Architecture -- art or not?? (2006)

[Brant Gaede]

There was no fraud in Keating using Roark's work as per their personal contract. The government people were delighted to find an economically effective design. They couldn't have cared less about Keating/Roark.

The contract that mattered was between Keating and the government. Keating couldn't/didn't fight the despoilers off.

Blowing up the housing project was criminal.The moral justification was it was a great work of art by a great artist who was thereby justified in not following the rules. He's special. You'd need jury nullification to get away with that. (No need to go into the civil consequences Roark would still have to real life deal with.) The real justification for jury nullification is wrong, unjust laws or prosecutorial misconduct as with the Zenger newspaper case of the 1730s.

--Brant

[Selene]

There was no fraud in Keating using Roark's work as per their personal contract. The government people were delighted to find an economically effective design. They couldn't have cared less about Keating/Roark.

The contract that mattered was between Keating and the government. Keating couldn't/didn't fight the despoilers off.

Blowing up the housing project was criminal.The moral justification was it was a great work of art by a great artist who was thereby justified in not following the rules. He's special. You'd need jury nullification to get away with that. (No need to go into the civil consequences Roark would still have to real life deal with.) The real justification for jury nullification is wrong, unjust laws or prosecutorial misconduct as with the Zenger newspaper case of the 1730s.

--Brant

Lol

Damn Brant you had me confused...all I could think of was the Kennedy assassination...

You meant Zenger:

In 1733, Zenger began printing The New York Weekly Journal, in which he voiced opinions critical of the colonial governor, William Cosby.[3] On November 17, 1734, on Cosby's orders, the sheriff arrested Zenger. After a grand jury refused to indict him, the attorney general Richard Bradley charged him with libel in August of 1735.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Peter_Zenger

[william.scherk]

I read back at the beginning of this quality thread and decided to try a poetic voice throbbing with romanticism. Here goes. Sung to the tune of Battle Hymn of the Republic. Judy Garland with a husky Russian accent.

Architecture is the repository of human building technology. It came to inchoate being during human cognitive evolution. It is human hands and minds acting for concerted goals beyond the ape concept of shelter and tool. It is our heritage and one of our glories. It is the thought of a warm shelter for our family. It is many theengs.

A repository of the human genius. A living repository, a palimpsest, a record, a reality, ruins. Architecture carries the human hand and mind and can speak to us directly, unmediated, as shelter for body and spirit, in a way that art can never be a home or chapel. It is how we embody human achievement, evolve the manifold possibilities of conceiving, designing, engineering, building and finishing the world as it should be. It is Chartres. It is Babylon. It is Alhambra, the Kremlin, Manhattan. It is a science station imitating a star-god, passing over us in the heavens. It has eras and fashions, repetitions, advancements and declines.

I never comment on Architecture as Art because I don't care if Architecture is Art. It carries the human genius and it is allied to art and it is fundamental to human achievement and that is good enough for me.

I will go out on a limb expecting to be sawed off and badly injured in the subsequent fall, but I will state that Art is almost entirely subsidiary to Architecture, one dwelling within the other.

First comes food, water, fire, clothing and shelter, and what artistry could be applied. Along came art then as a spirit waiting to take hold in our dwellings. adornments, cloth, food, tools, vessels and language. Then came Aristotle, Da Vinci, opera, sewers, gas, railroads, electricity, Honkytonk, then Jazz. Then came Ayn Rand.

Or, Art and Architecture mated and had many splendid children. Some ugly, some smart, and a few to trump them all. Rand's only child was Peikoff. Objectivism's effect on art and architecture is effectively nil, except for Quent Cordair-ishness and Cresswell, etc.

Cain't we just love Architecture, Art, and Rand?

[anthony]

The discussion is about aesthetic responses, not about "truth." Understand? Try to calm yourself and stay within the limits of the discussion. The world isn't going to end if we accurately identify certain phenomena as being subjective. It doesn't logically follow that if some things are subjective, then it's a slippery slope which will eventually cause all things to be subjective and "infinitely elastic." When someone identifies aesthetic responses as being subjective, there is no reason to panic and jump to the irrational conclusion that he is claiming that "truth" is elastic. So settle down and get a grip on your emotions.

