Can Levinson's Intentional‐Historical Definition of Art Accommodate Revolutionary Art?

In this article, I examine whether Jerrold Levinson's intentional‐historical definition of art can successfully accommodate revolutionary art. For Levinson, an item is art if it was intended to be regarded as some prior art was regarded. But revolutionary art involves a regard that is “completely distinct” from preexisting art regards. I consider and reject Levinson's proposed solutions to the problem of accommodating revolutionary art. I then defend an alternative account of transgressive art regard. Unfortunately for the intentional‐historical definition, the acceptance of transgressive art regard in conjunction with some recent theories of the development of human behavioral modernity may commit the definition to including nonart, prehistoric tools.     

‘The Origin of the Work of Art’: Heidegger

Professor Max Charlesworth and I worked, at Deakin University, on a course, 'Understanding Art'. Max was interested in the Social History of Art and in art as: 'giving form to mere matter'. Here 'form' might be read as 'lucid', 'exemplary', 'beautiful' etcetera. I am an Aristotle Poetics 4 man '… imitating something with the utmost veracity in a picture', and an Aristotle and John Cage man: 'Art is the imitation of nature in the manner of operation. Or a net'. (Cage) (See Aristotle Meteorologica, 381b Book iv.) I was invited by the University of Melbourne to lecture on The Philosophy of Art, which I did for five delightful years. There I included the Heidegger essay, giving it as favourable a reading as I could. Unfortunately I have mislaid my marked-up copy and was forced to re-visit the essay, cold. My new reading lacks - in most respects - my former geniality. Kant's Aesthetic Ideas give us more than Heidegger does. So: I stuck with Aristotle, Cage and Kant.     

On the Expression of Emotions in Rembrandt’s Art

Rembrandt has been characterized as "the master of the passions of the soul". His painting production has always elicited the viewers' strong emotional responses. Τhese responses raise the question regarding why Rembrandt's work has been singled out as the quintessential example of the expression of emotions both during the 17th century, as well as in recent times. I will try to approach the issue through two different yet interconnected routes. First, I will explore the tools and terms through which the question of the expression of emotions in Rembrandt's oeuvre can be approached. Ancient rhetorical topoi, as well as ideas stemming from Dutch theater writers, drama and art theorists, scholars and art connoisseurs on the rendition of the emotions provide useful points of view. Secondly, I will approach the question by addressing certain stylistic and compositional solutions that Rembrandt suggested, which can be tied to current notions about lifelikeness and the beholder's empathy. Foremost among Rembrandt's aesthetic choices was his handling of light and of paint which accounts for a great deal of unfavorable criticism to his work during the 17th century. I would like to suggest that this handling of light and paint serves as Rembrandt's most important emotive vehicle and furthermore that it introduces us to the idea of wonder and the concept of the sublime in terms of which his depiction of emotions may be understood. Accordingly, I will try to establish an intellectual network in the 17th-century Netherlands for the sublime.     

Art and war: Paradox of the Bhagavad Gitā

The first several chapters of the Bhagavad Gitā set themselves a daunting task: to explain how a life of action can be rendered compatible with a life of renunciation of desire. The situation, in fact, is designed to raise the issue in an excruciatingly intense form. As Krsna and Arjuna pause on the verge of the great battle, Arjuna asks how killing people—including his own teachers and members of his own family—in order to secure power and fame, can be squared with his religious and ethical convictions. This paper is an attempt to explicate Krsna's solution of the paradox, not from the point of view of Hindu tradition (in which it has, of course, driven whole movements of thought), but simply as a philosophical problem in its own right. I will argue that the paradox of the Gitā suggests a reconstrual of the way we conceive the relation of means and ends in our activities, a reconstrual that can be profitably elucidated through the concept of art. And I will argue that this reconstrual has the potential to change our relations to our world and to one another in a way that is deeply life‐affirming.     

What Kind of Paintings Inspire Children when Viewing Art?

