Beauty

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John H. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Evolutionary Developmental Biology ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Aesthetic Pleasure ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Philosophic Tradition ◽  
Independent Property

On the subject of beauty, theorists generally agree only on rudimentary points about the term: that it commends on aesthetic grounds, has absolute and comparative forms, applies to parts, aspects and wholes, and so forth. Beyond this, dispute prevails. Realists hold that judgements of beauty ascribe to their subjects either a response-independent property inherent in things or a capacity of things to affect respondents in a way that preserves objectivity. In both cases acute problems arise in defining the property and in explaining how it can be known. Classical Platonism holds that beauty exists as an ideal supersensible ‘form’, while eighteenth-century theorists view it as a quasi-sensory property. Kant’s transcendental philosophy anchors the experience of beauty to the basic requirements of cognition, conferring on it ‘subjective universality and necessity’. Sceptics complain that the alleged property is merely a reflection of aesthetic pleasure and hence lacks objective standing. Partly due to its preoccupation with weightier matters, the philosophic tradition has not yet developed a theory of beauty as fully and deeply as it has, say, theories in the domain of morality. For most of the twentieth-century the generally subjectivistic and relativistic bent of the social sciences and humanities, as well as the scorn heaped on beauty by avant-gardism in the arts, discouraged concentration on beauty. However, the turn of the century has brought a remarkable reawakening of interest in theorizing about beauty. The burgeoning fields of cognitive science and evolutionary developmental biology have played a part.

Beauty

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John H. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
Sensory Property ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Aesthetic Pleasure ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Philosophic Tradition

On the subject of beauty, theorists generally agree only on rudimentary points about the term: that it commends on aesthetic grounds, has absolute and comparative forms, and so forth. Beyond this, dispute prevails. Realists hold that judgments of beauty ascribe to their subjects either a nonrelational property inherent in things or a capacity of things to affect respondents in a way that preserves objectivity. In both cases acute problems arise in defining the property and in explaining how it can be known. Classical Platonism holds that beauty exists as an ideal supersensible Form, while eighteenth-century theorists view it as a quasi-sensory property. Kant’s transcendental philosophy anchors the experience of beauty to the basic requirements of cognition, conferring on it ‘subjective universality and necessity’. Sceptics complain that the alleged property is merely a reflection of aesthetic pleasure and hence lacks objective standing. Partly due to its preoccupation with weightier matters, the philosophic tradition has never developed any theory of beauty as fully and deeply as it has, say, theories in the domain of morality. Comparative neglect of the subject has been encouraged by the generally subjectivistic and relativistic bent of the social sciences and humanities, as well as by avant-gardism in the arts. However, several recent and ambitious studies have given new impetus to theorizing about beauty.

scholarly journals Performativity, Discourse and Communication: Relationship of Concepts

2021 ◽  
pp. 95-104
Author(s):  
Ruslana Bezuhla
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Subject Field ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
General Scientific ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Historical Periods

The article analyzes approaches to the study of phenomena and concepts of performativity, discourse and communication, and makes it possible to trace how various types of communication are interconnected in the structure of artistic culture. It has been established that in modern society, performativity, discourse and communication provide a higher level of generalization and prevalence than in previous historical periods, which leads to an expansion of the subject field for the study of these phenomena. The aim of the work is to research and systematize existing theories conceptualizing performativity, communication and discourse in the mode of humanitarian knowledge. This approach will contribute to solving the scientific problem of clarifying the conceptual and categorical apparatus of modern cultural studies and art history. Methodology of work. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study were philosophical and general scientific approaches, principles and methods that made it possible to analyze the phenomena of performativity, discourse and communication from different-vector positions: the method of generalization, made it possible to determine the place of performativity, discourse and communication in the worldview paradigm due to the analysis of ambiguous formulations and statements about the phenomena, which were presented in various sources; an interdisciplinary approach ensured the use of the latest theoretical developments in the social sciences and humanities; the sociological approach made it possible to consider the phenomena of performativity, discourse and communication at the macrosocial and microsocial levels.

scholarly journals Idealism and the Aesthetics of Instrumental Music at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century

