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Kant’s Aesthetic Theory, An Introduction
This chapter, “Aesthetics and Football “explores the multifaceted relationship between aesthetics and the global sport of football or soccer, providing a rich analysis of how beauty manifests on and off the field. Football, the world's most popular sport, is more than just a competitive game. It is an art form in which rhythm, balance, harmony and player techniques combine to create an aesthetically pleasing spectacle for the audience and participants. This chapter examines key aesthetic elements in football, from individual player movements and team coordination to stadium architecture and design, emphasizing how these elements contribute to the sport's visual appeal. In addition to the physical and technical aspects, this chapter highlights the cultural and social significance of football, exploring how the sport transcends borders and unites diverse populations through a shared appreciation for beauty.
This paper focuses on different concepts of sensus communis and their relationship with the conditions of political reality. An attempt is made to show that Gadamer’s and Arendt’s political conception of sensus communis is too dependent on political conditions and the homogeneity and unity of the community, and thus cannot exist under post-political conditions. The paper seeks to defend Immanuel Kant’s aesthetic conception of sensus communis, demonstrating that the disinterested judgment of beauty exists regardless of political circumstances. Based on this, the paper reviews practices existing in post-politics that attempt to use the aesthetic understanding of sensus communis for the purposes of political unity. It also draws attention to the understanding of sensus communis in different contexts, arguing that the concept and its interpretation often become obscured across various contexts.
Obtaining information from the world is important for survival. The brain, therefore, has special mechanisms to extract as much information as possible from sensory stimuli. Hence, given its importance, the amount of available information may underlie aesthetic values. Such information-based aesthetic values would be significant because they would compete with others to drive decision-making. In this article, we ask, “What is the evidence that amount of information support aesthetic values?” An important concept in the measurement of informational volume is entropy. Research on aesthetic values has thus used Shannon entropy to evaluate the contribution of quantity of information. We review here the concepts of information and aesthetic values, and research on the visual and auditory systems to probe whether the brain uses entropy or other relevant measures, specially, Fisher information, in aesthetic decisions. We conclude that information measures contribute to these decisions in two ways: first, the absolute quantity of information can modulate aesthetic preferences for certain sensory patterns. However, the preference for volume of information is highly individualized, with information-measures competing with organizing principles, such as rhythm and symmetry. In addition, people tend to be resistant to too much entropy, but not necessarily, high amounts of Fisher information. We show that this resistance may stem in part from the distribution of amount of information in natural sensory stimuli. Second, the measurement of entropic-like quantities over time reveal that they can modulate aesthetic decisions by varying degrees of surprise given temporally integrated expectations. We propose that amount of information underpins complex aesthetic values, possibly informing the brain on the allocation of resources or the situational appropriateness of some cognitive models.
The aim of this paper is to resolve some of the inconsistencies within Kant's theory of aesthetic ideas that have been left unaddressed by previous interpretations. Specifically, Kant's text appears to be imbued with the following two tensions. First, there appears to be a conflict between his commitment to the view that mere sensations cannot function as vehicles for the communication of aesthetic ideas and his claim that musical tones, on account of being mere sensations, can express aesthetic ideas. Second, his description of musical form as consisting of a play of aesthetic ideas that leave behind no thoughts appears to be incongruous with his formulation of aesthetic ideas as free imaginative representations that contain a wealth of thoughts and meanings. If what it means to express aesthetic ideas is precisely to stimulate much thinking, then how can an object exist that expresses aesthetic ideas, but without leaving any thoughts behind? I attempt to resolve these two perceived tensions by proposing a distinction between reflective and non-reflective aesthetic ideas communicated by form and mere sensations respectively.
Kant claims that we demand the agreement of others when making judgements of taste. I argue that this claim is part of an explanation of how the phenomenology of familiar aesthetic judgements supports his contention that judgements of taste are universal. Kant's aesthetic theory is plausible only if we reject the widespread contention that this demand is normative. I offer a non-normative reading of Kantian judgements of taste based on a close reading of the Analytic and Deduction, then argue against the three prominent normative interpretations, which force us to attribute to Kant a position that he did not accept.
