This essay takes a synthetic and critical approach to the scattered pieces of art criticism and aesthetic theory authored by Louis Althusser. Connecting these texts to his larger philosophical and political project, we argue that these reflections make an independent contribution to its worth and that they offer different perspectives on lingering theoretical problems. We piece together the insights that form the core of the Althusserian approach to aesthetics and show how these are formulated and trace how their formulations take (...) shape in relation to the work of different authors and artists. In addition to helping us better understand his overall project, Althusser’s aesthetic theory is, we argue, a powerful and original contribution to Marxist aesthetics. Specifically, it points us to the idea that we need to take aesthetic production seriously as a practice with its own specificity – one that has its own logics of determination, rituals of production, circulation, and consumption, one that commands effects that need to be theorized on their own terms. (shrink)

Philosophical and aestethical aspects of music development in Indonesia.

My starting assumption concerns the default view in western aestethics. My claim is that the view can be characterized in the following manner: while the arts and religious experience are formally different kinds of human experience, the arts have the same content of religious experience (Essentialist claim, EC). I argue that both from a realist and antirealist standpoint EC does not make sense. Consequently, EC should be rejected as the right approach to the relation between the arts and religious (...) experience. (shrink)

Critique of the Power of Judgment is the third work of Kant’s critical philosophy. Kant states that he has put this work on paper to complement his critical philosophy. This statement of completion constitutes the transition that is required between the theoretical and practical areas of philosophy. According to Kant, transition from the theortical area, or natural area to the practical area, or the area of freedom is not possible. Moreover, principals in the area of freedom need to be realised (...) in the area of nature. Kant has presented a system that establishes art as the bridge from the area of freedom to the area of nature. With regard to this system, genius is the skill that provides the rules for art through nature and as one definition of beautiful in Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant identifies beautiful as the transition of aesthetical ideas thorough genius. This transition occurs as a result of the judgment of taste by means of the free play of imagination and understanding. My aim in this study is to clarify how imagination that is not limited by understanding widens up and is presented as [non-conceptional] aestethical ideas through art. In order to put forth this representation with all its clarity, I will try to elucidate the meaning of the transition from the practical area of philosophy to its theoretical area, which is crucial according to Kant. In this contect, I wil emphasize the nature of judgments of taste, relation of nature-art, classification of fine arts, and the role of genius in emerging aestethical ideas. (shrink)

Against certain positivistic and neopositivistic strictures still rooted in our society, Agazzi argues that knowing the invisible is possible, not just in science, but also in metaphysics, in morals, in aesthetics, and in other areas, including, in a sense, religion. The book also examines many examples of such knowledge, surveying not only the great classics of philosophy, but various immortal masterpieces of art, music and literature. It is not just a treatise in epistemology, but a book of philosophy in the (...) most complete and traditional sense, for it discusses knowledge not only for its own sake, but also as a guide to culture, morality, happiness and to the sense of life. Thus, it also provides some important suggestions on how to face our time of crisis and an uncertain future. Despite Agazzi’s proverbial rigor and clarity, his project is so momentous and demanding that I discuss certain points which might deserve further explication and argumentation. (shrink)

Los materiales que integran este libro provienen del II Encuentro de Egresados realizado en el verano de 2012 por la Maestría en Estética y Arte de la BUAP. Regresaban a su academia los que alguna vez fueron sus estudiantes. Venían con el propósito de reencontrarse con los avances investigativos de sus profesores y a traer ellos mismos los resultados de la continuidad de su trabajo de investigación. Algunos dejaron también en el encuentro una muestra de su arte. El ciclo de (...) conferencias impartido por profesores de la planta académica y por varios invitados encuentra su plasmación en la primera parte del libro intitulada “Desde la academia”. “De regreso a la academia”, la segunda parte, incluye trabajos que los egresados de la MEyA presentaron con sus avances investigativos posteriores a su egreso del programa. La tercera parte muestra el Catálogo de las obras que seis de los egresados-artistas presentaron en la exposición de artes plásticas “En las pupilas del que regresa”. (shrink)