The article reassesses Schelling’s philosophy of art in the System of Transcendental Idealism, focusing on its practical philosophy and the concept of the artefact. Often unexplored, this perspective offers a new account of Schelling’s early aesthetics, linking aesthetic experience to historical becoming. The discussion begins with an analysis of Schelling’s theory of intentional action, followed by a reconstruction of his understanding of artefact. It argues that Schelling integrates both social and material dimensions into his concept of artefacts. The paper (...) then examines Schelling’s comparison between artefacts in general and works of art, asserting that aesthetic experience in the context of the System exemplifies ‘hermeneutic obstinacy’. This characteristic, typical of works of art, correlates with the open nature of historical reality. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Jacques Rancière does not propose a purely sensible conception of the aesthetic in his recent writings on art. Unlike many contemporary philosophies of art, Rancière’s aesthetics retains an important cognitive dimension. Here, I bring this aspect of Rancière’s aesthetics into view by comparing the conception of intelligence found in his earlier works with his more recent writings on art, showing that intelligence and sense are distributed in the same ways. The distinction (...) between them is, moreover, governed by the same politics. Rancière’s analysis of the sensible and the intellectual breaks down the distinction between them and establishes their equality. (shrink)

Δ.Δακρότσης, «Τεχνητή νοημοσύνη και εκφραστικότητα: η αναγκαιότητα περάσματος της εννοιολογικής γνώσης από το μονοπάτι της αισθητικής εποπτείας» (Artificial Intelligence and expressiveness: The necessity for conceptual knowledge to go through the path of aesthetic perception), Days of Art in Greece, Τεύχος 18, Φθινόπωρο 2024, σς 26-39.

Sustainability is the result of modern-day design philosophy as a result of major industrial developments and many conflicts and wars. This concept is what prompted this research to focus on the possibility of achieving the principles of sustainability practically - in field reality - through the use of artificial intelligence techniques to create contemporary designs derived from the Saudi Asiri heritage and employ them in printing sustainable clothing supplements. Heritage-inspired design has cultural meaning and importance, and its purpose is (...) to transmit our heritage to our emerging generations, and therefore it is considered a type of sustainable thought. The Asir region in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a rich heritage that is greatly influenced by the charming nature of the place. The Asir region is distinguished by the art of the “Asiri Cat,” which consists of engravings, lines, and aesthetic formations engraved by women specialized in this field. They inherited this art from the women who preceded them. Asiri art is distinguished from other arts. The use of bright natural colors such as blue, green, orange, black and white, as the Asir region is considered one of the important heritage and tourist areas within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has played a pivotal role in enriching the cultural and creative stock not only of the Saudi citizen, but also of the Arabian Gulf region. This is what prompted us in the current research to delve into the analysis of the creative and artistic aspects of Asiri art inscriptions and to benefit from the aesthetic values of Asiri art decorations in contemporary artistic designs that achieve sustainability for the purpose of exploiting them in the manufacture of plastic fittings for clothing supplements to serve small industries. Many diverse designs have been implemented using different printing techniques. From (direct drawing method - stencil printing - pictorial screen printing) the use of different types and colors to implement different products to produce clothing accessories that are closely related to the structure of form and content of Al-Qat Al-Asiri art, and depends on its aesthetic philosophy about the heritage and cultural references associated with the place and the artist’s own vision. To revive Saudi heritage. The research aims to take advantage of the geometric and floral decorative elements in Al-Qat Al-Asiri’s artistic engravings as a source for enriching and sustaining printed designs for women’s clothing supplements that are characterized by authenticity and contemporaryness, and preserving popular motifs by reformulating them. In keeping with the times, and preserving its most prominent features, in a way that enhances belonging and preserves the community’s heritage and values. From extinction, endless horizons of creativity and innovation have been achieved in the field of printing clothing supplements, and sustainable plastic repetition, which the designer or art practitioner resorts to in general, and the field of printing in particular, as a creative pluralistic plastic method.The research followed the descriptive and analytical approach in identifying the origins and characteristics of the Asir artistic inscriptions (the cat), analyzing their vocabulary, reformulating them, and drawing inspiration from them to enrich the printed designs of women’s clothing supplements, in addition to the experimental approach in the applied study through the use of different techniques and materials. The results of the study concluded that there are various aesthetic values in the Asiri cat engraving that can be used to create contemporary designs on clothing accessories using different printing techniques, in order to preserve the Asiri heritage in the southern region of the country. The study recommended the need to pay attention to studying heritage and the arts it contains because of its great importance, as it stimulates appreciation of traditional art and preserves it. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence is regarded in the context of the tasks that are delegated to it during the development of technical projects and the features of the implementation of tasks that must be performed in real time without the possibility of interruption. The relevance of the study is determined by the fact that artificial intelligence sees as its main task the formalisation of decision-making with little or no human involvement. The basis of the methodological search are biological and prognostic (...) methods. The current stage of development of socio-humanitarian technologies, and in particular, systems with artificial intelligence, prompts people to conduct such socio-technical projects, for the implementation of which the properties of the human biological brain are no longer enough. The result of research on artificial intelligence is the desire to understand the work of the human brain, to reveal the secrets of human consciousness and the problem of creating machines with a certain level of human intelligence. The novelty of the study is determined by the fact that the understanding of artificial intelligence is primarily aimed at creating an environment that can distinguish artificial intelligence from the entire array of technological devices not only as a platform of knowledge and program code. The practical significance of the study is determined by the necessity for standardisation and the formation of attitudes and the acceptability of the use of artificial intelligence in tasks that will subsequently affect social development. (shrink)