Truth is indeed not infinitely elastic. Reality is what it is. And aesthetic responses are, in reality, subjective. They do not become objective just because Roger or Tony want them to be. But if you insist on disagreeing, then answer the questions that you've been evading with your pouting and claims of victimization. Start with the first one first: Identify objective criteria for measuring beauty.

The Objectivist notion of objectivity is that it is the process of volitionally adhering to reality by following logic and reason using a clearly identified objective standard. Apply that method to the concept of beauty. Identify the objective standard and demonstrate its being applied in reality by displaying images of person and objects and following logic and reason to arrive at the conclusions of which entities are beautiful and which are not. Put up or shut up. No more crying and panicking. No more evading. No more distractions. Rationally demonstrate your position. Back it up with something other than bluff and bluster.

J

No you see, you've snuck in "beauty" as your standard of art. You perhaps have Kant stuck on your mind.

Try it with another approach, for once.

Beauty one can find in many places, in Nature for instance (as I said, and in design).

There's nothing complicated about it. I'd say, loosely, the standard of art is what's in the artwork.

Content. Observation. Identification. Man's rational mind.

Does the painting show a recognizable subject? Does the novel say - something?

"Recognizable" and "say" are the only means a mind has to grasp what's there. Okay?

Once grasped, it is now one's prerogative as reader or viewer to elicit whether one's view of existence and the artwork's coincide, some, a lot or not at all. From that he gauges its value, objectively, for his own purposes of living, for spiritual support, simply. Does he need permission from an Authority to do this? I think not. Does this seem a crass devaluation of Art, in certain quarters? A 'selfish', trivial pursuit? I think it does.

Real - or mystical? Objective - or subjective? You tell me.

It's most certain that beauty will be inherent to a work of art, too, in delivery and stylization. It's a valuable part -as are the emotions the 'content' of the art gives rise to. But beauty is not all that's important.

[Jonathan]

In re #67:

If Roark was irrational and fraudulent in contracting with Keating to submit as his own Roark's design without modifications, then so is every ghost writer in relation to the authors they contract with.

Ghost writers are usually identified and credited as being involved in the project. They are hired by the publishers. Their involvement is not hidden from the publishers. They do not force themselves onto projects knowing that the publishers do not want to hire them.

By your reasoning, Milli Vanilli were not guilty of consumer fraud. Nor were they immoral by Objectivist standards. Is that what you're saying? Milli Vanilli and other similar fraudsters are actually heroes in your twisted view of existence?

Perhaps for different reasons than Roark was rejected for, those ghost writers could not have gotten a book contract under their own names either.

So, your view of morality is that if someone can't get a contract under his own name, he has they right to deceive publishers any way he sees fit in order to get work? That's what your "ideal man" would do?

Property owners, including people who own printing presses and distribution networks, have the right to use their property -- their resources -- as they see fit, and to reject any writer for any reason. The rejected applicant doesn't have the right to ignore their wishes and force himself onto the project via deception.

So, I don't see a rejection of the principle of contract rights on Roark's part, nor on Keating's - only on the part of the government bureaucrats.

The government bureaucrats didn't have a contract with Roark. They only had one with Keating, and it stated that the project would be built as Keating designed it. Keating went into it know that he would be violating the contract. As did Roark.

When asked by others, both Keating and Roark LIED about who had designed the project. Both claimed that Keating had. Is that heroism to you? Lying and deceiving?

Furthermore, Roark was willing to stand trial...

He was not willing to stand trial. Being "willing to stand trial" would mean bringing a lawsuit against the owners of Courtland, with the claim that they had violated their contract with him (a contract which he didn't have with them). One of his reasons for not doing so was that he was convinced that such a trial would not go his way. He dodged the legal system, and took matters into his own hands. It's interesting that that's your notion of objective justice.

...in order to justify his actions, which is more the behavior of a civil disobediant than a vigilante.

Civil disobedience, by definition, excludes blowing up others' property. It is non-violent, non-destructive.

The only party with whom Roark had a complaint was his partner in fraud, Keating. Suing Keating would have been his only semi-realistic option. but doing so would involve the admission of their having intentionally kept Roark's involvement secret because they knew that the project's owners did not want Roark on the project. Not a good move in a court of law. Heh.

