UPCOMING
Slovak Aesthetics Forum with Vítor Guerreiro (University of Porto, Portugal)
UNDERSTANDING ART: EXPRESSION, IMAGINATION, AND ARETAIC STRUCTURE
Wednesday, December 11 · 4:00pm (CET)
Study room no. 91 of University of Presov and online.
Google Meet link: https://meet.google.com/cuk-qtzy-unp
TALK DESCRIPTION:
In this session I will focus on imaginative understanding as underlying the production of and engagement with works of art. I draw on R. G. Collingwood’s view of expression as definitive of ‘art proper’: an ongoing, overall successful struggle against the ‘corruption of consciousness’ (understood as a special kind of cognitive and moral failure). I then suggest paying attention to the normative structure of expression thus conceived: under a Strict Aretaic Model (SAM), as opposed to a Wide Aretaic Model (WAM). Both models use the three terms of Sosa’s ‘AAA structure’, namely, aptness, accuracy, and adroitness. What defines SAM is the peculiar form that ‘accuracy’ assumes in artistic expression: as any action under WAM, expression is apt when ‘hitting the bullseye’ is due to adroitness (the virtues required for performance), but with the difference that in genuine expression we do not know what ‘hitting the bullseye’ is until we do it. The same applies to understanding the artwork: its ‘point’ is only revealed to us in first-hand understanding. Furthermore, in this view, expression and understanding are the same. Both artist and audience are engaged in shaping a perspective and making clear what the point of the work is.
The second part is devoted to show how the variantist character of SAM is in harmony with a Goodmanian view of expression and understanding, which is prima facie quite remote from a Collingwoodian approach. The purpose is to show how expression can be a cognitive achievement, directed outwards, onto the world, not to the search and manifestation of an ‘interiority’; and also to defend that the sharing of imaginative understanding is the true core of an epistemology of art.
ABOUT SPEAKER:
https://philpeople.org/profiles/vitor-guerreiro
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8399-659X
Slovak Aesthetics Forum with Vítor Guerreiro (University of Porto, Portugal)
UNDERSTANDING ART: EXPRESSION, IMAGINATION, AND ARETAIC STRUCTURE
Wednesday, December 11 · 4:00pm (CET)
Study room no. 91 of University of Presov and online.
Google Meet link: https://meet.google.com/cuk-qtzy-unp
TALK DESCRIPTION:
In this session I will focus on imaginative understanding as underlying the production of and engagement with works of art. I draw on R. G. Collingwood’s view of expression as definitive of ‘art proper’: an ongoing, overall successful struggle against the ‘corruption of consciousness’ (understood as a special kind of cognitive and moral failure). I then suggest paying attention to the normative structure of expression thus conceived: under a Strict Aretaic Model (SAM), as opposed to a Wide Aretaic Model (WAM). Both models use the three terms of Sosa’s ‘AAA structure’, namely, aptness, accuracy, and adroitness. What defines SAM is the peculiar form that ‘accuracy’ assumes in artistic expression: as any action under WAM, expression is apt when ‘hitting the bullseye’ is due to adroitness (the virtues required for performance), but with the difference that in genuine expression we do not know what ‘hitting the bullseye’ is until we do it. The same applies to understanding the artwork: its ‘point’ is only revealed to us in first-hand understanding. Furthermore, in this view, expression and understanding are the same. Both artist and audience are engaged in shaping a perspective and making clear what the point of the work is.
The second part is devoted to show how the variantist character of SAM is in harmony with a Goodmanian view of expression and understanding, which is prima facie quite remote from a Collingwoodian approach. The purpose is to show how expression can be a cognitive achievement, directed outwards, onto the world, not to the search and manifestation of an ‘interiority’; and also to defend that the sharing of imaginative understanding is the true core of an epistemology of art.
