This paper analyses the cluster of aesthetic features involved in the common experience of the weather. Perceptual features (framelessness, chromatics, texture, synaesthesia, ephemerality, proteism) are accompanied by 'atmospheric' moods that are irreducible to physiological well-being. Representation and imagination reach their limits due to the more-than-human spatiotemporal scale of the atmosphere. Finally, some 'transaesthetic' aspects include the agency of an active matter and the longing for an elemental alterity. The aesthetics of the weather has to account for the interdependence between aesthetic (...) and ethical values, between bodily engagement and appropriate knowledge, individual contemplation and social commitment, in order to develop ecological responsibility. (shrink)

The ecological crisis has long since reached global proportions, so that environmental problems can no longer be tackled solely within national borders. This anthology opens intercultural perspectives on environmental ethics and hightlights the potential of non-European traditions of thought for exploring alternative paths.

MĂDĂLINA DIACONU, Tasten, Riechen, Schmecken. Eine Ästhetik der anästhesierten Sinne, 2005 ; SILVIA STOLLER, VERONICA VASTERLING,LINDA FISHER, Feministische Phänomenologie und Hermeneutik, 2005 ; KARL SCHUHMANN, Karl Schuhmann: Selected Papers on Phenomenology. Edited by CEES LEIJENHORST and PIET STEENBAKKERS, 2004 ; HIROSHI GOTO, Der Begriff der Person in der PhänomenologieHusserls. Ein Interpretationsversuch der Husserlschen Phänomenologie als Ethik im Hinblick auf den Begriff der Habitualität, 2004 ; GÜNTER FIGAL, Lebensverstricktheit und Abstandsnahme. „Verhalten zu sich“ im Anschluss an Heidegger, Kierkegaard und Hegel, 2001 (...) ; JACQUES DERRIDA, Le toucher, Jean-Luc Nancy, 2000. (shrink)

Any attempt to outline a meteorological aesthetics centered on so-called beautiful weather has to overcome several difficulties: In everyday life, the appreciation of the weather is mostly related to practical interests or reduced to the ideal of stereotypical fine weather that is conceived according to blue-sky thinking irrespective of climate diversity. Also, an aesthetics of fine weather seems, strictly speaking, to be impossible given that such weather conditions usually allow humans to focus on aspects other than weather, which contradicts the (...) autotelic character of beauty. The unreflective equation of beautiful weather with moderately sunny weather and a cloudless sky also collides with the psychological need for variation: even living in a “paradisal” climate would be condemned to end in monotony. Finally, whereas fine weather is related in modern realistic literature to cosmic harmony and a universal natural order, contemporary literary examples show that in the age of the climate change, fine weather may be deceitful and its passive contemplation, irresponsible. This implies the necessity of a reflective aesthetic attitude on weather, as influenced by art, literature, and science, which discovers the poetics of bad weather and the wonder that underlies average weather conditions. (shrink)

The volume represents a selection of the articles which were presented at a colloquium on new research topics in aesthetics at the Austrian Library in Pilsen in September 2010. Their authors, Czech and Austrian scholars, address various topics, ranging from the institutional history of aesthetics to the relationship between philosophical aesthetics and psychology, and from the philosophy of literature to the aesthetics of fine arts, dramatic arts, and architecture.

Contemporary smelly artworks, installations and “scent sculptures” endorse philosophical and anthropological theories about the construction of identity as a relation to oneself and the others through consciousness and memory, as a multi-staged process of social exchange, as a game of risk and trust in making one’s own identity, and as a dialectics of agency and passivity. It is well-known that topophilic emplacement contributes to identity; olfactory site-specific installations and practices “present” specific smellscapes and reflect on their changes. Also olfactory artists (...) who produce uncanny atmospheres recall that personal identity is built along the axes of trust and anxiety. Body odors in general are corporeal signatures that enable individual recognition, yet artists extract them in order to challenge taboos, question gender stereotypes and build open identities. The crucial role of odors for both self-acceptance and non-verbal communication makes artists use them as a means of fostering a new sense of solidarity on a local as well as on a global level. Finally, other artistic projects subvert the anthropological difference and rehabilitate other species’ olfactory sensitivity. With the aid of modern technology, they promise to fulfil old dreams about enlarging the spectrum of our nose and controlling incoming odors and body emissions. Thus, in a paradoxical way, they both advocate to return to the prehuman and urge to become posthuman. (shrink)

