Is Psychology Relevant to Aesthetics?

Author(s): Bence Nanay,Murray Smith,Sherri Irvin,Elisabeth Schellekens / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

The symposium published here began life as a somewhat unusual ‘author meets critics’ session at the British Society of Aesthetics annual conference, at St Anne’s College, Oxford, on 16 September 2016 – unusual inasmuch as the focus was not on a single book, but on two books (Bence Nanay’s Aesthetics as Philosophy of Perception and Murray Smith’s Film, Art, and the Third Culture) exploring different but related themes. In addition, rather than encompassing all the issues these two books address, the session focused on one general question that both books explore in some depth: is psychology relevant to aesthetics?

Dominic McIver Lopes, Being for Beauty: Aesthetic Agency and Value

Author(s): Robbie Kubala / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

A review of Dominic McIver Lopes’s Being for Beauty: Aesthetic Agency and Value (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 2018, xvi + 266 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-882721-4).

Stephen Snyder, End-of-Art Philosophy in Hegel, Nietzsche and Danto

Author(s): Šárka Lojdová / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

A review of Stephen Snyder’s End-of-Art Philosophy in Hegel, Nietzsche and Danto (Cham: Palgrave McMillan, 2018, 299 pp. ISBN 978-3-319-94072-4).

The Emergence of Wittgenstein’s Views on Aesthetics in the 1933 Lectures

Author(s): Severin Schroeder / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

In this paper I offer a genetic account of how Wittgenstein developed his ideas on aesthetics in his 1933 lectures. He argued that the word ‘beautiful’ is neither the name of a particular perceptible quality, nor the name of whatever produces a certain psychological effect, and unlike ‘good’, it does not stand for a family-resemblance concept either. Rather, the word ‘beautiful’ has different meanings in different contexts as we apply it according to different criteria. However, in more advanced regions of aesthetics the word ‘beautiful’ ceases to play an important role. Instead, we judge things to be more or less correct according to genre-specific standards or criteria, which in an aesthetic discussion are presupposed, rather than argued for. Finally, Wittgenstein came to realise that providing support for an aesthetic appraisal according to some given criteria is not the only and perhaps not even the main focus of aesthetic discussion. More interesting to him became the idea of a puzzle or perplexity in aesthetics, which he discussed in greater detail in his 1938 lectures.

“Engelmann Told Me...”: On the Aesthetic Relevance of a Certain Remark by Wittgenstein

Author(s): Joachim Schulte / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

This paper is an attempt at bringing out various aesthetically relevant points alluded to by Wittgenstein in what I call ‘the Engelmann remark’ – a longish manuscript remark written by Wittgenstein in 1930 and painstakingly discussed by Michael Fried in the context of elucidating what is strikingly new in the work of a photographer like Jeff Wall. One part of this paper is dedicated to summarizing and briefly examining the account given by Fried while another part is meant to clarify some of Wittgenstein’s points by way of contrasting their import with the story told by Fried. In this second part Wittgenstein’s late observations on aspect change are used to show in which ways these observations may help us to gain a better understanding of the idea of a specific ‘perspective’ claimed to go with a given work of art.

Aspects of the Sublime in Philosophical Aesthetics

Author(s): Maricel Severin,Iasmina Petrovici / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2022

The intention of the present study is to bring the sublime back into the light in contemporary philosophical debates, in order to present its significance both for aesthetics and in the field of art in particular, as well as for the sphere of cultural creation in general. In this sense, in the first part of the study we shall emphasize the specificity of the sublime as a fundamental aesthetic category located in the proximity of the beauty, revealing both the similarities and the differences between them. In the second part of the study, we will discuss several hypotheses of the sublime in philosophical aesthetics, having as a theoretical benchmark, in this sense, the ideas of Kant, Schiller, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Hartmann, with the aim of shedding light on the necessity of the presence of the sublime in the sphere of human values and cultural creation.

Heidegger Schiller-olvasata. Heidegger szemináriuma a Levelek az ember esztétikai neveléséről

Author(s): János Loboczky / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 4/2021

In my study, I examine the analysis of Heidegger’s seminar about Schiller: Letters about the Aesthetic Education of Man (1936/37, Wintersemester). For Heidegger the emphasis of the connections of art philosophical and philosophical aspects was particularly important in connection with Schiller’s interpretations. The “proximity” of poetry and philosophy was a fundamental idea also in Heidegger’s work since the second half of the 1930s. In my paper, I deal with the following questions from Heidegger’s analysis: aesthetic condition, form and beauty, art as play, art as appearance, art and being.

