What are we to make of works of art whose apparent point is to convince us of the meaninglessness and absurdity of human existence? I examine, in this paper, the attempt of Albert Camus to provide philosophical justification of art in the face of the supposed fact of absurdity and note its failure as such with specific reference to Sartre’s criticism. Despite other superficial similarities, I contrast Camus’s concept of the absurd with that of his ‘existentialist’ colleagues, including Sartre, (...) and suggest that the latter concept is more philosophically viable. I conclude that existential phenomenology consequently provides a more promising philosophical justification for artistic creation in the light of the more viable conception of absurdity. (shrink)

This paper attempts to provide a reflection on Nguyen’s book, Games: Agency as Art. It demonstrates how games provide new ontological spaces and ways of being by focusing on the concept of a...

The post-Holocaust suicide of a concentration camp survivor is particularly unsettling. One thinks, for instance, of Cliff Stern's devastated response to Professor Louis Levy's death in Woody Allen's movie Crimes and Misdemeanors. Loosely based on Primo Levi, Allen's professor provides in short documentary clips an astute analysis of the contradictions of a loving God in the Old Testament and stoically counsels embracing life despite the indifference and occasional cruelty of the universe. Having experienced, understood, and accepted the absurdity and injustice (...) of life, Levy, one might think, would rage to the bitter end against the dying of the light. But for no apparent reason, he kills himself. Cliff's response... (shrink)

Cybernetic-Existentialism: Freedom, Systems, and Being-for-Others in Contemporary Art and Performance offers a unique discourse and an original aesthetic theory. It argues that fusing perspectives from the philosophy of Existentialism with insights from the 'universal science' of cybernetics provides a new analytical lens and deconstructive methodology to critique art. In this study, Steve Dixon examines how a range of artists' works reveal the ideas of Existentialist philosophers including Kierkegaard, Camus, de Beauvoir and Sartre on freedom, being and nothingness, eternal recurrence, the (...) absurd, and being-for-others. Simultaneously, these artworks are shown to engage in complex explorations of concepts proposed by cyberneticians including Wiener, Shannon, and Bateson on information theory and 'noise', feedback loops, circularity, adaptive ecosystems, autopoiesis, and emergence. Dixon's ground-breaking book demonstrates how fusing insights and knowledge from these two fields can throw new light on pressing issues within contemporary arts and culture, including authenticity, angst and alienation, homeostasis, radical politics, and the human as system. (shrink)

In this chapter I explore what painful art can tell us about the nature and importance of human welfare. My goal is not so much to defend a new solution to the paradox of tragedy, as it is to explore the implications of the kinds of solutions that I find attractive. Both nonhedonic compensatory theories and constitutive theories explain why people seek out painful art, but they have troublesome implications. On some narrow theories of well-being, they imply that painful art (...) is bad for us. Accordingly, we may rightly wonder if it rational for people to watch melodramas or to listen to love songs. One might think that we should generally avoid unpleasant works of art. This implication flirts with absurdity. I show how it can be avoided by making a distinction between well-being and worth. (shrink)

Art history cannot be sealed off in cultural isolation: given our innate forms of life, language, and human nature, cultural diversity is only skin deep. The identification of art by historical recursion could not be restricted to the fixed art history of one hermetically sealed cultural tradition because there is no such thing. Attempts to define artworks recursively thus lead to the absurdity that everything in the present might be art because of unknown art antecedents in earlier human cultures that (...) we in a contemporary culture would not call art. Making the lack of a theory the theoretical point of a practice leads to chaos. (shrink)

The Warring States period was without doubt a time when reason thrived. The Confucians, Mohists, and Daoists, respectively, displayed three of its intellectual inclinations. One was reason with an exceptionally prominent moral flavor, and the cultivation of human character as its object. It calls on men to uphold the dignity, tranquillity, and loftiness of their inner selves. One was reason with a very strong practical flavor, and the realization of beneficent profit as its object. It leads men to address ways (...) of maintaining the stability of society, material wealth to support men's livelihoods, and individual survival. Apart from these two, there was reason that has spiritual transcendence and human immortality as its object, and which was manifested as a tendency toward anti-intellectualism. It tries to protect individual survival and freedom of the spirit, despite social pressures. As for those mystical ideas and techniques that seemed absurd, they gradually regressed into simplistic ceremonies, fables, and symbols among the cultural workers who pursued reason. The psychological attitude of "sacrificing to spirits as if they were present" led many cultural aristocrats to distance themselves from mystical ideas and techniques. Mysticism gradually disappeared from among men of culture, especially once it became increasingly difficult for those divination methods and technical arts, used merely to satisfy concrete needs, to avoid the scrutiny of reason. Some late Warring States period texts can help us understand the direction this way of thinking took. "Xian xue" in the Hanfeizi says,When the shaman priests pray for someone, they say, "May you live a thousand autumns and ten thousand years!" But the "thousand autumns and ten thousand years" are only a noise dinning on the ear: No one has ever proven [zheng] that such prayers add so much as a day to anyone"s life. For this reason people despise the shaman priests.". (shrink)

This book is our century’s most comprehensive and wise treatment of nihilism in all of its guises, comparing favorably with Rosen, Cavell, and indeed with Spengler. Crosby argues that our culture is genuinely haunted by nihilism expressing itself in the fideism of fundamentalism as well as in the debilitating alienation from all orientation. This results from a one-sided development of Western culture. Unlike most writers on this topic, Crosby acknowledges many sources colluding to frame the culture of nihilism, including “the (...) death of God,” the objectification of nature, the meaninglessness of suffering in a mechanical universe, the ephemerality of time in a world where value does not accumulate, the arbitrariness of historicized reason, the reduction of value to will, and the alienation of the Cartesian ego. These sources are reviewed in the first two parts of the book with the result that the phenomenon of nihilism becomes understandable. In its third and fourth parts, Crosby provides a critical analysis of the religious and philosophical forces leading to nihilism by discussing authors from the early modern period through Dostoyevsky, Sartre, Russell, and Derrida. He shows that these forces are skewed and impoverished and should not be allowed to determine our situation. The comprehensive attention to detail and the multi-perspectival interpretation demonstrates as well as asserts the richness of the culture that puts nihilism in its place. Part Five, finally, rephrases the criticism of the sources of nihilism in positive ways. Part Four in particular is a tour de force of philosophical argument. Its richness of nuance, plurality of views examined, and adroitness of critical interpretation provide cumulatively a powerful, non-nihilistic reading of the philosophic tradition. The force of the argument derives from its comprehensive, cumulative character. Crosby distinguishes and relates five areas of nihilism: political, moral, epistemological, cosmic, and existential. Throughout the book, he illustrates and examines these as they are expressed in literature and art, in daily life and practical affairs, and in philosophy. The book is richly erudite in its marshalling of consciousness from so many domains. (shrink)

The Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, previously known as SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), has published over 500 peer-reviewed scholarly volumes since 1955 as part of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford. International in focus, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment volumes cover wide-ranging aspects of the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, from gender studies to political theory, and from economics to visual arts and music, and are published in English or French.

Many instances of art are valuable. Where is this value located? And how is it to be justified? In this paper I reconstruct and critically assess Albert Camus’ answers to these questions. Camus’ theory of the value of art is based on his “logic of the absurd”, i.e., the idea that the human condition is absurd and that we therefore ought to adopt an attitude of revolt. This idea entails that art lacks any intrinsic value. Rather, Camus argues, (...) art is valuable only insofar as it promotes creators’ or recipients’ awareness of the absurd and their attitude of revolt. The main problem with this theory is that it exaggerates the significance of the logic of the absurd for art. Even if the human condition is absurd and we ought to revolt, artistic value cannot plausibly be reduced to these facts. (shrink)

John J. Stuhr, a leading voice in American philosophy, sets forth a view of pragmatism as a personal work of art or fashion. Stuhr develops his pragmatism by putting pluralism forward, setting aside absolutism and nihilism, opening new perspectives on democracy, and focusing on love. He creates a space for a philosophy that is liable to failure and that is experimental, pluralist, relativist, radically empirical, radically democratic, and absurd. Full color illustrations enhance this lyrical commitment to a new version (...) of pragmatism. (shrink)

