Re: Picture Recap

1

Questions?

What, precisely, is the relation between genius and taste in the third critique?


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 7:22 PM
horizontal rule
2

Based on a cursory viewing:

1. Healy's little girl is cute.
2. Apostropher's kid is all kinds of awesome. Truly, I want to party with that kid.
3. Smasher, doesn't anyone in your peer group shave anymore?


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 7:43 PM
horizontal rule
3

He likes pudding.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 7:51 PM
horizontal rule
4

Regarding 1:

I'm not assigned to read the genius stuff for another two weeks. Any hints?


Posted by: Alfi G | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 8:01 PM
horizontal rule
5

What, precisely, is the relation between genius and taste in the third critique?

A fine question, young Ben, and it gladdens me to see you turning your mind to such things.

As you know, fine art is that for which no rule can be given in advance. The production of fine art is the work of genius, which gives the rule to art. And the appreciation of art is the work of taste, which measures the work against the rules of art. So genius, young Ben, is that which produces what taste appreciates (setting aside, for now, the appreciation of nature), and note that genius also makes the rules by which taste appreciates.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 8:03 PM
horizontal rule
6

I know you had said you planned to let non-blog people see your Flickr pics. Aren't you worried they're going to wonder Who Are These People? in your contacts?


Posted by: Becks | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 8:09 PM
horizontal rule
7

Aren't you worried they're going to wonder Who Are These People? in your contacts?

Not really. The people I'm most concerned about keeping away from the blog aren't going to even look at my profile to see my contacts, let alone google them and track them down here.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 8:13 PM
horizontal rule
8

See, ogged's comment makes no sense to me. "Rules of art", it's madness, madness I tells ya! I feel so foolish.


Posted by: Alfi G | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 8:16 PM
horizontal rule
9

I'd just keep an eye on your comments to make sure nobody calls you "ogged".


Posted by: Becks | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 8:16 PM
horizontal rule
10

The people I'm most concerned about keeping away from the blog aren't going to even look at my profile to see my contacts, let alone google them and track them down here.

So, um, why would it matter if the Unfogged group showed up in your profile?


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 8:18 PM
horizontal rule
11

Kind of you, ogged, to duplicate the group members in your contacts. (Left a few out, though. Ahem.)


Posted by: mrh | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 8:18 PM
horizontal rule
12

He's also got some extras.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 8:22 PM
horizontal rule
13

No idea how I skipped over you, sorry. Fixed.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 8:23 PM
horizontal rule
14

He likes pudding.

Clearly.

But does he like eating pudding?


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 8:28 PM
horizontal rule
15

2.3: Tom's face is as bald as a novice's knee.

4: I was asking because I'm uncertain. Here's something you can ask yourself while you're reading, though. (5: It's too bad I took so long writing this comment.)

In §46, Kant says that "since there can also be original nonsense, [the products of genius] must at the same time be models, i.e., exemplary…". However, in §50, he says that "for all the richness of the former [ie, genius] produces, in its lawless freedom, nothing but nonsense; the power of judgment, however, is the faculty for bringing it in line with the understanding." So at first genius itself can produce non-nonsense; at the end, it can produce only nonsense, which furnishes "rich material" for the taste-bound production of beautiful art (and this rich material seems to be the aesthetic ideas, though I find that section hard to follow). At any rate, it seems as if in each successive section genius gets downplayed at the expense of taste or judgment. (I don't know what pace you're reading at but you might find by ... next week, I guess ... yourself reading §40, at the end of which there's a definition of the judgment of taste that seems to contradict §9. So there's that.) And this is just in the production of art, not in the judging, fine ogged. The end of §48 suggests that the working artist, suitably inspired, revises his products in accord with taste (but not in accord with judgments of taste? in the analytic of the beautiful, there's no suggestion that taste would tell you particularly how a nonbeautiful object fails to be beautiful).

I'm convinced that genius doesn't make the rules by which taste appreciates, because, duh, taste doesn't appreciate by rules. Until you cite section and Akademie page number, I will abide by this conviction. When he talks about judging art (§48, mostly, but also §§45 and 46 a bit) it's mostly in terms of the impure judgments of taste that takes into account the concept of the object. As far as I can tell, all of the talk about genius and taste has to do with the production, not the judging, of art.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 8:32 PM
horizontal rule
16

Thanks, ogged, for giving me the kindergarten answer.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 8:34 PM
horizontal rule
17

ben, I'll try to dredge up some memory on the third Critique when I can find my copy of it, but that might not be till Thursday. I'm better at the later stuff in the second half on th experience of freedom. Also, Paul Guyer's books on Kantian morality & taste might be worth a look for you.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 8:49 PM
horizontal rule
18

I'm not about to look it up, w-lfs-n, but my understanding of it is that genius has to do with production, and taste with judging. But only for the Beautiful. I also recall that Kant wasn't what I'd call interested in the production-side of art.


