In a time of political, epistemic and aesthetic revolutions, early 18th-century Britain saw the emergence of a public discourse of common sense which had a lasting influence on cliched concepts of cultural identity. By retracing the compensatory impulses of common sense discourse and highlighting the role of literary texts in its formation and dissemination, this study challenges the received view of Augustan England as a mere Age of Reason.".

Since Plato and Aristotle the concept of imitation that is mimesis, has often alluded to the re-presentation of nature, in another sense, the artist is the interpreter of ''the nature'' of the ''appearances'' of the visible at the same time ''invisible'' objects. The Romantic objective for authenticity preserving in everything its own national character and taste, altered the concept of imitation in painting, which during the Renaissance was seen as a way to achieve one's personal style. Since its invention, (...) writing found its place first in stone then on paper and apart from the long-distance communication required by trade, has also served as a non-verbal communication tool to complete the linear distance between ideas. From here on the wheel paradox, the quest of how could be possible to evoke deepest emotions in the viewer, found itself in the philosophical approach and remarks of the artist on the practice of the common sense to the aesthetic perception. The common sense applied to the expressive features e.g., manifested in the marbles of Michelangelo and Puget having full of feeling and all the means of life, and this to some extent compensated for their lack of flawless appearances. (shrink)

_Plain Aesthetics_ is an introduction to philosophical aesthetics and the philosophy of art written for all audiences. While students studying philosophy will find it informative, it is specifically constructed to be accessible to anyone, even those with no background in philosophy. It contains no jargon or technical language, except where such terms are defined at their point of use. Philosophers and theorists are discussed only where appropriate, and their views explained in context. _Plain Aesthetics_ is written as a conversation between (...) the author and the reader, and employs a great many examples of fascinating and influential artworks. Images and other works are presented to the reader both within the text and through an innovative interactive system. This book makes aesthetics accessible to everyone. (shrink)

Recently, Kant’s account of aesthetic autonomy has received attention from those interested in a range of issues in aesthetics, including the subjectivity of aesthetic judgment, quasi-realism, aesthetic testimony, and aesthetic normativity. Although these discussions have shed much light on the implications of Kant’s account of aesthetic autonomy, the phenomenon of aesthetic autonomy itself tends to be under-described. Commentators often focus on the negative aspect of this phenomenon, i.e., the sense in which an aesthetic judgment cannot be grounded on the (...) testimony of others. However, on Kant’s view, autonomy is a positive phenomenon, something that involves self-determination and self-legislation. My aim in this paper is to clarify this positive aspect of Kantian aesthetic autonomy. In order to defend my interpretation of aesthetic autonomy, I appeal to another key concept in Kant’s aesthetics, viz., ‘common sense’. I claim that, for Kant, aesthetic common sense, which we acquire through aesthetic education, is what makes aesthetic self-determination and self-legislation, hence aesthetic autonomy, possible. (shrink)

Margaret MacDonald (1907–56) was a central figure in the history of early analytic philosophy in Britain due to both her editorial work as well as her own writings. While her later work on aesthetics and political philosophy has recently received attention, her early writings in the 1930s present a coherent and, for its time, strikingly original blend of common-sense and scientific philosophy. In these papers, MacDonald tackles the central problems of philosophy of her day: verification, the problem of (...) induction, and the relationship between philosophical and scientific method. MacDonald’s philosophy of science starts from the principle that we should carefully analyse the elements of scientific practice (particularly its temporal features) and the ways that scientists describe that practice. That is, she applies the techniques of ordinary language philosophy to actual scientific language. MacDonald shows how ‘scientific common-sense’ is inconsistent with both of the dominant schools of philosophy of her day. Bringing MacDonald back into the story of analytic philosophy corrects the impression that in early analytic philosophy, there are fundamental dichotomies between the style of Moore and Wittgenstein, on the one hand, and the Vienna Circle on the other. (shrink)