ABOUT SPEAKER:
https://philpeople.org/profiles/vitor-guerreiro
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8399-659X
RECENT PAST
Slovak Aesthetics Forum with João Lemos (Portugal)
KANT ON THE DECEITFULNESS OF RHETORIC
Thursday, October 10 · 4:00pm (CET)
TALK DESCRIPTION:
Kant accuses bad rhetoric of being a deceitful art. In this talk, I will give an account of what it means for Kant that bad rhetoric deceives. I start by reconstructing Kant’s technical definition of deception as disagreement between the semblance and the cognition of truth. I go on to argue that bad rhetoric deceives by promising more than it provides. I finally show that bad rhetoric deceives technically.
SHORT BIO:
João Lemos (PhD, University of Porto, 2015) works as a postdoctoral research fellow at the IFILNOVA, Nova University of Lisbon. He has been developing research on beauty at the intersection of philosophical aesthetics, philosophy of art, ethics, and politics. Lemos is particularly interested in the significance of beauty in contemporary aesthetics and arts and its ethical and political meaning and value. He stayed as an academic visitor at University of Cambridge (2019), developed a postdoctoral research on taste at São Paulo State University (2017-18), and stayed as a visiting scholar at NYU (2017) under the support of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States of America and the Fulbright Commission. He has taught in the areas of aesthetics, ethics, and philosophical anthropology at Nova University of Lisbon (2020-21), University of Porto (2016-17), Portuguese Catholic University (2016-17), and Porto Hospital Center (2010-18).
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Slovak Aesthetics Forum with Onerva Kiianlinna (Finland)
Aesthetics in Finland: Past to the Present
Thursday, May 9, 2024 / 4 p.m. (CET)
What is the history of philosophical aesthetics like in Finland? Who gained visibility, and who struggled to get their voices heard? What kind of aesthetics is practiced in the Finnish universities today? This lecture outlines how central trends developed, flourished, and faded to the background from the 18th century onwards.
As a university subject, Aesthetics has held a relatively independent institutional status in Finland if compared to many other countries. Therefore, aiming to form a full-blown picture of philosophical aesthetics in the world, the evolution of aesthetics in Finland should not be ignored.
Slovak Aesthetics Forum with João Lemos (Portugal)
KANT ON THE DECEITFULNESS OF RHETORIC
Thursday, October 10 · 4:00pm (CET)
TALK DESCRIPTION:
Kant accuses bad rhetoric of being a deceitful art. In this talk, I will give an account of what it means for Kant that bad rhetoric deceives. I start by reconstructing Kant’s technical definition of deception as disagreement between the semblance and the cognition of truth. I go on to argue that bad rhetoric deceives by promising more than it provides. I finally show that bad rhetoric deceives technically.
SHORT BIO:
João Lemos (PhD, University of Porto, 2015) works as a postdoctoral research fellow at the IFILNOVA, Nova University of Lisbon. He has been developing research on beauty at the intersection of philosophical aesthetics, philosophy of art, ethics, and politics. Lemos is particularly interested in the significance of beauty in contemporary aesthetics and arts and its ethical and political meaning and value. He stayed as an academic visitor at University of Cambridge (2019), developed a postdoctoral research on taste at São Paulo State University (2017-18), and stayed as a visiting scholar at NYU (2017) under the support of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States of America and the Fulbright Commission. He has taught in the areas of aesthetics, ethics, and philosophical anthropology at Nova University of Lisbon (2020-21), University of Porto (2016-17), Portuguese Catholic University (2016-17), and Porto Hospital Center (2010-18).
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Slovak Aesthetics Forum with Onerva Kiianlinna (Finland)
Aesthetics in Finland: Past to the Present
Thursday, May 9, 2024 / 4 p.m. (CET)
What is the history of philosophical aesthetics like in Finland? Who gained visibility, and who struggled to get their voices heard? What kind of aesthetics is practiced in the Finnish universities today? This lecture outlines how central trends developed, flourished, and faded to the background from the 18th century onwards.
As a university subject, Aesthetics has held a relatively independent institutional status in Finland if compared to many other countries. Therefore, aiming to form a full-blown picture of philosophical aesthetics in the world, the evolution of aesthetics in Finland should not be ignored.