In this study of aesthetics during the eight decades from 1755 to 1833, Will argues that those thinkers who steered away from the dualistic, neo-classical concern with ideal beauty and turned to a monistic, organic approach to the intelligibility of beauty were pushing the Platonic-Plotinian tradition toward clearer thought concerning beauty, and were also laying the groundwork for Hegel's idealism. He concludes that Hegel's systematization of this strand of thought constitutes "an oblique argument in favor of the major tradition of (...) philosophical idealism."--D. W. S. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing the way that art is created and consumed, allowing artists to create unique, engaging works with high computing power that can supplement their creative process. This manuscript explores the creative process of using AI technology in digital art to create paintings and evaluates creativity based on the aesthetic value and components of works created by AI. This research seeks to understand how AI technology influences the art world through a practice-led methodology with (...) a descriptive qualitative approach and observational methodology. Pioneering artwork such as Edmond de Belamy, created by French collective obvious using generative adversarial networks (GANs), has raised questions among the creative fields concerning originality, creativity, and authorship. Through analyses of AI-generated artwork and comparison with traditional artwork, the research investigates potential opportunities and challenges that AI presents to the art world. Ultimately, AI technology can provide a creative spark for human artists who, with an appropriate understanding of the limitations of AI algorithms, can create incredible pieces of art that embrace the contributions of both humans and machines. This research seeks to fill in the gaps left by earlier works and provide a more multi-faceted look at the changing landscape of AI in art, gaining a better understanding of the ways AI is impacting the art world and what the future may look like in the coming years. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 8.1 (2003) 74-92 [Access article in PDF] John Dewey's Aesthetic Ecology of Public Intelligence and the Grounding of Civic Environmentalism Herbert Reid and Betsy Taylor "[The problem is] that of recovering the continuity of esthetic experience with normal processes of living." John Dewey, Art as Experience "This is not a protest. Repeat. This is not a protest. This is some kind of artistic (...) expression. Over." --A call that went out on Metro Toronto police radios on May 16, 1998, the date of the first Global Street Party. Quoted from Naomi Klein, No LogoThis paper argues for the importance of John Dewey's aesthetic philosophy to recent efforts to cultivate civic environmentalism while critiquing narrowly conservationist environmentalisms. We call for a strong version of civic environmentalism oriented towards holistic integration of ecological [End Page 74] concerns into all aspects of social, political, economic, and cultural life. Such a civic environmentalism argues that it is not enough to strive to preserve enclaved 'wilderness' or 'biodiversity' (as important as that is). It argues also for fundamental changes in the political and economic status quo, because ecological havoc is understood to be integrally linked with the structural forces that are increasing inequality and weakening democratic publics. Strengthening of the civic commons is integral to protection of the environmental commons. If the environmental commons are the substantive goods in common which are the sustaining grounds of life, the civic commons are the institutions, collective memories, social networks, and skills that enable and inspire individuals to engage with each other in stewarding the common good. Such collective labor for the larger good requires some form of collective imagination which enables awareness of self and other (human or non-human) as inherently valuable. But beyond this, it requires perceptual and social infrastructures that nurture the ability to see self and other as emergent from and dependent on the supra-individual matrix that supports both life and individual. Central to such civic labor, is a non-dualistic understanding of individual/matrix. Such a non-dualistic understanding of self/other-in-matrix is central to political and ecological imaginations that are decentered from ethnic, species, class, gender, or other forms of domination and solipsism.John Dewey's work as a whole is a powerful call for such a non-dualistic understanding of individual-in-matrix, and few have better understood its connections to democracy. But, it is in his philosophy of art that Dewey describes most specifically the central importance of the aesthetic dimension of public culture to overcoming crippling dualisms of Western modernity that vitiate participatory engagement- individual/world, nature/culture, ends/means, leisure/work, art/science, aesthetic/ordinary. His writings on art have not been much utilized in the philosophical work for civic environmentalism. This paper argues for their relevance to its key goal of overcoming the segmentation of life ushered in by modernity and buttressed by these dualisms.We first give an overview of recent theories of civic environmentalism and the crises it engages of inequality, injustice, technocracy, corporatization, and the pervasive assault on place and thinning of public participation. Second, we look at the implications of Dewey'saesthetic ecology for an "environmentalism of daily life" that challenges the false dualisms of neo-liberalism and of technocratic professionalism that undermine place-based [End Page 75] forms of life and knowledge. Third, we draw on Dewey's aesthetic philosophy to suggest ways to rebuild democratic public space at the nexus of body, place, and commons. Finally, we briefly outline key philosophical questions that have emerged in our ethnographic and political study of Appalachian grassroots activisms, and that embody this sort of placed, democratic mobilization to protect the civic and environmental commons. American Environmentalism: Crisis and Challenge Toward the end of the last decade, veteran New York Times journalist and now independent writer Philip Shabecoff set out to engage "a broad spectrum of thoughtful and informed people within and without the environmental movement." His Earth Rising: American Environmentalism in the 21st Century offers a very... (shrink)