This paper explores how national socialist aesthetics and semiotics are regimented within the Swedish Nazi milieu today. In order to treat fascism as contemporary ideology, the article applies intertextuality and provenance as analytical concepts in the analysis of how Nazism is re-emerging discursively. The analysis contributes unique insights, as the dataset consists of extremist discourse aimed at providing members of the most prominent Swedish Nazi movement with guidance on how to embody and express national socialism in their everyday lives. The (...) analysis reveals that common-sense notions about ‘a natural life’ and mainstream aesthetics concerning an outdoor lifestyle emerge as central expressions of a ‘natural’ and ‘healthy’ embodiment of national socialism. This aesthetic finds its ideological motive in opposition to a ‘sick’, ‘Jewish’ and ‘parasitical’ way of living. Mainstream notions are thus turned into vehicles for political extremism. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I examine the development of autonomy in the philosophical works of Kant, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. After outlining the centrality of this development to what I call, following Robert Pippin, "philosophical modernity," I show that the figure of genius described in Kant's third Critique becomes the model for the "aesthetic" versions of autonomy articulated by Nietzsche and Heidegger under the names of "sovereignty" and "authenticity" respectively. According to these more recent formulations, autonomy is not understood as rational self-legislation, (...) but as a quasi-artistic "self-creation." Moreover, in each of these versions of aesthetic autonomy, I claim that in spite of a disavowal of mimesis understood in a Platonic sense, an implicit reliance is placed upon the operations of a "higher" sense of mimesis, a mimesis of freedom, that enables autonomy to be exemplified and, paradoxically, "imitated." For Kant, this mimesis of freedom accounts for both the continuity and discontinuity of art-historical traditions. In Nietzsche and Heidegger, however, this covert deployment of mimesis has implications for our understanding of historicity more generally, and the relationship between history and modernity in particular. After showing what these implications are, I comment on the problems and limits of "aesthetic autonomy," especially when it is understood politically or collectively, and utterly decoupled from any moral constraints. (shrink)

Though the notion of common-sense plays an important role in Kant’s aesthetic theory, it is not immediately clear what Kant means by this term. This essay works to clarify the role that common-sense plays in the logic of Kant’s argument. My interpretive hypothesis is that a careful examination of the way common-sense functions in Kant’s account of judgments of taste can help explain what this notion means. I argue that common-sense names the (...) capacity to discern the relation between the cognitive faculties by means of a feeling, and I conclude that this understanding of common-sense lays the groundwork for an account of the unity of judgments of taste. I conclude that attending to Kant’s notion of common-sense is especially important because it highlights the anthropological significance of Kant’s account of beauty. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between common sense and taste in the history of aesthetic thought. “Common sense” guarantees the communication of tastes through different modalities. It can either facilitate agreement among individuals, fostering mutual understanding and envisaging a universal aesthetic community, or provoke disagreement. In the former scenario, common sense is literally common to everyone, while in the latter case, it implies diversity and dissensus. By associating the concept of taste with judgement (...) and the sensible (Arendt and Rancière), we scrutinize some contemporary political interpretations of Kantian aesthetics. Through this analysis, we illustrate that common sense is intertwined with certain metaphysical assumptions that not only hinder its claims of universality but also introduce structural paradoxes within the system of aesthetic judgment. In the last section of the article, we explore these paradoxes, proposing another communicability beyond the confines of the judgment of taste or subjective limitations. (shrink)

In every chapter of this dissertation---chapters which consider work by John Locke, Lord Shaftesbury, David Hume, Adam Smith, Samuel Richardson, Jane Austen and Sir Joshua Reynolds---I show that the appeal each of these authors makes to the "common sense" of the reader mounts a deeply persuasive appeal to a collective vision of how things ought to be. Within empiricist epistemology, moral philosophy, fiction, and the discourse of art and aesthetics, I find that by assuming a moral consensus that (...) unites that community of readers he or she addresses, each of these writers initiates the reader into such a consensus. A double moment underlies the ideal and description of a common sense: what enables the claim that one's judgment is commonsensical is the assumption that such a judgment would find general assent, general agreement. At the same time, judgments that make these claims model for the community the kind of judgments that ought to find agreement. The idea of community rests on the possibility that each and every agent is capable of an objective assent to its terms and conditions, and that, given this ability, each would arrive at the consensus which supports the community. ;One of the paradoxes of eighteenth-century British empiricist epistemology is that it suggests the clearest views are those offered through the arts. That is, the frame provided by the arts creates a space which abstracts from a common-sense view of things to things "as they really are"---which is, really, as they ought to be. I explain the much noted intensity of the interest in developing a discourse of the aesthetic in the eighteenth century, or the emphasis placed on the idea of a single "standard of taste," as a consequence of the impasse in Locke's empiricist epistemology on the matter of objective judgments. The ability of perceivers to share a clear view of facts and objects, the view of reason and common sense, predicates Locke's project, yet the very possibility of such a view becomes more and more remote as his Essay proceeds. The model of aesthetic judgment which developed in the wake of Locke's Essay prioritized detachment and disinterest, and therefore offered the possibility of a distanced, and therefore objective, point of view, the point of view invoked in the appeal to common sense. (shrink)

