Baars (1988, 1997) has proposed a psychological theory of consciousness, called global workspace theory. The present study describes a software agent implementation of that theory, called ''Conscious'' Mattie (CMattie). CMattie operates in a clerical domain from within a UNIX operating system, sending messages and interpreting messages in natural language that organize seminars at a university. CMattie fleshes out global workspace theory with a detailed computational model that integrates contemporary architectures in cognitive science and artificial intelligence. Baars (1997) lists the psychological (...) ''facts that any complete theory of consciousness must explain'' in his appendix to In the Theater of Consciousness; global workspace theory was designed to explain these ''facts.'' The present article discusses how the design of CMattie accounts for these facts and thereby the extent to which it implements global workspace theory. (shrink)

BackgroundCORE (Clarity and Openness in Reporting: E3-based) Reference (released May 2016 by the European Medical Writers Association [EMWA] and the American Medical Writers Association [AMWA]) is a complete and authoritative open-access user’s guide to support the authoring of clinical study reports (CSRs) for current industry-standard-design interventional studies. CORE Reference is a content guidance resource and is not a CSR Template.TransCelerate Biopharma Inc., an alliance of biopharmaceutical companies, released a CSR Template in November 2018 and recognised CORE Reference as one of (...) two principal sources used in its development.MethodsThe regulatory medical writing and statistical professionals who developed CORE Reference conducted a critical review of the TransCelerate CSR Template. We summarise our major findings and recommendations in this communication. We also re-examined and edited the Version 1 CORE Reference Terminology Table that we first published in 2016, and we present this as Version 2 in this communication.ResultsOur major critical review findings indicate that opportunities remain to refine the CSR Template structure and instructional text, enhance content clarity, add web links to referenced guidance documents, improve transparency to support the broad readership of CSRs, and develop supporting resources.The CORE Reference ‘Terminology Table’ Version 2 includes estimand as a defined term and an adaptation of the original ‘worked study example’ to incorporate the recently evolved concept of ‘estimands’.ConclusionsAs TransCelerate’s CSR Template represents an important milestone in authoring CSRs, we offer CSR authors advice and recommendations on its use, similarities, and differences with CORE Reference and advise them to consider shared interpretations between the two.RegistrationCORE Reference is registered with the EQUATOR Network. The TransCelerate CSR Template is not registered with any external organisation to the knowledge of the authors of this paper. (shrink)

There are a number of recent discussions on the question of when an artwork is complete. While it has been observed that a work might be complete in one way and not in another, the impact of this observation has been minimal. Discussion has been continued as if there is only one real sense of completion that matters. I argue that this is a mistake. Even if there were only one (or one most important) kind of completion, extant (...) theories of completion would be bad candidates for that one kind. The best explanation of the failure of extant theories is that there are many kinds of completion, many corresponding senses of “completion,” and no kind of artwork completion is objectively more important than any other. We have a good reason to think that this is the case given the disparate interests we have when we ask completion questions. Once we have realized that those concerns track properties that are often unrelated, the question for theorists to answer becomes, “In how many ways can an artwork be complete?”. (shrink)

The progressive art guide - an entirely new method of self-instruction on modern arts, shown in their progressive stages of completion is an unchanged, high-quality reprint of the original edition of 1888. Hansebooks is editor of the literature on different topic areas such as research and science, travel and expeditions, cooking and nutrition, medicine, and other genres. As a publisher we focus on the preservation of historical literature. Many works of historical writers and scientists are available today as antiques (...) only. Hansebooks newly publishes these books and contributes to the preservation of literature which has become rare and historical knowledge for the future. (shrink)

We present an analysis of work completion couched in terms of an effective completion decision identified by its characteristic contents and functions. In our proposal, the artist's completion decision can take a number of distinct forms, including a procedural variety referred to as an ‘extended completion decision’. In the second part of this essay, we address ourselves to the question of whether collaborative art-making projects stand as counterexamples to the proposed analysis of work completion.

When is an artwork complete? Most hold that the correct answer to this question is psychological in nature. A work is said to be complete just in case the artist regards it as complete or is appropriately disposed to act as if he or she did. Even though this view seems strongly supported by metaphysical, epistemological, and normative considerations, this article argues that such psychologism about completeness is mistaken, fundamentally, because it cannot make sense of the artist's own perspective on (...) his or her work. For the artist, the question is not about his or her own psychology, but about the character of the work and the context in which he or she works. A nonpsychological account of completeness, on which completeness is a question of whether the work satisfies the conditions implicit in the artist's plan, avoids this problem and is equally or better able to explain the metaphysical, epistemic, and normative phenomena which appeared to support psychologism. (shrink)

Like every other venerable speculation, philosophy has its myths and its great myth-makers. One of the greatest—maker of myths for all contemporary thought—was Kant. Should some future Lévi-Strauss classify this tradition, he will find that philosophical myths, like tribal lore of primitive peoples, suffer thematic variation and evolution, for myths relate our true business in this world, and therefore are essential for all thought about ourselves.

