The article analyzes the aesthetic content of the concept of realism in stylistic, genre and ideological aspects. Guided by the comparative method and a comprehensive approach to the study of the problem, the author declares the a priori avant-garde nature of art and, as a result, the groundlessness of confrontation between realists and avant-gardists. The catharsis achieved by the realism of expressive means should be real. Thus, the author's vision of realism presupposes not so much the harmony (...) of art with the displayed epoch, but rather participation, confession of enduring values, which elevates art above the historical and social context. В статье анализируется эстетическое содержание понятия реализма в стилевом, жанровом и мировоззренческом аспектах. Руководствуясь компаративным методом и комплексным подходом к изучению проблемы, автор декларирует априорную авангардность искусства и, как следствие, беспочвенность конфронтации реалистов и авангардистов. Реальным должен быть катарсис, достигаемый реализмом выразительных средств. Таким образом, авторское ви́дение реализма предполагает не столько созвучие искусства отображаемой эпохе, сколько сопричастность, исповедание непреходящих ценностей, что возвышает искусство над историко-социальным контекстом. (shrink)

The concept of alienation has taken firm root in the field of esthetics. One cannot say that its content is identical in everything one reads. Nonetheless, employment of this concept is always for the purpose, so to speak, of "clarification." It is often employed on the assumption that its use permits one to make clear whatever may be incomprehensible in the form and content of a work of art. It has become customary to have recourse to the concept of alienation (...) in esthetic analysis of modern foreign works of literature and art. As an example, we may cite the international discussion around the work of Franz Kafka, many participants in which hold that Kafka is a "product of alienation," "a prisoner of alienation," and that his work either expresses "his self-alienation" or involves depiction of the "consequences of alienation.". (shrink)

Aaron Ridley has concluded that “Collingwood’s global Idealism is really only a distraction from the much more important and interesting ideas that constitute his aesthetics.” My paper takes issue with this conclusion. Collingwood’s idealism is an integral part of his aesthetics, and it simply cannot be shucked off, leaving his aesthetics untouched and intact. A careful reading of Collingwood’s oeuvre in aesthetics reveals that it is his long-standing antipathy to realism that grounds both his critique of pseudo-art and his (...) own theory of art, particularly his idealist theory of the imagination. If Collingwood’s aesthetics are interesting and important, so is the idealism that grounds them. (shrink)

Realism Materialism Art (RMA) introduces a diverse selection of new realist and materialist philosophies and examines their ramifications in the arts. Encompassing neo-materialist theories, object-oriented ontologies, and neo-rationalist philosophies, RMA serves as a primer on “speculative realism,” considering its conceptual innovations as spurs to artistic thinking and practice and beyond. Despite their differences, these philosophical positions propose that thought can and does think outside itself, and that reality can be known without its being shaped by and for human (...) comprehension. Today’s realisms and materialisms explicitly challenge many of the dominant assumptions of cultural practice and theoretical inquiry, opening up new domains of research and artistic inquiry. -/- Cutting across diverse thematic interests and modes of investigation, the 35 essays in RMA offer a snapshot of the emerging and rapidly changing set of ideas and practices proposed by contemporary realisms and materialisms. The book demonstrates the broad challenge of realist and materialist approaches to received disciplinary categories and forms of practice, capturing their nascent reworking of art, philosophy, culture, theory, and science, among other fields. As such, RMA expands beyond the primarily philosophical context in which realism and materialism have developed. (shrink)

Excerpt from The New Realism: Coöperative Studies in Philosophy On July 21, 1910, we published a brief article entitled 'The Program and First Platform of Six Realists,' in which we indicated the direction philosophical inquiry ought to take. We there asserted that advance would be facilitated by cooperative investigations; and the drafting of the platform was a first attempt to confirm this belief. The present volume continues, on a larger scale, the work there inaugurated; and we hope it will (...) be followed by other collections of studies. The introductory essay voices our common opinions. The other essays do so only in part. It has seemed best to publish them without laboring for complete unanimity, inasmuch as their agreements quite overshadow their differences. They have been written after prolonged conferences. A few important debatable topics are briefly discussed by dissenting members in the Appendix. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

_Integrated Truth and Existential Phenomenology: A Thomistic Response to Iconic Anti-Realists in Science_ relates existential phenomenology to a modal reasoning for establishing a Thomistic integration of objective truths in science, theology, ethics, art and politics.

Jacob Leigh _The Cinema of Ken Loach: Art in the Service of the People_ London and New York: Wallflower Press, 2002 ISBN 1-903364-31-0 211 pp.