Paul Weiss is one of the two or three most original and creative philosophers and metaphysicians in America today. Creativity and Common Sense reveals why. It contains fourteen recent articles on the thought of Paul Weiss by authors who are most familiar with his writings, including an essay by Charles Hartshorne that provides a unique perspective on Weiss by one who has known him for his entire career. Weiss is shown to be one of the very few contemporary (...) philosophers who examines every area of concern to philosophy and does so on the basis of ontological insights regarding the ultimate elements of reality. He begins his philosophical consideration with the evidences offered by the world of common sense and seeks to provide an adequate and comprehensive account of what he finds there. The contributors to this collection present and examine many of Weiss’ strategic insights. They help clarify key elements in his thought and thereby contribute to an appreciation and understanding of his work. They also make evident the importance of Weiss’ insights for resolving vexing questions in such diverse areas as the philosophy of science, philosophical methodology, ethics, aesthetics, the philosophy of the human person, and the philosophy of language. This collection makes a significant contribution to the development of Weissian scholarship and to the growing appreciation of the significance of his thought for the discussions of contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

In my commentary, I argue that Ginsborg’s understanding of the primitive normativity in reflective aesthetic judgement should be broadened to account for further characterizations of the judgement of taste given in Kant’s ‘Analytic of the Beautiful’. In particular, I stress the distinction between the consideration of universal communicability, on which Ginsborg focuses, and Kant’s account of common sense. Understanding how the latter notion has an equiprimordial place in the account of taste may allow us to see that aesthetic (...) judgement is not inconsistent with conceptual articulation, as long as we properly distinguish what it means to have something fall under a concept and what it is to recognize something to exemplify a fitting place in what can become a systematically explicit space of concepts. (shrink)

A comprehensive reassessment of the concept of mimesis in the history of ancient Greek aesthetics and philosophy of art, with particular attention to Plato, Aristotle, Hellenistic philosophy, and neoplatonism. There is also a wide-ranging review of arguments pro and contra the idea of artistic mimesis from the Renaissance to modern literar theory. The book challenges standard accounts in numerous respects and builds a new dialectical model with which to make sense of the entire history of mimeticist thinking in aesthetics.

This paper is a response to Keith Lehrer's ‘Reid on Common Sense and Morals.’ I start by defending the general claim that it is appropriate to call Reid a moral realist. I continue by discussing three aspects of Reid's account of moral ideas. First, our first moral conceptions are non-propositional mental states that are essential ingredients of moral perception. Our first moral conceptions are not gross, indistinct and egocentric but are uninformed mental states that might be about others. (...) Second, moral perception functions like perception of aesthetic properties and of the mental states of other humans, and this kind of perception is both immediate and informed. Third, I discuss the role of moral feelings in moral motivation. (shrink)

This book focuses on a dimension of art which the philosophical tradition has consistently overlooked, such was its commitment – explicit or implicit – to mimesis and the metaphysics of truth it presupposes. De Beistegui refers to this dimension, which unfolds outside the space that stretches between the sensible and the supersensible – the space of metaphysics itself – as the _hypersensible_ and show how the _operation_ of art to which it corresponds is best described as _metaphorical_. The movement of (...) the book, then, is from the classical or metaphysical aesthetics of mimesis to the aesthetics of the hypersensible and metaphor. Against much of the history of aesthetics and the metaphysical discourse on art, he argues that the philosophical value of art doesn’t consist in its ability to bridge the space between the sensible and the supersensible, or the image and the Idea, and reveal the sensible as proto-conceptual, but to open up a different sense of the sensible. His aim, then, is to shift the _place_ and _role_ that philosophy attributes to art. (shrink)

Increasingly artists have become political activists. Their work has taken on the shape of a criminal investigator. Where does this turn toward forensics come from? How do we understand it as a aesthetic practice? The words investigative and aesthetics seem like an uneasy match. But this book claims that expanded aesthetic practices can powerfully reshape our approach to the question of truth. Shifts in technology and new ways of thinking together offer a means of searching for facts and understanding them (...) anew. This book proposes that the current period is defined by new forms of "aesthetic power" composed both by sensing, detection and prediction and the torrential proliferation of images and data. To evade and oppose this form of state-corporate domination we can learn to join the dots between traces within our interwoven digital, built and natural environments. Investigative aesthetics can also enable new collaborative forms of verification. Rather than rely on official expertise it calls for an open process that combines the perspectives of communities exposed to state or corporate violence with those of artists, activists and scientists. This new practice takes place equally in the field, the art studio as in the scientific laboratory, online and in the streets, as it strives towards the construction of a new "common sensing". (shrink)