As for the dynamiting of Cortlandt itself, existing contract and intellectual property law in the 1940s would not have allowed legal remedy for either Keating or Roark. Peikoff's ex, Amy, has written a cogent and well researched essay on this, "A Moral Dynamiting," in Mayhew's 2007 compilation, Essays on Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. As she points out, Roark/Keating would have a somewhat better chance to press a lawsuit against the government nowadays, in light of some court rulings. But back then, things would have gone pretty much as Rand depicted them - and thus her resolution of the situation was morally uncompromised.

Wrong. Roark and Keating would have had no chance at claiming damages since they went into the arrangement with the intent to defraud. Keating agreed to deliver a work of art create by his own hand, while intending to pass off someone else's as his own, someone who the employer was known to not want to hire. That's the element that ARIan analyses conveniently leaves out: The fact that Roark and Keating violated the contract before the government did; Roark and Keating went into the contract intending to violate it.

Similarly, Roark and Keating also would not have done well in the legal system if they had agreed to embezzle funds from a bank with Keating acting as the inside man and Roark as the front, and with each of them splitting the take evenly. They would be laughed out of court if they then tried to sue the bank for not living up to Keating's criminal agreement with Roark.

J

[Jonathan]

No you see, you've snuck in "beauty" as your standard of art.

No I haven't. Learn how to read. I covered the issue of beauty as one element of aesthetic response, and challenged Roger to identify objective criteria by which to judge and rate it. I said it was just the first element to start with. I will expect him to do the same with all other elements of aesthetics.

Does the painting show a recognizable subject? Does the novel say - something?

"Recognizable" and "say" are the only means a mind has to grasp what's there. Okay?

Once grasped, it is now one's prerogative as reader or viewer to elicit whether one's view of existence and the artwork's coincide, some, a lot or not at all. From that he gauges its value, objectively, for his own purposes of living, for spiritual support, simply. Does he need permission from an Authority to do this? I think not. Does this seem a crass devaluation of Art, in certain quarters? A 'selfish', trivial pursuit? I think it does.

Recognizing objects in paintings is not an aesthetic response. Recognizing that a reader shares a writer's spiritual, political or moral views is not an aesthetic response. Agreeing with someone's views is not an aesthetic response.

You still need to brush up on Rand. Even she identified the difference between liking and agreeing with a work of art versus evaluating how well it was artistically done. The liking and agreeing part are not aesthetic. The experiencing of the "how well" -- the artistry of it -- is the aesthetic part. Rand called it evaluating "the purely esthetic elements of the work."

Unfortunately, she never addressed how one might do so. She bitched that modern philosophy was dismally inept when it came to the subject of evaluating artistry, but then just passed on the subject claiming that it was "outside the scope of this discussion." Heh. It is the single most important issue of aesthetics as it pertains to art, but she just skipped it, while pissing on others who had the courage not to skip it.

Her followers haven't addressed it either. After they claim that judgments of beauty (and all other aesthetic responses) are objective, they can never back up their claims. Like Rand, they bluff and denounce others, and then pass when it comes to actually doing real philosophy.

Real - or mystical? Objective - or subjective? You tell me.

What in the fuck are you on about?!!! Looney tunes!

It's most certain that beauty will be inherent to a work of art, too, in delivery and stylization. It's a valuable part -as are the emotions the 'content' of the art gives rise to. But beauty is not all that's important.

No one has claimed that beauty is all that is important. You're conjuring up straw men as always. I've made no judgments as to the importance of beauty. Roger brought up the subject of beauty vs ugliness. In response, I simply challenged him, as I have in the past, to define the terms and identify objective standards by which to measure and rate them (and, as in the past, Roger will be evading my current reiteration of the challenge). How you managed to miss the point and twist it around in your head that I was making beauty my standard for art is beyond me. It does not follow.

J

[Jonathan]

Cain't we just love Architecture, Art, and Rand?

Sorry, Billy, but, no, we cain't just love them. We must limit ourselves to loving only what Rand and her loudest and most self-important followers give us permission to love. To interpret a work of art differently than they do is to confess to being Haters of Existence. We must conform, if we are to be called rational and moral, to their tastes, interpretations and aesthetic limitations. We are to limit ourselves to their levels of awareness, observation and experience. Roger Bissell, ex-Disneyland trombonist, is, currently, here on OL, the universal limit of aesthetic response in regard to all art forms. Dare not experience more than he does in a work of visual art, for then you would be "rationalizing."

