I don't see this issue as very complicated. A scientist wants to know what a thing really is, independent of our knowing it. That's the goal. It's understood that some part of knowing is subjective, limited by the human brain and how we think but that does not preclude the properties of independent things being identified, measured, etc. An artist may work as a scientist, as some Renaissance artists did, more or less, but most commonly artists want to express an experience of something, be it objective or subjective or both. Generally the artist's goal differs from the scientist's goal, the scientist wants to know the objective reality and the artist wants to express the subjective reality, both in a matter of, let's say, degrees.
WC --- Frances Kelly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Frances to William... > The irony is understood in your remarks about > objectivity and > subjectivity. There are of course some theories of > art seemingly > contradicting the importance of the self in art, > such as the need > for a percipient to maintain the correct "psychical > distance" > from the work by being "disinterested" in the work > like a judge > of the court. It may be because of this seeming > irony that > pragmatism posits the idea of things being > progressive and > hierarchical, such as iconicity and symbolicity, or > objectivity > and subjectivity, or aesthetics and logics, or art > and science; > in that they are all in their own right preparatory > and > contributory and consummatory of each other, and > then at last > combinatory. As a related aside, the inner tern > under the human > "psyche" might best be ordered as "self" and > "subject" and > "person" that you partly mentioned, but this kind of > psychologism > may not be that useful here in appreciating the > human > relationship to art and science. > > William wrote... > In science the goal is to take the self out of the > judgment and to simply understand the data, the > results, the evidence, the matter, etc. That's why > it's science --the scientific method -- and why it's > objective. It's admitted that it is not possible, > probably, to exclude all subjectivity. So while art > and science share the human subject in some way, the > former tries to eliminate self as much as possible > and > the latter tries to include it as much as possible. > Granted that when it comes to intrepretation, > appreciation, and the like, art and science are > regarded subjectively.