In his extensive private manuscripts, Jeremy Bentham used same-sex male intimacy as a philosophical test-case for the full political and social enfranchisement of women, colonized and enslaved persons, and sexual nonconformists. Bentham argued that oppression in law, philosophy, religion, and literature were all based on aesthetic hierarchies that refused to acknowledge differences of taste in sensory pleasure, including sexual pleasure. In Uncommon Sense, Carrie Shanafelt reads Bentham's sexual nonconformity papers as an argument for the toleration of aesthetic difference as (...) the foundation for egalitarian liberty. Shanafelt challenges the common image of Bentham as a dehumanizing calculator or an eccentric projector, instead showing Bentham at his most intimate, outraged by injustice and desperate for the end of discriminatory violence. (shrink)

Mimicry, camouflage, transvestism, chance or cryptic anamorphism, fascination – all ways of changing clothes, habits and habitats in nature as well as in culture, in any symbolic field created by human beings during their history. Art and artification, aestheticization, stylization and beautification are all practices reflecting the need and desire for biological as well as social adaptation, all performances producing functional and fictional frames, boundaries or hierarchies in ordinary life, including the artworld. They can persuade and convince by creating consensus (...) and belief, but they can also lead to a different common sense, a sensorium – a sensorial medium and an aesthetic mediation open to a new world and to new experiences. -/- By investigating mimetism as a fundamental and polymorphic aesthetic performance, this issue of «Aisthesis» aims to rethink the concept, value, and function of mimesis and its media in the context of camouflage, simulation, and dissimulation, where images do not reveal themselves as such, but are to be perceived unambiguously as what they are not – as hieroglyphs or puzzles. In the animal kingdom, as well as in war or in ordinary public life, camouflage consists in taking on the traits, colours, and shapes of a given form or environment. This is a twofold process: on the one hand, by blending two or more shapes in one, the camoufleur seeks to remain hidden and to mislead the others in order to keep a vital secret or an ephemeral whim; on the other hand, however, he/she aims to be recognized by a specific milieu or group, thus betraying a craving for communication and familiarity, as well as a need to convey an agreeable appearance and to share a way of life. (shrink)

Mimesis is configured in many ways. Its manifold senses require the doubling of sense, such that it designates both what is commonly displayed to the senses and what intrinsically cannot be so displayed. As Gadamer insists in his criticism of Hegel, the work of art is no mere bearer of meaning that can subsist apart from it and that could be transferred to some other vehicle. This is, then, the first of the four moments that constitute Gadamer's deconstruction of (...) mimesis. Mimesis is transformation. This redetermination constitutes the second moment in the Gadamerian deconstruction of mimesis. The third deconstructive moment involves reconstruing the duality of mimesis, displacing the image/original relation that was definitive for traditional concepts of mimesis. The fourth claims that in the artwork, there is not only a manifestation but also a sheltering of sense, which stabilizes and secures the sense that mimesis has also set free. (shrink)

