THE PROBLEM OF CONSTRUCTING AESTHETIC AXIOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE

Overdistribution is a form of memory distortion in which an event is remembered as belonging to too many episodic states, states that are logically or empirically incompatible with each other. We investigated a response formatting method of suppressing 2 basic types of overdistribution, disjunction and conjunction illusions, which parallel some classic illusions in the judgment and decision making literature. In this method, subjects respond to memory probes by rating their confidence that test cues belong to specific episodic states (e.g., presented on List 1, presented on List 2), rather than by making the usual categorical judgments about those states. The central prediction, which was derived from the task calibration principle of fuzzy-trace theory, was that confidence ratings should reduce overdistribution by diminishing subjects' reliance on noncompensatory gist memories. The data of 3 experiments agreed with that prediction. In Experiment 1, there were reliable disjunction illusions with categorical judgments but not with confidence ratings. In Experiment 2, both response formats produced reliable disjunction illusions, but those for confidence ratings were much smaller than those for categorical judgments. In Experiment 3, there were reliable conjunction illusions with categorical judgments but not with confidence ratings. Apropos of recent controversies over confidence-accuracy correlations in memory, such correlations were positive for hits, negative for correct rejections, and the 2 types of correlations were of equal magnitude. (PsycINFO Database Record

Aesthetic practices are the core of our commerce with art and aesthetic objects. But practices do not function without virtuous practioners, implying that there must be aesthetic virtues, somehow analogous to ethical virtues. Among the aesthetic virtues are aesthetic wisdom aesthetic virtual friendship (havig bonds of virtual friendship with artworks), aesthetic temperance, aesthetic fairness. Aesthetic wisdom involves competence in judging and understanding artworks and other aesthetic objects. But more importantly it involves the ability to lead an aesthetically examined life, a life examined with the aid of art and other aesthetic objects. Some of these virtues play an essential role in constitution of aesthetic practices, others in their sustention, still others in both. There is no sharp dividing line between most of the aesthetic virtues and other kinds of virtues. Aesthetic virtues deserve the honorific of virtues because aesthetic practices can contribute to human flourishing. Virtues can and indeed must be taught.

The applicability of standard statistical devices to the field of aesthetic folkways is explored. Orchestral repertoires of the leading symphony societies were analyzed from the date of founding to the present. Various statistical measures are here applied to selected segments of this history to illustrate the degree of consensus and difference of taste between cities; the weight of conductors and political events in the formation of taste; the lag in taste between the élite and the popular audiences. Aesthetic taste, here treated empirically, not subjectively, is a complex phenomenon to which nonaesthetic factors make a large contribution.

«The head-lights of your car are there not to show you the way but rather to make you be seen...» The non-empirical, foundational relevance of such a proposition is used as an instructive analogon for the following discussion. It seems theoretically inconsistent to assume that we have aesthetical objects on one hand and on the other, in parallel with those objects or after them, discoursive occurrences legitimating those objects. In Order to give a brief outline of the intimate relation between aesthetical experience and human language this paper argues (1.) that language is not primarily a means of designation, expression or communication but rather an activity of organization of our experience, of production of sense, of constitutive mediation of our world or worlds, and (2.) that aesthetical objects do not cover the whole range of aesthetical relations, that subject-object aesthetical relations do not depend on inter-personal aesthetic relations and that subject-object aesthetical relations play an organizational role in several ways similar to that of language and necessarily interwoven with it.

