for *faith*"?!

It makes sense, for if Kantian Sublimity is faith-based (the "noumenal") who'd respond to it but art mystics?

That's exactly the irrational, prejudiced attitude that Newberry brought to his "studying" of Kant. Tony, the rational approach would be to set aside your disagreements with what you interpret Kant to have believed in regard to other philosophical topics, and to understand his views on the Sublime. Starting with the belief that Kant is evil, and then trying to guess at what his views are on the Sublime is ultra stupid.

As for your speculation that only mystics would respond to the Sublime, you're speculating that Rand was a mystic. Kantian Sublimity was her signature aesthetic style! Kantian Sublimity was her artistic "sense of life."

J

[Jonathan]

When I was younger I thought just of shinning a light on things would open new horizons, and it didn't matter to me if people were dim. Now it's "good people on the bus, bad people off."

I still feel that shining a light on thing opens new horizons. I think it's especially virtuous to shine the light on dim people who pose as brilliant and try to promote their hatreds. I've been very effective at doing so.

J

[Jonathan]

But here in America, many people just go straight to judging, without the troublesome and tiresome effort of thinking. : )

That is indeed what you do!

J

[Jonathan]

"Kantian Sublimity"?

The same Kant who said:

"I have therefore found it necessary to deny *knowledge* in order to make room for *faith*"?!

It makes sense, for if Kantian Sublimity is faith-based (the "noumenal") who'd respond to it but art mystics?

Encyc Britt summarizes:

"Though the noumenal holds the contents of the intelligible world, Kant claimed that man's speculative reason can only know phenomena, and can never penetrate to the noumenon. Man however, is not altogether excluded from the noumenal, because practical reason --i.e., the capacity for acting as a moral agent--makes no sense unless a noumenal world is postulated, in which freedom, God, and immortality abide".

(And we are familiar with Kant on morality. If you really want to be honest, it's "praiseworthy", but lacks "moral import". If there's something 'in it for you selfishly', like others' acclaim, then your act of sacrifice for others can't be moral since it is not sufficiently self-sacrificial).

Tony, you've expressed admiration for Kamhi's views, and also for Newberry's. Well, Kamhi recognizes that Rand got it very wrong when it came to her judgments of Kant on the issue of aesthetics. She recognizes that Kant's aesthetic views are very similar to Rand's. So, since your method is to choose a side without actually knowing anything about the subject at hand, but to voice your support for whomever you feel hates what you hate, which of the two will you go with? Objectively speaking, who is right on the issue of Kant's aesthetics, Kamhi or Newberry?

J

[moralist]

Michael writes:

Exactly. When I was younger I thought just of shinning a light on things would open new horizons, and it didn't matter to me if people were dim. Now it's "good people on the bus, bad people off."

That's a good one, Michael.

Better yet, bad people under the bus!

Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz.

He wrote a book about his experience called "Man's Search for Meaning", and in it is this quote:

"From all this we may learn that there are two races of men in the world, but only these two - the "race" of the decent man, and the "race" of the indecent man."

Greg

[Newberry]

That's a good one, Michael.

Better yet, bad people under the bus!

Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz.

He wrote a book about his experience called "Man's Search for Meaning", and in it is this quote:

"From all this we may learn that there are two races of men in the world, but only these two - the "race" of the decent man, and the "race" of the indecent man."

Greg

Incredible quote - that would solve a good deal of the world's problems if implemented. I forwarded it to a couple of good friends. Thanks for that!

[anthony]

Certainly I haven't seen anyone psychologized as much as Michael has been. I don't understand why.

He makes sense.

That's kind of strange, glad you noted it.

There is a sub-text running through this argument.

Underneath: Who says that's art? - there is also: Who are ~you~ to judge?

So--it is acceptable for one to 'judge reality', but art is too sacrosanct to judge, by just anybody?

Art isn't 'real'??

Nuh-uh.

If anything, unlike the chaos and confusion of life, an artist encapsulates, essentializes and simplifies existence (based on his judgment of life).

Artworks pass judgment and invite judgment, that's the nature of art. Where better for a viewer to 'practise' identifying and thinking?

Judgment is kind of tricky word. I know you're using it as gathering info, thinking, and coming to some conclusion

But here in America, many people just go straight to judging, without the troublesome and tiresome effort of thinking. : )

Yes, of course - to both observations!

Until one takes the Biblical connotation out of "judgmentalism" it will continue to be a negative instead of the most positive aspect of minds.

