Analytic Aesthetics (original) (raw)
Related papers
Wittgenstein and Aesthetic Investigation
The primary focus of the relationship between Wittgenstein and Aesthetics has been on how his work can address pre-existing aesthetic problems. Little is said of the radical re-conception of aesthetics that can be found in Wittgenstein’s works, and even less about how this might enable us to understand his philosophical process in a new light. Wittgenstein himself states: The queer resemblance between a philosophical investigation (perhaps especially in mathematics) and one in aesthetics (e.g. what is bad about this garment, how it should be, etc..) Such a statement holds the possibility for a significant reinterpretation of Wittgenstein’s philosophical method in light of this analogy to aesthetic investigation. Before any such project can be embarked upon we must first gain a clear understanding of what Wittgenstein means here by an ‘aesthetic investigation’. I take this as the central remit of this dissertation, to pay close attention to Wittgenstein’s thoughts on the nature of aesthetic investigations, the sorts of questions we ask, the answers we give, and the form of those investigations. The elucidation of this concept will take the form of two primary parts. First of all an exploration of Wittgenstein’s concept of aesthetics and secondly in light of this context to examine more particularly the phenomena that he describes as an aesthetic investigation. In the first part we shall explore the variety of contexts under which Wittgenstein himself uses the word ‘aesthetics’ in order to gain somewhat of a synoptic view of his conception. We shall look at: aesthetics as transcendental as presented in the Tractatus; aesthetics as philosophical discipline and his critique of this as traditionally understood; aesthetics as science and the inappropriate application of scientific models to aesthetic questions; aesthetics as evaluative practice and how Wittgenstein analysed the true nature of our aesthetic language and aesthetics as analogous to philosophy, exploring the initial comparison in so far as it reveals something of Wittgenstein’s conception of aesthetics. Once we have then gained a clearer picture of what Wittgenstein means by his use of the term ‘aesthetics’ we can then look more specifically at the term ‘aesthetic investigation’. Through exegesis and analysis I shall identify and explore three key features of aesthetic investigation, namely the nature of the explanation we give, the form of description given in our explanations and the nature of agreement at the resolution of an aesthetic investigation. With all this in mind we shall then look at some examples of investigations of this kind undertaken by Wittgenstein himself. The hope is that in gaining a clearer picture of exactly what an aesthetic investigation is, the initial analogy to philosophical investigation will appear much less cryptic. The elucidation of the concept of aesthetic investigation provides a direct access point by which we might view the nature of Wittgenstein’s philosophy under a new light.
Art in an Expanded Field: Wittgenstein and Aesthetics
The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics
This article reviews the various ways in which the later writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein have been employed to address the question “What is Art?”. These include the family resemblance model, the cluster concept model and the form of life model. The article defends a version of the form of life approach. Also, addressed the charge that it would have been more profitable had aestheticians explored what Wittgenstein actually said about art instead of trying to extrapolate from his writings an approach to what Nigel Warburton calls the art question.
Wittgenstein on Aesthetic Understanding
Springer eBooks, 2017
Philosophers in Depth is a series of themed edited collections focusing on particular aspects of the thought of major figures from the history of philosophy. The volumes showcase a combination of newly commissioned and previously published work with the aim of deepening our understanding of the topics covered. Each book stands alone, but taken together the series will amount to a vast collection of critical essays covering the history of philosophy, exploring issues that are central to the ideas of individual philosophers. This project was launched with the financial support of the Institute for Historical and Cultural Research at Oxford Brookes University, for which we are very grateful. Constantine Sandis More information about this series at
Wittgenstein and Aesthetics: Perspectives and Debates
2012
Wittgenstein has written a great number of remarks relevant to aesthetical issues: he has questioned the relation between aesthetics and psychology as well as the status of our norms of judgement; he has drawn philosophers attention to such topics as aspect-seeing and aspect-dawning, and has brought insights into the nature of our aesthetic reactions. The examination of this wide range of topics is far from being completed, and the purpose of this book is to contribute to such completion. It gathers both papers discussing some of Wittgensteins most provocative and intriguing statements on aesthetics, and papers bringing out their implications for art critic and art history, as well as their significance to epistemology and to the study of human mind.
Aesthetics - Wittgenstein’s Paradigm of Philosophy?
