Objectivist Esthetics, R.I.P.

[anthony]

On 11/14/2017 at 8:38 PM, regi said:

Well, that's to be expected, since psychologists, philosophers, and even Rand have so confused the nature of the emotions:

If you are truly interested in the nature of the emotions, please see the article, "Feelings." The following is from that article:

"The emotions provide a direct perceptual experience of the content of consciousness. While we are conscious of our thoughts intellectually, the emotions provide a direct "visceral" experience corresponding to conceptual consciousness. Making plans for something good is accompanied by feelings of enthusiasm and anticipation; thinking or contemplating doing, or having done, something we think is wrong will be accompanied by feelings of guilt or regret; thinking about someone we admire, desire, and value very highly is accompanied by feelings of love and affection; considering something evil and ugly is accompanied by feelings of anger or revulsion.

"In our actual experience, we do not usually distinguish between our thoughts and their accompanying feelings and experience them as units. The feelings and the thoughts are integrated into objects of consciousness which turn abstract thoughts into concretes which are directly perceived.

"Our emotions, as automatic reactions to our immediate consciousness, is the way our human consciousness enables us to directly enjoy or "physically" experience both direct perception and our conceptual identification and evaluation of the things we perceive simultaneously.

"The emotions are our nature's way of converting the abstract elements of conceptual consciousness, our concepts, values, and thoughts, into "physical" experiences. The emotions make our minds, as well as our bodies, sensuous.

"Since it is the enjoyment of our lives that is their purpose, the purpose of the emotions is to enable us to enjoy our lives, particularly that most human aspect of our lives as humans, our minds. When the emotions are not a source of joy, but of suffering, it is an indication of something wrong. The thing that is wrong can be physiological, but more frequently the thing that is wrong is an individual's view of life, one's values, one's thoughts, and one's choices, and the thing that is wrong with them is they are contrary to reality and dominated by unrealistic views and desires."

Randy

 

Randy,  I concur with nearly all this, but differ on your conclusion and am unable to see why. Maybe this: an emotion (in accord with one's values) seems instantaneous and is real, but it is not representative of the 'concrete reality'. An identifying mind in correspondence with reality, is.

This needs more thought.

 

[anthony]

On 11/15/2017 at 8:18 PM, Jonathan said:

.

 

Heh. Yeah, you're just about as knowledgeable of dance as Rand was, aren't you?

 

 

Um, in fact.

I've no clue of how much Rand saw and knew about dance but after 30+ years with a woman who danced, taught, choreographed and now does publicity for premier dance performances, I probably have seen and know more than I need to, since dance isn't my favorite. Check your presumptions, old chap.

But with Rand you again miss the conceptual knowledge one can gather, without needfully having loads of hands-on experience.

[Brant Gaede]

7 minutes ago, anthony said:

But with Rand you again miss the conceptual knowledge one can have, before having the actual experience.

Zip?

I suggest you go back to back and forth. Experience to knowledge to experience to more knowledge, etc. Integrate or disintegrate or turn into dogmatic lead.

--Brant

[anthony]

18 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Zip?

I suggest you go back to back and forth. Experience to knowledge to experience to more knowledge, etc. Integrate or disintegrate or turn into dogmatic lead.

--Brant

Thank you. I'd already modified my post. You don't need "loads of hands-on experience" to gain plenty of inductive experiences of a subject over a lengthy period.

Like the accusation that Empiricists level at Objectivists: how can you "know" anything if you didn't do it?

Open -ended concepts, induction and deduction - as you allude to.

[Jonathan]

2 hours ago, anthony said:

College professor and artist, everyone can only be assessed objectively and individually on what they say and do. Must the artist be held not responsible for his art? Is he morally detached from it?

 

No, what I'm saying is that an artist should not be held responsible for your retarded interpretations of his work, and your eagerness to morally condemn him regardless of what he actually believes and what his art represents.

But it's fine with me if you insist on playing your small part in making the Objectivist Esthetics even more of a laughing stock. Rand's ideas on art do have some value, and probably could be salvaged, but if her followers refuse to scrap all of the junk intertwined, then so be it.

Youre losing relevance exponentially.

[Jonathan]

11 hours ago, regi said:

The utility is obvious. What makes it art?

It's a hypothetical, so the idea would be to recognize that the bronze figure is the art part of the combination of art and utility. You've seen bronze sculptures that you consider to be art, no?