„A stílus az ember képe.” Autentikusság, stílus, autonómia

Author(s): József Kollár,Dávid Kollár / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 12/2022

In our article, we argue that, contrary to the essentialist conception of authenticity, it is more productive to view authenticity not as the inner core of the person, the true self, but as public patterns of metaphorical exemplification awaiting interpretation. If, following Goodman and Danto, we accept that authentic style is a metaphorical exemplification, then, based on Rorty’s concept of language and metaphor, we can view style as an exaptation of symbols adapted to specific functions through cultural selection. In our article to support this approach, we proceed as follows: first, using the model of Goodman and Danto, we argue that authentic style can best be captured by metaphorical exemplification, and then show that the metaphorical use of linguistic, pictorial, and other symbols is exaptation. According to our results, the authentic style is the exaptation of symbols adapted to the functions defined during cultural selection. We then clarify the relationship between authenticity and creativity through the concepts of style and manners, and then point out that whether a particular use of a symbol is authentic or not does not depend on whether creative or mechanical mental processes are responsible for its creation. Finally, we examine the relationship between authenticity and autonomy and show that in a cultural milieu that favours autonomous decisions and authentic style, agents that originally created non-authentic symbols can also become authentic symbol users.

Introduction: Dwelling Aesthetics - New Paradigms and Perspectives

Author(s): Aurosa Alison / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

Introduction to the thematic issue Dwelling Aesthetics: New Paradigms and Perspectives. ESPES. The Slovak Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 11, No. 2, 2022.

Dwelling Means Cultivating Atmospheres

Author(s): Griffero Tonino / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

The paper addresses the issue of dwelling as a powerful way of cultivating atmospheric feelings without the risk of suffering their disturbing aggressiveness, and deals with inclusiveness or__immersivity that true dwelling arouses. To avoid the widespread trend to consider every space a_dwelling place, it proposes that only a really “lived” place, in so far it radiates a specific and particularly intense-authoritative atmosphere (in kinetic, synesthetic, felt-bodily sense) affecting the perceivers and finding in their body its precise sounding board, makes dwelling in the proper sense possible. Just as there are different types of atmosphere (prototypical, derivative, spurious), there are therefore different types of dwelling and inclusiveness. However, contrary to the today’s projectivist-constructionist explanation and globalized orientation, for a “pathic aesthetics” only a lifewordly qualitative-emotional experience based on an atmosphere of intimacy-familiarity really turns a house into a home.

Feeling at Home

Author(s): Carsten Friberg / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

This essay is about the significance of the body for dwelling. Considering the_body implies considering a concrete body, i.e. asking for the experiences embedded in it. Consequently, the body in consideration is, for example, gendered. The topic of dwelling takes Martin Heidegger’s work on the hand as_the point of departure and uses philosophical anthropology and Jacques Derrida’s comments on Heidegger as_inspiration to suggest that the_relationship between the hand and thinking implies asking whose hands build places of dwelling. When dwelling is related to the body, we must also consider what concrete body is involved in building and dwelling.

The Climate of Spaces

Author(s): Federico De Matteis / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

This paper discusses the concept of climate in relation to architectural space. By elaborating on the notion of atmosphere, that today permeates a wide range of architectural research, I intend to expand its relevance by outlining a relationship between atmosphere and climate analogous to what occurs in_meteorological studies. While climate represents a rather stable (if evolving) cycle of recurring conditions, atmospheric events are fleeting and less predictable. Equally, architectural spaces can establish a general climatic scaffolding that increases the possibility of particular atmospheres to unfold, without however evolving into a deterministic cause-effect relationship. By addressing and comparing philosophical notions and architectural questions, I intend to formulate a novel theorisation as a useful tool for both criticism and design.

Osmospheric Dwelling

Author(s): Elena Mancioppi / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

Understanding the tight connections between human dwelling and the sense of smell seems nowadays urgent. Since human being-in-the-world finds its very prerequisite in being-in-the-air, an inquiry on air design, today particularly intrusive, is a philosophical necessity. The aim of this contribution is to sketch an exploratory investigation on the aesthetic relationships between space, smell and gendered atmospheres through the case of food, specifically through its osmosphere: its flavour as its affective aura. Firstly, I discuss analogies between atmospheres and smells. Secondly, I proceed by presenting olfactory devices whose aim is conveying gendered food-related and emotional atmospheres, scrutinising the phenomenological intertwining between food, cooking, gender, ‘sense of home’ and the olfactory imaginary of the matter. Finally, I put forward some observations which weave together aerial dwelling and ecological thought.

Can an Extra-terrestrial Dwell on Earth?

