Recently David Best has advanced the claim that sport is not an art form, and that although sport may be aesthetic, it is not artistic. Such a claim is false and runs counter to ordinary usage and sport practice. On behalf of sport practice, let me cite as an example the world-class Canadian skater, Toller Cranston, who thinks there are such things as ‘artistic sports, those being gymnastics, diving, figure skating’. Best claims that athletes like Cranston are conceptually confused and (...) that they endow sport with greater respectability than should be allowed. Ascribing the predicate ‘artistic’ to sport performances reflects ‘barbarous usage’. Why does Best exclude the artistic from the realm of sport? Upon examination of his argument, one finds that this exclusion derives mainly from his concepts of art and sport. He thinks that art has a subject-matter, a content, and that sport does not. Sport is contentless, so ‘sport’ and ‘art’ are two logically distinct regions. But is this so? Are we to accept Best's argument or are we to listen to accomplished, reflective athletes in the area of artistic sports? It seems the most reasonable analytic procedure would be to listen to Cranston's case and decide whether such a piece of intentionalist criticism5 should override Best's premises. (shrink)

In verse twelve of the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu makes a curious claim about the five flavors; namely that they cause people not to taste or that they jade the palate. The five flavors are: sweet, sour, salt, bitter and spicy or hot as in 'heat'. To the Western mind, the claim, 'The five flavors cause them [persons] to not taste,' is counterintuitive; on the contrary, the presence of the five flavors in a dish or in a meal would (...) expand or enhance the senses and the palate, i.e., taste would be augmented by the five flavors. So what is the plausible meaning of the Taoistic claim? To answer this question, I look very briefly at the history of the doctrine of the five flavors and the history of Chinese cuisine. Lao Tzu probably has Confucian feasts in mind in making such a claim, but other interpretations are discussed. (shrink)