1997 ◽  
Vol 50 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 387-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Evan Bonds
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Musical Thought ◽  
Absolute Music ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Aesthetic Principle

The growing aesthetic prestige of instrumental music in the last decades of the eighteenth century was driven not so much by changes in the musical repertory as by the resurgence of idealism as an aesthetic principle applicable to all the arts. This new outlook, as articulated by such writers as Winckelmann, Moritz, Kant, Schiller, Herder, Fichte, and Schelling, posited the work of art as a reflection of an abstract ideal, rather than as a means by which a beholder could be moved. Through idealism, the work of art became a vehicle by which to sense the realm of the spiritual and the infinite, and the inherently abstract nature of instrumental music allowed this art to offer a particularly powerful glimpse of that realm. Idealism thus provided the essential framework for the revaluation of instrumental music in the writings of Wackenroder, Tieck, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and others around the turn of the century. While this new approach to instrumental music has certain points of similarity with the later concept of "absolute" music, it is significant that Eduard Hanslick expunged several key passages advocating idealist thought when he revised both the first and second editions of his treatise Vom Musikalisch-Schönen. The concept of "absolute" music, although real enough in the mid-nineteenth century, is fundamentally anachronistic when applied to the musical thought and works of the decades around 1800.

scholarly journals Augmented intelligence technology. The ethical and practical problems of its implementation in libraries

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Wójcik
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Information Science ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Scientific Publications ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Scientific Databases ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject

PurposeThe subject of the article is the concept of augmented intelligence, which constitutes a further stage in the development of research on artificial intelligence. This is a new phenomenon that has rarely been considered in the subject literature so far, which may be interesting for the fields of social sciences and humanities. The aim is to describe the features of this technology and determine the practical and ethical problems associated with its implementation in libraries.Design/methodology/approachThe method of literature review was used. Systematic searches according to specific questions were carried out using the Scopus and Web of Science scientific databases, as well as Google Scholar and the LISTA abstract database.FindingsThe results established that the issue of augmented intelligence has barely been discussed in the field of librarianship. Although this technology may be interesting as a new area of librarian research and as a new framework for designing innovative services, deep ethical consideration is necessary before this technology is introduced in libraries.Research limitations/implicationsThe article deals with some of the newest technologies available, and this topic is generally very rarely discussed in scientific publications in either the social sciences or humanities. Therefore, due to the limited availability of materials, the findings presented in the article are primarily of a conceptual nature. The aim is to present this topic from the perspective of librarianship and to create a starting point for further discussion on the ethical aspects of introducing new technologies in libraries.Practical implicationsThe results can be widely used in practice as a framework for the implementation of augmented intelligence in libraries.Social implicationsThe article can help to facilitate the debate on the role of implementing new technologies in libraries.Originality/valueThe problem of augmented intelligence is very rarely addressed in the subject literature in the field of library and information science.

Revealing sparks: John Wesley and the religious utility of electrical healing

2006 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAOLA BERTUCCI
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Medical Applications ◽  
John Wesley ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Social Composition ◽  
Therapeutic Uses ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Fear Of God

In the eighteenth century, dramatic electrical performances were favourite entertainments for the upper classes, yet the therapeutic uses of electricity also reached the lower strata of society. This change in the social composition of electrical audiences attracted the attention of John Wesley, who became interested in the subject in the late 1740s. The paper analyses Wesley's involvement in the medical applications of electricity by taking into account his theological views and his proselytizing strategies. It sets his advocacy of medical electricity in the context of his philanthropic endeavours aimed at the sick poor, connecting them to his attempts to spread Methodism especially among the lower classes. It is argued that the healing virtues of electricity entailed a revision of the morality of electrical experiment which made electric sparks powerful resources for the popularization of the Methodist way of life, based on discipline, obedience to established authorities and love and fear of God.

