As part of the wider theoretical framework of Zha Changping’s so-called world-picture logic, “world relational aesthetics” constitutes a theoretical system for critiquing pioneering contemporary Chinese art. Against the backdrop of the Western history of aesthetics, this paper attempts a categorization of world relational aesthetics in terms of its methodology and theory, treating it as a continuation in the tradition of theological aesthetics that offers unique insight into China’s pioneering art.

This book sets out to clarify the nature of the aesthetic as a category within the theory of historical materialism. It opens with an analysis of Marx's brief discussion of Greek art in the Grundrisse, moves through a series of readings of specifically bourgeois texts, including those of Ruskin, G.M. Hopkins, Nietzsche and Henry James, and then to the terrain of Marxism in the concepts of history underwriting the work of Fredric Jameson and Jean-Paul Sartre. Sprinkler detours through the recent (...) works of Perry Anderson to set the stage for a systematic consideration of the theoretical itinerary and continuing relevance of the contributions of Louis Althusser. Imaginary Relations is a cogently argued attempt to shift the terrain of Marxist theorizing about art from the domain of ideology considered as simply false consciousness to a concept of art which makes aesthetic texts sources of empirical data about the real, historical world. (shrink)

This paper traces the origins of Zha Changping’s theory of world relational aesthetics to earlier works in which Zha began developing the “world-picture logic” theoretical framework. It takes into consideration Zha’s various identities including his Christian public intellectual and ecclesiastical ones.

In this contribution, Sharon Todd moves beyond the bounds of what she calls “strong” instrumentalism (one that posits education in a mechanistic fashion and operates politically through a marrying of national educational policies with economic interests) and explores the intrinsic purpose of educational practice specifically through an aesthetic lens. Todd considers how two art projects by the feminist art collective Sisters Hope offer a way of theorizing instrumentalism in a “weak” sense — that is, an instrumentalism that sees pedagogical practices (...) not in terms of social function, but as that which gives form to specifically educational (not social or economic) ideas. She does this by drawing parallels between education and art as fields of practice, informed by notions of experience, relation, and formation/transformation. Drawing on John Dewey's aesthetics and Nicolas Bourriaud's relational aesthetics, Todd argues how these notions are central to an understanding of “weak” instrumentalism in education. (shrink)

Zha Changping takes inspiration from Western art theories and applies them to a contemporary Chinese context. The article has an ontological perspective, discussing how the concept of “relational aesthetics” manifests in Chinese contemporary art. It also discusses its relation to the history of ideas. The focus is on art, but the ontological perspectives on creation and humanity are universal.

The systematic examination of the visual depiction of nonhuman animals by humans, and the representation of nonhuman animal imagery is an opportunity to observe varying degrees of anthropocentrism in the manner in which the nonhuman animal is represented. The investigation we present ventures beyond the traditional scope of post-modern human alterity and suggests that an Otherness status should be extended to encompass both the human animal and the nonhuman animal. An important motivation for seriously considering nonhuman animal experience is the (...) biological similarities shared by human animals and nonhuman animals. Many perspectives toward the nonhuman animal have ignored such similarities, and this in turn results in the infliction of much trauma and injustice on nonhuman animals. We argue that the visual representation of nonhuman animals has the potential, to a substantial degree, to affect the general human understanding of and interactions with all nonhuman animals, and with positive, neutral, and negative implications for all involved. In other words, it really matters how we represent animals. (shrink)

Aesthetic value is a kind of value that emerges out of a variety of relations with the world. My interest here is not in developing a theory of relational aesth.

The Aesthetic Relation is a companion volume to The Work of Art: Immanence and Transcendence, published by Cornell in 1997.

The paper establishes the principle of ‘back-formation’ of artistic creation, the process by which artists realise in their work a theme or motif that had not been previously intended but is brought into being as the work comes to fruition. The authors suggest that teaching also should be guided by this principle. To solve the inherent problem of power imbalance in teaching, they appeal to Bakhtin's recourse to aesthetical judgment in addressing relational issues. Gadamer's rehabilitation of prejudices shows that (...) not only is an ethics of relation worked out as an aesthetic practice, but also that aesthetic practices are worked out within an ethics of relation. (shrink)

Even though aesthetics and affordances are two important factors based on which designers provide effective ways of interaction through their artifacts, there is no study or theoretical model that relates these two aspects of design. We suggest a theoretical explanation that relates the underlying functionality of aesthetics, in particular, of interaction aesthetics and of affordances in the design process. Our claim is that interaction aesthetics are one among other factors that allow users to enhance the detection (...) of action possibilities and consequently, the detection of affordances. Our aim is first to discuss the role of interaction aesthetics in the design process, and second to suggest an explanation for their role in the detection of affordances when users interact with artifacts. (shrink)