That form shall correspond to the content of a work is a law of realist art. Marxist-Leninist esthetics, on the basis of discovery of this law, does not prescribe an invented norm for the artist, but generalizes from the experience of art itself. Methodologically, it takes as its point of departure the dialectics of content and form. In so doing, Marxist-Leninist esthetics does not dissolve in philosophical concepts the distinctive features of content in art and the nature of form. It (...) examines the unity of content and form, and their development, in the context in which they manifest themselves specifically in art. In other words, it investigates the esthetic features of the relationship between content and form in art. (shrink)

Realism has a significant place in the history of film theory. The claim that film is essentially a realistic art form has been employed to justify the art-status of films as well as the distinctness of film as a form. André Bazin and others once used realist ontologies of film to try to establish realist teleologies and universal critical standards. I briefly sketch this history before considering the prospects for various versions of realism: Bazin’s, as well as Kendall (...) Walton’s and Gregory Currie’s less ambitious but more plausible accounts. I argue that these theories, though they are the best cases we have for realism, are not adequate ontologies of film. However, while prior realist philosophers and critics were wrong to think that realism can provide a critical standard for all films, realism is nonetheless a praiseworthy filmic achievement - one that the opponent of ontological realism should not dismiss. (shrink)

Demonstrating how radical political transformation might be facilitated from within the much maligned aesthetic category of realism, the author examines a number of contemporary works from Big Brother, Melancholia, catfish, and This is Not a Film to Alize Shvarts' "abortion art." Her discussion of these pieces suggests new understandings of the role of trope l'oeil in illusion, the rendering of realism's limitations, and relationships between hypervirtuality and simulation. The author's core project throughout is to develop a framework for (...) thinking about contemporary forms of realism which, rather than focusing on the importance of seeing beyond deceptions that distort reality, argues that reality lies within the deceptions themselves. (shrink)

In her new book, Mrs. Langer has boldly chosen to orient aesthetics toward a reconsideration of artistic creation and the "making of the artistic symbol." Philosophy of art is impossible, she contends, until we return to the source of art, the artist at work in his studio; and deal patiently and realistically with his problems and achievements. Only then will we be able to understand, through clarifications of the concepts involved in art creation--"expression," "creation," "import," "vitality," "organic form," "symbol"--the nature (...) of a work of art and its relation to the beholder. (shrink)

In this paper, key concepts from the philosophy of critical realism and meta-Reality are used to develop an art education research project that can enhance the freedom of art students in their art work and, potentially, contribute to the promotion of emancipation beyond the world of art work. In the process of developing this project, the author engages in a two-way interrogation of both concepts and empirical research. The stratified model of reality, the ontological status of absence and the (...) concepts of transcendental identification, transcendental agency and the ground-state have informed decisions about data collection and contributed to the analysis of data in this study. The research results offer some empirical support for the philosophy of critical realism and meta-Reality, whilst also identifying potential inconsistencies. A further original feature of the paper is that it draws on the flow theory of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to complement Roy Bhaskar's account of the ground-state and of the nature of free-flowing activity; also using neuroscience to provide some neurological evidence for the differences between mindful and spontaneous activity. It is anticipated that the cross-analysis between cases resulting from the two-way interchange between theory and empirical evidence could help to generate a model for ‘unblocking the creative block’, experienced not only by students practising art-making, but also by the wider community. (shrink)

Ontological approaches to the arts have neglected art forms such as dance. This hinders analysis of the metaphysical similarities and differences between different art forms. In this paper, I develop a metaphysical realist ontological approach to dance and sport that is grounded in embodiment. I first examine the debate between descriptivism and metaontological realism in the philosophy of arts in the context of Thomasson’s descriptive approach and Dodd’s metaontological approach of folk-theoretic modesty. Following Dodd, I adopt a realist metaontological (...) approach to dance as an art form, drawing on philosophical debates within dance. I then review metaphysical approaches to sport and argue that most such approaches are based on abstract, top-down models. I therefore propose an ontological account of sport and dance based on metaontological realism and grounded in embodied movement knowledge. Drawing on Schaffer’s concept of ground functionalism, I use this approach to compare the aesthetic and bodily aspects of sport and dance in terms of elite-level movement knowledge. I describe how the embodiment of such movement knowledge through practice permits dancers and athletes to create expert movements. Drawing on findings from neuroscientific research, I argue that dancers and athletes, through the process of physiological plasticity, acquire embodied memories that are transformed into new bodily and behavioral dispositions. I believe that the metaphysical realist ontological approach presented here could help to broaden the focus in arts ontology to encompass movement disciplines such as sport and dance. This account may also engender cross-disciplinary research and encourage philosophers to explore the role of movement in arts such as music. (shrink)

