Cheerskep; That was quite a blast, an imperiously smug judgment from a "big league philosopher" who has no peer on the forum or, we may surmise, anywhere.
I don't disparage Harvard but you can't see the humor in my remark. When I hit Harvard and the Jesuits, it was my joke, an obviously ludicrous comment. In fact have a number of friends, quite a few colleagues, and even relatives who attended Harvard, both undergrad and grad. My own direct forebears favored Princeton and Yale. I'm a product of the University of Chicago having received a full fellowship and various academic awards. I'm an old fashioned elitist type when it comes to big time academia. As for all your retorts that I didn't answer, there are two possible things for you to consider. One is that by not responding I let you have the last word. The other is that I didn't see any point in responding because your retort was largely rhetorical. For instance, by listing the headings of chapters in a basic aesthetics text, you did not refute my claim that aesthetics studies aesthetics. You can take that statement two ways. One is that aesthetics does indeed study aesthetics in the same way that mathematics studies mathematics. The other is that aesthetics does not study aesthetics but supposedly something that informs it, like beauty. But beauty is the aesthetic. There's no escaping the circularity of problems that have no quantifiable object. I suppose my being a tenured full professor at a highly selective tier one university was a mistake, particularly on the part of those colleagues and deans, provosts, who often appointed me to academic committees where I judged tenure cases in, ah, philosophy, literature, art history, and even some sciences. I also served on similar appointed committees for other major universities, including Columbia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Univ. Chicago, and others. I have also lectured at many universities, including New York University in your neck of the woods. I guess that was due to my poor intellect. And regarding those students, I can't say that any of the students I found at Northwestern were dumb or without significant promise. The selection process in top schools is very rigorous nowadays. Legacies don't count much anymore, like they did in your day. Nevertheless, there's little point in my participating on a forum where I'm regarded as not having the "big league" intellect to make useful contributions by someone who continually dismisses my offerings as incoherent and worse -- without ever engaging them on their own terms instead of his. In fact, there's something desperate in your Inquisition style accusations against me. It's interesting that you judge my art abilities, with absolutely no credentials for doing so but still condemn my intellect, which makes those abilities evident, unless, again, art is the product of some scary notion not even Plato could abide. And if I'm so poor at philosphy --a mode of curiosity in practice -- I dare say that I'm very well informed --far better than you are -- -- in art history and its surrounding cultural contexts, which do impinge on worldview philosophy and aesthetics. Incidentally, serious philosophical dialogue usually avoids judgment of the sort you seem to favor -- dismissive -- and instead pursues threads of arguments to their ends, just to see what they might uncover along the way. As I said, it's curiosity in practice. As far as I can determine, with my feeble intellect, the forum has never fully engaged even one basic problem in aesthetics, the problem of beauty. Which may be why the actual philosophers of art out there don't participate. WC --- On Sat, 10/25/08, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: Envisioning by Cheerskep > To: [email protected] > Date: Saturday, October 25, 2008, 2:24 PM > If you recall, William, I have a number of times in the past > complimented > your writing in a posting I'd just seen. In fact, we > even had an offline > exchange > in which I did that. > > "But why are you the only one, besides a few Jesuit > teachers in high school, > who says I don't have the intellect and temperment for > philosophic discussion? > Gee, I was a member of Phi Sigma Tau, the Natonal Honor > Society in > Philosophy in college..." > > Two thoughts -- one about intellect, the other about > temperament. > > When you ran the Northwestern art program, it was what > I'll call "the big > leagues". I'm sure you received at Northwestern > students who were celebrated > in > their home town for their gifts in "art". But you > could quickly see they would > never have what it takes to be "big league". > > Every year, every college with a philosophy department has > some student who > is the "the best" in his class. Some of them will > go on to grad school. This > wave of new would-be's will arrive glistening with > previous academic honors > and > immense confidence. Most will soon confront the brutal > fact that they can't > compete in the "big leagues". Very, very few of > them will ever ultimately do > philosophy of much worth. In a given year, probability says > none of them will. > Consider: How many philosophers have you ever heard of? > > > You disdain Harvard. I think disdain is inappropriate, but > so is reverence. > When I was in grad school there, there were forty of us, > and we were all > pretty > chuffed because we knew that Harvard then, with Quine, was > the place to be. > So these "scholars" figured to be as good as they > got in the U.S. at that > time. > I looked about and soon judged not a single one of these > guys could ever > become more than a learned drone. > > The point: You mustn't take your college honors as a > decisive credential. If > no one else has in your post-high school life ever told you > don't have the > peculiar intellect demanded by worthy philosophy, I submit > it's largely > because > you haven't run up against "big leaguers". > > Temperament: Some students show an aptitude for a degree of > "understanding" > what they read (though it's astonishing how many of > those lack the ability to > go from there, take the next step into worthy original > work.) It's not clear > on > the forum how much you simply don't understand, or > perhaps how much an > attention deficit causes you sporadically to fail to > register patches, or how > much > your psyche simply refuses to dwell on, to honor, effective > counter-argument. > > A while back I suggested our aesthetics forum study the > "aesthetic > experience". You wrote dismissively: > > "It's circular to say that aesthetics questions > what the aesthetic experience > consists of. Boiled down it says: Aesthetics studies > aesthetics." > > To respond, I turned to my shelf of aesthetics anthologies > and quoted the > table of contents of the very first volume I pulled down, > titled "The Problems > of > Aesthetics": > > 1. The Discipline of Aesthetics > 2. The Nature of Art > 3. The Creative Act > 4. The Aesthetic Object > 5. The Aesthetic Experience > 6. The Aesthetic Judgment > > This seemed to me an effective refutation of your > assertion. > > You never replied. > > You wrote: > > "By 'lie' I mean we believe in the fiction of > remembering." > > I responded and asked: > > "You're almost alone in the universe in thinking > of "lying" that way. Let me > ask, what is your word for "knowingly and > intentionally uttering a > falsehood"?" > > You never replied. > > I have, at your urging, looked into Damasio, and > commentators on Damasio like > Dennett, Searle and Chalmers. In several lengthy postings > I've written why I > think Damasio's neurological investigations are > interesting but don't come > close to saying anything illuminating about the questions > on our forum. I > said > I don't deny that there is concurrency of > "mental" events, "notions", with > physical neural activity, or that we can spot in the brain > where much of that > activity takes place, but I claimed it tells me nothing > about what is for me > the
