scholarly journals The Expression of Feeling in Imagination

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Moran
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
Aesthetic Responses ◽  
Aesthetic Engagement ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Emotional Resistance

The aesthetic engagement with fictions involves emotional responses of various kinds, and it is often urged that there is a paradox in the idea of emotions directed at what one knows to be a fictional situation or character. This paper examines some of the assumptions about imagination and emotion underlying the sense of paradox here, and critically examines Kendall Walton’s influential account of the problem in terms of his theory of make-believe. The paper argues that original paradox rests on a picture of the activity of imagination as restricted to the representation of states of affairs, and that this suggests an unreal discontinuity between our emotional aesthetic responses and our actual everyday lives. The final section discusses a problem from Hume concerning the phenomenon of moral and emotional resistance in imagination.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Hopkins
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Short Note ◽  
Current Situation ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
Early Settlement ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Initial Research

The chapters in this collection explore the everyday lives, experiences, practices and attitudes of Muslims in Scotland. In order to set the context for these chapters, in this introduction I explore the early settlement of Muslims in Scotland and discuss some of the initial research projects that charted the settlement of Asians and Pakistanis in Scotland’s main cities. I then discuss the current situation for Muslims in Scotland through data from the 2011 Scottish Census. Following a short note about the significance of the Scottish context, in the final section, the main themes and issues that have been explored in research about Muslims in Scotland.

scholarly journals 'Always think of the objects': Ekphrasis as aesthetics in the contemporary novel

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lucy Eleanor Alston
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Infinite Jest ◽  
Contemporary Novel ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Temporal Qualities

<p>It is a commonplace that ekphrasis – the description in literature of a visual work of art – brings to the fore questions of representation and reference. Such questions are particularly associated with the ‘postmodern’; ekphrasis is thus often subsumed under the category of metafiction. There has been little critical attention, however, to how the ekphrastic mode might be understood in aesthetic terms. This thesis considers the nature of ekphrasis’s referential capacity, but expands on this to suggest a number of ways in which the ekphrastic mode evinces the aesthetic and ontological assumptions upon which a text is predicated. Two case studies illustrate how the ekphrastic mode can be figured to different effect. In comparing these two novels, this thesis argues that the ekphrastic mode makes clear the particular subject-object relations expressed by each. If Lukács is correct in asserting that the novel mode expresses a discrepancy between ‘the conventionality of the objective world and the interiority of the subjective one’, ekphrasis provides a fruitful but under-explored avenue for critical inquiry because, as a mode, it is situated at the point at which subject and object must converge. The first chapter of this thesis is concerned with Ben Lerner’s Leaving the Atocha Station (2011), a novel that includes both traditional ekphrastic descriptions and embedded photographs and references to critical theory that function ekphrastically. David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest (1996) provides a contrast: the novel makes continued reference to film – a medium defined by its temporal qualities – but as used in the novel the ekphrastic mode implies a fixed, ahistorical schema. The implications that such differences have on the novel mode and critical discourse are explored in the final section of the thesis.</p>

7. The appetite for music

2018 ◽  
pp. 95-108
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Aesthetic Responses ◽  
Psychology Of Music ◽  
Life Circumstances ◽  
Musical Memory ◽  
Affective Dimensions ◽  
The Way ◽  
Musical Preferences

Music can seem captivating and integral to our lives, yet these affective dimensions are precisely the ones for which understanding remains most elusive. It is relatively straightforward to study something like musical memory by manipulating excerpts in various situations and seeing whether people remember them; however, studying the way music moves us requires deeper thought. It also represents a unique opportunity for the psychology of music. “The appetite for music” considers emotional responses to music. How does sound so easily take on such powerful associations with the life circumstances in which it was encountered? Aesthetic responses to music, musical preferences, and the motivations behind people’s interest in music are also discussed.

Schiller on Freedom and Aesthetic Value: Part II

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha Matherne ◽  
Nick Riggle
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Education ◽  
Political Freedom ◽  
Friedrich Schiller ◽  
Individual Freedom ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
Aesthetic Engagement ◽  
The Aesthetic

Abstract In his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man, Friedrich Schiller draws a striking connection between aesthetic value and individual and political freedom, claiming that, ‘it is only through beauty that man makes his way to freedom’. However, contemporary ways of thinking about freedom and aesthetic value make it difficult to see what the connection could be. Through a careful reconstruction of the Letters, we argue that Schiller’s theory of aesthetic value serves as the key to understanding not only his view of aesthetic engagement, but also his distinctive account of individual and political freedom. Whereas in Part I, we developed a reconstruction of Schiller's view that aesthetic value is the only path to individual freedom, in Part II we analyze how Schiller connects aesthetic value to political freedom. In the end, we show that Schiller defends a non-hedonic, action-oriented, communitarian theory of aesthetic value and a theory of freedom that makes the aesthetic not just supererogatory but fundamental for any fully autonomous life. Although we have lost touch with this way of thinking about aesthetic value and freedom, we submit that it is illuminating for contemporary thinking about both.

