John Page

Aquatic Mammal:

Let me try and illustrate my view by making changes to your post - bold for additionas, square parens for deletions:

"Going back to the subjective/objective dichotomy, it seems then the artist must express [a] his/her truth about what his/her reality [is 'real' which] is in their perception but cannot be absolute [or known], but only that which happens to be known to them at the time; expressing the subjective [objective] thru the subjective."

Cheers, John

[ July 22, 2002: Message edited by: John Page ]</p>

WJ

John!

I think you've un-balanced the apple cart Unless we wish to embrace a bit of George's epistemology/metaphysics, existing object's we percieve in the world can be real 'concrete' physical things. Beauty, can be a part of some object's quality, as we percieve as such. To say 'expressing the subjective thru the subjective' would beg the question: must we *first* view the object itself in order to arrive at the determination of what is then to be considered as subjectively beautiful/ugly? And what about adding the words...in all things?

In other words, how do we adequately explain subjective existence? To [know for sure] exclusively express the subjective *thru* the subjective would require a regressive view of me looking outside of my self for me to explain my subjectivity about such existence [aesthetics] of a thing or concept in my mind. But then it would no longer be subjective as it [the opinion/explaination itself] would be outside myself and 'disinterested'.

Don't get me wrong, as you know I embrace the subjective, but we cannot understand one without the other's, existence. Whether the existence is only in the mind, we can never know for sure, unless of course we can create consciousness. (?)

In that regard too, Kant's notion of disinterest is impossible for our appreciation of the existing beauty in a thing. How do we step outside the box, exclusively? It seems we are stuck with balancing the subjective and objective when expressing one or the other. Or as a matter of degree, we err towards one or the other depending on the required level of perception and expression. Does pure subjectivity/objectivity exist? Is it either/or, or both, or a primacy issue. I suspect the latter.

Aesthetics require a 'passionate existence' for the ability to conceive the appreciation of it-real or imagined. A yin yang, positive/negative dynamic of sorts.

I once crossed the Atlantic on a jetski!

Edit; Oops, forgot to mention that I once asked God about whether reality was real. He said only temporarily, and that I should *act* as though it is truly real. He further went on to say that I had no faith.



[ July 22, 2002: Message edited by: WJ ]</p>

philechat

Subjective/objective dichotomy melts down if we treat the so-called "objective reality" as meaningless and beyond human comprehension.

What is "objective" is actually an agreed-upon language concept with regard to specific experiences of a group of people. Say, for example, a group of people sits around a table eating a watermelon. The watermelon may "taste differently" (in subjective experience) due to the different sensitivity of taste buds and mood between the people, but they all agree that the (different by subject) taste they experienced is "the taste of watermelon".

In assessing aesthetic judgments of people we find a rough agreement on what is beautiful in terms of artworks, though "appeal to authority" often sways people's opinions. It also depends on people's experience on the subject. Often, a crave for complexity exists more strongly for people who have higher ability and experience in a certain subject.

The instance of classical musicians show that they are much more tolerant of harmonic dissonance than average. A professional mathmatician will want a math problem that is on the surface more "chaotic" than a high school student, etc.

Not to mention the notion of familiarity/strangeness. A new style (like Beethoven) was met with violent opposition in a time when his "new music" was unheard of. Yet now people praise him like God and scorn Stravinsky.

[ July 22, 2002: Message edited by: philechat ]</p>

John Page

Walrus:

It's interesting that people seem to have less difficulty with the "simple" quality of roundness or slipperiness but beauty becomes more contentious.

IMO that's because beauty is still sensible (i.e. we can consciously apprehend it) but tanatlizingly more abstract than "simple" adjectives. I think this is because beauty is derived as compound of other things such that it seems to become a transcendental quality or essence. (Same for the notion of god IMO)

So all our experiences are subjective, but some can be seen as more directly related to reality than others.
If you define the topic as a derived or second hand experience this would be OK, since all the objects can then only be known subjectively.
I'm not sure what you mean by the term. Subjective viewpoint, yes. Existence, yes. Subjective existence?
An objective (or rather less subjective) explanation of your subjective experience would need verification. To verify you would need to recreate and undergo the subjective experience to make sure the whole dialog is about the same thing.
I would agree that a person must get outside of subjective (first hand) experience to understand and explain that experience. However, that in turn comprises a number of subjective experiences. Just wanted to make the point there are degrees of subjectivity and I think we're agreeing.
Experience can be proven to come from events outside the mind, therefore existence occurs outside the mind.
Arguably, when one's consciousness becomes detached from our own first hand experience we are avoiding the thing we want to know! One can be dispassionate about a bereavement but how can this ever be an experience of grief, for example.

This doesn't stop us from understanding how the experience occurs, though.

Cheers, John