International law evolved to end and prevent armed conflict as much as for any other reason. Yet, the law against war appears weaker today than ever in its long history, evidenced by raging armed conflicts in which people are killed, injured, and forcibly displaced. The environment is devastated, and the planet impoverished. These consequences can be traced to the dominant ideology of realism. In 1946, Hersch Lauterpacht challenged that ideology by contrasting it with the idea of international law, composed (...) of natural law, positive law, and process theory. The Art of Law in the International Community revives his vision, rebuilding the understanding of why international law binds, what its norms require, and how courts are the ideal substitutes for war. The secret to the renewal of international law lies in revitalizing the moral foundation of natural law through drawing on aesthetic philosophy and the arts. (shrink)

This article explores the profound influence of Zen Buddhism on the formation of Japanese aesthetics, focusing on key concepts such as simplicity (kanso), naturalness (shibumi), and impermanence (mujo). Zen realism, characterized by the acceptance of reality without subjective embellishments, is examined as a foundational principle that shaped not only Japanese cultural identity but also a universal aesthetic language. The study highlights the philosophical tenets of Zen, including the principles of «non-duality» (fuju) and «direct intuition» (jikan), which guide the perception (...) of reality as it is and foster a unique artistic and cultural worldview.Relevance: In the context of globalization and cultural exchange, the Zen-inspired Japanese approach to aesthetics offers valuable insights into contemporary issues of sustainability, mindfulness, and design thinking. The enduring appeal of Japanese minimalism in modern art, architecture, and design underscores the universality and adaptability of Zen principles, making this topic highly pertinent for cross-cultural studies and global artistic dialogues.Objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate how Zen Buddhist values influenced the development of Japanese aesthetics and contributed to creating a universal artistic and philosophical framework.Tasks: To achieve this objective, the article:- Analyzes the philosophical underpinnings of Zen realism in shaping the perception of reality.- Explores the aesthetic principles of simplicity (kanso), naturalness (shibumi), and impermanence (mujo) in traditional and modern Japanese art.- Examines the impact of Zen-inspired aesthetics on contemporary global design and architecture.The study demonstrates that the pursuit of simplicity, rooted in Zen practice, transcends cultural boundaries and has become a universal language in the realms of art and design. Examples include Tadao Ando’s architecture, which embodies harmony between light, space, and void, and the minimalist design philosophy of brands like Muji, which resonates globally. The analysis also underlines the role of Zen aesthetics in fostering ecological awareness and a deeper connection to the present moment, aligning with contemporary global challenges.The article concludes by emphasizing the potential of Zen-inspired aesthetics to serve as a universal cultural category, capable of bridging diverse traditions and promoting cross-cultural dialogue. Future research directions include examining Zen principles as a framework for addressing ecological, social, and philosophical issues in an increasingly interconnected world. (shrink)

This article considers film as a form of artificial intelligence (AI). This non-anthropocentric hypothesis was first formulated in 1946 by filmmaker and theorist Jean Epstein and regards film as the thinking performance of a technical apparatus, the cinematograph, which is a manifestation of machine thinking based on the holistic entanglement of thought and world, film and philosophy. The article pursues an enquiry into ‘thinking’: one of the most prominent and oldest topics considered in philosophy, and also essential to art and (...) film. Thinking is not only characterised as a sense (like sight or taste) but as a creative and, ultimately, intra-active act. The possibility of film as AI is approached not only from a Deleuzian angle, long appraised by film-philosophy, but also through questions recently raised by theories of artistic research and the speculative-materialist turn in contemporary philosophy. The latter have as a common denominator a strong critique of anthropocentrism in Western philosophy; the article enquires into this criticism from different angles and applies it to the main hypothesis of this analysis – to regard film as a form of AI. (shrink)

Historians of French politics, art, philosophy and literature have long known the tensions and fascinations of Louis XV's reign, the 1750s in particular. David Charlton's study comprehensively re-examines this period, from Rameau to Gluck and elucidates the long-term issues surrounding opera. Taking Rousseau's Le Devin du Village as one narrative centrepiece, Charlton investigates this opera's origins and influences in the 1740s and goes on to use past and present research to create a new structural model that explains the elements of (...) reform in Gluck's tragédies for Paris. Charlton's book opens many new perspectives on the musical practices and politics of the period, including the Querelle des Bouffons. It gives the first detailed account of intermezzi and opere buffe performed by Eustachio Bambini's troupe at the Paris Opéra from August 1752 to February 1754 and discusses Rameau's comedies Platée and Les Paladins and their origins. (shrink)

In his well-known Art & Illusion, E. H. Gombrich reproduces a brush and ink drawing entitled “Cows in Derwentwater” of a scene in the English Lake Country. The drawing was done by a certain Chiang Yee, whom Gombrich describes as “a Chinese writer and painter of great gifts and charm”. On the page opposite this reproduction Gombrich reproduces a lithograph of a similar scene in the Lake Country, this one an anonymous “‘picturesque’ rendering from the Romantic period” and dated 1826. (...) The differences, as one would guess, are striking—and utterly typical of these two traditions of painting and drawing. (shrink)