The paper argues that there is a proper place for literature within aesthetics but that care must be taken in identifying just what the relation is. In characterising aesthetic pleasure associated with literature it is all too easy to fall into reductive accounts, for example, of literature as merely “fine writing”. Belleslettrist or formalistic accounts of literature are rejected, as are two other kinds of reduction, to pure meaning properties and to a kind of narrative realism. The idea is (...) developed that literature—both poetry and prose fiction—invites its own distinctive kind of aesthetic appreciation which far from being at odds with critical practice, in fact chimes well with it. (shrink)

«What does art mean in a world where urgency predominates, a world that now exhausts its annual quota of renewable resources in July?» (Bourriaud [2021]: 7; my translation). The climate crisis (which began in the last century, but whose consequences have become increasingly worrying in recent years), the Covid 19 pandemic that struck the planet in 2020 and the recent conflict between Russia and Ukraine in the heart of Europe are epoch-making phenomena that are inevitably reshaping the present and future (...) of human societies. With respect to this situation, is art being called into question or, on the contrary, is it an essential tool for rethinking the world of tomorrow? More specifically, is public art today a lost cause or an opportunity? In this article, I will try to place these questions within the framework of what we might call eco-aesthetics, which has an essential connection to the category of “relations”. (shrink)

The inclusion of ethics and politics into artistic creation process is for many contemporary creators/artists an essential motivation while they consciously act in an aesthetic space polluted with the realities of a world in crisis. Art, which produces visible and sensible forms, can reveal aesthetic ideas and fundaments through aesthetic objects: drawing, video-installing or poem/poetry. And artists can make someone feel with their creations—whether these are beautiful, sublime, tragic, or ironic—ethical contentions violated by human action or the exertion/exercise of political (...) power. Works of art that are not only guided by the categories signed by beauty, because in artistic languages, violence and suffering also make/create form. And times of crisis are the ideal sphere/dimension for an art that gives a vivid way of seeing/watching the uncertainty, the perversion, the terrible. In bringing these philosophical—ethical, aesthetic and political—topics, I do it from an approach that departs form artistic creations and curatorial research. I try to penetrate the narrow thread between an ethical topic and the plastic form in which it incarnates/embodies itself, or between a political action and the aesthetic structure of language as a creative, expressive consequence. (shrink)

Mullā Sadrā appeared in the philosophical field when the prevalent philosophical questions were principality of existence and principality of quiddity. Although he first held the theory of principality of quiddity, later in a cognitional rotation he accepted the theory of principality of existence. Such a rotation gradually causes a wide revolution in the realm of philosophy, and consequently it yields principles such as unity of existence, analogicity of existence, and intensification of existence. He propounds external objectivity of existence, knowledge, beauty (...) and other qualities of perfection as his philosophical principles. Thus, due to Mullā Sadrā’s basic principles, we can attain to principles such as principality of beauty, unity of beauty, analogicity of beauty, and intensification of beauty. (shrink)

The ability to distinguish between emotions is considered indicative of well-being, but does emotion differentiation in an aesthetic context also reflect deeper and more knowledgeable aesthetic experiences? Here we examine whether positive and negative ED in response to artistic stimuli reflects higher fluency in an aesthetic domain. Particularly, we test whether knowledge of the arts and curiosity are associated with more fine-grained positive and negative aesthetic experiences. A sample of 214 people rated their positive and negative feelings in response to (...) various artworks including positive and negative themes. Positive ED was associated with the embracing sub-trait of curiosity that reflects engagement and enjoyment of novelty and complexity, but was unrelated to artistic knowledge and perceived comprehension. Negative ED was associated with higher curiosity and particularly more knowledge of the arts. This relationship was mediated by appraised comprehension suggesting that deeper engagement with art, by those with more art knowledge, is associated with more fine-grained emotional experiences. This finding extends ED beyond well-being research and suggests that more nuanced emotional experiences are more likely for those with expertise in the arts and motivation for exploration. (shrink)

I offer a critical reconstruction of Kant's thesis that aesthetic judgement is founded on the principle of the purposiveness of nature. This has been taken as equivalent to the claim that aesthetics is directly linked to the systematicity of nature in its empirical laws. I take issue both with Henry Allison, who seeks to marginalize this claim, and with Avner Baz, who highlights it in order to argue that Kant's aesthetics are merely instrumental for his epistemology. My solution (...) is that aesthetic judgement operates as an exemplary presentation of our general ability to schematise an intuition with a concept at the empirical level. I suggest that this counts as an empirical schematism. Although aesthetic judgement is not based on empirical systematicity, it can nevertheless offer indirect support for the latter in so far as it is a particular revelation of purposiveness in general. (shrink)

