By Happy Alchemy of Mind

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic McIver Lopes
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Aesthetic Appreciation ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Art Historians ◽  
Reliable Performance

The network theory of aesthetic value implies that aesthetic value is related only contingently to pleasure (or finally valuable experience). The chapter argues that this result fits the facts about how agents are motivated to act aesthetically: sometimes aesthetic agents act out of non-aesthetic desires. As a result, what makes someone an aesthetic expert is their reliable performance, not any specifically aesthetic desire. At the same time, the exercise of aesthetic competence typically brings pleasure, because the pleasure system is implicated in any kind of competence performance. Some art historians say as much when they describe the details of how aesthetic appreciation works in social context.

Getting Practical

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic McIver Lopes
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Aesthetic Appreciation ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Aesthetic Property ◽  
Aesthetic Values ◽  
Aesthetic Reason

While the main argument for the network theory of aesthetic value is that it better explains the facts about aesthetic activity than does aesthetic hedonism, the two theories share some common assumptions. Aesthetic evaluations are mental representations that attribute aesthetic values to items. Aesthetic acts are acts based on aesthetic evaluations. Aesthetic values figure in aesthetic reasons, which are practical reasons. That is, an aesthetic reason lends weight to the proposition that an agent should perform some act—an act of aesthetic appreciation, for example. Hence, one task for a theory of aesthetic value is to state what makes some values aesthetic. A second is to state what makes it the case that an aesthetic property figures in a reason that lends weight to what an agent should do. Aesthetic hedonism and the network theory offer only to explain the practical normativity of aesthetic value.

Hundred Mile Aesthetics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic McIver Lopes
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Psychological Traits ◽  
Aesthetic Practice ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Aesthetic Values

The main argument for the network theory of aesthetic value is that it better explains the facts about aesthetic activity than aesthetic hedonism. According to the network theory, an aesthetic value figures in a fact that lends weight to the proposition that it would be an aesthetic achievement for an agent to act in the context of an aesthetic practice. Each aesthetic practice has its own aesthetic profile, in which determinate aesthetic values are distinctively realized, and each has core aesthetic norms centred on its distinctive aesthetic profile. An account is given of the valence of aesthetic values. The theory explains why aesthetic experts disperse into almost all demographic niches, why they jointly inhabit the whole aesthetic universe, why they specialize by aesthetic domain, why they specialize by type of activity, why they specialize by activity and domain interacts, and why their expertise is rooted in relatively stable psychological traits.

Beings for Beauty

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic McIver Lopes
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Psychological Traits ◽  
Almost All

The main argument for the network theory of aesthetic value is that it better explains the facts about aesthetic activity than does its rival, aesthetic hedonism. Aesthetic activity is not limited to appreciation, and six case studies are presented of aesthetic agents whose expertise covers a range of aesthetic activities. From a survey of the case studies, we see that six facts need explaining. Aesthetic experts disperse into almost all demographic niches, they jointly inhabit the whole aesthetic universe, they specialize by aesthetic domain, they specialize by type of activity, they specialize by activity and domain interact, and their expertise is rooted in relatively stable psychological traits.

Building Better Aesthetic Agents

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic McIver Lopes
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Arts Education ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
The Aesthetic

A theory of aesthetic value should help us to make sense of how our aesthetic commitments matter to us as members of collectives. Aesthetic policies endogenous to aesthetic practices are directly justified by the network theory. The chapter looks at what aesthetic reasons we have to adopt exogenous aesthetic policies. Many argue that aesthetic practices deserve public support because aesthetic goods are public goods. A case is made for an aesthetic opportunity principle: larger social groups have reason to foster the aesthetic opportunities available to their members. The principle is applied to arts education and to communication technologies subserving aesthetic exchanges. The chapter ends with a discussion of how aesthetic opportunity interacts with—and can potentially counteract—oppressive social structures.

scholarly journals Autonomy and Aesthetic Engagement

Mind ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 129 (516) ◽  
pp. 1127-1156 ◽  
Author(s):  
C Thi Nguyen
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Aesthetic Appreciation ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Aesthetic Object ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Motivational Structure ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right ◽  
Aesthetic Judgments

Abstract There seems to be a deep tension between two aspects of aesthetic appreciation. On the one hand, we care about getting things right. Our attempts at aesthetic judgments aim at correctness. On the other hand, we demand autonomy. We want appreciators to arrive at their aesthetic judgments through their own cognitive efforts, rather than through deferring to experts. These two demands seem to be in tension; after all, if we want to get the right judgments, we should defer to the judgments of experts. How can we resolve this tension? The best explanation, I suggest, is that aesthetic appreciation is something like a game. When we play a game, we try to win. But often, winning isn’t the point; playing is. Aesthetic appreciation involves the same flipped motivational structure: we aim at the goal of correctness, but having correct judgments isn’t the point. The point is the engaged process of interpreting, investigating, and exploring the aesthetic object. When one defers to aesthetic testimony, then, one makes the same mistake as when one looks up the answer to a puzzle, rather than solving it for oneself. The shortcut defeats the whole point. This suggests a new account of aesthetic value: the engagement account. The primary value of the activity of aesthetic appreciation lies in the process of trying to generate correct judgments, and not in having correct judgments.

