It has become a standing reproach upon Plato's treatment of poetry in the Republic that he forgets or misrepresents in the tenth book what he said in the third.According to the earlier discussion, poetry is required to perform important services in the ideal state; its subject-matter will make the young familiar with true doctrines ; its style will reflect the qualities proper to the character of guardian, and therefore—by the principle of imitation—induce and confirm such qualities in the souls (...) of young and old. Poetry, like all other forms of art, must train the young to love and resemble the beauty of truth, so that when reason develops, they will recognize it as an old friend. (shrink)

The author has made a detailed study, more detailed, he rightly claims, than hitherto attempted, of the concept of mimesis in aesthetic thought and has devoted equal space to Greek and Sanskrit writers... Wilamowitz, the doyen of modern classical scholars, describes mimesis as a 'fatal word' 'rapped out' by Plato. But the present author has demonstrated with great cogency that the word was not 'rapped out' by Plato at all, and that the concept and the word are both as old (...) as Greek thought. He shows too, once again with considerable scholarship and perceptiveness, how Greek art was bound to be sensuous, unmystical and also 'formal' in the best sense of the term. In the four long chapters of the first part of his thesis the author gives at every step evidence of deep study and illuminating insight, and can claim originality both in approach and argument... The chapter on Aristotle contains one of the best discussions of mimesis I have read... the most striking portion of his thesis is his elucidation of poetic truth according to Aristotle. -/- -- Prof. S. C. Sengupta, Jadavpur University -/- The author provides a faithful rendering of both Greek and Indian ideas. The work is valuable for its expositions especially of the Indian theories of art. -/- -- V. K. Chari, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (JAAC), USA, Spring 1979 -/- ... A fairly exhaustive comparative study of the concept of mimesis in Greek and Indian aesthetics... wide ranging and at the same time well controlled acquaintance with this proliferating literature is revealed throughout... the co-relation of the Aristotelian linking-up of 'imitation' and 'completion' with Abhinavagupta's integration of imitation with completion is very suggestive and is a help towards the formulation of a universal aesthetic comprising body and soul, the immediate impact of Appearance and the slow revelation of Reality... (the author) has mastered the material and achieved a steady progression in argument so as to sustain the central thesis. -/- -- K. R. S. Iyengar, Professor of English and Vice-Chancellor, Andhra University -/- The book is a significant contribution towards understanding the essentials of Indian aesthetics apropos the Greek (and, through the Greek, the Western)... The author has surveyed the entire field in a masterly manner. His erudition and judgement are both commendable. -/- -- S. K. Ramachandra Rao, Deccan Herald (03.09.1978) -/- ...The author's views hold good even among modern critics including the ones known as 'the Chicago school' and experimental psychologists. -/- -- Indian and Foreign Review (August 1978) -/- The work is a valuable addition to the literature on aesthetics. -/- -- The Indian Express (12.03.1978) -/- The comparison is too smooth and sharply compartmentalized... The book is of great value to those who are interested in the comparative and historical evolution of a very important concept in aesthetics. -/- -- The Hindustan Times (31.12.1978) -/- The work is in two parts. The first part in four chapters examines the concept of imitation in Greek thought, and the second in three chapters explores the meaning of the term in Indian thought... the author offers a brilliant interpretation of Aristotle's theory in the fourth chapter (Pt. 1) which is the best one in the book... The work is a pioneering one and it repays a careful examination. It is probably the first of its kind and every student of aesthetics must read it. -/- -- Prof. P. S. Sastri, Nagpur Times . (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 38.1 (2004) 65-77 [Access article in PDF] In Defense of Observational Practice in Art and Design Education Howard Cannatella Introduction It is increasingly debatable whether observational drawing and making in nature are still regarded as principal activities of art and design learning. Against this, the aim of this article is to strengthen sympathetically a teacher'sunderstanding of observational creative work from nature and to assert (...) that such an approach should be central to art and design teaching and learning.My reasons for writing this article are to reconsider observational aspects of this approach that are not generally expounded in existing art and design educational practice circles. The reluctance by some to debate theimportance of the observational creative process may be construed as a questionable position to take, for a number of educational practitioners in art and design appear to see observations in nature as irrelevant to current art and design learning, as if it were a fashion item, one that has lost its appeal. Creative poiesis, some would argue, could never extend sufficiently to observations in nature. When observations in nature are seen as trite, not high art, there is the perception that art and design may have lost something precious, unable to nurture, becoming too introverted and sensational at the expense of grappling with common human realistic experiences. A decline in observational visual sensibilities may seem inevitable under these conditions.There is a persistent view in art and design education that seems to me to be a misconception — that observations in nature are restrictive and superficial, an experience that deals only with archaic approaches in learning. In the work of Immanuel Kant, imitation could not be an original factuality. 1 In Kantian terms, to imitate exactly a thing of beauty would be an act considered as "wholly destitute of taste." 2 A similar kind of sentiment is echoed by Georg Hegel, who considers imitation in art as "deceptive" and goes on to say: "the pursuit of imitation is on the same lines as the feat of the man who has taught himself to throw lentils through a small aperture [End Page 65] without missing." 3 More recently, Norman Bryson criticizes the idea of a "natural attitude" toward observations in natureas he denounces any suggestion of the purity of the universal visual image. 4 This backlash may make us feel a little uneasy as to why observations in nature should play a primary role in art and design education.My argument will be that although creative observations in nature do involve mimetic and regulative factors, these factors, when sensitively handled,can enlarge our imagination, touching us deeply in the process. Along these lines, it does not follow that because a work is mimetic in kind that it necessarily fails to produce significant learning. In accepting that there is a degree of control exerted normatively by what is being observed in the nature of such work, these perceptions in art and design become, through the creative process, refined and subtle experiences. Normative features and experiences may spur the artist or designer to create powerful expressions of them in the work.I will try to demonstrate that observational creative work, for all its reality checks, has the capability to be powerfully expressive and make discoveries that seem pertinent and true. As I see it, this encounter involves moral, social, perceptual, cognitive, and aesthetic orchestrations.Of course, some might insist that artistic autonomy could be a problem when having to work from observation in nature but the idea of autonomy relates to self-rule, a condition that is perhaps best understood, as Robert Young states, as being predominately dispositional as opposed to occurrent. 5 Educators like myself may want to argue that art and design teaching and learning requires, apart from other things, an understanding of theworld in which one lives as we come into contact with what actually and candidly stands publicly before us. This position cannot be reached through channelling our efforts exclusively via autonomist means.Certainly, in education, motivation, prior experience, personality, student... (shrink)