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

One of the most important Stoic philosophers is Epictetus. Epictetus (c. 50 - 135 CE) was a Greek enslaved person who established an important school of Stoic philosophy in Rome. Epictetus is appreciated for his clear, good-humored way of explaining difficult ideas and his focus on daily life rather than metaphysics. This may be because he did not write down his lectures and discourses, as Marcus and Seneca did-rather, he delivered them aloud and they were carefully recorded by his students. (...) Thus we should not refer to them as "writings" but as "works." The complete oeuvre consists of his popular handbook on virtue (enchiridion), also known as "The Art of Living," a set of discourses, and a number of fragments. This set of translations, framed by an introduction and notes, is geared expressly to general readers and students, though it will be enormously helpful to scholars as well. (shrink)

Paul Crowther argues that art can bridge the gap between philosophy's traditional striving for generality and completeness, and the concreteness and contingency of humanity's basic relation to the world. He proposes an ecological definition of art: by making sensible or imaginative material into symbolic form, it harmonizes and conserves what is unique and what is general about human experience.

How can artists create works of computer art or Internet art in which audience members become genuine artists and collaborate with the original artists on the self-same work that they began? To answer this question, this essay will reflect on the work of philosophers who focus on questions concerning art completion and the ontology of computer art. This essay will also reflect on the artistic work of the trio LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner, whose artwork can serve as a model (...) for creating collaborative, digital art. (shrink)

Film is an art form with a language and an aesthetic all its own. Since 1979, David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson's Film Art has been the best-selling and widely respected introduction to the analysis of cinema. Taking a skills-centered approach supported by a wide range of examples from various periods and countries, the authors strive to help students develop a core set of analytical skills that will deepen their understanding of any film, in any genre. Frame enlargements throughout the text (...) enable students to view images taken directly from completed films, while an optional, text-specific tutorial CD-ROM helps clarify and reinforce specific concepts addressed in the text with the use of film clips. Building on these strengths, the ninth edition adds coverage of new technologies, updated examples, and references to the authors' acclaimed weblog to provide unparalleled currency and connect students with the world of cinema today. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper, I will show that classical Chinese artists adopted either Daoist or Chan Buddhist meditation to cultivate their mind to be in accord with the Dao, and that their view of the...

In Art and intention Paisley Livingston develops a broad and balanced perspective on perennial disputes between intentionalists and anti-intentionalists in philosophical aesthetics and critical theory. He surveys and assesses a wide range of rival assumptions about the nature of intentions and the status of intentionalist psychology. With detailed reference to examples from diverse media, art forms, and traditions, he demonstrates that insights into the multiple functions of intentions have important implications for our understanding of artistic creation and authorship, the ontology (...) of art, conceptions of texts, works, and versions, basic issues pertaining to the nature of fiction and fictional truth, and the theory of art interpretation and appreciation. Livingston argues that neither the inspirationist nor rationalistic conceptions can capture the blending of deliberate and intentional, spontaneous and unintentional processes in the creation of art. Texts, works, and artistic structures and performances cannot be adequately individuated in the absence of a recognition of the relevant makers4intentions. The distinction between complete and incomplete works receives an action-theoretic analysis that makes possible an elucidation of several different senses of "fragment" in critical discourse. Livingston develops an account of authorship, contending that the recognition of intentions is in fact crucial to our understanding of diverse forms of collective art-making. An artist's short-term intentions and long-term plans and policies interact in complex ways in the emergence of an artistic oeuvre, and our uptake of such attitudes makes an important difference to our appreciation of the relations between items belonging to a single life-work. The intentionalism Livingston advocates is, however, a partial one, and accommodates a number of important anti-intentionalist contentions. Intentions are fallible, and works of art, like other artefacts, can be put to a bewildering diversity of uses. Yet some important aspects of art's meaning and value are linked to the artist's aims and activities. (shrink)

In his Critical Aesthetics and Postmodernism, Paul Crowther argued that art and aesthetic experiences have the capacity to humanize. In Art and Embodiment he develops this theme in much greater depth, arguing that art can bridge the gap between philosophy's traditional striving for generality and completeness, and the concreteness and contingency of humanity's basic relation to the world. As the key element in his theory, he proposes an ecological definition of art. His strategy involves first mapping out and analyzing the (...) logical boundaries and ontological structures of the aesthetic domain. He then considers key concepts from this analysis in the light of a tradition in Continental philosophy (notably the work of Kant, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Hegel) which--by virtue of the philosophical significance that it assigns to art--significantly anticipates the ecological conception. On this basis, Crowther is able to give a full formulation of his ecological definition. Art, in making sensible or imaginative material into symbolic form, harmonizes and conserves what is unique and what is general in human experience. The aesthetic domain answers basic needs intrinsic to self-consciousness itself, and art is the highest realization of such needs. In the creation and reception of art the embodied subject is fully at home with his or her environment. (shrink)