This paper addresses the issue of the relationship between technology and art in human existence from a Deweyan perspective. The central idea is that Dewey’s aesthetics is a useful instrument for critically reflecting on that issue. Starting from the tenets of Dewey’s aesthetics, the discourse focuses on “imaginative recovery” and “inhabiting,” two key notions for interpreting and managing technology from an aesthetic perspective. The article seeks an answer to the question of whether new technology (particularly ai) is a useful (...) tool or not in art and, ultimately, for the fulfilment of human life. (shrink)

Important work on the relation of pragmatic ethics and aesthetics, such as Steven Fesmire's _John Dewey and Moral Imagination: Pragmatism in Ethics,_ misses an important feature of the entire issue unless non-mimetic representation is invoked to explain the relation between what Dewey would call the "problem" and the "solution" presented in experience. This cannot be elaborated within a Rortyan neo-pragmatism, nor can it be addressed without attending to the "spiritual" aspect of moral agency.

L'intelligible connaissance esthétique, ce serait l'opération de déchiffrement et d'interprétation d'une oeuvre, d'un texte ou d'une image par un observateur ; une herméneutique en somme qui définit le processus, la mise en place du ...

A Deweyan account of aesthetic experience countering skepticism about aesthetic experience after George Dickie, art-centered views after Arthur Danto and Noel Carroll, and disinterest theories after Kant. This account of aesthetic experience provides an integrated account of the aesthetic for both art and the everyday. Aesthetic experience is a critical, adaptive felt response, revealing value in the world. It is the live experience of value for human beings. An account of aesthetic experience as revelatory (...) of value is vital in distinguishing human from artificial intelligence (AI). (shrink)

Cinema and Machine Vision unfolds the aesthetic, epistemic, and ideological dimensions of machine-seeing films and television using computers. With its critical-technical approach, this book presents to the reader key new problems that arise as AI becomes integral to visual culture. The book theorises machine vision through a selection of aesthetics, film theory, and applied machine learning research, dispelling widely held assumptions about computer systems designed to watch and make images on our behalf. -/- At its heart, Cinema and Machine (...) Vision is an invitation for film and media scholars to critically engage with AI at a technical level, a prompt for scientists and engineers working with images and cultural data to critically reflect on where their assumptions about vision come from, and a joint recognition of the fruitful problems of working together to understand the algorithmic governance of the visual. (shrink)

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

Aesthetic non-cognitivists deny that aesthetic statements express genuinely aesthetic beliefs and instead hold that they work primarily to express something non-cognitive, such as attitudes of approval or disapproval, or desire. Non-cognitivists deny that aesthetic statements express aesthetic beliefs because they deny that there are aesthetic features in the world for aesthetic beliefs to represent. Their assumption, shared by scientists and theorists of mind alike, was that language-users possess cognitive mechanisms with which to objectively (...) grasp abstract rules fixed independently of human responses, and that cognizers are thereby capable of grasping rules for the correct application of aesthetic concepts without relying on evaluation or enculturation. However, in this article I use Wittgenstein’s rule-following considerations to argue that psychological theories grounded upon this so-called objective model of rule-following fail to adequately account for concept acquisition and mastery. I argue that this is because linguistic enculturation, and the perceptual learning that’s often involved, influences and enables the mastery of aesthetic concepts. I argue that part of what’s involved in speaking aesthetically is to belong to a cultural practice of making sense of things aesthetically, and that it’s within a socio-linguistic community, and that community’s practices, that such aesthetic sense can be made intelligible. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence and Music Ecosystem highlights the opportunities and rewards associated with the application of AI in the creative arts. Featuring an array of voices, including interviews with Jacques Attali, Holly Herndon and Scott Cohen, this book offers interdisciplinary approaches to pressing ethical and technical questions associated with AI. Considering the perspectives of developers, students and artists, as well as the wider themes of law, ethics and philosophy, Artificial Intelligence and Music Ecosystem is an essential introduction for anyone (...) interested in the impact of AI on music, including those studying and working in the creative arts. (shrink)

