Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'teachings' and 'The Myth of the Aesthetic Attitude'

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3 ideas

21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 2. Aesthetic Attitude
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 / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.]
     Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice.
     From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where?
29. Religion / C. Spiritual Disciplines / 3. Buddhism
Nagarjuna and others pronounced the world of experience to be an illusion [Nagarjuna, by Armstrong,K]
     Full Idea: Many later Buddhists (after Nagarjuna, c.120 CE) developed a belief that everything we experience is an illusion: in the West we would call them idealists.
     From: report of Nagarjuna (teachings [c.120]) by Karen Armstrong - A History of God Ch.3
     A reaction: This is just one step beyond Plato (who at least hung onto the immediate world as an inferior reality), and is presumably intended to motivate meditators to break out of the misery of existence into a higher realm. Personally I am against it.