Limit yourself similarly when in the presence of Kamhi. Conform to her tastes and aesthetic limitations. Do not pretend to experience anything in a work of art that she does not (and you must be pretending if you claim to have such experiences).

What to do in the presence of both Bissell and Kamhi when they happen to disagree on what qualifies as art, or when they have differing interpretations and aesthetic responses to a work of art? That's a tough one. I think the best answer is to go with whichever of the two is the most aesthetically unaware, unobservant and insensitive in any given situation. When one of them claims to experience what the other doesn't, just practice their standard tactic of using the fallacy of the "argument from personal incredulity." Just ejaculate "Give me a break!" or "I can't believe it!" or "You can't be serious!" Then accuse them of rationalizing, of pretending in order to impress artistic elites, and of trying to destroy proper human cognition.

That's what art and aesthetics is all about in Objectivist circles.

J

[Selene]

Can you both agree on the highlighted?

...typical aesthetic qualities, such as beauty, sublimity, elegance, grace, artistic excellence, powerful expression, and the like, is said to require a certain degree of aesthetic sensibility or ‘standard of taste’ that needs to be cultivated. Moreover, their appreciation often demands a certain conceptual understanding of things, such as the object’s historical and cultural context, the artist’s oeuvre, and some basic information regarding nature, among others. In comparison, the detection of the everyday aesthetic qualities in question, such as messiness, shabbiness, cuteness, and prettiness, seems to result from an almost knee-jerk reaction without any background knowledge or aesthetic sophistication and, as such, does not make a worthy subject matter for aesthetics.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetics-of-everyday/#EveAesQua

[Brant Gaede]

There was no fraud in Keating using Roark's work as per their personal contract. The government people were delighted to find an economically effective design. They couldn't have cared less about Keating/Roark.

The contract that mattered was between Keating and the government. Keating couldn't/didn't fight the despoilers off.

Blowing up the housing project was criminal.The moral justification was it was a great work of art by a great artist who was thereby justified in not following the rules. He's special. You'd need jury nullification to get away with that. (No need to go into the civil consequences Roark would still have to real life deal with.) The real justification for jury nullification is wrong, unjust laws or prosecutorial misconduct as with the Zenger newspaper case of the 1730s.

--Brant

Lol

Damn Brant you had me confused...all I could think of was the Kennedy assassination...

You meant Zenger:

In 1733, Zenger began printing The New York Weekly Journal, in which he voiced opinions critical of the colonial governor, William Cosby.[3] On November 17, 1734, on Cosby's orders, the sheriff arrested Zenger. After a grand jury refused to indict him, the attorney general Richard Bradley charged him with libel in August of 1735.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Peter_Zenger

I put down Zapruder as a filler while I went looking for the right name. I corrected it just before you hit the quote button.

--Brant

[Jonathan]

Can you both agree on the highlighted?

...typical aesthetic qualities, such as beauty, sublimity, elegance, grace, artistic excellence, powerful expression, and the like, is said to require a certain degree of aesthetic sensibility or ‘standard of taste’ that needs to be cultivated. Moreover, their appreciation often demands a certain conceptual understanding of things, such as the object’s historical and cultural context, the artist’s oeuvre, and some basic information regarding nature, among others. In comparison, the detection of the everyday aesthetic qualities in question, such as messiness, shabbiness, cuteness, and prettiness, seems to result from an almost knee-jerk reaction without any background knowledge or aesthetic sophistication and, as such, does not make a worthy subject matter for aesthetics.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetics-of-everyday/#EveAesQua

Who are the "both" to whom you're referring? Am I one of the "both"?

If so, no, I don't think that appreciation of the listed aesthetic qualities "needs to be cultivated." An uncultivated experience of Sublimity is not necessarily less valid or legitimate (or less powerful, deep, meaningful, etc.) than a cultivated one. A child's first experience with Sublimity, say, his visiting the Grand Canyon with his family on vacation, is not necessarily of less impact, importance, effectiveness, etc., than a wizened sage's experience of the Sublime in a complex political scandal that the child would not understand. And, in fact, the wizened sage might have lived long enough to no longer be able to understand or experience the simple Sublimity (or beauty, etc.), that the child can.

