Nov 3, 2009

Philosophy Assignment - More on Aesthetics

Well guys, your comments on the previous assignment were pretty much on the mark, although not elaborate enough. But it does appear that you have understood the essence of the "sense of life". now to apply it in the context of Art, you need to read the next chapter and answer the following:
  1. Discuss the infallibility of the Sense of Life in comparision with the Kantian way of judging Art
  2. Discuss with one example the three kinds of abstractions Ms Rand talks about - Cognitive, Esthetic & Normative
  3. Why does a irrational man seek justiication from the work of art?
  4. What is the criteria for ethetic judgement according to Ayn Rand? Explain with an example other than from the book.
UNESCO Test tomorrow after college.

19 comments:

  1. according 2 kant art is a package of various concepts.in casual sense if an individual can conclude many rational or irrational things from a painting then it is good art.he states that a good art is a thing which we like but do not desire 2 posses it in this doesnt make a proper sense.inshort his philosophy is that art is not outside everything is in our mind.
    from Diksha

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  2. What is the criteria for ethetic judgement according to Ayn Rand? Explain with an example other than from the book.
    according 2 ayn rand art is made by an artist for himself.he expresses his personality,metaphysics,value judgement from his art work.she further states that an viewer should judge an art for himself which contradicts kant's ideology (which states that art is considered as good art if huge quantity of people like it ).if values of viewer matches with the values of the artist then he connects 2 it &he likes the art.
    eg.if an artist paints numerical painting a math lover may like it ,whereas a ordinary man may not like.
    from DIKSHA

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  3. Why does a irrational man seek justiication from the work of art?
    an irrational man doesnt have a clarified reason for his actions,thus he cant form his own philosophy & has 2 follow others.an irrational man doesnt have knowledge of his or environments exsistense.he thinks life is futile &joy is not attainable.art is a metaphysical mirror an irrational man doesnt know meaning of his liking hence he cant fully justify art.

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  4. Prathamesh
    1. According to Kant the art shouldn’t contain conceptless i.e. the viewer must be able to think in various ways. But Sense of life states that particular individual must think upon the concepts according to his emotions. The disinterest lies again in the emotions of the individual. According to Kant the judgment should mainly be normative, but it may essential not judge the art appropriately. To judge art, its concept must be understood & the way it depicts the theme should be taken into consideration. Concepts can be understood when we try to relate them to our past experiences, emotions, response, thoughts which integrates into Sense of Life. Hence its better to be dependent on Sense of Life to judge art.

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  5. Prathamesh
    4. According to her, esthetic judgement should be taken by first observing the theme of the artist, then finding all the parameters that the artist shows & not to assume any parameter by oneself. Then trying to relate all the parameters & find whether all those parameters depict the artist’s theme or it fails to depict it.
    For eg: - An artist tries to depict the beauty of nature & human progress. If his parameters are trees, mountains on one hand while the human infrastructure on other hand then it cannot be said as a good art. Because in a way, the person show developing city which is formed by crushing the natural beauty, then its illogical to say that the picture depicts the beauty of nature.

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  6. Prathamesh
    3. Irrational man has firstly does not have a pure & stable sense of life as he does not integrate all the rational emotions, response & so on. According to him struggling to achieve goals is fruitless, as hurdles will come in his way to oppose him & it’s of no use to create something new. He thinks that this is the rule of nature, due to which he does not bothers the way he behaves. But even then he tries to prove his actions right. In order to establish his sense of life right according to him he tries to prove his evil metaphysical thoughts right as they are the absolute. But the only way by which he can support his ideas is art, because he can express his emotions in art. Hence, an irrational man tries to seek justification from the work of art.

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  7. Prathamesh
    2. The Painting of M. F. Hussein in which he tries to show the status of our country. Normatively, this painting is said to be bad because the way things are illustrated extreme according to the people. Cognitively, it is indeed its essential to realize the truth of our country & the suffering that the common man has to face. But in an esthetic point of view its parameters truly depict the theme of the artist which shows the overall of status of the country.

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  8. 1. According to me Immanuel Kant says taht all art made has to be without any concept, which I dont agree.But Ayn Rand says dat there shud be reason behind everything including art.According Ton Kant when es say that the art is good it should also be good to other viewers also but in this case Ayn Rand's philosphy Of Sense Of Life opposes it by saying that th person who sees the art should take the arts pleasure for himself.
    Kevin J.

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  9. 3. Art is the only way a man can use to express his feeling & emmotions. A Irrational man has no moral codes & ethics to follow due to which he is considered to be a immoral person in the society. As a reult to prove or to convey his message the only way he can use is Arts.
    Kevin J.