This paper presents evidence and arguments against an interpretation of david Hume's idea of history which insists that he held to a static conception of human nature. This interpretation presumes that hume lacks a genuine historical perspective, and that consequently his notion of historiography contains a fallacy (viz., Of the universal man). It is shown here that this interpretation overlooks an important distinction between methodological and substantive uniformity in hume's discussion of human nature and action. When this distinction is appreciated, (...) the above criticisms appear misrepresentative of hume's ideas of history, human nature, and their connection. A different interpretation of these concepts is then developed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XX, Number 2, November 1994, pp. 261-287 Collingwood's Understanding of Hume S. K. WERTZ What was David Hume's reception in the British idealistic tradition? In this paper, I shall contribute a short chapter on this question by examining Hume's place in R. G. Collingwood's thought.1 Such an examination has been lacking in the literature, so what follows is a comprehensive study of Collingwood's use of (...) Hume throughout all of R.G.'s writings. I shall mainly focus on two main, unrelated discussions of Hume: first is the theory of the imagination which primarily occurs in The Principles of Art, and second is the set of relations between human nature and human history which is principally found in The Idea of History. These sections will be followed by a section on minor discussions and omissions and a conclusion. It is a common misconception that Collingwood (1889-1943) has little to offer Hume scholarship, and I wish to amend that here. Actually, Collingwood has good insights into the nature of the imagination and its role in human understanding, besides instructive thoughts on Hume on human nature and history, even though his discussion of the latter is flawed. This essay serves both historical and philosophical purposes. It is to sample Hume's place in early twentieth century British idealism at a time when he began to emerge as an important philosophical figure worthy of careful study. (By "idealism," I mean the philosophical movement which takes ideas to be an irreducible part of the world and whose program is opposed to both materialism and realism.) So Collingwood's portrait is historically interesting. But over and above this, it carries significant philosophical amendments, S. K. Wertz is at the Department of Philosophy, Texas Christian University, Box 30781, Fort Worth, TX 76129 USA. e-mail: [email protected] 262 S. K. Wertz criticisms, and suggestions about Hume's thought and the eighteenth century intellectual climate. Collingwood has mostly been studied as a philosopher of history or as an aesthetician, but not in toto from the perspective of one of the historical figures to whom he is deeply indebted. Such a view affords a portrait of Hume that is instructive and rewarding. The comparison of Hume and Collingwood lead us to finer appreciation of both philosophers. Let us first look at Collingwood's positive contribution. Imagination Collingwood begins his analysis by declaring his intentions: I shall...try to show that there are such things, to be with what Hume (whose account of them I shall take as my starting-point) called 'ideas' as distinct from 'impressions'. I shall try to show that there is a special activity of mind correlative to them, and that this is what we generally call imagination, as distinct from sensation on the one hand and intellect on the other. (PA 170-71, emphasis added) Why would Collingwood start with Hume's distinction between impressions and ideas? Undoubtedly, this means that Collingwood is willing to accept the validity of the distinction and to build on it. Isn't this a strange place for an idealist to begin? Not really. When we look at British philosophy at the turn of this century, we find idealists preoccupied with the distinction,2 so it is not extraordinary to find Collingwood utilizing it to some extent. Like most Oxford students of the time, Collingwood read Locke, Berkeley, and Hume in his undergraduate program. Consequently we find them in the problems he addresses. "It was Hume who first perceived the [Lockean] problem [of confusing sensation with imagination]," Collingwood attributes, "and tried to solve it by distinguishing ideas from impressions" (PA 200). In detail: He [Hume] was right when he laid it down that the immediate concern of thought is not with impressions but with ideas; that it is ideas, not impressions, that are associated with one another and thus built up into the fabric of knowledge; and that ideas, though 'derived' from impressions, are not mere relics of them like an after-taste of onions or an after-image of the sun (as Lockeans like Condillac supposed), but something different in kind: different, if not in what he... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Art's DetourA Clash of Aesthetic TheoriesS. K. Wertz (bio)Both John Dewey1 and Martin Heidegger2 thought that art's audience had to take a detour in order to appreciate or understand a work of art. They wrote about this around the same time (mid-1930s) and independently of one another, so this similar circumstance in the history of aesthetics is unusual since they come from very different philosophical traditions. What was (...) it about the climate of the times that led them to such an idea? Is it still viable today? Both philosophers thought that art's audience is not in a position to immediately appreciate works of art—that we are missing something for a direct appreciation or apprehension—so we must take a detour. Why the detours and what are they? Are the detours similar? And are Dewey and Heidegger right about this? The essay that unfolds below attempts to answer these questions.First a definition is in order so we know what the term "detour" means when I use it. What is a detour? It is a deviation from a direct course or the usual procedure; a roundabout way temporarily replacing part of a route; in other words, a bypass or a roundabout way to some destination. The Little Oxford Dictionary adds a different twist on my characterization: "a course that leaves and rejoins [the] direct route."3 Applying this idea to art, we can say that a detour describes an audience who ordinarily perceives an artwork is a legitimate beginning for an appreciation of it, but that course must be bypassed for another (conception) before it can rejoin the direct route (perception). In other words, perceptions in the aesthetic experience must be aided by conceptions—a decidedly Kantian stance taken by Dewey and Heidegger. Their illustrations make my interpretation plausible.One of Heidegger's examples is Van Gogh's painting of a pair of peasant boots.4 He selects this painting to illustrate his metaphysics, which centers around the notion of "equipment." Peasant boots are equipment in [End Page 100] the sense that they are worn or used; the mere thing (like shoes or boots in a store [exhibited] or a closet [in storage]) disappears in use and becomes equipment. Between equipment and mere things—these two categories of being—are artworks. They are pictorial representations of equipment (in Heidegger's illustration; a pair of shoes as mere things could be a pictorial representation, like an advertisement, but it wouldn't be the same). Through the painted boots, a world comes into focus—a network of meaning. The world Heidegger sees in the Van Gogh painting is captured in the following descriptions: "In the vicinity of the [art]work we were suddenly somewhere else than we usually tend to be…. The art work let us know what shoes are in truth" (ATCR 233). So the nature of art is still a question about the nature of representation for Heidegger: it is what the shoes disclose to us about human existence. As he says, it is not just merely a pair of shoes portrayed but shoes "from the dark opening of the worn insides … the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth" (ATCR 232). In other words, we see the difficult labor that this particular owner toiled with in her daily chores.In Tralbaut's book, he quotes Heidegger in a caption alongside the painting: "Engraving in the intimate obscurity of the hollow of a boot is the weariness of the steps of work. The rough and solid weight of the clog tells of the slow and obstinate trudge across the fields."5 Heidegger continues in the same vein:In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by a raw wind. On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil. Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls. In the shoes vibrates the silent call of the earth, its quiet gift of the ripening grain and its unexplained self-refusal in the fallow desolation of... (shrink)

