How Else Can We Think About Art? Aesthetics, Technosphere, and the Post-Metaphysical Image

I argue that Samuel Beckett’s concept of imagination in the short story Echo’s Bones, written in 1933, may usefully provide an antidote to Adorno’s neglect of the same faculty in Aesthetic Theory. First, I discuss Adorno’s ideas concerning imagination and non-violent synthesis; second, I show how Echo’s Bones critically attends to these two concepts. In Beckett’s writing, the aesthetic imagination allows the reader to receive the work (without logical categories); to synthesize aesthetic material; and to transform tradition. Beckett’s concept of imagination is critical and receptive, and also shows how the artwork may unify historical and experiential material in the aesthetic object without coercion.

Alexandre Sarrasin (1895-1976) et l"esthétique de l"ingénieur

This work is based on the philosophical thought of the Frenchman Gilles Deleuze in his Book: What is Philosophy? (2010), working on their concepts of deterritorialization and reterritorialization based on a conceptual shift developed by their commentators in the field of Education here in Brazil, these conceptual tools are applied in the observation of the relationship of teaching philosophy in the discipline of philosophy with the 1st year B of High School at the Nossa Senhora da Presentation State School, in the city of Porto Calvo, in the State of Alagoas, in the months of March and April in the year 2018. As a result of an intervention proposed in the Professional Master's Program in Philosophy of Federal University of Pernambuco, in a perspective of favoring a libertarian education in the teaching of philosophy that aims at the student's autonomy and responsibility in the face of their own learning. This elaborated teaching proposal was named as rhizomatic within the Deleuzian philosophical concept.

Advances in scientific methodology for preservation of ancient monuments: Conservation versus conservatism

Though Edmund Husserl, father of modern phenomenology, is known not to have written an aesthetics in the proper sense of the word, his method proved to be very fruitful in this field of philosophical reflection.Noticing the virtues of this method even from the very beginning, Moritz Geiger, his colleagues for a generation not only dared to apply this method in the domain of aesthetics, but also thought that no aesthetics as an autonomous discipline can be conceived without combining it with the eidetic method. As a scientific approach in itself, phenomenological aesthetics aimed at studying aesthetic and artistic values, examining the structures of the aesthetic object, as well as determining their value. Still, such an aesthetics also implied imperiously some special theory on the essence of art, a reshaping of the theory on the psychological mechanism involved in the subjective and affective states of both the creator and the receiver.

The subject of this research is the correlation between “Phenomenology of Spirit” and “Aesthetics” as the elements of Hegelian philosophical system. The author establishes the dependence of the “Phenomenology of the Spirit” on the original idea of the philosopher, which implied the course of lectures on aesthetics. The task is set to examine the impact of the work that grew out of this idea, observed in the first part of the “System of Science” upon the course of aesthetics read by Hegel in Heidelberg and Berlin, and reflected in the prepared for publication “Aesthetics”. Special attention is given to the influence of the Hegel’s aesthetic theory of phenomenological methods, namely its role in solution of the problem of substantiation the meaning of aesthetic reasoning. This article is first in the Russian literature to analyze the role of phenomenological method in the establishment of Hegelian aesthetics. The acquired results include the determination of general philosophical and phenomenological grounds for excluding the “beautiful in nature” from aesthetics as a philosophical discipline, substantiation of the role of the concept of the observer formation of the method of studying art, indication of the place of the concept of visuality in Hegel's aesthetics, as well as demonstration of the conceptual and stylistic uniformity of the texts of “Phenomenology of Spirit” and “Aesthetics”. The article also explains the dependence of Hegel’s understanding of the possibility of philosophical study of art on the “Phenomenology of Spirit”, and thus, interpretation of the status of aesthetics as a philosophical discipline.

