PHILOSOPHY OF ART
What is art? is it possible to deal with something that has no real definition?
We could say there is no substance to it.
1. A notion of creative expression? Creativity is bound to the idea of putting something into being.
This is the idea of Plato, which has been take over by Christianity (il creato). the first creating being
is God, who was created by nothing. There was a change made by Martin Luther: he translated the
bible in German. There was a break during the interpretation of the Bible: in the Middle Ages the
thinking was only one direction (bible and its fully interpretation). But Martin didn’t need anyone to
tell him how to interpretate the bible, because this is the responsibility to every individual to
understand it. So, this was when there was a break between the church. At this point also art
changed: individual understanding of art became possible.
2. If you use art to escape from reality, that means art is something not real
3. Art carries truth: so our everyday reality is truth but not a philosophical one, and in this case
escaping from reality may mean you enter another kind of truth.
Before the break of the Church, one possible interpretation of art was that of creative expression. After that,
individual understanding led to individual personal interpretations of art (as truth, for example, or as a way
of escaping from reality).
Alexander Baumgarten is the inventor of Aesthetics, he states that senses are indeed able to provide
knowledge, so he develops a philosophy which he calls aesthetics.
If we look at the painting of Magritte (Surrealism) and then at the object of Marien, we can say they both
escape from the idea of being an object. ->art as a way of escaping real world
I think we can immediately recognise the fact that what we are seeing is not a painting, and we don't go
against that statement. instead with Magritte's painting we have some thoughts about it because what we
are clearly looking at is indeed, a pipe. The main difference is between what is material and what is virtual.
In a real painting a painter lands his body to the world. One of the important things to understand is the
difference between presence and appearing.
Art is art when it claims to be art. It concerns us in ways which are not practical. Our idea of art today is
restricted. Art in the past was distinct between practical art and technical art and they were considered as
liberal arts because they belonged to liberal men (free men).
Parallel between art and philosophy
THINGS IN COMMON:
They both had to do with truth.
Something beyond everyday life.
DIFFERENCES:
ART
Physical expression
tangible
Creativity/creation
PHILOSOPHY
Commentary about being (verbal/mind)
abstract
Understanding/thinking
DESCARTES/method
René Descartes, A Discourse on the Method of Correctly Conducting One’s Reason and Seeking Truth in the
Sciences, Oxford 2006, p. 5.
Good sense is the most evenly distributed thing in the world; for everyone believes himself to be so well
provided with it that even those who are the hardest to please in every other way do not usually want more
of it than they already have. Nor is it likely that everyone is wrong about this; rather, what this shows is that
the power of judging correctly and of distinguishing the true from the false (which is what is properly called
good sense or reason) is naturally equal in all men, and that consequently the diversity of our opinions arises
not from the fact that some of us are more reasonable than others, but solely that we have different ways
of directing our thoughts, and do not take into account the same things. For it is not enough to possess a
good mind; the most important thing is to apply it correctly. The greatest minds are capable of the greatest
vices as well as the greatest virtues; those who go forward but very slowly can get further, if they always
follow the right road, than those who are in too much of a hurry and stray off it.
He wants to aim to something that is reliable. In order to do this, he must exclude everything that is
unreliable, starting from the sensitive perception and the use of the five senses as they may lead us in the
wrong way.
Where do the differences in our thinking come from and what do they consist of if we are all even in terms
of good sense?
Descartes philosophically analyses the process behind decision making and tries to detect where our mind
is misled, to prevent said misleading.
Impediment for equal thinking:
For it is not enough to possess a good mind; the most important thing is to apply it correctly.
Benchmark to understand what is right and what is wrong (Descartes says that the capacity of conducting
reason correctly consists in how people can make distinctions between right and wrong, and people need a
type of benchmark to measure what is right and what is wrong).
INTRINSIC LOGIC is the method of excluding what is supposed to be wrong.
The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as the greatest virtues; those who go forward
but very slowly can get further, if they always follow the right road, than those who are in too much of a
hurry and stray off it.