J

[Jonathan]

2 hours ago, anthony said:

Yes, the ubiquitous bottle opener which every bachelor had on his bar counter, the handle a form of a female nude. Coy and banal.

Heh. Everything becomes universalized with you, doesn't it? If one item which unites art with utiilty is corny, then so are all other  items which do so?

[william.scherk]

A bottle-opener, a gallery named Cordair, and a short course in Randian esthetics ... "Rand would have been scathing about statues in lamps, etc"

Edited November 17, 2017 by william.scherk
Atlas shrugged ... link added to image

[Jonathan]

5 hours ago, anthony said:

I've no clue of how much Rand saw and knew about dance but after 30+ years with a woman who danced, taught, choreographed and now does publicity for premier dance performances, I probably have seen and know more than I need to, since dance isn't my favorite. Check your presumptions, old chap.

As unaware, unobservant, and kooky as you are, I doubt that 30 years is enough time for anything to get through to you.

 

5 hours ago, anthony said:

But with Rand you again miss the conceptual knowledge one can gather, without needfully having loads of hands-on experience.

Nah. In these areas that we're talking about, Rand didn't gather any "conceptual knowledge," but just bluffed and bloviated. She just kind of guessed her way through certain topics, such as the art forms that she knew nothing about. It's like reading an essay that a dumb junior high school kid would write after not having read the relevant material. Her thoughts are superficial and reveal near ignorance masquerading as deep and refined authority.

J

 

[Jonathan]

1 hour ago, william.scherk said:

A bottle-opener, a gallery named Cordair, and a short course in Randian esthetics ... "Rand would have been scathing about statues in lamps, etc"

Is that a sculpture by one of the Cordair artists?

[Brant Gaede]

1 hour ago, william.scherk said:

A bottle-opener, a gallery named Cordair, and a short course in Randian esthetics ... "Rand would have been scathing about statues in lamps, etc"

Awful, subjectively speaking.

--Brant

God-awful

[anthony]

Ouch. Take that away, I need to forget I ever saw it.

A "combination" of art and utility is usually an uncomfortable mix, a hybrid, neither one or the other and devaluing each; sometimes it adds up to - ornamentation - with artistic pretensions. But there are fine ornaments and then, this. (Where's all that "sensitivity and taste"?)

(Though you could hang your cap on it, then have a triple purpose artwork).

[anthony]

17 hours ago, Jonathan said:

 

 

Nah. In these areas that we're talking about, Rand didn't gather any "conceptual knowledge," but just bluffed and bloviated. She just kind of guessed her way through certain topics, such as the art forms that she knew nothing about. It's like reading an essay that a dumb junior high school kid would write after not having read the relevant material. Her thoughts are superficial and reveal near ignorance masquerading as deep and refined authority.

J

 

 

I don't see how you'd know about Rand's conceptual knowledge. (Or anyone's, e.g. mine). You have a clear and evident stance, and that's an empirical one. Normally this accompanies an anti-conceptual mode of thought: Facts and only the facts, without recourse to concepts. ("The Empiricists: ...those who clung to reality by abandoning their mind").

Conceptual knowledge doesn't mean and doesn't have to entail - 'perfect', complete, 'expert', or even (necessarily) empirically-proven, knowledge. It is one's deepening reservoir, adding to and self-correcting as one goes, the goal being ~some~ conceptual grasp of all existence. Literature and arts, invaluable allies for the purpose.

I suggest it would be advantageous for you to finally accept that where you and Rand diametrically differ is primarily not on art, that's only a symptom, but in your epistemologies (and metaphysical views). Could be, doing this would save you from much frustration.

[Jonathan]

13 hours ago, anthony said:

I don't see how you'd know about Rand's conceptual knowledge. (Or anyone's, e.g. mine).

See, the way that reality works is that when people give their opinions on things, they reveal what they know and what they don't know!

13 hours ago, anthony said:

I suggest it would be advantageous for you to finally accept that where you and Rand diametrically differ is primarily not on art, that's only a symptom, but in your epistemologies (and metaphysical views). Could be, doing this would save you from much frustration.

I agree, totally!  My epistemology is that I don't accept contradictions, where Rand clearly accepted them in the field of art, and twisted herself into pretzels in order to deny reality and cling to her predetermined opinions.

My point has long been that her so-called Objectivist Esthetics isn't objective, doesn't follow her philosophy's stated epistemological tenets, and doesn't actually deal substantively with the field of aesthetics, but mostly with ethical judgments of art.