With the emergence of man from nature art emerged among the objects. There was nothing to distinguish or exalt it in the beginning. Art did not separate one kind of thing from the others but was rather a quality common to them all. To the extent to which things were made by human beings, art did not necessarily call for the skill of specialists. All things took skill, and almost everybody had it.This is the way an essayist in the eighteenth (...) century might have begun a treatise on our subject. By now his recourse to a mythical past would sound naïve and misleading, mainly because we have come to pride ourselves on defining things by what distinguishes them from the rest of the world. Thus art is laboriously separated from what is supposed not to be art—a hopeless endeavor, which has more and more disfigured our image of art by extirpating it from its context. We have been left with the absurd notion of art as a collection of useless artifacts generating an unexplainable kind of pleasure.Rescue from this impasse of our thinking is not likely to come primarily from those of us who, established on the island of artistic theory and practice, look around at what else there is in the world to see; rather it will come from those who are curious about what human beings meet, make, and use, and who in the course of their explorations run into objects prominently displaying the property we call art. Psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists have been driven to view art in the context of nature, ritual, shelter, and the whole furniture of civilization. As a characteristic recent example I mention a thorough interview study, The Meaning of Things, by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg-Halton, in which three generations of families from the Chicago area were questioned about their favorite possessions.1­ Pictures, sculptures, and all sorts of craft work turned up at a more or less modest place in the inventory of the home, and the reasons given for their value make wholesome reading for specialists in aesthetics. 1. See Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg-Halton, The Meaning of Things: Symbols in the Development of the Self . Rudolf Arnheim retired from Harvard University as professor emeritus of the psychology of art. He then taught as a visiting professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor until 1983. His most recently published book is New Essays on the Psychology of Art. At present he is preparing a new edition of The Power of the Center, a theory of visual composition first published in 1982. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Art of Interpreting Art PAUL BAROLSKY “The quality of the prose is just as important in nonfiction as in fiction.” —Robert Caro If as Horace famously wrote in the Ars poetica the aim of poetry is to instruct and delight, why shouldn’t the goal of all writing be the same? Why should all readers not enjoy as well as learn from what they read? In the realm of (...) academe, however, although much writing instructs, far too little delights. This is so because the goal of academic writing is primarily that of conveying information and knowledge or of developing new ideas. Delight or pleasure are not of primary academic concern. Too few scholars care sufficiently about how they write. Too many academics write in unreadable prose. Often their writing is ponderous, indeed pompous, because they are insecure in the face of theoretical, philosophical or scientific writing. The outcome can be quite hideous. Sometimes, dare I say often, their writing is dreadfully dry and dull. In the Humanities, the arts, by which I mean those that have been called the spatial arts, that is, architecture, sculpture, and painting, can be studied from a wide variety of perspectives. As some observers have noted, however, frequently in the academic study of art and its history, art as such recedes from view and drops out of the discussion. Art becomes primarily the illustration of something else, something other than itself. It comes to be the illustration of the global, colonial, sexual, political, theological, social, economic, religious, anthropological, philosophical, technological, scientific, or theoretical. It is too often not sufficiently appreciated for its own sake as art. Do I sound as if I am writing about the much-scorned notion of “art for art’s sake?” Yes, but not exactly. Since the arion 28.1 spring/summer 2020 102 the art of interpreting art nineteenth century, when Gautier wrote, l’art pour l’art meant just that, the celebration of art for its own sake. Eventually, however, that notion came to be disparaged as too limited, since it supposedly failed to address the various kinds of associations between art and the other phenomena listed above. The notion of art for its own sake unfortunately came to be seen as a manifestation of aestheticism or formalism— both often regrettably terms of opprobrium. Not long ago a graduate teaching fellow in a prestigious art history program had her students read my essay on the role of writing about art which was published in the spring/ summer 2018 issue of this journal. The first part of that essay concerned atrocious writing, which, our teaching fellow said, made her students laugh—yes, laugh! They presumably laughed because the prose of scholars was so very bad—ridiculous in the root sense of the word, laughable. One example of pompous diction that I have cited often because it is so laughably absurd, is the definition one art historical scholar has given of sex as “inter-corporeal relationality.” No wonder the students laughed! With considerable amusement, the graduate teaching fellow to whom I have just referred told me that she rather doubted her students bothered to read the second part of the essay she assigned, even though it included some exemplary writing about art. Why should they have bothered to read examples of excellent writing? After all, their teachers, who too often do not themselves write well, do not encourage students to think sufficiently about their prose. Let me add to the cluster of grotesque writing illustrated in the Arion article to which I have referred one more example of how bad academic writing about art can be in order to remind the reader of the kind of absurd nonsense or blather that one encounters throughout the Humanities. It comes from a highly esteemed author who “describes influence as a notion which provides a support—of too magical a kind to be very amenable to analysis—for the facts of transmission and com- Paul Barolsky 103 munication; which refers to an apparently causal process (but with neither rigorous delineation nor theoretical definition) the phenomena of resemblance or repetition; which links, at a distance and through time—as if through the mediation of... (shrink)

This thesis aims to explain why art is the ideal agent for overcoming the absurdity and the meaninglessness of existence. The focus is Camus’ Rebellion in conjunction with Sartre’s notion of Authenticity. Together they provide an adequate answer to the fundamental questions of human existence. Together Camus’ rebellion and Sartre’s authenticity provide the necessary foundations for the overall authenticity of art, facilitating the emergence of purpose from the abyss of absurdity.

‘Uncanny’ works by a number of contemporary artists are analysed in relation to the themes and insights of both cybernetics and existentialist philosophy. This reveals that central ideas from these largely neglected fields remain current and potent within innovative art practices. Artists employ cybernetic systems to provoke aesthetic sensations of the uncanny, while simultaneously encapsulating existentialist concerns. Pierre Huyghe’s mysterious installation responds to the life-breath of visitors to mutate human cancer cells. Susan Collins and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer construct cybernetic worlds-within-worlds to (...) render us beings-for-others during intimate encounters with strangers. Urich Lau and TC&A involve and implicate the audience in eerie expressions of what existentialist term being-towards-death. These artworks prompt feelings of separation, alienation and existential angst; and emphasize human estrangement within a mysterious, incomprehensible or absurd world. But a cybernetic-existentialist reading also reveals that their evocation of human disquiet and isolation is tempered by an equal emphasis on positive notions of feedback loops, ‘separation with communion’, existential freedom and authentic interactions with the world and with Others. The artworks articulate cybernetics’ and existentialism’s shared interest in collapsing boundaries and erasing distinctions: between agents within a system; between the self and the Other; and between perceiving, feeling and acting. (shrink)

Adrian Piper joins the ranks of writer-artists who have provided much of the basic and most reliable literature on modern and contemporary art. Out of Order, Out of Sight is an artistic and intellectual autobiography and an (occasionally scathing) commentary on mainstream art, art criticism, and American culture of the last twenty-five years. Piper is an internationally recognized conceptual artist and the only African American in the early conceptual art movement of the 1960s. The writings in Out of Order, Out (...) of Sight trace the development of her thinking about her artwork and the art world, and her evolving awareness of herself as a creative, racial, and gendered subject situated in an often limiting and always absurd cultural and social context. (shrink)

Utilitarianism tells us that actions are morally right and good if and to the extent that they add to human happiness or diminish human unhappiness. And—or, perhaps, therefore—it also tells us that the best action a person can perform is that which of all the possible actions open to him is the one which makes the greatest positive difference to human happiness. Moreover, as everyone will also remember, utilitarianism further tries to tell us, perhaps intending it as a corollary of (...) that first, main claim, that the motive for an action has nothing to do with its moral rightness or goodness. But even if, as utilitarians, we accepted the dubious corollary, it would not follow, as many have thought, that utilitarians have no moral interest in motives. For unless, absurdly, a utilitarian believed either that there was never more than a fortuitous connection between on the one hand what we intended to do and on the other what we did and the consequences of what we did, or that, if there were such connections, we could not know of them, he must believe, as a moralist, that the best motive a person can have for performing an action is likely to be the desire to produce the happiest result. Indeed, utilitarians ought to be morally committed, it would seem, to trying to find out as much as they can about the consequences of our actions, e.g. what connections exist, if any, between how we raise children and what sort of adults they grow up to be. (shrink)

[...] it would seem natural to assume that the disciplines of literary studies and linguistics should by rights converge regularly to exchange views as each pursues its own goals. Is such a convergence possible on the question of sense and nonsense? James W. Underhill (this volume) The contributors to the present volume have focused their attention on two sets of problems that are leitmotifs in all the articles gathered. Firstly, should literary semantics - the linguistic study of texts/discourses marked with (...) the feature of 'literariness' and 'poeticalness' - strive after an interpretation of all such texts at all costs? Are all literary texts interpretable? How do we cope with such troublesome linguistic phenomena as anomaly, deviance, and absurdity? Aren't we, by any chance, fascinated by nonsense? Do we try to make it at least partly meaningful? Is interpretability our default value? The introductory article by the renowned scholar Margaret H. Freeman is an important voice, indeed a manifesto of sorts of literary semanticists in this respect. Secondly, while trying to answer all these questions, well aware of the fact that literary semantics is a fuzzy branch of linguistic studies, we have attempted at exploring its borderline zone to see to what extent we have to draw from various theoretical sources. Literary semanticists have often proved that they are capable of arguing contrastively in the atmosphere of openness to such neighbouring fields as: discourse analysis, literary pragmatics and reader-response theories, narratology, literary semiotics and hermeneutics, translation studies and - very importantly - the philosophy of language. The authors contributing to this book, an international company of regularly cooperating linguists and literary scholars, strike a nice balance between the cognitive and the more traditionally or philosophically-oriented frameworks of study, being a vivid proof that cognitive and other "denominations" are perfectly capable of fruitful coexistence. The volume ends with a short presentation by RadosÅaw Nowakowski, already known to academic and artistic audiences in Europe as a creator and propagator of liberature - the art of unusual bookmaking, the art of the book liberated from our traditional preconceptions. We hope that our volume will be of interest to academics and students of literary theory and linguistics alike, especially those involved in literary semantics, stylistics and poetics. Naturally, the book is also addressed to members and sympathizers of IALS (International Association of Literary Semantics) and the readers of Journal of Literary Semantics, scattered across the world. (shrink)

