The Dangerous Book for Boys Abstract: Seventeenth and eighteenth century discussions of the senses are often thought to contain a profound truth: some perceptible properties are secondary qualities, dispositions to produce certain sorts of experiences in perceivers. In particular, colors are secondary qualities: for example, an object is green iff it is disposed to look green to standard perceivers in standard conditions. After rebutting Boghossian and Velleman’s argument that a certain kind of secondary quality theory is viciously circular, we (...) discuss three main lines of argument for the secondary quality theory. The first is inspired by an intuitively compelling picture of perception articulated by Reid; the second is that the secondary quality theory is a conceptual truth; the third line of argument is presented in Johnston’s influential paper ‘How to speak of the colors’. We conclude that all these arguments fail, and that the secondary quality theory is unmotivated. Keywords: color, secondary quality, disposition, vision, perception.. (shrink)

The Hurvich-Jameson (H-J) opponent-process network offers a familiar account of the empirical structure of the phenomenological color space for humans, an account with a number of predictive and explanatory virtues. Its successes form the bulk of the existing reasons for suggesting a strict identity between our various color sensations on the one hand, and our various coding vectors across the color-opponent neurons in our primary visual pathways on the other. But anti-reductionists standardly complain that the systematic parallels discovered by (...) the H-J network are just empirical correspondences, constructed post facto, with no predictive or explanatory purchase on the intrinsic characters of qualia proper. The present paper disputes that complaint, by illustrating that the H-J model yields some novel and unappreciated predictions, and some novel and unappreciated explanations, concerning the qualitative characters of a considerable variety of color sensations possible for human experience, color sensations that normal people have almost certainly never had before, color sensations whose accurate descriptions in ordinary language appear semantically ill-formed or even self-contradictory. Specifically, these "impossible" color sensations are activation-vectors (across our opponent-process neurons) that lie inside the space of neuronally possible activation-vectors, but outside the central 'color spindle' that confines the familiar range of sensations for possible objective colors. These extra-spindle chimerical-color sensations correspond to no reflective color that you will ever see objectively displayed on a physical object. But the H-J model both predicts their existence and explains their highly anomalous qualitative characters in some detail. It also suggests how to produce these rogue sensations by a simple procedure made available in the latter half of this paper. The relevant color plates will allow you to savor these sensations for yourself. (shrink)

This paper argues that the distinctiveness of the Hering primary hues – red, green, blue, and yellow – is already evident at the retina. Basic features of spectral sensitivity provide a foundation for the development of unique hue perceptions and the hue categories of which they are focal examples. Of particular importance are locations in color space at which points of minimal and maximal spectral sensitivity and extreme ratios of chromatic to achromatic response occur. This account builds on Jameson (...) & D’Andrade’s (1997) insight about the relationship between the Hering primaries and chromatic/achromatic ratios, Romney & Chiao’s (2009) color appearance model, and Thornton’s (1971; 1999) research on artificial lighting. (shrink)

A widely held view on color cognition is that it is structured by a set of color fundamentals. Three sorts of evidence may be invoked in favor of such a ‘foundational’ approach to color cognition: physiological, phenomenal and lexical. This paper focuses on the lexical evidence, which draws from a predominant view in color categorization, the Basic color terms theory (BCTT). It argues that the BCTT does not consist in a foundational approach to color cognition and does not provide such (...) evidence. (shrink)

The analogy between colors and values is strongly interlinked with the idea that these properties are by nature dispositions or response-dependent properties. Indeed, that colors are essentially visible, and values are inherently motivational, cries out for a dispositional or a response-dependent account. Recently, Primitivism has challenged the viability of the dispositional account of colors, taking the apple, for instance, to be “gloriously, perfectly, and primitively red.” Unsurprisingly, the attack on the dispositional account of colors has found (...) a moral analogue in the view that values are sui generis irreducibly primitive properties. The question this article addresses is whether given Primitivism the analogy between colors and values is preserved; or in other words, whether Primitivism breaks the bond between the dispositional account and the analogy between colors and values. (shrink)

Purest points of Hering's six primary colors reside at different levels of lightness such that inversion of each hue pair would be detectable in subjects' choice of foci on the Munsell array. An inverted spectrum would not impose the isomorphism constraint on a contrast of red-green or yellow-blue, whatever we conclude about inference in functionalism.

Primary, or basic, colors have been discussed for centuries. Over time, three criteria have emerged on their behalf: (a) their physical mixture yielding all other spectral colors, (b) the physiological attunement of receptors or pathways to particular wavelengths, and (c) the etymological history of the color term. These criteria can be applied usefully to taste to clarify issues.

Our perceptual systems make information about the world available to our cognitive faculties. We come to think about the colors and shapes of objects because we are built somehow to register the instantiation of these properties around us. Just how we register the presence of properties and come to think about them is one of the central problems with understanding perceptual cognition. Another problem in the philosophy of perception concerns the nature of the properties whose presence we register. Among (...) the perceptible properties are colors and shapes, for example, and there is a long philosophical tradition of drawing and refusing to draw metaphysical distinctions between them. This paper makes a claim about the information-theoretic approach to perceptual cognition in order to argue for a fundamentally epistemological distinction between colors and shapes. What makes shapes and colors seem so different to us is how we carry information about their presence around us. In particular, we can come to know more about the shapes on the basis of perceiving them than we can come to know about the colors. One interesting feature of how this distinction is drawn is that it partially vindicates Locke’s claim that our ideas of primary qualities like shapes resemble them in ways our ideas of colors do not. (shrink)

In the thesis I criticize the project of showing that the primary qualities mentioned in a special "scientific" or "objective" conception of the world enjoy a status that secondary qualities do not, and suggest how the appeal of such a distinction might be overcome. ;Descartes argued that we erroneously ascribe illusory "secondary" qualities to the world. In the painting analogy of the First Meditation I identify a line of reasoning that has been previously overlooked yet is crucial to the (...) success of Descartes's project. I show why Descartes's explanation of how we come to have the supposedly erroneous beliefs is unacceptable, and that contemporary accounts of so-called projective error fail for similar reasons. These failures suggest that an explanation of the thoughts we do have cannot succeed without appeal to more than the limited resources Descartes took to be available. ;Pursuing this suggestion I examine alternatives to the form of anti-skeptical reasoning of the painting analogy. I develop a modified transcendental strategy that resembles aspects of Davidson's treatment of error, while respecting the realism that motivates the project in question. I argue that beliefs about the colors of objects, for example, are systematically related and that the attribution of systematic disagreement cannot be justified. This shows that the systematic error Descartes claimed to find in our ordinary judgements is not fully intelligible. ;Finally I survey some contemporary alternatives to Descartes's account. Many dispositional analyses of qualities aim to revise our ordinary understanding of these qualities, thus taking for granted a prior demonstration of the distinction in question. I argue that no non-revisionary dispositional analysis of these qualities can succeed. I show that the notion of "anthropocentricity" is irrelevant to the project. Lastly I consider accounts that characterize primary qualities by their explanatory power. Previous arguments show that identifying some objects as possessing certain qualities is a condition of identifying beliefs as beliefs about those qualities. I end with a lesson about the limits of the explanatory power of a special austere conception of the world. (shrink)

This article considers distinct ways of understanding the world, referred to in psychology as Functions of Consciousness or as Cognitive Modes, having as the scope of interest epistemology and natural sciences. Inspired by C.G. Jung's Simile of the Spectrum, we consider three basic cognitive modes associated to: (R) embodied instinct, experience, and action; (G) reality perception and learning; and (B) concept abstraction, rational thinking, and language. RGB stand for the primary colors: red, green, and blue. Accordingly, a conceptual (...) map between cognitive modes and primary and secondary colors is built based on the physics and physiology of color perception and epistemological characteristics of the aforementioned cognitive modes, leading to logical relations structured as an Hexagon of Opposition. Finally, this model of cognitive modes is applied to the analysis and interpretation of some important episodes in the historical development of physics and technology. (shrink)

