On Conceptual Revision and Aesthetic Judgement

This paper calls into question the view typically attributed to Kant that aesthetic judgements are particularist, resisting all conceptual determination. Instead, it claims that Kant conceives of aesthetic judgements, particularly of art, as playing an important role in the revision of concepts: one sense in which aesthetic judgements, as Kant defines them, ‘find a universal’ for a given particular. To understand the relation between artistic judgements and concepts requires that we consider what I call Kant’s diachronic account of aesthetic ideas, or how such judgements unfold in the course of communication and reflection. My reading draws Kant much closer to debates in the philosophy of art on the semantic dimension of artworks. Here, illuminating the way in which aesthetic judgements about art can play a role in conceptual revision allows us to make sense of the way in which modern artworks contest concepts rather than merely presenting or expressing them.

Zwischen Ost und West: Franz Liszts nationale Identität in der Wiener Musikkritik (1857–1900)

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Habsburg Monarchy was a political entity giving home to great numbers of people of different nationalities and ethnicities. However, the dominant power in the structure of this multi-ethnic state was reserved for the Germans. Yet, the ever more emphatic demands of ethnic groups of other origins for more autonomy had a serious impact on the political and cultural supremacy of the Germans. Based on this recorded background, I will examine in the context of my paper to what extent Viennese music criticism of Franz Liszt’s symphonic programme music proves to be influenced by the reception of his national facets of identity. To do justice to this concern, the first step is to gain an overview of what statements were made during the journalistic discourse on Liszt’s symphonic programme music regarding its nationality. Building on this, it will be determined what function these statements had in the argumentative mediation of the aesthetic judgement on Liszt’s programmatic compositions. Against the political background outlined above, the question arises as to whether the Hungarian-national facet of Liszt’s identity in particular was instrumentalized by Viennese critics in order to strengthen negative judgments about his œuvre by means of a politically motivated German-nationalist narrative.

The Anaesthesia Machine: Questioning a Design Evolution

<p>An underlying fear for many in using new digital systems is not the 'digital' but the struggle to trust and see reality; this may represent the loss of an art or aesthetic judgement, over an empirical measurement.(1) Why do we have what we have - and what could we have? Since the acceptance of the "Boyle's" configuration as a design standard, the evolution of anaesthesia equipment has predominantly remained tethered to this design icon.(2) Increasingly governed by historical habits and industrial ideologies, significant gains in technology have denied anaesthetists ergonomic advantage, due in part, to a design stagnation of physical composition. In doing so, it has become a legend of origin and a convention of machine use, a situation that is traced back to the evolution of rag and bottle, portable inhaler, and the asymmetric layout of anaesthetic apparatus. One of the key difficulties or questions for design is how to implement new technologies to retain and strengthen the established product-person trust.(3) The past reveals two methods; first the traditional addition of technology to historical brands and established formats; and second, the innovative embodiment of task and technology in a search for better systems.(4) Within the evolution of the anaesthesia machine, design methodologies have colluded to satisfy safety, ignoring a profession's habits, resulting in a complex lamination of engineering (technology), interaction (ergonomics) and aesthetics (path dependence and manufactured style). The application of new digital technology demands a physical design response that can satisfy clinician needs, patient safety and the commercial goals of industry in balancing technology and safety to clinical outputs and user satisfaction.(5) The study presents an informative and investigative methodology to construct a proactive design base, cumulating in active involvement, an informed critical analysis and a prospective methodological vision. The concluding experiment focuses on information and ideals from anaesthetists, to firstly test the established composition; secondly to inform us of how anaesthetists envisage their equipment; and thirdly, how simulation and industrial design may partner in unlocking the transfer of creative knowledge. In applying this partnership as a strategic design confidant, a new understanding of design process and concomitant design within an elite profession is established. Altogether this thesis seeks to explore the anaesthesia machine, to investigate the past, create closer relationships with anaesthetists and act together prospectively towards questioning the established. It may be 'it is not a solution we are looking for but the right way (or process) to ask the questions’ to manifest a new answer. (1) B Guy, "The anaesthesia machine: questioning a design evolution" (Thesis., Victoria University of Wellington, 2010), vii (2) K Bryn Thomas, The development of anaesthetic apparatus ( London UK: Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1975), viii (3) M B. Weinger, "Anesthesia equipment and human error," Journal Clinical Monitoring and Computing 15 (Jul 1999): 319-323. (4) O M. Watt, "The evolution of the Boyle apparatus, 1917-67," Anaesthesia 23 (1968): 103-118. ; G Boquet. J A. Bushman. H T. Davenport, "The anaesthesia machine: a study of function and design," British Journal of Anaesthesia 52 (1980): 61-67. ; Jeffrey B. Cooper. Ronald S. Newbower. Jeffrey W. Moore. Edwin D. Trautman, "A new anesthesia delivery system," Anesthesiology Vol 49 No 5 (1978): 310-318. (5) B Moggridge, Designing interactions (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2007), 579.</p>