Mimicry, camouflage, transvestism, chance or cryptic anamorphism, fascination – all ways of changing clothes, habits and habitats in nature as well as in culture, in any symbolic field created by human beings during their history. Art and artification, aestheticization, stylization and beautification are all practices reflecting the need and desire for biological as well as social adaptation, all performances producing functional and fictional frames, boundaries or hierarchies in ordinary life, including the artworld. They can persuade and convince by creating consensus (...) and belief, but they can also lead to a different common sense, a sensorium – a sensorial medium and an aesthetic mediation open to a new world and to new experiences. -/- By investigating mimetism as a fundamental and polymorphic aesthetic performance, this issue of «Aisthesis» aims to rethink the concept, value, and function of mimesis and its media in the context of camouflage, simulation, and dissimulation, where images do not reveal themselves as such, but are to be perceived unambiguously as what they are not – as hieroglyphs or puzzles. In the animal kingdom, as well as in war or in ordinary public life, camouflage consists in taking on the traits, colours, and shapes of a given form or environment. This is a twofold process: on the one hand, by blending two or more shapes in one, the camoufleur seeks to remain hidden and to mislead the others in order to keep a vital secret or an ephemeral whim; on the other hand, however, he/she aims to be recognized by a specific milieu or group, thus betraying a craving for communication and familiarity, as well as a need to convey an agreeable appearance and to share a way of life. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 11.2 (2003) 112-129 [Access article in PDF] Musical Aphorisms and Common Aesthetic Quandaries Yaroslav Senyshyn Simon Fraser University, Canada I have written in the style of aphorisms because their form is useful for both the sake of brevity and possible complexity. As well, they are historically significant as they have served many philosophers in the past and in our own time. Some will (...) argue that they do not say enough, but this is unfounded as in saying less there is often scope for more. Who knows perhaps academe will experiment with this mode of writing more frequently?For the sake of a sense of direction, I will borrow Russell Nieli's title to his thoughtful book on Wittgenstein's philosophy, From Mysticism to Ordinary Language, 1 to characterize the procedure of these aphorisms. Thus my initial aphorisms begin with music as a thing-in-itself, a striving toward a Kantian noumenon 2 and move toward the everyday practical concerns of music education. There are no determinate limits to a philosophy of music; unfortunately, this is also true of confusion. The following aphorisms (while hardly exhaustive of any possible gamut of music philosophy) strive to demystify some of the more common aesthetic quandaries and hopefully provide an opportunity for a wider field of discussion in music philosophy and education. [End Page 112] Music: External and Internal Inferences Sound and silence as potentiation of music precedes human existence.If music precedes existence then it can never be defined in absolute terms of thought. It remains thus even if nothingness were an all-pervasive, encompassing silence (that is, the silence of music or music as silence). 3 Silence as music in our culture may be perceived to be music by some and not necessarily by all cultures. As the sound and silence that preceded our being, it is indeed music in everlasting potentiation.In this sense sound can only be philosophically inferred as the "other," outside music, which the pre-Socratic philosophers referred to mystically and metaphorically as "the music of the spheres"; it is that music outside of us and finds its origins in sounds indirectly related to us. 4 It is what I prefer to call the Sound and Silence that define and are defined by each other in their potentiation for music. Thus this sound is music as potential or dynamis if intended to be music and perceived as such. It is also the possible music or sounds of the environment and non-humans such as whales, elephants, and monkeys. But the latter is our perception of their "music" and not necessarily their own appropriation. In the former we can use or intend the sounds of the environment to be music if these are perceived as such by at least one other person.Thus all sound is music in potentiation.The notion of a possible pre-existence of music, as stated in the first aphorism, is then defined by music as both a source and external entity.As an external inference (that is, the possibility of such) music does not communicate with us; rather, we utilize it through our own means and culture to communicate by it indirectly. It becomes our social construct and thus not an absolute notion.This source of music can be verified as it is implicit in our respective societies and world cultures.A music which possibly or inferentially precedes existence is, of necessity, part of that possible catalyst of sound waves identified by modern-day physics by which the universe may have been formed. For this reason, such notions usually appropriated by world mythologies have made it possible to worship music, perceive it as a supernatural force, or even view it is a possible cause in the big bang theory. 5Music is embodied in experience in that it is appropriated by members of extant cultures for its own particular use. We can speak of music from within our personal experiences of it. But this can only be appropriated or understood properly by others when our description of it accords with that cultural... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 11.2 (2003) 112-129 [Access article in PDF] Musical Aphorisms and Common Aesthetic Quandaries Yaroslav Senyshyn Simon Fraser University, Canada I have written in the style of aphorisms because their form is useful for both the sake of brevity and possible complexity. As well, they are historically significant as they have served many philosophers in the past and in our own time. Some will (...) argue that they do not say enough, but this is unfounded as in saying less there is often scope for more. Who knows perhaps academe will experiment with this mode of writing more frequently?For the sake of a sense of direction, I will borrow Russell Nieli's title to his thoughtful book on Wittgenstein's philosophy, From Mysticism to Ordinary Language, 1 to characterize the procedure of these aphorisms. Thus my initial aphorisms begin with music as a thing-in-itself, a striving toward a Kantian noumenon 2 and move toward the everyday practical concerns of music education. There are no determinate limits to a philosophy of music; unfortunately, this is also true of confusion. The following aphorisms (while hardly exhaustive of any possible gamut of music philosophy) strive to demystify some of the more common aesthetic quandaries and hopefully provide an opportunity for a wider field of discussion in music philosophy and education. [End Page 112] Music: External and Internal Inferences Sound and silence as potentiation of music precedes human existence.If music precedes existence then it can never be defined in absolute terms of thought. It remains thus even if nothingness were an all-pervasive, encompassing silence (that is, the silence of music or music as silence). 3 Silence as music in our culture may be perceived to be music by some and not necessarily by all cultures. As the sound and silence that preceded our being, it is indeed music in everlasting potentiation.In this sense sound can only be philosophically inferred as the "other," outside music, which the pre-Socratic philosophers referred to mystically and metaphorically as "the music of the spheres"; it is that music outside of us and finds its origins in sounds indirectly related to us. 4 It is what I prefer to call the Sound and Silence that define and are defined by each other in their potentiation for music. Thus this sound is music as potential or dynamis if intended to be music and perceived as such. It is also the possible music or sounds of the environment and non-humans such as whales, elephants, and monkeys. But the latter is our perception of their "music" and not necessarily their own appropriation. In the former we can use or intend the sounds of the environment to be music if these are perceived as such by at least one other person.Thus all sound is music in potentiation.The notion of a possible pre-existence of music, as stated in the first aphorism, is then defined by music as both a source and external entity.As an external inference (that is, the possibility of such) music does not communicate with us; rather, we utilize it through our own means and culture to communicate by it indirectly. It becomes our social construct and thus not an absolute notion.This source of music can be verified as it is implicit in our respective societies and world cultures.A music which possibly or inferentially precedes existence is, of necessity, part of that possible catalyst of sound waves identified by modern-day physics by which the universe may have been formed. For this reason, such notions usually appropriated by world mythologies have made it possible to worship music, perceive it as a supernatural force, or even view it is a possible cause in the big bang theory. 5Music is embodied in experience in that it is appropriated by members of extant cultures for its own particular use. We can speak of music from within our personal experiences of it. But this can only be appropriated or understood properly by others when our description of it accords with that cultural... (shrink)