In this article, the potential for Artificial Intelligence (AI) to be appraised as an object of beauty is critically examined through the lens of philosophical thought. Tracing beauty’s evolution from Platonic ideals to contemporary interpretations, the analysis contends that AI’s emergence offers a unique illustration of beauty in the modern age. Confronting the challenge of assigning beauty to entities devoid of consciousness or emotional depth, the argument unfolds to suggest that the intricate design of AI’s algorithms and its technological (...) advancements constitute an emergent form of beauty, one inherently tied to human intellectual endeavor. The article proposes that with time, as with historical art forms, the aesthetic qualities of AI may gain broader acknowledgment, implying that technological advancements necessitate an ongoing revision of established beauty norms. The historical evolution of beauty has been traced in details, and an extended literature review has been provided, serving as the foundation for a comprehensive exploration into the potential for AI to be recognized as an object of beauty. The harmony, elegance, and problem-solving capabilities of AI algorithms have been meticulously evaluated, with a comparison made to classical elements of beauty in an effort to contextually situate AI within longstanding aesthetic traditions. Furthermore, the analysis has been extended to consider the emergence of artificial and digital beauty, alongside an investigation into the parallels drawn between divine and artificial intelligence. As part of a deeper inquiry, the possibility of human emotions, such as awe and love, being authentically directed towards AI has been scrutinized. In conclusion, a reflection has been presented on the transformative role of AI in reimagining the conceptual landscape of beauty, prompting readers to thoughtfully engage with an extended review and the philosophical and cultural implications emerging from AI’s evolving influence on the field of aesthetics. (shrink)

The relationship between aesthetics and science has begun to generate substantial interest. However, for the most part, the focus has been on the beauty of theories, and other aspects of scientific practice have been neglected. This book offers a novel perspective on aesthetics in experimentation via ten original essays from an interdisciplinary group comprised of philosophers, historians of science and art, and artists. -/- The collection provides an analysis of the concept of beauty in the evaluation of experiments. What properties (...) do practising experimenters value? How have the aesthetic properties of scientific experiments changed over the years? Secondly, the volume looks at the role that aesthetic factors, including negative values such as ugliness, as well as experiences of the sublime and the profound, play in the construction of an experiment and its reception. Thirdly, the chapters provide in-depth historical case studies from the Royal Society, which also allows for a study of the depiction of scientific experiment in artworks, as well as contemporary examples from the Large Hadron Collider and cases of experiments designed by artificial intelligence. Finally, it offers an exploration of the commonalities between how we learn from experiments on the one hand and the cognitive value of artworks on the other. -/- The Aesthetics of Scientific Experiments will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in philosophy and history of science, philosophy and history of art, as well as practising scientists and science communicators. (shrink)

The article investigates basic relations between aesthetics and communication based on studies of and discussions about what has been termed “animal beauty”. The concepts _beauty_, _aesthetics_, and _communication_ are problematised, starting from utterances’ _structured form_, which is seen both as the physical basis for as well as one of five key aspects in animal utterances (form, content, act, time, and space). The relational, and thus social semiotic, communicational role of this aspect is searched in different studies leading to two major (...) claims: Firstly, that five corresponding constitutional traits or _aspects_, aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, temporality, and spatiality collectively form a basis for animals’ evaluation of the subjective _value_ of utterances. The importance of each of them varies depending on what _kind_ of communication (life-genre) they are associated with. Secondly, that aesthetics should be comprehended on four integrated _levels_, from micro to macro, sign, utterance, life-genre, and life-world. These four levels plus five aspects or components in utterances make up a systemic, social semiotic communicational framework which in turn is applied for inspections of studies studying “beauty”. Methodological challenges applying them are briefly discussed. An overall conclusion is that research on the evolutionary role of animal beauty should treat the aesthetics of utterances as part of the hermeneutic circle, simultaneously as categorial _and_ relational, in other words as a constitutive part of a whole, a semiotic, species-specific socio-communicational system. (shrink)

In this article, we explore the relation between bodies and selves evident in the narratives surrounding aesthetic surgery. In much feminist work on aesthetic surgery, such narratives have been discussed in terms of the normalising consequences of the objectifying, homogenising, cosmetic gaze. These discussions stress the ways in which we model our bodies, under the gaze of others, in order to conform to social norms. Such an objectified body is contrasted with the subjective body; the body-for-the-self. In this (...) article, however, we wish to make sense of the narratives surrounding such surgery by invoking the expressive body, which fits on neither side of this binary. We wish to explore how the modification of the body’s anatomical features (physiology) is taken to be a modification of its expressive possibilities, and therefore a modification of possibilities for inter-subjective relations with others. It is such expressive possibilities that, we suggest, underlie decisions to undergo surgical procedures. The possibility of modification of the expressive possibilities of the body, by the modification of its anatomical features, rests on the social imaginaries attached to anatomical features. In the context of such imaginaries, individual decisions to undergo or promote surgery can be both intelligible and potentially empowering. However, the social consequences of such acts are an increasing normalisation of the ‘body under the knife’ and an intolerance of bodily difference. This, we suggest, can only be changed by a re-visioning of bodily imaginaries so that expressive possibilities can be experienced across bodies with a range of physiological features. (shrink)