Many speak freely about freedom of choice, but how does an individual 'choose' without identifying and judging?

[anthony]

"Kantian Sublimity"?

The same Kant who said:

"I have therefore found it necessary to deny *knowledge* in order to make room for *faith*"?!

It makes sense, for if Kantian Sublimity is faith-based (the "noumenal") who'd respond to it but art mystics?

Encyc Britt summarizes:

"Though the noumenal holds the contents of the intelligible world, Kant claimed that man's speculative reason can only know phenomena, and can never penetrate to the noumenon. Man however, is not altogether excluded from the noumenal, because practical reason --i.e., the capacity for acting as a moral agent--makes no sense unless a noumenal world is postulated, in which freedom, God, and immortality abide".

(And we are familiar with Kant on morality. If you really want to be honest, it's "praiseworthy", but lacks "moral import". If there's something 'in it for you selfishly', like others' acclaim, then your act of sacrifice for others can't be moral since it is not sufficiently self-sacrificial).

Tony, you've expressed admiration for Kamhi's views, and also for Newberry's. Well, Kamhi recognizes that Rand got it very wrong when it came to her judgments of Kant on the issue of aesthetics. She recognizes that Kant's aesthetic views are very similar to Rand's. So, since your method is to choose a side without actually knowing anything about the subject at hand, but to voice your support for whomever you feel hates what you hate, which of the two will you go with? Objectively speaking, who is right on the issue of Kant's aesthetics, Kamhi or Newberry?

J

An aside, J, what is with you and "sides"? We aren't teams having a casual game of football in the park. As with the parallel with Capitalism again, competition and competitiveness isn't the entire point of the exercise, objective reality is.

Though yes, in a sense, I do choose the "side" which is most for man's mind.

I don't know what Kamhi wrote on Kant and Rand. I'd be very interested to see her argument. On the one hand, there is no reason AR and IK should be opposed everywhere and on every point. If great minds won't always think alike, they can and do intersect at times and places--if for different reasons. On the other hand, Rand evidently could never accept "deny[ing] knowledge in order to make room for faith"! So it's hard for me to see how such fundamentally different principles could be found to align along the way.

My impression is that Kant envisaged The Sublime so grand as to be outside of man's consciousness, in the impenetrable noumenal sphere. If his basic premise was so Platonic, it figures. I don't recall seeing Rand on the subject, but sublimity - and man's attendant, highest emotion, exaltation - infuses her fiction. (Also, her exclamations in TRM:

"THIS is what life means to ME!")

Possibly, then, she didn't write much of the sublime, nor had to - she showed it, in her literary art.

(I found an older thread of Michael N.'s on Kantian quotes. Revealing, in that Kant considered warfare as "Sublime", too).

[Jonathan]

An aside, J, what is with you and "sides"? We aren't teams having a casual game of football in the park. As with the parallel with Capitalism again, competition and competitiveness isn't the entire point of the exercise, objective reality is.

Though yes, in a sense, I do choose the "side" which is most for man's mind.

Yes, that's what I'm asking you. Are you on the side of objective reality? If so, whose view do you think is also on that side, Newberry's or Kamhi's?

I don't know what Kamhi wrote on Kant and Rand. I'd be very interested to see her argument. On the one hand, there is no reason AR and IK should be opposed everywhere and on every point.

Yes, that was my point! Earlier you were taking the position that Kant must have been wrong on the issue of the Sublime because you thought he was wrong on other issues! You also made the same logic error when discussing Saville -- you theorized that she couldn't truly be against collectivist judgments of women's beauty because she was probably pro-collectivist when it came to other issues. Totally llogical.

If great minds won't always think alike, they can and do intersect at times and places--if for different reasons.

Rand's enjoyment of the Sublime is for exactly the same reason as Kant's enjoyment of it, and also for the same reason as Newberry's enjoyment of it! (Newberry is so mixed up that he doesn't understand that his imagined hatred of Kantian Sublimity is an example of Kantian Sublimity: It is Newberry's need to believe in a massively destructive entity so that he can experience the thrill of his will to resist it!)

My impression is that Kant envisaged The Sublime so grand as to be outside of man's consciousness, in the noumenal sphere. If his basic premise was so Platonic, it figures.

I'm not interested in your trying to guess at what the Sublime means. If you're interested, study the subject, including its history prior to Kant. But first set aside all of your predetermined condemnations.

I don't recall seeing Rand on the subject, but sublimity - and man's attendant, highest emotion, exaltation - infuses her fiction. (Also, her exclamations in TRM:

"THIS is what life means to ME!")