Der psychologische Realist verteidigt eine realistische Deutung mentaler Zuschreibungen. Er vertritt die Auffassung, daß mentale Zustände existieren, auch wenn sie der äußeren Beobachtung nicht zugänglich sind. Kann man es rechtfertigen, aus einer Menge von äußeren Beobachtungen auf unbeobachtbare mentale Zustände anderer Personen zu schließen? - In dem Aufsatz wird die Frage diskutiert, ob eine realistische Auffassung mentaler Zustände mit Hilfe eines Schlusses auf die beste Erklärung gerechtfertigt werden kann. Diese Art der Rechtfertigung liegt nahe, wenn man die Meinung vertritt, mentale (...) Begriffe könnten als theoretische Begriffe der Alltagspsychologie aufgefaßt werden.Im Rahmen der Diskussion wird eine Brücke zwischen der Philosophie des Geistes auf der einen Seite und der Wissenschaftstheorie und Sprachphilosophie auf der anderen Seite geschlagen. Es wird dafür argumentiert, daß das Prinzip des Schlusses auf die beste Erklärung in der Philosophie des Geistes so wenig zu rechtfertigen ist wie in der Wissenschaftstheorie und daß die radikale Interpretation in ähnlicher Weise unbestimmt ist wie die radikale Übersetzung. Das Ergebnis der Diskussion ist allerdings nicht rein negativ. Denn die Unmöglichkeit einer Rechtfertigung impliziert nicht die Unmöglichkeit einer Erklärung. Auch wenn sich eine realistische Deutung mentaler Zuschreibungen nicht rechtfertigen läßt, eine Erklärung unserer realistischen Praxis ist möglich, wenn man mentale Entitäten fünktional durch ihre kausale Rolle definiert. (shrink)

Thesis: Art like science radically affects our perceiving and thinking, and the two are substantially alike in that together--along with an inherited "natural" language system with which they overlap--they enable us to articulate the world. Science has been advanced as the measure of all things: scientific realism. By implication, art pertains to beauty, science truth. Science effects conceptual break-throughs, changes our models of natural order. On the contrary (I argue), as a nonverbal symbol system art similarly affects paradigm-induced expectations. (...) Substantively there is no difference in the way each enables us to articulate or measure the world: symbolic realism. The myth of resemblance as a criterion of representation--imitation as a one-one relation--has, at least since the time of Plato, obscured this truth. Once the distinction between representational and nonrepresentational art falls, the true nature of artist (like scientist) as maker is illumined. The artist, the scientist (disciplinarian), the cosmologist (those responsible for the formulation of so-called natural languages--in time all of us) make the world or, what practically amounts to the same thing, the known, perceived world. This is the claim of the symbolic realist. Is symbolic realism itself only a watershed? What implication does this critique have for assessing the role of the philosopher today? (shrink)

A Philosophy of Cinematic Art is a systematic study of cinema as an art form, showing how the medium conditions fundamental features of cinematic artworks. It discusses the status of cinema as an art form, whether there is a language of film, realism in cinema, cinematic authorship, intentionalist and constructivist theories of interpretation, cinematic narration, the role of emotions in responses to films, the possibility of identification with characters, and the nature of the cinematic medium. Groundbreaking in its coverage (...) of a wide range of contemporary cinematic media, it analyses not only traditional photographic films, but also digital cinema, and a variety of interactive cinematic works, including videogames. (shrink)

Il est devenu banal de déclarer que les images virtuelles et le mondes fictifs crées par les nouvelles technologies donnent à repenser le rapport de l'homme au réel, et le rapport de l'homme à lui-même. Il conviendrait aujourd'hui de regarder les oeuvres d'art comme des dispositifs fictionnels, non pas seulement comme de pures et simples fictions, mais comme des virtualités qui aiguisent nos yeux, affûtent nos oreilles, engendrent les fantasmes que nous projetons dans le futur comme autant d'espoirs d'émancipation.