How does aesthetic education begin and expand over time? David Hume’s idea of the narrow circle provides us with an answer when considering this question. He uses the narrow circle to explain how moral practices evolve, and by analogy, we can also use this conception to explain how aesthetic practices evolve. So I will first of all begin with a discussion of his essay “The Standard of Taste.”1 In this essay, Hume gives an excellent profile of the critic who has (...) the traits to generate the standard of taste: delicacy of taste or a delicate imagination; practice in a particular art; ability to make comparisons, free from prejudice; and good sense in exercising the former traits. He says that few are qualified... (shrink)

Jean-François Revel is the first philosopher to take food seriously and to offer a topology for food practices. He draws a distinction between different kinds of cuisine -- popular (regional) cuisine and erudite (professional) cuisine. With this distinction, he traces the evolution of food practices from the ancient Greeks and Romans, down through the Middle Ages, and into the Renaissance and the Modern Period. His contribution has been acknowledged by Deane Curtin who offers an interpretation of Revel’s conceptual scheme along (...) Platonic lines. In this essay the author reviews Curtin’s interpretation, finds it wanting in certain respects, and develops an alternative reading of Revel along Hegelian lines. This interpretation, the author believes, does greater justice to Revel’s topology for food practices. (shrink)

I examine Nagarjuna’s averting an opponent’s argument, Paul Sagal’s general interpretation of Nagarjuna and especially Sagal’s conception of "averting" an argument. Following Matilal, a distinction is drawn between locutionary negation and illocationary negation in order to avoid errant interpretations of verse 29 The argument is treated as representing an ampliative or inductive inference rather than a deductive one. As Nagarjuna says in verse 30: "That [denial] of mine [in verse 29] is a non-apprehension of non-things" and non-apprehension is the averting (...) of arguments or "the relinquishing of all views." "Not making a proposition P" would be not speaking P or silence with regard to P and, as Sagal argues, not meaning a global linguistic silence. Such an interpretation would lead to attributing wholesale irrationalism to Nagarjuna-something I wish to avoid. (shrink)

THIS ESSAY DEALS WITH D F NORTON’S INTERPRETATION OF HUME’S METHODOLOGY IN THE LATTER’S FAMOUS DISCUSSION OF MIRACLES IN THE FIRST INQUIRY. NORTON CONSTRUES "EXPERIENCE" TO MEAN PERSONAL, INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCE. THE AUTHOR SHOWS THAT THERE IS ANOTHER SENSE OF THE WORD WHICH IS MORE COSMOPOLITAN AND ONE WHICH SQUARES MORE WITH THE USES OF EVIDENCE FOUND IN THE "HISTORY OF ENGLAND". ALTERNATIVE INTERPRETATIONS OF THE HUME PASSAGE ARE GIVEN AND HUME’S METHOD IS COMPARED WITH R G COLLINGWOOD’S IMAGINATIVE RECONSTRUCTIONIST IDEA (...) OF HISTORY. (shrink)