Collecting goes beyond art collecting and seems to meet a more general need. Although it originally aided survival and has predecessors in the animal world, the gesture of collecting has complex motivations. After exploring the collector’s psychology and the behavioural differences between collectors and spectators, this paper analyses the logic of collecting and its principles: order, variation, attractive and meaningful display, the control of contingency, processuality and growth, seriality, and limitation. Finally, the paradoxical attempt to collect non-collectibles, such as gods, (...) clouds or human relations will be shown to illustrate a para-aesthetics of collecting which ranges from the poetics of everyday life to aestheticism. (shrink)

Collecting goes beyond art collecting and seems to meet a more general need. Although it originally aided survival and has predecessors in the animal world, the gesture of collecting has complex motivations. After exploring the collector’s psychology and the behavioural differences between collectors and spectators, this paper analyses the logic of collecting and its principles: order, variation, attractive and meaningful display, the control of contingency, processuality and growth, seriality, and limitation. Finally, the paradoxical attempt to collect non-collectibles, such as gods, (...) clouds or human relations will be shown to illustrate a para-aesthetics of collecting which ranges from the poetics of everyday life to aestheticism. (shrink)

Mădălina Diaconus Beitrag zum Bild Europas in Rumänien zieht in Betracht hauptsächlich kulturphilosophische Interpretationen seit dem Beginn des Modernisierungsprozesses in Rumänien vor etwa 150 Jahren. Vor dem Krieg überwogen die Spekulationen über eine „rumänische Seele“ und die Forderung der Synchronisierung mit der Entwicklung der westlichen Institutionen und Werte. Diese Diskussionen wurden nach 1989 wieder aufgenommen und beweisen, dass das Selbstbewusstsein der Rumänen, ein integraler Teil Europas zu sein, weiterhin ungebrochen ist.

Arnold Berleant’s enlargement of the scope of aesthetics to environments and social relationships opens the way for associations with approaches from other human and social sciences. One possible term of comparison is Hartmut Rosa’s theory of modernity, which applies the concept of resonance to various fields, including nature and art. At the beginning, their aims appear to be different and their alternatives slightly different: engagement stresses the continuity between the embodied self and the world, whereas resonance is primarily based upon (...) a model of communication. Nevertheless, their relational theories converge in several respects: they focus on experience, defend participatory models against objectifying and merely contemplative relationships, and practise social criticism in their search for a meaningful and good life. (shrink)

‘Eine weite Wohnung unter freiem Himmel’? On the Aesthetics of Gardens of the Senses Although the common experience of nature and gardens engages all the senses, historical analysis of garden theory shows a clear tendency to reduce green spaces to their imagery and to take the visual arts as the model for garden design. A counter-tendency to this primacy of vision has, however, lately emerged -- namely, gardens of the senses or healing gardens, which accentuate also the tactile and olfactory (...) qualities of vegetation and materials. The literature on gardens of the senses provides useful empirical guidelines for garden designers, but on a rather eclectic theoretical basis that applies mainly to private jardins de plaisir. Nevertheless, the accentuation of tactile and olfactory qualities in gardens constitutes a source of well-being, and contributes to a deceleration of life, a positive experience of the natural order and rhythm, and the habitability of a place. Moreover, they are informal laboratories for the education of the senses, and their empirical taxonomies may be integrated into an aesthetic theory of sensory design. (shrink)

Constantin Noica is widely believed to be one of the most original and prominent Romanian thinker of the last fifty years. In 1998, a year after his death, his book De dignitete Europae appeared in German translation. In it Noica tackles the classical philosophy of culture as morphology in Frobensius and Spengler, suggesting an interpretation of European historical cultural epochs from the viewpoint of linguistic-morphological forms: the Middle Ages correspond to the noun, the Renaissance to the adjective, Reformation, Counter-Reformation and (...) Classicism to the adverb, followed by the Pronoun, and the present age to numerals and conjunctions. To what extent can we today, twenty years later, at the time when Romania is entering the European Union, still advocate such philosophical Eurocentrism? (shrink)