It is argued that Kull’s approach to aesthetics complements a cognitive semiotic approach to culture. The concept of ‘ecological, semiotic fitting’ allows us to connect the three main concepts of beauty we encounter in discussions about the aesthetic, where the term beauty is, firstly, used to refer a positive experience in relation to what is perceived, or, secondly, to a positive experience in relation to an intentional action or, thirdly, to a positive experience in relation to a sense making (...) process. Kull makes a strong case for the ‘ecological, semiotic fitting’ being the common underlying structure of all three manifestations of the aesthetic. (shrink)

Both common sense and dominant traditions in art criticism and philosophical aesthetics have it that aesthetic features or properties are perceived. However, there is a cast of reasons to be sceptical of the thesis. This paper defends the thesis—that aesthetic properties are sometimes represented in perceptual experience—against one of those sceptical opponents. That opponent maintains that perception represents only low-level properties, and since all theorists agree that aesthetic properties are not low-level properties, perception does not represent aesthetic properties. (...) I offer a novel argument—what I call the argument from seeing-as—against that sceptic which moves from consideration of ambiguous figures to consideration of visual art. It concludes that aesthetic properties are sometimes perceived and delivers a general lesson for philosophy of perception. Contrary to extant theories of rich perceptual content, aesthetic properties are far better candidates for high-level perceptual contents than standardly theorized rich contents like natural kinds. (shrink)

In my general aim to probe a non-reductionist Philosophy of Cognitive Enhancement, considering social self-other relations and the epistemic 2PP in social syn-aesthetic tuning-ins, synchronisations and tuning-outs, this paper amplifies the Aristotelian common sense concept κοινὴ αἲσθησις2 by analysing the concept and metaphor of “resonance”3 in contemporary debates on >resonance< as acoustic and multimodal figure of thought. Resonance as shown in scientific models derived from acoustics will be applied to an aesthetic comunity of sensing and making music together (...) as explored in Alfred Schütz, as well as in social relations in social psychology. Finally, this paper puts resonance to test as well in technical atunements of social relations and closes with the necessary resistance to imposition of social resonance, introduced in this paper as xenoresonance. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present a new Polish translation of Aristotle’s Poetics, namely, those of its central chapters (6–19) that deal with the Stagirite’s explication of the mimesis of tragedy. When interpreting the first five chapters of the treatise, it is important to recognize the mimetic distinctions and forms according to means and objects as well as the question of how poetic creativity takes shape (generally from improvisation through epic to comedy and tragedy). On the basis of (...) these preliminary assumptions, Aristotle proceeds to define tragedy and analyze its components, forms and functions in more detail. Unlike the previous Polish translations of the Poetics, we have attempted here to render Aristotle’s essential technical expressions as faithfully as possible, without distorting them in accord with various concepts of modern aesthetics or literary criticism. We have also sought to preserve the Stagirite’s typical composition and his complex argument. Only in this way can the sense of Aristotle’s leading assumptions and distinctions be properly discerned. For the ease of reading, we also introduce more paragraphs and relevant subject headings into the text. (shrink)