What are the historical origins of aesthetic education? One of these comes from the eighteenth century. This became an important theme in a novel of the time. Published in 1761, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Julie, or the New Heloise: Letters of Two Lovers Who Live in a Small Town at the Foot of the Alps1 was an instant success in eighteenth-century Europe. Widely read, the novel made European culture self-conscious and forced it to pay attention to aspects of living that had gone (...) unnoticed or underappreciated, including taste and food.2 These aspects—taste and food—become concrete manifestations of aesthetic education. Through the voices of Julie and her tutor-turned-lover Saint Preux, they provide a lively critique of.. (shrink)

The novel Doctor Zhivago has not received the attention it has deserved lately—even much less for its philosophical ideas—so in this essay I want to bring attention to Boris Pasternak's notion of the nature of consciousness, which I find quite interesting. Yurii Zhivago, one of the principal characters in Doctor Zhivago, says the following about the experience of death: Will you [Anna Ivanovona] feel pain? Do the tissues feel their disintegration? In other words, what will happen to your consciousness? But (...) what is consciousness? Let's see. A conscious attempt to fall asleep is sure to produce insomnia, to try to... (shrink)

The perception created by the combination of olfaction and taste is called flavor.What is the number of tastes or flavors we have? Is it five, as most Chinese believe? None, as the ancient Taoists asserted? Four, as Western science traditionally claims? Or is it six or seven or even fourteen? World cuisines are at odds on this issue, and I shall briefly explore here their reasons for their numbers. There is a consensus among some of the elements that tells us (...) something about the human makeup or constitution. The other elements reveal social and cultural differences and varying environmental conditions.The doctrine of the five flavors dates to the Xia Dynasty (c. twenty-first to sixteenth centuries BCE), where .. (shrink)

As an account of food, associationism has shortcomings as an explana­tion of taste and eating. It maintains that only ideas are associated or related to one another and not perceptions. Perceptions, according to this theory, are independent of one another. Food presents a challenge for associationism because food has a cogni­tive dimension, i.e., judgments are made about its ingredients, presentation, order or sequence of tasting, and so on. Consequently, the scientific field of dynamics offers a viable alternative explanation with its (...) focus on change or reactions which take place in baking and cooking. An understanding of food chemistry leads to a greater appreciation of what one tastes and eats. This approach and emphasis on food chemistry was first appreciated by Brillat-Savarin in his La Physiologie du Gout (1825), and contemporary reflections are made on his treatise. (shrink)

Leo Tolstoy's theory of human nature is sketched with Descartes's and Hume's theories of human nature in the background for context. Tolstoy's view is limited to "What Is Art"?, although it could be substantially augmented by references to his other well-known works. "By words a man transmits his thoughts," to which Tolstoy adds, "by means of art he transmits his feelings." Language and art work together to give us an aesthetic education that is built around the forms of communication found (...) in the arts: story-telling, singing, acting, dancing, making, and so on. These activities reflect the fundamentals of human nature; hence, the connection Tolstoy found between human nature and art that previous thinkers had not made. (shrink)

R. G. Collingwood (1889–1943) had several arguments that analyzed race in history and anthropology. These appear mainly in Roman Britain (both in theory and practice of history), The Idea of History, and The Principles of History. This latter work, which is fairly new to Collingwood scholarship (1999), contains the most important arguments. Collingwood argued that race is grounded in the historical process and this includes a people's environment, more so than genetics or evolution. He used the nature of art as (...) an example in his main argument. This spills over in his view of anthropology—in particular physical anthropology that was influenced by John Beddoe. His view is contrasted with Claude Lévi-Strauss who held that physical anthropology is at the forefront of social or cultural anthropology which follows its lead. Whereas Collingwood held that in studying blood types, skulls, and bones, 'one does not get inside the object or recreate its object inside itself.' Consequently, cultural anthropology will always provide the key to racial considerations. What is revealed is that emotions and rationality are the same across cultures; also, that superiority/inferiority claims about race are mythical and lead us into darkness and superstition. (shrink)