Despite of its important and widespread ethical dimensions, architecture has long been studied and considered as aesthetics, rather than ethics. Any free and autonomic action of human is subject to moral observance and judgment. To build is the most fundamental activity in architecture and has many effects on human, natural environment and built environment. Therefore, it should be a subject of moral judgment. On the other hand, the relation between theory and practice is unavoidable, and ethical theory, which is essentially "prescriptive" and refers to "ought" and "ought not", has a profound connection with acting and building. The philosophy of ethics, is the study of justifying the ethical positions and reasoning behind our moral beliefs. Normative ethics is a main branch of philosophy of ethics that generally examines good (right) and bad (false) affairs, and examines how to determine morally right and false actions. Three types of theories can be identified in the normative ethics, according to the type of attention to the results of the acts: 1) "Consequentialist theories" (includes Egoism and Utilitarianism), in which merely the result of the acts determines goodness and evil of the acts. 2) "Non-consequentialist theories" (includes Natural law theory, Divine command theory, Kant theory), in which the result does not determine goodness and evil of the acts. 3) "Virtue ethics", in which the concept of 'virtue' is vital and central. Each of the normative ethical theories has some particular general position and criteria. Special opinion of these theories about 'building in architecture' can be deduced and inferred from their basic and general principles and viewpoints. This research is developmental, in terms of purpose; and its approach is qualitative. The research method is descriptive-analytic and it is based on rational reasoning. The purpose of this article is to study the perspectives of two important theories of normative ethics (virtue ethics and Kantian ethics) about building in architecture. How does define the desired and acceptable building in these two moral perspectives, and what kind of architecture will be result from these two theories? In the first part of the article, that is descriptive, it has been tried to identify and introduce the principles and criteria of two theories of virtue ethics and Kantian ethics through referring to the technical texts of ethics. In the second part of the article, which is analytical and argumentative, it has been tried to infer the basic instruction and their point of view on the acceptable building in architecture through reflecting on the basics and criteria of each theory, with logical reasoning method, and it has been tried to provide some evidences and examples in confirming the inferences. The Research results show that, firstly, there are several deep and serious differences between these two ethical theories; and, second, there is direct relationship between virtue ethics and traditional architecture and between Kantian ethics and contemporary architecture. On the other hand, each of us, often subconsciously, follows rules and maxims in our actions, that can be considered as kind of moral theory. If everyone be aware of his/her ethical position and reasoning for his/her ethical rules that governing his/her actions, he/she can criticize, deepen and transcend them. This paper can also be helpful in this regard.
The authors open their volume Theorizing Stupid Media with a brief discussion of Zack Snyder’s 2011 film Sucker Punch, and they elect to book-end the volume by returning to it. As a concluding exercise, the authors explore the different ways in which Snyder’s film might be considered stupid. Sucker Punch is unapologetic in its staging of spectacles: adapting the Hollywood vernacular, as well as the gleeful exhibition of fetishistic imagery. Sucker Punch also draws on a menagerie of different genres (or forms): the music video, chambara/samurai movie, war movie, fantasy film, western heist movie set in a science fiction world. It is unclear about whose story is being told, and this introduces an element of narrative dissonance. All told Sucker Punch is exemplarily stupid.
In the preceding chapters we have been introduced to four classical theories of art. In spite of their mutual differences these theories nevertheless have one characteristic in common. They tell us how we should consider or define art. Time and again they assume that the own point of view reveals the essence of art in an unproblematic way. The theories give us a decisive answer to the fundamental question “what, actually, is art?”. This also explains why they are so exclusive. They identify art respectively with “imitation”, “expression”, and “form” and/or “a synthesis of form and expression”, without leaving any room for nuance or ambiguity. The theories previously discussed can also be considered as providing us with a well-defined norm art should meet. These theories thus have very specific normative implications. We have already seen how each of these theories has served certain artists as a guideline in their artistic quest, but their normative implications, however, reach much further. On close inspection, these theories offer us different criteria for judging individual works of art. In this respect, they are relevant for the critical appraisal of artworks, especially within art criticism.
As a former dean ina college made up of students from more than 150 countries, most of whom were the first in their family to continue their education past high school, I do not find it difficult to celebrate the pluribus that makes up the United States. In this role, I was reminded too that America has registered important successes in its quest to offer a democratic education, an education available to all and providing every student an equal opportunity to make the most of his or her abilities.
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