Download or read book Reality and the Arts A Philosophical Guide written by Albert A. Anderson and published by Agora Publications, Inc.. This book was released on 2009-06-07 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Art is the creative manifestation of essences. In order to understand the relation between art and reality, we need a philosophical guide. The best way to comprehend how the creative act of imagining enables the mind to seek reality is to employ the kind of dialectical thinking that Plato used in his dialogues. Beginning with the shadows on the wall of the cave in which each person dwells, that process gradually enables us to grasp the essences that are manifested in individual works of art. Without a philosophical guide, we are likely to encounter only a blur of images in the visual arts, a cacophony of sounds in music, a whirl of activity in the theater, and chaos in the building of cities. Philosophy was eclipsed by a variety of cultural forces in the 20th century, leaving thinkers in all fields without a compass. The tension between absolutism and relativism led many people to abandon the search for reality and seek shelter by returning to the cave. We should expect neither too much nor too little from philosophy. It is too much to expect a set of final answers to any serious question about what is true, good, or beautiful. If we abandon the quest for reality we settle for too little. Plato’s dialectical approach offers a path between Scylla and Charybdis.
Download or read book Anderson s Reality and the Arts written by Albert A. Anderson and published by Lindhardt og Ringhof. This book was released on 2020-07-30 with total page 103 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Art is the creative manifestation of essences. In order to understand the relation between art and reality, we need a philosophical guide. The best way to comprehend how the creative act of imagining enables the mind to seek reality is to employ the kind of dialectical thinking that Plato used in his dialogues. Beginning with the shadows on the wall of the cave in which each person dwells, that process gradually enables us to grasp the essences that are manifested in individual works of art. Without a philosophical guide, we are likely to encounter only a blur of images in the visual arts, a cacophony of sounds in music, a whirl of activity in the theater, and chaos in the building of cities. It is too much to expect a set of final answers to any serious question about what is true, good, or beautiful. If we abandon the quest for reality, we settle for too little. Plato’s dialectical approach offers a path between Scylla and Charybdis. Albert A. Anderson, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Babson College in Massachusetts, where he held an endowed chair as Murata Professor of Ethics from 1995 to 2003. He has also held tenured faculty appointments in philosophy at Clark University and Albion College and full-time positions at Bates College and Rhode Island School of Design. He was a founding member of the International Society for Universal Dialogue serving as its president from 1996-2001. He joined Edward Casey in translating from French "The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience" by Mikel Dufrenne (Northwestern University Press). He is president of Agora Publications, Inc., which specializes in translating, adapting, and performing classical philosophical texts.
Download or read book Technology and the Virtues written by Shannon Vallor and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New technologies from artificial intelligence to drones, and biomedical enhancement make the future of the human family increasingly hard to predict and protect. This book explores how the philosophical tradition of virtue ethics can help us to cultivate the moral wisdom we need to live wisely and well with emerging technologies.
Download or read book Knowledge Reality and Value written by Michael Huemer and published by . This book was released on 2021-04 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world's best introduction to philosophy, Knowledge, Reality, and Value explains basic philosophical problems in epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics, such as: How can we know about the world outside our minds? Is there a God? Do we have free will? Are there objective values? What distinguishes morally right from morally wrong actions? The text succinctly explains the most important theories and arguments about these things, and it does so a lot less boringly than most books written by professors."My work is all a series of footnotes to Mike Huemer." -Plato"This book is way better than my lecture notes." -Aristotle"When I have a little money, I buy Mike Huemer's books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes." -ErasmusContentsPreface Part I: Preliminaries 1. What Is Philosophy? 2. Logic 3. Critical Thinking, 1: Intellectual Virtue 4. Critical Thinking, 2: Fallacies 5. Absolute Truth Part II: Epistemology 6. Skepticism About the External World 7. Global Skepticism vs. Foundationalism 8. Defining "Knowledge" Part III: Metaphysics 9. Arguments for Theism 10. Arguments for Atheism 11. Free Will 12. Personal Identity Part IV: Ethics 13. Metaethics 14. Ethical Theory, 1: Utilitarianism 15. Ethical Theory, 2: Deontology 16. Applied Ethics, 1: The Duty of Charity 17. Applied Ethics, 2: Animal Ethics 18. Concluding Thoughts Appendix: A Guide to Writing GlossaryMichael Huemer is a professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, where he has taught since the dawn of time. He is the author of a nearly infinite number of articles in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and political philosophy, in addition to seven other amazing and brilliant books that you should immediately buy.
Download or read book Art and Reality written by John Anderson and published by Sydney University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-31 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Art and Reality is a collection of general theoretical reflections and particular critical studies, in which John Anderson asserts the essential role of art and aesthetics in intellectual life. Rejecting the notion that artistic appreciation is simply a matter of spontaneous response or ‘personal taste’, Anderson argues that genuine criticism requires the application of general aesthetic principles and an awareness of the relationship between art and nature. In exploring how beauty is experienced and defined, he considers a wide range of authors, from Homer to Joyce, Melville to Dostoevsky, Shakespeare to Shaw. He outlines his underlying theory of aesthetics and offers commentary on some key controversies of his day, including psychoanalytic criticism, the Ern Malley hoax, and the censorship of Ulysses in Australia. With characteristic rigor and originality, Anderson proposes a philosophical way of approaching works of art, one which can lead us to a more meaningful and thoughtful engagement with literature.