Die erste fachübergreifende Ideengeschichte Rumäniens vermittelt anhand von Denkströmungen, Persönlichkeiten und Kulturpublizistik ein besseres Verständnis auch aktueller gesellschaftlicher Entwicklungen. Madalina Diaconu behandelt für den Zeitraum seit dem Beginn der Moderne bis in die Gegenwart die anhaltende Kontroverse zwischen prowestlicher Modernisierung und Traditionalismus, die Mythen der rumänischen Geschichte, Orthodoxie und Nationalismus, die Kulturpolitik während des Kommunismus, die Selbstsuche nach 1989 und dem EU-Beitritt von 2007. Auch andere in Rumänien lebende Ethnien sind berücksichtigt. Klar geschrieben, informativ und basierend auf Quellen aus erster (...) Hand ist der Band unverzichtbar für alle, die an Rumänien im europäischen Kontext interessiert sind. (shrink)

Die Ikonen der Ostkirche werden theologisch als „Sinnbilder im realistischen Sinne des Wortes“ gedeutet. Damit verbunden ist ein sog. sakramentaler Realismus, demgemäß das Urbild im materiellen Bild real präsent und wirksam ist. Vor der Erfindung der Fotografie spielte die mimetische Wirklichkeitsnähe bei der Heiligendarstellung kaum eine Rolle; von den ‚jüngsten‘ Heiligen gibt es aber sowohl Fotografien als auch traditionell gemalte Bilder. Der Status dieser Fotos und ihr Einfluss auf die Ikonen wurde bisher weder in der Bildwissenschaft noch in der Theologie (...) hinterfragt. Die Relevanz solcher Fotos für den Glauben wird zu einer virulenten Frage in der Ostkirche, wo das Gebot der Bilderverehrung gilt und bereits ‚Fotoikonen‘ von Heiligen kommerzialisiert werden. Als Grundlage für den Vergleich zwischen Fotos und Ikonen dient Roland Barthes’ realistische Auffassung der Fotografie in seinem Essay Die helle Kammer, der explizite Analogien zwischen Fotos und byzantinischen Ikonen enthält. „Wohl könnte ich ein Bild, ein Gemälde, eine Statue verehren, doch auch ein Photo?“, fragt Barthes dort. Im Weiteren wird versucht, diese Frage durch eine Gegenüberstellung von Fotografien und Ikonen in Bezug auf ihre Referentialität, Narrativität, Lichtsymbolik bzw. „Emanation des Referenten“, Autopoiesis, Reproduktion und Spektralität zu beantworten. (shrink)

Der Aufsatz von Mâdâlina Diaconu thematisiert in grundsätzlicher Weise die Möglichkeiten und Dimensionen einer interkulturellen Ästhetik auch in methodischer Hinsicht. Sie verbindet ihre Überlegungen mit Reflexionen zum Begriff der Kultur und der Möglichkeit des »Inter« im Rahmen der Inter-kulturalität.

Nella filosofia moderna la coscienza e la memoria sono state considerate fattori identitari cruciali. L’articolo analizza il ruolo svolto dagli odori nella costituzione dell’identità personale, distinguendo tre livelli: corporeo , socio-culturale e personale . Da un lato, il proprio odore corporeo funge da principium individuationis. Dall’altro, gli odori costituiscono la base di una comunità chiusa ed estremamente conservatrice. Infine, il sé emerge rammentando le proprie «storie» e i ricordi sugli odori.Consciousness and memory were considered identitary key factors in modern philosophy. (...) The article deals with the role played by smells in constituting the identity of the self, on three levels: corporeal , social-cultural , and personal . On the one hand, own’s body smell acts as a principium individuationis. On the other, smells ground a closed and utmost conservative community. Finally, self emerges by recollecting his/her own «stories» and memories about smells. (shrink)