Here I explore the aesthetic implications of this new paradigm, the central implication being that scientific cognitivism, when combined with the new paradigm in ecology, may require updating the qualities associated with positive aesthetics. After reviewing Allen Carlson's defense of both scientific cognitivism and the positive aesthetics thesis, I show how the significantly different conceptual framework that the new paradigm in ecology provides will require equally significant adjustments to how we aesthetically appreciate nature. I make two suggestions. First, the (...) new paradigm in ecology suggests that aesthetic appreciation should focus on natural processes, which will require a more theoretical approach to aesthetic appreciation. Second, because the new paradigm appeals to aesthetic qualities such as imbalance, disorder, and disharmony to make the natural world intelligible, these qualities are consistent with an updated positive aesthetics thesis and should therefore replace the qualities associated with the old paradigm. Collectively, these two suggestions imply that the beauty of nature is dynamic and chaotic rather than stable and orderly. (shrink)

In 1931, Kurt Gödel determined the incompleteness of formal axiomatic systems by demonstrating that there are propositions that cannot be proved or disproved within the system in question. In 1936, Alan Turing showed that some functions cannot be computed, and thereby described the limits of computing machines before any such machine was built. In this essay I will turn to these logical discoveries in order to argue that incompleteness and incomputability can be employed as conceptual tools to re-engage with the (...) axiomatic character of computation. This re-engagement with formal axiomatic structures, I will claim, has important consequences for the aesthetic investigation of computation. Computational aesthetics is understood here as an enquiry into the relation between abstraction and experience in computation. In this respect, the concepts of the incomplete and the incomputable will be mobilised philosophically, beyond the technical scope of Gödel’s and Turing's work, to argue for the autonomy and reality of computational abstraction. Gödel’s and Turing’s discoveries preclude the possibility that axiomatic formulation could be the method through which the metacomputation of the intelligible and the sensible is accomplished. These discoveries in fact prove that the computational axiomatic system is not transcendentally closed to contingency, as metacomputational approaches geared towards the formulisation of reality would have it, but is instead immanently open to its own eventuality. I will thus argue that there is a contingent ontology of computation that is to be found within computation’s formalisms. This contingent ontology is not predicated upon the empirical or the phenomenal, but is inherently formal and computational. For the philosophical investigation of the aesthetics of computation, such an ontology of the contingent computational structure opens up the possibility of thinking computational forms beyond the limits of formulae, together with that of engaging with formalism beyond the idealisation of beautiful and truthful determinisms. (shrink)

In this paper I want to return to some well-worn ideas; specifically, the attempt to show that there is a distinctive subject-matter of the aesthetic via consideration of the difference between aesthetic and non-aesthetic concepts. The classic exposition of this distinction is Frank Sibley's 'Aesthetic Concepts'. Sibley claimed that, given a set of relevant terms, there will be widespread non-collusive agreement as to which are aesthetic and which non-aesthetic. Non-aesthetic terms include _'red, noisy, (...) brackish, clammy, square, docile, curved, evanescent, intelligent, faithful, derelict, tardy, freakish'_. Aesthetic terms include _'unified, lifeless, serene, sombre, dynamic, powerful, vivid, delicate, moving, trite, sentimental, tragic'_. Further examples have been given by other philosophers working in the field. Given the widespread agreement, I shall assume there is a distinction of some sort whose nature is open to be discussed. (shrink)

Arthur Danto argued from the premiss that artworks are essentially cognitive to the conclusion that they are incidentally aesthetic. I wonder why Danto, and the very many of us he persuaded, came to believe that the cognitive and the aesthetic oppose one another. I argue, contrary to Danto’s historical claims, that the cognitive and the aesthetic did not come into opposition until the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, and that they were brought into opposition for reasons (...) of art-critical expediency rather than philosophical necessity. I conclude that a robustly cognitive notion of the aesthetic remains an option for us. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to integrate two outstanding problems within the philosophy of science. The first concerns what role aesthetics plays in scientific thinking. The second is the problem of how logically testable ideas are generated (the so-called "psychology of research" versus "logic of (dis)proof" problem). I argue that aesthetic sensibility is the basis for what scientists often call intuition, and that intuition in turn embodies (in a literal physiological sense) ways of thinking that have their own (...) meta-logic. Thus, aesthetics is a form of cognition. Scientists think not in equations or words or other logical abstractions, but emotionally and sensually, using visual and aural images, kinesthetic and other proprioceptive feelings, sensations, patterns, and analogies. These aesthetic forms of thinking have their own logics that I call "synosia", from the root words synaesthesia (a combining of senses) and gnosis, "to know". Synosia denotes understanding that integrates feeling that one knows with feeling what one knows. Eminent scientists universally describe an explicitly secondary process in which such personal knowledge must be "translated" into a formal language, such as words or equations, in order to be communicated to other people. Many of the unsolved problems that philosophers of science (as well as psychologists and artificial intelligence researchers) have had in making sense of scientific thinking have arisen from confusing the form and content of the final translations with the hidden means by which scientific insights are actually achieved. (shrink)