As the first President of the Royal Academy of Arts, Joshua Reynolds played a pivotal role in shaping the course of British art in the 18th century. In these discourses, Reynolds reflects on the nature of art, the role of the artist, and the importance of aesthetic education. With insightful commentary on the works of the Old Masters and a wealth of practical advice for aspiring artists, this volume is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of art or (...) art theory. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 38.1 (2004) 65-77 [Access article in PDF] In Defense of Observational Practice in Art and Design Education Howard Cannatella Introduction It is increasingly debatable whether observational drawing and making in nature are still regarded as principal activities of art and design learning. Against this, the aim of this article is to strengthen sympathetically a teacher'sunderstanding of observational creative work from nature and to assert (...) that such an approach should be central to art and design teaching and learning.My reasons for writing this article are to reconsider observational aspects of this approach that are not generally expounded in existing art and design educational practice circles. The reluctance by some to debate theimportance of the observational creative process may be construed as a questionable position to take, for a number of educational practitioners in art and design appear to see observations in nature as irrelevant to current art and design learning, as if it were a fashion item, one that has lost its appeal. Creative poiesis, some would argue, could never extend sufficiently to observations in nature. When observations in nature are seen as trite, not high art, there is the perception that art and design may have lost something precious, unable to nurture, becoming too introverted and sensational at the expense of grappling with common human realistic experiences. A decline in observational visual sensibilities may seem inevitable under these conditions.There is a persistent view in art and design education that seems to me to be a misconception — that observations in nature are restrictive and superficial, an experience that deals only with archaic approaches in learning. In the work of Immanuel Kant, imitation could not be an original factuality. 1 In Kantian terms, to imitate exactly a thing of beauty would be an act considered as "wholly destitute of taste." 2 A similar kind of sentiment is echoed by Georg Hegel, who considers imitation in art as "deceptive" and goes on to say: "the pursuit of imitation is on the same lines as the feat of the man who has taught himself to throw lentils through a small aperture [End Page 65] without missing." 3 More recently, Norman Bryson criticizes the idea of a "natural attitude" toward observations in natureas he denounces any suggestion of the purity of the universal visual image. 4 This backlash may make us feel a little uneasy as to why observations in nature should play a primary role in art and design education.My argument will be that although creative observations in nature do involve mimetic and regulative factors, these factors, when sensitively handled,can enlarge our imagination, touching us deeply in the process. Along these lines, it does not follow that because a work is mimetic in kind that it necessarily fails to produce significant learning. In accepting that there is a degree of control exerted normatively by what is being observed in the nature of such work, these perceptions in art and design become, through the creative process, refined and subtle experiences. Normative features and experiences may spur the artist or designer to create powerful expressions of them in the work.I will try to demonstrate that observational creative work, for all its reality checks, has the capability to be powerfully expressive and make discoveries that seem pertinent and true. As I see it, this encounter involves moral, social, perceptual, cognitive, and aesthetic orchestrations.Of course, some might insist that artistic autonomy could be a problem when having to work from observation in nature but the idea of autonomy relates to self-rule, a condition that is perhaps best understood, as Robert Young states, as being predominately dispositional as opposed to occurrent. 5 Educators like myself may want to argue that art and design teaching and learning requires, apart from other things, an understanding of theworld in which one lives as we come into contact with what actually and candidly stands publicly before us. This position cannot be reached through channelling our efforts exclusively via autonomist means.Certainly, in education, motivation, prior experience, personality, student... (shrink)

According to Martin Heidegger’s The Origin of the Work of Art, the truth of Being is disclosed in artworks. With this as a starting point, one wonders if this (truth of Being) is encounterable given its metaphysical/ontological condensation. We elaborate, one way, in which artworks have been contemplated in the history of the philosophy of art – namely, mimesis. Two possibilities are opened up in this regard: the first (e. g. Aristotle) credits the reproduction of copies/likeness of the original to (...) mimesis, whereas the second (e. g. Kant) does not. Richir stands out for discrediting mimesis of artworks via copies as sufficient means to encounter the truth of Being. This insufficiency is overcome by a phenomenological path, within the context of his revolutionary interpretation of the Husserlian “perceptive” phantasy, of a non-mediated, non-specular, active, affective and bodily access – fromwithin (Mimesis) – to the truth of Being in art works. This renders Heidegger’s intuition fruitful. This article aims to concretize Richir’s position using illustrations from literary works. (shrink)

This article focuses on the consequences of a little-known work by Giacinto Scelsi, Rotativa (1930), for the concepts of imitation and expression in music. Critical of the mechanization of art peculiar to the Futurism of his time, the Italian composer allows us to think, against the pseudo-photographic reproduction of objects by sound forms, the limits of musical imitation by revealing, from the historicity of his own piece, the inauthenticity of a certain modernism.