One often hears a version of the following: “A poem is never finished, just abandoned.” I have always found this proposition irksome. The fact that Paul Valéry seems to be the source of it, in something like the above form, makes me feel a certain trepidation in writing this. But I do find myself thinking, when I hear people say that their poems are never finished, only abandoned: why don’t you just finish them? I want a poem to be finished. (...) But is this the same as demanding it be perfect? This article is resolutely opposed to perfection, whether it comes in poetry or any other art. I start by citing a passage from Kant, as a way of offering an initial sketch of that opposition. I then turn to two brief... (shrink)

PREFACE. THE Author of this very practical treatise on Scotch Loch - Fishing desires clearly that it may be of use to all who had it. He does not pretend to have written anything new, but to have attempted to put what he has to say in as readable a form as possible. Everything in the way of the history and habits of fish has been studiously avoided, and technicalities have been used as sparingly as possible. The writing of this (...) book has afforded him pleasure in his leisure moments, and that pleasure would be much increased if he knew that the perusal of it would create any bond of sympathy between himself and the angling community in general. This section is interleaved with blank shects for the readers notes. The Author need hardly say that any suggestions addressed to the case of the publishers, will meet with consideration in a future edition. We do not pretend to write or enlarge upon a new subject. Much has been said and written-and well said and written too on the art of fishing but loch-fishing has been rather looked upon as a second-rate performance, and to dispel this idea is one of the objects for which this present treatise has been written. Far be it from us to say anything against fishing, lawfully practised in any form but many pent up in our large towns will bear us out when me say that, on the whole, a days loch-fishing is the most convenient. One great matter is, that the loch-fisher is depend- ent on nothing but enough wind to curl the water, -and on a large loch it is very seldom that a dead calm prevails all day, -and can make his arrangements for a day, weeks beforehand whereas the stream- fisher is dependent for a good take on the state of the water and however pleasant and easy it may be for one living near the banks of a good trout stream or river, it is quite another matter to arrange for a days river-fishing, if one is looking forward to a holiday at a date some weeks ahead. Providence may favour the expectant angler with a good day, and the water in order but experience has taught most of us that the good days are in the minority, and that, as is the case with our rapid running streams, -such as many of our northern streams are, -the water is either too large or too small, unless, as previously remarked, you live near at hand, and can catch it at its best. A common belief in regard to loch-fishing is, that the tyro and the experienced angler have nearly the same chance in fishing, -the one from the stern and the other from the bow of the same boat. Of all the absurd beliefs as to loch-fishing, this is one of the most absurd. Try it. Give the tyro either end of the boat he likes give him a cast of ally flies he may fancy, or even a cast similar to those which a crack may be using and if he catches one for every three the other has, he may consider himself very lucky. Of course there are lochs where the fish are not abundant, and a beginner may come across as many as an older fisher but we speak of lochs where there are fish to be caught, and where each has a fair chance. Again, it is said that the boatman has as much to do with catching trout in a loch as the angler. Well, we dont deny that. In an untried loch it is necessary to have the guidance of a good boatman but the same argument holds good as to stream-fishing... (shrink)

Lochlann Jain's debut non-fiction graphic novel, Things That Art, playfully interrogates the order of things. Toying with the relationship between words and images, Jain's whimsical compositions may seem straightforward. Upon closer inspection, however, the drawings reveal profound and startling paradoxes at the heart of how we make sense of the world. Commentaries by architect and theorist Maria McVarish, poet and naturalist Elizabeth Bradfield, musician and English Professor Drew Daniel, and the author offer further insight into the drawings in this collection. (...) A captivating look at the fundamental absurdities of everyday communication, Things that Art jolts us toward new forms of collation and collaboration. (shrink)

U radu se nastoji sagledati Pirandellovo shvaćanje života i umjetnosti, dvije po njemu međusobno neodijeljene dimenzije. Prepoznavši u umjetnosti njezinu moć kojom prodire pod površinu zbilje, razotkrivajući je kao obmanu, Pirandello, transponirajući »stvarnost« u svijet umjetnosti, dovodi ne samo svoje duboko tragične likove već i čitatelje, pred golu istinu realnosti koju može dohvatiti i prikazati samo umjetničko stvaralaštvo. Istina Pirandellove umjetnosti nameće se kao istina realnosti, a budući da ruši sve čovjekove imaginarne konstrukcije, prikazujući mu, u zaustavljanoj slici života apsurdnost (...) i ništavilo njegove egzistencije, nužno se nameće pitanje važnosti čovjekova boravka u istini umjetnosti.The paper is intended to outline Pirandello’s concepts of art and life, which are, according to him, two inseparable dimensions. Having recognized the power of art, used to delve underneath the surface of reality, disclosing it as a delusion, Pirandello–transposing ‘reality’ into the world of art – brought not only his deeply tragic characters, but his readers too, before the naked truth of reality that can only be grasped by artistic creation. The truth of Pirandello’s art imposes itself as the truth of reality, and since it destroys all of man’s imaginary constructions, showing them, in a frozen image of life, the absurdity and void of their existence, the issue of the importance of man’s sojourn in the truth of art is necessarily raised. (shrink)

From the perspective of a recent graduate, this article offers a critique of non-STEM higher education in England as unfit for purpose. Whilst universities blindly focus on employability, transferable skills and narrow bands of subject knowledge, the economic world around them has collapsed into absurdity. The graduate today is now faced with economic, social and cultural precarity which is unreflected in the rigid structures and narrow focus of their degree. This article seeks a radical return to the ancient principles of (...) a liberal arts education. Far from this being regressive, I argue that this education can and should be reclaimed and reinvigorated by the flexibility, difficulty and complexity of modern philosophy. Drawing on both Zygmunt Bauman’s liquid modernity and Nigel Tubbs' modern metaphysics, this article argues that higher education is far from obsolete but that its continuing relevance in late Capitalism can only arise from a return to the questions of how graduates can best thrive i... (shrink)

PREFACE. THE Author of this very practical treatise on Scotch Loch - Fishing desires clearly that it may be of use to all who had it. He does not pretend to have written anything new, but to have attempted to put what he has to say in as readable a form as possible. Everything in the way of the history and habits of fish has been studiously avoided, and technicalities have been used as sparingly as possible. The writing of this (...) book has afforded him pleasure in his leisure moments, and that pleasure would be much increased if he knew that the perusal of it would create any bond of sympathy between himself and the angling community in general. This section is interleaved with blank shects for the readers notes. The Author need hardly say that any suggestions addressed to the case of the publishers, will meet with consideration in a future edition. We do not pretend to write or enlarge upon a new subject. Much has been said and written-and well said and written too on the art of fishing but loch-fishing has been rather looked upon as a second-rate performance, and to dispel this idea is one of the objects for which this present treatise has been written. Far be it from us to say anything against fishing, lawfully practised in any form but many pent up in our large towns will bear us out when me say that, on the whole, a days loch-fishing is the most convenient. One great matter is, that the loch-fisher is depend- ent on nothing but enough wind to curl the water, -and on a large loch it is very seldom that a dead calm prevails all day, -and can make his arrangements for a day, weeks beforehand whereas the stream- fisher is dependent for a good take on the state of the water and however pleasant and easy it may be for one living near the banks of a good trout stream or river, it is quite another matter to arrange for a days river-fishing, if one is looking forward to a holiday at a date some weeks ahead. Providence may favour the expectant angler with a good day, and the water in order but experience has taught most of us that the good days are in the minority, and that, as is the case with our rapid running streams, -such as many of our northern streams are, -the water is either too large or too small, unless, as previously remarked, you live near at hand, and can catch it at its best. A common belief in regard to loch-fishing is, that the tyro and the experienced angler have nearly the same chance in fishing, -the one from the stern and the other from the bow of the same boat. Of all the absurd beliefs as to loch-fishing, this is one of the most absurd. Try it. Give the tyro either end of the boat he likes give him a cast of ally flies he may fancy, or even a cast similar to those which a crack may be using and if he catches one for every three the other has, he may consider himself very lucky. Of course there are lochs where the fish are not abundant, and a beginner may come across as many as an older fisher but we speak of lochs where there are fish to be caught, and where each has a fair chance. Again, it is said that the boatman has as much to do with catching trout in a loch as the angler. Well, we dont deny that. In an untried loch it is necessary to have the guidance of a good boatman but the same argument holds good as to stream-fishing... (shrink)

