philosophical conversations'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'Flusser on interpreting images- June 30, 2008 In the Introductory Note to hisTowards a Philosophy of Photography Vilm Flusser highlights the role of interpretation of the image. He says that: The significance the meaning of images rests on their surfaces. It may be seized at a glance. However, in this case the meaning seized will...http://sauer-thompson.com/conversations/archives/2008/07/flusser-on-inte.html anti-modernism- June 30, 2008 If the core narrative of modernity, or industrial-technological society, is progress, a belief that technological development means socio-economic improvement, then the heart of antimodernism is a realization that progress has an underbellythat technological industrial development has destructive consequences in three primary and intertwined areas: nature, culture, and religion. So antimodernism...http://sauer-thompson.com/conversations/archives/2008/06/antimodernism.html Hegel: natural beauty- June 27, 2008 Hegel, in the opening of the Lectures on Aesthetics, says that the sensuous objects produced by art, or indeed any product of the spirit, must always outstrip any of the beauties of nature in philosophical significance: For artistic beauty is beauty born and reborn out of spirit, and in as...http://sauer-thompson.com/conversations/archives/2008/06/hegel-natural-b.html Adorno, shudder and the aura of art- June 24, 2008 In The Splinter in Your Ear: Noise as the Semblance of Critique in Culture, Theory & Critique, (2005) Nick Smith says that the source of the new aura of the work of art, rather than unblemished Romantic beauty, is now its sheer irreconcilability. Smith says that for Adorno: The strangeness...http://sauer-thompson.com/conversations/archives/2008/06/adorno-shudder.html Adorno, identity thinking, particularity- June 22, 2008 In The Splinter in Your Ear: Noise as the Semblance of Critique in Culture, Theory & Critique, (2005) Nick Smith gives a good account of Adorno's argument about identity thinking. He says that for Adorno, all cultural analysis must begin with an account of abstract identification, which specifies an individual...http://sauer-thompson.com/conversations/archives/2008/06/adorno-identity-1.html Jane Austen + the virtues- June 21, 2008 In Jane Austens Philosophy of the Virtues Sarah Emsley follows Alistair MacIntyre in seeing Austen as the last great representative of the tradition of the virtues. Jane Austen emerges from these pages as a woman who takes ethical development and the vocation of novelist seriously. Emsley sees Austen as conservative...http://sauer-thompson.com/conversations/archives/2008/06/having-a-rest.html note on the sublime- June 19, 2008 Luke White on the history of the notion of the sublime. He says: The word 'sublime' is used colloquially nowadays as a vague superlative. However, in particular in the realms of philosophy, literary studies, art history or cultural criticism, it has a range of more specific meanings. It might be...http://sauer-thompson.com/conversations/archives/2008/06/note-on-the-sub.html |