ABSTRACT Review essay of Imitation, a novel by Leonhard Praeg. This analysis addresses the intertextual relationship between Imitation and Immortality (written by Milan Kundera). It focuses on the way the titular notion is examined from both an artistic and existential perspective. The philosophical qualities of the work are discussed in order to exemplify how the form of the novel provides the author with a creative way to acknowledge and explore the complex influence of imitation in the development (...) our personal selves and the invention of original forms. (shrink)

In Art and Truth after Plato, Tom Rockmore argues that Plato has in fact never been satisfactorily answered—and to demonstrate that, he offers a comprehensive account of Plato’s influence through nearly the whole history of Western ...

Theodor W. Adorno claims that a philosophy that tried to imitate art would defeat itself, yet he seems to have based his own model for philosophical interpretation, which he compares to changing constellations, on Gustav Mahler’s musical montage (the first Ländler from the second movement of the Ninth Symphony.) The paper first examines two aspects of montage that Adorno mentions in his reading of the Ländler: (1) its reified working material and (2) its combinatory procedure. Next, these aspects are located (...) within the interpretive model advanced in the inaugural lecture of 1931. The latter part of the paper makes a case for the philosophically binding force of constellations by drawing on the concepts of aesthetic semblance [ästhetischer Schein] and praxis. (shrink)

Theodor W. Adorno claims that a philosophy that tried to imitate art would defeat itself, yet he seems to have based his own model for philosophical interpretation, which he compares to changing constellations, on Gustav Mahler’s musical montage The paper first examines two aspects of montage that Adorno mentions in his reading of the Ländler: its reified working material and its combinatory procedure. Next, these aspects are located within the interpretive model advanced in the inaugural lecture of 1931. The latter (...) part of the paper makes a case for the philosophically binding force of constellations by drawing on the concepts of aesthetic semblance [ästhetischer Schein] and praxis. (shrink)

Theodor W. Adorno claims that a philosophy that tried to imitate art would defeat itself, yet he seems to have based his own model for philosophical interpretation, which he compares to changing constellations, on Gustav Mahler’s musical montage (the first Ländler from the second movement of the Ninth Symphony.) The paper first examines two aspects of montage that Adorno mentions in his reading of the Ländler: (1) its reified working material and (2) its combinatory procedure. Next, these aspects are located (...) within the interpretive model advanced in the inaugural lecture of 1931. The latter part of the paper makes a case for the philosophically binding force of constellations by drawing on the concepts of aesthetic semblance [ästhetischer Schein] and praxis. (shrink)

Mimesis or imitation comes in many forms, from animal and plant mimicry to artistic copies 'from life'. This book offers eighteen essays addressing mimesis from diverse perspectives. From the recreation of galaxies to Iron Age torcs, from counterfeit dragons to modern waxworks, each chapter explores facets of material mimesis from prehistory to the present day. The Matter of Mimesis invites readers to compare practices of imitating, faking, and synthesising materials and objects in nature, art and science, raising questions about (...) skills, techniques and politics of making that transcend historical and disciplinary boundaries and inform both our past and future worlds. (shrink)

Jade products that imitate ancient Chinese art samples are a special kind of objects that, in their form and decor, are close to or likened to more ancient works of arts and crafts. The article explores the artistic form and characteristic features of imitations of ancient jade products of the Qing era, presented in the collections of Russian museums and the Palace Museum of China. The object of the study are objects of Chinese art of jade carving, which are in (...) the collection of the Palace Museum (Beijing), the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. Peter the Great (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg) and the State Museum of Oriental Art (Moscow), where the use of imitations of ancient objects was discovered. Artistic analysis of jade imitations allows us to conclude that the works of the Qing era were more complex and diverse in form, decor and carving techniques compared to Han products, while the craftsmen, although they managed to preserve the classical sophistication of objects, lost the severity and solemnity of Han jade. As well as the art history analysis of the works, one can see that the forms and decors of jade objects are the product of aesthetic consciousness. The novelty of this study lies in the fact that the varieties and features of imitations of ancient jade during the Qing Dynasty are summarized, and the huohuan technique in jade processing is confirmed. This may be of interest to researchers in related scientific fields. (shrink)

To investigate the cognitive processes underlying creative inspiration, we tested the extent to which viewing or copying prior examples impacted creative output in art. In Experiment 1, undergraduates made drawings under three conditions: copying an artist's drawing, then producing an original drawing; producing an original drawing without having seen another's work; and copying another artist's work, then reproducing that artist's style independently. We discovered that through copying unfamiliar abstract drawings, participants were able to produce creative drawings qualitatively different from the (...) model drawings. Process analyses suggested that participants' cognitive constraints became relaxed, and new perspectives were formed from copying another's artwork. Experiment 2 showed that exposure to styles of artwork considered unfamiliar facilitated creativity in drawing, while styles considered familiar did not do so. Experiment 3 showed that both copying and thoroughly viewing artwork executed using an unfamiliar style facilitated creativity in drawing, whereas merely thinking about alternative styles of artistic representation did not do so. These experiments revealed that deep encounters with unfamiliar artworks—whether through copying or prolonged observation—change people's cognitive representations of the act of drawing to produce novel artwork. (shrink)

Eighteenth-century art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768) shared with Hegel a profound admiration for the art and culture of ancient Greece. Both viewed ancient Greece as, in some sense, an ideal to which the modern world might aspire—a pinnacle of spiritual perfection and originality that contemporary civilization might, through an understanding of ancient Greek culture, one day equal or surpass. This rather competitive form of nostalgia suggests a paradoxical demand to produce an original and higher state of culture through the (...) imitation of another. In Hegel’s writings, this paradox goes beyond the relation of the modern world to the ancient world—he exposes the same paradox in ancient Greece’s relation to its own predecessors. The solution to the latter paradox—the possibility of the realization of ancient Greece as an original and self-contained civilization despite its cultural debts—would also, then, be the key to repeating the success of the ancient world in the modern, the overcoming of modern Europe’s cultural debt to the ancient world. The present essay examines how this paradox is revealed and resolved in the writings of Winckelmann and Hegel, and shows how this strategy of culture production—as imputed to the ancient world and aspired to in the modern—simultaneously attempts to justify and conceal a self-deceptive practice of cultural and political conquest. My focus will be on the two writers’ interpretations of ancient Greek art since, as I will suggest, their solution to the paradox of culture production turns out to be modeled upon the role of ancient Greek art in the invention and actualization of a cultural ideal of beauty, unity, and self-containment. (shrink)

