‘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.     

C. G. Jung’s Influence on Art Therapy and the Making of the Third

Art therapy and the image are active approaches to address the analytic third, an idea that was mentioned by C. G. Jung in the Psychology of the Transference, but was first experienced by him as described in The Red Book (2009). Jung’s art-making was an impressive lifelong affair that relied upon mixed media, making it reasonable for us to consider Jung as the father of art therapy. Prior to the 1913 publication of Symbols of Transformation, Jung visited America for a second time; on this visit, the Jungian analyst Beatrice Hinkle introduced Jung to the Greenwich crowd. Among the noteworthy artists and activists were Margaret Naumburg and Florence Cane, who later established the field of art therapy in the United States. Despite the tension created from the Freud–Jung split, Naumburg and Cane were deeply influenced by Jung’s theoretical ideas, initially via Hinkle, with whom they analyzed for three years. Requiring a safe passage for the birth of art therapy, Naumburg navigated an independent third way, but drew from many of Jung’s already established ideas to formulate her research and educational approach. Because the historical details surrounding the development of art therapy in America are being stitched back into an art therapy education, Jung’s early clinical insights regarding specific theoretical ideas gain visibility and respect. This overview acknowledges that analytical psychology remains a powerful and integral building block in the field of art therapy and offers relevant resources for theoretical and clinical formulations when working as an art therapist.     

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.     

Blurred vision: Marion on the ‘possibility’ of revelation

In this paper I challenge Merold Westphal’s claim that Jean-Luc Marion’s hermeneutical phenomenology is especially useful for theology. I argue that in spite of his explicit allegiance to Husserl’s “principle of all principles,” Marion fails to embody a commitment to phenomenological seeing in his analyses of revelation. In the sections of Being Given where he discusses revelation, Marion allows faith-based claims to bleed into his phenomenological analyses, resulting in what I call his ‘blurred vision’—the pretension that phenomenological seeing can be extended to theological matters. This pretension undermines Marion’s phenomenological aspirations, because it invests his analyses with a theological content that phenomenological intuition cannot account for or clarify. At the same time, this blurring of the line between theology and phenomenology also makes Marion’s work theologically ineffective. For it furnishes the theologian and believer with the false assurance that faith-based commitments can be grounded in phenomenological knowledge—a claim that he simply cannot make good on. In light of these problems, I propose an alternative Heideggerian approach that maintains the boundary between philosophical and theological discourse and thereby safeguards the integrity of both.     

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.     

Conceiving existence: on Hume’s argument against the distinctness of the idea of existence

There are two questions concerning Hume’s doctrine of existence which have not yet found any persuasive answer: (a) What is his argument in favour of the thesis that there is no distinct idea of existence? (b) What are the semantic and metaphysical consequences of this thesis within his philosophical framework? This paper mainly aims to answer question (a). In order to do that, I will first explain why some reconstructions suggested by interpreters such as Cummins and Bricke are problematic. One of them relies on exegetically dubious presumptions; the other departs too much from Hume’s text. Then, I will offer my own reconstruction that makes maximal use of some principles which are very familiar to Hume’s readers, including the principle stating the similarity between perceptions and their images. After that, I will discuss a potential objection to my reconstruction and make a brief remark on question (b), arguing that, as opposed to numerous interpreters’ concerns, Hume’s thesis that there is no distinct idea of existence does not by itself prevent him from being able to conceive negative existential propositions.     

Through the looking-glass: on the other side of ‘un’conclusive reflections

This qualitative study explored the practices of a Technology Instructional Specialist (TIS) from the reflective vantage point of the specialist herself and multiple data sets collected from classroom teachers she mentored. The study examined the actions and impact of the TIS in assisting individual teachers with technology implementation through a reflective, circular process (i.e. action, reflection, modification, additional action). Data sources were comprised of: (1) survey on teachers’ comfort levels for technology integration in an elementary classroom; (2) teacher interviews; (3) self and teacher reflective assessments of the TIS’s mentoring; and (4) reflective journal notes of the TIS’s experiences. Findings suggest that reflections on and development of differentiated technology mentoring processes and actions conducted within participating teachers’ classrooms impacted their awareness of technology uses and pedagogical application. Most notably, reflections indicate that relational aspects of the TIS and teachers’ interactions impacted the process of technology implementation in participating teachers’ instructional practices. Practical suggestions for practitioners are provided.     

