Aesthetics
Alexius Meinong’s Ontology:
- Absistence: every possible object that you can think of absists.
- Subsistence: things like numbers and theorems, they don’t contain any sort of impossibility.
- Existence: objects that are actually in the world.
The universe of discourse may differ than the real world, like Harry Potter, or follow the same rules as House of Cards.
An object of Aesthetic Appreciation is defined as something that prompts valuable aesthetic emotions in us.
Leo Tolstoy said art is an expression of the ineffable emotions of the artist.
Other opinions include the way to purge overpowering emotions, by accident. Or the aesthetic emotion brought to the audience.
Ludwig Witegensein considered the art defies the definition, you know it when you see it.
Arthur Danto and the chained cat.
David Hume said we should differentiate “Do I like it?” and “Is it good?” when thinking about art. The latter was more objective.
Plato argued that the art stimulated our emotional soul instead of the rational, and call for censorship.
R.G. Collingwood proposed:
Amusement Art: helps the audience to escape from the reality, diving into a no-stakes fictional world after a stressful day.
Magic Art: stuff that helps the audience learn how better to interact with the world’s reality.
The photographer, David Slater and Naruto, the monkey, took some selfies. Who were the artists behind the picture?
Aristotle is pro-art, art can help us to experience the full range of emotions in our lives, with pleasure, called catharsis. That is the answer of the Problem of Tragedy.
Kendall Walton explained the Paradox of Fiction: we experienced quasi-emotions, emotion-like responses that are trigged by fiction, but don’t exist or function.
Noel Carroll disagreed.
Autonomists maintain that art and morality are entirely separate. Evaristti’s goldfish blender was immune to morality.
Aesthetic Moralists argued that the morality and art are interconnected.