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  10. Akshaya,
    According to Kant art should have some or other concepts i.e. every person who is seeing that art must think about it in various ways. Sense of life states that an indivual must think on particular topic through his emotions. He defines good art as the art as an art is a thing which we like but not just by seeing we must judge, we must judge in a proper sense. Concepts can be understood when we try to relate them to our past experiences, emotions, response, thoughts which integrates into Sense of Life.

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  11. 2.>cognition means process of thoughts .according to ms rand emotions are not the tools of cognition i.e emotions usually does not come via thinking or thoughts ,its a sudden expression. eg:when anyone falls and gets injured many people has different responses like ouch,oh so on...
    these are emotions of not only person falling but also of person seeing him falling and injuring.
    >according to rand philosophers do not know about emotions they can only think about rational things.

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  12. 2.in esthetics emotional values are judged, philosophers usually donot think about emotions as a main context of their theory they usually go for rational things

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  13. Q1. According to Kant, art is for the beholder or the viewer to visualize and understand and a good art should not contain any concepts. Which is why, he considers normative thinking a good way to judge art.
    The mentioned infallibility of our Sense Of Life is that it classifies art as good or bad, after perceiving the concept behind it, based on the emotions it invokes or the experiences the remind. It does not consider normative thinking, or
    our idea of the concept behind the art, while judging art. However i do not think Sense of Life is infallible as it can do and will do mistakes.

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  14. Organic ABC is Saarang.

    Q2. Consider three people listening to some music. The first person by means of normative abstraction considers the emotions he feel when he listens to the music. The other person by means of cognitive abstraction considers what is essential [there is a good chance that the person would consider the skill or the style in which the music is played]. The third person would probably go a step beyond to understand the important i.e meaning or the view of life the artist projected.

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  15. Q3. an irrational man often has emotions such as hatred, revenge or destruction. he sees art to verify that he is right [even though he is not].
    Q4.In simplest terms, the theme i.e that which is the connection between the topic and the style is the criteria for aesthetic judgement.
    While considering some painting or sculpture, the judge who is following aesthetic judgement will ask 2 Qs ; "What is shown?" and "How is it shown?".

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  16. KEDAR
    Ms.rand says dat artists actually try to make a mirror image of himself w.r.t to sense of life,metaphysics & psycho-epistemology.And then viewer sees dat art with his sense of life,den eventually decides dat da art is good or bad.So Ms.Rand says,dis is NOT INFALLIBLE(not trustworthy or sure of) and she says dis b'coz da sense of life of da artist and viewer may differ and hence oneself cannot make a judgement on dat art and prove it as goog or bad.
    Mr.kant says art is good if there is no concept and artist has to do nothing with da art directly coz da judgement of it is to be done by da spectators and not by him so his sense of life,maxims,metaphysics & psysho-epistemology are fruitless.

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  17. KEDAR,
    SCENARIO,
    People in a art exhibition.
    A:- A person who things w.r.t cognitive abstraction,has a criterion of what is essential??
    So he may have answered dat ? as i shouln't get bored in dis art gallary.
    B:-A person who things w.r.t normative abstraction,has a criterion of what is good??
    And he may have tackled dat ? as my frnds should not say dat i have no knowledge of art so if they say a piece of art as good it is good 4 me too.
    C:-A person who things w.r.t esthetic abstraction,has a criterion of wat is imp.??
    His ans.to dis ? may be,i should learn some or de other thing 4rm here.

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  18. KEDAR,
    As Ms rand itself says,a rational man will see a salute in da mirror coz he knows dat his ethics are right and as a fact dat he on da way to "life" and not "death".
    But a irrational man cannot think coz he never thinked be4r,on integration of thoughts,no process of generalization.So dis man has no capacity to define himself.
    So when a perticular instance comes and he has to think and he cannot and hence he keeps on justifying himself on wat he thinks is right and thinks dat there may not be any alternative to dis......

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  19. KEDAR,
    She says criteria for esthetic judgement is not only sense of life as it differs from people to people and may or may not understand the artists sense of life so it cannot be the sole qualification 4 an artist's art.So there is only one way to understand da artist's style and subject in da art and dat is taking his theme as the criterian and den evaluate da mastery of an artist and his view towords life.......
    Examples:-
    In africa there are many comminities and they perform some kind of test's for proving that a perticular is one of the strongest man in the comminity or the age wen they pass there "teen age" and etc.And those test's are very painfull to see as well as too experience.And we as common man feel as if they r torchered or any thing of dat kind but no its there culture or there art,for this we have to take there themes as criterian and not our normative "sense of life".

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