This article reconstructs the forgotten friendship between Georges Bataille and the Russian émigré poet and philosopher Boris Poplavsky. Comparing their solar metaphysics, I focus on conceptions of friendship, sacrifice and depersonalisation. First, I retrace Bataille’s relationship to early Surrealis and Russian circles in interwar Paris, with a focus on his friendship with Irina Odoevtseva. I then offer a novel reading of Poplavsky’s poetry through the lens of Bataille’s philosophy, analysing a recurring motif that I call ‘dark solarity’. Uncovering a hidden (...) intertextual dialogue between Poplavsky and Bataille, I argue for Poplavsky’s lasting impact on Bataille’s anti-Icarian sun cult. Finally, my paper demonstrates how Poplavsky’s writings on solar sacrifice, excess and friendship left marks on Bataille’s vision of a solar community, embodied in the secret society Acéphale. The dialogue between Poplavsky and Bataille, I finally suggest, is a missing piece in the entangled history of Russian and French philosophy, as well as an original contribution to discourses on friendship in twentieth-century continental thought. (shrink)

Realists regarding scientific knowledge – those who think that our best scientific representations truly describe both observable and unobservable aspects of the natural world – have special need of a notion of approximate truth. Since theories and models are rarely considered true simpliciter, the realist requires some means of making sense of the claim that they may be false and yet close to the truth, and increasingly so over time. In this paper, I suggest that traditional approaches to approximate truth (...) are insensitive to two crucial features of scientific knowledge, and that for each of these, analogies between representational practices in the sciences and in art prove useful to understanding how this situation can be remedied. First, I outline two distinct ways in which representations deviate from the truth, commonly referred to as ‘abstraction’ and ‘idealization’. Second, I argue that these practices exemplify different conventions of representation, and that for each, the conditions of approximation relevant to explicating the concept of approximate truth must be understood differently. The concept is thus heterogeneous; approximate truth is a virtue that is multiply realized, relative to different contexts of representation. This understanding is facilitated, I suggest, by considering the distinction between realistic and non-realistic representation in art. (shrink)

It would be no exaggeration to say that our art is presently undergoing a revolutionary stage in its development. The revolutionary renewal that has seized all spheres of life is being ever more forcefully represented in artistic culture as well. That culture is beginning to free itself from bureaucratic regimentation, incompetent pressure from above, inflated authorities, lifeless cliches, and opportunism of the moment. Art is actively seeking its place in perestroika, and is in turn in many respects defining the moral (...) climate of perestroika. Recent works such as Fire [Pozhar] by V. Rasputin, the Sad Detective Story [Pechal'nyi detektiv] by V. Astaf'ev, The Execution Block [Plakha] by Ch. Aitmatov, the paintings of G. Korzhev and V. Sidorov, the sculpture of V. Klykov, etc., are actively working for renewal. (shrink)

The rise of neo-integrative worldviews : towards a rational spirituality for the coming planetary civilization -- Beyond fundamentalism : spiritual realism, spiritual literacy and education -- Realism, literature and spirituality -- Judgemental rationality and the equivalence of argument : realism about God, response to Morgan's critique -- Transcendence and God : reflections on critical realism, the "new atheism", and Christian theology -- Human sciences at the edge of panentheism : God and the limits of ontological (...) class='Hi'>realism -- Beyond East and West -- Meta-Reality (re-)contextualized -- Anti-anthropic spirituality : dualism, duality and non-duality -- "The more you kick God out the front door, the more he comes in through the window" : Sean Creaven's critique of transcendental dialectical critical realism and the philosophy of meta-Reality -- Resisting the theistic turn -- The pulse of freedom and the existential dilemma of alienation -- Meta-Reality, creativity and the experience of making art. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the development of cubism by Picasso and Braque at the beginning of the twentieth century can be illuminated by consideration of long-running philosophical debates concerning perceptual realism, in particular by Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary properties, and Kant’s empirical realism. Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Picasso’s dealer and early authority on cubism, interpreted Picasso and Braque as Kantian in their approach. I reject his influential interpretation, but propose a more plausible, Kantian reading of cubism.

The aim of this paper is to present those realistic tendencies in Bulgarian painting from the 1920s and 1930s, that echoe contemporary West European ones, like the New Objectivity in Germany. Among others, it will be shown how Bulgarian artist’s paintings are inspired by the folklore primitive from the past and reflect the assiduity of cultural administration to renew the idea of a modern artistic school of art with a defined national character.

Part I: Reprinted articles -- Twenty-fourth award of Aquinas medal by the American Catholic Philosophical Association to W. Norris Clarke, SJ -- Interpersonal dialogue : key to realism -- Causality and time -- System : a new category of being -- A curious blind spot in the Anglo American tradition of antitheistic argument -- The problem of the reality and multiplicity of divine ideas in Christian neoplatonism -- Is the ethical eudaimonism of Saint Thomas too self-centered? -- Conscience and (...) the person -- Democracy, ethics, religion : an intrinsic connection -- What cannot be said in Saint Thomas's essence-existence doctrine -- Living on the edge : the human person as frontier being and microcosm -- The metaphysics of religious art : reflections on a text of Saint Thomas -- Part II: New articles -- The immediate creation of the human soul by God and some contemporary -- Challenges -- The creative imagination : unique expression of our soul-body unity -- The creative imagination as treated in western thought -- The integration of personalism and thomistic metaphysics in twenty-first-century Thomism. (shrink)

This paper shows some key aspects and main theses of the so-called “privative” theory of art founded on philosophical realism. For the sake of contrast, idealism is discussed and its theories of art: “eidetic” (rationalism) and “manic”-expressive (irrationalism). The presentation of the two traditions is crowned with a thesis according to which the realistic theory of art is universal and cognitively neutral. The tradition of idealism, for that matter, does not explain art, but projects its vision and is entangled (...) in a debate between so-called essentialism and anti-essentialism, the debate that cannot be solved. (shrink)

A social realist discussion of art.--R. L. J.