Possibly, then, she didn't write much of the sublime, nor had to - she showed it, in her literary art.

I don't think she knew what the Sublime was, but just unknowingly absorbed it via her admiration for Romanticism.

(I found an older thread of Michael N.'s on Kantian quotes. Revealing, in that Kant considered warfare as "Sublime", too).

Kant didn't consider warfare to be Sublime. His view was not that the threatening forces themselves were Sublime, but that our reactions to them were. The magnitude and horror of war is not Sublime, but the experience of our will to stand up to and resist such incomprehensibly large and destructive forces is.

Tony, the idea with doing philosophy isn't to come to a predetermined conclusion, and to then go out and find one quote that Newberry misunderstood and to then misunderstand it yourself, and therefore to believe that you've confirmed your predetermined conclusion.

A couple of years ago I had a discussion on Kantian Sublimity with a bonehead over at OO named Thomas Miovas who, like Newberry and many other O-ish zealots, was trying his hardest to not understand the concept of Sublimity, and to vilify Kant. It's a classic example of ideologically poisoned people not being able to grasp the simplest of concepts due to their desire to hate. Please read the relevant posts on that thread so as to get up to speed and to not make the same stupid mistakes.

J

[Brant Gaede]

An aside, J, what is with you and "sides"? We aren't teams having a casual game of football in the park. As with the parallel with Capitalism again, competition and competitiveness isn't the entire point of the exercise, objective reality is.

Though yes, in a sense, I do choose the "side" which is most for man's mind.

Yes, that's what I'm asking you. Are you on the side of objective reality? If so, whose view do you think is also on that side, Newberry's or Kamhi's?

I don't know what Kamhi wrote on Kant and Rand. I'd be very interested to see her argument. On the one hand, there is no reason AR and IK should be opposed everywhere and on every point.

Yes, that was my point! Earlier you were taking the position that Kant must have been wrong on the issue of the Sublime because you thought he was wrong on other issues! You also made the same logic error when discussing Saville -- you theorized that she couldn't truly be against collectivist judgments of women's beauty because she was probably pro-collectivist when it came to other issues. Totally llogical.

If great minds won't always think alike, they can and do intersect at times and places--if for different reasons.

Rand's enjoyment of the Sublime is for exactly the same reason as Kant's enjoyment of it, and also for the same reason as Newberry's enjoyment of it! (Newberry is so mixed up that he doesn't understand that his imagined hatred of Kantian Sublimity is an example of Kantian Sublimity: It is Newberry's need to believe in a massively destructive entity so that he can experience the thrill of his will to resist it!)

My impression is that Kant envisaged The Sublime so grand as to be outside of man's consciousness, in the noumenal sphere. If his basic premise was so Platonic, it figures.

I'm not interested in your trying to guess at what the Sublime means. If you're interested, study the subject, including its history prior to Kant. But first set aside all of your predetermined condemnations.

I don't recall seeing Rand on the subject, but sublimity - and man's attendant, highest emotion, exaltation - infuses her fiction. (Also, her exclamations in TRM:

"THIS is what life means to ME!")

Possibly, then, she didn't write much of the sublime, nor had to - she showed it, in her literary art.

I don't think she knew what the Sublime was, but just unknowingly absorbed it via her admiration for Romanticism.

(I found an older thread of Michael N.'s on Kantian quotes. Revealing, in that Kant considered warfare as "Sublime", too).

Kant didn't consider warfare to be Sublime. His view was not that the threatening forces themselves were Sublime, but that our reactions to them were. The magnitude and horror of war is not Sublime, but the experience of our will to stand up to and resist such incomprehensibly large and destructive forces is.

Tony, the idea with doing philosophy isn't to come to a predetermined conclusion, and to then go out and find one quote that Newberry misunderstood and to then misunderstand it yourself, and therefore to believe that you've confirmed your predetermined conclusion.

A couple of years ago I had a discussion on Kantian Sublimity with a bonehead over at OO named Thomas Miovas who, like Newberry and many other O-ish zealots, was trying his hardest to not understand the concept of Sublimity, and to vilify Kant. It's a classic example of ideologically poisoned people not being able to grasp the simplest of concepts due to their desire to hate. Please read the relevant posts on that thread so as to get up to speed and to not make the same stupid mistakes.

