- https://doi.org/10.14394/eidos.jpc.2025.0022
Design and Aesthetics: New Ontological and Epistemic Perspectives
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Preview: “The study of aesthetics proceeds along many lines, containing both the theory of beauty and the theory of art, and investigating both aesthetic objects and aesthetic experiences, employing description, prescription, analysis, and explanation.” Thus begins Władysław Tatarkiewicz’s seminal work on the history of aesthetics from antiquity to the mid-eighteenth century, the period in which aesthetics emerged as a coherent field of philosophy, thanks to thinkers such as Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten. Tatarkiewicz invariably followed these “many lines” in his works without favoring any of them. There is little doubt that this approach yielded notable results, improving our understanding of Western aesthetics. It can undoubtedly be equally effective when applied to the period from the 1750s onwards, during which time philosophical aesthetics flourished. In fact, there are good reasons to believe that it could be particularly productive today. While Baumgarten, Hegel, and many others identified aesthetics with the philosophy of fine arts, another tendency has gained importance since the turn of the twenty-first century. This new tendency transcends the art-centered tradition, both by “sublating” the tensions that define this tradition – they are conserved, but also negated, and thus function differently – and by crossing the limits of the field. Not only has aesthetics been “rethought,” it has also been practiced “beyond aesthetics.” Consequently, innumerable categories and phenomena that Tatarkiewicz did not find interesting because they were located too far from the “many lines of the study of aesthetics” have been included in the aesthetic agenda. The two vectors that are currently redefining the study of aesthetics reinforce each other, but at the same time encourage us to look to the past to rediscover ideas and perspectives that were either forgotten or marginalized, or even excluded by the aesthetic tradition. Beauty versus utility, contemplation versus engagement, rationality versus corporeality, immutability versus transience, ideas versus matter, the extraordinary versus the ordinary: these and many other dichotomies known from antiquity are still useful frameworks for analyzing what can be termed “the aesthetic field” and everything that can be included in it.
- Research Article
- 10.15823/p.2019.135.5
- Dec 1, 2019
- Pedagogika
This article presents basic insights on the concept of identity unfolding the dichotomy of viewpoints on this social construct. The concept can be researched following logical, ontological, or epistemic perspectives. From the historic point of view identity retrieval was associated with the restructuration process of society that continued from the epochs of Renaissance and Enlightenment and has been emphasized in modern and postmodern changes. It should be noted that scientific debates highlight the dichotomy between two approaches to identity. The issue stands in regard to what degree and whether identities have been constructed by the individual who is independent to choose a set of identities (Kant) or the degree to which the identities have been determined culturally and individually (Hegel).The variety of notions has made a proposition that identity is interrelated with social interaction which highly influences individual’s conceptualization of selfness and otherness. Thus, the conclusion that identity is socially constructed can be drawn after thorough literature review. What is more, identity can be negotiated through interactions between individuals that result in identity change, determination, defense or maintenance. The multiplicity of scientific approaches to identity proves the importance and actuality of debates on identity issues involving different viewpoints and argumentation concerning issues in educational sciences.
- Single Book
- 10.5771/9781611476514
- Jan 1, 2013
Communicative Engagement and Social Liberation: Justice Will Be Made recognizes limitations in contemporary understandings that separate history and rhetoric. Drawing together ontological and epistemic perspectives to allow for a fuller appreciation of communication in shaping lived-experience, facets of the two academic subjects are united in acts of communicative engagement. Communicative engagement draws from Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka’s writings on the human condition; extends the communicative praxis of philosopher Calvin O. Schrag by reuniting theōria-poíēsis-praxis; expands Ramsey Eric Ramsey’s writings to provide ground for vitalizing social liberation; and includes the work of philosophers including Hans-Georg Gadamer, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Michel Foucault as well as philosophers of communication including Lenore Langsdorf, Michael J. Hyde, Corey Anton, and others who guide a recollection of the significance of poíēsis in human communication. Myrtilla Miner, Mary White Ovington, and Jessie Daniel Ames dedicated their lives to being out-of-place and speaking out-of-turn to alter the way humanity was understood by members of society at large. The lived-experiences of these historical figures assists readers in recognizing how creativity (poíēsis) can potentially enable liberation from restrictive social circumstances.
- Research Article
15 - 10.1080/01463378809369721
- Jun 1, 1988
- Communication Quarterly
This essay maintains that a major shift has occurred in how Kenneth Burke explains symbol‐using. While previously viewing rhetoric as predominantly epistemic, since 1968 Burke has examined human communication as both ontological and epistemic. It is further posited that Burke's conception of symbol‐using is now dialectical, with both ontological and epistemic perspectives simultaneously cast as governing the symbol‐using process. Implications of this epistemic‐ontological view of symbol‐using are outlined for the functions of rhetoric, understanding of Burke's theory of communication, the long‐term effectiveness of Burke's concepts and methods, the literal functions of symbol‐using, the study of mediated communication, reconceiving the definition of a symbol, and for ideological and postmodern criticism.