PREFACE. THE Author of this very practical treatise on Scotch Loch - Fishing desires clearly that it may be of use to all who had it. He does not pretend to have written anything new, but to have attempted to put what he has to say in as readable a form as possible. Everything in the way of the history and habits of fish has been studiously avoided, and technicalities have been used as sparingly as possible. The writing of this (...) book has afforded him pleasure in his leisure moments, and that pleasure would be much increased if he knew that the perusal of it would create any bond of sympathy between himself and the angling community in general. This section is interleaved with blank shects for the readers notes. The Author need hardly say that any suggestions addressed to the case of the publishers, will meet with consideration in a future edition. We do not pretend to write or enlarge upon a new subject. Much has been said and written-and well said and written too on the art of fishing but loch-fishing has been rather looked upon as a second-rate performance, and to dispel this idea is one of the objects for which this present treatise has been written. Far be it from us to say anything against fishing, lawfully practised in any form but many pent up in our large towns will bear us out when me say that, on the whole, a days loch-fishing is the most convenient. One great matter is, that the loch-fisher is depend- ent on nothing but enough wind to curl the water, -and on a large loch it is very seldom that a dead calm prevails all day, -and can make his arrangements for a day, weeks beforehand whereas the stream- fisher is dependent for a good take on the state of the water and however pleasant and easy it may be for one living near the banks of a good trout stream or river, it is quite another matter to arrange for a days river-fishing, if one is looking forward to a holiday at a date some weeks ahead. Providence may favour the expectant angler with a good day, and the water in order but experience has taught most of us that the good days are in the minority, and that, as is the case with our rapid running streams, -such as many of our northern streams are, -the water is either too large or too small, unless, as previously remarked, you live near at hand, and can catch it at its best. A common belief in regard to loch-fishing is, that the tyro and the experienced angler have nearly the same chance in fishing, -the one from the stern and the other from the bow of the same boat. Of all the absurd beliefs as to loch-fishing, this is one of the most absurd. Try it. Give the tyro either end of the boat he likes give him a cast of ally flies he may fancy, or even a cast similar to those which a crack may be using and if he catches one for every three the other has, he may consider himself very lucky. Of course there are lochs where the fish are not abundant, and a beginner may come across as many as an older fisher but we speak of lochs where there are fish to be caught, and where each has a fair chance. Again, it is said that the boatman has as much to do with catching trout in a loch as the angler. Well, we dont deny that. In an untried loch it is necessary to have the guidance of a good boatman but the same argument holds good as to stream-fishing... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XXIII, Number 2, November 1997, pp. 227-244 Hume on Geometry and Infinite Divisibility in the Treatise H. MARK PRESSMAN Scholars have recognized that in the Treatise "Hume seeks to find a foundation for geometry in sense-experience."1 In this essay, I examine to what extent Hume succeeds in his attempt to ground geometry visually. I argue that the geometry Hume describes in the Treatise faces a serious (...) set of problems. Geometric Lines Hume maintains that ideas "are images" (T 6) which may be called up "when I shut my eyes" (T 3). "That we may fix the meaning of a word, figure," according to Hume, "we may revolve in our mind the ideas of circles, squares, parallelograms, triangles of different sizes and proportions, and may not rest on one image or idea" (T 22). As Arthur Pap notes, "'Idea' is in Hume's usage synonymous with 'mental image'." D.C.G. MacNabb also notes that "Hume thought of ideas as images, and primarily as visual images."2 When Hume argues, then, that "we have the idea of indivisible points, lines and surfaces conformable to the [geometer's] definition" (T 44), he is arguing that we have mental images of geometry's points, lines and planes. Consider geometric lines first. Geometers define a line "to be length without breadth or depth" (T 42). It is not apparent to everyone that we have mental images of such lines. According to "L'Art de penser" (T 43), published in 1662, it is impossible "to conceive a length without any breadth" (T 43). H. Mark Pressman is at the Department of Philosophy, University of California, Davis, 1238 Social Sciences and Humanities Building, Davis CA 95616-8673 USA. email: [email protected] 228 H. Mark Pressman We can only by an abstraction "consider the one without regarding the other" (T 43). Hume, however, offers "clear proof" (T 44), in the form of two arguments, that we actually possess ideas or mental images of geometry's lines. First, we have ideas or mental images of lengths with breadth, though these are supposed never to be without breadth and thus not geometric lines. (A mental image oflength is also a mental image with length, just as "to say the idea of extension agrees to any thing, is to say it is extended" [T 240].) Hume reduces to absurdity the view that our mental images of length are always with breadth and thus not images of geometric lines. If our length-images were always with breadth, then our mental images would be endlessly divisible in breadth, since they would always have some positive breadth (T 43). But no mental image is endlessly divisible, for the mind arrives "at an end in the division of its ideas, nor are there any possible means of evading the evidence of this conclusion" (T 27). We thus have an idea or image of length without (divisible) breadth conforming to the geometer's definition (T 44). Second, we can imagine or picture the termination of a geometric plane. But a geometric plane must terminate in a geometric line (T 44). (Proof: Assume L is a line with breadth which terminates plane P. Since L has breadth, L must contain at least two parts, w and y, exactly one of which actually terminates P. But whether it is w or y, L doesn't terminate P, which was the assumption.) Since we can picture the termination of a geometric plane, we can picture a geometric line, length without divisible breadth. It is one thing to have ideas or mental images of geometric lines which may be called up "when I shut my eyes" (T 3). It is another for such objects actually to exist "in nature." The conceptualist holds that though (a) geometry 's points, lines and planes are ideas, nevertheless (b) there are no such things in nature and that (c) there can't be such things in nature: [T]he objects of geometry... are mere ideas in the mind, and not only never did, but never can exist in nature. They never did exist; for no one will pretend to draw a line or make a... (shrink)

The design ideas of the postmodern era reflect the general trends of socio-cultural reality, namely the loss of traditional moral guidelines, disharmony and destructiveness combined with absurdity, a sense of crisis, abyss and uncertainty conveyed in signs and in spatial coordinates. Design products become installations in which the viewer is a direct participant, sometimes even the creator. Postmodern design denies finitude, noting the plurality, uncertainty and fluidity of the world. The paradox of postmodern design culture is expressed in a combination (...) of diametrically opposite things, sometimes even mutually exclusive. The era of postmodern design culture has recorded the fusion of "high" and "low" art, the emergence of new trends - neo-conceptual art, art installation, lowbrow art, performance art, digital art, telematic art - has affected. It should be noted the immersion in virtual reality in particular, as a result of the perception of the concept of postmodernism. After all, the purpose of designer items and their perception has already been changed in accordance with the needs of a person in the postmodern world. A striking example is the coronavirus epidemic, which has become the central theme of successful design projects. After all, a protective mask as a medical device becomes the object of design solutions that transform it into a means of self-expression, or the manifestation of social characteristics, or the result of digital achievements.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 122.1 (2001) 87-106 [Access article in PDF] Homo Fandi Dulcissimus: The Role of Favorinus in the Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius Stephen M. Beall ONE OF THE INDIRECT BENEFITS of reading the Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius is that he offers us a glimpse of the "smart set" of Antonine Rome. Many chapters are cast as anecdotes featuring Gellius' mentors and acquaintances, among whom he (...) counted such illustrious figures as Herodes Atticus, Marcus Fronto, and the grammarian known as Domitius "the Insane." But the "star" of the work is clearly Favorinus of Arles, a flamboyant orator who described his life in three paradoxes: he was a native of Gaul who spoke Greek, a eunuch who was accused of adultery, 1 and a citizen who quarreled with an emperor and lived (Philostratus, VS 489). To Gellius, he was "Favorinus noster," and the twenty-seven anecdotes involving him indicate that the two were on fairly intimate terms. 2We are left to wonder, however, how someone as eccentric as Favorinus should have become the special friend and mentor of a "fairly conservative, practically minded Roman" such as Gellius. 3 Perhaps, following Polemo, we can attribute the attraction to Favorinus' skill in the black arts. 4 It is more likely, however, that he possessed qualities that could be adapted to Gellius' intellectual program but which have not been fully elucidated by scholarship. 5 These can best be expounded, I believe, as three additional paradoxes: Favorinus was a polymath who passed for a philosopher, a philhellene who studied Roman culture, and [End Page 87] a Greek "Asianist" with ties to Latin archaism. All three paradoxes, as we shall see, relate to thematic issues in the Attic Nights and may help us to account for the paradoxical nature of the work as a whole. 1. Favorinus: The Miscellaneous Philosopher Favorinus' professional status was open to question even in antiquity. Philostratus describes him as a "philosopher" who "was called a sophist" by dint of his charm as a speaker (VS 489). The Suda puts the case less charitably, saying that "he was full of philosophy, but more devoted to rhetoric" (Phi 4). Lucian's Demonax found him too effeminate in style and appearance to wear the mantle (Demonax 12-13). When Favorinus claimed a philosopher's exemption from public service, the emperor Hadrian was prepared to rule against him (Philostratus, VS 490). Favorinus averted this disaster by accepting the priesthood in question, claiming that he had been advised to do so in a dream.The question of Favorinus' calling is further complicated by the mixed character of his published work, little of which survives. 6 He wrote treatises on philosophical skepticism, including the celebrated Pyrrhonian Tropes (Phil. VS 491; cf. Gellius, 11.5.5). 7 He did not, however, restrict himself to writing of a technical kind. He also produced two miscellanies, the Memorabilia and Omnigena Historia, which seem to have combined philosophical anecdotes with other sorts of trivia, including etymologies and wonder tales. 8 His oratorical remains likewise indicate a versatile and playful intellect. Two speeches preserved in the corpus of Dio Chrysostom (37, 64), and a third on a recently discovered papyrus, are notable for their witty use of stock themes and exempla. He declaimed on "absurd" themes, such as the virtues of Thersites and the advantages of the quartan fever (Gellius, NA 17.12). Indeed, he was so adept at sophistic role-playing that Gellius could not tell when he was speaking in earnest (14.1.2). Philostratus reports that he drew crowds with a highly musical style of speaking, at times almost like singing, which won applause even from people who could not understand Greek (VS 491).In the anecdotes of the Attic Nights, we find a similarly ambiguous [End Page 88] characterization. Although Gellius regularly honors his mentor with the epithet philosophus, 9 he praises him chiefly for the "sweetness of his diction," which, he says, held him captive for entire days (16.3.1; cf. 14.1.32). Elsewhere he lauds him... (shrink)