This book reconsiders the fate of the doctrine of mimesis in the eighteenth century. Standard accounts of the aesthetic theories of this era hold that the idea of mimesis was supplanted by the far more robust and compelling doctrines of taste and aesthetic judgment. Since the idea of mimesis was taken to apply only in the relation of art to nature, it was judged to be too limited when the focus of aesthetics changed to questions about the constitution of individual (...) subjects in regard to taste. Tom Huhn argues that mimesis, rather than disappearing, instead became a far more pervasive idea in the eighteenth century by becoming submerged within the dynamics of the emerging accounts of judgment and taste. Mimesis also thereby became enmeshed in the ideas of sociality contained, often only implicitly, within the new accounts of aesthetic judgment. The book proceeds by reading three of the foundational treatises in aesthetics—Burke’s _Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful_, Hogarth’s _Analysis of Beauty_, and Kant’s _Critique of Judgment_—with an eye for discerning where arguments and analyses betray mimetic structures. Huhn attempts to explicate these books anew by arguing that they are pervaded by a mimetic dynamic. Overall, he seeks to provoke a reconsideration of eighteenth-century aesthetics that centers on its continuity with traditional notions of mimesis. (shrink)

Medieval literature is argumentative, since it argues for an idealized vision of reality acceptable to a proposed audience. Its narrative mode is description, performed according to the principles of the art of topical invention, derived from Cicero's De Inventione. The topoi or loci are features (circumstantiae) of a person or thing that are common to it as a class, such as tempus or locus for things. When filled out, according to the point of view desired by the author, public, context, (...) etc., they become the attributes (argumenta) of a particular human being or action.According to the author, all descriptions should be interpreted by reference to such a technique of topical invention, a method which will allow new explanations of the texts. The examples of the locus amoenus in various Latin and French works show how traditional and conventional models were adapted and specialized, by various devices, to fit new formal or conceptual intentions and new contexts. The examples and models proposed to the student learning composition by Masters such as Matthew of Vendôme, were given not to be copied, but to be imitated through topical invention, that is adaptation to a particular intention, through specializing devices. (shrink)

Proposal Information: In this paper it is argued that although Spinoza, unlike other great philosophers of the Enlightenment era, never actually wrote a philosophy of education as such, he did – in his Ethics – write a philosophy of self-improvement that is deeply educational at heart. When looked at against the background of his overall metaphysical system, the educational account that emerges is one that is highly curious and may even, to some extent at least, come across as counter-intuitive in (...) a contemporary setting. This is so because it grounds the greater social and political endeavors of humanity in the individual’s striving for an ever-increasing power of acting. Hence, education, for Spinoza, is a decidedly individualistic affair, but then again, so is the making of society. Since, for Spinoza, every instance of knowledge bears the unique mark of the individual body that expresses it, one might conclude that at the foundation of every social structure is an encounter between concrete bodies; each expressing a particular perspective from where to grasp the world. I would argue, based on this, that one of Spinoza’s main contributions to educational theory is his grounding of larger social endeavors in the striving of the individual. Hinged on the striving to be more rational, as dictated by the doctrine of the conatus, education appears to offer a way of grounding the structure of the human social world in the same principles as those guiding the individual. Spinoza’s doctrine of the imitation of affects thereby offers a way of linking the egoistic striving for power on behalf of the individual with the educational goal of building a sustainable society. It does so as it conditions self-improvement by the human characteristic to imitate what others desire. By being surrounded with people who desire to be more rational, one can utilize this desire for the good and become strengthened in one’s own striving for increasing one’s degree of existence. Consequently, the teaching situation is geared for guiding students towards a more rational life, at the same time as it is geared for the self-improvement of the teacher. This aspect of self-improvement is, ultimately, what will motivate the teacher in striving to enhance the lives of his or her students in the first place. Being unable to self-improve in isolation, the doctrine of the imitation of affects dictates that the rational person will be moved toward a life of generosity, not primarily for altruistic reasons, but out of a desire to become more rational and thus to gain in his or her own power of acting. The question that follows from this, of course, is how does one go about when inculcating a desire to be more rational in one’s students?Education, from a Spinozistic point of view, is ultimately about the cultivation of the potential that lies dormant in each individual, so that a person may live a happier life as a result of understanding, more adequately, their place in the natural world. The challenge, then, becomes one of overcoming the many obstacles that prevent a person from developing their potential. Pedagogy, from this point of view, may be understood in terms of the art of offering the right amount of resistance. This notion is based on the assumption that if a student encounters no resistance – or too much resistance – his or her potential remains just that – a potential. In order to develop this potential the student needs to overcome certain barriers. With regards to this, the role of the teacher may be conceived in terms of the one balancing the amount of resistance so that the student is properly challenged but at the same time not overwhelmed. Methodology or Methods/ Research Instruments or Sources Used: The paper makes for an attempt to outline a Spinozistic philosophy of education based on readings of Spinoza’s texts – primarily the Ethics – and some of the relevant secondary literature such as Della Rocca’s influential reading of Spinoza. As such it is a philosophical inquiry seeking to interconnect some key aspects of Spinoza’s philosophy with some of the major issues of education. Methodologically, this paper argues, in line with Melamed, that rather than turning to the history of philosophy in order to identify ‘precursors to [our] own views’, so as to validate what we already believe we know, it is more fruitful to turn to past philosophers in order to ‘challenge our most basic beliefs and intuitions by studying texts that are both well-argued and strongly opposed to our commonsense’. Accordingly, turning to Spinoza marks an attempt to revisit and reconceptualize some key aspects of educational thought. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings: A conclusion of this paper is that a Spinozistic philosophy of education would need to focus on resolving the tension between Spinoza’s egoism and education as a social project. To this end it identifies Spinoza’s doctrine of the imitation of affects as a possible link between the individual’s striving for power and the collective agenda of improving human well-being at large. It is also suggested that, in aspiring to inculcate a desire to be more rational in his or her students, the challenge for the Spinozistic teacher is to prompt the students to aspire to reach beyond the temporary satisfactions of the passions so as to acquire a more enduring sense of satisfaction and so that their well-being is more fully under their own command rather than under the command of various external influences. This, in turn, is connected with the notion of resistance in the sense that in experiencing the volatility of fortune – and thereby understanding the instability of relying on one’s passions – a person would appear to be more inclined to strive for a more enduring sense of happiness, even if this would mean giving up on some of the temporary pleasures that one has grown accustomed to. The resistance, then, may be conceived in terms of the overcoming of temporary pleasures that stand in the way of the developing of one’s potential. In this scenario the role of the teacher may be understood in terms of someone offering a well-balanced amount of resistance. This means that to accommodate one’s students – in the sense that one approaches them in terms of prospective customers, aspiring to satisfy their demands – is inimical to education insofar as the wants and desires of students are, generally speaking, caused by passive affects rather than their rational wills. References: Aloni, N.. Spinoza as Educator: From Eudaimonistic Ethics to an Empowering and Liberating Pedagogy. Educational Philosophy and Theory 40, pp. 531–544.Della Rocca, M.. Spinoza. New York: Routledge.Della Rocca, M.. Rationalism, Idealism, Monism, and Beyond. In: E. Förster & Y. Y. Melamed Spinoza and German Idealism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 7–26.Derry, J.. The Unity of Intellect and Will: Vygotsky and Spinoza. Educational Review, 56, pp. 113–120.Lloyd, G.. Spinoza and Educating the Imagination. In: A. O. Rorty Philosophers on Education: Historical Perspectives. London: Routledge, pp. 157–172.Melamed, Y. Y.. Spinoza’s Metaphysics: Substance and Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Nadler, S.. Eternity and Immortality in Spinoza’s Ethics. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 26, pp. 224–244.Poulimatka, T.. Spinoza’s Theory of Teaching and Indoctrination. Educational Philosophy and Theory 33, pp. 397–410.Spinoza, B.. The Ethics. In: E. Curley A Spinoza Reader: The Ethics and Other Works. Princeton: Princeton Unive. (shrink)