ГРАФІЧНИЙ ДИЗАЙН ЯК ЗАСІБ ХУДОЖНЬО-КОМУНІКАТИВНОЇ СИСТЕМИ

In his recent book titled *Béton: arme de construction massive du capitalisme*, Marxist thinker Anselm Jappe presents a critique of the emergence and ongoing centrality of reinforced concrete as a hegemonic building material. In this slim volume, Jappe traces its historical trajectory, analysing the economic pressures propelling its hegemonic consolidation, examining the central role it played in political projects of various stripes, and critiquing the social, cultural, and environmental consequences of the latter. What is interesting and novel about his contribution, however, is the conceptual framework deployed for this purpose. Unlike most Marxist critiques of architecture which usually focus on questions of class or ideology, Jappe focuses on matter and abstraction. Value-form theory (and the tradition of German *Wertkritik* which Jappe is part of), reads Marx’s theory of value as a theory of the abstract domination of human life and social practice by the abstract forms set in motion by the capitalist mode of production. What I propose is to write a review of Jappe’s book which attempts to read it in conjunction with the question of cosmotechnics. One of Yuk Hui’s central concerns is the decline of technodiversity as a result of the globalisation of Western technological monoculture throughout capitalist modernity. As the call for contributions rightly points out, the fields of architecture and urbanism have not yet properly addressed their implication in this process. I argue that the homogenization of building practices and the unanimous popularity of reinforced concrete is a major aspect of this process which ought to be examined more closely. While Hui’s project provides us with conceptual tools useful to critique this foreclosing of alternative cosmotechnics and to imagine how modern technologies could be rechannelled towards future divergent trajectories, he does not delve into the precise mechanisms through which this monoculture has been established in the first place. To explain this, I argue, Marxist theory is crucial. Expanding Jappe’s value-critical analysis of reinforced concrete with Moishe Postone’s account of how the peculiar social ‘self-mediating’ character of abstract labour in capitalism explains the transformation of labour into pure means and of its tools and products in mere objects, I intend to complement the question of cosmotechnics with an explanation of the decline of technodiversity grounded on the abstract logic of capital.

With this paper a new approach for MEMS design tools will be introduced. An analysis of the design tool market leads to the result that most of the designers work with large and inflexible frameworks. Purchasing and maintaining these frameworks is expensive, and gives no optimum support for MEMS design process. The concept of design assistants, carried out with the concept of interacting software components, denotes a new generation of flexible, small, semi-autonomous software systems that are used to solve specific MEMS design tasks in close interaction with the designer. The degree of interaction depends on the complexity of the design task to be performed and the possibility to formalize the respective knowledge. In this context the Internet as one of today's most important communication media provides support for new tool concepts on the basis of the Java programming language. These modern technologies can be used to set up distributed and platform-independent applications. Thus the idea emerged to implement design assistants using Java. According to the MEMS design model new process sequences have to be defined new for every specific design object. As a consequence, assistants have to be built dynamically depending on the requirements of the design process, what can be achieved with component based software development. Componentware offers the possibility to realize design assistants, in areas like design rule checks, process consistency checks, technology definitions, graphical editors, etc. that may reside distributed over the Internet, communicating via Internet protocols. At the University of Siegen a directory for reusable MEMS components has been created, containing a process specification assistant and a layout verification assistant for lithography based MEMS technologies.

This article explores the attitudes of Japanese and Lithuanian social work program teachers towards the challenges posed by modern technologies that may transform social work profession and studies. Study data revealed that scientists from both countries admit that “taming” technologies and optimally “cooperating” with them is the main challenge of social work practice and studies. On the one hand, belief that technological development will provide more opportunities to fulfil the mission of social work was prevalent among the study participants, on the other hand, they had expressed concern that eventually the use of technology will change the essence of social work as a profession of human relations or will create modified forms of social exclusion. Additionally, a niche for the new role of the social worker was identified: to help the world “occupied” by technology remain “social”. Attitudes of research participants from both Lithuania and Japan can be linked to traditional concept of sociality and vision of social work as profession that belongs exclusively to area of human relations. B. Latour’s asocial sociality concept can be applied for broader look into this situation. This concept states that efforts to trace the contribution of actors of an inhuman nature to what belongs in the human world may be more successful when one ceases to view the world exclusively through human eyes and tries to reveal the inner perspectives of phenomena of a mixed nature.

Musical aesthetics is developed from the development of aesthetics, musical historiography, music criticism and other disciplines. Musical aesthetics draws essences from such disciplines and also presents unique disciplinary characteristics. From such perspectives as philosophy, psychology, sociology and aesthetic meaning of musical works, musical aesthetics explores for the nature of music, functional pattern of music and value standard of music. Research object is served as the initial point of research of any discipline. Musical aesthetics specifies its research objects, and its research objects are enriched with changing times, promoting establishment and enrichment of the disciplinary system. In this paper, a brief introduction is made to research objects and basic principles of music. Besides, the author also lays emphasis on the ontology and disciplinary system. At last, a simple analysis is made on relations between experiences and existing way of basic principles of musical aesthetics. Musical aesthetics is an auditory-experience-based discipline of philosophy of art, which utilizes conceptual analysis, philosophical recognition and other methods to reveal universal laws for aesthetic establishment and practice of human music. Similar to common humanistic disciplines, chief issue of musical aesthetics is the object of research, which concerns both domain of discourse and research objective of musical aesthetics, and decides its disciplinary nature and development orientation. Musical aesthetics dates from the second half of the 19 th century. Through researches and explorations by numerous people, fascinating achievements are made in both theoretical and practical fields, promoting long-term development of musical aesthetics. In the process of document analysis, however, the author finds that there are still considerable different views for the cognition of research object of musical aesthetics. Therefore, the author arranges achievements and experiences of previous researches, combines actual conditions of musical aesthetics at present, and obtains the research object of musical aesthetics from the field of disciplinary system, which is helpful for deep development of this discipline.