It has long been claimed and supposedly substantiated that there exists an association of ideas, but not of perceptions (that is, sensations or impressions). Collingwood echoed this claim from Hume, but Hume later in the Treatise produced an association of impressions (actually emotions and passions), so he came close to Hobbes’s position: human physiology has “trains of sense” and these are carried on in human thought—what we call “ideas” (he called “decaying sense”). A strong case can be made for this (...) claim when we examine the phenomenon of food. Concerning food, I explore Chinese cuisine and more recently Kunz and Kaminsky’s The Elements of Taste for examples that provide substantiation of the association of perceptions. This proves to be a rewarding way to look at the phenomenon of food and leads us to re-examine traditional theories of perception. (shrink)

We eat not only because it is necessary for us to, but also and much more because eating gives us pleasure.In this essay, I develop a case for G. W. Leibniz as our first modern food philosopher. It is in his theory of perception and in his culinary examples that I find the most convincing evidence, especially when I contrast them with Locke and Hume’s account of perception with reference to food. In the process, Leibniz expanded aesthetic perception to include (...) nature and food. He did not draw a distinction between ordinary or regular perception and aesthetic perception; perceiving smells and tastes are similar to perceiving colors—both have structures,2 but more on.. (shrink)

Samuel Johnson has an interesting comment on consequences and the telling of “white lies.” For example “Sick People and Children are often to be deceived for their Good.” David Hume apparently endorses this concept in one of his letters. Both Johnson and Rousseau anticipate Kant’s argument about consequences in that one is to tell the truth under all circumstances. Hume, I argue, would take issue with this claim in that there are cases that warrant telling white lies. Elsewhere he speaks (...) about “harmless liars” who indulge in “lying or fiction... in humorous stories.” And he says “Noble pride and spirit may openly display itself when one lies under calamity [defamation or slander] or opposition of any kind,” especially if the opposition puts one’s life in grave danger, so one’s self-preservation is threatened. Under situations like these, lying is justified. In regard to fiction, if lying is for the purpose of entertainment and where “truth is not of any importance,” it is permissible. These cases are discussed in some detail, and they offer, along with their analysis, a pragmatic defense of Hume’s position. (shrink)

Samuel Johnson has an interesting comment on consequences and the telling of “white lies.” For example “Sick People and Children are often to be deceived for their Good.” David Hume apparently endorses this concept in one of his letters. Both Johnson and Rousseau anticipate Kant’s argument about consequences in that one is to tell the truth under all circumstances. Hume, I argue, would take issue with this claim in that there are cases that warrant telling white lies. Elsewhere he speaks (...) about “harmless liars” who indulge in “lying or fiction... in humorous stories.” And he says “Noble pride and spirit may openly display itself when one lies under calamity [defamation or slander] or opposition of any kind,” especially if the opposition puts one’s life in grave danger, so one’s self-preservation is threatened. Under situations like these, lying is justified. In regard to fiction, if lying is for the purpose of entertainment and where “truth is not of any importance,” it is permissible. These cases are discussed in some detail, and they offer, along with their analysis, a pragmatic defense of Hume’s position. (shrink)

In his critique of aesthetic individualism, R.G. Collingwood provides an account of persons that anticipates the post-Wittgensteinians; notably, Peter Strawson, Daniel Dennett, and Annette Baier. According to this view, persons emerge in the midst of other persons. This process is always unfinished and ongoing throughout one's life. One difficulty with this perspective is the problem of firstness: if persons are essentially second persons or one's personhood is contingent upon other persons, how could there be a first person or early persons? (...) One solution to this problem is to employ the notion of family or community. This solution can be found in both Collingwood and Baier.After this discussion,we look at his autobiography for evidence of his own 'discoveries' of personhood. There is tension here because he was a rebel and a loner, but there were a few (but not many) good relationships that confirm or exemplify his view of persons in his own life. Also briefly addressed is how this view fits into his theories of history and art. (shrink)