J

[anthony]

Kant's quotation (as suppied by M. Newberry): "War itself, provided it is conducted with order and a sacred respect for the rights of civilians, has something sublime about it, and gives nations that carry it on in such a manner a stamp of mind, only the more sublime the more numerous the dangers to which they are exposed..."

Nothing "misunderstood" here. In his words Kant admired war, as a neo-con and Statist today, might.

Above all, is there anything you can say to explain away this?:

"I have therefore found it necessary to deny *knowledge* in order to make room for *faith*".

I think this statement must be considered as a conceptual primary of Kant's, which affects all the rest.

All the while advocating reason, as a Platonist he could still contradict himself by advocating "faith".

From it follows another contradiction, that he expressly supported individualism - but tied morality to God and sacrifice;

"...because practical reason--i.e., the capacity for acting as a moral agent--makes no sense unless a noumenal world is postulated, in which God, freedom and immortality abide".

[As I quoted earlier from Enc Br]

"Practical reason"...

J., I suggest you look at this and think through the implications and effects for yourself. Such is your investment in Kant's Sublime, you appear to be in denial of the rest of his writings.

And I'm not even a hater of Kant. Even a brilliant man can be consistently mistaken when faith is his principle..

I heartily dislike the skepticism which dominates today. But IF it originated from Kant's Platonism, I don't rightly know. Conceivably, it could follow. i.e. One can't fully know the noumenal world, so is it possible for one to know anything? And from here, a very likely devolution to skepticism.

A last quote: "The motive of all the attacks on man's rational faculty, is a single basic premise: the desire to exempt consciousness from the law of identity. ...the notion that 'true' knowledge must be acquired without any means of cognition, and that identity is the *disqualifying* element of consciousness". AR

Rand placed Kant in the middle of this. I wouldn't know, but it's not an unreasonable conclusion.

(One has a consciousness, with a nature, which 'disqualifies' one from using it. Heh. Most noticeable, here).

This art discussion has see-sawed from empiricism ("prove it is not art!" etc) to rationalism (Kant's Sublime).

It makes sense.

[anthony]

I don't recall seeing Rand on the subject, but sublimity - and man's attendant, highest emotion, exaltation - infuses her fiction. (Also, her exclamations in TRM:

"THIS is what life means to ME!")

Possibly, then, she didn't write much of the sublime, nor had to - she showed it, in her literary art.

I don't think she knew what the Sublime was, but just unknowingly absorbed it via her admiration for Romanticism.

J

I think this might well be right.

[Jonathan]

Kant's quotation (as suppied by M. Newberry): "War itself, provided it is conducted with order and a sacred respect for the rights of civilians, has something sublime about it, and gives nations that carry it on in such a manner a stamp of mind, only the more sublime the more numerous the dangers to which they are exposed..."

Nothing "misunderstood" here. In his words Kant admired war, as a neo-con and Statist today, might.

Hahahaha! No, Kant did not admire war. You are being a typical Rand-follower and looking to misinterpret him. You cannot grasp his meaning of the Sublime from a cherry-picked statement which was dishonestly presented to make Kant appear to be saying something that he was not saying. You cannot accurately understand his views by reading a couple of out-of-context statements at the beginning of a thread.

In the quote provided, Kant does not say that war is Sublime, but only that it "has something Sublime about it," and, in the context of the rest of his discussion as a whole, it is clear that he means that our heroic reactions to threats of war are actually what are Sublime, and not war itself. Elsewhere in his Critique of Judgment, Kant specifically addresses the issue of exactly what is Sublime versus what merely stimulates Sublimity, and he states that the history of the usage of the term "Sublime" has sometimes misidentified the stimulus as Sublime when it is actually the response that is Sublime. But you'd have to read more than one cherry-picked quote to know that.

Since you'll never do that, nor will you read through the actual past discussions, here's a quote from Guyer about Kant's views of war that you'd never see on your own because it was at end of the same thread that you quoted after only going two posts deep:

As long as I'm typing from Guyer's Kant, here's Guyer (from pages 294-5) on Kant on war (which underscores the futility of trying to divine a philosopher's ethics or politics from an aspect of a part of segment of his aesthetics):

We cannont leave Kant's political philosophy without discussing his 1795 pamphlet Toward Perpetual Peace...

