here we go again,'Good end goals are as diverse as each individual mind. Clones, we are not. Humans still kill Humans and some still like dislike strange things. ab
________________________________ From: Frances Kelly <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wed, December 29, 2010 4:28:28 PM Subject: RE: "Is today's [art?] irrelevant?" Frances to William and others... You have raised some interesting ideas, many of which are still unclear thorns for me to wrestle with. Not all of the connecting terms you mention however are apposite or opposite poles, at least not in realist pragmatism as understood by me. Value is of satisfying a need for any phanerism, regardless of continuity or morality or rationality. Form is of free metaphysical continuity, and continues for its own sake, regardless of aesthetics or artistic concerns. Moral conduct is a good means or way to a good end or goal, but only includes the behavioral deeds of normal humans. Normal outcome is a fit norm of likely probability, and what naturally ought to be. The idealism of Peircean philosophy posits a world of on-going and never-ending continuity, wherein things are free to evolve by exploring likely routes fit as ways that dispositionally lead continua in the direction of good end goals. The continuity of continua that are felt by phenomenal phanerisms is in the form of phenomena, so that what is felt by a phanerism is the form of any phenomenal continuum, be it say eternal time or perpetual space or infinite energy. It might be supposed that the given metaphysical form is a felt "token" that indirectly represents the continuing continuum to the phanerism. My guess would be that the continuity is the general ideal tone, and the infinity is the universal lawful type, and the form is the special real token or manifested substance by which the tone or attributed essence and the type or exemplified presence might be felt or sensed and even known. In other words, nothing metaphysical and phenomenal is given to feel or sense or know except as a token fact, which for existent phanerisms like mechanisms of matter and organisms of life to include humans is an object as a sign and as a sign of another object. The only connective relation of the pure metaphysical form to aesthetics is that aesthetics posits that ideal forms continue to evolve for their own sake or for the mere goal of evolving. Aesthetics prescriptively holds that form is generally good, and that there can furthermore be such a form or thing as "goalness" in general, regardless of any particular goals the form may ethically yield or logically endure. Aesthetics holds that all forms bear or have aesthetic properties that are felt. Aesthetic form is a broad umbrella under which all the formal properties of an object would fall. In feeling the visible graphic form of an artistic object, what is felt as form for example includes say color and texture and shape and material and technique and perspective and distance and composition and structure and so on. All of these properties combined are the "final" good form of the objective object, which is also suitably fit for subjective vision. The purpose of such form therefore is to evolve in the disposed direction of good end goals, which is to be seen; and all of its energy and effort naturally goes to that struggle. The applied exemplar of form and its good goal has likely evolved into being a lofty work of fine art. The main purpose of aesthetics however is as a normative science, which is preparatory to the good ways or means and the good goals or ends of ethics; and that is further contributory to logics, of which science is likely the fit and best exemplar. As a further note, the realism of the Peircean philosophy of "idealist realism" posits a continuing world of action. This action might also go to the "token" aspects of ideal tonal forming and lawful typical feeling that all phenomenal phanerisms seem to engage in. -----Original Message----- From: William Conger [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, 28 December, 2010 6:17 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: "Is today's [art?] irrelevant?" 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? ----- 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.