Viewing art inspires creativity, which can encourage learning in art education. A previous study revealed that the type of artwork and the way art is viewed affects adults' inspiration; however, no study exists concerning the way children are inspired by viewing art. Thus, the current study aimed to examine whether children's age group/grade level, art style (figurative or abstract), and artwork creators (children or adults) influence children's inspiration, and whether the effects of the art style and creators vary by children's age group/grade level. An online questionnaire survey was conducted with the help of 600 pairs of parents and their elementary-school-aged children. They were asked to view eight paintings that differed in terms of the artists and their individual style and they then rated their inspiration experience when viewing each artwork. The results revealed that children were more inspired when viewing abstract, rather than figurative, paintings, and the effect of the type of painting differed in the third and sixth grades. Additionally, children gained more inspiration by viewing paintings created by children rather than by adults; a difference observed in all grade levels.     

What Was Abstract Art? (From the Point of View of Heidegger)

To understand and begin to answer the question of this article, I compare Heidegger's position to Hegel's, since the two appear structurally similar and Heidegger is explicitly indebted to Hegel's aesthetics. On the basis of this comparison, I argue that abstract art has the potential to play an important role on Heideggerian grounds. I conclude that modernist art should be understood not as a supplement to the project of self‐realization that characterizes Hegelian freedom but rather as a disruptive event that could potentially challenge the constraining technological mindset that is characteristic of our time.     

The Art of Living in Otto Rank’s Will Therapy

Otto Rank's approach to psychotherapy, developed after his separation from Freud, encourages living life fully in spite of death and limitation. In his emphasis on the here and now, new experience in the therapeutic relationship, and collaboration and creativity in the therapy process, Rank was ahead of his time. As a theorist of personality and of creativity, his work is well known, but his influence on the practices of humanistic, existential, and post-psychoanalytic relational therapists is largely unacknowledged. Rank's creative legacy is an approach to psychotherapy that calls forth artistry and collaboration between therapist and client.     

Revisiting the “Art Bias” in Lay Conceptions of Creativity

This article explores the art bias—the pervasive association between creativity and art in implicit theories of creativity. It also attempts to connect creativity research in this area with literature on the theory of social representations. The data comes from an online survey completed by 195 participants mainly from the United States and the United Kingdom. The survey included two main tasks: The first asked respondents to generate as many questions as they can to determine whether an object is creative; the second invited them to rate whether creativity is a key requirement for a list of 16 professions from 4 different domains and recorded the creativity score as well as reaction time. In the end, findings offer partial support for the existence of an art bias. Although artistic professions were scored both the highest and fastest in terms of creativity, participants rarely formulated art-related questions and focused more on aspect, utility, and audience features. This discrepancy is discussed in the end in relation to the polyphasic nature of social knowledge.     

The Art of Sculpture: Jan Patočka’s Concept of Incarnate Being

Jan Pato?ka is known as a philosophical analyst of the phenomenological concept of the live-word (Lebenswelt), which contradicts the preoccupations expressed in Sir Herbert Read’s Art of Sculpture. This essay interprets Pato?ka’s “philosophy of sculpture” in the intellectual context of communist Czechoslovakia, arguing that he regarded sculpture as an incarnate being. His phenomenological interpretation defies all attempts to narrow such a being to the realm of mere haptic or visual sensibilities.     

Towards a synthesis of Art,Science and Spirituality—Notes on transdisciplinarity

This article, originally meant for an Auroville publication, consists mainly, besides the quotations, of a wide range of suggestions related to a transcultural approach to various questions raised by transdisciplinary research. All these suggestions converge on a central focus; the virtual reality of a subject/object interaction that eludes narrow disciplinary restrictions as well as rigid cultural definitions. Here, significantly, etymology seems to lead towards mythical cultural watersheds, just as philology has been offering clues to some fundamental philosophical discoveries, from Nietsche to G. Colli. The recent impact of Orientalist studies leads further into the same initiatic dimension, wherein metaphysics, ontology, aesthetics, linguistics, cosmology and psychology, all blend in a continuum of psychic experience, while variations of conscious awareness could only be described, and not sharply differentiated.

All this would point, not only to the emergence of new cognitive methods, but also to correspondingly adequate means of expression. A transcultural approach could, moreover, provide vital links between today's originality and the spiritual traditions of the past, adding thus a sense of cultural continuity to our endeavours in understanding evolution.     