Download or read book A Philosophy Guide to Street Art and the Law written by Andrea Baldini and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-12-24 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the relationship between street art and the law? In this work, Andrea Baldini argues that street art has a constitutive relationship with the law. By subverting laws and norms regulating public spaces, street art is outlaw art.
Download or read book Games written by C. Thi Nguyen and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Games are a unique art form. The game designer doesn't just create a world; they create who you will be in that world. They tell you what abilities to use and what goals to take on. In other words, they specify a form of agency. Games work in the medium of agency. And to play them, we take on alternate agencies and submerge ourselves in them. What can we learn about our own rationality and agency, from thinking about games? We learn that we have a considerable degree of fluidity with our agency. First, we have the capacity for a peculiar sort of motivational inversion. For some of us, winning is not the point. We take on an interest in winning temporarily, so that we can play the game. Thus, we are capable of taking on temporary and disposable ends. We can submerge ourselves in alternate agencies, letting them dominate our consciousness, and then dropping them the moment the game is over. Games are, then, a way of recording forms of agency, of encoding them in artifacts. Our games are a library of agencies. And exploring that library can help us develop our own agency and autonomy. But this technology can also be used for art. Games can sculpt our practical activity, for the sake of the beauty of our own actions. Games are part of a crucial, but overlooked category of art - the process arts. These are the arts which evoke an activity, and then ask you to appreciate your own activity. And games are a special place where we can foster beautiful experiences of our own activity. Because our struggles, in games, can be designed to fit our capacities. Games can present a harmonious world, where our abilities fit the task, and where we pursue obvious goals and act under clear values. Games are a kind of existential balm against the difficult and exhausting value clarity of the world. But this presents a special danger. Games can be a fantasy of value clarity. And when that fantasy leaks out into the world, we can be tempted to oversimplify our enduring values. Then, the pleasures of games can seduce us away from our autonomy, and reduce our agency."--
Download or read book Postmodern Theory and Progressive Politics written by Thomas de Zengotita and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-08-23 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the origins of the academic culture wars of the late 20th century and examines their lasting influence on the humanities and progressive politics. It puts us in a position to ask this question: what to make now of those furious debates over postmodernism, multiculturalism, relativism, critical theory, deconstruction, post-structuralism, and all the rest? In an effort to arrive at a fair judgment on that question, the book reaches for an understanding of postmodern theorists by way of two genres they despised and hopes, for that very reason, to do them justice. It tells a story, and in the telling, advances two basic claims: first, that the phenomenological/hermeneutical tradition is the most suitable source of theory for a humanism that aspires to be universal; and, second, that the ethical and political aspect of the human condition is authentically accessible only through narrative. In conclusion, it argues that the postmodern moment was a necessary one, or will have been if we rise to the occasion and seize the opportunity it offers: a truly universal humanism might yet be realized even in—or perhaps especially in—this atavistic hour of parochial populism.
Download or read book The Objective Eye written by John Hyman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2006-05-15 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The Objective Eye' explores the fundamental concepts we use constantly in our innocent thoughts and conversations about art, as well as in the most sophisticated art theory. The book progresses from pure philosophy to applied philosophy and ranges from the meta-physics of colour to Renaissance perspective.
Download or read book An Anthropological Guide to the Art and Philosophy of Mirror Gazing written by Maria Danae Koukouti and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-09-03 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looking at one's face in the mirror and finding one's self in the mirror are not the same. The former capacity is something we share with other animals; the latter is a skill: something we have to learn. What does it mean and what does it take to find oneself the mirror? This book provides a comparative anthropological enquiry into the unity and diversity of mirror gazing. The reader is encouraged to reflect upon and experiment with different mirror gazes through a range of case studies. Koukouti and Malafouris weave together anthropology with philosophy and draw on examples from literature and experiments from psychopathology in a way that has never been attempted before. The master metaphor is that of the mirror as trap. Mirror gazing is viewed on a par with hunting. Mirroring signifies the hunt for self-knowledge. In a time obsessed with the digital self-image, Koukouti and Malafouris reflect on the structures of consciousness that underpin the different ways of looking at and through the mirror. Combining metaphor, comparison and estrangement, they gesture towards a therapeutic alliance between body and mirroring. This allows us to look in the mirror, and think of our shared humanity differently.
Download or read book Philosophy of the Arts written by Gordon Graham and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-09-07 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new edition of this bestselling introduction to aesthetics and the philosophy of art. Includes new sections on digital music and environmental aesthetics. All other chapters have been thoroughly revised and updated.