I think that cultivation can give art consumers more experiences, but I don't think that it follows that those cultivated experiences are necessarily more satisfying, or "legitimate," or whatever, than "uncultivated" aesthetic experiences.

J

[Selene]

Can you both agree on the highlighted?

...typical aesthetic qualities, such as beauty, sublimity, elegance, grace, artistic excellence, powerful expression, and the like, is said to require a certain degree of aesthetic sensibility or ‘standard of taste’ that needs to be cultivated. Moreover, their appreciation often demands a certain conceptual understanding of things, such as the object’s historical and cultural context, the artist’s oeuvre, and some basic information regarding nature, among others. In comparison, the detection of the everyday aesthetic qualities in question, such as messiness, shabbiness, cuteness, and prettiness, seems to result from an almost knee-jerk reaction without any background knowledge or aesthetic sophistication and, as such, does not make a worthy subject matter for aesthetics.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetics-of-everyday/#EveAesQua

Who are the "both" to whom you're referring? Am I one of the "both"?

If so, no, I don't think that appreciation of the listed aesthetic qualities "needs to be cultivated." An uncultivated experience of Sublimity is not necessarily less valid or legitimate (or less powerful, deep, meaningful, etc.) than a cultivated one. A child's first experience with Sublimity, say, his visiting the Grand Canyon with his family on vacation, is not necessarily of less impact, importance, effectiveness, etc., than a wizened sage's experience of the Sublime in a complex political scandal that the child would not understand. And, in fact, the wizened sage might have lived long enough to no longer be able to understand or experience the simple Sublimity (or beauty, etc.), that the child can.

I think that cultivation can give art consumers more experiences, but I don't think that it follows that those cultivated experiences are necessarily more satisfying, or "legitimate," or whatever, than "uncultivated" aesthetic experiences.

J

Understood.

Are the highlighted "typical qualities" too limited in your opinion? Or, do they encapsulate all aesthetic qualities?

Thanks for the answer J.

A..

[Jonathan]

Can you both agree on the highlighted?

...typical aesthetic qualities, such as beauty, sublimity, elegance, grace, artistic excellence, powerful expression, and the like, is said to require a certain degree of aesthetic sensibility or ‘standard of taste’ that needs to be cultivated. Moreover, their appreciation often demands a certain conceptual understanding of things, such as the object’s historical and cultural context, the artist’s oeuvre, and some basic information regarding nature, among others. In comparison, the detection of the everyday aesthetic qualities in question, such as messiness, shabbiness, cuteness, and prettiness, seems to result from an almost knee-jerk reaction without any background knowledge or aesthetic sophistication and, as such, does not make a worthy subject matter for aesthetics.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetics-of-everyday/#EveAesQua

Who are the "both" to whom you're referring? Am I one of the "both"?

If so, no, I don't think that appreciation of the listed aesthetic qualities "needs to be cultivated." An uncultivated experience of Sublimity is not necessarily less valid or legitimate (or less powerful, deep, meaningful, etc.) than a cultivated one. A child's first experience with Sublimity, say, his visiting the Grand Canyon with his family on vacation, is not necessarily of less impact, importance, effectiveness, etc., than a wizened sage's experience of the Sublime in a complex political scandal that the child would not understand. And, in fact, the wizened sage might have lived long enough to no longer be able to understand or experience the simple Sublimity (or beauty, etc.), that the child can.

I think that cultivation can give art consumers more experiences, but I don't think that it follows that those cultivated experiences are necessarily more satisfying, or "legitimate," or whatever, than "uncultivated" aesthetic experiences.

J

Understood.

Are the highlighted "typical qualities" too limited in your opinion? Or, do they encapsulate all aesthetic qualities?

Thanks for the answer J.

A..

No, I don't think the list covers all possible aesthetic qualities. I would think that there are too many such qualities to list exhaustively.

J

[Selene]

Can you both agree on the highlighted?

