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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (40258)	6/12/1999 11:46:00 PM
From: jbe	Respond to of 108807

You still don't get it, Chuzzlewit. :-( Or else you are deliberately sidestepping the issues I raised in my post, none of which you have addressed. All you have done is repeat some points on which I agreed with you -- that Art and Science are different, for example -- and some on which I most emphatically disagreed, to the degree that I was reduced to sputtering. Let me elaborate, briefly, on some observations I made in the first post. 1) Philosophers have been arguing for centuries over the meaning of "objectivity" and "subjectivity." The last I looked, they still were. Yet you write as if "everybody knows" the difference between them. I think that when you are talking about Science vs. Art you need to use different terms: empirical truth vs. experiential truth, perhaps? 2) As to whether Beethoven is superior to hip-hop or not, yes, there are standards. Again, I eschew your word "objective," because you have booby-trapped it by linking it exclusively to scientific method. For a fuller answer to that question, perhaps you ought to read a work on aesthetics. Joan

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (40258)	6/13/1999 12:44:00 AM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 108807

If the truth be known had I the power to magically transform myself into anything I could possibly be, I would be a musician -- I'm one up on you there. I was for a time a professional musician (french horn). I left full time music many years ago, but for decades have performed on several instruments including the horn. It is a sublime experience. Unexplainable by science. <vbg>

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (40258)	6/13/1999 1:14:00 PM
From: jbe	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

"Art for Life's Sake" Chuzzlewit, I must confess that my attitude towards Art is very like Christopher's attitude towards God: It just is, dammit! It just exists! ART RULES! And so all these efforts at defining what it is, and what it is not, are just so many blind men feeling up the elephant....<g> Hence I have read very little in aesthetic theory; frankly, I am impatient with it. The aesthetic experience is what counts for me, and I do not feel the need to rationalize it. Nevertheless, in searching for ammunition in a reluctant effort to defend a cause that needs no defending <g>, I turned up a couple of books that might be of interest to you. I haven't read either of them, myself, so I can't really say that I personally am "recommending" them. But the author (a neighbor of yours in Seattle, incidentally) has created quite a stir by approaching the arts from the viewpoint of evolutionary biology. Might be right up your alley! Ellen Dissanayake: What Is Art For? Homo Aestheticus : Where Art Comes from and Why From jacket blurb of the first book: "What Is Art For?" offers a new and unprecedentedly comprehensive theory of the evolutionary significance of art. Art, meaning not only visual art, but music, poetic language, dance, and performance, is for the first time regarded from a biobehavioral or ethological viewpoint. It is shown to be a biological necessity in human existence and a fundamental characteristic of the human species.... In this provocative study, Ellen Dissanayake examines art along with play and ritual as human behaviors that "make special," and proposes that making special is an inherited tendency as intrinsic to the human species as speech or toolmaking. She claims that the arts evolved as a means of making socially important activities memorable and pleasurable, and thus have been essential to human survival.... Avoiding simplism and reductionism, this original approach permits a fresh look at old questions about the origin, nature, purpose, and value of art. It crosses disciplinary boundaries and integrates a number of diverse fields: human ethology; evolutionary biology; the psychology and philosophy of art; physical and cultural anthropology; "primitive" and prehistoric art; Western cultural history; and children's art..... humanitas.ucsb.edu From a review of the second book (in a sociobiology newsletter): Dissanayake's revolutionary idea is that art is not an epiphenomenon, as suggested by mainstream, old guard aestheticians, but a necessary part of human existence. In fact, without art, she argues, human beings may not have survived the selection process. jurix.rechten.rug.nl ART RULES! Joan