Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Mary Wollstonecraft, George Dickie and David Fair

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6 ideas

21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 2. Aesthetic Attitude

20443	The aesthetic attitude is nothing more than paying close attention [Dickie, by Giovannelli]
	Full Idea: Once analysed, Dickie claimed, the so-called aesthetic attitude is not special at all, but is rather just a matter of close attention and focus on the subject.
	From: report of George Dickie (The Myth of the Aesthetic Attitude [1964]) by Alessandro Giovannelli - Some contemporary developments (aesthetics) 1
	A reaction: Sounds wrong. If a paint specialist gives close attention to a painting, they do not necessarily have an aesthetic view of it. You need to know the aim of the activity, just as when you watch a game.

21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 6. Art as Institution

20329	A work of art is an artifact created for the artworld [Dickie]
	Full Idea: A work of art is an artifact of a kind created to be presented to an artworld public.
	From: George Dickie (The New Institutional Theory of Art [1983], p.53)
	A reaction: This is the culminating definition in his paper, deriving originally from Danto, and an improvement of his earlier more complex definition. Since this definition amounts to 'this is art if I say it is art', it doesn't seem to reveal much.

8114	The institutional theory says only a competent expert can decree something to be an art work [Dickie, by Gardner]
	Full Idea: Dickie's institutional theory of art says that something is a work of art if and only if it has had that status conferred on it by a competent member of the artworld.
	From: report of George Dickie (Introduction to Aesthetics [1997], Ch.8) by Sebastian Gardner - Aesthetics 3.1
	A reaction: The idea that a single 'competent' person can do this sounds daft, and probably circular. A consensus in the artworld sounds more plausible, but this still leaves the revolutionary genius, who - in retrospect - produced unrecognised 'art'.

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 12. Feminism

21006	If women share rights with men, they will exhibit similar virtues [Wollstonecraft]
	Full Idea: Let woman share the rights and she will emulate the virtues of man; for she must grow more perfect when emancipated, or justify that authority that chains such a weak being to her duty.
	From: Mary Wollstonecraft (Vindication of the Rights of Women [1792], p.294), quoted by Amartya Sen - The Idea of Justice 18 'Wrath'
	A reaction: Presumably this implies that if emancipation led to women exceeding men in such virtues, there would be some justification for imposing the chains on the men rather than the women. Consider wars. Probably best to just abandon chains.

26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 4. Naturalised causation

8326	Science has shown that causal relations are just transfers of energy or momentum [Fair, by Sosa/Tooley]
	Full Idea: Basic causal relations can, as a consequence of our scientific knowledge, be identified with certain physicalistic [sic] relations between objects that can be characterized in terms of transference of either energy or momentum between objects.
	From: report of David Fair (Causation and the Flow of Energy [1979]) by E Sosa / M Tooley - Introduction to 'Causation' §1
	A reaction: Presumably a transfer of momentum is a transfer of energy. If only anyone had the foggiest idea what energy actually is, we'd be doing well. What is energy made of? 'No identity without substance', I say. I like Fair's idea.

10379	Fair shifted his view to talk of counterfactuals about energy flow [Fair, by Schaffer,J]
	Full Idea: Fair, who originated the energy flow view of causation, moved to a view that understands connection in terms of counterfactuals about energy flow.
	From: report of David Fair (Causation and the Flow of Energy [1979]) by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 2.1.2
	A reaction: David Fair was a pupil of David Lewis, the king of the counterfactual view. To me that sounds like a disappointing move, but it is hard to think that a mere flow of energy through space would amount to causation. Cause must work back from an effect.