This article considers distinct ways of understanding the world, referred to in psychology as functions of consciousness or as cognitive modes, having as the scope of interest epistemology and natural sciences. Inspired by C.G. Jung’s simile of the spectrum, we consider three basic cognitive modes associated to: (R) embodied instinct, experience, and action; (G) reality perception and learning; and (B) concept abstraction, rational thinking, and language. RGB stand for the primary colors: red, green, and blue. Accordingly, a conceptual (...) map between cognitive modes and primary and secondary colors is built based on the physics and physiology of color perception and epistemological characteristics of the aforementioned cognitive modes, leading to logical relations structured as an hexagon of opposition. Finally, this model of cognitive modes is applied to the analysis and interpretation of some important episodes in the historical development of physics and technology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.1 (2003) 116-133 [Access article in PDF] Writing and the Disembodiment of Language Tony Jackson I AS IS WELL KNOWN, the study of writing in relation to speech played an important part in opening the door to poststructuralist theory, especially in the seminal works of Jacques Derrida. 1 Taking off from his rereading of Saussurean structuralism, Derrida famously made the deconstructive case that reversed and then (...) dissolved the ancient understanding of writing as the secondary, parasitic representation of the authentic signs of spoken language. But the question may well be asked: How will our understanding of writing and speech change if we take off from a nonrelativistic theory of representation? For it is from a thoroughly relativized theory of signs that poststructuralist theory and its derivatives all one way or the other begin. We will look at this in more detail below, but for now suffice it to say that this kind of theory always takes it that representation precedes the real in a fundamental way. No natural relationship exists between any sign and its referent. Given this fundamental disjunction as a foundation, the various theories lead to the practical work of explaining how signification does manage to occur. For example, meaning is a function of logocentrism in Derrida; desire in Lacanian psychoanalytic theory; discourse in theory after Foucault; ideology in the various new historicisms; and so on. In contrast to these understandings of representation, cognitive linguistics—I will use this broad term to include findings from the related but differentiated subfields of cognitive semantics, cognitive grammar, cognitive rhetoric—claims that at least on a very fundamental level semantics always precedes any actual manifestation of language, which is to say meaning precedes representation. This is because a foundational [End Page 116] level of universal concepts arises from biologically determined percepts. According to this view, crucial, general kinds of meaning are a function not of discourse or power but of the evolution of the human organism in the ecosystem of the third planet from the sun. 2In order to see how the cognitive linguistic arguments run, we will take an example from George Lakoff's Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. Lakoff brings in the work of cognitive anthropologist Eleanor Rosch in order to explain the way categorization functions in our perceptual interaction with the world. Rosch's findings, obtained through empirical studies using standard scientific methods, strongly suggest that human experience in its most general sense is "preconceptually structured" by our innate ability to categorize according to base-level prototypes (p. 270). Humans, even children as young as two years old, have a kind of gestalt cognitive process that tends to be oriented toward certain objects and features of the world, such that these objects and features—called cognitive reference points or prototypes—are universally "known," apart from culture and language. An example of this would be the response to primary colors as opposed to secondary colors. Rosch showed that even members of cultures lacking words for the primary colors found it easier to learn names for those colors than for secondary colors (pp. 40-41). We are, it appears, cognitively attuned to the primary colors. Further, we are cognitively constructed so as to sort colors automatically by gradations away from or closer to the primary colors. Culture will of course teach us certain beliefs about colors, but we do not "learn" to respond and operate on this basic level of perception.In the next step of the argument, we find that our "basic-level concepts correspond to [this] preconceptual structure" (p. 270). That is, in considering ourselves as linguistic creatures, we find that thinking or conceptuality also operates according to prototypes. Again, this is held to be true only of specifiable basic-level concepts. Though concepts that arise in cultural life may possibly "impose further structuring on what we experience," nonetheless, "basic experiential structures are present regardless of any such imposition of [learned] concepts" (p. 271). Evolutionarily, language would have to emerge after these innate perceptual structures. Language as a representation would also depend heavily on prototype categorization, not... (shrink)

Primary quality theories of color claim that colors are intrinsic, objective, mind-independent properties of external objects — that colors, like size and shape, are examples of the sort of properties moderns such as Boyle and Locke called primary qualities of body.¹ Primary quality theories have long been seen as one of the main philosophical options for understanding the nature of color.

A survey of arguments for and against the view that colors are physical properties.

A longstanding philosophical tradition holds that the primary objects of hearing are sounds rather than sound sources. In this case, we hear sound sources by—or in virtue of—hearing their sounds. This paper argues that, on the contrary, we have good reason to believe that the primary objects of hearing are sound sources, and that the relationship between a sound and its source is much like the relationship between a color and its bearer. Just as we see objects in (...) seeing their colors, so we hear sound sources in hearing their sounds. (shrink)

What is the relationship between color experience and color? Here, I defend the view that it is semantic: color experience denotes color in a code innately known by the perceiver. This semantic theory contrasts with a variety of theories according to which color is defined as the cause of color experience (in a special set of circumstances). It also contrasts with primary quality theories of color, which treat color as a physical quantity. I argue that the semantic theory better (...) accounts for the kinds of knowledge we have regarding both the color of objects that we see and of the colors themselves. (shrink)

I propose a strategy for a metaphysical reduction of perceived color, that is, an identification of perceived color with properties characterizable in non-qualitative terms. According to this strategy, a description of visual experience of color, which incorporates a description of the appearance of color, is a reference-fixing description. This strategy both takes color appearance seriously in its primary epistemic role and avoids rendering color as metaphysically mysterious. I’ll also argue that given this strategy, a plausible account of perceived color (...) claims that colors are physical properties of physical objects. (shrink)

In this paper evidence will be provided that Wittgenstein’s intuition about the logic of colour relations is to be taken near-literally. Starting from the Aristotelian oppositions between propositions as represented in the logical square of oppositions on the one hand and oppositions between primary and secondary colors as represented in an octahedron on the other, it will be shown algebraically how definitions for the former carry over to the realm of colour categories and describe very precisely the relations (...) obtaining between the known primary and secondary colours. Linguistic evidence for the reality of the resulting isomorphism will be provided. For example, the vertices that resist natural single-item lexicalization in logic (such as the O-corner, for which there is no natural lexicalization *nall (=not all)) are not naturally lexicalized in the realm of colour terms either. From the perspective of the architecture of cognition, the isomorphism suggests that the foundations of logical oppositions and negation may well be much more deeply rooted in the physiological structure of human cognition than is standardly assumed. (shrink)