Philosophical Perspectives on Art presents a series of essays devoted to two of the most fundamental topics in the philosophy of art: the distinctive character of artworks and what is involved in understanding them as art. In Part I, Stephen Davies considers a wide range of questions about the nature and definition of art. Can art be defined, and if so, which definitions are the most plausible? Do we make and consume art because there are evolutionary advantages to doing so? (...) Has art completed the mission that guided its earlier historical development, and if so, what is to become of it now? Should architecture be classified as an art form? -/- Part II turns to the interpretation and appreciation of art. What is the target and purpose of the critic's interpretation? Is interpretation primarily directed at uncovering artists' intended meanings? Can apparently contradictory interpretations of a given piece both be true? Are interpretative evaluations entailed by descriptions of a work's aesthetic and artistic characteristics? In addition to providing fresh answers to these and other central questions in aesthetics, Davies considers the nature and content of metaphor, and the relation between the expressive qualities of a work of art and the emotions of its creator. (shrink)

In this acclaimed work, first published in 1986, world-renowned scholar Arthur C. Danto explored the inextricably linked but often misunderstood relationship between art and philosophy. In light of the book's impact--especially the essay "The End of Art," which dramatically announced that art ended in the 1960s--this enhanced edition includes a foreword by Jonathan Gilmore that discusses how scholarship has changed in response to it. Complete with a new bibliography of work on and influenced by Danto's ideas, _The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of (...) Art_ continues to be of interest to anyone who thinks seriously about art, as well as to philosophers, aestheticians, and art historians. (shrink)

Response to Gover (2015) on Trogdon and Livingston (2015) on artwork completion.

Computational complexity is a discipline of computer science and mathematics which classifies computational problems depending on their inherent difficulty, i.e. categorizes algorithms according to their performance, and relates these classes to each other. P problems are a class of computational problems that can be solved in polynomial time using a deterministic Turing machine while solutions to NP problems can be verified in polynomial time, but we still do not know whether they can be solved in polynomial time as well. A (...) solution for the so-called NP-complete problems will also be a solution for any other such problems. Its artificial-intelligence analogue is the class of AI-complete problems, for which a complete mathematical formalization still does not exist. In this chapter we will focus on analysing computational classes to better understand possible formalizations of AI-complete problems, and to see whether a universal algorithm, such as a Turing test, could exist for all AI-complete problems. In order to better observe how modern computer science tries to deal with computational complexity issues, we present several different deep-learning strategies involving optimization methods to see that the inability to exactly solve a problem from a higher order computational class does not mean there is not a satisfactory solution using state-of-the-art machine-learning techniques. Such methods are compared to philosophical issues and psychological research regarding human abilities of solving analogous NP-complete problems, to fortify the claim that we do not need to have an exact and correct way of solving AI-complete problems to nevertheless possibly achieve the notion of strong AI. (shrink)

Art interprets the visible world, physics charts its unseen workings--making the two realms seem completely opposed. But in Art & Physics, Leonard Shlain tracks their breakthroughs side by side throughout history to reveal an astonishing correlation of visions. From teh classical Greek sculptors to Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns, and from Aristotle to Einstein, aritsts have foreshadowed the discoveries of scientists, such as when Money and Cezanne intuited the coming upheaval in physics that Einstein would initiate. In this lively and (...) colorful narrative, Leonard Shlain explores how artistic breakthroughs could have prefigured the visionary insights of physicists on so many occasions throughtout history. Provacative and original, Art & Physics is a seamless integration of the romance of art and the drama of science...and exhilarating history of ideas. (shrink)

Defense of a psychological account of what it is for an artwork to be complete.

Alfred Gell puts forward a new anthropological theory of visual art, seen as a form of instrumental action: the making of things as a means of influencing the thoughts and actions of others. He shows how art objects embody complex intentionalities and mediate social agency, and he explores the psychology of patterns and perceptions, art and personhood, the control of knowledge, and the interpretation of meaning, drawing upon a diversity of artistic traditions--European, Indian, Polynesian, Melanesian, and Australian. Art and Agency (...) was completed just before Alfred Gell's death at the age of 51 in January 1997. It embodies the intellectual bravura, lively wit, vigour, and erudition for which he was admired, and will stand as an enduring testament to one of the most gifted anthropologists of his generation. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the evolution of the notion of completeness in contemporary logic. We discuss the differences between the notions of completeness of a theory, the completeness of a calculus, and the completeness of a logic in the light of Gödel's and Tarski's crucial contributions.We place special emphasis on understanding the differences in how these concepts were used then and now, as well as on the role they play in logic. Nevertheless, we can still observe a certain ambiguity in (...) the use of the close notions of completeness of a calculus and completeness of a logic. We analyze the state of the art under which Gödel's proof of completeness was developed, particularly when dealing with the decision problem for first-order logic. We believe that Gödel had to face the following dilemma: either semantics is decidable, in which case the completeness of the logic is trivial or, completeness is a critical property but in this case it cannot be obtained as a corollary of a previous decidability result. As far as first-order logic is concerned, our thesis is that the contemporary understanding of completeness of a calculus was born as a generalization of the concept of completeness of a theory. The last part of this study is devoted to Henkin's work concerning the generalization of his completeness proof to any logic from his initial work in type theory. (shrink)

