Marc-A. said:
Obviously, you don’t care. Baumgarten, old crap. But Currie, Davies or Wolstertoff (whose work I appreciate btw) are not in the same ballpark as Kant. Where do you study ?
You know, I don't get your point of view. What would be so wrong about disagreeing with Kant or Baumgarten, about considering that their model of aesthetics may be flawed? Yeah, I know the "it's not because it's old that it's crap" rengaine, there's good stuff in Aristotle, no mistakes. But to consider that Kant is the ultimate authority in aesthetics is like considering Plato the ultimate authority on ethics.
I study at McGill.
Marc-A. said:
Thanks for the lecture. So you mean the trivial fact that we blabla about a topic which is art, and you hold that that blabla is knowlegde about this topic. Interesting. The problem is that you’re mixing the issues and you think that all which relates in one way or another to art has someting to do with aesthetics. That's very weak. For instance, the moral role of the artist in a society, is not an aethetic issue, but a sociological one.
Give me a break! Aesthetics is pretty much an umbrella term nowadays, it's not specifically Baumgarten's "sensory cognition". Right, the role in society is not aesthetics, boo-hoo I made a mistake.
Marc-A. said:
Btw I’m so impressed by big words : ontology wow ! Let me put it straight : ontology of artworks is bullsh*t (in H. Frankfurt’s sense). I know it’s trendy to reawaken ontology when contemporary theories have nothing serious to say about art, politics, society, ethics …etc. But it's useless. Well, like Rawls, I try to understand politics without ontology ; like Carnap, I try to understand logics without ontology or metaphysics … etc.
You always postulate an ontology of one kind or another in a discussion about art. Obviously you don't care. Type vs. Token? Reactionary crap. Performance vs. Artifact? Pedant merde bovine by stuffy old farts. Yes, yes, absolutely useless, I must agree with you.
Oh, and maybe you should not use big words like metaphysics and combine them with other big words like logic. Maybe someone like you would scold you for using them while failing to impress him.
Marc-A. said:
Yep, that’s exactly what I understood … again common sense. That’s why I said : « meaning is accessible to rational human being through language ». And that’s why language is, and will remain, the primary paradigm of signification, as Leibniz put it (again I put aside theories of perceptual meaning which don’t concern aesthetics).
So perception is irrelevant to aesthetics? Recognition of shapes is irrelevant? That's interesting, to say the least... Smoke doesn't have a meaning?
Marc-A. said:
Yep, that’s Pierce’s definition of an iconic sign. So what ? Icons are only one way to produce meaning, or to represente signification, or to derive significance. There are also indices and symbols, which don't "depict" objects by resemblance ; go and read again Pierce. There is no reason to think that photography is only about icon and not symbol. Btw Pierce's theory, as great as it is, is only one semiotic theory. Do you want to discuss iconography vs ideography?
That's the point: images are taken to be fundamentally iconic signs by most semiotics theories. I don't care if Peirce considers rubber ducks to be symbols or the index of his grandmother, but pictures are not icons.
Marc-A. said:
Thanks, I really need a Companion for students.
Maybe you do.