Berkeley holds that vision, in isolation, presents only color and light. He also claims that typical perceivers experience distance, figure, magnitude, and situation visually. The question posed in New Theory is how we perceive by sight spatial features that are not, strictly speaking, visible. Berkeley’s answer is “that the proper objects of vision constitute an universal language of the Author of nature.” For typical humans, this language of vision comes naturally. Berkeley identifies two sorts of objects of vision: primary (...) (light and colors) and secondary (distance, figure, magnitude, and situation). Berkeley also appeals to a third class of a different sort: visible figure, magnitude, and situation, constituting the vocabulary of the language of vision. By considering two perceivers who lack this vocabulary we may better understand this third category and the difference between those who must learn the language of vision and those for whom it is a natural endowment. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the notion of color as a property of the surfaces of objects. It considers three positions on what colors are: objectivist, subjectivist, and relationalist. Examination of the arguments of the objectivists will help us understand how they seek to reduce color to a physical property of object surfaces. Subjectivists, by contrast, seek to argue that no such reduction is possible, and hence that color must be wholly subjective. This chapter argues that when functional considerations are (...) taken into account, a relationalist position best accommodates the primary data concerning color perception, and permits a better understanding of the ways in which color is both objective and subjective. The chapter ends with a reconsideration of the notions of objectivity and subjectivity themselves, and a consideration of how modern technology can foster misleading expectations about the specificity of color properties. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XXII, Number 2, November 1996, pp. 325-337 Hume's Aesthetic Theism JOHN IMMERWAHR When it comes to religion, Hume's motto is corruptio optimi pessima, "the corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst" (NHR 338,339, SScE 73).1 He warmly endorses what he calls "true religion" and strongly attacks false religion, superstition and priestcraft. Hume's distaste for false religion is obviously sincere, but scholars have sometimes (...) wondered how seriously to take Hume's "veneration for true religion" (DNR 219). Are his favorable comments about true religion honest or is this just one more smokescreen?2 In fact, Hume tells us very little about what he calls "true religion," "true theism" or "genuine piety." At one point Hume even drafted an apology to readers of his History of England for the fact that "the Mischiefs which arise from the Abuses of Religion, are so often mentioned, while so little in comparison is said of the salutary Consequences which result from true & genuine piety."3 In what follows I look at a number of the passages where Hume does discuss true religion, in an attempt to ask what makes true religion true.4 In brief, his answer is that the superiority of genuine theism results from its moral qualities rather than its epistemological warrant.5 Unlike other forms of religion, true religion is based on the calm passions rather than the violent ones and as such it alone is able to perform "the proper Office of religion" which is to reinforce and support morality.6 While Hume never wavers from his position that morality does not require any religious or theological commitment, he does feel that at least this one approach to religion has a positive moral contribution to make. John Immerwahr is at the Department of Philosophy, Villanova University, Villanova PA 19085-1699 USA. Email: [email protected] 326 John Immerwahr True religion in Hume's writings Scattered through Hume's writings are a number of references to a minimalistic religion that is immune from the usual Humean critiques. The exempted form of religion is what Gaskin describes as an "attenuated Deism," which includes a conviction of the existence of God as the cause of order in the universe, together with a commitment to a secular human morality.7 Here are a few passages where this form of religion is mentioned: The Natural History of Religion: The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author; and no rational enquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion. (NHR 309) History of England: In every religion, except the true, [the diligence of the clergy] is highly pernicious, and it has even a natural tendency to pervert the true, by infusing into it a strong mixture of superstition, folly, and delusion. (HE III 135) Dialogues concerning Natural Religion: Philo: All the new discoveries in astronomy, which prove the immense grandeur and magnificence of the works of Nature, are so many additional arguments for a Deity, according to the true system of Theism. (DNR 165) It is, of course, dangerous to take anything Hume says about religion at face value. On the one hand, Hume's religious works, such as his essay on miracles, were a major force in attracting the kind of literary reputation which he so much desired. On the other hand, he lived with the constant possibility of persecution by the ultra-conservative wing of the Scottish church.8 One of his self-protective techniques is to criticize one religious position only from the framework of another. This allows him a certain "deniability" in that he can always say that he was only criticizing a specific form of religion, not religion generally.9 At least some of what he says about true religion can probably be written off as protective coloration. Nonetheless, if we take seriously what Hume says about the "suitable notions of [God's] divine perfections" (DNR 88) we come up with a model of true religion that is compatible with Hume's overall perspective. The justifiability of true theism What makes true religion true? Hume tells... (shrink)

One increasingly popular view in the philosophy of perception isexternalismabout sensible qualities, according to which sensible qualities such as colors, smells, tastes, and textures are features, not of our minds, but of mind-independent, external objects in the world. The primary motivation for this view is that perceptual experience seems to betransparent—that is, when we attend to sensible qualities, it seems like what we are attending to are features of external objects, not our own minds. Most (if not all) (...) externalists are either naïve realists or externalist representationalists. However, in this article, I argue that those who are moved by the primary motivation for externalism should instead be sense-datum theorists, for externalists’ primary motivation supports the sense-datum theory, not their actually favored views. I argue that externalists should focus on different motivations, get new ones, or become sense-datum theorists. (shrink)

In this paper I will defend the view that, according to Locke, secondary qualities are dispositions to produce sensations in us. Although this view is widely attributed to Locke, this interpretation needs defending for two reasons. First, commentators often assume that secondary qualities are dispositional properties because Locke calls them “powers” to produce sensations. However, primary qualities are also powers, so the powers locution is insufficient grounds for justifying the dispositionalist interpretation. Second, if secondary qualities are dispositional properties then (...) objects would retain secondary qualities while not being observed, but Locke says that colors “vanish” in the dark. Some commentators use this as evidence that Locke rejects the dispositionalist view of secondary qualities, and even those that are sympathetic to the traditional interpretation find these comments to be problematic. By contrast, I argue that even in these supposedly damning passages Locke shows an unwavering commitment to the view that the powers to produce sensations in us, i.e., the secondary qualities, remain in objects even when they are not being perceived. Thus the arguments against the traditional interpretation are unpersuasive, and we should conclude that Locke does indeed hold that secondary qualities are dispositions to cause sensations in us. (shrink)

Suppose you're unable to discriminate the colors of two objects. According to the triangulation view, their colors might nonetheless look different to you, and that's something you can discover as a result of further comparisons. The primary motivation for this view is its apparent ability to solve a puzzle involving a series of pairwise indiscriminable objects. I argue that, due to visual noise, the triangulation view doesn't really solve the puzzle.