The arts have been almost completely marginalized - at a time when, arguably, they are more important than ever. Whether we understand by “the arts” painting, sculpture and architecture, or more broadly, the whole aesthetic realm and the arts faculties of universities concerned with this realm, over the last half century these fields have lost their cognitive status. This does not mean that there are not people involved in the arts, but they do not have the standing participants in these (...) fields once had. The arts lost the battle of the “two cultures”; science prevailed over the arts and humanities. Architecture is being redefined as an applied science rather than one of the arts. The arts were then finally routed (with hardly a fight) by economists. They have been absorbed into the advertising, entertainment, decoration and building industries, and, as universities have been transformed into transnational business corporations, arts faculties have lost their reason for existence. This paper challenges this marginalization. (shrink)

Art, Truth, and Time is a book which endeavours to show that artistic creation depends as much upon the body, as it does the soul, and the soul's intelligent use of the body's way of understanding. When there occurs a complete disjunction between the two, as occurs in much of contemporary art, art is stripped of its inherent beauty, its wholeness. In this book the author considers the nature of art from its earliest manifestations to the present day, endeavouring to (...) show that its truth transcends time and place through the unity of soul and body and man's awareness of this unity, not a barren unity, but a unity which is profoundly creative. (shrink)

Richard Jeffrey is beyond dispute one of the most distinguished and influential philosophers working in the field of decision theory and the theory of knowledge. His work is distinctive in showing the interplay of epistemological concerns with probability and utility theory. Not only has he made use of standard probabilistic and decision theoretic tools to clarify concepts of evidential support and informed choice, he has also proposed significant modifications of the standard Bayesian position in order that it provide a better (...) fit with actual human experience. Probability logic is viewed not as a source of judgment but as a framework for explaining the implications of probabilistic judgments and their mutual compatability. This collection of essays spans a period of some 35 years and includes what have become some of the classic works in the literature. There is also one completely new piece, while in many instances Jeffrey includes afterthoughts on the older essays. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Art and Science, Facts and KnowledgeBengt Brülde (bio)Keywordsart, definitions, epistemology, facts and values, mental disorder, metaphysical realism, nominalism, physical disorder, social constructivismThe main purpose of my original article was to find out how the evaluative content of the concept of mental disorder, i.e. its "value component," should be characterized. Both Tyreman and Ross are focusing on other things, however. Tyreman seems to agree with my analysis, and his primary (...) objective is to find out whether my general analytical approach can be extended to other areas, e.g. whether it can be used to analyze the concept of physical disorder or the concept of art. It is hard to tell whether Ross agrees with my view, since her entire commentary is focused on a few assumptions I made in the beginning of the paper, mainly in passing, to make my evaluative investigation more manageable. In short, the main content of my original paper is never really challenged, and I do not think I have to revise my view on the evaluative content of the concept of mental disorder. Both commentaries give rise to questions that are interesting in their own right, however, e.g. questions about art and science, and about facts and knowledge. This gives me the opportunity to develop my views on a number of topics that I never touched upon in the original article, e.g. the purpose of defining "mental disorder," the factual component of the concept, the connection between ontological and epistemological issues, and the value-neutrality of science. I am very grateful to the editors for allowing me to give such an extensive reply.My Reply to TyremanTyreman wants to know whether the same kind of analysis given in my original paper can be applied just as usefully to other areas of health care. That is, the question is whether the same type of analytical approach can be extended to other areas where evaluative considerations seem to play a crucial part. In his commentary, Tyreman has mainly four areas in mind, namely physical disorder, art, good art, and good (competent) clinical practice. Or more specifically, the question is whether the kind of evaluative analysis I used in my original paper can help us answer the following four questions: (a) How should we define the concept of physical disorder, i.e. according to what criteria should we draw the line between physical disorders and other physical conditions? (b) How should we define the concept of art, i.e. according to what criteria should we draw the line between art and other artifacts and performances? (c) What is good art, i.e. according to what criteria should we evaluate those artifacts (etc.) that we have decided to categorize as works of art? (d) What makes a clinical performance or practice good or competent, according to what criteria should we evaluate such practices?The first two questions are conceptual, i.e. the question is how certain concepts should be [End Page 111] defined, and in what way or ways values enter the picture. The last two questions are straightforwardly evaluative, however, and it goes without saying that we have to rely on value judgments to answer these questions. This difference suggests that the conceptual analyses needed in the first two cases are somewhat different from the evaluative analyses needed in the last two cases. It is also far more likely that my analysis of mental disorder can be extended to the first two cases. After all, my approach is designed to capture the evaluative content of concepts that are not purely evaluative. (We will return to this below.)To see whether my analysis can be of any help in any of Tyreman's four cases, we need to recapitulate what it is all about. The analysis in question is specifically concerned with how the evaluative content of the concept of mental disorder should be characterized, i.e. how and to what extent we have to rely on value judgments to distinguish mental disorders from other conditions. The first part of the analysis consists in the formulation of four questions that any reasonably complete account needs to answer. These questions are: (0... (shrink)