Take time and don't leave out anything, decision comes later, try to grasp in entirely and then exclude what
is wrong or uncertain. Correctness becomes certainty.
Must be certain of what is wrong.
Descartes helped create positivism as it partially excludes the idea of wrong (and that the real truth can be
reached through research and science).
This form of thinking can only be achieved by doubt and showing the guiding principles on how to guide
one’s reason.
Philosophy is thinking, which is supposed to exclude everything that is wrong.
Philosophy can provide everyday thinking with method that can make it truer. Philosophy also becomes
possibility not only intellectual but influences everyday thinking: it may be useful concerning the sense of
life.
In Descartes to achieve certainty you want to exclude the perception of senses and works of art, which
only create doubts and get you further from the real truth and knowledge.
ALEXANDER BAUMGARTEN
On the contrary Alexander Baumgarten Invented the modern view of the word aesthetics.
He believed that Learning through works of art is important and strictly correlated with intelligence and
knowledge.
He also deepened the perception of poetry and other arts to show that perception with the senses helps
creating truth and knowledge. This form of perception and work was titled aesthetics
MOTIVATIONS TO PHILOSOPHISE (difference between Romans and Greeks)
Cicero  «… for philosophy would never have attained such honor in Greece, unless it had flourished by
means of the controversies and disputes of the most learned men. I therefore urge all who can do so to
wrest superior merit in this department from Greece, now in her decline, and to make it the property of our
own city, as our ancestors by their zeal and industry transferred hither all the other arts that were desirable.
Thus while the glory of our orators, raised from the lowest point, has reached the summit whence—as is the
law of nature as to almost everything—it must lapse into senile decay and shortly come to nought, let
philosophy in its Latin garb have its birth at this very time.»
Roman motivation to philosophize. When talking about Greek philosophers he describes that they are
improving. Cicero wants to steal from Athens the height of their philosophers and to make its home in
Rome. He wants to instrumentalize philosophy for his own purposes.
Encourages the romans to partake in philosophical debates to attain the philosophical glory of ancient
Greece or to surpass it.
He wants to use philosophy for his position, social standing, pride, and the city (strumentalization, not
authentic).
Aristotle  «After these thinkers and the discovery of these causes, since they were insufficient to account
for the generation of the actual world, men were again compelled (as we have said) by truth itself to
investigate the next first principle. »
Greek motivation to philosophize. After the first thinkers (Heraclitus) he is asking what the 4 causes of the
world are and is looking for the truth (Next principle).
‘We investigate the next first principle’ means we are always looking to discover the cause before the one
before it (because a cause will always be the result of another cause and so on).
Hunting for causes means hunting for the truth of the matter or the original cause.
Differs from cicero who made philosophy a question of pride.
Aristotle does not speak of pride (Cicero) or honour as his motivations are purely based on knowing the
unknown.
PROCEEDING IN PHILOSOPHING
Heraclitus  The most important things are worth time to understanding. We cannot only look at a small
piece, a superficial look will lead nowhere.
"Let us not conjecture randomly about the most important things".
First, we investigate why we philosophize then how we philosophize.
Take time for understanding things.
In philosophy as well as in art there is a struggle for the truth=getting out the essence of something.
Heidegger  «In what follows we shall be questioning concerning technology. Questioning builds a way.
We would be advised, therefore, above all to pay heed to the way, and not to fix our attention on isolated
sentences and topics. The way is a way of thinking. All ways of thinking, more or less perceptibly, lead
through language in a manner that is extraordinary. We shall be questioning concerning technology, and in
so doing we should like to prepare a free relationship to it. The relationship will be free if it opens our
human existence to the essence of technology. When we can respond to this essence, we shall be able to
experience the technological within its own bounds. Technology is not equivalent to the essence of
technology. When we are seeking the essence of “tree,” we have to become aware that That which
pervades every tree, as tree, is not itself a tree that can be encountered among all the other trees. »
The text is not about art, rather technique and technology: Art and technique can be used here
interchangeably.