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), 2013
Consider the following two appraisals of Wittgenstein's philosophy: It might be argued, however, that broadly understood there is a great deal of aesthetics in Wittgenstein's works, and that aesthetics as he conceived it is the paradigm of philosophy, also as he conceived it. (Barrett [1967]: 158) But what I wish to underscore is how tightly Wittgenstein draws the parallel between […] features of the Übersichtlichkeit of mathematical proof and features of «perspicuous presentations [Übersichtliche Darstellungen]», in philosophical investigations-for this indicates one way in which Wittgenstein's discussions of mathematics come to epitomize all his philosophy. (Floyd [2000]: 237) Surely this sounds contradictory: how could both aesthetics and mathematics be thought of as paradigms of philosophy? Or perhaps Barrett and Floyd are talking about quite different aspects of Wittgenstein's philosophy? However, Wittgenstein himself seems to have thought there is some kind of important similarity here, as we can see from this notebook entry from 1937: The strange resemblance [die seltsame Ähnlichkeit] between a philosophical investigation (perhaps especially in mathematics) and an aesthetic one (E.g. what is bad about this garment , how it should be, etc..). (Wittgenstein, MS 116,56; Wittgenstein [1998]: 29) 1 Why did Wittgenstein make this remark? I take that it is uncontroversial to assume that he is here not reflecting upon philosophy in general, but that the remark shows how he 1 I have modified Winch's translation from the second edition of Culture and value, since it is important that Wittgenstein does not write «one in aesthetics» (i.e. an «investigation in aesthe-tics») as Winch has it, but «an aesthetic one» («einer ästhetischen»), i.e. an «aesthetic investiga-tion». This means Wittgenstein is not talking about aesthetics as a subject matter, but about the characteristics of the investigation. When quoting form the Nachlass, I have, when possible, used existing translations (sometimes amending them). Otherwise, translations are my own.
Traditionally-and at least until very recently 1-aesthetics has not been a main access route to the understanding of Wittgenstein's philosophy, of the challenges and issues that Wittgenstein's work brings up, from the Tractatus on. It is not on the playground of aesthetics that the game of interpretation of typically Wittgensteinian issues-such as the significance of philosophy, the limits of language, the nature of meaning, the relationship between grammar and forms of life-has been played. At best, aesthetic problems have been considered a significant, but secondary aspect of the core of Wittgenstein's philosophy, defined, first and foremost, by the issue concerning the relationship between logic and language, and the resulting confrontation with his mentors, Frege and Russell. An aspect of Wittgenstein's views, possibly related to his Viennese education within his "very musical" family and/or linked with his pessimistic critique of European Civilization. An aspect, however, incapable of influencing Wittgenstein's formulation of philosophical problems and strategy for addressing them. Aesthetics, then, has mostly been seen as one of the many areas where philosophical 1 To prove that the question of aesthetics (at least until the last decade of the last century) has been considered marginal to the understanding of Wittgenstein's philosophy (with a few honorable exceptions), it can be pointed out, for instance, that in the Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein, edited by H. Sluga and D. G. Stern, not only there is no specific discussion of Wittgenstein and aesthetics, but also the very term "aesthetics" appears seldom and not in relevant contexts. The situation has changed with The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein, edited by O. Kuusela and M. McGinn, where an excellent essay by Malcolm Budd (2011) is devoted to Wittgenstein and aesthetics and Wittgenstein's interest in music and the arts are considered in other essays as well.
CRITICAL STUDY: AN INADVERTENT NEMESIS—WITTGENSTEIN AND CONTEMPORARY AESTHETICS
British Journal of Aesthetics, 2005
A critical, comprehensive study of the book Wittgenstein, Aesthetics and Philosophy, ed. Peter B. Lewis (2004). I set the discussion of the book against the backdrop of the peculiar nature, context and interpretational challenges pertaining to the corpus of Wittgenstein's lectures on aesthetics, which he delivered in Cambridge in the 1930s.
The Aesthetic Dimension of Wittgenstein's Later Writings
Wittgenstein on Aesthetic Understanding, ed. Garry Hagberg (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 3-29
In this essay I argue the extent to which meaning and judgment in aesthetics figures in Wittgenstein’s later conception of language, particularly in his conception of how philosophy might go about explaining the ordinary functioning of language. Following a review of some biographical and textual matters concerning Wittgenstein’s life with music, I outline the connection among (1) Wittgenstein’s discussions of philosophical clarity or perspicuity, (2) our attempts to give clarity to our aesthetic experiences by wording them, and (3) the clarifying experience of the dawning of an aspect, which Wittgenstein pictures as the perception of an internal relation. By examining Wittgenstein’s use of “internal relation” from the Tractatus to his later writings, I come to challenge the still prevalent understanding of Wittgenstein’s appeals to grammar as an appeal to something given (e.g., to a set of grammatical rules). Instead, as I argue, Wittgensteinian appeals to grammatical criteria should be understood as modeled by the form of justification found in our conversations about art.