You are correct, Mr Miller: I am not reading Rand. I did so years ago, and do not wish to repeat the experience. My argument was indeed based on your precis. The problem, Mr Miller, is not that art (or anything else) be subject to a rational philosophy, but that meaningful activities have conditions of intelligibility that must be satisfied in order for the activity in question to be actually meaningful. Danto is a fine example of such an enquiry, whether we agree with him or not matters little.
What distinguishes Rand from Danto is the manner of approach and presentation, if not the claims they make. Rand comes armed with a set of already established theses and criticizes works from that vantage. Danto immanently develops or rationally reconstructs the conditions of intelligibility for Art post-Warhol. The former is external to art, the latter is internal to it. More simply put, Rand does not develop, defend, or justify her principles. She simply uses them. On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 11:04 AM, Chris Miller <[email protected]>wrote: > Thank you, Imago Asthetik, for putting so much effort into this discussion! > Other listers are quite content to dismiss Rand as a fascist kook and then > ignore her. > > I get the feeling that you are responding to my presentation of Rand, > rather > than reading the "Romantic Manifesto" yourself. > > Is this correct? > > In which case, only I can be blamed for your mis-understandings. > > So far, through chapter 4, Rand has not mentioned Objectivism at all, but > assuming that she would consider it to be the best philosophy, she might > say > that it would guide its followers to a superior sense of life. > > "philosophy does not replace a man's sense of life, which continues to > function as the automatically integrated sum of his values. But philosophy > sets the criteria of his emotional integrations according to a fully > defined > and consistent view of reality (if and to the extent that a philosphy is > rational)" (page 37) > > Therefore, both your PRF (Premise from Rand)#3 and your Subconclusion#2 are > incorrect, and the conclusions that you draw from them are irrelevant. > > What distinguishes Rand from other famous thinkers about art, aesthetics, > and > sense of life? > > Do any of the others demand that the above be subject to a rational > philosophy? > > She's almost the complete inverse of Danto, who created art theory to > rationalize famous art (Warhol, DuChamps, etc) > > Following her philosophy, she calls for an art that hardly exists yet. > > She offers her own novels as examples, but that's not to say that we have > to > agree that they have any esthetic or literary merit. > > > > > > > > ******************************************************************* > ** > Imago Asthetik wrote: > > 1. Art expresses a sense of life (Premise from Rand [PRF]) > [For all X such that IF X is art, Then X expresses a form of life] > > 2. Philosophy is a higher, autonomous discipline that supervenes upon > art > (PRF) > [For all P such that IF P is philosophy, THEN P is a metadiscourse*] > > 3. Some senses of life are better -- to wit, the best is Objectivist > (PRF) > [For some X and Some Y, X is more valuable than Y, and X is > Objectivist] > > > *By metadiscourse, I mean a determination of the truth-conditions of > functions (predicates), like 'is more valuable than'. Objectivism is one > such metadiscourse. > > Subconclusions: > > - Philosophy is a discipline that evaluates (from 2 & 3) > - Evaluation is based upon the sense of life an artwork expresses (from > 3) > > Now, from the subconclusions, it follows that philosophy also expresses a > sense of life, otherwise it could not evaluate [from premise 2 and > Subconclusion 2), for it would have no principles of evaluation. However, > if philosophy expresses a sense of life, then it is not autonomous, not > independent of a sense of life, and certainly not higher than a sense of > life. And this yields a contradiction: By premise 2, philosophy is > indpendendent of a sense of life, even as it entails that philosophy cannot > be independent. P implies not-P, which is impossible. QED. > > To be sure, there are a number of ways to avoid the contradiction -- one > being to relativize the whole framework, such that all discussions are > inherently personal, subjectivistic, and non-communicable; another being to > universalize the 'sense of life' so that every work expresses the same > sense, though from a unique perspective (monadology). There are > undoubtedly > others. > > All this to say, then, that I have in fact provided a valid argument. My > claim concerning evidence had everything to do with the fact that I have > seen no evidence of a defence against it. To be sure, you are right to > point out that a lack of evidence does not entail inexistence, but that > does > not affect my substantive claim. If Rand has a counterargument or a > counterargument can be produced on her behalf, then please do so. > > In any case, claiming that art expresses a sense of life is hardly an > original idea, and I can find it in almost every piece of German aesthetics > since Baumgarten (and through to Gadamer). What distinguishes Rand from > these thinkers (excluding for the moment bad argument)? > > There have been a great number of writers who have changed my mind on > aesthetic/artistic matters. A number of Adornos writings have changed the > way I look at art. I remember the lists brief discussion of Jay Bernsteins > discussion of Dutch painting, which changed my mind about it. Greenbergs > New Lacoon prompted me to rethink several points. > > ____________________________________________________________ > Click here for great prices on high quality breast pumps! > > http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/fc/BLSrjnxZPu07y7ZoNsFdZxyS4QIldc > 4Cl0QBhIYNoRZe475jNTOC6gfVbTy/<http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/fc/BLSrjnxZPu07y7ZoNsFdZxyS4QIldc%0A4Cl0QBhIYNoRZe475jNTOC6gfVbTy/>