We need to have a look at the big picture, the way of thinking. Our human existence should open to the
essence of art. However, what is important to underline is the fact that Art is not equivalent to the essence
of art (freedom). And according to this, the essence of art doesn’t necessarily have to come from art itself.
If you take something out of its state, you may be able to see or understand it.
Asking is answering, question opens another question and so on, helps guide us towards a definite answer.
J.A. Schumpeter, Business Cycles, McGraw-Hill Book Company ,1939, p.107.
«On the one hand technological research becomes increasingly mechanized1 and organized2; on the other
hand, resistance to new ways weakens. Any technological improvement which is becoming "objectively
possible," tends to be carried into effect as a matter of course. This must affect the phenomenon which is
the subject of this book. It must also affect the importance of the social function, and in consequence the
economic and social position, of that stratum of capitalist society which exists by entrepreneurial
achievement … Already, the volitional aptitudes that made the successful entrepreneur of old are much less
necessary and have much less scope than they used to have. »
From an historical and phenomenological point of view he is aware of the changes that took place and the
necessity to deal with technology. Innovation influences economic processes, which influence business
cycles. These showed the progression of economy in different environments (economy goes with an
undulating behaviour of regression and expansion).
Schumpeter therefore is interested in business and economics: according to him, things that are organised
and mechanised influence and affect social function and decisions made by people.
He describes a change in time concerning the aptitudes of the capitalists and the managers of companies
and describes what this change consists of. Old entrepreneurs needed volitional attitudes to be successful,
but now they don’t, and they are not as responsible for their success because everything is much more
mechanised, and every decision is made in relation to these mechanisms. The entrepreneur leaves his
opinion because everything is much more objective.
Schumpeter gives the root of the historical phenomenon, and that technology will be the root of change in
the 20th century. Technological research is becoming increasingly important in the present. The style of
technological research has been mechanised and organised (modelized).
To explain Schumpeter in the best way possible we evaluate the three key words through other
philosophers:
1. Hegel (mechanisation)
2. Comte (organisation)
3. Husserl (indifference)
G. W. F. Hegel, The Science of Logic, translated and edited by G. Di Giovanni, Cambridge University Press,
2010, p. 631. «This is what constitutes the character of mechanism, namely, that whatever the connection
that obtains between the things combined, the connection remains one that is alien to them, that does not
affect their nature, and even when a reflective semblance of unity is associated with it, the connection
remains nothing more than composition, mixture, aggregate, etc. Spiritual mechanism, like its material
counterpart, also consists in the things connected in the spirit remaining external to one another and to
spirit. A mechanical mode of representation, a mechanical memory, a habit, a mechanical mode of acting,
mean that the pervasive presence that is proper to spirit is lacking in what spirit grasps or does. Although its
theoretical or practical mechanism cannot take place without its spontaneous activity, without an impulse
and consciousness, the freedom of individuality is still lacking in it, and since this freedom does not appear
in it, the mechanical act appears as a merely external one. »
What is connected mechanically has no connection with its nature (this is the consequence of the
technological development).
To understand a mechanism, we must comprehend there is a connection between different things  these
connections are alien to their nature.
Construction VS nature: Construction comes from the fact that there is scientific research and scientists
have their own ideas and construction. Innovation of technological research is the process to create these
connections. What are these connections? One thing reflects the other while they are combining. The
connection remains nothing more than composition that does not consider the nature of what is
composed. The connections are created by people rather than naturally occurring.
In the spiritual world what it’s connected remains external to one another. Spiritual connection is creative,
and it creates this connection out of the essence of things.
Without an impulse or a consciousness mechanism cannot take place.
Hegel and Heidegger say that the idea of freedom given by technology is an illusion, we become more and
more dependent.
Freedom of individuality is lacking so the mechanical act is merely external and immediate.
Freedom of decision is also lacking.
Comte: Positivism is the reason why there are boundaries. The pillars of a positive philosophy:
1.
2.
3.
4.
The field of objects of a rigorous scientific analysis is defined by facts.
What is pursued is not the truth of a finding but its certainty, which is understood as a sensual one.
Science does not content itself with pure description.
