Hume and Plato

While reading Hume, I began to wonder if Hume’s objective standards are comparable to Plato’s world of forms. Plato, as we have previously learned, proposed the existence of a world of forms beyond the reach of human concept. In the world of forms existed the forms of all objects which people build (or in this case ‘imitates’). Whenever someone creates a chair or a bed, they are trying to imitate one of these perfect, beautiful forms, but can never succeed. Plato wished to omit emotion from his ideal state so that people will be better able to become closer to this world of forms through reason. He obviously believed emotion would distort people’s perception of the worlds of forms.
Hume, similarly, believes there are objective standards which everyone is aware of, but because of defects, our perception of these standards is distorted, creating subjective opinion. According to Hume, objectivity can only be attained through “a perfect serenity of mind, a recollection of thought, a due attention to the object” (Wartenberg 44). Basically, objectivity can be attained through reason. So, both philosophers have proposes a series of—or world of—perfect, object beauty which is beyond the comprehension of humanity and can best be attained by reason.
However, further reading has shown me the two philosophies are not compatible. Plato’s world of forms exists outside of the observer, while for Hume the objective standards are still existent only in the observer’s perception.
Are Plato’s world of forms and Hume’s objective standards compatible?

Response to Nick

I am commenting on Nicks questions, “Where is my aesthetic experience? In each individual taking of a photograph? In the leaving and returning of a photo-excursion? In the printing and pasting of the photos themselves?”
Because this was posted at the time we were discussing Dewey, I will respond in the context of Dewey.
I would say that the aesthetic experience is in each individual taking of the photograph. This is the time when you are exercising your conscious intention and adding “regulation, power of selection, and redisposition” (Wartenberg 142). It is at the moment you are taking the pictures that you are experiencing so completely that your experience can be an experience, which is what makes your pictures art.
The leaving and returning of the photo-excursion certainly is not the point of your aesthetic experience—you may be conscious, but you are not intervening with your consciousness.
Although I hold that the actual taking of the picture is the moment of aesthetic experience, some difficulty arises with the printing and pasting of the photos themselves. Printing a photo still requires artisanship, and without the conscious intent required by Dewey it most certainly would not end as art. Perhaps photography requires two separate aesthetic experiences—the first where you are intervening in nature (taking the photo), and the second when you are intervening with the photograph (printing).
QUESTION: As discussed at the beginning of the semester, there are many works of art which were created without the intent of the artist (ex. John Lennon’s doodles). Do these prove Dewey’s theory wrong? And if not, then how can they be included under his theory?

Walking and Breathing

A major criticism of Dewey's account of art seems to be it's openness; one could take his definition of a art and apply it to almost anything done in life, perhaps even living itself. This recieve so much criticism because it seems ridiculous to consider wuch things as walking or sitting or breathing as 'art' merely because they were done with conscious intent. However, it has also been noted previously that people have a tendency to dismiss a peice of artwork because we feel that "even I could do that." Perhaps the idea of breathing or walking as art seems so ridiculous because we all do it, and so we degrade it. But really, what if we did include conscious intention into those activities? When do we ever become conscious of how we walk or breathe? Walking, though it seems to simple because "we can all do it" is actually an incredibly complex activity. To quote an article in National Geographic, "These biometrichal windows on walking and running illuminate just how astonishing a feat of balance, coordination, and efficiency is upright locomotion. The legs on a walking human body act not unlike inverted pendulums. Using a stiff leg as a point of support, the body swings up and over it in an arc, so that the potential energy gained in the rise roughly equals the kinetic energy gnerated in the descent. By this trick the body stores and recovers so much of the energy used with each stride that it reduces it's own workload by as much as 65 percent" (Ackerman, J. "The Downside of Upright." National Geographic July 2006: 126-145). True, complexity does not give something art-status, but it seems that we could view walking differently if we walked with conscious intent.

I have no specifc question for this entry. Instead I am interested in a response to the validity of these thoughts.