In his Contributions to the Analysis of the Sensations (Mach 1885) the phenomenalist philosopher Ernst Mach confronts us with a difficulty: “If we regard the Ego as a real unity, we become involved in the following dilemma: either we must set over against the Ego a world of unknowable entities […] or we must regard the whole world, the Egos of other people included, as comprised in our own Ego.” (Mach 1885: 21) In other words, if we start from a (...) phenomenalist viewpoint, i.e., if we believe that the manifold of sensations we are confronted with is ontologically fundamental —as Mach clearly does: “For us, colors, sounds, spaces, times,… are the ultimate ele-ments” (Mach 1885: 23)—then we are in danger to end up in solipsism. Unless, that is, we assume that some underlying thing-in-itself substratum from which matter, we ourselves, and all the others emanate. The only other alter-native seems to be—and Mach advertises it vehemently for he denies any “mons-trous notion of a thing-in-itself” (Mach 1885: 6)1—that we get rid of the Ego. For, if there is no Self in the first place, then the question whether there are others dissolves. To put it the other way round, it is ok that the others do not exist because, really, I do not exist either. If the Ego is a Myth solipsism is not just wrong but nonsense. There are two questions this paper wishes to address: first, do we need independent additional support for the denial of the Self or is the avoidance of solipsism reason enough to assume the Ego’s non-existence? I will argue that we do need additional reasons and I will evaluate those that Mach indeed gives to prove that “the primary fact is not the I, the Ego, but the elements (sensations)” (Mach 1885: 19). Second, is the deconstruction of the I, even if further sufficient support can be found, really adequate to stop us from worrying about solipsism? The doubt I will put forward is that the illusion of a Self might conjure up enough of an Ego—just like feeling a pain is having a pain, even if it is located in a phantom limb—to start us wondering whether it also occurs elsewhere. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Visual Aesthetic ExperienceElisa Steenberg, Independent ScholarMan can shift his attitude to the surrounding world into an experience of its visual appearance. He perceives colors, lines, shapes, etc.—at times denoted as form. Furthermore, these phenomena may be experienced as having various properties. A color may be experienced as warm or cold, as cheerful or somber; a line as soft or hard, as merry or aggressive; a shape as light (...) or heavy. Moreover, such experiences may include pleasure or displeasure, implying that what is experienced is liked or disliked. The individual has a preference value experience. This should not be confounded with an evaluation, a value judgment, which requires cognitive activity and a comparison. The experience described I designate a visual aesthetic experience.Research into processes in the brain may offer explanations of the neurological antecedents to the visual aesthetic experience. To see a color as cold or warm may depend on sense-interrelating processes. To experience a color or line as cheerful, somber, etc., might be explained as due to simultaneous processes in the regions of the brain that are the mainsprings of emotions. The preference valuations might be due to processes in the brain's so-called primary reward-aversion center. It seems most likely that future brain research, with the help of such techniques as PET scanning (Positron Emission Tomography) or MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging)—what has been called "windows into the human brain"—may offer explanations regarding the physiological and biochemical processes that happen when our attitude to the world around us is shifted into what is here designated a visual aesthetic experience.1When did man first evince visual aesthetic experiences and when do they first occur in an individual's life? Certain anthropologists assert that positive visual aesthetic experiences first occurred when man was able to experience form as symmetrical and balanced, colors as bright and possibly shiny. This they claim is due to balance and order being a fundamental condition in man's life, and preferences for bright colors they consider due to man being a daylight creature who feels insecure in darkness.2 We know that so-called primitive people and young children like symmetric patterns and bright colors. The child reaches out for light red and yellow objects rather than for dark and black ones. With increasing age, though, the child's [End Page 89] visual preferences usually change, and this occurs mainly within the framework of his or her manmade surroundings. The child becomes accustomed to seeing certain objects while feeling pleasure and thus comes to appreciate their appearance. However, such experiences are rather vague before the child reaches the age when its personality is formed. Then especially girls often develop a keen interest in the appearance of objects around them.A general survey among adults shows that there are considerable varieties in individuals' inclinations for visual aesthetic experiences. There are those who have them rather seldom. Their attitudes to the surrounding world are primarily cognitive. Their attentions are focused on meanings, the "what" not the "how," in order to understand and to cope with what they see. On the other hand, there are individuals who most frequently hold an aesthetic attitude to their surroundings. They pay attention to shapes, colors, and color combinations of all kinds of objects, natural or manmade. They choose their clothes and their home furnishings under careful aesthetic considerations. This inclination may possibly be claimed to be due to an innate disposition for holding visual aesthetic attitudes, to be compared with, for example, an individual's innate musicality. However, it is undoubtedly also due to certain social circumstances.Visual aesthetic experiences are denoted taste manifestations. As such they may be investigated not only as to their occurrences and changes in an individual's life but also as a changing sociocultural phenomenon.3Verbalizing the Visual Aesthetic ExperienceThe psychic content of a visual aesthetic experience may be revealed to other individuals by application of aesthetic property terms to the appearance of objects. The terms are either what is here called descriptive or they are value terms. Examples of descriptive aesthetic terms are graceful, garish, gaudy, clumsy, elegant, dainty, vivid, flamboyant, etc. These terms may... (shrink)

In this essay, the author considers intertextuality in contemporary musical work, conceptualizing it not only as a critical category and as an artistic convention, but also as an aesthetic strategy. Listening for texts, as it were, opens the work for influences and gives it new purposes. The multiple texts, which are mutually interdependent, alter each other’s meaning and are “read” and “re-read” during aesthetic experience. Depending on the listener, these meanings are more or less pronounced; some are seen as (...) class='Hi'>primary, while others are seen as secondary. Sometimes they are co-dependent and meaningful together, but sometimes they shy each other out. The multilayered quality of the work is acknowledged and seen as important even before individual meanings can be discovered. The author proposes a look at intertextuality in reference to musical works by Steve Reich,. The author uses Ryszard Nycz’s definition of intertextuality and confronts it with Umberto Eco’s idea of interpretation and the structural openness of art. Putting forward a concept of listening-in as a necessary element of receiving and understanding certain musical works, she suggests accepting an intertextual aesthetic strategy for a satisfactory aesthetic experience. Assuming the presence of multiple texts, which are different in character and meaning, and accepting their interdependence, changes the reception of the work and colors its qualities. The challenge is not only to seek out different texts hidden behind the purely musical face of the work but to find out the way they influence each other, knowing full well that the major or minor role those texts play depend on the listener as much as on the author. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Paradox of Kandinsky's Abstract RepresentationKenneth BerryThere is a paradox in the relationship between Kandinsky's use of the terms, "abstract" and "concrete," which is presented in the expression, "Kandinsky's abstract representation." Thisexpression, while being apparently contradictory, may point to a feature underpinning Kandinsky's art, which is pivotal to a proper experience of his work, just as, in Christopher Middleton's view, a poetic language may be pivotal to the formation (...) of cultures.1 Art and cultural artifacts are vital to aesthetic experience and aesthetic education, and both the language of art and other languages are instrumental to this end. However, how may Kandinsky's mature abstraction, being in essence objectless, have any claim to representation, and consequently the higher cultural goals of aesthetic expression and the aesthetic enrichment of society?According to Thomas M. Messer, the position of centrality that Kandinsky has assumed in our understanding of modern art is largely due to his having brought to bear on his art, an instinctive awareness of what constituted the central aesthetic issues of his era.2 Kandinsky's writings in Concerning the Spiritual in Art elaborate on his aesthetic theories, and, in particular, [End Page 99] present the view that paintings should be looked at as a graphic representation of a mood rather than as a representation of objects. Messer observes that, for Kandinsky, abstraction, defined as a mode of painting extending beyond the depiction of recognizable objects, having gradually stripped itself of mimetic vestiges, thus becomes paramount. Michael Carter has similarly pointed out that with the pure forms of absolute abstraction, the non-objective colors and shapes of Kandinsky's paintings were regarded as distillations of the aesthetic properties of the artistic sign3 — separable from any referential aspect of art.4 This aesthetic aspect of Kandinsky's work, which became known as nonfigurative, nonobjective, or nonrepresentational,goes along with the cultural — and, as sculptor Anish Kapoor has remarked, "in the deepest, deepest depths of human history the cultural has always been a motivator of people," and has the power to transform society through finding visual equivalents for an emotional language.5Much has been written about Kandinsky's use of color, but perhaps the primary innovation that he made, as in the case of Barnett Newman, was in the field of drawing. Kandinsky was influenced by Gauguin's idea that drawing was an abstraction from memory after nature, just as Gauguin had been affected by the simplified contours and flattened forms of Puvis de Chavannes. Drawing did not come so easily to Kandinsky as color — he had to work harder at drawing, but in his early improvisations, forms and their outlines as graphic symbols came welling up from the unconscious, and eidetic motifs only had to be copied — almost as the art of calligraphy. Kandinsky's "organic" drawing developed as an urge to nonnaturalistic impulses, and during the period of Point and Line to Plane became almost a grammar of form, saved from mere pedantry by the living forces or visual tensions that made various kinds of line operate not just as contours but as dynamic or restful elements within themselves. In 1913, Kandinsky wrote in his "Reminiscences" that, "painting is a thundering collision of different worlds, intended to create a new world in, and from, their struggles with one another, a new world which is the work of art."6 It is clear from this that the Modernist work of art was intended to be a "new world" operating according to its own universal aesthetic laws.Kandinsky is not just a painter; he is also a visual poet. Poetry, according to Tony Curtis, involves the expression of the intensification of experience — the elevation of banal facts of life into something beyond the merely prosaic — something unique and perceptively heightened.7 It involves both imagination and poetic license to explore both ambiguity and paradox. As Scottish poet Norman MacCaig observed, poetry renders the ordinary extraordinary, seeing the unfamiliar in the familiar.8 Creative analogical thinking such as evinced in Kandinsky's art, often involves breaking free of a clichéd representation.Malcolm Budd has remarked that, in its most exclusive sense, a work... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reading And Depth Of FieldSven BirkertsIhave the idea that much of what we think of as literary reading involves the animation of an interior space—a kind of supporting world for the narrative elements—and that the logistics of this phenomenon are in some way comparable to the way we create depth of field when we look at a naturalistic painting. The painter creates the effect through very specific techniques, which (...) include placing the vanishing point and setting up a complex balance between forms and colors. The writer, apart from the deployment of actual descriptive elements—pictorial indicators that make a scene in the reader’s mind—manages his evocation more subtly, perhaps even less consciously. This supporting world exists in the imagination of the writer, and it comes to exist, however differently, in the mind of the reader. What interests me is the transfer, which takes place right from the threshold, even where the language is not deliberately descriptive or evocative.In part, I would argue, the process depends not on a meeting of minds or sensibilities, but on a meeting of the wills. At the root of the writer’s endeavor is the will to convey an entire interior world to the reader. So, too, the true impulse behind reading is the reader’s will to bring another world inside his own. Without this wanting-to-give and wanting-to-receive, both writing and reading acts are inert. Of course, none of this can be measured, and unless one falls into a Heideggerian idiom the process is very difficult to discuss. Still, we need to be aware that the transfer happens—ideally—between two charged poles.Between the writer and the reader there are only the words on the page. What is striking, if seldom remarked, is the process of the transfer. [End Page 122] What essentially happens is that the black marks are converted not only into a sensible narrative—if we are reading a novel, say—but they also elicit in the reader the surrounding impression of a world that is strong enough to sustain the narrative line—that gives it credibility.This transfer, for the sighted reader, takes place via the collusion of eye and ear. The sight of the word creates the hearing memory; though we are moving our eyes we are, in a sense, listening, and it is fundamentally as listeners that we furnish that interior space. Indeed, could it be that in reading we recapitulate origins, returning to the orality that predated literacy? If this were so, then one could perhaps locate in the reading act a kind of fundamental friction: between the imperatives of literate prose and the vestiges of oral conditioning that control our primary sense-making operations.But remember, when we read with the eye we are not actually hearing—the tympanum does not vibrate—we are listening in memory. Which means that it’s not the physical ear, but the metaphysical mind that is engaged. And maybe this holds a clue about the mysterious sensations reading can sometimes unleash: the fact that body (the ear) and mind are joined by the strand of memory for the duration of the act.We hear in memory—more and less sharply. The more sharply we hear, the more intense will likely be our reading experience. Or, at least, the more vivid. This sharpness of hearing has to do, in part, with the focus and will that we are able to direct at the words on the page; and in part with the author’s ability to reward our attentiveness. The Coleridgean model of a “willing suspension of disbelief” is too simplistic and too passive. Indeed, it figures the primary act of will in reading as a will to be passive, to neutralize oneself before the expression of the author.I see the receptive will as far more active and creative. For one does not merely absorb—hear—the conscious and unconscious components of the author’s work; one instantly sets about bringing to life that interior scape. Reading performs an energetic hearing—a listening. This listening begins with the very first words, and the greatest expenditure of conscious and... (shrink)