...Kant first writes that even in a condition of warfare among any kinds of states there are certain "preliminary articles" that can eliminate causes of future wars, such as the prohibition of dynastic acquisition of states, standing armies, national debts for making war, "forcible interference in the constitution and government of another state," and "acts of hostility as would have to make mutual trust impossible during a future peace," such as assassinations, encouragement of treason within another state, and so on (PP, 8:344-6). But in the long run, Kant holds that there can only be perpetual peace if all states become republics governed by the will of the whole people rather than by the whims of autocrats, especially, as is already implicit in the first preliminary article, autocrats who regard whole states as their personal property, which can be enlarged or put at risk entirely at their own choice.

The three "definitive articles" for perpetual peace are thus that "The civil constitution in every state shall be repubican" (PP, 8:349), that "The right of nations shall be based on a federalism of free states" (8:354), and that there shall be "Cosmopolitan right" consisting in "conditions of universal hospitality" (8:358). Under the last of these articles Kant launches a powerful attack upon the rampant European colonialism of his own time, arguing that no matter what the cultural and political conditions of another region are, foreigners have no more than the right to visit in order to offer their goods and ideas, never a right to establish themselves forcibly in another people's territory no matter how exalted or crass their aims may be.

(p. 363):

...As Kant famously writes:

When the consent of the citizens of a state is required in order to decide whether there shall be war or not (and it cannot be otherwise in [the republican] constitution), nothing is more natural than that they will be very hesitant to begin such a bad game, since they would have to take upon themselves all the hardships of war (such as themselves doing the fighting and paying the costs of the war from their own belongings...); on the other hand, under a constitution in which subjects are not citizens of the state, which is therefore not republican, [deciding upon war] is the easiest thing in the world; because the head of state is not a member of the state but its proprietor and gives up nothing at all of his feasts, hunts, pleasure palaces, court festivals, and so forth he can decide upon war, as upon a kind of pleasure party, for insignificant cause. (PP,8:350)

J

Above all, is there is anything one can say to explain away this?:

"I have therefore found it necessary to deny *knowledge* in order to make room for *faith*".

I think this statement must be considered as a conceptual primary of Kant's, which affects all the rest.

In other words, you do not want to understand what Kantian Sublimity is. You want to hate it and oppose it based on the irrational certainty that it must be bad because Kant thought of it. You refuse to learn. You refuse to even visit the link that I posted to see how the arguments that you're making were already addressed years ago when other Rand-followers made them!

If Kant had said that the blue sky was blue, you'd oppose it because you believe that your interpretation of his "make room for faith" comment MUST affect "all the rest" of his views!

J., I suggest you look at this and think through the implications and effects for yourself. Such is your investment in Kant's Sublime, you appear to be in denial of the rest of his writings.

I haven't said anything about the rest of his writings. My addressing the sheer stupidity of Objectivist interpretations of his notion of Sublimity does not suggest that I am in any way "in denial" of the rest of his writings.

Btw, I don't think that you've read the rest of his writings. As is true with his notion of the Sublime, you've probably only read cherry-picked quotes that Rand and her followers have posted after hatefully, willfully misinterpreting them.

And I'm not even a hater of Kant. Even a brilliant man can be mistaken. But I loathe the skepticism which dominates today. IF it originated from Kant's Platonism, I don't know. i.e. One can't know the noumenal world, so can one know anything? a possible devolution to skepticism.

This art discussion has see-sawed from empiricism ("prove it is not art!" etc) to rationalism (Kant's Sublime).

That makes sense; it's fascinating to understand better the art mystics' premises.

Hahahaha! Yeah, you're no hater of Kant! Hahahaha! Um, you keep forgetting that I've told you that Rand's signature aesthetic style was that of Kantian Sublimity. So you're calling Rand a mystic who engaged in rationalism!!!

J

[moralist]

Michael writes:

Incredible quote - that would solve a good deal of the world's problems if implemented. I forwarded it to a couple of good friends. Thanks for that!

It sure solved a good deal of problems by implementing it in my own life!

If you like that quote I believe you would really enjoy reading his book "Man's Search for Meaning".

Just a few more quotes:

"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms to choose ones attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose ones own way.

"An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior."

"Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

"Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible."

Viktor was a good and wise man.

Greg

[anthony]

And I'm not even a hater of Kant. Even a brilliant man can be mistaken. But I loathe the skepticism which dominates today. IF it originated from Kant's Platonism, I don't know. i.e. One can't know the noumenal world, so can one know anything? a possible devolution to skepticism.

This art discussion has see-sawed from empiricism ("prove it is not art!" etc) to rationalism (Kant's Sublime).

That makes sense; it's fascinating to understand better the art mystics' premises.