In this paper, I oppose the common assumption that visual descriptions in prose fiction are imageable by virtue of perceptual mimesis. Based on introspection as well as convergent support from cognitive science and other disciplines, I argue that visual description (and the mental imagery it elicits), unlike narrative (and the mental imagery it elicits), often stands in no positive relation to perceptual mimesis because it lacks a structural counterpart in perceptual experience. I present an alternative way of defining the (...) kind of mental imagery elicited by visual descriptions, and propose a number of text variables underlying the imageability or non-imageability of any such description. (shrink)

As Hume remarks, the view that aesthetic evaluations are ‘subjective’ is part of common sense—one certainly meets it often enough in conversation. As philosophers, we can distinguish the one sense of the claim (‘aesthetic evaluations are mind- dependent’) from another (‘aesthetic evaluations are relative’). A plausible reading of the former claim (‘some of the grounds of some aesthetic evaluations are response- dependent’) is true. This paper concerns the latter claim. It is not unknown, or even unexpected, to (...) find people who believe that aesthetic evaluations are culturally relative, or even agent-relative. A cultural relativist would hold that there is no way to adjudicate an apparent disagreement between, say, a Japanese critic who finds Wright of Derby clunky and unsubtle, and a British critic who finds Utamaro’s flower pictures overly pretty and sentimental. (shrink)

In the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant diagnoses an antinomy of taste: either determinate concepts exhaust judgments of taste or they do not. That is to say, judgments of taste are either objective and public or subjective and private. On the objectivity thesis, aesthetic value is predicable of objects. But determining the concepts that would make a judgment of taste objective is a vexing matter. Who can say which concepts these would be? To what authority does one appeal? (...) On the subjectivity thesis, aesthetic value is not predicable of objects. But this threatens judgments of taste with a sort of relativism. Can we not firmly assert the aesthetic value of any object? Have we no authority to make criticisms of taste? Following John McDowell’s “Aesthetic Value, Objectivity and the Fabric of the World”, I will hold that aesthetic value is neither objective nor subjective, but rather intersubjective. But, contra McDowell, I will argue that the validity that intersubjective aesthetic value bestows on judgments of taste must assume an indeterminate absolute conception of reality, of the world as it is in itself. Only such a conceptual resource can in turn make intelligible the notion of a shared or common sense according to which a judgment of taste can be universally valid, that is, valid for all subjects. Finally, I will consider an objection to common sense in matters of taste. (shrink)

We challenge an argument that aims to support Aesthetic Realism by claiming, first, that common sense is realist about aesthetic judgments because it considers that aesthetic judgments can be right or wrong, and, second, that becauseAesthetic Realism comes from and accounts for “folk aesthetics,” it is the best aesthetic theory available.We empirically evaluate this argument by probing whether ordinary people with no training whatsoever in the subtle debates of aesthetic philosophy consider their aesthetic judgments as right or wrong. (...) Having shown that the results do not support the main premise of the argument, we discuss the consequences for Aesthetic Realism and address possible objections to our study. (shrink)

I say: “Oh, what a beautiful surrealist picture!” With quite precise awareness: this páthos, these emotions of mine do not stem from our common sense. An aesthetic judgment is founded on an immediate subjective intuition: an emotion or a free feeling of a single subject towards an object. A universal sense, possibly. Some judgments of ours in ethics and in law are no different from our perceptions in front of art. It would be the same for a (...) hypothetical sentence of the judge that concluded with these words: “I acquit Arsenio Lupin because of his magnificent handlebar moustache like that of Guy de Maupassant”. Everyone would think intuitively that it is an unfair sentence. Is there aesthetics of terror? The case that the article intends to examine is that of the famous kidnapping and murder of the Italian statesman Aldo Moro by the “Brigate Rosse” [Red Brigades] (1978). The method used here consists in studying the image of the kidnapping as iconic documentation of reality, and, above all, as an ethical-legal judgment about the terrorist crime. Moro was photographed during his kidnapping. There are at least two pictures. Both constitute an extraordinary source for a judgment on the basis of an image. In both of them, Aldo Moro is pictured in front of a Red Brigades banner during the captivity. In what sense do these pictures document an aesthetic judgment concerning the “case Moro”? The answer can be found in a remarkable iconic coincidence of these pictures with a masterpiece by Georges Rouault (Paris 1871-1958) devoted to the theme of the “Ecce Homo”. The Gospel in the “Ecce Homo” scene (John: 19, 4-5) narrates how Pontius Pilate wanted to arouse the compassion of the people with a scourging and the exposure of Jesus to the crowd. The plate under consideration is entitled “Qui ne se grime pas?” [Who does not have a painted face?] and is a key work in Rouault’s suite of prints Miserere, dated for 1923. (shrink)