Author(s): Aurosa Alison / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

In this contribution, I discuss the potential inclusion of the third gender in future city projects. Drawing on Braidotti’s post-human context, which opens up new ways of reinterpreting the_evolution of our species, I focus on the concept of ‘other’ understood as ‘extraterrestrial’. To do this, I use two structural paradigms: Richard Shusterman’s somaesthetics, in which body and gender are seen as_identifying with each other, and the third gender, which allows the body to detach from its usual subjugation to gender. Paul B. Preciado’s book Can the Monster Speak?, published only one year ago, opened a conversation about the epistemological deconstruction of bodies. Preciado tells us that “we_are all in transition”, which means we must consider how to welcome others and adapt public and private spaces for a new way of being in the world. To propose a possible answer to the_question of_living, in particular, I refer to two case studies from the contemporary history of urban planning: the_Vienna Women Work City and Petra Doan’s theory about the tyranny of gender in public spaces.

Disrupted Dwelling: Forensic Aesthetics and the Visibility of Violence

Author(s): Martin Charvát / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

The aim of the present text is to offer an interpretation of Eyal Weizman’s_concept of forensic aesthetics, demonstrating how this approach reveals the ways in which the aesthetic perception of_violence, trauma, and decomposition of human dwelling can be transformed in the current digital optical war regime. Forensic aesthetics tries to grasp a_forensic sensibility as both an aesthetic and political practice, requiring individuals to become sensitive to violence and be able to comprehend and experience the affects of disintegration, trauma, and despair that are characteristic of the experience of_the survivor. The environment, dwelling, and architecture are not only inert observers, but rather have become material witnesses of crimes, violence, and destruction of various dwellings inhabited by_various species. The application of digital technologies in forensic aesthetics carries a_strong ethical appeal to avoid injustice. Traces and fragments of evidence, as well as multiple videos and images, are synchronized and recomposed within digital architectural environments and dwellings, as an optical and interpretative tool that shapes a_new type of aesthetics.

Juhani Pallasmaa ‘TALKS’ with Students

Author(s): Aurosa Alison,Juhani Pallasmaa / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

První den zbytku života umění

Author(s): Lenka Lee / Language(s): Czech Issue: 2/2022

Aesthetic Understanding

Author(s): Jeremy Page / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

In this paper, I introduce an account of aesthetic understanding. Recent discussions of aesthetic understanding have associated it with aesthetic justification and with understanding why, for example, a given object is aesthetically valuable. I introduce a notion of aesthetic understanding as a form of objectual understanding, which I refer to as ‘appreciative understanding’. Appreciative understanding is related to and partly constituted by an agent’s capacity to comprehend and experience an artwork holistically and to communicate effectively regarding its particular aesthetic character and value. I then argue for the understanding account of aesthetic judgement on which the paradigmatic form of aesthetic judgement is grounded on appreciative understanding. This argument partly consists in demonstrating how the understanding account can explain the autonomy of aesthetic judgement. In closing, I explore the potential of the understanding account to explain the structure of our appreciative practices. That is, I put forward the view that our appreciative practices are structured so as to promote appreciative understanding.

The Aesthetic Implications of Fichte on Feeling

Author(s): Petra Lohmann / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

The article discusses the connection between art and emotion in Fichte’s work and its contemporary reception by the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel. For the latter, not only selected architectural theoretical studies but also Schinkel’s ideal architectural designs are consulted. Schinkel knew Fichte personally and held him in high esteem. This is evidenced by some of Schinkel’s verbatim references to various forms of the Wissenschaftslehre and its sub-disciplines, as well as his extremely precise transcripts of lectures around the Berlin versions of the Wissenschaftslehre (around 1800). Schinkel was not only interested in the political and religious implications of Fichte’s theory of a cultural history of humankind, but his engagement with Fichte is also characterized above all by the theory of consciousness. This aspect plays a central role in the article. In recourse to the aesthetic emotion of the mind, a main concern of Fichte’s philosophy is to be placed in the horizon of architecture, which manifests itself in these questions: how does one convey a realisation in such a way that the recipient reconstructs it almost independently and it becomes a practical value for him as a criterion for his orientation in life? And furthermore – related to the research discourse on Fichte, which has only recently taken note of his aesthetic position and in particular his comments on architecture – how can this model of cognition be applied in his work from an architect’s point of view? In the investigation part on Fichte for this, first the feeling is reconstructed within the framework of the scientific-systematic philosophy as the reason of consciousness, in order to show with it the instance of the question relevant for Schinkel about the pedagogical effectiveness of a life-practical cultivating architecture. In the examination section on Schinkel, it is shown how Schinkel, in the horizon of Fichte, undertakes a determination of the relationship between feeling and ratio, with which he, for his part, establishes architecture as an instrument of cultivation.