Widely recognized as the finest definition of existentialist philosophy ever written, this book introduced existentialism to America in 1958. Barrett speaks eloquently and directly to concerns of the 1990s: a period when the irrational and the absurd are no better integrated than before and when humankind is in even greater danger of destroying its existence without ever understanding the meaning of its existence. Irrational Man begins by discussing the roots of existentialism in the art and thinking of Augustine, Aquinas, (...) Pascal, Baudelaire, Blake, Dostoevski, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Picasso, Joyce, and Beckett. The heart of the book explains the views of the foremost existentialists—Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre. The result is a marvelously lucid definition of existentialism and a brilliant interpretation of its impact. (shrink)

Caffeine makes you sexy! This absurd slogan can be seen in the shop windows of a popular Brussels coffee chain – its bold pink lettering indicating how they are mainly targeting female customers. It is one of the silliest examples of something that is both very common and very worrisome nowadays, namely, the constant call on women to look ‘hot’ and conform to the standards of sexiness as they are projected in the media, entertainment industry, and advertising. But what (...) exactly is wrong with this state of affairs and what can be done about it? In a recent essay Sheila Lintott and Sherri Irvin take up this issue and make an elaborate case for what they call a ‘feminist reclamation’ of sexiness. This chapter investigates the merits and shortcomings of their proposal, presents an alternative account, and considers how pornography may be part of the problem but also part of the solution in this matter. (shrink)

PREFACE. THE Author of this very practical treatise on Scotch Loch - Fishing desires clearly that it may be of use to all who had it. He does not pretend to have written anything new, but to have attempted to put what he has to say in as readable a form as possible. Everything in the way of the history and habits of fish has been studiously avoided, and technicalities have been used as sparingly as possible. The writing of this (...) book has afforded him pleasure in his leisure moments, and that pleasure would be much increased if he knew that the perusal of it would create any bond of sympathy between himself and the angling community in general. This section is interleaved with blank shects for the readers notes. The Author need hardly say that any suggestions addressed to the case of the publishers, will meet with consideration in a future edition. We do not pretend to write or enlarge upon a new subject. Much has been said and written-and well said and written too on the art of fishing but loch-fishing has been rather looked upon as a second-rate performance, and to dispel this idea is one of the objects for which this present treatise has been written. Far be it from us to say anything against fishing, lawfully practised in any form but many pent up in our large towns will bear us out when me say that, on the whole, a days loch-fishing is the most convenient. One great matter is, that the loch-fisher is depend- ent on nothing but enough wind to curl the water, -and on a large loch it is very seldom that a dead calm prevails all day, -and can make his arrangements for a day, weeks beforehand whereas the stream- fisher is dependent for a good take on the state of the water and however pleasant and easy it may be for one living near the banks of a good trout stream or river, it is quite another matter to arrange for a days river-fishing, if one is looking forward to a holiday at a date some weeks ahead. Providence may favour the expectant angler with a good day, and the water in order but experience has taught most of us that the good days are in the minority, and that, as is the case with our rapid running streams, -such as many of our northern streams are, -the water is either too large or too small, unless, as previously remarked, you live near at hand, and can catch it at its best. A common belief in regard to loch-fishing is, that the tyro and the experienced angler have nearly the same chance in fishing, -the one from the stern and the other from the bow of the same boat. Of all the absurd beliefs as to loch-fishing, this is one of the most absurd. Try it. Give the tyro either end of the boat he likes give him a cast of ally flies he may fancy, or even a cast similar to those which a crack may be using and if he catches one for every three the other has, he may consider himself very lucky. Of course there are lochs where the fish are not abundant, and a beginner may come across as many as an older fisher but we speak of lochs where there are fish to be caught, and where each has a fair chance. Again, it is said that the boatman has as much to do with catching trout in a loch as the angler. Well, we dont deny that. In an untried loch it is necessary to have the guidance of a good boatman but the same argument holds good as to stream-fishing... (shrink)

The debates now in progress about the interactions of science and art compel one involuntarily to recall that such discussions have been held more than once and were, a long time ago, perhaps no less heated. It suffices to cite virtually at random certain statements of Pisarev, for example , for us to see, as in a cloudy mirror, both today's advocates of scientism and the romantics of art. Does this mean that all we need is to bear in mind (...) the wise words of the past in order to advance, as is believed by Iu. I. Kagarlitskii ? Obviously, that is not the case. The problem of the interactions of science and art is a philosophical one, not one of natural science; and the results achieved in debates of the past do not eliminate the questions of world view that constantly arise anew. Philosophy has no axioms such as exist in mathematics. It is therefore difficult to imagine that subsequent history has added nothing whatever to the understanding of past debates. Yet reference to these debates would appear to be essential today to clarify at least one of the factors of the problem we have posed. It might appear that this factor has been pointed to, but it has constantly been beclouded by the explanations of how science influences artists, and how art influences scientists who are at the same time artists, by references to the unity of the creative character of science and art, and so forth. In my opinion, it is essential, however, to emphasize that the very problematics of the interactions between science and art depend on the social and cultural environment within which they exist and are discussed. Turning to the past, we can see that science and art are not realms of activity handed down to humankind "since the creation of the world." They develop in the "body," if one may put it thus, of a specific socium, a specific culture. It would, of course, be absurd to conceive of any direct contact between science and art without the mediation of human beings, of society, of culture. Moreover, the debates themselves are determined by the level at which science and art are found within a given sociocultural space, by virtue of which analysis of these debates may provide data to the researcher for an understanding of the direction of social development. The RST influences all spheres of human activity, including the esthetic. Today, however, particularly in the West, there is a tendency to elevate the significance of the RST to an absolute, to explain many processes by its direct influence on social consciousness independently of the social conditions in which it occurs. Therefore, it would seem to be methodologically important for today's debates to demonstrate, on the basis of some concrete historical material, the connection between those shifts in social consciousness that sometimes explain the direct influence of progress in science and technology, on the one hand, and certain sociocultural conditions, on the other. (shrink)

With Hegel’s observations in his Lectures on Aesthetics, on the difference between the epic poetry of the ancients and the novel as the dominant literary form of the present, we are at the center of these meditations. The great epic poems of antiquity, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, for instance, or Virgil’s Aeneid, reflect not only the minds of certain poets; they are, at the same time, as are all great literary works, recognizable as the product of an age; and the (...) age of Homer, the age of epic poetry, Hegel characterizes as a “fundamentally poetic state of the world,” that is a world in which poetry is not merely written, but, as it were, lived. The active intervention and participation of gods in the lives of mortals; groves and springs and hills as the habitats of nymphs and fauns; the poetic comprehension of what is, was at that time not a matter of the poetic imagination at work in the minds of a few chosen individuals, of artists whose successors, much later in history, more often than not lamented their separation from their contemporary surroundings, but was “natural,” a matter of fact, of ways of thinking and feeling shared by the whole community. It is not absurd to say that in such a world our distinctions between imagination and fact were of little importance, if not unknown. It is this that led the young Nietzsche to accuse the first great analytical rationalist of Greece, Socrates, the indefatigable questioner, of having destroyed mythology, of having helped to bring about the end of tragedy, indeed, of Greek art. (shrink)

Valerie Solanas deserves fresh assessment. An innovator whose aberrant humour has not been fully recognized, Solanas embarked on the male-dominated route of a type of satire that has most commonly been represented in the form of male stand-up comedy. She does not engage in the irony, absurdly overstated ‘femininity’ or parodic self-reference with which many women comedians have ridiculed male behaviour. Her Scum Manifesto (1968) declares war on the patriarchal establishment in all its multiple forms: government, capitalism, the economy, law, (...) work, the family and male sexuality. She uses the term men to condemn all persons of either sex who perpetuate the supremacy of patriarchal institutions, which she believes in all seriousness to be a deadly threat to humanity. Solanas also denounces all forms of withdrawal, separatism and élitism, which, in her view, seriously compromise the wider political applications of SCUM. This paper interprets the notorious shooting of Andy Warhol, which, especially since the film made on this subject, is often uncritically regarded as proof of Solanas’s insanity, as an iconoclastic act of theatre in which Solanas abandoned clear-cut distinctions between life and art. (shrink)