Jeder Wahrnehmung liegen Kinästhesen zugrunde, doch tritt die Bewegung am deutlichsten im Tasten hervor. Untersucht wird hier die phänomenologische Auffassung vom Zusammenhang zwischen Tasten und Kinästhesen bei Husserl und Erwin Straus, im Vergleich zu der Tanzwissenschaft . Diese Interpretation wird teilweise durch andere Perspektiven ergänzt, die aus der pränatalen Anthropologie, Psychiatrie und den Ingenieurwissenschaften stammen. Das Vorbild ist bei Husserl die mechanische Bewegung zu Erkenntniszwecken; Straus entdeckt die Tierwelt und ihre appetitiven Bewegungen. Keine von diesen Analysen entspricht völlig dem Phänomen (...) des Tanzes als Ausdruck der propriozeptiv empfundenen Harmonie zwischen dem Leib und seiner Welt. (shrink)

Rolf KÜHN, Innere Gewißheit und lebendiges Selbst. Grundzüge der Lebens-phänomenologie ; John Wrae STANLEY, Die gebrochene Tradition. Zur Genese der philosophischen Hermeneutik Hans-Georg Gadamers ; Gisbert HOFFMANN, Heideggers Phänomenologie. Bewusstsein — Reflexion — Selbst und Zeit im Früh werk ; Dean KOMEL, Kunst und Sein. Beiträge zur Phänomenologischen Ästhetik und Aletheiologie.

"Gabriel Cercel: Martin HEIDEGGER, Reden und andere Zeugnisse eines Lebensweges; Attila Szigeti: Emmanuel LEVINAS, Positivité et transcendance. Suivi de Lévinas et la phenomenology; Cristian Ciocan: Jean-Luc MARION, Crucea vizibilului; Gabriel Cercel: Mădălina DIACONU, Blickumkehr. Mit Martin Heidegger zu einer relationalen ästhetik; Cristina Ionescu: Mark WRATHALL, Jeff MALPAS, Essays in Honour of Hubert L. Dreyfus; Cristian Ciocan: Ion COPOERU, Aparenţă şi sens. Repere ale fenomenologiei constitutive; Cristian Ciocan: Michael INWOOD, A Heidegger Dictionary; Cristian Ciocan: Linda FISCHER, Lester EMBREE, Feminist Phenomenology; Mădălina (...) Diaconu: Renato CRISTIN, Fenomeno storia. Fenomenologia e storicità in Husserl e Dilthey; Cristian Ciocan: Michel HAAR, La philosophie française entre phénoménologie et métaphysique; Gabriel Cercel: Otto PÖGGELER, Heidegger in seiner Zeit; Roxana Albu: James RISSER, Heidegger toward the Turn, Essays on the work of the 1930s; Cristian Ciocan: Virgil Ciomoş, Timp şi Eternitate. Aristotel, Fizica IV 10-14, Interpretare fenomenologică; Cristina Ionescu: William D. BLATTNER, Heidegger's Temporal Idealism; Bogdan Mincă: Gino ZACCARIA, L'inizio greco del pensiero. Heidegger e l'essenza futura della filosofia; Mădălina Diaconu: Ute GUZZONI, Wohnen und Wandern; Bogdan Tătaru-Cazaban: Emmanuel LÉVINAS, Totalitate şi infinit; Mihail Neamţu: Jean-Luc MARION, Étant donné. Essai d'une phénoménologie de la donation; Gabriel Cercel: Robert PETKOVŠEK, Heidegger-Index ; Cristian Ciocan: Einar ØVERENGET, Seeing The Self. Heidegger on Subjectivity Mihail Neamţu: Rolf KÜHN, Husserls Begriff der Passivität. Zur Kritik der passiven Synthesis in der genetischen Phänomenologie.". (shrink)

The paper aims to clarify several key aspects of Alexandru Dragomir: his amazing “technique” of keeping his entire knowledge in perfect working condition, his exceptional precision of references and his continuous disregard concerning writing. The root of all these peculiarities is traced back to Plato’s cognitive and moral arguments against writing, as expressed in Phaedrus and Seventh Letter. Finally, the article brings to light what seems to be the lesson of Dragomir’s life as a thinker: to rely only on the (...) living thought, that which is written “inside the soul”. (shrink)