AN OPEN ELITE: THE PECULIARITIES OF CONNOISSEURSHIP IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND

2004 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
BRIAN COWAN
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Royal Academy ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Modern Approach ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social

Seventeenth-century English virtuoso attitudes to the visual arts have often been contrasted with a putative eighteenth-century culture of connoisseurship, most notably in a still influential 1942 article by Walter Houghton. This essay revisits Houghton's thesis and argues that English virtuoso culture did indeed allow for an incipient notion of artistic connoisseurship but that it did so in a manner different from the French model. The first section details a virtuoso aesthetic in which a modern approach to the cultural heritage of antiquity was central. The instructive ethical and historical attributes of an art work were deemed more important than attribution to a master artist, although one can discern an incipient notion of a virtuoso canon of great artists. The second section examines the social and institutional position of the English virtuosi and argues that the lack of a Royal Academy of Arts in the French manner made virtuoso attitudes to the arts unusually receptive to outside influences such as the Royal Society and other private clubs and academies. It concludes by considering the ways in which some eighteenth-century concepts of taste and connoisseurship defined themselves in contrast to an earlier and wider-ranging virtuosity even if they failed to fully supplant it.

Comment

1999 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 229-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. W. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Intellectual Challenge

The Articles By David Sorkin and Edmund Kern have a common starting point. Both address aspects of the reform movement that unfolded in the Habsburg lands under Maria Theresa. They underline an argument made by much recent work on the subject that the movement in question, though committed to substantial changes in the social and cultural fabric, was fundamentally Catholic in its inspiration and only loosely and partially aligned with either the great intellectual challenge of the Enlightenment or the fuller and later program of reconstruction that has come to be known in the Austrian context as Josephinism. Both writers acknowledge the powerful contributory stimulus from abroad to the new climate of ideas generated in the monarchy by the travails of the mid-eighteenth century, but submit that those ideas besically arose out of a domestic evolution, especially within ecclesiastical circles.

The Church of England in the eighteenth century

2002 ◽  
Vol 75 (187) ◽  
pp. 47-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viviane Barrie
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
The South ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Church

Abstract This article is an attempt to study the position of the Church of England in one particular region – the diocese of London in the south-east of England – throughout the eighteenth century. It considers three problems which the author came across when first researching the subject several years ago: firstly, the social and economic status of parishes; secondly, clerical recruitment and the careers of the clergy; and finally, the pastoral life and work of the Church, especially through the corpus of episcopal visitations.

scholarly journals Beginning again. The task of design research

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Leatherbarrow
Keyword(s):  
Urban Design ◽  
Professional Practice ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Family Ties ◽  
Research Fields ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Aesthetic Pleasure ◽  
Older Siblings

Among architects and educators today the proposal for design research is generally understood as follows: the design of buildings is not only a professional practice but also a form of inquiry, a member of the growing family of research disciplines at work in the world today. The older siblings are well known, the highly regarded research fields in the natural sciences: physics, chemistry, and biology, for example. In the next generation are the social sciences: economics, political science, and sociology. Also related are the fields in which the basic sciences are applied: medicine, engineering, and information technology. This last group is more akin to architecture, for these academic disciplines are also professions. The problem with architecture is that it has also family ties to disciplines beyond the sciences, to painting, sculpture, urban design, and landscape architecture, even literature and poetry. Furthermore, artistic practices are not only non-scientific, they are purposeless, or so they seem, for we tend to see beauty as its own reward; we call it aesthetic pleasure. But these categories — natural science, social science, the arts — together with the terms that designate them are no less subject to debate than the words “design” and “research” with which we began.

Utility and Audience in Eighteenth-Century Chemistry: Case Studies of William Cullen and Joseph Priestley

1988 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. V. Golinski
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Social Settings ◽  
The Social ◽  
Degree Of Coherence ◽  
Cultural Climate ◽  
Joseph Priestley ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Mind ◽  
William Cullen

Historians of science are less inclined now than they were a few years ago to regard chemistry as having sprung full-grown from the mind of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier. Many of the contours of pre-Lavoisierian chemistry have recently been mapped, its Newtonian and Stahlian theoretical traditions have been delineated, and the degree of coherence enforced on the subject by its didactic role has been argued. In addition, the social prominence and cohesion achieved by chemists in various national contexts, such as France, Scotland and Germany, have been investigated. Karl Hufbauer (arguing specifically from the case of Germany) and Christoph Meinel have proposed that the cultural climate of the European Enlightenment provided the language and the social settings in which chemistry could be detached from its previous role as a service-art for medicine, and presented as a science with diverse practical applications.

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