Science increases exponentially man’s technical power of control over both nature and societyguided by the values of humanity, historical necessity, and visibility.
Comte is about to eliminate metaphysics which had been established for over 2000 years (no more use of
Aristotle).
The relation between things would be founded in causes for Aristotle, but Comte states you cannot
measure this sort of essence and is therefore unreliable. - This form of thinking is characterized by the
futility of being unable to solve problems.
For Comte truth is binding, valid for everyone.
The metaphysical notion of totality must be replaced by the subjective unity of methods.
Description is not enough; controlled observation is necessary.
Comte believes there is only one way to reach the truth: through scientific research and analysis (this has
led to the maintaining of the boundaries).
However, Socrates wants to reach the same truth but through dialogues.
Henry de Saint Simon: “the philosophy of the 18th century has been revolutionary, after that, philosophy
has been organisational (positive)”.
E. Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, part I (1954), p. 6.
«The exclusiveness with which the total world-view of modern man, in the second half of the nineteenth
century, let itself be determined by the positive sciences and be blinded by the „prosperity" they produced,
meant an indifferent turning-away from the questions which are decisive for a genuine humanity. Merely
fact-minded sciences make merely fact-minded people. »
«Thus the positivistic concept of science in our time is, historically speaking, a residual concept. It has
dropped all the questions which had been considered under the now narrower, now broader concepts of
metaphysics, including all questions vaguely termed "ultimate and highest “. » ibidem, p. 9.
«Positivism, in a manner of speaking, decapitates philosophy. » ibidem.
“Positivism, in a manner of speaking, decapitates philosophy”
This happens because positivism cannot ask questions about what goes beyond the reality of things and
what can be measured  there is a reduction of the phenomenon just to countable entities. You won’t
take into consideration metaphysical entities, which are also important for the understanding of the world.
There is indifference regarding humankind because positivism does not care about asking questions.
Husserl is the creator of Phenomenology.
A philosopher who is autonomous (selbstdenker, thinks for himself) with the will to liberate himself from
prejudices, he must believe that what we take for granted must be questioned.
THE THREE FORMS OF ART
1. Philosophy of art: what is art in its features or its essential traits? We must take away
sedimentation and challenge the truth.
2. History of art: the describing, comparing, and ordering of artworks.
3. Management of art: the staging, enacting, and organising of the presentation of art-events.
PHILOSOPHY OF ART
Issue
Ask questions: What art is, features that must be revealed, with its essential traits.
Concern with truth (to disclose the truth of art itself, which has to do with truth also in itself)
Proceeding
Taking away sedimentation, disclosing and revealing the truth.
What is the prospective in which philosophy of art see art? delivery of truth. Idea of orthotes (plato-eye's
correctness) something that is right, correspondence of the thing and the intellect.
Not supposed to be used.
BEFORE THE DISSOLUTION AND FRAGMENTATION OF ART
Before dissolution and fragmentation there was a traditional orientation that was towards concrete
appearances in artworks and in the different spheres: art, music, and language.
Music
The orientation is towards toner
relations, given by the matter of
the instrument.
We rely on the harmony given by
the instrument and the different
tones and intensities (still
concrete)
Language
The orientation is towards
grammar and vocabulary which
name the real world.
In poetry and literature, in
certain circumstances, these
words belong to fantasies but
are still from the real world.
Art
The orientation is towards real
things given by nature and
represented out of it.
Unique way of interpreting and
understanding.
Now these, are no longer reliable.
Orientation and authority must be different: the new ones can no longer be found in the appearing world
or found in the particularities of spheres, and the real being does not exist anymore.
Prefiguration? Not anymore: artists want to figurate things by themselves and no longer want to accept the
actual world  “Art has a generative principle in something else; nature has a generative principle in itself”
-Aristotle.
Traditional authority of that which is given materially does not apply so is there anything that is constant in
the arts? As we know Prefiguration presupposes a new perspective, which is fragmented is a new
figuration of human appearance and nature and is considered as pre-configured. We have the condition
which makes the art of today possible
Prefiguration is found in cubism and futurism as well as poems in both futurism and nihilism
Words which are invented contribute to prefiguration and play with sounds.