A Review of: “Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor”

Abstract

Jung and the Alchemical Imagination. 2000. By Jeffrey Raff. York Beach, ME: Nicholas-Hays.

Path to the Soul: Unifying Eastern and Western Wisdom to Heal Your Body, Mind and Soul. 2000. By Ashok Bedi. York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser.

The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep. 1998. By Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications.

The Psyche on Stage: Individuation Motifs in Shakespeare and Sophocles. By Edward Edinger, edited by Sheila Dickman Zarrow

Lying Awake, 2001. By Mark Salzman. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Self Through Art and Science. 2001. Edited by Patton Howell and James Hall. Ist Books Library (www.istbooks.com)     

EEG Biofeedback for Addictive Disorders—The State of the Art in 2004

This paper reviews studies of brainwave biofeedback as a therapeutic technique for substance use disorder. This modality is attractive as a medication free, neurophysiologic, and self actualizing treatment for a substance based, brain impaired and self-defeating disorder. Three approaches are described and the literature for each reviewed. Alpha–theta occipital feedback was originally employed to facilitate autosuggestion in hypnagogic states to augment standard therapy approaches in substance abuse treatment programs and appears most suited for chronic treatment resistant alcoholics. Beta augmentation feedback in conjunction with alpha/theta feedback has been employed in mixed substance abuse and stimulant abuse with good results. Individualized brainwave biofeedback based on correcting EEG abnormalities, or based on addressing comorbid conditions is a third approach that has been described, and may be most appropriate where confounding comorbid conditions are present. Although effectiveness in certain hard to treat populations (conventional treatment resistant alcoholics, crack cocaine addicts, cognitively impaired substance abusers) is promising, better-designed controlled studies are needed.     

The Science and Art of Integrating Psychodrama and Bernard’s Discrimination Model

This article presents the useful technique of Jacob L. Moreno’s psychodrama in counselor education supervision training. This article addresses how psychodrama can be used with student supervisors who are not sure which of Bernard’s discrimination model roles they are using in supervision. Bernard’s model uses three roles that help supervisors function successfully in their relationships with supervisees. Psychodrama may help student supervisors decide what action would be the most appropriate in a given supervision session. Student supervisors may also benefit from psychodrama in processing internal conflict they may experience in their supervisory role. Faculty members training new supervisors may use these techniques to help their student supervisors gain more awareness on how they view their relationships with supervisees.     

Is Stand-Up Comedy Art?

Stand-up so closely resembles—and is meant to resemble—the styles and expectations of everyday speech that the idea of technique and technical mastery we typically associate with art is almost rendered invisible. Technique and technical mastery is as much about the understanding and development of audiences as collaborators as it is the generation of material. Doing so requires encountering audiences in places that by custom or design encourage ludic and vernacular talk—social spaces and third spaces such as bars, coffee houses, and clubs. Cultivating uncultivated speech and cultivating real audiences in found settings form the background of developing the stand-up comedian, neither of which lend themselves to the conservatory tradition we think of when we think of the development of artists. This article addresses two areas of the overall question of stand-up as art, starting with the ontological question of stand-up comedy: if it is an art where is it located, and what we may mean by “artworks” and “artworld” in stand-up comedy? Then I consider whether stand-up comedy as practiced can be reconciled with several recent definitions for art and note some of the special conditions and contexts for stand-up.     

How to Define a Number? A General Epistemological Account of Simon Stevin’s Art of Defining

This paper explores Simon Stevin’s l’Arithmétique of 1585, where we find a novel understanding of the concept of number. I will discuss the dynamics between his practice and philosophy of mathematics, and put it in the context of his general epistemological attitude. Subsequently, I will take a close look at his justificational concerns, and at how these are reflected in his inductive, a postiori and structuralist approach to investigating the numerical field. I will argue that Stevin’s renewed conceptualisation of the notion of number is a sort of “existential closure” of the numerical domain, founded upon the practice of his predecessors and contemporaries. Accordingly, I want to make clear that l’Aritmetique have to be read not as an ontological analysis or exploration of the numerical field, but as an explication of a mathematical ethos. In this sense, this article also intends to make a specific contribution to the broader issue of the “ethics of geometry.”