A Tour of the Senses

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Korsmeyer
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Fine Art ◽  
Art World ◽  
The Senses ◽  
The Aesthetic

Abstract Traditionally, the bodily senses of smell, taste, and touch have been designated ‘nonaesthetic’ senses and their objects considered unsuited to be fashioned into works of fine art. Recent innovations in the art world, however, have introduced scents, tastes, and tactile qualities into gallery exhibits, movements that, at least superficially, appear parallel to philosophical revaluations of the senses. This paper investigates the aesthetic scope of the five external senses, addressing some standard arguments about the limits of the ‘lower’ senses. I defend the artistic scope of the bodily senses by appealing to cross-modal perception and to the sensuous aspects of appreciative emotional responses to art.

Brown Studies Now and in Transition

2019 ◽  
pp. 555-570
Author(s):  
Hannah Lauren Murray
Keyword(s):  
Medical Humanities ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Charles Brockden Brown ◽  
The State ◽  
First Century ◽  
Early National ◽  
Thematic Approach ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
State Of The Field

This chapter examines the state of the field of Charles Brockden Brown studies since 2000. Taking a thematic approach, I discuss four dominant strands in twenty-first-century criticism: geographies, medical humanities, economies, and aesthetics. These sections cover the scholarly debate over a transnational, imperial, or postcolonial Brown; consider the new ways in which early national medicine intersects with his fiction; chart the rise of market and class-based criticism; and discuss a return to formal concerns in light of the aesthetic or postcritique turn. The final section of this chapter looks ahead to emergent trends in future Brown scholarship in response to the previous decade’s work.

scholarly journals The Aesthetic Engagement Theory of Art

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Grafton-Cardwell
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Value ◽  
Engagement Theory ◽  
Functionalist Account ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Aesthetic Engagement ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Ultimate Purpose

I introduce and explicate a new functionalist account of art, namely that something is an artwork iff the fulfillment of its function by a subject requires that the subject aesthetically engage it. This is the Aesthetic Engagement Theory of art. I show how the Aesthetic Engagement Theory outperforms salient rival theories in terms of extensional adequacy, non-arbitrariness, and ability to account for the distinctive value of art. I also give an account of what it is to aesthetically engage a work that relies on our agential capacity to treat an object as having non-instrumental value, even while the ultimate purpose for our engaging the object is to get something from it.

scholarly journals Beauty and Metaphysics

2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-76
Author(s):  
William Hasker
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Ultimate Reality ◽  
Cognitive Value ◽  
Aesthetic Properties ◽  
The Aesthetic

It is shown through examples ranging from Parmenides and Plato to Whitehead and Wittgenstein that beauty is central among the values that have made metaphysical theories appealing and credible. A common attitude would be that the aesthetic properties of metaphysical theories may be important for effective presentation but are irrelevant to the cognitive value of the theories. This however is question-begging, since it assumes without argument that ultimate reality is indifferent to value-considerations such as beauty. If on the contrary we allow that the aesthetic properties of theories may be cognitively relevant, which such properties should be considered? This question is explored in the final section of the paper. 

Aesthetic Responses to a Series of Paintings by Paul Klee

1989 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 339-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. C. Parrott
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Expression ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Da Vinci ◽  
The Other ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Aesthetic Response ◽  
Paul Klee ◽  
Aesthetic Responses ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Experimental Group

The effects of exposure to a series of colour slides of paintings by Paul Klee were assessed with 69 nonexpert subjects. All subjects viewed the same 2 paintings by Klee while the other 10 paintings were varied between groups. The control group viewed paintings by 10 different artists (da Vinci, Picasso, Rubens, Dali). The first experimental group viewed 10 different paintings by Klee while the second experimental group saw 3 Klees in close detail. Differences in response to the 2 Klees seen by every group comprised the empirical data. The experimental groups produced higher ratings on questions of painting style; it was judged significantly more ‘clear’ and ‘representational’ in comparison with control group scores. Emotional expression was also significantly affected, but ratings of liking the painting were not generally changed. The effects of familiarity depend upon the nature of the aesthetic response being evaluated. Familiarity breeds understanding and perhaps comfort, but not increased interest.

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