I wish that she would have adhered to her stated epistemology when considering the field of aesthetics, instead of going all nonsensical subjectivist whim-worshippy.

J

[Brant Gaede]

Did Rand ever claim there was an "Objectivist Esthetics"?

--Brant

the implication sure is there

[anthony]

16 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Did Rand ever claim there was an "Objectivist Esthetics"?

--Brant

the implication sure is there

Aesthetics (/ɛsˈθɛtɪks/ or /iːsˈθɛtɪks/; also spelled æsthetics and esthetics) is a branch of philosophy that explores the nature of art, beauty and taste, with the creation and appreciation of beauty.^[1][2]

In its more technically epistemological perspective, it is defined as the study of subjective and sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste. [Wiki]

Contrast with Rand: "Art is a concretization of metaphysics. Art brings man's concepts to the perceptual level of his consciousness... THIS is the psycho-epistemelogical function of art and the reason of its importance in man's life (and the crux of the Objectivist esthetics)."

One of the few times she mentions "the Objectivist esthetics", one obviously fundamentally different from any other philosophers who largely skip over metaphysical representation in art works.

I'd simply say, while referring often to beauty and sometimes to taste, Rand elevated "concretization" i.e. the re-creation of real things - the artist's choice of content or of the subjects of his art - next, followed by their treatment or "stylization" - above the sole concerns of those traditional aestheticians: beauty, sentiment and taste. The 'concretes' come first. I think she expanded the range of art and its value, enormously. The sensations caused by art are still there, beauty still matters, the emotional responses remain... but that's not all, folks! There's more!

[Brant Gaede]

So much of Rand's philosophizing was effectively argument by mere asseveration.

Objectivism is both powerful and simple if the philosophy of Ayn Rand is not layered onto it.

There is no room in Objectivism for esthetics but all the room in the world for it in the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Spending a lifetime trying to master her philosophy--an impossible task to ever complete--is intellectual insanity.

Leonard Peikoff tried with all his might and ended up with no discernable philosophy of his own leaving him free to spout irrational nonsense.

--Brant

[anthony]

18 hours ago, Jonathan said:

See, the way that reality works is that when people give their opinions on things, they reveal what they know and what they don't know!

I agree, totally!  My epistemology is that I don't accept contradictions, where Rand clearly accepted them in the field of art, and twisted herself into pretzels in order to deny reality and cling to her predetermined opinions.

My point has long been that her so-called Objectivist Esthetics isn't objective, doesn't follow her philosophy's stated epistemological tenets, and doesn't actually deal substantively with the field of aesthetics, but mostly with ethical judgments of art.

I wish that she would have adhered to her stated epistemology when considering the field of aesthetics, instead of going all nonsensical subjectivist whim-worshippy.

J

That's the common interpretation of "objectivity", you have there, and wrong. (Again it has to be pointed out). Objectivity is the recognition of reality having a certain nature, and of existents existing independent of one's consciousness. That's it. One has objective and direct contact with reality through the senses, alone.

Where you went off-course, objectively, is with the attachment of a subjective "meaning" to an artwork. The artists might ~believe~ they are imbuing "meaning" into their works, but it is not what the viewer *sees*. The same as with reality, he sees only what is there and identifies it: an isolated re-creation -- without "a story", narrative or the help of language/words, nor being influenced by any foreknowledge about the painting.

And the artist has a selfishly important purpose in what he shows and how he styles it, implicitly (mostly) expecting of viewers to "see" what he has deduced about existence, which they then can induce and integrate into their minds - ideally, finding the same value-importance he found. That abstraction-conceptualism is most likely what's brought about the notion of "meaning".

[anthony]

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

So much of Rand's philosophizing was effectively argument by mere asseveration.

Objectivism is both powerful and simple if the philosophy of Ayn Rand is not layered onto it.

There is no room in Objectivism for esthetics but all the room in the world for it in the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Spending a lifetime trying to master her philosophy--an impossible task to ever complete--is intellectual insanity.

Leonard Peikoff tried with all his might and ended up with no discernable philosophy of his own leaving him free to spout irrational nonsense.

--Brant

For you no room, but it was the converse for me. You get your head around Rand's art theory, you have most of the philosophy right there. It is a 'creative philosophy', I always say.