We come from the idea of prefiguration and what led us to the idea as well as the meaning
Means that artists say in a conscious way that the way they are preceding is following the orientation.
What are the main features at the beginning of the 20th Century?
-
Dissolution of barriers of the fields of art
Fragmentation of the figures in art. You lose the connection with something prefigurated.
Music?
No more harmony
Cage: 4’33’’
Language?
No more words
Futurism (Marinetti)
Art?
No more real things
Hugo Ball
At the beginning of the 20th century everyone can be considered as an artist: indeed, the artist is now the
creator himself  there are no more boundaries, and everything is only about intellectual capacities and
proclamations. “You cannot think about prefiguration if you don’t have an idea of figuration”.
What are the fundaments with our understanding of art? The expression of creativity.
Regarding music: 4’33’’ is both fragmentated and dissolute: the noises we hear are not related among one
another; they are not structured (fragment). It’s also a kind of play Cage makes because you don’t need a
piano to hear street noises. Let’s call it “CHEATING”. So, in itself is something only possible in certain types
of horizons of thinking and perception.
Everything has and is a function, all is connected digitalization.
Increase the functionality, the performance-reason for synergy, of working together.
What does the change in orientation mean for our philosophical view of art?
Our look can no longer be materially and structurally oriented on things.
We are constrained to change our look otherwise we cannot cope with the new situation and cannot
understand what has changed.
HISTORY OF ART
1. Method
2. Techne, a word that defines art and knowledge
3. Mimesis: In the mimesis we analyse how the artist always represents one of three things: things as
they were or are; things as they are and said or seem to be; things as they should be (but according
to who?).
Art belongs to its period. If we want to understand it, we must know that it is impossible to have the same
relationship and understanding outside of its period of origin. So, we have to look at it in the mindset and
the environment of the piece and what it belongs to.
For example, the idea of love can be considered as timeless, but the ways it is represented through many
époques may differ and be interpreted differently.
Hermeneutics at his point is valuable because it is something we can do.
It’s “the art of interpretation”.
Theogenes of Region, founder of hermeneutics.
Most important tests: Iliad and odyssey, laid value of society there was not written constitution.
He tried to interpret, to find a deeper sense of what homer says when people could not understand
anymore. Indeed, he was the first to use and include allegory in his texts, which guaranteed more
possibilities of understanding things perceived with a unique meaning (this helps us to understand the
mind-sets and different environments of art works).
He created the concept of Uponoia, (now Hyponoia)Sense underneath.
This Phenomenon is still used to make things clear and improve our current understanding of things.
The immediate importance of hyponoia was that it made something reliable out of the Iliad, odyssey, and
other texts, made them into something for the community.
History of art example Shakespeare brought a major change during the 16th century because while many
perceived the idea of One word=one definition, he showed the potentialities and richness of language with
HAMLET.
Hamlet mentions nature as modest (correlation with Aristotle). When he is talking about the mirror, we
draw the conclusion that he is talking about mimesis and the representation of nature. Theatre has the
purpose of being the mirror of nature.
TECHNE AND MIMESIS
Techne is a word about art and knowledge and Plato gave a major importance to it. Techne of the
rhapsodists and poets is not reasoning and cannot be accepted as techne. He wondered that since poets
have no techne and science, so where does the poet take knowledge from? By gods: but Plato did not
follow this aspect, he couldn’t see further because he did not perceive art as something not comparable
with a concrete type of knowledge.
Plato’s Ion
Analysis
Plato writes a dialogue in which Socrates and Ion meet. Ion is one of the last rhapsodists.
A rhapsodist is a type of storyteller and performs the transmission of historic texts by mouth.
With an understanding of techne, it becomes easier to understand the dissolution of spheres today
regarding the boundaries of art.
How is it possible?
Only possible if there is a similarity between the spheres.
what do the similarities consist of?