With the rapid development of contemporary social economy and the relative stability of the political situation, art has also developed rapidly. But currently, there are many unique and innovative art works in society, and the style and theme of the works are increasingly deviating from people's lives. In response to this issue, this study attempts to analyze the reflective spirit and tragic consciousness in "Scar Art" works from a realistic perspective. The research adopted comparative and image analysis methods to compare (...) the stylistic differences between Chinese scar art and other schools of art, using representative painters' oil paintings as samples to analyze the inner diameter, techniques, emotions, and visual expression of their creations. The objective was to provide reflection and inspiration for the current Chinese art community through the analysis of the realism spirit contained in the "scar art" works that bring profound value to the Chinese art community. In response to the current problem of oil painting creation being detached from people's lives, this study analyzes the artistic characteristics of scar art works and the expectations of reflecting the characteristics of the times, providing inspiration for modern art creation. The study found out that realism spirit in "scar art" is based on the principle of objectively reflecting the current era and society, paying attention to the spirit of people's lives, which is also what the current development of art needs to consider. (shrink)

The Paleolithic art interpretation is still a polemical subject. Nearly 300 caves covered with Paleolithic paintings have been discovered and more than 90% are located in Spain and in France. Surprisingly, more than half the painted illustrations are abstract patterns such as dots and lines. The high realism of naturalist figures also stands out. We will present the four groups of theories that have been formulated since the end of the XIXth century in order to interpret the Paleolithic art: (...) the artistic theory from Lartet and Piette; the magical hunting theory from anthropologists such as Tylor and Frazer and archeologists like Breuil; the structuralist theory from Raphael, Leroi- Gourhan and Laming-Emperaire; and lastly the shamanist theory from Lewis-Williams and Clottes. We will also refer to the agglutinative theory gathering all of these from Ucko and Rosefeld. Afterwards I will offer my own thought. Paleolithic paintings are the expression the life led by every generation of the clan. The panels or the set of animals as much as the painted signs are their own History collection. (shrink)

This volume uses the art of Rome to help us understand the radical historical break between the fundamental ancient pre-supposition that there is a natural world or cosmos situating human life, and the equally fundamental modern emphasis on human imagination and its creative power. Rome's unique art history reveals a different side of the battle between ancients and moderns than that usually raised as an issue in the history of science and philosophy. The book traces the idea of a cosmos (...) in pre-modern art in Rome, from the reception of Greek art in the Roman republic to the construction of the Pantheon, to early Christian art and architecture. It then sketches the disappearance of the presupposition of a cosmos in the High Renaissance and Baroque periods, as creativity became a new ideal. Through discussions of the art and architecture that defines proto-modern Rome- from Michelangelo's terribilita' in the Sistine Chapel, Caravaggio's realism, Baroque illusionism, the infinities of Borromini's architecture, to the Grand Tour's representations of ruins- through an interpretation of such major issues and works, this book shows how modern art liberates us while leaving us feeling estranged from our grounding in the natural world. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, architectural history, classics, philosophy, and early modern history and culture. (shrink)

Realism and Russia? Realism is a notion with multiple meanings, so options abound as to how the two might connect with one another. An old Russian proverb conveys a realist message about social properties: "An individual in Rssia was composed of three parts: a body, a soul, and a passport." (Ruben 1985, 83) Having a passport signals the possession of a complex set of social properties, and if these are taken to be real in some appropriate sense, one (...) is inplying a realist view in social ontology. In another sense of the word, realism is a live issues in the study of international relations. Political realism considers the behaviour of states by emphasizing the importance of national interests and the drive for power on the one hand, and the suppression of moral concerns on the other (e.g. Donnelly 2000). Russian realists hold diverse views about the newly emerged unipolar global power structure and Russia's proper strategy for adjusting to this structure (e.g. Shakleyina and Bogaturov 2004). Realism is a family of viewpoints also in the arts (including painting, music and literature) and their study. Socialist realism is a version that used to be an official doctrine in Russia, gently requesting artists to optimistically represent society's march towards communism, glorifying the heroic role of the proletariat in driving the process. Socialist realism was also well known elsewhere. So much so that in the 1970s, a philosophy professor at the University of Helsinki announced to give a lecture course on "scientific realism" but on its way to the university catalogue through the university administration, the title of the course was transformed into "socialist realism". In the spirit of rectifying that old administrative mistake, the remards to follow deal with scientifit realism as a philosophy of science. The general issue to be addressed is how the social sciences relate to the social world, in both directions. (shrink)