...typical aesthetic qualities, such as beauty, sublimity, elegance, grace, artistic excellence, powerful expression, and the like, is said to require a certain degree of aesthetic sensibility or ‘standard of taste’ that needs to be cultivated. Moreover, their appreciation often demands a certain conceptual understanding of things, such as the object’s historical and cultural context, the artist’s oeuvre, and some basic information regarding nature, among others. In comparison, the detection of the everyday aesthetic qualities in question, such as messiness, shabbiness, cuteness, and prettiness, seems to result from an almost knee-jerk reaction without any background knowledge or aesthetic sophistication and, as such, does not make a worthy subject matter for aesthetics.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetics-of-everyday/#EveAesQua

Who are the "both" to whom you're referring? Am I one of the "both"?

If so, no, I don't think that appreciation of the listed aesthetic qualities "needs to be cultivated." An uncultivated experience of Sublimity is not necessarily less valid or legitimate (or less powerful, deep, meaningful, etc.) than a cultivated one. A child's first experience with Sublimity, say, his visiting the Grand Canyon with his family on vacation, is not necessarily of less impact, importance, effectiveness, etc., than a wizened sage's experience of the Sublime in a complex political scandal that the child would not understand. And, in fact, the wizened sage might have lived long enough to no longer be able to understand or experience the simple Sublimity (or beauty, etc.), that the child can.

I think that cultivation can give art consumers more experiences, but I don't think that it follows that those cultivated experiences are necessarily more satisfying, or "legitimate," or whatever, than "uncultivated" aesthetic experiences.

J

Understood.

Are the highlighted "typical qualities" too limited in your opinion? Or, do they encapsulate all aesthetic qualities?

Thanks for the answer J.

A..

No, I don't think the list covers all possible aesthetic qualities. I would think that there are too many such qualities to list exhaustively.

J

Excellent.

That concept was clear to me at 16 when I heard the obverse at NBI...

Good thing I was not a mind-numbed robot.

It was quite glaring how "almost any human of color" was absent in New York City at NBI.

That in addition to the "irrational restraints" that were placed on the arts were red flags for me and thankfully I decided to heed them.

Thanks J.

A...

[anthony]

I'll trust any child's vision of an art work before the Kantian rigmarole of beauty, sublime - his 'aesthetics'. A child knows that what he sees is a real depiction of something in reality. He makes a direct connection with it, through his eyes, mind and emotions. (As he does, and can only do, with 'real life'). But yeah, tell him often enough not to trust his eyes and mind, that his understanding is flawed and art is beyond such 'simple' understanding - and he must 'learn to feel' the beauty, and accept the wise authority of those who know better - and you could have a dutiful second-hander, for life.

The sublime in itself doesn't exist, in nature or the man-made: it's an emotional response to an existent, and only one of other potential responses. (Awe or fear and so on, right up to boredom). Like any emotional response it's dependent on the metaphysical value-premises of an individual: therefore not even this feeling of "The Sublime" is consistent from one person to the next, given varying scenarios. Often, completely at odds. (Read upthread of how, portrayed with utmost clarity, the values and vision of the main character in The Fountainhead can be mutated by someone to illustrate instead, somebody irrational, unheroic and villainous...).

On such emotional inconsistency, it seems Kant based his aesthetics, one of his "pillars" of his neo-mystic philosophy.

[anthony]

Can you both agree on the highlighted?

...typical aesthetic qualities, such as beauty, sublimity, elegance, grace, artistic excellence, powerful expression, and the like, is said to require a certain degree of aesthetic sensibility or ‘standard of taste’ that needs to be cultivated. Moreover, their appreciation often demands a certain conceptual understanding of things, such as the object’s historical and cultural context, the artist’s oeuvre, and some basic information regarding nature, among others. In comparison, the detection of the everyday aesthetic qualities in question, such as messiness, shabbiness, cuteness, and prettiness, seems to result from an almost knee-jerk reaction without any background knowledge or aesthetic sophistication and, as such, does not make a worthy subject matter for aesthetics.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetics-of-everyday/#EveAesQua

I see this as another vocabulary, Adam. One learns it fast by practising it. If one begins with the premise that every word and sentence is carefully selected by a writer to say "something" - and that it's important - so one knows the artist does the same and one picks up the 'visual vocabulary'. Not to say that a child can't plainly see what counts, but his knowledge of nuances gets better with refinement. As a secondary.