Download or read book The Artist s Way written by Julia Cameron and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2002-03-04 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "With its gentle affirmations, inspirational quotes, fill-in-the-blank lists and tasks — write yourself a thank-you letter, describe yourself at 80, for example — The Artist’s Way proposes an egalitarian view of creativity: Everyone’s got it."—The New York Times "Morning Pages have become a household name, a shorthand for unlocking your creative potential"—Vogue Over four million copies sold! Since its first publication, The Artist's Way phenomena has inspired the genius of Elizabeth Gilbert and millions of readers to embark on a creative journey and find a deeper connection to process and purpose. Julia Cameron's novel approach guides readers in uncovering problems areas and pressure points that may be restricting their creative flow and offers techniques to free up any areas where they might be stuck, opening up opportunities for self-growth and self-discovery. The program begins with Cameron’s most vital tools for creative recovery – The Morning Pages, a daily writing ritual of three pages of stream-of-conscious, and The Artist Date, a dedicated block of time to nurture your inner artist. From there, she shares hundreds of exercises, activities, and prompts to help readers thoroughly explore each chapter. She also offers guidance on starting a “Creative Cluster” of fellow artists who will support you in your creative endeavors. A revolutionary program for personal renewal, The Artist's Way will help get you back on track, rediscover your passions, and take the steps you need to change your life.
Download or read book The Complete Idiot s Guide to Eastern Philosophy written by Jay Stevenson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2000-01-09 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You’re no idiot, of course. You know Eastern philosophy encompasses many countries and concepts, but when it comes to breaking down the basics—to discuss with others or for your own enlightenment—you can’t tell Confucius from Krishna. Don’t nix nirvana just yet! The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Eastern Philosophy is an extensive, reader-friendly guide that maps out the terrain along the various paths of knowledge. In this Complete Idiot’s Guide®, you get: • A wealth of information about the history and core beliefs of each philosophical system. • Outlines and in-depth explorations of each school of thought. • Reading and study guides to enhance your understanding. • The “big picture” of Eastern philosophy and how its components relate to Western ideas.
Download or read book Philosophy Looks at the Arts written by Joseph Margolis and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first edition of this widely used anthology offered a needed introduction to a new analytic aesthetics which has in the intervening years become even more influential. This new, revised and expanded edition has been designed by one of the leaders of the field to help define the structure of current aesthetics. Of the 24 articles included more than half are new to this edition. The new edition emphasizes opposing currents in aesthetics with contributions from the most active and influential writers in the field. It is a basic book for any library and is designed to provide both undergraduate and graduate students with a professional orientation in aesthetics. Author note: Joseph Margolis is Professor of Philosophy at Temple University. He is the author or editor of twelve other books as well as numerous articles.
Download or read book Roald Hoffmann on the Philosophy Art and Science of Chemistry written by Jeffrey Kovac and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nobel laureate Roald Hoffmann's contributions to chemistry are well known. Less well known, however, is that over a career that spans nearly fifty years, Hoffmann has thought and written extensively about a wide variety of other topics, such as chemistry's relationship to philosophy, literature, and the arts, including the nature of chemical reasoning, the role of symbolism and writing in science, and the relationship between art and craft and science. In Roald Hoffmann on the Philosophy, Art, and Science of Chemistry, Jeffrey Kovac and Michael Weisberg bring together twenty-eight of Hoffmann's most important essays. Gathered here are Hoffmann's most philosophically significant and interesting essays and lectures, many of which are not widely accessible. In essays such as "Why Buy That Theory," "Nearly Circular Reasoning," "How Should Chemists Think," "The Metaphor, Unchained," "Art in Science," and "Molecular Beauty," we find the mature reflections of one of America's leading scientists. Organized under the general headings of Chemical Reasoning and Explanation, Writing and Communicating, Art and Science, Education, and Ethics, these stimulating essays provide invaluable insight into the teaching and practice of science.
Download or read book Theory and Reality written by Peter Godfrey-Smith and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-07-16 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does science work? Does it tell us what the world is “really” like? What makes it different from other ways of understanding the universe? In Theory and Reality, Peter Godfrey-Smith addresses these questions by taking the reader on a grand tour of more than a hundred years of debate about science. The result is a completely accessible introduction to the main themes of the philosophy of science. Examples and asides engage the beginning student, a glossary of terms explains key concepts, and suggestions for further reading are included at the end of each chapter. Like no other text in this field, Theory and Reality combines a survey of recent history of the philosophy of science with current key debates that any beginning scholar or critical reader can follow. The second edition is thoroughly updated and expanded by the author with a new chapter on truth, simplicity, and models in science.
Download or read book Chasing Shadows written by Rick Howell and published by . This book was released on 2017-03-15 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rick Howell's conversational prose takes readers on the artist's journey. Insightful and intimate, Howell speaks with forthright conviction, using his own work as objects for interrogation, and then, in wonderfully unexpected moments, easily turns inward, reflecting on personal joys and frustrations, often using his trademark self-deprecating humor. Chasing Shadows is a concise guide for artists wanting to start painting but too offers much insight for those who have been painting for years. Howell's approach goes well beyond any how-to book on the market; he begins with a quiet glimpse into his soul then bravely moves forward pressing the notion of what makes one an artist. From inspiration to the joy of packing one's gear and heading out into the sweet escape of nature and one's own mind, on into finding the perfect local to setting up, blocking-in, and complete a painting, Howell offers no-nonsense advice based on years of teaching and painting, reflecting throughout this book on his own experiences, from disappointments to triumphs.
