| Aesthetics is the
study according to some, including the philosophers of Africa, of beauty
and goodness, the two being synonymous in many cultures. On the other side of the coin, in Utah, the dominant paradigm there teaches not all that is beautiful is good; inferring there is more than a small potential for evil to be enticingly beautiful, to confuse and distract the Godly. What is beauty? According to Clive Bell, beauty can be determined by an emotional reaction. If we assume he is correct, then, after we decide a thing is beautiful by the way it affects us emotionally, how do we know beauty is causing this emotional reaction we call beauty? (There is the story of the woman who met a beautiful classic Greek-God-type as the bar was closing and took him home with her, but woke up with a dog.) Perhaps it is something else. Could it be the relative state of our body or brain chemistry; for instance something we drank? Maybe we could be effected by the attitude or preconception we had about this object of beauty before encountering it. So what is beauty, what is art? Surprisingly there is also the Conventional Meaning Concept of Art theory: whereas something is art if and only if it conventionally communicates some determinate bit of information (You have to determine what kind of information counts.) This cannot be simply a privately held opinion, to be actual Art there must be consensus of opinion. These and other theories are discussed and papers presented on the World Wide Web. However, The Net itself makes no value or ethical judgments. It is merely a mode in which to ask the questions, and to compare thoughts. It is the method by which information, and art can be shared. Everything that can be found in the world, some say, can be found on the net. And it does indeed seem to be the truth. If your pleasure is to see the art in a major museum of the world, or to evaluate new artists, new gallery openings, the history of art in other countries, or maybe the latest kinky sex: with animals, children, same sex, S and M: it is there. Or perhaps your interest is in art applied to surfboards, skateboards, sails on boats, carved into mountains, grown with plants or trees, made into jewelry. Or maybe you would prefer to listen to the latest big hit by your favorite band, or see tattoos on very interesting portions of human anatomy. Any type of art, in any medium is available for perusing on the net. If you can think of it, you can find it - so they say. How does this new medium effect the Philosophy of Aesthetics? Already it is contributing to the study of Aesthetics. There are">links to class catalogues,; reading lists, study questions, including various philosophers' approaches to the quandaries of what is beauty, what is art, what is consciousness, what is perception, and what in a culture is worthwhile. More information is available. Anyone with a modem, a computer, and more recently cable television has the opportunity to not only see what the rest of humanity on-line thinks, but also has the added freedom, advantage and indeed the responsibility to ask the questions as well. Onward |
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