Capricci are nonsense drawings that delineate an elusive but inevitable sense behind or, better, within the palpable nonsense of the elementary proposition of a drawing; they are capers on a tightrope stretched between the poles of pathos and the ridiculous. We shall succeed in not falling only if we step forward boldly and know not only what we are doing but also what we are up against in the making of a picture as well as in living in the world. (...) For the world, in its yawning impudence of death and the dance of blind eagerness, ambition, and noisy speechlessness, makes us look to art not, or not necessarily, to escape from the world but rather to learn how to take its measure. . . . There is a painting ["St. Vincent Ferrer Preaching"] joined to the Passion cycle in S. Polo which demonstrates as well as any paradox ever will how Giandomenico joined piety and irony in his religious art without curtailing the glory of either. He arrives, as it were, at a God-fearing irony. We see St. Vincent Ferrer preaching. He speaks so eloquently, so convincingly in praise of the divine truth, that light shines forth from him and angel's wings grow on his shoulders. Fascinated by the miracle but even more so by the saint's words, his audience sits spellbound at his feet; in the foreground, however, sits a youth, a fop perhaps, gorgeously dressed, with a singular smile on his face, his hand musingly poised to his cheek, who looks at us quizzically. He is the link between us and the miracle. "Can you believe it?" says the smile, and perhaps "I did not—and yes—how can you now not believe it, you need but look - as I did - for there it is!" It is, I think, the face of one who knows about the truth of the absurd and its inner logic. Credo quia absurdum: if it were not so, we could prove the existence of God by feeding data into a computer, and there would be many believers, whose faith, in turn, deserved but little credit. Needless to say, perhaps, the face that so speaks to us in laughter joined to wonder is a self-portrait.1 · 1. In S. Polo the painting of St. Vincent Ferrer Preaching hangs opposite a matching picture of The Finding of the True Cross. There is a beautiful young woman on the right who looks at us beseechingly and with her right hand points at the cross. Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo who looks out of St. Vincent Ferrer Preaching cannot help but see this lady and be affected by her earnest gesture. For a reproduction of the painting, see Maruz, G. D. Tiepolo, plate 22. Philipp P. Fehl is a professor in the department of art and design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has edited Franciscus Junius: The Literature of Classical Art. His previous contribution to Critical Inquiry, "Turner's Classicism and the Problem of Periodization in the History of Art," appeared in the Autumn 1976 issue; the present essay was delivered in an earlier version at Stanford University in 1976 and is included in his collection of essays, Art and Mortality. His capricci, Birds with Titles, were exhibited in a one-man show at Kenyon College. (shrink)

Capricci are nonsense drawings that delineate an elusive but inevitable sense behind or, better, within the palpable nonsense of the elementary proposition of a drawing; they are capers on a tightrope stretched between the poles of pathos and the ridiculous. We shall succeed in not falling only if we step forward boldly and know not only what we are doing but also what we are up against in the making of a picture as well as in living in the world. (...) For the world, in its yawning impudence of death and the dance of blind eagerness, ambition, and noisy speechlessness, makes us look to art not, or not necessarily, to escape from the world but rather to learn how to take its measure.... There is a painting ["St. Vincent Ferrer Preaching"] joined to the Passion cycle in S. Polo which demonstrates as well as any paradox ever will how Giandomenico joined piety and irony in his religious art without curtailing the glory of either. He arrives, as it were, at a God-fearing irony. We see St. Vincent Ferrer preaching. He speaks so eloquently, so convincingly in praise of the divine truth, that light shines forth from him and angel's wings grow on his shoulders. Fascinated by the miracle but even more so by the saint's words, his audience sits spellbound at his feet; in the foreground, however, sits a youth, a fop perhaps, gorgeously dressed, with a singular smile on his face, his hand musingly poised to his cheek, who looks at us quizzically. He is the link between us and the miracle. "Can you believe it?" says the smile, and perhaps "I did not—and yes—how can you now not believe it, you need but look - as I did - for there it is!" It is, I think, the face of one who knows about the truth of the absurd and its inner logic. Credo quia absurdum: if it were not so, we could prove the existence of God by feeding data into a computer, and there would be many believers, whose faith, in turn, deserved but little credit. Needless to say, perhaps, the face that so speaks to us in laughter joined to wonder is a self-portrait.1 · 1. In S. Polo the painting of St. Vincent Ferrer Preaching hangs opposite a matching picture of The Finding of the True Cross. There is a beautiful young woman on the right who looks at us beseechingly and with her right hand points at the cross. Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo who looks out of St. Vincent Ferrer Preaching cannot help but see this lady and be affected by her earnest gesture. For a reproduction of the painting, see Maruz, G. D. Tiepolo, plate 22. Philipp P. Fehl is a professor in the department of art and design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has edited Franciscus Junius: The Literature of Classical Art. His previous contribution to Critical Inquiry, "Turner's Classicism and the Problem of Periodization in the History of Art," appeared in the Autumn 1976 issue; the present essay was delivered in an earlier version at Stanford University in 1976 and is included in his collection of essays, Art and Mortality. His capricci, Birds with Titles, were exhibited in a one-man show at Kenyon College. (shrink)

In the fourth section of Goethe’s Zahme Xenien we find the quatrain from which I have taken the theme of such an old and new controversy, which, as I hope, concerns both Germanic studies and the other humanities: “What was it that kept you from us so apart?” I always read Plutarch again and again. “And what was the lesson he did impart?” “They were all human beings—so much is plain.”1 In the very years when Goethe wrote these lines, that (...) is in the 1820s, Hegel repeatedly gave his lectures on the philosophy of history. Right at the beginning he formulated the opposite view which I should like briefly to characterize as “cultural relativism.”Every age has such peculiar circumstances, such individual conditions that it must be interpreted, and can only be interpreted, by reference to itself…. Nothing is shallower in this respect than the frequent appeal to Greek and Roman example which so often occurred among the French at the time of their Revolution. Nothing could be more different than the nature of these peoples and the nature of our own times.2 What is at issue here is not, of course, Hegel’s assertion that ages and peoples differ from each other. We all know that, and Goethe, the attentive reader and traveler, also knew, for instance, that the Roman carnival differed in its character from the celebrations of the Feast of Saint Rochus at Bingen, both of which he had described so lovingly. What makes the cultural historian into a cultural relativist is only the conclusion which we saw Hegel draw, that cultures and styles of life are not only different but wholly incommensurable, in other words that it is absurd to compare the peoples of a region or an age with human beings of other zones because there is no common denominator that would justify us in doing so. 1. ‘Was hat dich nun von uns entfernt?’ Hab immer den Plutarch gelesen. ‘Was has du den dabei gelernt?’ Sind eben alles Menschen gewesen.’ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Sämtlich Werke. Jubiläums-ausgabe in 40 Bänden 4:73; with commentary.2. See Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vorselungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte, Werke, 20 vols. , 12:17. E. H. Gombrich was director of the Warburg Institute and Professor of the History of the Classical Tradition at the University of London from 1959 to 1976. His many influential works include The Story of Art, Art and Illusion, Meditations on a Hobby Horse, The Sense of Order, Ideals and Idols, The Image and the Eye, Tributes, Aby Warburg, and New Light on Old Masters. His previous contributions to Critical Inquiry include “The Museum: Past, Present and Future” , “Standards of Truth: The Arrested Image and the Moving Eye” , and “Representation and Misrepresentation”. (shrink)

Bill Griffith is best known as the creator of the Zippy daily comic strip, currently running in over 300 newspapers nationwide, but Zippy was conceived as an underground comix character before he became embraced in the mainstream. Beginning in 1969, Griffith contributed stories to a long list of legendary undergrounds. Lost and Found is not only a collection of these underground comix — hand-picked by the artist himself — but a mini-memoir of the artist’s comix career during the early days (...) of the San Francisco Underground and his nearly twenty year on-again, off-again involvement with Hollywood and TV. This collection from one of the great, pioneering cartoonists also features Griffith’s comics for High Times, The National Lampoon, The San Francisco Examiner and The New Yorker. (shrink)