This book reconsiders the fate of the doctrine of mimesis in the eighteenth century. Standard accounts of the aesthetic theories of this era hold that the idea of mimesis was supplanted by the far more robust and compelling doctrines of taste and aesthetic judgment. Since the idea of mimesis was taken to apply only in the relation of art to nature, it was judged to be too limited when the focus of aesthetics changed to questions about the constitution of individual (...) subjects in regard to taste. Tom Huhn argues that mimesis, rather than disappearing, instead became a far more pervasive idea in the eighteenth century by becoming submerged within the dynamics of the emerging accounts of judgment and taste. Mimesis also thereby became enmeshed in the ideas of sociality contained, often only implicitly, within the new accounts of aesthetic judgment. The book proceeds by reading three of the foundational treatises in aesthetics—Burke’s _Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful_, Hogarth’s _Analysis of Beauty_, and Kant’s _Critique of Judgment_—with an eye for discerning where arguments and analyses betray mimetic structures. Huhn attempts to explicate these books anew by arguing that they are pervaded by a mimetic dynamic. Overall, he seeks to provoke a reconsideration of eighteenth-century aesthetics that centers on its continuity with traditional notions of mimesis. (shrink)

Amajor shift in critical attitudes toward the arts took place in the eighteenth century. The fine arts were now looked upon as a group, divorced from the sciences and governed by their own rules. The century abounded with treatises that sought to establish the overriding principles that differentiate art from other walks of life as well as the principles that differentiate them from each other. This burst of scholarly activity resulted in the incorporation of aesthetics among the classic branches of (...) philosophy, heralding the cognitive turn in epistemology. Among the writings that initiated this turn, none were more important than the British contribution. The Arts in Mind brings together an annotated selection of these key texts. A companion volume to the editors' Tuning the Mind, which analyzed this major shift in world view and its historical context, The Arts in Mind is the first representative sampling of what constitutes an important school of British thought. The texts are neither obscure nor forgotten, although most histories of eighteenth-century thought treat them in a partial or incomplete way. Here they are made available complete or through representative extracts together with an editor's introduction to each selection providing essential biographical and intellectual background. The treatises included are representative of the changed climate of opinion which entailed new issues such as those of perception, symbolic function, and the role of history and culture in shaping the world. Contents include: Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, "Characteristics"; Francis Hutcheson, "Inquiry Concerning Beauty, Harmony and Design"; Hildebrand Jacob, "Of the Sister Arts: An Essay"; James Harris, "On Music, Painting and Poetry"; Charles Avison, "An Essay on Musical Expression"; James Beattie, "Essay on Poetry and Music as They Affect the Mind"; Daniel Webb, "Observations on the Correspondence between Poetry and Music"; Thomas Twining, "On Poetry Considered as an Imitative Art," "On the Different Senses of the Word Imitative as Applied to Music by the Ancients and by the Moderns"; Adam Smith, "Of the Nature of that Imitation which Takes Place in What are Called the Imaginative Arts." Ruth Katz is Emanuel Alexandre Professor of Musicology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She is co-editor with Carl Dahlhaus of Contemplating Music, a four-volume study of the philosophy of music. Ruth HaCohen is Clarica and Fred Davidson Senior Lecturer of Musicology at the Hebrew University. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Guided Rapid Unconscious Reconfiguration in Poetry and ArtRoger SeamonThe idea that literary works are designed to give pleasure does not get much exercise these days. So I would like to take it out for a walk. We’ll see where it takes us, how much ground it covers, and what friends it makes along the way. Perhaps if we take it off the leash of theory, it will roam far (...) enough afield.... By this time you are bored with my metaphor, and thus have made a judgment about the use of a trope that is often said to be at the heart of poetry. 