In aesthetics, the topic of intentions comes up most often in the perennial debate between intentionalists and anti-intentionalists over standards of interpretation. The underlying assumptions about the nature and functions of intentions are, however, rarely explicitly developed, even though divergent and at times tendentious premises are often relied upon in this controversy. Livingston provides a survey of contentions about the nature and status of intentions and intentionalist psychology more generally, arguing for an account that recognizes the multiple functions fulfilled by (...) intentions in the lives of temporally situated agents who deliberate over what to do, settle on ends and means, and try to realize some of their plans. Artists’ intentions are the same sorts of attitudes that we attribute to ourselves and to others as we attempt to describe, explain, and predict our actions. As such, intentions are relevant not only to debates over the interpretation of works of art but also to a range of other basic topics in the philosophy of art, including artistic creation and authorship, the ontology of art, the nature of texts, works, versions, and life-works, and the status and nature of fiction and fictional truth. With regard to the controversy over the interpretation of art, Livingston advocates a ‘partial’ intentionalism. Intentions are never infallible, so there is a conceptual gap between the completed work and the intentions that initiated and guided its making. Yet in spite of the fallibility of intentions and of our beliefs and claims about them, intentions regularly contribute to the determination of a work’s features, including implicit meanings, the recognition of which requires the uptake of the artist’s intentional design. Partial intentionalism also finds support in the idea that at least one sort of artistic value depends on the artist’s skilful accomplishment of intentions. (shrink)

In aesthetics, the topic of intentions comes up most often in the perennial debate between intentionalists and anti-intentionalists over standards of interpretation. The underlying assumptions about the nature and functions of intentions are, however, rarely explicitly developed, even though divergent and at times tendentious premises are often relied upon in this controversy. Livingston provides a survey of contentions about the nature and status of intentions and intentionalist psychology more generally, arguing for an account that recognizes the multiple functions fulfilled by (...) intentions in the lives of temporally situated agents who deliberate over what to do, settle on ends and means, and try to realize some of their plans. Artists’ intentions are the same sorts of attitudes that we attribute to ourselves and to others as we attempt to describe, explain, and predict our actions. As such, intentions are relevant not only to debates over the interpretation of works of art but also to a range of other basic topics in the philosophy of art, including artistic creation and authorship, the ontology of art, the nature of texts, works, versions, and life-works, and the status and nature of fiction and fictional truth. With regard to the controversy over the interpretation of art, Livingston advocates a ‘partial’ intentionalism. Intentions are never infallible, so there is a conceptual gap between the completed work and the intentions that initiated and guided its making. Yet in spite of the fallibility of intentions and of our beliefs and claims about them, intentions regularly contribute to the determination of a work’s features, including implicit meanings, the recognition of which requires the uptake of the artist’s intentional design. Partial intentionalism also finds support in the idea that at least one sort of artistic value depends on the artist’s skilful accomplishment of intentions. (shrink)

This thesis offers a re-definition of Kantian a priorism by expanding the notions surrounding it from within a Piagetian genetic epistemological viewpoint. ;In particular, the notion of "noumenon" is re-examined from within this viewpoint, and extended to all structural facets of the genetic epistemological knowing "situation". ;By means of these re-examinations of classical epistemological notions, the various forms of knowledge characteristically produced from within the bounds of that knowing "situation" can then be structurally located with respect to intent and focus (...) of the knowing activity, thereby making it possible to show the phenomenological connection between all these forms of knowledge, as well as to legitimize each form under the canopy of a common set of functional principles, such as truth, objectivity, progress, etc. This in turn allows for a re-definition of the Piagetian scientifically oriented "epistemic subject" into what I call the "complete epistemic subject", which takes account of all the forms of knowing occurring within the structure of the genetic epistemological "situation". ;Particularly are art and science focused upon as test cases for the re-oriented a priorism presented. ;Following the epistemological argument, the classical Progressive educational argument will be re-examined to determine whether any altered approaches and educational ideals result from analyzing the meaning of the "natural man" and "democratic man" and how these analyses can be seen to refer to an expanded type of knowing subject, the "complete epistemic subject". (shrink)