The Anaesthesia Machine: Questioning a Design Evolution

<p>An underlying fear for many in using new digital systems is not the 'digital' but the struggle to trust and see reality; this may represent the loss of an art or aesthetic judgement, over an empirical measurement.(1) Why do we have what we have - and what could we have? Since the acceptance of the "Boyle's" configuration as a design standard, the evolution of anaesthesia equipment has predominantly remained tethered to this design icon.(2) Increasingly governed by historical habits and industrial ideologies, significant gains in technology have denied anaesthetists ergonomic advantage, due in part, to a design stagnation of physical composition. In doing so, it has become a legend of origin and a convention of machine use, a situation that is traced back to the evolution of rag and bottle, portable inhaler, and the asymmetric layout of anaesthetic apparatus. One of the key difficulties or questions for design is how to implement new technologies to retain and strengthen the established product-person trust.(3) The past reveals two methods; first the traditional addition of technology to historical brands and established formats; and second, the innovative embodiment of task and technology in a search for better systems.(4) Within the evolution of the anaesthesia machine, design methodologies have colluded to satisfy safety, ignoring a profession's habits, resulting in a complex lamination of engineering (technology), interaction (ergonomics) and aesthetics (path dependence and manufactured style). The application of new digital technology demands a physical design response that can satisfy clinician needs, patient safety and the commercial goals of industry in balancing technology and safety to clinical outputs and user satisfaction.(5) The study presents an informative and investigative methodology to construct a proactive design base, cumulating in active involvement, an informed critical analysis and a prospective methodological vision. The concluding experiment focuses on information and ideals from anaesthetists, to firstly test the established composition; secondly to inform us of how anaesthetists envisage their equipment; and thirdly, how simulation and industrial design may partner in unlocking the transfer of creative knowledge. In applying this partnership as a strategic design confidant, a new understanding of design process and concomitant design within an elite profession is established. Altogether this thesis seeks to explore the anaesthesia machine, to investigate the past, create closer relationships with anaesthetists and act together prospectively towards questioning the established. It may be 'it is not a solution we are looking for but the right way (or process) to ask the questions’ to manifest a new answer. (1) B Guy, "The anaesthesia machine: questioning a design evolution" (Thesis., Victoria University of Wellington, 2010), vii (2) K Bryn Thomas, The development of anaesthetic apparatus ( London UK: Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1975), viii (3) M B. Weinger, "Anesthesia equipment and human error," Journal Clinical Monitoring and Computing 15 (Jul 1999): 319-323. (4) O M. Watt, "The evolution of the Boyle apparatus, 1917-67," Anaesthesia 23 (1968): 103-118. ; G Boquet. J A. Bushman. H T. Davenport, "The anaesthesia machine: a study of function and design," British Journal of Anaesthesia 52 (1980): 61-67. ; Jeffrey B. Cooper. Ronald S. Newbower. Jeffrey W. Moore. Edwin D. Trautman, "A new anesthesia delivery system," Anesthesiology Vol 49 No 5 (1978): 310-318. (5) B Moggridge, Designing interactions (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2007), 579.</p>

11. Conclusion

The Bible has been the source of great truth, goodness, and beauty at the same time as it has inspired lies, wickedness, and ugliness. What it has not produced is a uniform manner of its reading and interpretation. The very process of canonization is nevertheless part of an attempt to limit diversity and deviance of belief within religious communities. Ultimately, however, there is no controlling the way it is read. It is important therefore to be critically aware of the different kinds of uses to which the Bible may be put and to learn to discriminate among them. Readers need to exercise their own moral and aesthetic judgement over the different readings which have been offered of these texts, not least in their own traditions. At the same time, their own judgement will be influenced by the texts as they engage more closely with them and their reception.

