Frances; OK, I get it. But I don't really understand why value is sometimes imbued with the moral or form is sometimes imbued with the aesthetic. What enables that condition? It's one thing to separate value from the moral but it's another to know what justifies the separation in the first place if in fact they can be merged, at least the latter with the former or the moral with value, and aesthetic with form. If they are always separate then it tells us nothing at all to simply say value is not moral, or aesthetic is not form, because we still don't know what the moral is or what the aesthetic is a-priori. Is this an analogy for Peirce's Type and Token? wc
----- Original Message ---- From: Frances Kelly <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tue, December 28, 2010 4:42:09 PM Subject: RE: "Is today's [art?] irrelevant?" William... There is a clear pragmatist difference to be made between values and morals that may impact on your position. An object has value merely to the extent that it satisfies some need of say a signer or person or user, aside from any matters of aesthetical or moral or ethical or logical concern; thus murder would have value as relief to a criminal, or meat would have value as food to a carnivore. The moral behavior of a person on the other hand should be a good means to a good end; thus morality should be good and nice and right and correct and fair and just. It might be held that values are preparatory to and determiners of morals, whereby morals govern the worth of values. This however entails that morals in turn are dependent on earlier values, which perhaps leaves goods or goodness as the eventual measure of morals and values and worths. It is furthermore likely that values are applicable to all natural organisms, while morals are only applicable to normal humans. The formal aesthetic qualities or properties of ordinary objects in nature and culture, and of ordinary works in human social culture or society, have "value" to the extent that they simply satisfy a need. This seems to suggest that say the purity and ugly and beauty and unity of all objects might be found or held as being valued aesthetically and even artistically. It is perhaps only when the form of an ordinary object becomes empowered, as an extraordinary object or work, that its value becomes tethered by much of those very aesthetic qualities and properties that are felt to exist in the first place. The issue might then turn on just exactly what are those aesthetic forms or qualities and properties that ordinary phenomenal objects may bear or have or yield or endure; and that indeed seems to empower or make them candidates as extraordinary aesthetic objects. There are after all ordinary objects of nonart that have the same nasty or nice forms as extraordinary objects of art. The still broader issue here is what might be the differentia of art from nonart as in say life or tech and science. If the differentia of art is not found in form, then this leaves little else to consider, such as content or context or function or intent or effect or whatever remains to consider. ---Frances -----Original Message----- From: William Conger [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, 27 December, 2010 4:04 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: "Is today's [art?] irrelevant?" Your comment is OK but it can't be taken seriously as a philosophical position that withstands analysis. For instance, there are many cases where a moral act would fulfills your aim "to preserve human society" but is considered harmful by others, or even does harm others while helping one or a few. In addition, what distinguishes the abstract term society from the individual? We know society refers to a collective group or culture that has some traits or values in common but what of the concrete reality of an individual person who may honestly, thoughtfully, be at odds with those societal values? Clearly, we have an abundance of examples at hand that hang on the dilemma of "preserving human society" according to some abstract values and preserving the "individual" benefits, or moral good. Commonly, serving one, ill suits the other. As for art preserving the human society by means of offering delight I am of course in agreement to the extent that some easily agreed to cases are evident. But what of those other agreed upon examples of great art that neither don't seem to preserve human society though symbols nor offer any delight? Does a morbid crucifixion scene offer delight? How does a battle scene with all its gruesome detail preserve human life? I suppose there are better examples than these to be found everywhere, not to mention those examples where destruction of an enemy's life is glorified as art. This vexing issue that puts the pleasure of the senses on one side and the implied content of the subject on the other side -- sometimes in agreement but often not -- has been at the center of aesthetics debate for a long time. The art for art's sake concept, the formalist view -- tried to settle the issue by claiming that the properties of form, like line, color, etc., can delight the mind, and ought to in great art even if the subject and content is repulsive or immoral in nature. But then the same advocates of the art for art's sake concept like to claim a difficult and mysterious embodiment of content in form because if there is no necessary relationship of the two in the artwork, then why try to put them together? Why not just center on delighting the senses or, separately, saying something that repulses the moral mind? Finally, you want to join the abstraction of "society" with the equally abstract notions of "preserving humans" and "delight" and implications that these abstractions constitute some form of content and morality. It can be very vague once we go past the everyday use of the terms and subject them to scrutiny. And then, to cap it all off with a completely odd expression, you say "to me" asserting your individual authority as the trump card, so to speak, contradicting your claim that "preserving society" is the goal. How can that be a goal if its validity depends on an individual's opinion? What if "society" disagrees? Troubling, troubling. Everyday -- folk philosophy -- expressions of belief and received opinions get us through casual conversations, I suppose, but they rarely (I except Montaigne and Mark Twain) survive the first seriously analytical critique. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: Boris Shoshensky <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Mon, December 27, 2010 10:47:04 AM Subject: Re: "Is today's [art?] irrelevant?" Moral, for me, is any human action that helps to preserve human society. I think art plays this role by giving us mental and physiological state of delight. Boris Shoshensky To: [email protected] Subject: Re: "Is today's [art?] irrelevant?" Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2010 17:05:09 -0800 (PST) I don't know what spiritual means. It's a word that can't stand
