Depressing? Well..

Comical. That's the word I would use when reading this: comical. As I generally do with philosophers, I found him more amusing than irksome. I was practically grinning the whole time reading this and, surprisingly enough, I was a little sad it was one of our shorter reading assignments.

I really thought his idea about 'bad books' was very, very funny. I found it funny because I'm sure some...okay, most of the books I read would probably be considered 'bad' if a newspaper is consider 'bad literature'. I don't spend my time reading classics, generally, and what we imagine as classics now (Poe, Bronte Sisters, Austen, Hawthorne), I like to imagine he would possibly consider them bad authors in comparison to Plato and Aristotle. So, with them crossed off and a few other authors, I've pretty much been reading terrible books my whole life outside of some books from my literature class. What strikes me as most comical is the idea of authors shoving their ideas onto me, which I agree that they're doing, but without me being able to think. He made it sound as if I'm unwillingly accepting their ideas without giving even the slightest thought to what I am reading. I am. Besides, even if I do happen to read a so-called 'bad book' doesn't that make me more culturally aware of what the standards of my society are? Case in point: Twilight. I do consider that a terrible book (sorry).

However, I do agree with his idea that we should read a book more than once, I think more than twice in fact. I did nod my head and think that I do learn much more when my emotions aren't at their peek, waiting to see what happens next when I turn the page. I've read Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice about five or six times now and I find new, little details I always miss every single time. Fun times.

Tim Minchin's Storm The Animated Movie

Alright, my cousin just sent me this video and I think you guys are definitely gonna love it. This whole thing talks about a lot of the same stuff we have talking about all semester, in the style of a beat poem. Uh huh, you are gonna love it. I'm not going to write any of my opinions just yet because I want to wait until some of you have watched it first. Enjoy!

And if I somehow did the embed code wrong, here's a link to the video on Youtube:

Tim Minchin's Storm The Animated Movie

Can't Agree With Kant

First off, I really don't enjoy the way Kant writes his ideas. Second, I really don't like his ideas.

I found most of what I read to be really confusing, and when I could understand what he was saying I thought mostly that I didn't agree with him either. I'd like to focus on the part about art having purposiveness, but not have purpose. I disagree, and here's why.

Whenever I create art, it has a purpose. I'm a story teller, and even though my work doesn't always include speech bubbles or a definite dialogue, what I create always communicates some sort of narrative. I suppose because of this, Kant would probably just say that what I do isn't art anyway, but there are whole periods of artists that painted narrative scenes. For example, the entire series entitled Marriage a la Mode, by William Hogarth, is satiric story of an arranged marriage based on money and status instead of love. Purpose: using paintings to tell a story that comments on the business side of marriage in contemporary society. Form: FINE ART.

The end. I'm done.

Just Stirring the Pot...

Forgive me for this but I was a bit curious

As we all know, we got into a pretty in-depth debate last class about what is good art and what isn't, and what qualifies someone to make such a judgement. It seemed there was a general consensus that at least some degree of experience with the subject matter is necessary. This theory brought to my attention something I was once taught. I took a screenwriting class my senior year, and my professor constantly told us that, "the person most qualified to write a film is someone who's never seen one." He applied this to criticism as well. Anywho, I was just curious what people thought of this angle. Can someone without a hint of experience expertly criticize something? Or does their lack of influence by the cultural and social norms make them the best candidate to judge and create? Just wanted to throw that out there, stir the pot and what not.

...umm, what?

I was dreading whoever would eventually make philosophy sound confusing and, as we hadn't hit that person yet, I thought that we'd never hit them. I was wrong. Kant had to prove me wrong and decided to make everything sound far more complicated than it has to be.

As I was reading this, I found myself doing what I had to do with the first few philosophers we read: rereading sections. I also found myself trying to skim much faster, miss some important detail, and then have to go back and reread. There were also chunks of his writing that I could understand and felt great about, but then suddenly Kant decided that I understood too much and needed to word it more complicated. Thank you Kant.

for his ideas, what I could gather from this reading, was interesting and slightly amusing. I really enjoyed the contrast between science and art, which gave me a little boost to know that art was a skill one had to be born with and couldn't learn, like math or history. He then continues to explore the relationship between nature and art and how they differ, then continues on with more seemingly badmouthing science in comparison to art. It all made me smile a little bit to myself.

Perception and Ethics

Out of all of the philosophers we have studied as of yet, Hume was the first, as far as I can tell, to deal directly with the topic of my paper: perception and ethics. Chief among the key issues in my paper is the idea that people see the world, not as it is, but as they are. I was greatly pleased to be reading a philosopher's view on a relatively similar issue, although his conclusions are not exact with my own. Perhaps I misinterpreted, but to my understanding, Hume applies a very similar idea that the moral values of men, although seemingly unified on general issues, when actually broken down into their true intentions, differ in many ways. This is where my topic comes in, looking into the roots which grow these different conclusions, and what such an error in vision can catalyze. In any case, I have received a bit more food- for -thought for this paper.

i just finished watching the video, i have to say that the videos help me so much, just because im a visual thinker. ok so i think that relying too much on the senses is not so good because sometimes they can be incorrect. i like how the ideas he has are scientific liked.

I think Hume has good taste concerning good taste

I was pleased with Hume's dissection of precision and accuracy in analyzing and discussing the operations of visual elements and intellectual faculties in any given work of art. Many of his assertions run parallel with my own ideas that concern judging a work of art based on sentiment and judging it based reason. I agree with Hume's assertion that maintaining an unbiased and considerate vantage point when contemplating a work of art is absolutely necessary to interpret its formal qualities. Allowing the merit of a work of art to be corrupted by a stagnant, static point of view is discrediting more to the viewer than to the art for he imposes his personal preferences on the art and inhibits himself from ever gaining a new, true understanding of what beauty really is. One must appropriate himself to the vantage point the artist to gain a clear understanding of the artwork's significance. I never deeply meditated on Hume's statement that it is unreasonable to argue about taste because everybody's taste is different! But I believe that is why inherently I have always tried to be tolerant, patient, and even admirable of others attributes because I consider uniqueness beautiful. Even his method to approaching a bad critic is tasteful because it does not insult the personal preferences of the other viewer but only brings him to consider a new view point other than his own which is beneficial to gaining knowledge. I would consider that TWO favors, one for yourself and one for him.