Some of the mainly unchartered territories in literary criticism are the implications of Susan Sontag’s frontal attack on traditional hermeneutical practices in Against Interpretation (1969). This contribution to investigations into the modes of interpretation attempts to draw constructive consequences from this provocation and investigate the notion of a ›poetics of criticism‹ emanating into what can be called the ›aesthetics of interpretation‹. In so doing, it explores the Romantic backdrop of this discourse through examining Friedrich Schlegel’s plea for a ›poetization‹ of critique and his demand to turn critical approaches into aesthetic, if not artistic, acts. Then, these reflections examine notions of perception or Anschauung as a cornerstone of comprehension; discuss poetic renderings of thought with Nietzsche, who epitomizes the fusion of reflection and aesthetic production; single out one of Gottfried Benn’s early poems (»Kreislauf«) as an object for putting aesthetic interpretation into practice given the specific character of this Expressionistic text; and, finally, assess elements of theories of recognition in terms of aesthetic practice with specific reference to a paragraph in early Adorno, which highlights cognitive transformation processes as matters of aesthetic experience. Thus, this essay illustrates the interrelationship between critical theory and practice as an aesthetic act, which takes into account the significance of Sontag’s challenge, exemplifying the necessity of finding a language register that can claim to strive towards adequacy in relation to the (artistic) object of criticism without compromising analytical rigour. The argument developed in this contribution towards an aesthetics of interpretation begins with a critical appreciation of various forms and modes of criticism in literature and other aspects of artistic expression. It centres on the significance of the dialogue as an explorative means of critical discourse, ranging from Friedrich Schlegel to Hugo von Hofmannsthal and indeed Hans Magnus Enzensberger. With the (fictive) dialogue as an instrument of aesthetic judgement, ›experience‹ entered the stage of literary criticism negotiating ambivalences and considering alternative points of view often generated from the texts under consideration. In terms of the ambivalences mentioned above, this investigation into the nature of criticism considers the notion of criticism as a form of art and an extrapolation of aesthetic reason as propagated already by Henry Kames, once even quoted by Hegel in connection with the establishing of a rationale for the critical appreciation of artistic products. It discusses the interplay of distance from, and empathy with, objects of aesthetic criticism asking to what extent the act of interpretation (Wolfgang Iser) can acquire a creative momentum of its own without distorting its true mission, namely to assess the characteristics and aesthetic qualities of specific (poetic) texts or other artistic objects. Following the closer examination of several of Nietzsche’s poems and Roland Barthes’s insistence on the segmentation of the linguistic material that constitutes a textual entity worthy of criticism, the article examines one of Gottfried Benn’s early poems (»Kreislauf«, 1912) in respect of its textual and structural dynamics, awkward sensuality as a form of negative eroticism. On the basis of a detailed linguistic, and indeed poetic, examination it shows where, when, and how literary criticism can meaningfully identify structural features as denominators for aesthetic experience. The final section is devoted to instrumentalize Adorno’s point that concepts can turn with some inevitability into images enabling the theory of cognition to acquire some credibility as a potentially fertile basis for aesthetic practice – both in literary criticism and poetic production. With a concluding reference to Paul Celan’s remark that language acquires a Being of its own and that something of existential significance occurs in the poem, this article illustrates that interpretation depends on a successful interplay of cognitive and sensual processes, which leaves criticism somewhere between aesthetic analysis and contextualization as well as between taking linguistic images metaphorically or indeed literarily. Finally, it suggests regarding aesthetic criticism as a way to assess both the actual creative process and its results as if they were involved in a ›dialogue‹ of their own. Therefore, interpretation can be seen as a process that generates its very own dynamics and procedures (i. e. ›poetics‹), either in relation to its object or in form of a juxtaposition. If the latter, the likelihood is stronger that ›interpretation‹ acquires more distinctiveness. Ultimately, however, the (quasi-performative) quality of interpretation depends on its stylistic features, the adequacy of language used, and conceptual stringency without disregarding its essential function, namely to enable a dialogue between the work of art and its recipient and the recipients amongst themselves.