This article looks closely at one of Paul Cézanne’s portraits of Vallier painted the last year of his life to examine how his (“fugitive”) vision works through his use of colors. The French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who in his phenomenology views the body as the primary locus of having and therefore knowing the world, emphasizes the vital role of the body of the artist that must be offered to the world in order to truly manifest the world in (...) painting. It is no wonder that Cézanne’s artwork and thought are stitched into the structure of Merleau-Ponty’s aesthetics in his essay “Eye and Mind,” for Cézanne’s painting bears witness to his own account of aesthetic experience. Merleau-Ponty’s emphasis on the lived vision that seeks the depth of Being, the lived qualities of the visible world, takes Cézanne’s vision manifested in his portrait of Vallier further to see where the painting as well as Cézanne himself stand in relation to the visible world. (shrink)

It is natural to suppose that honey tastes the way it does because it is sweet. Democritus, Plato and Aristotle all agree that this explanation is superficial and lacks causal depth; they attempt to explain gustatory phenomena by invoking explanatorily fundamental features of the world. As they work out their causal stories, do they give up on the common-sense explanation of why honey tastes the way it does? In other words, do they deny that sweetness and other sensible qualities are (...) causally efficacious features of the world around us? ;Our sources for Democritus' thinking on this issue present a problematic picture. On the one hand, Aristotle and Theophrastus suppose that Democritus wants to identify colors and flavors with causally efficacious features of the world around us. On the other hand, Theophrastus and others find Democritus defending the view that colors and flavors do not belong to the world around us. This tension, first pointed out by Theophrastus, is merely apparent, if, as certain texts suggest, Democritus distinguishes the colors and flavors which we experience from the colors and flavors which figure in his scientific explanations. ;In the Timaeus, Plato frequently says things like "What is capable of producing such and such effects on the gustatory region has the name 'bitter' thinspace". On Theophrastus' interpretation, Plato is offering definitions of the sensible qualities: flavors are identical with powers to produce certain physiological effects on the sense-organs. Theophrastus reasonably complains that sensible qualities will lack causal efficacy if they are identified with these powers of external objects, but Theophrastus' interpretation is mistaken: Plato is not defining the sensible qualities; he is fixing the reference of our sensible-quality terms. Recent historical work on the distinction between primary and secondary qualities has often emphasized the extent to which the authors of this distinction were motivated by an interest in supplanting prevalent, Peripatetic assumptions about the nature of sensible qualities, but Aristotle's theory does not differ significantly from that of Descartes: both identify colors with causally efficacious properties whose natures are revealed by scientific investigation. (shrink)

With reference to the virtue-ethics tradition, especially the system of St. Thomas Aquinas, this essay interprets the pentangle emblazoned on Gawain’s shield as symbolizing the perfection of interconnected virtues, and the Green Knight as figuring Christ in his martyrdom. Linking these two strands of meaning is the Thomist idea of fortitude, the virtue under particular scrutiny in the poem. Gawain fulfills the secondary part of fortitude, attack, while the Green Knight fulfills the primary part, endurance, and is identified with (...) Christ. His axe, holly bob, and green coloration, and even his menacing aspect, all foster this significance. (shrink)

With reference to the virtue-ethics tradition, especially the system of St. Thomas Aquinas, this essay interprets the pentangle emblazoned on Gawain’s shield as symbolizing the perfection of interconnected virtues, and the Green Knight as figuring Christ in his martyrdom. Linking these two strands of meaning is the Thomist idea of fortitude, the virtue under particular scrutiny in the poem. Gawain fulfills the secondary part of fortitude, attack, while the Green Knight fulfills the primary part, endurance, and is identified with (...) Christ. His axe, holly bob, and green coloration, and even his menacing aspect, all foster this significance. (shrink)