Hahahaha! Yeah, you're no hater of Kant! Hahahaha! Um, you keep forgetting that I've told you that Rand's signature aesthetic style was that of Kantian Sublimity. So you're calling Rand a mystic who engaged in rationalism!!!

J

From,

"I don't think she knew what the Sublime was..."

To,

"Rand's signature aesthetic style was that of Kantian Sublimity".

You must make up your mind. Can't have it both ways.

Perhaps, Rand didn't understand her own "signature" style?

Then perhaps, she wouldn't want nor recognise a mystic, 'noumenal Sublimity'.

.

And you are not apparently going to explain away Kant's " ...in order to make room for faith".

Try to put that "in context"...

It is honest, as his core conviction and a key utterance, transcending and explaining his Sublimity in aesthetics, I believe.

For the second time I note you've no reply to the Brittanica excerpt about the noumenal and the moral, such is your avoidance of central concepts.

Easier to package it all automatically under "Objectivist, Kant-hating", and save on the thinking, no?

"Something sublime about war", however you spin it, still rings of Germany, late 1930's to me.

Whatever I say you'll twist to "you want to hate him/it!" (dishonestly and untruthfully) so I give up on these petty game tactics.

.

[Jonathan]

And I'm not even a hater of Kant. Even a brilliant man can be mistaken. But I loathe the skepticism which dominates today. IF it originated from Kant's Platonism, I don't know. i.e. One can't know the noumenal world, so can one know anything? a possible devolution to skepticism.

This art discussion has see-sawed from empiricism ("prove it is not art!" etc) to rationalism (Kant's Sublime).

That makes sense; it's fascinating to understand better the art mystics' premises.

Hahahaha! Yeah, you're no hater of Kant! Hahahaha! Um, you keep forgetting that I've told you that Rand's signature aesthetic style was that of Kantian Sublimity. So you're calling Rand a mystic who engaged in rationalism!!!

J

From,

"I don't think she knew what the Sublime was..."

To,

"Rand's signature aesthetic style was that of Kantian Sublimity".

You must make up your mind. Can't have it both ways.

Perhaps, Rand didn't understand her own "signature" style?

Then perhaps, she wouldn't want nor recognise a mystic, 'noumenal Sublimity'.

.

And you are not apparently going to explain away Kant's " ...in order to make room for faith".

Try to put that "in context"...

It is a core concept and key utterance, transcending his Sublimity in aesthetics, I believe.

For the second time I note you've no reply to the Brittanica excerpt about the noumenal and the moral, such is your avoidance of central concepts.

Easier to package it all automatically under "Objectivist, Kant-hating", and save on the thinking, no?

"Something sublime about war", or however you spin it, still rings of Germany, late 1930's to me.

Whatever I say you'll twist to "you want to hate it!" (dishonestly and untruthfully) so I give up on these petty game tactics.

.

Jesus. Um, Tony, the two statements don't contradict each other. I think that Rand didn't know what Kantian Sublimity was (nor did she know what Sublimity was prior to Kant), but she nevertheless unknowingly adopted it as her signature style.

Please, read the discussion at the OO link that I posted earlier. Your guessing about the Sublime is ridiculous. What's the problem? Why are you so opposed to knowing and understanding what the term means?

J

[anthony]

In the quote provided, Kant does not say that war is Sublime, but only that it "has something Sublime about it," and, in the context of the rest of his discussion as a whole, it is clear that he means that our heroic reactions to threats of war are actually what are Sublime, and not war itself. Elsewhere in his Critique of Judgment, Kant specifically addresses the issue of exactly what is Sublime versus what merely stimulates Sublimity, and he states that the history of the usage of the term "Sublime" has sometimes misidentified the stimulus as Sublime when it is actually the response that is Sublime. But you'd have to read more than one cherry-picked quote to know that.

!!

J

"Our heroic reactions to threats..."

"Reactions".

This got me thinking about our fundamental differences here, which I've overlooked.

What are these reactions?

See, there is no "Sublime" 'out there' - no object intrinsically "Sublime". Everything is the metaphysically given or man-made, each having it's own identity.

As there's no value without a valuer, so there is no dis-value without a consciousness too.

The "reaction" I suggest, is nothing more than an emotion (or mixed and complex emotions) on the pleasure-pain spectrum - according to many things, basically, the level of rationality or irrationality (e.g. superstitiousness), values or disvalues, knowledge or ignorance - of the observer/participant.