Impostors:Performance, Emotion, and Political Economics in the Lettre à d'Alembert Jeffrey M. Leichman "Un spectacle [...] unique sur la terre."1 To contemporary theatregoers, this phrase resembles marketing copy intended to attract an audience, which makes it all the more surprising that Jean-Jacques Rousseau uses it to describe an idealized community in his famously vehement anti-theatrical screed, the Lettre à d'Alembert sur les spectacles. At the midpoint of the Lettre, this description leads into his reminiscence about the Montagnons, an agrarian people inhabiting the sparsely populated countryside outside of Neuchâtel. However, Rousseau conjures this remembered spectacle of virtuous equilibrium and harmony only to destroy it subsequently, imagining the financial ruin and moral degradation that ineluctably follow upon the introduction of a public theatre. As the avowedly fictitious performances of the stage are constructed from the same emotional material that serves as the foundation for Rousseau's claims to moral authenticity, the spectacle of the Montagnon idyll serves as the central illustration of the existential threat to Rousseau's political and moral philosophy posed by theatrical acting. The allegory of the Montagnons is the centerpiece of an energetic critique of theatre in the Lettre à d'Alembert sur les spectacles, penned in response to the suggestion (in d'Alembert's article "Genève" from volume seven of the Encyclopédie) that a permanent comédie be established within the Calvinist city of Rousseau's birth. The ferocity of the Lettre, in which Rousseau builds on the arguments that had earned him widespread notoriety in his two polemical Discours while simultaneously articulating central principles of the political theory that would be his most lasting legacy, points to the importance of the theatrical question for Rousseau in 1758, when he was himself at a crucial turning point in his career as a public intellectual.2 Theatre was not only the most prestigious literary form in eighteenth-century France, but the public character of its performance also made it an esthetic practice with far-reaching political repercussions. The manipulation of sentiment and pitié inherent to stage acting, the intense atmosphere of comparison engendered by the theatrical event, and the drama's reliance on love-plots that place women in positions of power over men, are all intolerable affronts to Rousseau, and the arguments against such performances that he rehearses in the Lettre exercised a [End Page 94] significant influence on the major works (La Nouvelle Héloïse, Émile, and Du contrat social) that he was composing at the time. This essay will propose that Rousseau's most original critique of theatre in the Lettre à d'Alembert combines his cultural and philosophical arguments with a uniquely political conception of affective economy, establishing the state and the stage as competitors for the limited resource of the public's emotions. In the course of his diatribe against the portrait of human passions presented on the stage, Rousseau nevertheless reasserts the assumption of fundamental human morality that underpins his attack on Enlightenment progress in the Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes. The affirmation in the Lettre that "l'homme est né bon; je le pense et crois l'avoir prouvé" (OC 5:22) marks a radical break with the Christian tradition of antitheatricality, whose critique assumes the indelible taint of original sin behind all human passion.3 Rousseau's assertion of the already "proven" goodness of human instinct before the advent of societies refers to the speculative anthropology of an innocent primitive humanity in the second Discours. In this work, he imagines the foundational moments of human society as a performance ("On s'accoûtuma à s'assembler devant les Cabanes ou autour d'un grand Arbre: le chant et la danse, vrais enfans de l'amour et du loisir, devinrent [...] l'occupation des hommes et des femmes oisifs et attroupés,"4 before presenting the modern theatre as society's evolutionary culmination in the Lettre. Thus despite the physical proximity of the spectators when watching a play, Rousseau asserts they are unaware of each other: "L'on croit s'assembler au Spectacle, et c'est là que chacun s'isole; c'est là qu'on va oublier...

Effect of yolk spheres as a key histological structure on the morphology, character, and oral sensation of boiled egg yolk gel.

The aim of the paper is to examine the possible relationships between the different dimensions of aesthetics on the one hand, and medical practice and medical ethics on the other hand. Firstly, I consider whether the aesthetic perception of the human body is relevant for medical practice. Secondly, a possible analogy between the artistic process and medical action is examined. The third section concerns the comparison between medical ethical judgements and aesthetic judgement of taste. It is concluded that the mutual relevance between the aesthetic sphere, moral judgement and medical practice can be understood only if we recognize these spheres as distinct.

Crazy Rich Asians

U radu su opisane karakteristike učenika sa hiperkinetičkim poremećajem (ADHD) i ukazano je na osnovne simptome hiperkinetičkog poremećaja: hiperaktivnost, impulsivnost i deficit pažnje. Posebno se ističu preterana promenljivost u reakcijama na situacije i problemi slabe regulacije i inhibicije ponašanja. Teškoće u učenju, slaba školska postignuća, problemi u međuvršnjačkim odnosima, problemi sa kontrolom ponašanja svakodnevica su dece s ADHD-om. Nerazumevanje karakteristika samog poremećaja i detetovih osećanja, kao i nemogućnost deteta da se adekvatno nosi sa svakodnevnim zahtevima škole, u aktuelnoj školskoj praksi sreću se svakodnevno. Kako bi učenici razumeli svoju okolinu i snalazili se u svakodnevnim situacijama, neophodno je da usvoje socijalne veštine. Nepoznavanje efikasnih strategija rada sa učenicima sa hiperkinetičkim poremećajem može negativno uticati na socijalno ponašanje i akademska postignuća te grupe učenika. Upravo iz tog razloga u radu se ukazuje na neophodnost primene adekvatnih strategija poučavanja i intervencija u vaspitno-obrazovnom radu sa ovom populacijom učenika.