Soul searching on the wings of my wheels: Motorcyclists’ happiness

This study aimed to investigate how personal characteristics of motorcyclists influenced their affect and sense of happiness with their motorcycles. Data on personal characteristics, motorcycle characteristics, feelings about owning a motorcycle, discreet emotions, and overall happiness were collected from 367 motorcyclists attending the annual charity run event (female = 29%, male = 71%, average age ranged between 40 and 49). Results, following Structural Equation Modelling, indicated male and younger motorcyclists to experience higher discreet positive emotions compared to females and those with a preference for outdoors lifestyle. Male motorcyclists reported being happier, overall, with their motorcycles compared to female motorcyclists. Amongst males, those reporting to be self-employed and with a social life involving drinking places, tended to report higher discreet negative emotions than other male motorcyclists. Lifestyle characteristics of motorcyclists appear to have a direct effect on their overall happiness.     

Characterizing positive and negative ‘voicers’ in elite sport teams: The role of the Five Factor Model and narcissism in players’ frequency and passing on of voice

ObjectiveThis study examined the role of the Five Factor Model and grandiose narcissism in players’ positive (i.e., constructive voice, supportive voice) and negative voice (i.e., defensive voice, destructive voice) in elite sport teams.MethodPlayers from six field hockey and seven korfball teams from the two highest national levels were assessed for four weeks. Using social network analyses, players’ personality was related to their self-reported voice frequency, their voice frequency as perceived by all teammates (other-ratings), and the extent to which they pass on voice.ResultsExtraversion was positively related to players’ frequency of positive and negative voice. Other traits such as conscientiousness and emotional stability were only related to, respectively, positive or negative types of voice. Not all personalities (e.g., extraversion) were consistent in how they assess their own voice versus how others perceive this. Interestingly, traits such as extraversion, emotional stability and the agentic facet of narcissism were found to predict the passing on of voice.ConclusionThis study explored the importance of personality for (a) players’ frequency of a differentiated set of positive and negative voice and (b) the extent to which they function as ‘gates’ that more covertly pass on voice. Further, the results provide perspective on how specific personalities view their voice behavior versus how their teammates perceive their voice behavior. In this way, this study is a first step in identifying players who have the potential to endanger or strengthen a team in a clear or subtle, yet influential way.     

Why ‘non-mental’ won’t work: on Hempel’s dilemma and the characterization of the ‘physical’

Recent discussions of physicalism have focused on the question how the physical ought to be characterized. Many have argued that any characterization of the physical should include the stipulation that the physical is non-mental, and others have claimed that a systematic substitution of ‘non-mental’ for ‘physical’ is all that is needed for philosophical purposes. I argue here that both claims are incorrect: substituting ‘non-mental’ for ‘physical’ in the causal argument for physicalism does not deliver the physicalist conclusion, and the specification that the physical is non-mental is irrelevant to the task of formulating physicalism as a substantive, controversial thesis.

On the malleability of the meaning of contexts: the influence of another person’s emotion expressions on situation perception

Research on the relationship between context and facial expressions generally assumes a unidirectional effect of context on expressions. However, according to the model of the meaning of emotion expressions in context (MEEC) the effect should be bidirectional. The present research tested the effect of emotion expression on the interpretation of scenes. A total of 380 participants either (a) rated facial expressions with regard to the likely appraisal of the eliciting situation by the emoter, (b) appraised the scenes alone or (c) appraised scenes shown together with the expressions they supposedly elicited. The findings strongly supported the MEEC. When a scene was combined with an expression signalling a situation that is undesirable, or high in locus of control or sudden, the participants appraised the scene correspondingly. Thus, the meaning of scenes is malleable and affected by the way that people are seen to react to them.     

Man on Wire: Walking the Therapeutically Transformative Tightrope of the Analyst’s Cancer

Almost nothing was clear to me when I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I knew that I intended to inform all of my patients about my illness. But how could the focus remain on their needs when my mortality was so at risk? Unexpectedly, I discovered that I coped with my fears most effectively in my office. It was the one place where I could maintain a grasp on a holistic sense of myself and hold conflicting intense emotions. Additionally striking was the corresponding capacity of my patients to remain in treatment while addressing the unpredictable dyadic changes generated by my sickness. In this paper, I address this point of intersubjective transformation—the interactive contributions that generated each treatment’s unique rhythm. I also discuss the temporality of illness and how my continuing reconfigurations of self-experience impacted my ability to maintain authenticity and analytic balance both during and after treatment.     

Evaluation of Five Procedures for Classification of Participants’ Fear Levels

The present study evaluated the ability of 5 different fear classification procedures to discriminate between 3 fear levels and to correlate with 6 commonly used dependent measures of fear. A standardized fear assessment procedure was administered on 2 separate trials to 71 women participants. Following the completion of the assessment trials, the participants data were scored and regrouped according to 5 fear classification procedures (behavioral, self-report, skin conductance level, skin response amplitude, and heart rate). This design permitted each procedure to be evaluated to the same target stimulus and at the same point in time. The classifications of participants on the basis of behavior and skin conductance response were found to be most effective selection procedures with self-report, skin conductance level, and heart rate being the least. Reliability of the findings was assessed by a test–retest procedure.