Online research in philosophy

REVIEW of Nicolae Râmbu (editor-in-chief). Cultura: International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 9, no. 1 (2012), 258 pages. E-ISSN: 2065-5002; ISSN: 1584-1057.

REVIEW OF Raţiu, Mara. Arta ca activitate socială: avatarurile discursului filosofic asupra artei contemporane (Art as Social Activity: The Avatars of Philosophical Discourse on Contemporary Art). Cluj-Napoca: Casa Cărţii de Ştiinţă, 2011.

Our paper addresses matters such as the distinction between chronological time and the “internal time” (Mikel Dufrenne) of works of art, the possibility that artists may act as future art critics, the alleged unity of classic art versus fragmentary modern approaches and the validity of historical interpretation of works of art. We shall begin by studying the common apprehension of art history and what it entails so that we may afterwards observe the major difficulties that the research in this domain (...) faces. In the second half of the following paper we shall examine how representations are formed within works of art and what is the proper way to analyze them after applying the phenomenological epoché to artistic phenomena. We will finally attempt to offer a clear image on how phenomenological philosophy contributes to the historical research of art. (shrink)

Brindle, Meg and Constance DeVereaux, eds. The Arts Management Handbook: New Directions for Students and Practitioners. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2011.

Our paper proposes to analyze from a semiotic perspective the process of communication, as conceived within the Palo Alto Group. We will firstly show that, as a result of the Group‟s critiques and revisions of the linear or mechanistic theories of communication, new perspectives are brought about for the essential axes of transformation within communication: we do not communicate as from a distinct atom to another, through an isolated channel, but through parts which are equal to the whole, the whole (...) itself being equal to the parts. This approach has been characterized as “organicist”, studying and understanding communication as a dynamic process where the relationship between the elements is of prime importance. Reciprocal inclusion replaces the discursive aspects of communication and expression replaces representation. The reference point is thus situated beyond the mechanical parts of a whole ready to be dis- and reassembled. We conclude that through this perspective on communication, the notion of interaction between partners and between codes becomes a capital one and that, in this point, semiotics intersects with disciplines such as conversational analysis and the ethnography of communication. (shrink)