Tracks the sublime art movement from Kant to the 21st century and onwards to a new future Stephen Zepke tracks the sublime art movement from its beginnings in Kant to its flowering in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He shows that the idea of sublime art waxes and wanes in the work of Jean-Francois Lyotard, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Ranciere and the recent Speculative Realism movement. With it, a visionary politics of art seeks (...) to give it the most creative power possible: the power to overcome our conditions and embrace the unknown. (shrink)

Illustrations: 1 B/w Illustration Description: Pranab Kumar Sen, Professor Emeritus, Jadavpur University in whose honour this volume has been prepared was one of the leading philosophers of our country and a highly respected teacher. It carries thirty-five articles which deal with different branches of philosophy,viz., philosophical logic, philosophy of language, ontology, theory of knowledge, Kant exegesis, moral philosophy, social philosophy, philosophy of art. As Sen's philosophical interests and expertise were wide the authors had ample freedom in their choice of topics. (...) This volume will be of interest to those who are acquainted with sophisticated literature in analytic philosophy, scholars working in different branches of philosophy and also general readers of modern philosophy. (shrink)

This article offers a detailed textual reexamination of the ‘family resemblance’ passages to reconsider their implications for understanding art. The reassessment takes into account their broader context in the Philosophical Investigations, including the rule following considerations, and draws on a realist interpretive framework associated principally with the work of Cavell, Diamond, McDowell, and Putnam. Wittgensteinian “realism with a human face” helps us discern that the primary issue is not whether certain concepts are definable, posing a stark opposition between essentialism (...) and its denial about kinds such as language or games. What is at issue is keeping uses of language in view in their variety and their broader life contexts. Focus on rules suggests more broadly that norms and values inhere in practices and play a constitutive role in determining the entities integral to those practices. From this perspective, a Wittgensteinian framework explains art as locally overlapping practices, each with their own constitutive norms and values for the works integral to them. What makes something art has normative force specific to a practice. This recognizes the historically contingent nature of art practices in a way that relational definitions or disjunctive ‘cluster’ explanations do not. (shrink)

This volume advances the contemporary debate on five central issues in the philosophy of film. These issues concern the relation between the art and technology of film, the nature of film realism, how narrative fiction films narrate, how we engage emotionally with films, and whether films can philosophize. Two new essays by leading figures in the field present different views on each issue. The paired essays contain significant points of both agreement and disagreement; new theories and frameworks are proposed (...) at the same time as authors review the current state of debate. Given their combination of richness and clarity, the essays in this volume can effectively engage both students, undergraduate or graduate, and academic researchers. (shrink)

In this philosophical memoir I trace out the part that Roy Bhaskar's philosophy of science played in the development of a non-reductive account of realism in art and cultural theory in the 1970s and 1980s in the UK, and the part his Dialectic played in the theorization of the concept of the philistine developed by myself and Dave Beech between 1996 and 1998. Our de-positivization of the concept as a symptomatic negation of the bourgeois ‘aesthete’ drew extensively on Bhaskar's (...) notion of absence as a real absence. This in turn, allowed us to bring Bhaskar's realism and Theodor Adorno's Aesthetic Theory into alignment, where the philistine plays a similar, if undeveloped and untheorized role. Overall, the article marks a recognition of the continuing possibilities of Dialectic for a theory of negation in contemporary art and cultural theory. (shrink)

The Art of Being: Poetics of the Novel and Existential Philosophy offers an account of the poetics of the realist novel, based on how the novel reorients philosophy in the nineteenth and twentieth century. Philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Beauvoir not only read novels and use novelistic techniques of representation in their work, but also discover a radically new way of thinking about the relation between the form of the novel and the nature of self-knowledge, freedom, and world. Drawing (...) upon a rich archive of existentialists writing on the novel, Ong argues that for these thinkers the poetics of the novel in its classic phase - the nineteenth- and twentieth-century realist novel - discloses the conditions for thinking about the meaning of existence. Bringing together philosophy, novel theory, and intellectual history with groundbreaking readings of the novels of Tolstoy, Eliot, Austen, James, Flaubert, and Zola, this study reveals how the novel engages with philosophically rich notions of freedom, world, and the unfinished character of human life in its very form. (shrink)

These two short essays are a hebrew translation of an exchange that followed the publication of "verisimilitude, conventions and beliefs" by menachem brinker which contained a criticism of nelson goodman's theory of representation and realism in "languages of art" (1969). (edited).