In this paper, I address the motivation gap that prevents many people from acquiring and activating environmental values. In the face of this gap, I analyze Aldo Leopold’s conservation philosophy as a potential solution. This is done by reading Leopold through John Dewey’s theory of aesthetic experience, in which motivated action develops out of unified aesthetic experience made up of three phases: action, emotion, and intelligence. Showing that Leopold’s approach to conservation exhibits this aesthetic structure not (...) only gives it a clearer organization but promotes its use for rectifying the severe lack of environmental conscience and practice in society. (shrink)

Normal.dotm 0 0 1 145 727 Memorial University 14 1 1017 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} The transcendental lift of Lonergan’s life was an incarnate leaning towards “a grasp of hitherto unnoticed or unrealized possibilities” ( Method in Theology , (...) 53), and the blossoming of that transcendental—so neatly identifying “being intelligent” on that page—seems to have been grossly missed by generations of his followers. The what-question in its fullness is a reach for what might be, and Lonergan’s final great leaning pulled together in a gentle global way the fragmentary present seeds of finitude’s lust for unity of purpose: “the end of the divine mission is not attained without the cooperation of human beings” ( CWL 11, 485). And what a Cosmopolitan Cooperation he envisaged! And what a shambles his disciples have made of his hope of a communal advance within “an adapted and specialized auxiliary ever ready to offset every interference with intellect’s unrestricted finality” ( Insight , 747)! (shrink)

This essay considers the foundations of reasonable evaluation in the arts. These we argue concern the relations that constitute our experience of art, and the ontology of the art work itself. The being of the artwork, the experience and the interpretation of it all involve over-lapping modes of part–whole relations. The experience of meaningfulness is not an experience of a singular object or framework of meaning as closed and complete but an experience of relational meaning whereby exposure to one set (...) of meaningful relations transforms another in an on-going and open manner. This suggests that the experience of art itself provides the norms for reasonableness of evaluation. These norms are not rules in the sense of offering a method. They are characteristic of the features of an experience of meaningfulness itself. The essay suggests that the reasonableness of a response to a work can be considered in terms of its appropriacy relative to the context of its own horizon and the horizon surrounding the production of the work; its plausibility, that is, its internal coherence and consistency as a reading; whether the structure of the response is consistent with, supplements, or expands the intelligible content of the work; and whether it gives a sense of the latent possibilities still held within a work and intimates where the movement of a work’s subject-matter might. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.2 (2001) 335-346 [Access article in PDF] Aesthetic Incunabula Ellen Dissanayake Incunabula n. pl. (f. L swaddling clothes, cradle): Early stages of development of a thing.Over the past thirty years, developmental psychologists have discovered remarkable cognitive abilities in young infants. Before these investigations, common pediatric wisdom accepted that apart from a few innate "reflexes"--for crying, suckling, clinging, startling--babies were pretty much tabulae rasae for their (...) elders to inscribe as they (and their cultures) decreed. Today, however, it is well established that newborns come into the world with decided preferences and motivations, so that one can speak intelligently of "neonatal" (or even "fetal") psychology. 1The demonstrable existence of inherent psychological capacities in newborns and infants has important implications for twenty-first-century literary theory, which--also over the past thirty years--has operated under the theoretical assumption that all knowledge and experience are mediated by culture and that there is therefore no "natural" psychological or emotional experience. Yet if, as infant psychology confirms, babies in every culture show the same or similar cognitive abilities and preferences and the same or similar motivations and emotional responses, it is necessary to modify the dogmatic assertion that all experience, including literary response, is socially constructed. Rather, adult psychology and experience grow from and build upon inborn motives and preferences. Literary theorists can no longer ignore contemporary knowledge in psychobiology, ethology, and evolutionary psychology that directly pertains to conceptualizing their subject.The innate capacities of newborns predispose them specifically for social and emotional interaction with others, not simply for soliciting [End Page 335] their physical care. For example, newborns prefer human faces to any other sight (high-contrast colors, cartoon characters, cute stuffed animals) and human voices to any other sound (soft music, tinkling bells, The Chipmunks). 2 They can imitate face, mouth, and hand movements and respond appropriately to another person's emotional expressions of sadness, fear, and surprise. 3 At birth, infants can estimate and anticipate intervals of time and temporal sequences and remember these temporal patterns, categorizing them both in time and space and in terms of affect and arousal. 4 By six weeks of age, these perceptual and cognitive abilities of normal infants permit them to engage with adult partners in complex communicative interchanges--the playful behavior that is commonly or colloquially called "babytalk."Babytalk is not the trival or inane pastime that it might superficially seem but, rather, a cradle in which nascent psychosocial capacities can emerge and be developed. Interestingly for literary theory, babytalk achieves these effects through fundamentally aesthetic means. Adult-infant engagements are noteworthy for their use of stylization (formalization or simplification), repetition, exaggeration, and elaboration in visual, vocal, and gestural modalities. I call these "aesthetic incunabula"--that is, sources (or early developmental stages) of the operations used by artists in all media to attract attention and to provoke and manipulate emotional response. The existence of sensitivities to such features in the first months of life suggests that humans are born with natural (innate, universal) predispositions for aesthetic engagement from which cultures and individuals can go on to create their myriad elaborated forms of artistic expression.Although babytalk varies in minor details among individuals and cultures, it can be described in all instances as a multimedia performance. That is, it contains not only "talk" (or the characteristic high-pitched, undulant, breathy, patterned, repetitive vocalizations with pauses called "motherese," "parentese," or "infant-directed speech"). Along with the utterances are peculiarly stereotyped, repetitive, and exaggerated facial expressions (such as widened eyes, uplifted eyebrows, sustained open mouth, and smiles), head movements (e.g., distinct bobs backwards, slow rhythmic nods, movement toward and away from the baby), and gestures (such as touching, stroking, and rhythmic pats) to which infants respond with their own vocal sounds and face and body movements and, in many societies, sustained mutual gaze.Babytalk is not only a performance, but a duet that incorporates both synchrony of behavior and alternation (or turn-taking)--activities that [End Page 336] are made possible by the infant's remarkable inborn sensitivity to temporal sequence and pattern. Microanalyses of videotaped interactions (at 24... (shrink)