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 8:53 PM
horizontal rule
19

Oh, I have Guyer's and Allison's books on the 3rd critique. It's not really pressing. I'm just asking b/c I'm giving a presentation on the sections dealing with art and genius tomorrow. I don't have to have total mastery or anything, just connect it up with other stuff we've talked about and whatnot. Point out seeming problems, avenues of discussion, arguments, etc.. No biggie! I'm just saddened to see ogged once again condescend to me so greatly.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 8:54 PM
horizontal rule
20

This talk of Kant reminded me of Foreigner, because Kant was a) as cold as ice; and b) willing to sacrifice his love. Naturally I hied myself to Lou Gramm's Wikipedia page, where I found this:

Solo Era

In 1987, Foreigner was struggling with internal rectal conflicts

Block quote

. During this period, Gramm released his first solo album Ready or Not, which recieved critical acclaim and contained a top five hit single with "Midnight Blue".

Which, OMG, is totally what Ben was gesturing at above.


Posted by: standpipe b | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 8:57 PM
horizontal rule
21

D00d, JM, like, take a look at 15. Taste is totally a component of production. (That is, although taste is not a productive faculty, but merely a faculty of judging, beautiful artworks must accord with taste. Genius has to do with production more directly (arguably), but both taste and genius must be in the artwork; it's not just that I, the spectator, judge tastefully the geniusly-made work, for "in one would-be work of beautiful art, one can often perceive genius without taste, while in another, taste without genius" (§49, Ak 5:313).)

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to sort out some internal rectal conflicts.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 9:00 PM
horizontal rule
22

I'm just saddened to see ogged once again condescend to me so greatly

Do you want a serious answer, Ben? If you do, I'll put in the time, but I thought you were fucking around.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 9:00 PM
horizontal rule
23

I wouldn't want to be a bother.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 9:02 PM
horizontal rule
24

Oh, okay. Ten minute 'isn't this interesting?' sort of presentation.

I think that genius is on the production side alone, but there's what one of my profs calls the 'Kant-is-incoherent-why-do-we-bother' problem, where it's really hard to figure out how genius can lead to an example for new art (which it seems it does), but then those rules/exemplars aren't used in forming a judgment of taste... but it seems that they should be related and it's unclear how the artist can revise anything to accord with taste judgments (trial and error? probably not. becoming also a person of taste? maybe.)


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 9:03 PM
horizontal rule
25

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to sort out some internal rectal conflicts.

During your solo era, no less. We don't want for parallels.


Posted by: standpipe b | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 9:03 PM
horizontal rule
26

Also, Hume got to the antimony first.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 9:04 PM
horizontal rule
27

It's not an antinomy in Hume. Where're the laws?


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 9:08 PM
horizontal rule
28

'Kant-is-incoherent-why-do-we-bother'

Grrr. People who say shit like this should retire to wood carving or something.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 9:08 PM
horizontal rule
29

doesn't anyone in your peer group shave anymore?

One less thing to think about. Those extra 5 minutes of sleep in the morning are...precious to me.


Posted by: Matt F | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 9:12 PM
horizontal rule
30

Actually, Kant first introduces the use of prior works both as examples for taste and for other artists before he even explicitly considers art, artists, or genius at all (in §32). The former is, to me, more vexing than the latter. Doesn't seem too hard to accomodate what he calls mannerism and merely academic correctness and whatnot.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 9:13 PM
horizontal rule
31

Yeah, well, he's too busy being tenured and studying other philosophy to bother with Kant, I think.

Hume doesn't formulate the paradox the same way, but it's close. Pretend this is a blockquote:

But though this axiom [to each his own taste] by passing into a proverb seems to have attained the sanction of common sense, there is certainly a species of common sense which opposes it, at least serves to modify and restrain it. Whoever would assert an equality of genius and elegance between Ogilby and Milton, or Bunyan and Addison, would be thought to defend no less an extravagance than if he had maintained a molehill to be as high as Tenerife , or a pond as extensive as the ocean. Though there may be found persons who give the preference to the former authors, no one pays attention to such a taste; and we pronounce without scruple the sentiment of these pretended critics to be absurd and ridiculous. The principle of the natural equality of tastes is then totally forgot, and while we admit it on some occasions where the objects seem near an equality, it appears an extravagant paradox, or rather a palpable absurdity, where objects so disproportioned are compared together.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 9:13 PM
horizontal rule
32

Ok, you little bastard, I looked up section 48, which is the lynchpin of this discussion we're having. Last paragraph starts: "But taste is merely a judging and not a productive faculty..." which reiterates his statement at the beginning of the section. The artist of genius is supposed to acquire good taste, become, as Cala suggested, a person of taste, but that taste is a separable component from the productive faculty of genius.

And then there's this bit from the penultimate paragraph in 48: "By taste the artist estimates his work after he has exercized and corrected it by manifold examples from art or nature, and after many, often toilsome, attempts to content himself he finds that form which satisfies him." Trial and error indeed.