"À la fin des années 1970, Michel Foucault a avancé le concept de « crise de gouvernementalité » pour approcher des phénomènes où la contestation de certains pouvoirs - religieux, politiques, disciplinaires... -, d'abord localisée, s'est élargie pour mettre en question un dispositif général de gouvernement, un ensemble de relations de pouvoir. Chaque fois s'y exprime quelque chose comme : « nous ne voulons plus être gouvernés ainsi ». C'est l'une des ambitions de cet essai que de montrer la fécondité (...) de ce concept pour éclairer des révoltes passées et présentes, pour compliquer et compléter les perspectives centrées sur la seule lutte des classes et celles qui se sont attachées à la construction de la démocratie, à la dynamique égalitaire et à l'institutionnalisation de ses formes. Il s'agit aussi de poser un diagnostic sur la crise actuelle de l'État néo-libéral, au sein duquel démocratie et libéralisme tendent à se dissocier et dont la vision de l'économie renvoie les dégâts sociaux et écologiques au rang d'externalités négatives. Il s'agit enfin et peut-être surtout de penser « un art de ne pas être trop gouverné » qui ne serve pas d'auxiliaire involontaire aux formes de dérégulation économique et de dévastation écologique, mais s'articule à un souci ici thématisé comme celui de « l'usufruit du monde »." -- [4ème de couv.]. (shrink)

Despite the wonders of the digital world, people still go in record numbers to view drawings and paintings in galleries. Why? What is the magic that pictures work on us? This book provides a provocative explanation, arguing that some pictures have special kinds of beauty and sublimity that offer aesthetic transcendence. They take us imaginatively beyond our finite limits and even invoke a sense of the divine. Such aesthetic transcendence forges a relationship with the ultimate and completes us psychologically. Philosophers (...) and theologians sometimes account for this as an effect of art, but How Pictures Complete Us distinguishes itself by revealing how this experience is embodied in pictorial structures and styles. Through detailed discussions of artworks from the Renaissance through postmodern times, Paul Crowther reappraises the entire scope of beauty and the sublime in the context of both representational and abstract art, offering unexpected insights into familiar phenomena such as ideal beauty, pictorial perspective, and what pictures are in the first place. (shrink)

This volume offers the first-ever complete English translation of Leibniz’s Dissertatio De Arte Combinatoria together with a critical edition of the original Latin text on fa...

In everyday reasoning - just as in science and art - knowledge is acquired more by "doing" than with long analyses. What do we "do" when we discover something new? How can we define and explore the pattern of this reasoning, traditionally called "synthetic"? Following in the steps of classic pragmatists, especially C.S. Pierce, Giovanni Maddalena's Philosophy of Gesture revolutionizes the pattern of synthesis through the ideas of change and continuity and proposes "gesture" as a new tool for synthesis. Defining (...) gesture as an action with a beginning and an end that carries on a meaning, Maddalena explains that it is a dense blending of all kinds of phenomena - feelings and vague ideas, actual actions, habits of actions - and of signs - icons, indexes, and symbols. When the blending of phenomena and signs is densest, the gesture is "complete," and its power of introducing something new in knowledge is at its highest level. Examples of complete gestures are religious liturgies, public and private rites, public and private actions that establish an identity, artistic performances, and hypothesizing experiments. A departure from a traditional Kantian framework for understanding the nature and function of reason, The Philosophy of Gesture proposes an approach that is more attuned with our ordinary way of reasoning and of apprehending new knowledge. (shrink)

These two books are among the most recently published tomes of a projected twenty comprising the first French edition of the Complete Works of Kierkegaard. Such a work represents the life-long dedication of Paul Tisseau, Kierkegaard's principal French translator. Many of Tisseau's translations have already been published in various other places, and it is generally known that he undertook to publish on his own several of the less commercially appealing religious works. After his death in 1964, his daughter completed his (...) work by correcting published and unpublished manuscripts and by translating the few works her father had not been able to do. The present edition was indeed worth waiting for; it is at once an artful translation and an excellent scholarly tool, complete with marginal pagination of the definitive Danish edition, the Drachmann, Heiberg, Lange of 1920-1926, plus location of each separate work in the first and third Danish editions. Jean Brun provides to-the-point introductions containing a wealth of historical material and ample footnotes referring to significant textual variations, subtleties of translation, and related passages in other works. Volume thirteen contains the Edifying Discourses in Various Spirits, Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing, The Lilies and the Birds, and The Gospel of Sufferings; volume eighteen, Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays, The Woman that Was a Sinner, The Unchangeableness of God, For Self-Examination, and Judge for Yourselves.--C. M. R. (shrink)

In this acclaimed work, first published in 1986, world-renowned scholar Arthur C. Danto explored the inextricably linked but often misunderstood relationship between art and philosophy. In light of the book's impact -- especially the essay "The End of Art," which dramatically announced that art ended in the 1960s -- this enhanced edition includes a foreword by Jonathan Gilmore that discusses how scholarship has changed in response to it. Complete with a new bibliography of work on and influenced by Danto's ideas, (...) _The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art_ continues to be of interest to anyone who thinks seriously about art, as well as to philosophers, aestheticians, and art historians. (shrink)