Globalization trends of culture, the idea of multiculturalism, bringing and acceptance of foreign elements into the culture, open coquetry of the "West" with culture and arts of the "East", eclecticism, but also paradoxical what happened to be the fate of modern art after postmodern deconstruction of the meaning and the reduction of his function to ability to serve in variable updating roles towards individual and society, is 46 years after the release of books Asphyxiating Culture repeatedly bringing me to read (...) and review it. The topic, therefore, is to examine the validity of Dubuffet appeal, its insertion into the broader context of the forms of "dehumanization" of art, but also review of the reference just in the context of relations culture - art. New search respectively the determination of periphery in arts and culture should besides unfinished theme energizing academic debate of last years, if not decades, thus defining theme of Art, can and should briefly look at the issue of the institutionalization of art; the relationship of artistic production and its cultural context, which is not transferable; "foucaultian" power of discourse established by culture; extremely interesting affinity of art and advertising; aestheticism of culture; enforcement of discontinuity issues and pluralism as in the thought also within the artistic creation, namely for topics that Dubuffet advises and argumentations plays. Nearly half a century after his call and its final words -"therefore, our artistic production, which is not subjected to a thorough critique of culture and effectively not reveals the futility and absurdity, is no refuge for us" - we need to talk about our accountability. Dubuffet today. (shrink)

continent. 2.1 (2012): 56–58 Nechvatal, Joseph, Immersion Into Noise , Open Humanities Press, 2011, 267 pp, $23.99 (pbk), ISBN 1-60785-241-1. As someone who’s knowledge of “art” mostly began with the domestic (Western) and Japanese punk and noise scenes of the late 80’s and early 90’s, practices and theories of noise fall rather close to my heart. It is peeking into the esoteric enclaves of weird music and noise that helped me understand what I think I might like art to be: (...) A way of learning about the world through perturbation—exploration by incitement and speculation of possible conditions. What I have always loved about artistic investigations influenced by noisy aesthetics or sensibilities is that they can be simultaneously transcendent and absurd, amusing and revelatory, singular and pluralistic, mindless and intensely penetrating. The provocative friction that noise brings to bear on aesthetic experience, artistic practice, and “the” Art World acts as a kind of impulse response, proposing new energies while revealing underlying structure; noise signals are a simultaneous synthesis and analysis of spaces, subjects and relations. About two weeks prior to Christmas 2011, Joseph Nechvatal was generous enough to spend some time with me at 39 Quai des Grands Augustins, Paris . We each had one glass of red wine, briefly discussed common acquaintances, shared points of interest, and his published writings. We also, I recall, disagreed lightheartedly about how much contemporary relevance the ideas of telematic-artist Roy Ascott have for today’s art-and-technology practitioner (Joseph > Jamie). After the encounter, I read through a PDF version of Immersion Into Noise Joseph was kind enough to send me ( the HTML version is here ). A number of points of entry into cultures of “noise” are available these days. There are the acoustic-spatial approaches of thinkers like Douglas Kahn, Brandon LaBelle and Salome Voegelin; the techno-cultural musicologies of Jonathan Sterne and David Toop; the political writings of Jacques Attali, former adviser to President François Mitterrand, in his Noise: The Political Economy of Music (spoiler alert: It’s not really about music). Enter the new writings of one Joseph Nechvatal, with his invitation of an Immersion Into Noise . Nechvatal has been active for over 20 years in on- and off-line discussions of art, technology, virtuality, as well as his own set of art-theoretical departures and terminologies. A practicing artist, and instructor at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, Immersion Into Noise , is Nechvatal’s third published volume. His writings, broadly, address a concern with the possibilities of a synthesis between the biological and the virtual, and the contemporary artistic resonances that these possibilities suggest. Nechvatal’s project is to try to name contemporary currents of artistic practice within our technologized culture. He comes at this through art history, post-modern philosophy, anthropology and consciousness studies. Portions of Immersion Into Noise have appeared in his PhD dissertation, as well as online art publications like Zing Magazine . An open-access publication, and part of the impressive and heartening activities of the Open Humanities Press, Nechvatal’s book is a somewhat unexpected addition to the Critical Climate Change series edited by Tom Cohen of SUNY University and Claire Colebrook of Penn State. Other titles in the series have address themes of post-globalism and cultures of threat. Joseph Nachvetal’s title is the first to focus entirely on art history, art practice and aesthetics. It is awkward to too easily fit Nechvatal’s writings in with the aforementioned burgeoning canon of cultural and artistic practice in, and writings on, noise (Russolo, Schaeffer, Cage and Yves Klein through to Kahn, LaBelle, Voegelin, et. al). Immersion Into Noise is not primarily an examination of sound-noise or phenomenologies of sound, and the relativist, non-objectivist possibilities arising therefrom in social, public, and exhibition art practices. Although Nechvatal makes mention of sonic practice and experience (his own encounter in 1968 with the technological complex was set in motion at a Jimi Hendrix concert at the Chicago Coliseum), he does so only by way of introducing a broader concept of “art-noise.” The noise-scape can envelope various kinds of involvement in all kinds of art, by artists, audiences, and distributed amalgams of all of these. Midway through the book, we are offered characteristics of an “immersive noise vision theory.” This theory, leading to an even more syncretic thinking about the art experience, is sketched out through further reference to the author’s personal observation, as well as his art-historical research and notes. Personal examples take on the reflex of a kind of art-noise-travel-writing, as Nechvatal visits Ryoji Ikeda’s Datamatics [ver 2.0] installation at the Centre Pompidou, Paris), hears Cecil Taylor at Alice Tully Hall in New York, spends time with the cave paintings of Lascaux, France, and explores the Wagner-inspired Venus Grotto of Linderhof, Bavaria, to name a few. These site-events, to varying degrees, are renderings of noise-art’s potential to “place us back into a ritual position by dragging art down into the felt 360° noise-perspective of the enthusiastic and participatory.” (p.103) The arc of the ideas proposed here position immersiveness, saturation and “scopic all-over tension” as most productively foundational to noise art, or art-noise. An itinerary from the most ancient of artistic expressions (cave drawings) to the most digital of presentations is charted (Ikeda’s minimal/maximal bitwise works for synchronized audio and visual projection). The harsh sonic onslaught of Masami Akita (a.k.a. Merzbow), is, under this analysis, not so far from colossal denseness of the churches of the High Baroque (Nechvatal visits the Rosario Chapel in Santo Domingo Church, Puebla, Mexico). And there is much more here, eaten up by noise: A rethinking of the work of Duchamp, Jackson Pollock, Nicolas Schöffler (whom Nechvatal names the true “the Father of Cybernetic Art”) and the Happenings of Alan Kaprow, all as art-noise in their own right. Each of these artists and moments demonstrate techniques of destabilization, immersiveness, frame-breaking and “all-over fullness and fervor.” Here is writing on art and art history that is as ambitious as it is promising: “wildly visionary,” Nechvatal states as in conclusion. Self-admittedly far-reaching to the point of verging on totalization, we are asked to consider that the moments, spaces, arts and artists Nechvatal appreciates in the book all derive from an increasingly prevalent “noise consciousness.” Along the way we gain an appreciation of noise as a productive and proactive tension in art, rather than an unwanted signal or unwelcome intrusion. Most promising here for me are Nechvatal’s revealing descriptions of the potential for noise to make manifest the material-perceptual framework of individual and collective art experience. How might we allow what we have been repeatedly taught is our contemporary condition of “information overload” to transform itself into a calm, warm, sympathetic kind of inundation. Treatment of experience in this way, dissolves boundaries between the bodily, informational, material and technical complexes that make up our world, and is the promise of a radical, if momentary, Immersion Into Noise. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Wittgenstein, Tolstoy, and ShakespearePeter B. LewisNear the middle of the first of his 1938 Lectures on Aesthetics, Wittgenstein talks about what he calls "the tremendous things in art"(LC, I 23 8, italics in original).1 Apart from a brief indication of the way in which our response to the tremendous differs from the non-tremendous, he does not refer again in this way to the tremendous things in art, though he (...) does refer elsewhere to what he calls "supreme art." But he does provide a couple of examples of the tremendous in art, the symphonies of Beethoven and Gothic Cathedrals. Suppose, now, like the student in the Investigations §185, we are asked to continue the series. I take it that, even given the lack of information, we could safely propose, say, Homer—the Iliad and the Odyssey—and Michelangelo—the Sistine Chapel—as further examples of the tremendous things in art. The idea is that the tremendous things in art are not works that are just very good or very fine, but rather they are great, supremely great; works of stature; special cases; instances of the highest kind of artistic achievement, occupying a distinctive place in the history of (Western) civilization.Another obvious candidate for the list of the tremendous things in art would be Shakespeare, where the name is shorthand for the great plays, the tragedies in particular, Lear, Hamlet, Othello,and so on. So it comes as something of a surprise to discover on reading that miscellaneous compendium of remarks known as Culture and Value that Wittgenstein himself had serious doubts about including Shakespeare in the pantheon of the tremendous things in art. There are seven passages in Culture and Value in which Wittgenstein reflects on Shakespeare.2 The earliest is dated 1939–40, though this passage does not appear to be critical of Shakespeare. The next two passages are [End Page 241] dated August 1946, the remainder coming in 1949 and 1950. The remarks critical of Shakespeare are, then, all very much late Wittgenstein.It is well-known that lots of people dislike Shakespeare's plays. Generations of school children have developed indifference or boredom or hatred that persists throughout their lives. And yet that does not count against Shakespeare's greatness; for, to borrow Hume's remark on those who would prefer Ogilby to Milton, "no one pays attention to such a taste; and we pronounce without scruple the sentiment of these [people] to be absurd and ridiculous."3 That rhetoric is, however, not available, at least not immediately, when the "pretended critic" (Hume's phrase) has the intellectual clout and aesthetic sensibility of a Wittgenstein; nor, for that matter, the artistic achievement of a Tolstoy.I have particular grounds for bringing Tolstoy into this discussion. In the first place, there is the importance of Tolstoy in the development of Wittgenstein's thinking about religious, moral and aesthetic issues. Secondly, it is by contrast with Tolstoy's criticism of Shakespeare that we can gain further understanding of Wittgenstein's remarks on Shakespeare. These two points are related. For it seems to me that it is partly through his reflections on Tolstoy's theories about art that Wittgenstein is led into commenting upon Shakespeare.Tolstoy famously attacks Shakespeare in his pamphlet, "Shakespeare and the Drama,"4 published in 1903 when Tolstoy was seventy-five years of age. Some have taken this essay as evidence that Tolstoy was in his dotage, his mind warped by religious-moralistic fervor. Not only does this fail to do justice to Tolstoy's reasons for criticizing Shakespeare—reasons that Howard Mounce has recently argued are by no means ridiculous5 —it also neglects the fact that the essay is the culmination of Tolstoy's life-long antagonism to Shakespeare. Nevertheless, that very slur on Tolstoy's sanity attests to Shakespeare's status in our culture as something tremendous. His achievement is a standard against which others are measured. And this, I think, is at least partly what Wittgenstein is hinting at in his remarks about the contrast between the tremendous and the non-tremendous in art when he says of the tremendous that "it plays an entirely different role... (shrink)