Volume 11, Issue 1-2, January–December 2024.

Is education being disingenuous about arts education? When arts education is evaluated, the value of arts education is disputed. Arts education is judged to be of poor educational proof value. I believe a very different conclusion about arts education can be drawn. Pertinent to a good education in general is arts education. Why the arts are educationally troubling and how arts education can improve education is examined here. A brief account of arts education is given in an attempt to explain (...) why the arts in education are not a luxury but, instead, a genuine need. (shrink)

This article mainly outlines and explores the art exhibitions held between China and the Soviet Union during the founding of the People's Republic of China. The author examines in detail such aspects of the topic as mutual exchanges of art exhibitions between China and the Soviet Union since the founding of the People's Republic of China. Particular attention is paid to the political background against which the evolution in Chinese art took place, as well as the legacy of Soviet realist (...) art in China in the political context and the interaction of art with politics and state-building. The author emphasizes the positive influence of art exhibitions held by the Soviet Union in China on Chinese art education and the creativity of artists. The main conclusions of this study are that the various exhibitions of Soviet art held in China provided an effective opportunity for Chinese artists to study Soviet realist oil paintings. The emergence of Soviet realism in China also served as an important reference point for the development of Chinese oil painting in the 1950s. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that the author not only analyzed the process of the acceptance and dissemination of Soviet realist art in China, but also examined the beginning and end of artistic exchange between China and the Soviet Union in conjunction with the country's social environment and the political leadership of its leaders. (shrink)

I argue that scientific and poetic modes of objectivity are perspectival duals: 'views' from and onto basic natural forces, respectively. I ground this analysis in a general account of objectivity, not in terms of either 'universal' or 'inter-subjective' validity, but as receptivity to basic features of reality. Contra traditionalists, bare truth, factual knowledge, and universally valid representation are not inherently valuable. But modern critics who focus primarily on the self-expressive aspect of science are also wrong to claim that our knowledge (...) is or should be ultimately mediated by ourselves. In objective science, we represent nature as a field of phenomena determined by and within explanatorily-basic physical structures that encode the causal impact of elemental physical forces. These causally-basic forces hence ground the possibility of objective scientific theory, even though (I argue) they are systematically excluded from its representational contents. I show how my notions of force and field emerge partly through my effort to naturalize concepts of 'God' and 'Laws' in 17th-century natural philosophy. In science, we use the structure of basic forces' impact to see corresponding objects. We do not see these forces themselves—and this relates to the 'transcendence' of 'God'. I supplement this historical analysis by critiquing standard accounts of objectivity, and by synthesizing elements from neo-Kantian epistemology and current 'structural' realism into a view that I call 'dynamic structuralism'. Finally, I argue that physics systematically relies on passive characterizations of phenomena like inertia and impressed force. Dynamic alternatives that are just as empirically adequate are possible, but they are non-scientific. Poetic objectivity involves a direct presentation of nature as an order of interacting forces. I elaborate first by developing a novel theory of the relation between beauty and sublimity, mediated by a basic category of 'sensory force' (e.g. a 'singing' tone in a beautiful melody). I then describe the interaction between sensory and affective dimensions of aesthetic experience, in relation to an original historical analysis of passion and 'disinterestedness' in Kant, Schiller and Nietzsche. I synthesize these lines of analysis into a critique of the role of 'expression' in art. I also resist 'spectator'-centric aesthetics, in this connection, by developing an account of artistic objectivity in dialogue with Ruskin's critique of the 'pathetic fallacy'. I contrast artistic objectivity with Romantic ideals of self-expression, while elaborating its positive relation to certain currents within Victorian and Modernist aesthetics, including Imagists' stress on 'exteriority'. My project creatively extends Nietzsche's view that philosophical and scientific theories are 'perspectival' expressions of theorists' drives. It is a virtue of Nietzsche's account that he takes the outlet of strong human drives in creative acts of theorizing to be just one among many higher modes of 'will to power' in nature—many of which are totally impersonal. But Nietzsche is still too focused on self-expression or willing one's own power. Objective science involves external forces' 'expression' in and through us, not just 'expressing' our own powers. And Nietzsche's vitalistic 'will to power' must be replaced by a basic ontology that better accommodates inorganic phenomena, like the 'lawful' order of celestial motions. Thus I aim to de-anthropomorphize and 'de-organicize' post-Kantian notions of willful striving and organic development, while preserving for force the primary ontological and evaluative status that theorists from Schiller and Goethe to Schelling and Schlegel to Emerson and Nietzsche attributed to will or to life. (shrink)