Are emotions, feelings, sentiments not the stuff of literature? There it is where they project their inner logic of aesthetic transmutation; there, beyond the instrument of language that they command. This collection explores how the lyrical virtualities of life-experience and the elegiac style in literature share a common core, lifting the human significance of life from abysmal vitality to esoteric heights, from abysmal grief to a serene reconciliation with destiny. The elegiac sequence in the play of emotions, feelings and (...) sentiments brings together life and literary creativity in its transformatory power. (shrink)

In this article, I want to understand the nature of aesthetic experiences of landscapes. I offer an understanding of aesthetic appreciation of landscapes based on a notion of a landscape where landscapes are perspectival observer-dependent entities, where the 'creator' of the landscape necessarily happens to be the same person as the spectator, and where her scientific (and other) knowledge and beliefs matter for the appreciation to be complete. I explore the idea that appreciating a landscape in this sense has (...) quite a lot in common with taking and appreciating a photograph. On our way, we will see how imagination plays a crucial role in the story. (shrink)

Mou Zongsan incorrectly uses Kant's practical reason to interpret Confucianism. The saying that "what is it that we have in common in our minds? It is the il 理 (principles) and the yi 义 (righteousness)" reveals how Mencius explains the origin of il and yi through a theory of common sense. In "the li and the yi please our minds, just as the flesh of beef and mutton and pork please our mouths," "please" is used twice, proving (...) aesthetic judgment is necessary to understanding Mencius. An analysis of Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming's ideas will show that Confucianism should be interpreted by appealing to aesthetic judgment, and a discussion of Kant's theory of judgment and Gadamer's critique of Kant's theory will support the same point. The conclusion is that Chinese moral philosophy should be interpreted through aesthetic judgment. /// 牟宗三以康德实践理性解说儒学是一错误思路。"心之所同然者何也?谓理 也，义也", 表明孟子以共通感论述理义来源, "理义之悦我心，犹当拳之悦我口" 两用 "悦" 字，证明应当以直感判断力解说孟子。分析朱子、阳明的一些言论证 明以直感判断力解说儒学则若合符节; 并引述康德关于判断力的相关学说、伽达 默尔对康德的批评支持上述论点; 从而主张，中国道德哲学宜以直感判断力来解 释。. (shrink)

Although universally recognised as one of the greatest of modern philosophers, Wittgenstein's work in aesthetics has been unjustly neglected. This is the first book exclusively devoted to Wittgenstein's aesthetics, exploring the themes developed by Wittgenstein in his own writing on aesthetics as well as the implications of Wittgenstein's wider philosophical views for understanding central issues in aesthetics. Drawing together original contributions from leading international scholars, this book will be an important addition to studies of Wittgenstein's thought, but its discussion of (...) issues in literature, music and performing art, and criticism will also be of interest to many students of literary and cultural studies. Exploring three key themes - the capacity of the arts to illuminate our lives; the nature of the particular responses involved in understanding and appreciating works of art; the role of theory and principle in artistic and critical practice - the contributors address issues raised by contemporary philosophers of art, and seek to make connections between Wittgenstein's work and that of other significant philosophies of art in the Western tradition. Displaying the best practice of modern philosophical writing - clarity, cogency, respect for but not blind obedience to common sense, argument illustrated with detailed examples, rejection of speculation and pretension - this book demonstrates how philosophy can make a valuable contribution to understanding the arts. (shrink)

We challenge an argument that aims to support Aesthetic Realism by claiming, first, that common sense is realist about aesthetic judgments because it considers that aesthetic judgments can be right or wrong, and, second, that becauseAesthetic Realism comes from and accounts for “folk aesthetics,” it is the best aesthetic theory available.We empirically evaluate this argument by probing whether ordinary people with no training whatsoever in the subtle debates of aesthetic philosophy consider their aesthetic judgments as right or wrong. (...) Having shown that the results do not support the main premise of the argument, we discuss the consequences for Aesthetic Realism and address possible objections to our study. (shrink)