I'm quite amused considering the obvious fact that x billion people who have seen hundreds of movies each, have never HAD to attend educational and film tutorials in "historical and cultural contexts" and "background knowledge or aesthetic sophistication" to grasp and enjoy what they see. And what about billions of fiction readers too? It looks like an appreciation of finer points in art improves largely by reading/watching and paying close attention to detail, and seeing how techniques are repeated from one artwork to the next .

Lay the label "art" on anything, and a lot of common sense goes out the window - imo.

[Brant Gaede]

I'll trust any child's vision of an art work before the Kantian rigmarole of beauty, sublime - his 'aesthetics'. A child knows that what he sees is a real depiction of something in reality. He makes a direct connection with it, through his eyes, mind and emotions. (As he does, and can only do, with 'real life'). But yeah, tell him often enough not to trust his eyes and mind, that his understanding is flawed and art is beyond such 'simple' understanding - and he must 'learn to feel' the beauty, and accept the wise authority of those who know better - and you could have a dutiful second-hander, for life.

The sublime in itself doesn't exist, in nature or the man-made: it's an emotional response to an existent, and only one of other potential responses. (Awe or fear and so on, right up to boredom). Like any emotional response it's dependent on the metaphysical value-premises of an individual: therefore not even this feeling of "The Sublime" is consistent from one person to the next, in varying scenarios. Often, completely at odds. (Read upthread of how, portrayed with utmost clarity, the values and vision of the main character in The Fountainhead can be mutated by someone to illustrate instead somebody irrational, unheroic and villainous...).

On such emotional inconsistency, it seems Kant based his aesthetics, one of his "pillars" of his neo-mystic philosophy.

I studied Kant on Hand at Rand

--A Glorious Land!

Out with the brain

In with the Other, Brother!

No more aches,

No more tears,

Nothing but cheers!

Cannons to the left--

Blam! Blam! Blam!

Cannons to the right--

Blam! Blam! Blam!

It doesn't matter;

We're right, right, right

For the fight, fight, fight--uh, fight!

I love Ayn Rand!

BLAM!

[anthony]

Happy New Year Brant.

I try to imagine sometimes studying Rand by way of Kant. (If I, or most people, could really understand that fella). The mind boggles...

blam!

[Brant Gaede]

You too, Tony!

--Krant

[Jonathan]

<Crickets chirping>

Where's Roger?

Why isn't he answering my challenges?

He oh so badly wants to believe that his aesthetic responses are objective and that he is therefore rationally justified in telling others what their aesthetic responses ~should~ be. He wants judgments of what is beautiful, Sublime, etc., to be ~normative~, which, in practice, means that he wants to believe that he would be objective and logical in asserting that others' tastes and opinions of which entities are beautiful or Sublime, etc., are ~wrong~ when they don't match his own tastes and opinions.

But where is he? In challenging him to define such aesthetic concepts as "beauty" and "ugliness," and to provide objective criteria by which to measure them, I've given him the perfect opportunity to make his case and prove his assertions. I'd think that he'd be eager to take up the challenge, and demonstrate his scholarly brilliance with a knock-it-out-of-the-park answer. Why isn't he doing so? Where is he? Has he slunk away and "hidden/disappeared" himself along with my posts in his Safe Space "Corner"?

J

[Brant Gaede]

Your pistons don't move his crankshaft.

[Jonathan]

I'll trust any child's vision of an art work before the Kantian rigmarole of beauty, sublime - his 'aesthetics'. A child knows that what he sees is a real depiction of something in reality. He makes a direct connection with it, through his eyes, mind and emotions. (As he does, and can only do, with 'real life'). But yeah, tell him often enough not to trust his eyes and mind, that his understanding is flawed and art is beyond such 'simple' understanding - and he must 'learn to feel' the beauty, and accept the wise authority of those who know better - and you could have a dutiful second-hander, for life.

The sublime in itself doesn't exist, in nature or the man-made: it's an emotional response to an existent, and only one of other potential responses. (Awe or fear and so on, right up to boredom). Like any emotional response it's dependent on the metaphysical value-premises of an individual: therefore not even this feeling of "The Sublime" is consistent from one person to the next, given varying scenarios. Often, completely at odds. (Read upthread of how, portrayed with utmost clarity, the values and vision of the main character in The Fountainhead can be mutated by someone to illustrate instead, somebody irrational, unheroic and villainous...).