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 9:14 PM
horizontal rule
33

Anywho, I'll leave all of you people to continue discussing the text without actually looking at it while I decamp to the department where there are hopefully fewer distractions.

TOODLES MOTHERFUCKERS


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 9:15 PM
horizontal rule
34

I as much as quoted that bit about taste being merely judging in 21, JM.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 9:16 PM
horizontal rule
35

Toodles, second-year. Reading books is for n00bs, plus, my roommate reorganized my bookshelves and I can't find damned thing.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 9:16 PM
horizontal rule
36

OK then. That kind-of makes sense. I think my professor is leading me down the, "WTF is an Object of Nature" road, at the moment. As such, I am prone to think that "rule" doesn't mean what I think that "rule" means in §46.

FWIW, I'm not sure what I mean by that last sentence.


Posted by: Alfi G | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 9:16 PM
horizontal rule
37

27: No, no, antimony. Used to freebase it, I hear.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 9:17 PM
horizontal rule
38

Freebasing would explain some of Kant's claims.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 9:17 PM
horizontal rule
39

I challenge you to make sense of the title and first sentence of §50 while still maintaining that taste doesn't enter into the production of works of fine art.

And now I really am leaving BYE


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 9:17 PM
horizontal rule
40

Kant's first sentences lie. Check Religion within the bounds of reason alone sometime. Will find the book later.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 9:19 PM
horizontal rule
41

Kant's recognition of the fundamental importance of Antimony , which is increasingly being used in the semiconductor industry, especially in diodes, because of its binarism, was far ahead of his time, considering that even the transister hadn't been invented yet.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 9:30 PM
horizontal rule
42

Not that I know a goddamn thing about Kant's philosophy, but y'all heard that astronomers have confirmed that he was right about the way planets form, right?


Posted by: Josh | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 9:35 PM
horizontal rule
43

uh, total amateur's speculation, but

maybe part of the problem comes because there are rules and there are rules?

I.e., genius does not work by rules-sub-1, where that means by algorithms, but having produced a work of genius, that work now constitutes a rule-sub-2 for taste, where that means something more like a paragon or standard of comparison?

(and then there's rule-sub-3, as in Bach totally rules.)


Posted by: kid bitzer | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 10:18 PM
horizontal rule
44

Josh: that was the lesser-known philosopher Emmanuel Kant.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10-10-06 10:36 PM
horizontal rule
45

40:"Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to
consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented
by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every
faculty of the mind.

It falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own."

It may be a lie, but remains transcendentally beautiful.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 10-11-06 12:04 AM
horizontal rule
46

44: Oh, you mean the author of la Critique de la Raison pure?


Posted by: Josh | Link to this comment | 10-11-06 1:55 AM
horizontal rule
47

"It may be a lie, but remains transcendentally beautiful."

Not sure I'd go that far. But it is phenomenally beautiful, I'll grant you that.


Posted by: kid bitzer | Link to this comment | 10-11-06 6:23 AM
horizontal rule
48

45: that seems pretty obviously true to me.


Posted by: Tia | Link to this comment | 10-11-06 6:42 AM
horizontal rule
49

Freebasing would explain some of Kant's claims.

It would also explain the nihilism.


Posted by: My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 10-11-06 8:01 AM
horizontal rule
50

39 sparks a strong memory but I cannot find the book and anyway must spend my day adding Flickr contacts.


Posted by: Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 10-11-06 8:08 AM
horizontal rule
51

47:Would it seem weird to say that I feel 45 is a description of Original Sin? I guess I read Kant idiosyncratically, tho it was very nice one day over at Crooked Timber to read hilzoy use the word "Grace" in a explication of a Kant position.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 10-11-06 8:59 AM
horizontal rule
52

If you read Kant so, Bob, you might enjoy Heinrich von Kleist.


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 10-11-06 9:05 AM
horizontal rule
53

Kleist is really good for studying German, because his long sentences are fun to puzzle out, unlike Kant's or Hegel's.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 10-11-06 9:24 AM
horizontal rule
54

Thanks for doing the work on this, Smashman. Mighty gay of you.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 10-11-06 9:30 AM
horizontal rule
55

Ignoring Kant and going back to photography - my partner works for a large university, and they want some aerial photos taken of some research buildings. They'd heard he's into photography, so they asked him today if he would go up in someone's Tiger Moth to take some pictures! (Assuming this isn't an elaborate windup ...) how cool is that?


Posted by: asilon | Link to this comment | 10-11-06 10:52 AM
horizontal rule
56

Pretty cool.

Turbulence is a bitch, though.


Posted by: Chopper | Link to this comment | 10-11-06 11:01 AM
horizontal rule
57

Wow! So you're the man to come to for tips then!


Posted by: asilon | Link to this comment | 10-11-06 11:21 AM
horizontal rule
58

(ATM)


Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 10-11-06 11:22 AM
horizontal rule