The ontological turn revisited: Theoretical decline. Why cannot ontologists fulfil their promise?

Holbraad and Pedersen have revisited the ontological turn, suggesting that it is strictly concerned with methodology only. Holbraad goes even further, accepting an aesthetic criterion for ethnography only. This is a sign of theoretical decline. In my paper, I claim that ontologists’ tendency to overestimate the significance of ethnographic experience causes theoretical confusion. I claim that neo-pragmatic analysis can eliminate this confusion. I also argue that there is only one remaining issue from the ontological turn that is not entirely lost. A careful evaluation of all folk categories, with all its possible consequences, can boost the robustness of all competitive theories, Cognitive Evolutionary Science included.

El criterio artístico

La disciplina estética se ha interesado frecuentemente por el criterio estético –aquel por el que se discrimina o se determina qué es y qué no es el arte, o bien si algo es o no arte– pero raras veces se ha preguntado qué son y cómo operan los criterios artísticos, aquellos que están implicados en la creación o la crítica. Este artículo pretende ofrecer una caracterización de tales criterios a partir de su relación con la regla y con el juicio, elementos que remiten al pensamiento de Hume y de Kant respectivamente. Se presenta también una revisión de las ideas de autores como Stanley Cavell o Yves Michaud acerca del criterio. The aesthetic theory has often been interested in aesthetic criterion – that one that discriminates or determines what art is and what is not, or whether if something is art or not – but it has rarely asked what are the artistic criteria and how they operate (understanding by artistic criteria those that are involved in creation or criticism). This article aims to provide a characterization of such criteria starting from their relationship with standard and judgement, elements that refer to the thought of Hume and Kant respectively. A review of the ideas of authors such as Stanley Cavell or Yves Michaud about the criteria is also presented.

De l’esthétisme socialiste

"In the late 1960s, after the break from Moscow and the relative “liberalization” of culture, the aesthetic criterion was officially accepted as a benchmark of literary and artistic value. Despite some moments of ideological backlash, writers gradually acquired some autonomy from the Party directives. Many of them practiced escapism and oneiric fantasy, out of a genuine belief that art should be divested of any moral or political purpose or that it could alleviate the pressures and constraints of social life. What emerged, under communist totalitarianism, was a paradoxical fundamentalism that I have called socialist aestheticism, a sort of ad hoc response to socialist realism."

Toward an Understanding of "Ashé" as an Aesthetic Condition

As an artist and cultural investigator specializing in contemporary art theory and practice, my area of research is centered on African spiritual and aesthetic retentions, rediscoveries and reinventions in the African diaspora. As an educator, my pedagogical interest is in constructing new and innovative teaching methods to critically analyze works of art. I was therefore eager to introduce the concept of ashé as an aesthetic criterion to my students and colleagues but needed to test my hypothesis. To that end I created a research project to assess the viabilityof my hypothesis. The results of my investigation led to the creation of a series of four weekly workshops that challenge participants to conduct critical analyses of works of art using ashé as a criterion along with the accepted formal elements of art and principles of design. To date, I have conducted these workshops with a diverse population of students from Spelman College, Morehouse College, Clark Atlanta University, Emory University and Colgate University. Spelman College’s African Diaspora and the World program (ADW)1 has embraced my project and a number of faculty members have used it in the classroom with promising results. The primary purpose of this essay is to introduce the project to a broader audience of students, educators, and scholars.

Pushkin in Yuly Aykhenvald’s Philosophical and Aesthetic System

<p>The article raised the question of the role of the Pushkinian principle in the philosophical and aesthetic system of Yu.&nbsp;I.&nbsp;Aykhenvald, one of the leading critics of the Silver Age. The given review of Aykhenvald&rsquo;s publications on Pushkin and Pushkin studies of the first quarter of the twentieth century and analysis of Aykhenvald&rsquo;s attitude to V.&nbsp;G.&nbsp;Belinsky&rsquo;s and D.&nbsp;S. Merezhkovsky&rsquo;s statements about Pushkin allowed defining more clearly the position of the literator, his approaches and methods. Aykhenvald&rsquo;s articles about Anna&nbsp;Akhmatova, V.&nbsp;Bryusov, I.&nbsp;Bunin demonstrate that the involvement in the Pushkin tradition was for Aykhenvald the most important aesthetic criterion in assessing the modern literary process. Besides, the article regards the question of perception of Pushkin&rsquo;s studies of Aykhenvald by his contemporaries&nbsp;&mdash; writers (B.&nbsp;Zaitsev, B.&nbsp;Sadovskoy, V.&nbsp;Khodasevich), literary scholars (S.&nbsp;A.&nbsp;Vengerov, B.&nbsp;M.&nbsp;Eichenbaum, A.&nbsp;P.&nbsp;Skaftymov), cultural historians (P.&nbsp;M.&nbsp;Bicilli) and representatives of Russian religious philosophy (S.&nbsp;L.&nbsp;Frank, A.&nbsp;F.&nbsp;Losev). It is concluded that, in contrast to literary historians, the phenomenon of Aykhenvald was for philosophically minded admirers of his critical talent a confirmation of the unity of national culture, the irreducibility of the nation to nationality and Pushkin as its main symbol.</p>