Descent of Darwin: race, sex, and human nature

In 1871, Charles Darwin published Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, a text that extended, elaborated and completed his On the Origin of Species (1859). When he had published Origin, Darwin sought, albeit unsuccessfully, to skirt controversy; in Descent he waded into the fray on near-innumerable issues. Readers could find explicit the claim that humans had descended from apes, in addition to explorations of the similarities and apparent gulfs between ‘man’ and other animals. They also found Darwin's opinions on issues ranging from the origin and hierarchy of races to the question of women's education, from the source of altruistic bravery to the biological importance of aesthetic judgement, from his views on what his cousin would term ‘eugenics’ to the history of monogamy. In the last 150 years these ideas have been variously contested, rejected and recovered, so that the shadow of Descent extended into debates over the development of languages, the evolution of human sexualities, the ongoing possibilities of eugenics and the question of women's equality. In this volume, appearing during the sesquicentennial of the text's first appearance, one finds papers dedicated to all of these themes and more, laying out the roots and fruits of Darwin's Descent.

'Lies against history?'

During the twentieth century a great many monumental towers and tower terminations were so severely damaged by fire, tempest or war that the question arose as to whether, and if so how, they should be rebuilt. Should it be in the exact same form as before the destruction, or should some other solution be sought? In the latter case, was a return to an earlier (putative) original version preferable to something new? And if the latter, should one opt for contemporary architecture, or was a more historicizing formal idiom desirable? To what extent was the guideline embraced in 1917 by the government department responsible for cultural heritage (Rijksbureau voor de Monumentenzorg), which stipulated a contemporary architectural style for additions in the interests of historical honesty, actually followed in practice? In the localities themselves there was a preference for restoration of the old state, and that did eventually occur in a number of cases. On the basis of some twenty examples, this article looks for the first time at whether any clear trend can be discerned in the choices made. Of special importance in this context are the five design competitions (for the town hall tower in Leiden and for visually defining church towers in Arnhem, Zutphen, Hulst and Weert), because specific requirements could be laid down in the design brief, after which a jury was required to choose from among a series of entries and to publicly substantiate its preference. The need to rebuild was always a given, even if, as when the entire church had been destroyed by war, it did not enjoy the highest priority. Entirely medieval towers like that of the Martini Church in Doesburg, had the greatest chance of being rebuilt in the original form. If a Gothic tower had a termination in Renaissance, Baroque or Classicist style, the decision was often informed by an aesthetic judgement: the tower termination of St Stephen’s Church in Nijmegen was considered characteristic, that of St Eusebius’ Church in Arnhem was not. The Baroque termination of the Abbey Tower in Middelburg was largely reinstated but modified to accommodate the demand for a larger carillon. In practice the dividing line lay in the middle of the seventeenth century; later terminations tended to be considered too unremarkable. Neo-Gothic spires atop Gothic towers were always replaced. Sometimes by a reconstruction (free or otherwise) of an older termination in Renaissance or Baroque style, such as in St Christopher’s Cathedral in Roermond; in other cases with a modern, wholly new termination, as in St Willibrord’s Church in Hulst, or a slightly historicizing one, as for St Martinus’ Church in Weert. Even though undamaged by war, the cast iron spire of St James’s Church in The Hague was replaced by a spire that harked back to the original sixteenth-century spire. In the case of Gothic towers, one option that was never really tried was a reconstruction of the original (needle) spire, either because it had never been realized, or because of a lack of reliable information. Only in the case of St Walburgis’s Church in Zutphen was this option considered, but in the end it was decided to rebuild the fire-ravaged ‘pepper pot’ spire.

Kant, Aesthetic Judgement, and Beethoven

This chapter explores Kant’s conception of the relation of the beautiful and the sublime to freedom and to moral theology. It then turns to Beethoven’s conception of the sublime, and illustrates this by an analysis of the slow movement of his early piano sonata Op. 2, No. 2, and an analysis of the first movement of the Eroica. The thesis of the chapter is that a Kantian ‘optimistic’ account of the sublime fits these pieces better than some other accounts of the sublime that the chapter describes, namely ‘the uncanny sublime’, ‘the authoritarian sublime’ and ‘the solipsistic sublime’. The chapter ends with a brief remark about the relation between Kantian freedom and the Christian faith.

Science, Nature and the Ethical Pursuit of Happiness: A Discussion

Most philosophical engagements with science have been focused on the methods of science, epistemological concerns, nature of scientific methods or natural laws. New disciplines such as Science Studies and History of science have emerged from these inquiries and address any concerns on the relationship of science to society and knowledge. In this essay, the attempt is to clarify how scientific thought is not excluded from the moral domain. While a scientific fact itself cannot be subjected to moral or aesthetic judgement, since it is only, the aims and objects of scientific research can be a concern for philosophical ethics. Particularly the development of applied sciences that are focused on the exploitation of the natural world and unsustainable practices must become not only subject to moral supervision but also must be answerable to society and humanitarian interests. An analysis of the purpose of science and philosophy posits what should be the areas of science that should be subject to ethical judgements.