On such emotional inconsistency, it seems Kant based his aesthetics, one of his "pillars" of his neo-mystic philosophy.

Dum dum, why are you taking a stab at Kant? He didn't originate the concepts of beauty or Sublimity, or any other aesthetic qualities. Heh.

Venting your little feelings about Kant isn't a rational way to support your arbitrary assertion that your aesthetic responses are objective. The Objectivist epistemological method of supporting your assertions would be to first objectively define terms such as "beauty" and "ugliness," along with many other aesthetic concepts, and then to clearly and objectively identify the standards and criteria by which to apply them in reality. The Objectivist method would be to demonstrate that any person could take your criteria for beauty (etc.), apply them to any entity, and arrive at the same judgment as anyone else applying the same criteria (or even the same conclusion that a computer would come to when programmed to apply the criteria). It would be as black and white as a mathematic formula. Entity X meets or exceeds objectively measurable standards A, B, C, and D, plus it complies with criteria E, F, and G, plus it does not violate exclusionary clauses H, I, and J, and therefore it equals "beautiful."

Follow that method. Your emoting about Kant isn't a valid substitute for that method. It's not even an effective distraction. It's pathetic. Practice Objectivism for once, and define the terms and identify the standards and criteria for making objective aethetic judgments.

J

[Jonathan]

Your pistons don't move his crankshaft.

They're not my pistons. They're philosophy's pistons, and history's, and reality's.

These are not questions that I'm the first person to have asked. They don't originate with me. They are the nature and core of aesthetics. They are not trifles to be brushed aside with poses and pouting. One cannot pretend that they are minor, irrelevant nuisances, cheap parlour tricks or personal attacks and at the same time expect to be taken seriously as an alleged respected scholar of aesthetics.

J

[Jonathan]

Sounds like someone's getting really frustrated. What an angry, pouty princess.

Indeed, and that someone is you.

Heh. Still no answers to my questions. Still no substance. You're not up to the task. Go back to your Safe Space, princess, where you can shelter yourself from potent criticism. Go retreat once again to the territory where, in your anger, frustration and embarrassment at being intellectually incapable of facing the challenges that I've placed before you, you can blank them out of existence. When you're done pouting in you Safe Space, and you feel that you're ready to work up the courage to put on some big girl panties, come on back here with some substance.

J

[Brant Gaede]

Safe Space = somewhere that Jonathan is not allowed to shriek condemnations and insults and hurl verbal feces at those who disagree with him. Sure, I spend time there. But I do it there constructively, as I will consider doing here, once the insanity stops gushing from the angry, pouty little princess in Minnesota, who seems trapped in an endless loop of PMS. Demands and bashing do not work, Princess Jonathan. Take a deep breath, and let your hormones simmer down to a mild roar. You're only diminishing yourself by your behavior.

But he can go there without the luggage?

--Kant Rant

[anthony]

Aesthetic.

[Vocabulary.com]

"Aesthetic" from a Greek word meaning "perception", comes to us from German philosophers

who used it for a theory of the beautiful. From this technical sense, it soon came to refer to

good taste and to artistry in general;

---

[Oxford]

1. Concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty.

Origin: The sense 'concerned with beauty' was coined in German in the mid-18C and adapted

into English in the early 19C, but its use was controversial until much later in the Century.

---

The theory of beauty and its priority, then, was lately influenced by the Germans - Schopenhauer, Kant and Hegel.

The study of the subject - form, shape, proportions, colours and their harmony/contrast, line, perspective, depth, composition, balance, repetition and pattern, and so on - and its pleasing of the human eyes and brain, is as much empirical: anthropological, neurological, psychological, etc..IOW, It's not at all mysterious, although those philosophers seemed fascinated with its apparent mystique. Especially Kant, who turned it to his own objective.

AR: "The esthetic principles which apply to all art, regardless of an individual artist's philosophy, and which must guide an objective evaluation ... are defined by the science of esthetics--a task at which modern philosophers have failed dismally" [TRM]