The idea of objectivity is primary in Gottlob Frege’s thought, not only for his conception of logic and mathematics, but also for his philosophy as a whole. He deals with the topic for the first time in 1884, in Grundlagen der Arithmetik, precisely in paragraph 26. He distinguishes the objective from the subjective, of course, but also from the real, what he calls the actual (wirklich in German). In order to be perfectly understood, he gives as example the (...) class='Hi'>colors but, above all, to explain what is objective in geometry and space, he proceeds to a «thought-experiment», founded on the principle of duality. It is this aspect that I emphasize here, in the general framework ofparagraph 26 and in conjunction with Frege’s other works. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Cartesian Truth by Thomas C. VinciTad M. SchmaltzThomas C. Vinci. Cartesian Truth. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Pp. xv + 270. Cloth, $45.00.The book jacket copy claims that Cartesian Truth merits “serious consideration by both contemporary analytic philosophers and postmodern thinkers.” Yet the work is written in a decidedly analytic idiom, and it is keyed primarily to recent analytic discussions of [End Page 531] epistemological foundationalism. Moreover, (...) what is most valuable is not its comments concerning the relevance of Descartes to these discussions, but rather its admirably clear rational reconstruction of Descartes’ own epistemology. In fact, this study usefully distinguishes two different but interrelated epistemological theories in Descartes. The first is connected to Descartes’ “project of pure inquiry” (to borrow Bernard Williams’ phrase), a project involving the attempt to derive truths a priori from the “rule of truth,” that is, the rule that whatever one clearly and distinctly perceives is true. The first three chapters of Vinci’s work consider this aprioristic project. The last four chapters focus on the project in Descartes of providing an epistemology of sense experience that allows for nonintellectual knowledge of the material world. Vinci makes some original and insightful claims about these projects and their interconnections.Vinci begins by defending a reading of the rule of truth which requires (roughly) that clearly and distinctly perceived properties exist in a substance either eminently or formally. One may doubt whether Vinci has succeeded in his stated goal of providing a “defense” of this rule (208), especially since he makes no attempt, as far as I can tell, to offer a transcendental argument for the substance/property metaphysic that the rule presupposes on his reading of it. However, this reading does reveal how that rule could provide a foundation for the causal principles that are essential to the argument for the existence of God in the Third Meditation. This discussion thus has the virtue of yielding a solution to the puzzle of why Descartes was so confident that these principles are revealed by the “light of nature.”At the end of chapter 3, Vinci notes a well-known difference between the proof of the existence of the material world in the Sixth Meditation, which appeals to our “natural inclination” to believe that sensations come from bodies, and the version of that proof in the second part of the Principles of Philosophy, which appeals rather to a clear and distinct perception of material properties that is “stimulated by sense.” What is new and interesting in Vinci, however, is an explanation of this difference that appeals to Descartes’ commitment in the latter text to the view that nonintellectual “concrete intuitions” warrant claims concerning the existence of material substance and its properties. Vinci proposes that Descartes came to accept such a view because he adopted a revised version of the rule of truth that dictates that the properties we concretely intuit formally exist in a substance.The second part of his study considers various issues connected to the notion of concrete intuition. There Vinci defends in particular the thesis that Descartes took such intuitions to pertain only to the imagination, and thus to differ in kind from sensations of secondary qualities such as color, temperature, and taste. At times he makes the stronger claim that Descartes “never speaks of sensations” of primary qualities such as “size, shape, and so on” (102). There is, however, a notable counterexample to such a claim in the Comments on a Certain Broadsheet, which lists as innate sensory ideas not only those of pains, colors and sounds but also those of shapes and motions. I found Vinci’s own discussion of this passage (148–51) to be uncharacteristically confused. Nonetheless, one could distinguish between the sensory perception of the extension of, say, a particular colored patch, on the one hand, and the imaginative perception of extension as a common sensible, on the other. One could then conclude, in line with Vinci’s own [End Page 532] position, that Descartes took only the latter sort of perception to count as a concrete intuition, and thus to fall under the revised version of the rule of truth.I have mentioned only... (shrink)

The educational use of daily-life contexts is considered a valuable strategy to promote meaningful science learning, since it facilitates the establishment of connections between previous knowledge, personal interests, and new learning. The aim of this work is to provide evidence to support the presence of gardens at educational centers, by assessing key science topics whose learning is promoted at the pre-school, primary, secondary, and university stages. To this end, we analyzed the paired graphic representations of “a garden” that students (...) drew both before and after their participation in a garden-based learning program. Firstly, we obtained the frequency of appearance of every represented element, and afterwards characterized the level of change between paired graphic representations. Sample size was of 24-19-25-29 pairs per stage, respectively. Across all stages, an overall improvement in students’ graphic expression was observed, which can be attributed to their experience in the space. At the pre-school stage, the garden favored the establishment of some simple cause-effect relationships which were consolidated at the primary stage, and provided a climate of motivation and affectivity that was evident in the final drawings, given the enormous quantity of details represented, the level of the finished product, and the careful combination and variety of colors. The presence of elements related to water notably increased in final graphic representations from pre-school, primary, and secondary education, thus evidencing that the use of gardens facilitates an approach to responsible water management. At the university stage, students initially demonstrated good knowledge of conventional agriculture, while the gardening experience -which was based on permaculture practices- helped evolve their ideas towards an alternative model of cultivation. The most prevalent science learning across all stages was related to plant knowledge, particularly to their anatomical traits and diversity. Finally, the role of educational gardens as models for students was evidenced, which suggests the importance of teachers and institutions carefully considering which model to offer. Overall, our results support the legitimacy of incorporating gardens to educational centers, particularly for promoting contact with live plants and plant knowledge, and potentially for promoting contact with garden fauna and activities oriented towards learning about it. (shrink)

This dissertation works out a new approach to understanding what makes a representation pictorial and what makes a representation imagistic. Over the last thirty years, the most common approach to these problems has been to claim that what makes a representation pictorial is that normal perceivers can perceive it in certain ways. By contrast, my approach singles out structural features of representational systems as that which distinguishes pictures from other kinds of representations. Pictorial systems are those that are transparent, relatively (...) syntactically sensitive, relatively replete, and semantically rich. All pictures are images, but the converse relation does not hold because images need not be transparent, though they satisfy the weaker condition of being mimetic. This approach is similar to, but enjoys advantages over, Nelson Goodman's work on the topic. ;The account of what makes a representation pictorial or imagistic is then brought to bear on the imagery debate, which concerns whether the brain implements imagistic systems of representation, specifically in the early stages of perception. A review of what we know about the workings of the visual and auditory systems reveals that no representations in the brain are pictorial, though some are imagistic in quite limited respects. Though they fail to be imagistic in many interesting respects, the early stages of the visual and auditory systems are highly isomorphic to what they represent. ;The role of isomorphism in perceptual states has been much discussed in both philosophy and cognitive neuroscience. The last two chapters of the dissertation argue that perceptual representations of traditionally secondary qualities like colors and sounds are isomorphic to those properties to a lesser degree than representations of traditionally primary qualities like shapes. This distinction in how such properties are represented can affect out intuitions concerning the nature of those properties and the nature of perceptual experience. Furthermore, it is argued that isomorphism is an important feature of perceptual representations because of the role it plays in making information cognitively available. This role for isomorphism is maintained even if one is an information theorist, and therefore thinks that lawful causal generalizations fix the content of representations. (shrink)

The largely unstudied insigne of the proconsul Africae, governor of the late Roman province Africa, is preserved in the primary copies of Notitia Dignitatum from around 400 ce and known from copies of the lost Codex Spirensis. This article, based on a combination of legal and art historical methods, seeks to determine the meaning of the insignia’s symbolic representations, especially its references to maritime shipping. Details in the insignia, including the colors used in it, can be considered a (...) visual statement of the proconsul Africae’s scope of competence and intended to amplify the association in the Notitia Dignitatum. The reader in antiquity of the Notitia Dignitatum possibly saw the Africa proconsularis emblem as illustrating that official’s crucial role in producing supplies for Rome and delivering them by maritime freight. It is of note that no other insignia in the Notitia Dignitatum have maritime symbols or other details relating to seafaring. The depictions’ high degree of technical detail attests to the reliability of the insignia to the Notitia Dignitatum in studies concerned with Late Antiquity. (shrink)