1 What I want to do is give an account of the principle that led to that judgment, for it is the same principle, I shall argue, that governs judgments about the aesthetic dimension of literary works.I first encountered the idea in F. W. Bateson’s English Poetry: An Introduction, where he labels it the “The Principle of the Semantic Gap.” Poetry, Bateson says, does not consist of the transference of feeling from poet to reader (the Romantic and expressive view which he opposes), but of “the successful collocation of contrasted or conflicting ‘meanings,’” 2 and he traces the theory back to Coleridge’s idea that poetry consists in the “balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities” (Biographia Literaria, chap. xiv). Contrasted meanings defeat normal expectations, so the reader is forced to bridge (apparent) gaps in order to make sense of the words, and it is that collaboration between author and reader that constitutes poetic activity. The theory is, though Bateson does not present it as such, a reworking of the ancient notion that in a successful work of art we perceive unity in variety. This essay is an effort to extend and defend that theory in its modern form, particularly as it relates to literary works.The modern theory came into being because of a change in the [End Page 412] object of aesthetic analysis from the work and what it imitated to the psychology of the audience:Up to the eighteenth century the theory of art in the Western world was dominated by ancient philosophy. It was most of all Plato’s metaphysics which, in a number of variations and even distortions, attributed to the artist the capacity of perceiving the divine ideals of beauty beyond the world of the senses and embodying them in his creations. The rejection of this mystical view of art in the course of the eighteenth century... was bound to make theorists turn to psychology. 3It is within this psychological tradition that the modern version of unity and variety has been developed.Re-castings of the ancient formula for aesthetic value have been done by (at least) five recent theorists. Given that one can probably trace the twentieth-century revival back to Gestalt psychology, it is not surprising that the earliest of the four is Rudolph Arnheim. In an essay on “Order and Complexity in Landscape Design” he defines order as “the degree and kind of lawfulness governing the relations among the parts of an entity,” and complexity as “the multiplicity of the relationships among the parts of an entity.” 4 Arnheim then psychologizes (rather than “cosmologizes”) these concepts by grounding them in the propensity to be perceptually satisfied by a balance between the two: “Complexity without order produces confusion; order without complexity produces boredom” (p. 124). Similarly, in The Act of Reading Wolfgang Iser says:The reader’s enjoyment begins when he himself becomes productive, i.e., when the text allows him to bring his own faculties into play. There are, of course, limits to the reader’s willingness to participate, and these will be exceeded if the text makes things too clear or, on the other hand, too obscure: boredom and overstrain represent the two poles of tolerance, and in either case the reader is likely to opt out of the game. 5In the same vein, Francis Sparshott asserts in The Theory of the Arts that “Beauty occupies the ground between cliché and chaos,” with variety protecting against the former, unity protecting against the latter, 6 and in The Sense of... (shrink)

Euro Women's Independent Label Distribution (WILD) was a pan-European network of feminist music distributors active in the early 1980s. They were affiliated to WILD, the US-based Women's Music distribution network founded in 1979 to disseminate the growing corpus of Women's Music emerging from the US Women's Liberation Movement (WLM). This article presents an interpretation of archive materials that document Euro WILD's activities from the Women's Revolutions Per Minute archive, housed at the Women's Art Library, London. Constrained and enabled by the (...) archive materials on offer, I revisit some of the practical and political problems the network faced as European distributors of US Women's Music. Key issues explored include the perception of US cultural imperialism by women based in Europe and the affective politics that circulated transnationally between distributors. Finally, this article explores how the concept and practice of the Women's Music industry changed when women beyond the borders of the US engaged with it. (shrink)

During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries antiquarians, geologists and savants debated whether the summits of particular Highland mountains were the vestiges of iron-age forts or evidence of extinct volcanoes. A blend of antiquarian-historical methodology deeply affected the geological narratives that British savants and gentlemen of science developed during this period. The histories of architecture, and the fine and practical arts regularly functioned as proxies for visualizing the history, structure and operations of the earth. The case of vitrified forts (...) discovered in Scotland highlights how the theoretical and practical arts directly informed geological theory to create what George Bellas Greenough claimed was a ‘philosophical pursuit’. Focusing on the contributions of John MacCulloch over the ambiguous identification of vitrified ruins, this paper shows how geological history was entwined with broad cultural interests in the progress of society and its rise from Nature. First, the essay examines the meaning and role of ‘imitation’ and ‘copying’ in art and architecture. Second, it applies these concepts within the framework of the vitrified-ruin debate that antiquarians and geologists engaged. Third, it demonstrates how the ‘imitation’ of Nature in the practical arts was a useful tool for making claims about earth structure. (shrink)