If you take the idea of techne and philosophy of art and the dialogue of Socrates, there is the same
difficulty with those several spheres.
The spheres’ commonality is [techne] knowledge.
We need to distinguish that what we understand as art from other forms of knowledge.
There is no word which really defines art, yet the sphere of fine art has no real conceptual word and what
we understand by art is by most cases understood through vocabulary from other spheres.
However, Aristotle believes something different. He saw beyond everyday knowledge, and this is
fundamental for mimesis. Plato did not accept this idea of mimesis: he instead believed that every table
depends on the eternal idea of table. So, it is not the truth. If I paint a table this is even further from the
truth.
Mimesis for Aristotle is characterised in a distinction between arts and fine arts (18th century).
Mimetic art is how we understand it today:
-
They imitate in different media (doubtful)
They imitate different things
They imitate in different ways
In the mimesis we analyse how the artist always represents one of three things: things as they were or are,
things as they are and said or seem to be, things as they should be.
Once again Plato does not believe in these representations since work of arts or music may bring emotions
and therefore influence badly the being of the citizens. On the contrary, Aristotle believes that with
emotions we clean ourselves.
MANAGEMENT OF ART
Employs an artwork with scientific ends, used to make performances and obtain profits, not only economic.
Spectacularization: make a spectacle out of art. How to show and promote art works.
When is it possible to see the dissolution of all the 3 main spheres?
When spheres that are supposed to be on their own get in touch with one another and open their
boundaries. We are looking for things that haven’t been defined.
We are in front of a considerable change in the understanding of science and the three approaches or
relationships to art.
No longer the question of retaining identity, everything relates to everything and the first step in that
direction is digitalization. There is a goal within science of art to define problems and similar problems are
found in philosophy of art and management of art.
In this change we are facing we are looking simultaneously for solutions, functionality, and use:
Knowledge (history of art) is no more oriented towards a thing or phenomenon but rather towards finding
solutions (Management of art).
Solutions can be found through synergy (energy of thinking)
Interdisciplinarity is another form of synergy.
Sometimes there are things which are not good enough and therefore there are problems or solutions to
be found. Ideally, what we want to achieve is to make these things better, increase the performances in
this area and in every single sphere as equal (it is a mechanical way where reality is forgotten).
Everything is accessible in some way and manageable in the same way.
What do you do if you have no problems? You introduce them.
There is the idea of solving problems, which is not only the possibility of interdisciplinarity but also the
relationship to reality.
Interdisciplinarity: The possibility of solving problems of one sphere is entering the dialogue with the
possibility of solving problems within another sphere.
MICHAEL HANKINSON
Just like the example of john cage, orchestra and business also indicate a situation where there are no
more boundaries. We are missing once again orientation. There is an organisational knowledge that seems
to be the same in orchestra and business. This was practiced since the 19th century, but it is not possible
without techne.
Conductor as a business leader (business plan compared to a musical score).
No boundaries anymore among occupations he must cover, union of activities in 1 person.
With many orchestras running at a loss the financial constraints on programming, choice of solists and
amount of rehearsal time available, all become a key factor in the overall planning of schedules and
budgets.
Financial constrain-nothing to do with music. To run an orchestra the main interest is the necessity to make
money, the music as a function of that. FORMALISATION- you give up specificities of music and business.
Difference between a hammer and a violin.
You can use a hammer when you already have an idea of what you want to accomplish and the hammer is
an instrument to get there, different items are required to be used with the hammer.
The artistic production of the violin is all that is required for the violin.
A violin is used by playing yet you would not play with a hammer -A violin is there to be played while a
hammer is there to be used.
When you use a hammer, you’re tuned into your own being in a different way than when you’re listening to
a piece of music.
When you’re using a hammer, you have a goal and want something, yet you do not want something from a
piece of music.
Piece of music happens to you. Using a hammer makes you the one who makes something happen.
A conductor does not deliver a product as they make something possible while managers organize teams
that produce things.
What has not changed?
If all has changed, there would be no more art
Production in art is to bring to appearance.
Art is not a thing of utility; production can also produce items of utility