In Hegel's aesthetics, the element of speculative philosophy is always a notorious aspect that attracts the most complaints from modern art criticism. The book, however, justifies the intelligibility in art in light of Hegel's philosophy of metaphysics. The author explores the philosophical motivations of Hegelian aesthetics, its underlying logic, the relationship between metaphysical core and artistic expression, as well as the contemporary significance and value of metaphysicalised theories of art exemplified by Hegelian aesthetics. Through elucidating the metaphysical core implicit in (...) Hegel's lectures on aesthetics, this book proves that the philosophical considerations of Absolute Idealism bring to art the spiritual seriousness which the Romantics lack. Ultimately, this approach reveals the broad consensus which both Hegel's aesthetics and modern philosophical hermeneutics share, thus bridging the gap between ancient and the modern philosophy of art. The book will appeal to scholars and students studying classical German philosophy, German Romantic literature criticism, and modern art theory. (shrink)

Why are computers so smart these days? And why are humans apparently still a bit smarter? Does this have something to do with the difference between data and meaning? Does this in turn mean that at least some abstract entities, such as numbers, exist independently of human thought? Wouldn’t that require an expansion of our scientific world view? And would that at all be compatible with what we know about our world from physics and chemistry, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience and the (...) theory of evolution? Finally, what would this tell us about ethical and aesthetic value theories? These and related questions will be discussed in this book. We will find that the difference between data and meaning, i.e. quantitative and qualitative information, does indeed appear to be of central importance for understanding both artificial and natural intelligence. And then the independent existence of abstract entities not only appears to be a particularly promising hypothesis, but also one that is entirely compatible with the sum of our scientific knowledge, especially with regard to value theories. The book thus arrives at the exploration of a scientifically tenable, panpsychistically inspired, objective idealism that can be derived from our most fundamental intuitions as subjects that perceive qualities, but that can also take into account the structuring of the world already at the micro-scale, found in the modern natural sciences. The result is a Platonic, but in a second step also a scientific realism and a naturalism in the sense that it is informed by the natural sciences in terms of an inductive metaphysics. An objective idealism, not in a rationalistic maximum form, but in a pragmatic minimum form; without eternal truths, but dependent on the continued philosophical-scientific and also philosophicalsocial dialog. The proposed model could offer interesting solutions to a number of problems at and near the mind/matter boundary: Proposals are being considered for the interpretation of quantum mechanics, the problem of molecular symmetry, the neuronal code and the binding problem in neuroscience, mental causation, a more holistic understanding of mental processes, and so on and so forth. However, the extent to which the model threatens to promise far too much is also being discussed. In sum, the core question is how we can imagine human thinking beyond physically conceived information processing. An alternative model of human thinking is then put up for discussion, for which not only machine-like cognitive performance, but above all the intentional perception of qualitative information, i.e. of abstract entities, would be central, as well as the free, ultimately creative linking of patterns of quantitative information (signals, data) with such qualities (meanings). (shrink)

This essay focuses on Schopenhauer’s aesthetics and philosophy of art, areas of his philosophy which have attracted the most philosophical attention in recent years. After discussing the subjective and objective aspects of aesthetic experience on his account, I shall offer interpretations of Schopenhauer’s theory of the sublime and solution to the problem of tragedy. In addition, I shall touch upon the liveliest interpretive debates concerning his aesthetic theory: the intelligibility of the “Platonic Ideas” as the objects of (...) class='Hi'>aesthetic experience and the very possibility of aesthetic experience within Schopenhauer’s system. Another aim of this essay is to suggest how some of Schopenhauer’s aesthetic doctrines may be interpreted in a less metaphysically extravagant way. When understood in this manner, contemporary aestheticians might be inclined to take a closer look at Schopenhauer’s aesthetic theory and philosophy of art, for it is distinctive in the tradition of Western philosophical aesthetics in its attempt to highlight and balance the hedonic and cognitive importance of aesthetic experiences; in its sensitivity both to the aesthetic experience of nature as well as of art; in the high value placed on the experience of music ; and in the innovative solution to the problem of tragedy it offers. (shrink)