This book features writing by 17 authors from Germany and from African and Latin American countries on highly diverse aesthetic phenomena as seen from their own different points of view. The texts in this volume all deal with the imperative of ‘decolonization’: they try to highlight aesthetic strategies for the (re)discovery of unthematized, misappropriated, transcultural and even transcontinental histories and memories and aesthetic practices that are absent from or too little perceived within national consciousnesses. Novels, poems and musical performances from (...) the East African region are analysed as intertwined histories of the Indian Ocean and its different languages. Artworks of the Black Atlantic and perceptions of Africa are discussed from, for example, Brazilian perspectives. Within the German context, decolonisation strategies in exhibition practices in ethnological or art museums developed by Nigerian artists are evaluated; new terms such as ‘dividuation’ are proposed to describe these contemporary composite-cultural entanglements, and so on. A stimulating, wide-ranging and heterogeneous portrait of contemporary interwoven world cultures! (shrink)

This paper discusses what constitutes good teaching, taking as its cue the ‘aesthetic’ concept treated in everyday aesthetics and ‘internal good’ accounted by McIntyre. Teaching is viewed as practice, not merely as a basic action, due to its epistemological nature as everyday work. What everyday aesthetics teaches us is that even in the practice of teaching, sensory experiences such as comfort, familiarity, discomfort, ordinariness, etc. can be viewed as aesthetic experience. This kind of aesthetic experience constitute intuition supporting (...) ’good teaching’ that confirmed by examining Dreyfus et al. This ‘good teaching’ sensitivity is not specific to the individual practitioner, but is considered to be an ‘in-practice value (internal good?)’ (McIntyre) shared by the community of practice. From the aesthetic perspective, this value could be called ‘aesthetic value in practice’. In the teaching community of practice, ‘good teaching’ is both ‘beautiful teaching’ and ‘ethically good’ teaching. Teaching should be seen as a relational practice, and for this reason, The Ethico-Aesthetics of Teaching should be constructed. (shrink)

I explore Leon Chwistek’s views on ontology and aesthetics through a philosophical analysis of his texts. I present and briefly discuss two main interpretations of Chwistek’s ontology, i.e. logical and epistemological, before analyzing Chwistek’s aesthetics to show how it may be based on his ontology. Furthermore, I link both interpretations to the problem of whether or not Chwistek’s four realities share a common domain; a problem which is associated with his aesthetics. Finally, I make suggestions regarding further (...) research on his notion of transitional types of art and the corresponding realities. (shrink)

The aim of the study was to assess the effects of visual aesthetic perception on event-related potentials . Eight subjects assigned an aesthetic judgment and a 10-step beauty estimation to the target stimuli, consisting of famous artistic pictures and geometric shapes. In a further task, the subjects performed a motor response to the previously judged pictures and geometric shapes. ERPs were recorded through 54 scalp electrodes during both tasks. The P3b amplitude was increased during the categorization of the geometric shapes (...) compared to the artistic figures and during the vision of the beautiful targets preceding the motor response. The categorization of the aesthetic qualities of geometrical shapes seems to induce a higher level of attention, while a higher arousal variation was elicited by the recognition of beauty, in any form that was presented. (shrink)

Summary This paper presents and contextualizes the construct of Aesthetic Relational Knowing (ARK), as the intuitive experience of the therapist that emerges from the phenomenological field created in a meeting between therapist and client. The concept of isomorphism is considered as an epistemological turning point and a possible bridge connecting Gestalt therapy, Gestalt theory and Neurosciences. An example of the clinical consequences of this change of perspective is given. Moreover, a validation pilot study has shown that ARK is described (...) by three factors: empathy, resonance and bodily awareness. The ARK can be defined as a three-dimensional construct that supports the positive use of the therapist’s perception in terms of aesthetic knowing of the phenomenological field of the therapeutic situation. The construct of Aesthetic Relational Knowing can be considered a phenomenological, aesthetic and field-oriented contribution to psychotherapy training, supervision and research. (shrink)

Elmer H. Duncan; Selective Current Bibliography For Aesthetics and Related Fields, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Volume 31, Issue 4, 1 June 1973.

This article presents a historical account and philosophical analysis of the development of philosophical aesthetics in China in its Marxist regime, focusing on the relation between subject and object. It enters into the picture of the search for new philosophical aesthetics in Marxist China and engages the related debates and reforms. The representing four schools of aesthetics in the early decades of the new China are introduced, which were led by Gao Ertai, Cai Yi, Zhu Guangqin and (...) Li Zehou. Each of them presents a different relationship between the subject and the object in the aesthetics process and initiates debates and controversies among themselves. In the 1990s aestheticians of the younger generation suggested a modern aesthetics system in which a new aesthetics notion was reconstructed. The article analyzes the nature and the structure of this notion “ganxing”, and demonstrated the struggles in its search for a balance and merge integration among traditional Chinese aesthetics, Contemporary Western philosophies and Marxist aesthetics. Finally, this article also points out the Deweyan influences on the notion which is popular in PRC, and demonstrates that Chinese aesthetics in the contemporary scene has more concerns to add on, which is the application of its new aesthetical thoughts to the rapidly developing art scenes and social changes in contemporary China. (shrink)

Elmer H. Duncan; Selective Current Bibliography For Aesthetics and Related Fields, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Volume 29, Issue 4, 1 June 1971.