[anthony]

On 11/17/2017 at 4:57 PM, Jonathan said:

No, what I'm saying is that an artist should not be held responsible for your retarded interpretations of his work, and your eagerness to morally condemn him regardless of what he actually believes and what his art represents.

But it's fine with me if you insist on playing your small part in making the Objectivist Esthetics even more of a laughing stock. Rand's ideas on art do have some value, and probably could be salvaged, but if her followers refuse to scrap all of the junk intertwined, then so be it.

Youre losing relevance exponentially.

You've seemed incurious about the subtle and long-term effects of art, good and bad, on society I notice. Any "retarded" person must be able to "condemn" what he sees and hears, or else we have authoritarianism. No more than any individual, artists have no special insight on moral issues, but a reverential public has been conditioned to be so in awe of the arts, hardly anybody raises an objection, or worse, praises the bad for being the bad. Then you get what you deserve, collapsing moral standards in a society.  

[Brant Gaede]

2 hours ago, anthony said:

For you no room, but it was the converse for me. You get your head around Rand's art theory, you have most of the philosophy right there. It is a 'creative philosophy', I always say.

Wow! 

--Brant

from another planet

[Jonathan]

5 hours ago, anthony said:

That's the common interpretation of "objectivity", you have there, and wrong.

I've been using Rand's notion of "objectivity," which is the act of vlitionally adhering to reality by using logic and reason. She didn't follow that notion when doing her "Objective Esthetics."

 

5 hours ago, anthony said:

Objectivity is the recognition of reality having a certain nature, and of existents existing independent of one's consciousness.

An example of lack of objectivity would be someone saying that art is a selective re-creation of reality which cannot serve a utilitarian purpose, but then also claiming that something is art which she explicitly says does not re-create reality and which serves a utilitarian purpose.

 

5 hours ago, anthony said:

Where you went off-course, objectively, is with the attachment of a subjective "meaning" to an artwork.

Rand is the one who requires identification of the artist's meaning.

that's her requirement for an objective judgment. Judgments which do not do so are not objectively vet by her formulation.

 

5 hours ago, anthony said:

And the artist has a selfishly important purpose in what he shows and how he styles it, implicitly (mostly) expecting of viewers to "see" what he has deduced about existence, which they then can induce and integrate into their minds - ideally, finding the same value-importance he found. That abstraction-conceptualism is most likely what's brought about the notion of "meaning".

Rand was basically ignorant of all of the art forms other than literature. She came up with a theory of literature and then just arbitrarily expected the other arts to conform to the same theory. 

And she also began with her personal hatred for "modern art" and wanted to come up with rules which she thought would invalidate it as an art form, neglecting to realize that those silly rules also invalidate art forms that she wanted to be valid.

It's an irrational mess.

After years of stubborn evasions, Tony, you recently finally admitted that her views on architecture were contradictions and rationalizations. In other words, as I said above, she didn't apply the Objectivist Epistemology to the subject, but deviated from it to the point of absurdity. Her "Objectivist Esthetics" is tainted throughout by such irrationality and anti-objectivity.

J

 

[Jonathan]

4 hours ago, anthony said:

You've seemed incurious about the subtle and long-term effects of art, good and bad, on society I notice. Any "retarded" person must be able to "condemn" what he sees and hears, or else we have authoritarianism. No more than any individual, artists have no special insight on moral issues, but a reverential public has been conditioned to be so in awe of the arts, hardly anybody raises an objection, or worse, praises the bad for being the bad. Then you get what you deserve, collapsing moral standards in a society.  

You're making shit up again, and having arguments with imaginary people who take the imaginary positions that you assign to them. Nutty, kooky, Rand-idolizer crap.

[anthony]

3 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Wow! 

--Brant

from another planet

A self-created (-made) soul -- isn't metaphorical.

[anthony]

1 hour ago, Jonathan said:

 

After years of stubborn evasions, Tony, you recently finally admitted that her views on architecture were contradictions and rationalizations. In other words, as I said above, she didn't apply the Objectivist Epistemology to the subject, but deviated from it to the point of absurdity. Her "Objectivist Esthetics" is tainted throughout by such irrationality and anti-objectivity.

J

 

1

You going to dine out on that one, I bet. ;)  This is so minor. The empirical mindset usually seems unable to rise above small things to take in the grand picture. Architecture-art is a stretch, imo, but not invalid in specific, selected contexts. It was  -eventually - a close one for me (but I have a greater appreciation now, of the reality of buildings sans-art). Oops, and who am I wasting this information on?