Subjectivity

We discussed in our last class whether or not it is possible to have ‘bad art.’ My answer to this question is yes, it is very possible to have bad art. The problem we have with evaluating art comes from our insufficient understanding of art’s function. Because we do not truly understand what art is we cannot evaluate it, but this does not mean it is above evaluation. For example; we understand the function of a chair, and thus we can discriminate between good chairs and bad chairs. However, we did not always know the function of a chair. As infants we were probably bewildered by the four legged objects scattered on the floor. At this point in time we were unable to distinguish good chairs from bad chairs—however, the separation did still exist.
One might argue that the function of art is much more subjective that the function of a chair. In that case, consider the function of a chair for a child compared to an adult. A typical chair would be too small for the child, and a child’s chair would be uncomfortable for an adult. In this case, the function of chairs is also subjective. Different chairs are good for different people, but bad chairs still exist. One should not make the mistake of assuming that because the subjectivity of art is emotional or psychological as opposed to physical, it’s evaluation cannot still exist.

QUESTION: Does this analogy make sense?

Response to Kaitland

This is in response to Kaitland’s question, “How does Freud justify his reasoning for his beliefs that art doesn't exist unless unconsciously done?”
Freud justifies this by stating that art is a way of relieving the tension caused by shameful unconscious wishes. Thus, art cannot exist unless unconsciously done. However, Freud’s theory does not allow for anything to be consciously done because our conscience is strongly influenced by our unconscious. As stated by Prof. Johnson, Freud over-applies his theory and so I think this may be one of the cases where his theory is too inflexible. Although Freud does justify this claim in the context of this theory I do not think the application of his theory to art is justified.

QUESTION: According to Freud, humans repress their id (the unconscious desires we are afraid of) with the superego (conscience). Artists gain their talent by coming closer to their unconscious and expresses these wishes in art. Therefore, wouldn’t animals (who have no superego to repress the id) be better suited for artistic talent?

Response to Sarah

This is in response to Sarah’s question, “is becoming an artist an acquired talent?”
In regard to technical ability, the answer is an obvious yes. Becoming skillful at shading, coloring, etc., requires practice and thus is an acquired talent. However, whether or not these skills constitute artistic ability is questionable.
For this reason I suspect that a formalist, such as Clive Bell, could argue that artistic ability is an innate ability. Bell considers technical ability as unnecessary and seems to consider the appreciation of significant form as an inborn ability. However, the viewpoint of Freud states that artistic ability arises overcoming our shame for our repressed desires, and so by learning to overcome our shame we can acquire artistic ability.
To take another approach to this question I will focus on the artistic ability of autistic children, some of whom (savants) seem to be born with an innate artistic ability. One theory of why this happens lies in a possible explanation of autism. Some people have hypothesized that autistic persons are born with an inability to mesh all the information of the sensory world into one single concept. For example, when non-autistic people look at a sphere they see the circular shape and the shading of the light When they put this information together they become aware that they are looking at the sphere—at first glance they are unaware of the shape or the shading as separate qualities, and are only aware of the two combined. An autistic person, however, would not be able to combine the two qualities and would be aware of both the shape and the shading independently of each other; this gives them a unique ability to artistically express both qualities in their purest form. In this sense, artistic ability could be innate. However, this knowledge gives us an ability to try and overcome the natural conceptualization of our senses as some artists have apparently done. In this way artistic ability can be acquired. (Fox, D. (2009) The inner savant. Discover Presents the Brain, pp.10-15.)

QUESTION: Is there a relationship between Plato’s forms and formalism?

The Principle of Isolation

In class we seem to agree that Clive Bell’s theory of significant form is inadequate to define art. Despite the problems with formalism, however, he did make some interesting statements concerning the role of exact representation in aesthetics.
Bell’s criticism of accurate representation (artwork which imitates real life exactly) actually has some scientific support. There is an article in the July 2008 edition of Scientific American Mind entitled “The Neurology of Aesthetics.” In this article, the author presents a series of principles for aesthetics, one of which is the principle of isolation.
The principle of isolation states that art tends to have more aesthetic value when certain qualities (such as shading, color, texture, etc.) are left out of the work. Bell would have described this as “absence of representation” and “absence of technical swagger” (Wartenberg 121). This happens because our brains have limited attentional resources; basically, we can only focus on so much at a time. Because of this, when certain qualities are left out, the qualities which remain in the painting are given more attention (Ramachandran, V., Rogers-Ramachandran, D. (2008). The Neurology of Aesthetics. Scientific American Mind, Vol. 18, pp. 74-77). Perhaps Bell was on to something when he criticized representation.

QUESTION: The fact that our brains can only focus on limited aspects of a painting reminds me of Jason’s entry from February 12th, entitled” An Artist’s Perception Verse That of a Psychologist’s.” I feel like there is a connection, but am having trouble making it. Can anyone help?