"Emotions are the automatic results of man's value judgments integrated by his subconscious; emotions are estimates of that which furthers man's values or threatens them, that which is *for* him or *against* him -- lightning calculators, giving him the sum of his profit or loss".[AR]

Therefore:

Fear of the arbitrary, destructive force of war? Terror of the huge night sky, and one's relative 'puniness'? Awe at the massive splendor of a canyon? Exultation at a city skyline? And so on.

Whatever one can imagine seeing or experiencing of a huge scale, or great ideas, brings with it a pertinent emotion in the subconscious which comes from reality by way of the consciousness, and is all-dependent upon a man's level of cognition, understanding and values.

(I ploughed through a treatise by a scholar on Kant's aesthetics and Sublimity, ultimately forcing me back to simplicity (whew, beautiful simplicity) with an aching head.

I actually have some more respect for Kant now; nobody could possibly match that intellect in all its complicated glory. How convoluted do some things have to be?!)

"The Sublime" doesn't exist, except as a descriptor, I reckon. It is rather an emotion (at its greatest, exultation) which is the proper response to grandeur, art, vast space, etc., etc. - and the emotion does exist..

[Brant Gaede]

The priesthood has its special, private language. Priests speak it but we don't understand it. Some priests don't understand why we don't understand because they just don't care about that.

--Brant

used to be Latin

[moralist]

...how does an individual 'choose' without identifying and judging?

They choose poorly.

The Biblical admonishment on "judging" pertains to the hypocrisy of holding others to moral standards to which we feel we are exempt. Then objective reality inevitably comes along and impales us on our own hypocrisy.

"Judge not lest you be judged."

Doesn't mean "don't judge". It means that you are judged by exactly the same standard that you judge others.

It's self inflicted. You pronounce judgement upon yourself. That's how everyone gets exactly what they deserve. They do it to themselves.

But outside of hypocrisy, life would be impossible without the constant flow of judging one thing to be better than another.

Greg

[Jonathan]

In the quote provided, Kant does not say that war is Sublime, but only that it "has something Sublime about it," and, in the context of the rest of his discussion as a whole, it is clear that he means that our heroic reactions to threats of war are actually what are Sublime, and not war itself. Elsewhere in his Critique of Judgment, Kant specifically addresses the issue of exactly what is Sublime versus what merely stimulates Sublimity, and he states that the history of the usage of the term "Sublime" has sometimes misidentified the stimulus as Sublime when it is actually the response that is Sublime. But you'd have to read more than one cherry-picked quote to know that.

!!

J

"Our heroic reactions to threats..."

"Reactions".

This got me thinking about our fundamental differences here, which I've overlooked.

What are these reactions?

See, there is no "Sublime" 'out there' - no object intrinsically "Sublime". Everything is the metaphysically given or man-made, each having it's own identity.

As there's no value without a valuer, so there is no dis-value without a consciousness too.

The "reaction" I suggest, is nothing more than an emotion (or mixed and complex emotions) on the pleasure-pain spectrum - according to many things, basically, the level of rationality or irrationality (e.g. superstitiousness), values or disvalues, knowledge or ignorance - of the observer/participant.

Yes. Everyone knows that. That, and 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. Everyone knows it.

"Emotions are the automatic results of man's value judgments integrated by his subconscious; emotions are estimates of that which furthers man's values or threatens them, that which is *for* him or *against* him -- lightning calculators, giving him the sum of his profit or loss".[AR]

Yay! An Ayn Rand quote!

First of all, in case you didn't know, Kant didn't invent the concept of the "Sublime." It's been around for a long time. Second, historically it presented a bit of a philosophical problem. It was known as the "terror that delights." People experienced a sense of fear in something, but yet also a sense of exhilaration or exaltation. Kind of odd, no? So, what is up with our "lightning calculators" giving us a seemingly contradictory sum of "terror that delights"? (Prediction: Tony will follow the standard petulant Objectivish course of asserting that he and rational people like him don't experience such things, and obviously there is something psychologically/mystically wrong with anyone who does.)

Therefore:

Fear of the arbitrary, destructive force of war?

You're starting to get lost in your predetermined hatreds again! You're not paying attention to learning and understanding, but rather are selectively cherry-picking so as to have something to condemn!

Fear alone is not the issue. A sense of fear which results in the delight of feeling our will to resist is the issue.

No one has said anything about "arbitrary." You arbitrarily made that up out of hatred.

You're starting to criticize again before understanding what you're talking about. Focus on first trying to understand. Try to stop attacking straw men.

Terror of the huge night sky, and one's relative 'puniness'?