What kind of reading and viewing space is created within contemporary platforms? While existing research has explored the impact of surveillance, this article moves on to theoretically discuss the intersection of technosocial reading. It examines how algorithmic interpellation and profiling function as enunciative strategies, and how this is explored from a transgender perspective. The article raises theoretical questions about the flattening of enunciation and its implications for a critical reading and observation space. To further explore these concepts, it analyses Ada (...) Ada Ada’s year-long in transitu Instagram performance. Through this analysis, the challenges posed by fixed, binary gender categorisations prevalent on platforms like Instagram are unpacked. Ada Ada Ada’s performance serves as an imminent criticism of the enunciative, representational and gender policies of platforms, demonstrating their arbitrary and absurd nature. Ultimately, in transitu invites platform users to reconsider their roles as technosocial readers and observers. (shrink)

Ours is an age full of desires but impoverished in its understanding of where those desires lead—an age that claims mastery over the world but also claims to find the world as a whole absurd or unintelligible. In The Vision of the Soul, James Matthew Wilson seeks to conserve the great insights of the western tradition by giving us a new account of them responsive to modern discontents. The western— or Christian Platonist—tradition, he argues, tells us that man is (...) an intellectual animal, born to pursue the good, to know the true, and to contemplate all things in beauty. Wilson begins by reconceiving the intellectual conservatism born of Edmund Burke’s jeremiad against the French Revolution as an effort to preserve the West’s vision of man and the cosmos as ordered by and to beauty. After defining the achievement of that vision and its tradition, Wilson offers an extended study of the nature of beauty and the role of the fine arts in shaping a culture but above all in opening the human intellect to the perception of the form of reality. Through close studies of Theodor W. Adorno and Jacques Maritain, he recovers the classical vision of beauty as a revelation of truth and being. Finally, he revisits the ancient distinction between reason and story-telling, between mythos and logos, in order to rejoin the two. Story-telling is foundational to the forms of the fine arts, but it is no less foundational to human reason. Human life in turn constitutes a specific kind of form—a story form. The ancient conception of human life as a pilgrimage to beauty itself is one that we can fully embrace only if we see the essential correlation between reason and story and the essential convertibility of truth, goodness and beauty in beauty. By turns a study in fundamental ontology, aesthetics, and political philosophy, Wilson’s book invites its readers to a renewal of the West’s intellectual tradition. (shrink)

Im März 2020 änderte sich das Leben für viele (nicht nur in Deutschland) radikal. Das Virus SARS-CoV-2, besser bekannt als „COVID-19-“ oder „Corona-Virus“, breitete sich als Verursacher einer zwischenzeitlich global virulenten Pandemie in unvermuteter Geschwindigkeit aus. Es verwundert nicht, dass viele in dieser unsicheren Zeit auf der Suche nach Orientierung nach scheinbar bekannten Mustern fahnden. Ein solches Muster glaubten offenbar einige, in Camus’ Roman "Die Pest" finden zu können, ein Roman, der – dem Titel nach – auch von einer Seuche (...) zu erzählen scheint. Befasst man sich mit dem Werk von Albert Camus, dem Philosophen und Literaturnobelpreisträger, kommt man schwerlich umhin, eines der Grundprobleme der Philosophie als einer akademischen Disziplin zu thematisieren, an der zweifelsohne ein öffentliches Interesse besteht, die sich aber in der Rolle des Um-Rat-Gefragten notorisch unwohl zu fühlen scheint. In diesem Beitrag werden die Thesen Albert Camus’ zur Relevanz der Kunst, zu deren Spannungsverhältnis zur akademischen Philosophie und zur Rolle beider in unserer krisengeschüttelten Gesellschaft untersucht. (shrink)

The article aims to present, in a comparative analysis between the romanticist value subjectivity and the postmodern one (which for Lyotard is no less “tribute to romanticism”), the metamorphosis of the most reflective, or borderline aesthetic categories-values (the sublime, the ironic, the tragic as a “tragedy of existence” in the sense of Losev; the absurd in its aesthetic interpretation, etc.): how, after the “verticals of the Spirit” have been torn out and in the conditions of “a thousand plateaus”, these (...) values continue to be not just thinkable and possible, but precisely they give legitimacy to the modern aesthetic. This is also the context of interpretation of the question of the end of romanticism, logically intertwined with other discussed ends with an axiological basis—of the complete personality, of art, of “great narratives”…. (shrink)

PREFACE. THE Author of this very practical treatise on Scotch Loch - Fishing desires clearly that it may be of use to all who had it. He does not pretend to have written anything new, but to have attempted to put what he has to say in as readable a form as possible. Everything in the way of the history and habits of fish has been studiously avoided, and technicalities have been used as sparingly as possible. The writing of this (...) book has afforded him pleasure in his leisure moments, and that pleasure would be much increased if he knew that the perusal of it would create any bond of sympathy between himself and the angling community in general. This section is interleaved with blank shects for the readers notes. The Author need hardly say that any suggestions addressed to the case of the publishers, will meet with consideration in a future edition. We do not pretend to write or enlarge upon a new subject. Much has been said and written-and well said and written too on the art of fishing but loch-fishing has been rather looked upon as a second-rate performance, and to dispel this idea is one of the objects for which this present treatise has been written. Far be it from us to say anything against fishing, lawfully practised in any form but many pent up in our large towns will bear us out when me say that, on the whole, a days loch-fishing is the most convenient. One great matter is, that the loch-fisher is depend- ent on nothing but enough wind to curl the water, -and on a large loch it is very seldom that a dead calm prevails all day, -and can make his arrangements for a day, weeks beforehand whereas the stream- fisher is dependent for a good take on the state of the water and however pleasant and easy it may be for one living near the banks of a good trout stream or river, it is quite another matter to arrange for a days river-fishing, if one is looking forward to a holiday at a date some weeks ahead. Providence may favour the expectant angler with a good day, and the water in order but experience has taught most of us that the good days are in the minority, and that, as is the case with our rapid running streams, -such as many of our northern streams are, -the water is either too large or too small, unless, as previously remarked, you live near at hand, and can catch it at its best. A common belief in regard to loch-fishing is, that the tyro and the experienced angler have nearly the same chance in fishing, -the one from the stern and the other from the bow of the same boat. Of all the absurd beliefs as to loch-fishing, this is one of the most absurd. Try it. Give the tyro either end of the boat he likes give him a cast of ally flies he may fancy, or even a cast similar to those which a crack may be using and if he catches one for every three the other has, he may consider himself very lucky. Of course there are lochs where the fish are not abundant, and a beginner may come across as many as an older fisher but we speak of lochs where there are fish to be caught, and where each has a fair chance. Again, it is said that the boatman has as much to do with catching trout in a loch as the angler. Well, we dont deny that. In an untried loch it is necessary to have the guidance of a good boatman but the same argument holds good as to stream-fishing... (shrink)

This article aims to make a distinction among contemporary artworks that use algorithmic technologies. Departing from Science, Technology and Society (STS) studies, the focus is given to artworks that use algorithmic agencies, as assemblages of human and nonhuman entities. Making an ethno-methodological analysis of three artworks, The Pitiful Story of Deniz Yılmaz (2015–present) of Bager Akbay, Artificial Intelligence for Governance, the Kitty AI (2016) of Pınar Yoldaş and Plantoid (2015) of Primavera Di Filippi, the article examines paratactical use of algorithmic (...) agencies in contemporary artistic practice. Exploring, revealing and learning from the tactics used by platforms, corporations and institutions that control and govern, paratactical use of algorithmic agencies generates a self-reflexive perspective on such tactics of control. Paratactical works also explore absurdities and contingencies embedded in algorithmic technologies. They work within failures and errors, and perform subversive ways of thinking, acting and enacting. In conclusion, paratactical works deal with the reproduction, distribution and normalization of ignorance, extinction, degeneration, corruption and destruction. (shrink)

First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In this groundbreaking book David Roberts sets out to demonstrate the centrality of the total work of art to European modernism since the French Revolution.