Amajor shift in critical attitudes toward the arts took place in the eighteenth century. The fine arts were now looked upon as a group, divorced from the sciences and governed by their own rules. The century abounded with treatises that sought to establish the overriding principles that differentiate art from other walks of life as well as the principles that differentiate them from each other. This burst of scholarly activity resulted in the incorporation of aesthetics among the classic branches of (...) philosophy, heralding the cognitive turn in epistemology. Among the writings that initiated this turn, none were more important than the British contribution. The Arts in Mind brings together an annotated selection of these key texts. A companion volume to the editors' Tuning the Mind, which analyzed this major shift in world view and its historical context, The Arts in Mind is the first representative sampling of what constitutes an important school of British thought. The texts are neither obscure nor forgotten, although most histories of eighteenth-century thought treat them in a partial or incomplete way. Here they are made available complete or through representative extracts together with an editor's introduction to each selection providing essential biographical and intellectual background. The treatises included are representative of the changed climate of opinion which entailed new issues such as those of perception, symbolic function, and the role of history and culture in shaping the world. Contents include: Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, "Characteristics"; Francis Hutcheson, "Inquiry Concerning Beauty, Harmony and Design"; Hildebrand Jacob, "Of the Sister Arts: An Essay"; James Harris, "On Music, Painting and Poetry"; Charles Avison, "An Essay on Musical Expression"; James Beattie, "Essay on Poetry and Music as They Affect the Mind"; Daniel Webb, "Observations on the Correspondence between Poetry and Music"; Thomas Twining, "On Poetry Considered as an Imitative Art," "On the Different Senses of the Word Imitative as Applied to Music by the Ancients and by the Moderns"; Adam Smith, "Of the Nature of that Imitation which Takes Place in What are Called the Imaginative Arts." Ruth Katz is Emanuel Alexandre Professor of Musicology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She is co-editor with Carl Dahlhaus of Contemplating Music, a four-volume study of the philosophy of music. Ruth HaCohen is Clarica and Fred Davidson Senior Lecturer of Musicology at the Hebrew University. (shrink)

Wisdom of life.--Counsels and maxims.--Religion: a dialogue.--The art of literature.--Studies in pessimism.--On human nature.--The art of controversy.

Media art can be conceived as laboratory, at the edges of art. These technological experiments give priority to innovation and exploration by means of new media. In metaphorical terms, we could say that the emphasis is on creating new languages that allow us, in a later phase, to write prose or poetry with it.In my paper, I discuss why the common view on media art falls short. Media art is not just about mixing media but rather about mixing art. Several (...) different challenges are at stake that beget a hybrid post-medium condition. (1) The artistic practice of media art often concerns exercises in remediation (i.e. resonating visual narratives of old media in new media). Here, we encounter a repetition of historical themes and re-makes or re-enactments of classical art pieces. These experiments thus mix the history of art. (2) Media art is often also about immersion (i.e. interactively enclosing the spectactor in a audiovisual or virtual realm). In experiments with CAVE-installations or 3D-cinema using digital goggles, for instance, we notice a combination of an artistic interest with a phenomenologicaland a scientific one (cf. so-called postfenomenology, robotics, experimental psychology). Hence, these experiments mix art with science. (3) Media art is not just a friction between art an technoscience. It takes place at a junction between art, creative industry, design, sociology and politics. Concerning the latter, I willdiscuss the culture-critical potential of i.e. hacktivism, marx 2.0 and bio-performances like Stelarc and Orlan. (4) Media art is not simply a genre that aims for recognition as a part of or a completion of fine art. While democratizing new media technology, it actually blurs the idea of genre, altering and opening up the very canon of fine art, music art, live art, performance art, video art and cinema. (shrink)

Ajit Mookerjee is an expert in the traditional arts and crafts of his native country. After completing a post graduate course in Ancient Indian History and Culture at Culcutta University, he wrote his first book, Folk Art of Bengal. He then went to England for further studies at the University of London, where he received his M.A in History of Art. Since 1945 he has travelled widely both in India, Europe and the United States of America, carrying out research for (...) his many publications and lecturing on the various aspects of the Indian arts. (shrink)

How many citizens take part in moral and political decisions concerning the results obtained by the contemporary life sciences? Should they blindly follow skilled demagogues or false and deceptive leaders? Should they adhere to the voice of the majority, or should they take a different decisional path? Deliberative democracy answers these questions, but what is deliberative democracy? Can we really deliberate if we are completely ignorant of the relevant issue? What about ethical or political expertise, is it strictly necessary? Finally, (...) and most significantly, can a deliberative process take place if we ignore the techniques governing it; that is, the techniques required to be minimally skilled in rational argumentation? Giovanni Boniolo goes back to the historical and theoretical foundations of deliberation showing us, with some irony, that deliberation is a matter of competence, and not just a matter of a right to decide. His conclusion might not delight everyone: “anyone who is not sufficiently acquainted with the subject matter or lacks the sufficient deliberative competence ought not be admitted to deliberative discussions. This restriction makes both good deliberation and a proper deliberative democracy possible, otherwise debate degenerates into demagogy and hypocrisy”. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that Adorno’s conception of a possible reconciliation with nature is neither one of complete synthesis, nor absolute alienation. The most elaborated formulations regarding the possibility of such a reconciliation, which would be tantamount to a liberated nature, are to be found in Adorno’s aesthetics, and particularly in his discussion of the art–nature relation. The article engages Simon Hailwood’s recent criticism of the concept of the Anthropocene and his discussion of Adorno’s conception of the domination of (...) nature. While I concur with Hailwood’s insistence on the idea of “alienation from nature” in order to reach a more appropriate understanding of our current predicament, his analysis of Adorno’s take on this idea is problematic. I conclude by discussing another recent work on our troubled relationship with nature. While more attentive to artistic expressions than Hailwood’s work, Andreas Malm’s The Progress of This Stormconstitutes an inverted parallel to the former through its negligence of Adorno’s contribution to the discussion of the human–nature dialectic. (shrink)