Facial clues and vertical dimension of occlusion: Diagnostic study in a Moroccan population

Goal of the study : To detect the prevalence, association and correlation that may exist between the vertical dimension of occlusion and certain facial clues in a toothed population in search of a simplified method for the determination of DVO in complete edentulous people.Introduction : The methods for recording the vertical dimension of occlusion, rest or phonetic vertical are very numerous, attesting to the absence of a universal scientific method for its determination. The aesthetic criterion of respecting morphological proportions constitutes for many authors a preferential reference guide. Determining the vertical occlusion dimension (DVO) remains a complex and imprecise step using several complementary methods. Exploitation of clues Facials seem a simple and promising means but a subject still to controversies. Material and method : We conducted a diagnostic study, spread over a period of one and a half years within the faculty of dentistry of Rabat. The facial indices studied were as follows: the inter-pupillary distance, the distance between the inner canthus and the labial commissure, the distance between the center of the pupil and the labial commissure, the internal canthus distance from the eyes × 2, the external canthus distance from the ear, the distance between external canthus and internal canthus (opposite eye), width of eyes × 2 and distance between external wing of nose and eyebrow. The measurements (DVO and different facial clues) were taken by the same operator directly on the toothed subjects, using a caliper.Results and discussion : On the 103 subjects, our sample presented a predominantly female with an average age of 21 years ± 3.9. The average vertical occlusion dimension was 50.49 mm ± 6.45. We noted a concordance between the DVO and two facial indices namely the internal canthus-labial commissure distance (51.16 mm ± 6.11) and the center of the pupil-labial commissure distance (52.18 mm ± 6.66). The reliability analysis was in favor of a positive, strong and very significant correlation between the DVO and the following measures: the inter-pupillary distance, the internal canthus distance-labial commissure and the center distance of the pupil-labial commissure (p <0.001). By adjusting the inter-pupillary distance, the internal canthus-labial commissure distance, the center distance of the pupil-labial commissure, the internal canthus distance from the eyes × 2, the external canthus-ear distance, the width of the eyes × 2, the distance between the external wing of the nose and the eyebrow, only the distance between the internal canthus and the labial commissure, the distance between the external canthus and the ear and the width of the eyes × 2 were explanatory variables for the DVO.Conclusion : The inter-pupillary distance, the internal canthus-labial commissance distance and the center distance of the pupil-labial commissure approximate the vertical dimension of occlusion in the dentate subject. The use of these facial indices seems interesting in complete removable prosthesis because of its simplicity and speed.

Art of ancient Tuva (III – I millennium BC)

Искусство древней Тувы представлено разными типами памятников: наскальными рисунками, оленными камнями и каменными изваяниями (коже), предметами, найденными на поселениях и в погребениях, а также случайными находками. В основном они относятся к эпохе бронзы, скифскому времени и эпохе средневековья. Хронологическая граница между II и I тысячелетиями до н. э. может на полном основании называться рубежом эр. Во втором тысячелетии степи Центральной Азии представляли неразборчивый конгломерат различных племен, в которых носители духовных идей стремились выразить свои чувства и религиозные представления в тысячах наскальных изображений, в которых зачастую доминирует бык как носитель архаического мироздания, которое он держит или несет на своей спине. В первом тысячелетии до н. э. картина радикально меняется. На смену рассеянным и неупорядоченным представлениям в мире образов вырабатывается стилистическое единство, что не исключает свободы творчества, но, тем не менее, скифский звериный стиль становится основным эстетическим критерием как в монументальном, так и в прикладном искусстве. Он распространяется от Китайской стены до Венгерской Пушты, и оспаривать его значение как единого связующего звена кочевых народов Евразии бессмысленно. Даже влияние древних цивилизаций не может кардинально изменить идеологию и философию скифосибирского евразийского единства. The art of ancient Tuva is represented by different types of monuments: cave paintings, deer stones and stone sculptures, objects found in settlements and burials, as well as random finds. They mainly relate to the Bronze Age, Scythian time and the Middle Ages. Chronological boundary between the 2nd and 1st millennia BC may well be called the border of eras. In the second millennium, the steppes of Central Asia represented an indiscriminate conglomerate of various tribes, in which the carriers of spiritual ideas sought to express their feelings and religious ideas in thousands of cave paintings, in which the bull often dominates as a carrier of an archaic universe that he holds or carries on his back. In the first millennium BC the picture is radically changing. Instead of scattered and disordered ideas in the world of images, a stylistic unity is being developed, which does not exclude the freedom of creativity, nevertheless the Scythian animal style becomes the main aesthetic criterion in both monumental and applied art. It extends from the Chinese wall to the Hungarian Pushta, and it is pointless to dispute its importance as a single link between the nomadic peoples of Eurasia. Even the influence of ancient civilizations cannot radically change the ideology and philosophy of the ScythianSiberian Eurasian unity.