Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'works', 'On Signs (damaged)' and 'Introductions to 'Aesthetics and the Phil of Art''

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

5 ideas

6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 3. Axioms for Geometry

13007	Archimedes defined a straight line as the shortest distance between two points [Archimedes, by Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Archimedes gave a sort of definition of 'straight line' when he said it is the shortest line between two points.
	From: report of Archimedes (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Gottfried Leibniz - New Essays on Human Understanding 4.13
	A reaction: Commentators observe that this reduces the purity of the original Euclidean axioms, because it involves distance and measurement, which are absent from the purest geometry.

14. Science / C. Induction / 3. Limits of Induction

6027	From the fact that some men die, we cannot infer that they all do [Philodemus]
	Full Idea: There is no necessary inference, from the fact that men familiar to us die when pierced through the heart, that all men do.
	From: Philodemus (On Signs (damaged) [c.50 BCE], 1.3)
	A reaction: This is scepticism about the logic of induction, long before David Hume. This is said to be a Stoic argument against Epicureans - though on the whole Stoics are not keen on scepticism.

21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 1. Aesthetics

20327	Modern attention has moved from the intrinsic properties of art to its relational properties [Lamarque/Olson]
	Full Idea: In modern discussions, rather than look for intrinsic properties of objects, including aesthetic or formal properties, attention has turned to extrinsic or relational properties, notably of a social, historical, or 'institutional' nature.
	From: Lamargue,P/Olson,SH (Introductions to 'Aesthetics and the Phil of Art' [2004], Pt 1)
	A reaction: Lots of modern branches of philosophy have made this move, which seems to me like a defeat. We want to know why things have the relations they do. Just mapping the relations is superficial Humeanism.

21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 1. Defining Art

20326	Early 20th cent attempts at defining art focused on significant form, intuition, expression, unity [Lamarque/Olson]
	Full Idea: In the early twentieth century there were numerous attempts at defining the essence art. Significant form, intuition, the expression of emotion, organic unity, and other notions, were offered to this end.
	From: Lamargue,P/Olson,SH (Introductions to 'Aesthetics and the Phil of Art' [2004], Pt 1)
	A reaction: As far as I can see the whole of aesthetics was demolished in one blow by Marcel Duchamp's urinal. Artists announce: we will tell you what art is; you should just sit and listen. Compare the invention of an anarchic sport.

21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 7. Ontology of Art

20330	The dualistic view says works of art are either abstract objects (types), or physical objects [Lamarque/Olson]
	Full Idea: The dualistic view of the arts holds that works of art come in two fundamentally different kinds: those that are abstract entities, i.e. types, and those that are physical objects (tokens).
	From: Lamargue,P/Olson,SH (Introductions to 'Aesthetics and the Phil of Art' [2004], Pt 2)
	A reaction: Paintings are the main reason for retaining physical objects. Strawson 1974 argues that paintings are only physical because we cannot yet perfectly reproduce them. I agree. Works of art are types, not tokens.