There is widespread view among numerous aestheticians that aesthetic and value properties are response-dependent. According to some philosophers the dependence has a rich and multilayered structure: value qualities (e.g. beauty) depend on our response to aesthetic properties (e.g. harmonious), which in turn depend on our response to a pattern of primary and secondary qualities (shapes and colors). Secondary qualities are themselves response-dependent. The basic dependence relation is thus iterated. The resulting structure is one of iterated response-dependence. The integral (...) part of such a position is a relational view, best captured by the response-dispositional analysis: My states of being appeared to magnificently in front of a painting manifests the disposition of painting to induce such experience in the normal viewer.There are two main objections against the dispositional analysis: (1) argument from circularity and (2) argument from introducing two kinds of quality, one categorical, for experiential states, and one dispositional for objects. In this paper we will suggest the arguments against second objection. (shrink)

continent. 1.2 (2011): 141-144. This January, while preparing a new course, Robert Seydel was struck and killed by an unexpected heart attack. He was a critically under-appreciated artist and one of the most beloved and admired professors at Hampshire College. At the time of his passing, Seydel was on the brink of a major artistic and career milestone. His Book of Ruth was being prepared for publication by Siglio Press. His publisher describes the book as: “an alchemical assemblage that composes (...) the life of his alter ego, Ruth Greisman— spinster, Sunday painter, and friend to Joseph Cornell and Marcel Duchamp. Through collages, drawings, and journal entries from Ruth’s imagined life, Seydel invokes her interior world in novelistic rhythms.” This convergence of his professional triumph with the tragedy of his death makes now a particularly appropriate time to think about Robert Seydel and his work. This feature contains a selection of excerpts from Book of Ruth (courtesy of Siglio Press) alongside a pair of texts remembering him and giving critical and biographical insights into his art and his person. These texts, from a former student and a colleague respectively, were originally prepared for Seydel's memorial at Hampshire College and have since been revised for publication in continent. For more information on Book of Ruth, please visit the book's page at the Siglio Press website. —Ben Segal draughty R. * Lauren van Haaften-Schick 2011 “The most apt way to order Smithson's library is with the conjunction 'and'; science and religion; modernism and mass culture; what is present and what is missing.” —Alexander Alberro, 248 Robert Seydel's classes on collage and collecting immersed his students in a curious world of cabinets, oddities, exhaustive archives and obscure histories, explored always with critical rigor and a sincere eye for wonder. His office was a compendium of the ancient, mythic, potential and unworldy, where seemingly unrelated references were endlessly pulled, piled and fused in an ecstatic dance of hyper-annotation. The small room and all its contents overflowed with notes tucked in every margin and corner. Books coated the walls like a switchboard, anxious and humming, waiting for infinite links to be activated. William Blake's books of Job and Urizen summoned Greek mythology and the animal as metaphor, leading to 19th century cryptozoology and the cave paintings at Lascaux, Gaston Bachelard's description of the bird in his garden and Robert Rauschenberg's Canyon . Tracking archetypes and following tangential threads, new revelations and ancient narratives were compiled and ordered to form a new text, a bibliography as assemblage, portrait and poem. Robert's library—one of his many collections—is a portrait, an “artifact, collage of time, a token and remnant” (Seydel, 2007) He is humming with it still. The imagination of this room—of Robert—breathes through the pages of Book of Ruth, as every decision and detail unfolds to a cosmos. Allegory, invention, personal and art histories are entangled and leveled, rendering lived, perceived and absorbed experiences indistinguishable. Anonymous scraps discovered on the street or studio floor, careful clippings and drawn figures are chosen and animated through serendipitous destruction and whimsical, delicate positioning. A precise vocabulary of characters and terms erupts and collapses as personas and passers-by wave and whisper, “Every figure reveals aspects of the total form, which is open and green” (Seydel, 2007). The initials R.S. repeat, a nod to Robert's true family tree and further complicating identification. Robt, Robert's sometimes alter-ego, appears in myriad forms as a trickster “half-wit,” mercurial and skittish, or soft and worn thin. Saul is a solemn tinkerer, parsing the world and sometimes blind. Ruth, the speaker of the book, records and translates all, her voice wavering between poetic verse and a cryptic half-speech as complex as it is sparse. The rhythm of frayed edges sets time - the weight of the world and the lightness of paper. Robert wrote of his process, “Material is essential; scuffings carry history, which wanders throughout” (Seydel, 2007). Collectors, assemblers, sway between careful movements of selection and placement as they pull from the found world, mediating calculated and unconscious association to form a lexicon of gestures, symbols and allusion, the “artifacts of a life... the refuse and rejecta of days” (Seydel, 2007). These assembled fragments shift and chatter, at home in their homelessness, actors performing in their own lives, populating an invented world of similar orphans. Such accumulated, severed parts carry the injury of their cutting and retain the evidence of their source, binding loss to creation in a symbiosis of trauma and repair. Mourning and remembrance are deeply embedded in the histories and acts of such practices. Grievance, acceptance, and the fragility of life are conveyed in the 18th century allegorical arrangements of fetal specimens by Frederik Ruysch. A certain melancholy reverence colors Joseph Cornell's intimately tactile assemblages rendering the universe tangible in miniature, or made in devotion to unrequited loves. Preserved in stasis, these ghosts and idols are kept in a purgatory where fact and fiction, past and present are irrelevant distinctions. Catalogued and contained, the subject of loss is transferred to an artifact. Every thread, scrap and letter may be glued, gathered and placed in a museum, a tomb, a box, a page, ripe and open for possession. Holding on to grief and reveling in disrepair, we opt to be haunted. Forever unbalanced and in flux, the sublime of collage is its resolve to irresolution. For Robert, “Art, as creation and as sign of primary Imagination, is not objects but a state, a kind of fluid” (Seydel, 2007) Reflecting on his work, life, and death, I am drawn to my library and the myriad titles acquired through his inspiration. There is Daniel Spoerri's An Anecdoted Topography of Chance , Susan Stewart's On Longing , various Borges, Barthes, Perec, and especially Life: A User's Manual , which concludes that the perfect puzzle will have no solution. I think of the drawers of miscellaneous swallowed objects at the Mutter Museum, Ray Johnson coding the every day in riddles, Wallace Berman twisting tongues, and Susan Hiller laying every detail to bear. Collectors and makers working in endless cycles of observation, ingestion and display. Every gesture informs and is defined by others, every space is shaped by that which surrounds and fills it, the knot has an inner logic, the gigantic is not so different from the miniature, there is a world in every detail, and “All art is collage” (Seydel, 2011) These thoughts have molded my life, my art, and all the minutia that keep the two so profoundly intertwined; There is no difference between life and what we do with our time. “I write my life. I make me up.” What a gift to share this secret way of knowing the world, and to leave this knowledge for us to do with what we please. “Art begins in admiration” (Seydel, 2011) Lauren van Haaften-Schick is a curator, writer and artist based in New York. Upcoming curatorial projects include "Cancelled" at the Center for Book Arts, and "The Spirit of the Signal" at Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York. Recent activities include the workshops "Market, Alternative" and "Alternative Art Economies" at Trade School and Momenta Art, and the e-flux Time/Store, New York. She is the founding director of two arts spaces in Northampton, MA and Philadelphia, PA. She received a BA in Art History and Studio Art from Hampshire college in 2006. Sura Levine on Robert Seydel If early on in his time at Hampshire College I was officially his “mentor,” Robert Seydel quickly became one of my great teachers. Over the years we talked about everything, from art, music, collage, and poetry, to campus politics, this latter far too often. It was always a sublime pleasure, if all too rarely done, to enter his apartment to look at his work in progress, to peruse his bookshelves where, inevitably, there were always new treats to examine. And, while he was working on his Book of Ruth , I was given the opportunity over the course of many meals at the Korean and other restaurants, to talk with him about image and poem ordering. To see how he thought through each comma, each juxtaposition across the gutters of the Book, was to watch a brilliant curator at work. Each day, I walk past his wonderful collaged portrait of Ruth, purchased, after much haggling, as a birthday present, a couple of years ago. And each day, I think how lucky I am to have known Robert as he produced this magnum opus. One of my greatest pleasures in 24 years at the College was to teach “The Collector” with Robert. One of my greatest regrets is that the magic we created together in the classroom will not, and cannot, be duplicated. Its various incarnations, its utter intelligence and magic, were all so deeply Robert’s. His was a mind that put poetry, philosophy, history of science, and history together with art, and art together with music. His intellect and eye were unparalleled. He introduced us to so many artists. He shared his fascination with the cabinets of curiosity of Aldrovandi, of Seba, and Peter the Great’s collection of fetal anomalies, as well as the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles. Robert knew them all and so many more. He was a walking encyclopedia, his home a great archive. Arcane knowledge, perhaps, but oh so important for another of Robert’s heroes, the mid-20th century Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers, whose name he invariably mispronounced as “Broadthayers.” In speaking his name, Robert would always look in my direction in a panic, and then he go on and maul it. I absolutely loved his various mispronunciations of French names and terms! “The Collector” was always filled with talented young artists, art historians, philosophers and writers who all came to understand the wondrous obsessions of the figure of the collector. Students in this course created dazzling projects each term. He always moved while looking and speaking. He read deeply, and commented on everyone’s work with wonderful generosity. Robert always found something to praise even in the least developed of projects. Robert inspired and mentored all of his students into making work that far exceeded their expectations—and ours. For those of you who were lucky enough to have been touched by or to have had an evaluation written by Robert, savor it, keep it, reread it, and share it. He loved working with you all; it is somehow fitting that he died while prepping yet another new course. Robert, it’s almost impossible to speak of you in the past tense, even though you left us a month ago. No doubt, if you knew about our gatherings and celebrations of you, you would be embarrassed that we are making a fuss over you; you always placed the focus on others rather than on yourself. This trait is exactly why so many people miss you now. We’re here to love you publicly as we all did privately for the eleven years you were among us. Robert, my very dear friend, you were an extraordinary artist—you were my brother of choice. My heart broke when yours did. I miss you profoundly. —Sura Levine, February 26, 2011 Sura Levine is a professor of art history at Hampshire College. Her field of specialty is 19th century Belgian and French art, particularly realism and impressionism. Having worked in museums for a number of years both prior to coming to the College, and, as guest curator and co-author of exhibition catalogues, she became particularly interested in the history of museum and trends in collecting. It was because of their shared interests that she and Robert Seydel developed their course, The Collector, which they co-taught for many years. (shrink)