What place do imagination and art have in Christian existence? This paper examines this question through the writings of Kierkegaard's pseudonym Anti‐Climacus: The Sickness Unto Death and Practice in Christianity. I focus on the latter work in particular because it best illustrates the importance of imagination in following after (Efterfølgelse) Christ in imitation, which Anti‐Climacus presents as the proper task of faithful Christian existence. After outlining both his critique and his affirmation of the imagination, I then consider what role (...) the notion of ‘Christian art’ might play in his account of the imitation of Christ. Anti‐Climacus gives a severe critique of Christian art, insofar as it disposes the viewer to detached observation and admiration – rather than imitation – of Christ. However, an earlier passage in the same text gives a provocative yet cryptic indication of the sort of art that would not succumb to this danger. Taking a cue from the phenomenology of Jean‐Luc Marion, I draw out this suggestion and argue for the important role that visual art can play in imitating Christ. The final section illustrates this point briefly with three paintings: Matthias Grünewald's Crucifixion, Hans Holbein's The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb, and Albrecht Dürer's Self‐Portrait (1500). (shrink)

Contrary to the general belief that modernist art and architecture reflect the technological society, Jacques Ellul maintains in his L’empire du non-sens that they are justifications for the integration of humankind into what he called the technicist complex. Modernism in art and architecture meant that every product must be qualified by a technological character. This unassailable belief exerted some far-reaching influences on symbolic thought, on artistic expression, on architectural character. If imitation and invention were the two inseparable concepts through (...) which art and architecture were produced and symbolized, it is because they operate on a certain transparency between an exemplar and a work of art. By contrast, in the mentality of technique, artistic production operates based on a certain opacity to meanings outside of itself. Imitation and invention were separated. Thus, one of the principal beliefs in modernism, that art and architecture symbolize the technological society is actually one of its weakest. In considering technology as both the symbol and the product, the artistic idea and its representation collapsed into each other. (shrink)

Reality imitation and imagination - critical studies.

Since Plato and Aristotle the concept of imitation that is mimesis, has often alluded to the re-presentation of nature, in another sense, the artist is the interpreter of ''the nature'' of the ''appearances'' of the visible at the same time ''invisible'' objects. The Romantic objective for authenticity preserving in everything its own national character and taste, altered the concept of imitation in painting, which during the Renaissance was seen as a way to achieve one's personal style. Since its (...) invention, writing found its place first in stone then on paper and apart from the long-distance communication required by trade, has also served as a non-verbal communication tool to complete the linear distance between ideas. From here on the wheel paradox, the quest of how could be possible to evoke deepest emotions in the viewer, found itself in the philosophical approach and remarks of the artist on the practice of the common sense to the aesthetic perception. The common sense applied to the expressive features e.g., manifested in the marbles of Michelangelo and Puget having full of feeling and all the means of life, and this to some extent compensated for their lack of flawless appearances. (shrink)

Readers of Geczy's book are in for a wild ride. The lavishly illustrated narrative moves in broad strokes from the commedia dell'arte to cyborgs, with gross-out plastic surgery disasters and live sex dolls in between. The book's premise is simple: where humans once found their humanity in separating themselves from the artificial, in our current technologically infused age, humans want more than anything to become as artificial as possible. Geczy puts it simply: "In the humanist age, Pinocchio wanted to become (...) human; in the so-called post-humanist age, humans aspire to become Pinocchio". His examples are anything but simple, however. Arguing that in and around the 1980s, the move from "dolls imitating humans... (shrink)

Philosophy of art is traditionally concerned with the definition, appreciation and value of art. Through a close examination of art from recent centuries, _Art and Phenomenology_ is one of the first books to explore visual art as a mode of experiencing the world itself, showing how in the words of Merleau-Ponty ‘Painting does not imitate the world, but is a world of its own’. An outstanding series of chapters by an international group of contributors examine the following questions: Paul Klee (...) and the body in art colour and background in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of art self-consciousness and seventeenth-century painting Vermeer and Heidegger philosophy and the painting of Rothko embodiment in Renaissance art sculpture, dance and phenomenology. _Art and Phenomenology_ is essential reading for anyone interested in phenomenology, aesthetics, and visual culture. (shrink)

The poets and prose-writers of Greece and Rome were acutely conscious of their literary heritage. They expressed this consciousness in the regularity with which, in their writings, they imitated and alluded to the great authors who had preceded them. Such imitation was generally not regarded as plagiarism but as essential to the creation of a new literary work: imitating one's predecessors was in no way incompatible with originality or progress. These views were not peculiar to the writers of Greece (...) and Rome but were adopted by many others who have written in the 'classical tradition' right up to modern times. Creative Imitation and Latin Literature is an exploration of this concept of imitation. The contributors analyse selected passages from various authors - Greek, Latin and English - in order to demonstrate how Latin authors created new works of art by imitating earlier passages of literature. (shrink)

Some critics charge that Gadamer’s approach to our experience of art remains mired in conservatism because he believes our experience of artworks depends on tradition. In this essay, I argue that this charge fails to address the full scope of Gadamer’s considerations of our experience of art. This becomes clear with an emendation that Gadamer appears to make to his Truth and Method account of artistic imitation, or, mimesis, in his later essay “Art and Imitation.” Whereas Gadamer’s approach (...) to mimesis in Truth and Method provides testimony to the significance of tradition for our experience of artworks, his account in “Art and Imitation” make the supplementary proposal that our experience of artworks testify to a more fundamental and encompassing experience of what he shall simply refer to as ‘order.’ Gadamer thereby suggests that our experience of artworks concerns not only foremost or exclusively our belonging to a tradition but, more originally, our possibilities for belonging as such. (shrink)