The approach to the teaching of sociology developed can be seen as depending on the conceptual tools, the sociological imagination and the restricted case study. C. Wright Mills developed the concept of the sociological imagination as a broad purpose and direction for sociology. The idea of restricted case study has a quite different origin. It derives from the practice of advanced teacher education. This tradition has developed within the context of professional training. The chapter describes its main features and relationship to the sociological imagination within the context of some of the courses with which the authors have a shared experience. The tutor brings a knowledge of social science literature, research methods and a practical involvement in education. Professional development within education needs rigorous critical examinations of what actually takes place in our schools as opposed to what is initially perceived as taking place.

Aphasia describes the lack of the already gained ability to use language in a common way. "Language" here covers all variations of forming or understanding messages. The APH-Alarm project aims to develop a service concept that provides alternative communication options for people with Aphasia to trigger timely help when needed. It considers that a typical user may not be familiar with modern technologies and offers several simple and intuitive options. The approach is based on event detection of gestures (during daytime or in bed), movement pattern recognition in bed, and an easy-to-use pictogram-based smartphone app. Agile evaluation of the smartphone app showed a promising outcome. The idea of a versatile and comprehensive solution for aphasic people to easily contact private or public helpers based on their actions or automatic detection is promising and will be further investigated in an upcoming field trial.

Vision is one of the most essential human sense. The life of a visually impaired person can be transformed from a dependent individual to a productive and functional member of the society with the help of modern assistive technologies that use the concepts of deep learning and computer vision, the science that aims to mimic and automate human vision to provide a similar, if not better, capability to a computer. However, the different solutions and technologies available today have limited outreach and end users cannot fully realize their benefits. This research work discusses an easily-operable and affordable android application designed to aid the visually impaired in healthcare management. It also aims to resolve the challenges faced due to visual impairment in daily life and uses the concepts of computer vision and deep learning. Broadly, the application consists of the following modules: object recognition in immediate surroundings using region-based convolutional neural networks, disease prediction with the help of symptoms, monitoring of health issues and voice assistant for in-app interaction and navigation.

This article explores the specifics of digitalization in higher education institutions with specific learning conditions. It is noted that modern information technologies in education create opportunities for qualitative transformation. The Internet serves as a vast database, useful for shaping the educational landscape. It acts as a catalyst and a tool for transmitting knowledge, skills, and abilities. The study emphasizes that information technologies make it possible to efficiently organize the cognitive activity of students and cadets in the educational process; to make learning more effective by engaging all types of sensory perception in a multimedia context and equipping the intellect with new conceptual tools; to build an open system of higher education that enables personalized learning trajectories; to involve categories of students and cadets with unique learning abilities; to utilize the specific properties of the Internet to individualize the learning process; and to intensify all levels of the educational and training process. The conclusion is drawn that the increasing scale of digitalization and the development of digital platforms are natural phenomena, driven by global trends in law enforcement. The institutional aspects of digitalization in higher education institutions with specific learning conditions are no exception. Their domain is tied to the fulfillment of social functions, the primary of which is to ensure high-quality higher education. Under current conditions, this function is complemented by the formation of professional and social competencies required for graduates of such institutions to attain relevant social status. These competencies form the foundation of professional competence, which is further enhanced by motivation aimed at acquiring new knowledge and applying it in professional activities aligned with their specific field of training. Ensuring such access becomes an institutional function of higher education in an information-driven society, as computer and digital technologies have deeply penetrated all spheres of life, leading to changes in the working conditions of law enforcement officers. However, many problems in this area remain unresolved, particularly the lack of a scientifically grounded concept for modernizing the system of professional police training, including: proper initial professional training; education in higher education institutions with specific learning conditions; and the digitalization of such institutions.