No. Wrong. Pay attention. It is not about one's puniness, but about feeling one's power and strength in the face of powerful forces of immense magnitude.

Awe at the massive splendor of a canyon? Exultation at a city skyline? And so on.

No. Wrong. You're not getting it. It's not about the canyon's "splendor." It's not just any feeling about a city skyline, but only a specific feeling.

Whatever one can imagine seeing or experiencing of a huge scale, or great ideas, brings with it a pertinent emotion in the subconscious which comes from reality by way of the consciousness, and is all-dependent upon a man's level of cognition, understanding and values.

Yeah. And?

(I ploughed through a treatise by a scholar on Kant's aesthetics and Sublimity, ultimately forcing me back to simplicity (whew, beautiful simplicity) with an aching head.

I actually have some more respect for Kant now; nobody could possibly match that intellect in all its complicated glory. How convoluted do some things have to be?!)

It's not convoluted. The fact that academic philosophy covers more ground in more detail than you, as a resistant novice, are interested in, doesn't make it convoluted. Kant on the topic of the Sublime is actually a very easy read (why not read him instead of some other scholar's opinions of him?). I think it's only made hard to certain people because they bring Rand's distortions to the reading. That gums everything up.

"The Sublime" doesn't exist, except as a descriptor, I reckon. It is rather an emotion (at its greatest, exultation) which is the proper response to grandeur, art, vast space, etc., etc. - and the emotion does exist..

Yes! It's a subjective, emotional response, as is beauty, deliciousness, etc. I'm glad that you agree with Kant on the issue! And I'm glad that Rand hadn't given her opinions on the Sublime and insisted that it was, and absolutely had to be, a purely objective response, because then you'd be telling us that it was not an emotion but an objective judgment.

J

[anthony]

Terror of the huge night sky, and one's relative 'puniness'?

No. Wrong. Pay attention. It is not about one's puniness, but about feeling one's power and strength in the face of powerful forces of immense magnitude.

J

You are really not getting this.

An emotion is an automatic response to reality, given one's level of rationality, judgment of existence and his values.

I gave examples of a. possible existents b. possible responses -- which you take literally. War, a canyon, fear, awe, etc.

Are you really this literal? I could as easily have said "Love, of destruction and war"..."Elation, at the night sky..."

Kant posited Sublimity as two forms, "mathematical" and "dynamical", and 3 "kinds" of Sublimity:

the noble, the splendid and the terrifying.

The question is:

To whom? For whom?

A primitive man in the jungle sees a solar eclipse. By all that he hears from myths from elder members of his tribe and by what he experiences, contrary to all his known norms of daylight and darkness, he would be terrified. Omens, angry gods and the rest. His terror is very valid as an emotional response -- and also reasonable, in terms of the little he knows - and the much he doesn't know.

How does he know it is not the end of his world?

A modern man sees the same eclipse and has the emotion of wonder (without fear) at the vision, and also marvels at its rarity, how man has learned to predict eclipses, know their nature and so on. Also valid emotions, based on his rationality.

(And if a modern, educated man feels primitive, superstitious fear it would expose how much he is irrational).

So, "puny" for one, may be "power and strength" to another, as to each one's rationality.

How many examples do you need to get this?

One reader would feel admiration for Howard Roark, while another could feel cynical disdain for him. Another might have no emotions at all.

It's the same character, yes? What's the difference? Yes. Different minds.

Kant combines all men together, denying the identity of consciousness as a whole, and ignoring the individual, variable contents of EACH man's consciousness.

Once more, an existent in reality (however grand, loud, massive, vast) is not The Sublime. "The Sublime" is a fancy ideal for what a person ~should~ feel as a result of perceiving something. It does not exist, the 'canyon' exists, man's consciousness exists.

Therefore his Sublimity is divorced from man's mind, a "Platonic form", dreamed up by Kant (and others). It is Primacy of consciousness and subjectivist, iow.

E.g. Rand produced literature which formed admiring or inspiring (or, scornful, etc) emotions in readers.

As I've said, she didn't have to write about the sublime, she could only 'portray' her ideas through concrete characters and plots - in her content, as does any artist. But without a reader who reads, understands and recognises the value, it is nothing, either way.

"It is...about feeling one's power and strength in the face of powerful forces..."

Yes? Why? Does this emotion trump the mind? Does Kant insist it is so? It's as if he reverses causality, placing an emotion as the cause instead of effect.

(But there is much more to emotions than are dreamt of in Kant's philosophy).