For 170 years, Harriet Taylor Mill has been presented as a footnote in John Stuart Mill’s life. This volume gives her a separate voice. Readers may assess for themselves the importance and influence of her ideas on "women’s" issues such as marriage and divorce, education, domestic violence, and suffrage. And they will note the overlap of her ideas on ethics, religion, arts, and socialism, written in the 1830s, with her more famous husband’s works, published 25 years later.

Recording has transformed the nature of music as an art by reconfiguring the opposition between the aesthetics of perfection and imperfection. A precursor article, ‘The Art of Improvisation and the Aesthetics of Imperfection’, contrasted the perfectionist aesthetic of the ‘work-concept’ with the imperfectionist aesthetic of improvisation. Imperfectionist approaches to recording are purist in wanting to maintain the diachronic and synchronic integrity of the performance, which perfectionist recording creatively subverts through mixing and editing. But a purist transparency thesis cannot evade the (...) fact that the recorded image is crafted; against creative editing, however, the imperfectionist ideal of the ‘complete take’ is humanistic and anti-mechanistic, and not mere Romantic illusion. The article concludes with a discussion of the question of the artistic status of recording, and contrasts the possibility of a non-acousmatic sound art with the essentially acousmatic art of music. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Art and the Educated AudienceJames O. Young (bio)1. IntroductionWhen writing about art, aestheticians tend to focus on the work of art and on the artist who produces it. When they refer to audiences, they typically speak only of the effect that the artwork has on its audience. Aestheticians pay little, if any, attention to the important active role that an audience plays in the workings of a healthy art (...) world. My goal in this essay is to do something to end the neglect of the audience. I will focus on the role of the informed or, as I will call it, educated audience. I begin by subjecting the concept of an audience to some old-fashioned conceptual analysis. Once we are clearer about what an audience is and, in particular, what an educated audience is, we can begin to determine what it can do. In my view, an educated audience can play an important role in encouraging the production of artworks with high aesthetic value. Indeed, highly valuable artworks are unlikely to be produced without a broad educated audience to whom artists are responsive. Consequently, the aesthetic education of audiences is crucial to the health of an art world.2. What Is an Audience?In its original sense, the noun "audience" refers to the people within earshot of some speaker: one held forth to an audience. In connection with the arts, "audience" was first used in something very like this original sense. It referred to those who heard actors perform plays or those who heard the recitation of poetry. Soon the concept of an audience also applied to those who heard the performance of musical works. By the mid-nineteenth century, the concept of an audience had been broadened. It came to apply to the readers of a novel or other works of literature. More recently, the concept of an audience has been applied to those who view paintings, sculptures, and films. [End Page 29] Now an audience consists of people who experience artworks of any sort. Having an experience of an artwork is a necessary condition of being part of an audience. This condition is, however, far from being sufficient.Some people experience works of art but are not part of an audience. Consider, for example, ushers in a concert hall or theater and guards in art museums. An usher hears the play or the concerto but may not regard it as an aesthetic object. Similarly, a guard sees the paintings (and so in this sense experiences them) but does not, perhaps, attend to them as aesthetic objects. Or consider a person who arranges to meet a friend in a gallery. He almost certainly sees the paintings, but he will not count as part of an audience if he is completely intent on looking for his friend. It seems, then, that members of an audience do not simply experience artworks. They must experience artworks in a certain way.Audience members experience an artwork in such a way that they are able to benefit from its aesthetic value. When I speak of "aesthetic value," I mean the value an artwork possesses in virtue of its sensuous properties. I will not here take a stand on the nature of experience of aesthetic value. Some writers have suggested that the contemplation of art involves a distinctive sort of experience. Perhaps it does. (It has been suggested, for example, that audience members must have a measure of "psychical distance" from some object if they are to have an aesthetic experience of it.) I simply hold that audience members experience an artwork in whatever way makes it possible for them to benefit from its aesthetic value. If aesthetic value causes pleasure (or "aesthetic emotion," understanding, or anything else) then audience members can have pleasure caused in them by an artwork's aesthetic value. The capacity to benefit from the aesthetic value of an artwork is a necessary condition of being part of the work's audience.Notice that not just anyone can be part of the audience for a given work of art. Audience members must possess certain capacities. In the most basic sense of the word, an audience is composed... (shrink)