It is no surprise that the phenomenal qualities of our sensory experience pose recalcitrant philosophical problems for a physical materialist metaphysics. The colors of flowers as we experience them by sight, the taste of a ripe peach, and the smell of fresh-cut grass are undeniably part of the experienced world; yet in their phenomenal mode, they do not seem well-placed in the physicist's world of particles and energy fields. It seems, prima facie, that the metaphysical programs found in earlier (...) science and philosophy were better suited to accommodate these qualities: in the hylomorphic world of the Aristotelians, colors were "real qualities" existing as such in flowers; in the dualistic world of Descartes, colors were displaced from things like flowers to the immaterial mind of the perceiver. The dissertation argues that this intuition about our philosophical heritage is both philosophically confused and historically inaccurate. It betrays a misconception about phenomenal qualities and the problems they pose which results from a failure to distinguish phenomenal qualities from a special subset of sensible qualities that we have come to call "secondary" qualities. Disentangled from the primary-secondary quality distinction, phenomenal qualities include all sensible qualities insofar as they form the experiential contents of our sensory perceptions. So considered, phenomenal qualities invite difficult questions about the representational nature and ontological status of our sensory experience even within the Aristotelian and Cartesian metaphysics. By examining Descartes' and the Aristotelians' theories of sense perception with a focus on these questions we achieve a better understanding of "the problem" of phenomenal qualities, better interpretations of these historical theories of sense perception, and suggestions for reshaping the problem space within which we think philosophically about phenomenal qualities today. (shrink)

Pitcher has taken upon himself the task of refining and defending the thesis that sense perception is the acquiring of true beliefs concerning particular facts about one's environment, by means of the senses. The book is divided into four parts, the first part being a critical treatment of the sense-data theories via an examination of several of the major arguments traditionally forwarded in defense of the view. The theory advocated by the author is presented in the second part, where the (...) view is first stated in unpolished form and gradually refined and qualified as problems and objections are dealt with. Any philosophical theory of perception, the author maintains, is related to the empirical sciences in that its task is to render intelligible the facts about perception, as uncovered by the relevant sciences. Thus, in the third part of the book, some recent experiments in the psychology of perception are discussed in relation to the theory of perception held by the author. In the final part of the book, Pitcher discusses color perception, since the perception of colors seems, at first glance, to present a problem for his theory. If a dispositional analysis is given for perceptual belief, what behavior is peculiar to the perception of a color? An interesting discussion of the primary-secondary quality contrast follows Pitcher's solution to this problem. Though the author does not claim originality for the theory of perception he offers, there is still much to be said for his treatment of the materials presented.--R. L. M. (shrink)

This paper responds to Justin Broackes’ reply to my paper, “On the retinal origins of the Hering primaries.” This paper aims to clarify and further develop the ideas presented in that article. I take up several of the points Broackes raises regarding the connection between my work and that of William Thornton (Journal of the Optical Society of America 61:1155–1163, 1971 ) and (Color Research and Application 24:139–156, 1999 ) on the “prime” and “anti-prime” colors of the human visual (...) system, the connection between those prime and anti-prime colors and hue category boundaries, and my attempt to link facts about low-level processing to the unique hues. Ultimately, while Broackes brings up several interesting issues and usefully illustrates the limits of my approach, I see no reason to retreat from the main claims I made about human spectral sensitivity and the hues. (shrink)

Musica-Colore-Tratto ©· un percorso epistemologico, una volont©¿ di tentare di comprendere la musica non come realt©¿ a s©♭ stante, bens©Ơ in relazione ad altre fonti del sapere che, in qualche modo, le si possano affiancare: sia per la ricerca di un kantiano tutto-insieme-connesso, sia per una pretesa hegeliana di un pensiero umano tricotomico. La volont©¿ di chi scrive ©· quella di far trasparire un'involontaria logica che permea l'idea umana generale (a prescindere da ci©ø in cui essa si cimenti) e di (...) ribadire il forte teleo℗Ưlogismo nel quale essa trova i suoi limiti. Pittori o litografi come Kandinsky o Escher ne erano ben consci, se arrivarono, tra i loro aforismi, ad affermare che "il colore ©· come la musica", o "adoriamo il caos perch©♭ amiamo produrre l'ordine". [Testo dell'editore]. (shrink)