Interactive media need their own idioms that exploit the characteristics of the computer based sign. The fact that the reader can physically influence the course of events in the system changes the author's role, since he no longer creates a linear text but anarrative space that the reader can use to generate stories. Although stories are not simulations of the real world, they must still contain recognizable parts where everyday constraints of time and space hold. AI-techniques can be used to (...) implement these constraints. In fact, we suggest that AI is probably best seen as an aesthetic phenomenon. (shrink)

Aesthetic realism is offered as a way of overcoming aesthetic disagreement and combating all forms of subjectivism, emotivism, and so on, with its thesis that aesthetic qualities really exist and the judgements about them are genuine statements of fact. This paper questions the intelligibility of that thesis together with its claim that aesthetic qualities are supervenient upon non-aesthetic ones. It is suggested that in this context supervenience amounts to little more than aspect perception and that (...) allows ontological claims about supervenient qualities to be rejected. Subjectivism, however, is not the alternative. Neither realism nor subjectivism do justice to the complexity of aesthetic judgements and the roles that they play in our lives. It is suggested that the nature of these judgements is best pursued through Wittgenstein’s notions of aspect perception and imponderable evidence. (shrink)

In this article I reflect upon the problem of the aesthetic intelligibility of the world in connection with an aesthetic approach to religious naturalism. Taking the work of R.W. Hepburn as conversation partner, I bring it into relation to the work of Charles Peirce and Michael Polanyi. Admitting the ambiguous nature of their own religious commitments, I try to sketch, with no claim to completeness, how they help to illuminate just what would be entailed in beginning the process (...) of translating religious forms of attending into aesthetic forms and what would be gained and what would be lost in doing so. (shrink)

The concept of ‘the image’ can be given historical, conceptual, aesthetic and moral specifications. This essay sets out some of the scholarly issues in the dense semantic field of ‘the image’. In particular, the essay considers how the meaning of the image is often determined in relation to the opposition between sensible form and intelligible idea. Specific attention is given to Kantian aesthetics, which inaugurates a specific way of understanding the sensible form as a mode of processing moral ideas.

As the application of the Internet of Things technology continues to deepen in various fields, it also continues to develop in the agricultural field and the agricultural landscape. This article uses the agricultural Internet of Things to conduct an in-depth analysis and research on the planning and design of smart gardens and combines field research and project practice on the basis of theoretical analysis. Through the combination of agricultural Internet of Things technology and agricultural landscape, the planning and design of (...) smart gardens are studied. The theories used include Internet of Things technology, agricultural industrialization theory, sustainable agricultural development theory, new rural construction theory in agricultural disciplines, ecotourism theory, tourism psychology theory in tourism disciplines, landscape ecology theory, landscape aesthetics theory, and garden planning and design theory. From related theories to planning and design practice, a more systematic study of the smart park has been carried out to provide scientific guidance for the agriculture of the smart park. To provide scientific guidance for the planning and design of agricultural IoT of smart gardens, the theoretical system of planning and design of smart gardens based on the integration of agricultural IoT is proposed and systematically elaborated, including its concept, characteristics, related theories, and guidance methods. (shrink)

Much scholarly attention has recently been devoted to ways in which artificial intelligence (AI) might weaken formal political democracy, but little attention has been devoted to the effect of AI on “cultural democracy”—that is, democratic control over the forms of life, aesthetic values, and conceptions of the good that circulate in a society. This work is the first to consider in detail the dangers that AI-driven cultural recommendations pose to cultural democracy. This Article argues that AI threatens to (...) weaken cultural democracy by undermining individuals’ direct and spontaneous engagement with a diverse range of cultural materials. It further contends that United States law, in its present form, is ill equipped to address these challenges, and suggests several strategies for better regulating culture-mediating AI. Finally, it argues that while such regulations might run afoul of contemporary First Amendment doctrine, the most normatively attractive interpretation of the First Amendment not only allows but encourages such interventions. (shrink)

In an era of technological ubiquity, artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping not only industries but also fundamental human experiences, including artistic creativity. Rooted in a Posthumanist theoretical framework, this research scrutinizes the intricate ethical and aesthetic challenges that artists confront in AI-enabled art creation, with a particular focus on a novel phenomenon we term 'aesthetic loss of control.’ This phenomenon bears significant implications for notions of authorship, copyright, and business ethics in the art industry. Utilizing a mixed-methods (...) approach, our study involves a six-month-long collaboration with 34 artists from diverse artistic and cultural milieus, facilitated by AI algorithms versed in an array of artistic styles. Through iterative cycles of human input and AI output, coupled with in-depth interviews, observational studies, and diary analyses, we meticulously document the artists’ experiences and their emerging doubts over authorship and creative control. Our findings illuminate the nuanced complexities surrounding this 'aesthetic loss of control,’ extending current discussions in business ethics by offering empirically grounded insights and recommendations for navigating these ethical dilemmas. The study not only contributes new theoretical perspectives to the discourse but also provides actionable ethical guidelines for stakeholders in the art industry's commercial ecosystem. (shrink)