Malgré l’avènement de la figure de l’acteur créateur au tournant des XIXe et XXe siècles, les procédés de copie, d’imitation et de réactivation constituent une part non négligeable des outils convoqués dans les exercices spécifiques au jeu. Cette persistance, qui trouve son origine dans le Paradoxe sur le comédien de Diderot, se lit et se décline tout au long de l’histoire des théories du jeu, dans le recours fréquent à un modèle, dont le type varie (nature ou réel, arts (...) plastiques, personnage théâtral, performance). C’est cette double continuité, celle des procédés de copie et du modèle dans les théories du jeu auxquelles s’adossent des pratiques et dont découlent des modes de fabrication, qui a nourri une expérimentation pédagogique pratique au sein de La Manufacture – Haute École des Arts de la Scène de Lausanne. Les ateliers élaborés pour les étudiant.e.s consistant à mettre en œuvre ces trois opérations, à leur proposer une histoire sensible, c’est-à-dire éprouvée, du jeu de l’acteur, et à leur faire percevoir l’importance des procédés de copie, d’imitation et de réactivation dans la pensée et dans la pratique du jeu. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aquinas on Imitation of Nature: Source of Principles of Moral Action by Wojciech GolubiewskiAnthony T. FloodGOLUBIEWSKI, Wojciech. Aquinas on Imitation of Nature: Source of Principles of Moral Action. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2022. xx + 309 pp. Cloth, $75.00Does Aquinas's ethical account necessarily rely upon his metaphysics of goodness and natural forms, or can we fairly interpret his ethics as merely cursorily (...) connected to these other aspects of his thought? Golubiewski offers a thorough and compelling case that Aquinas indeed bases his ethics on these various broader principles, such that proper practical principles inextricably and fundamentally are an imitation of nature.Golubiewski details the full range of scholarship on Aquinas's natural law theory in order to set up his meticulous and comprehensive analysis. He motivates his interpretation by examining two opposed positions in current discussion. On one side is the view championed by Stephen Brock and others that focuses on Aquinas's metaphysics of the good, along with "the imitation of nature as the 'imitation of the divine mind'" as crucial to an accurate understanding of the natural law. On the other side is Martin Rhonheimer, who maintains, "natural law is not the 'imitative reflex' of the 'natural order'." Rhonheimer wishes to avoid a moral physicalism that succumbs to charges of the naturalistic fallacy. Golubiewski sides with Brock and proceeds to show the extent to which the notion of imitation performs throughout Aquinas's ethical thought.Early in his analysis, Golubiewski notes that we should avoid an overly strict distinction between the two virtues of practical reason, namely, art and prudence. While art does have the specific sense of right reason regarding the making of things, Aquinas also uses it more broadly and analogically as conveying any kind of right reason. Thus, when Aquinas speaks of art, particularly in terms of right reason as an imitation of nature, this includes prudence and all of the moral virtues it directs. Moreover, the notion of art also pertains to God's creative act. Insofar as created natures are the effect of divine art, the parameters of their goodness are already determined. In the case of rational natures, they are not free to determine their own goodness. By imitating nature, a person imitates the mind behind nature.Golubiewski devotes considerable attention to the sources of moral knowledge. For human beings, the imitation of nature pertinent to right moral reasoning begins with the knowledge of sensible things, whereby we grasp the patterns, modes of operations, and inclinations of them. All [End Page 139] beings have a movement toward—a desire for—actuality, which in turn orients them to divine goodness. "In this way things 'desire' the divine goodness, according to their own 'immanent likeness' to it. They desire it insofar as they imitate it." Each kind of thing imitates God's goodness in its own, admittedly very limited way. Human nature has this same relation to God; thereby, proper human action is based on the same sort of imitation.This leads to a relevant analysis of the part/whole notion in Aquinas. Golubiewski remarks that we have an inclination not merely toward our own individual good but also to the good of the whole human community and ultimately God as the ultimate good. "Not only political virtue but all kinds of properly human virtues are intrinsically ordered to the common good. In this way all of them are part of general justice as ordered to reason in its imitation of nature." In light of the recent resurgence of interest in the precise connection between personal rights and the common good, Golubiewski's elaboration on these points might prove especially helpful to anyone desiring to bring Thomistic principles into the debate.Golubiewski proceeds to delve into the precise character of the inclinations of human nature as rational inclinations. The common intelligible structure of goodness entails three elements. One, the mode of each kind of thing's congruent action. Two, the virtuous dispositions as rooted in that nature. Three, the virtuous agency by which the proper good of that nature is obtained. In the case of human beings, the mode of obtaining goodness is... (shrink)

A passage in Plato’s Laws (719c) offers a fresh look at Plato’s theory of poetry and art. Only here does Plato call poetry both mimêsis “imitation, representation,” and the product of enthousiasmos “inspiration, possession.” The Republic and Sophist examine poetic imitation; the Ion and Phaedrus (with passages in Apology and Meno) develop a theory of artistic inspiration; but Plato does not confront the two descriptions together outside this paragraph. After all, mimêsis fuels an attack on poetry, while enthousiasmos (...) is sometimes used to attack it, sometimes to praise it. The explanation evidently lies in Plato’s understanding of drama, which in the Laws has grown more precise, from simply the presentation of characters to the presentation of multiple characters engaged in dramatic conflict. (shrink)

Are works of art imitations? If so, what exactly do they imitate? Should an artist remind his audience that what it is perceiving is in fact artifice, or should he try above all to persuade it to accept the illusion as reality? Questions such as these, which have dominated aesthetic theory since the Greeks, were debated with extraordinary vigour and ingenuity in eighteenth-century France. In this book Dr Hobson analyses these debates, focusing in turn on painting, the novel, drama, poetry (...) and music. In each case she relates theory to contemporary works of art by Watteau, Chardin, Diderot, Beaumarchais, Gluck and many others. She shows that disputes within the theory of each art centred upon the nature of the perceiver's attention. Dr Hobson provides a method of mapping the changes in artistic style which took place as the century advanced. In discussing such conceptual transformations Dr Hobson opens an important perspective for the study of Romanticism and Realism. (shrink)