Aesthetic Value, Nature, and Environment

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Brady
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Aesthetic Appreciation ◽  
Ethical Values ◽  
Environmental Aesthetics ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Natural Objects ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Cognitive Approaches ◽  
Aesthetic Engagement ◽  
Critical Pluralism

This chapter discusses key issues and questions about aesthetic experience and valuing of natural objects, processes, and phenomena. It begins by exploring the character of environmental, multisensory aesthetic appreciation and then examines the central debate between “scientific cognitivism” and “noncognitivism” in contemporary environmental aesthetics. In assessing this debate and the place of knowledge, imagination, and emotion in aesthetic valuing, it is argued that non-cognitive approaches have the advantage of supporting a critical pluralism that recognizes the variety and breadth of aesthetic engagement with nature. Interactions between aesthetic and ethical values are also discussed, especially with respect to their role in philosophical positions such as “aesthetic preservationism” and the call for developing aesthetic theories that are consistent with environmentalism.

The Interactions of Function and Aesthetic Value in Artifacts

2019 ◽  
Vol 96 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Stecker
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Aesthetic Appreciation ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Primary Function ◽  
Aesthetic Properties ◽  
The Aesthetic

In this paper, I ask: what is the role of function in appreciating artifacts? I will argue that several distinguishable functions are relevant to the aesthetic appreciation of artifacts, and sometimes more than one of these must be taken into account to adequately appreciate these objects. Second, I will claim that, while we can identify something we might call functional aesthetic value or functional beauty, the aesthetic properties that contribute to this value neither need to enhance the object’s performance of its primary function nor manifest that function. There are broader criteria for what properties are relevant to functional beauty. Finally, I suggest that the aesthetic appreciation of artifacts may contribute to a larger appreciative project: the understanding and evaluation of a way of life, or social or cultural practices in which the artifact plays a role.

No Room of One's Own: Mary Fairchild MacMonnies Low, Berthe Morisot, and The Awakening

Prospects ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 127-154
Author(s):  
Kirstin Ringelberg
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Feminist Perspective ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
The Awakening ◽  
Art Historians ◽  
Room Of One's Own

Several art historians have discerned a gendered division of subject matter between male and female artists of the late 19th century. Griselda Pollock's landmark text, “Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity,” serves as both the first and fullest discussion of this issue from a feminist perspective. Pollock argues that women Impressionists should not be viewed as outside the development and rhetoric of modernity because of their failure to depict its most representative sites (cafés, bars, and other public spaces where bourgeois women dared not enter); rather, we should note their restricted, chiefly domestic realm as another space of modernity that these women were particularly adept at analyzing. According to Robert Herbert, works by women Impressionists are “easily distinguished” from those of their male counterparts, who tend to highlight the figures over their surroundings and fail to note the expressive capabilities of household furnishings. There is much to recommend the approaches of both Pollock and Herbert; in particular, they have given critical and aesthetic value to the paintings of women Impressionists in their analyses. But, paradoxically, their analyses also have the effect of reinforcing the same gendered distinctions of paintings once used to devalue those works by women.

Urban Railways in Buenos Aires

Transfers ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-22
Author(s):  
Benjamin Fraser
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Urban Geography ◽  
Documentary Film ◽  
Buenos Aires ◽  
Film Analysis ◽  
Henri Lefebvre ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Urban Experience ◽  
The Social ◽  
Transportation Studies

Mixing transportation studies, film analysis, and urban geography, this article looks at El tren blanco (The white train), a documentary film from 2003 by directors Nahuel García, Sheila Pérez Giménez, and Ramiro García. In light of work by train theorist Wolfgang Schivelbusch and urban geographer Henri Lefebvre, the documentary's interviews with cartoneros—cardboard workers who ride daily into central Buenos Aires to pick up recyclable goods—speak to the alienation and spatialization of class that characterize the contemporary urban experience. Following an urban cultural studies approach, attention is balanced between the social context of Buenos Aires itself and the film as an item of aesthetic value. In the end, it is important to pay attention both to the train car as a space in itself and to the historical and contemporary positioning of the train in larger-scale urban shifts.

scholarly journals Is There Really A Puzzle Over Negative Emotions And Aesthetic Pleasure?

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (52) ◽  
Author(s):  
María José Alcaraz León
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Aesthetic Appreciation ◽  
Negative Aspect ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Aesthetic Pleasure ◽  
Unpleasant Experience

Two seemingly contradictory aspects have marked art’s appreciation – and aesthetic appreciation in general. While an experience of pleasure seems to ground judgments of aesthetic value, some artworks seem to gain our praise by the very negative – unpleasant – experience they provoke. Known as the paradox of negative emotions, aestheticians have, at least since Aristotle, tried to deal with these cases and offer different explanations of the phenomenon. In this article, María José Alcaraz León does not directly offer an alternative explanation; rather she focuses on the apparent tension between an understanding of aesthetic experience in terms of a certain kind of pleasure and the negative aspect that is necessarily involved in our appreciation of painful art. The purpose of her article is to show that cases of artistic appreciation that involve negative emotions do not need to give up on the idea that aesthetic value is ultimately grounded upon an experience of pleasure.

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