(This interview was conducted in July 2020, before the American Presidential election of November 2020.) I was drawn to Gestalt particularly because of its core philosophy of holism. To the strong sense of social responsibility I was born with, as I mentioned earlier, I also came in with a driving motivation to be as a whole a human being as I could be. Of course, my understanding of what it means to be a whole human being has changed over time as a result of my life experience. But the fundamental drive to learn and grow was innate from the start. So, the holism of Gestalt theory and methodology felt like home to me. I believe this theory reflects how people develop over time, and how people can be comfortable in their skin and comfortable in their social environment. Gestalt is a systems theory of behavior. We recognize the organism, the environment, and the boundary in between and treat all three as equally important in a person’s growth and development. So, as a psychological theory, it is based on an understanding of systems. Understanding how that operates on a practical basis has stood me in good stead in terms of my analysis of situations and my ability to design strategies to impact change in organizations and large social systems. Another profound element, which may be the most important in terms of how I inspire other people to take action, is the concept of presence. My time and experience at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland supported and enabled me to do the personal work necessary to cultivate the capacity to be as fully present in the moment as possible. I choose to do that in pretty much all circumstances. Many, many people spend most of their lives not fully present. When they encounter someone who is, they feel the difference. So, I think that both my understanding of the importance of a grounded and authentic presence, and my committing to that use of myself in teaching other people how to become more present, are core to all the work I have done. Another primary aspect of Gestalt theory is the figure-ground principle. An excellent example of this principle in my work is when, as the Executive Director of the National Institute for Civil Discourse (NICD), I was interviewed on NPR about the hyper-partisanship and deep divides in the country. At the end of the interview, I could almost see the reporter take off her professional hat when she said to me, “Carolyn, can I ask you a personal question?” I said, “Of course.” She said, “You’ve been at this a long time and I am just really curious. How do you really feel about this? Are you optimistic or are you pessimistic about this situation?” This interview took place long before COVID-19. We were talking about incivility, disrespect, how people were treating each other, and partisanship in politics. My response to her question came immediately and spontaneously. I certainly was not thinking about the figure/ground principle! I said, “You know, Stephanie, it all depends on where I put my attention. If I focus my attention on the president’s tweets, the dysfunction in Congress, the 24-7 headlines on cable news, and social media, I am very pessimistic about our ability to get out of this mess. But my feelings change completely if I focus my attention on what I see happening as we work in communities all across the country. We discover incredible activity and creativity in every community where ordinary people are stepping up to take action in their families, places of worship, and places of work.” These folks know how wrong it is to demonize and vilify someone just because they vote for the other party or hold a different view on an important policy issue. They know we have to reestablish respect and civility in how we treat each other if we are going to be able to live together. This is a wonderful example of the figure-ground principle in Gestalt theory. Of course, in my work, I do not talk about figure-ground. I help people understand what they are paying attention to, and how that impacts them and limits or supports their options for action. The NICD worked closely with the American Psychological Association when they were getting so many calls from their members regarding what to do about the numbers of people coming into their counseling sessions anxious or angry about the political situation in the country. One of the strategies we recommended was to ask clients to sign a contract to limit the amount of time they were watching TV or streaming news on their device. People were not sleeping well; they were emotionally upset, and yet they were constantly stimulating themselves by paying attention to news that was very disturbing. By reducing the amount of time we pay attention to news information that upsets us drastically, we can return to a more neutral internal space. The counselors also worked with their clients to identify where they could turn their attention that would be more positive; for example, taking a walk outdoors, or spending time with a friend. By the way, Gloria, I want to mention one other reason that I was so attracted to Gestalt as a theory of human behavior. That was discovering Paul Goodman’s work. He wrote about and emphasized the social activist roots of Gestalt from its earliest research work in Germany, as well as writing eloquently about the challenging issues of his time in this country. The fact that Gestalt has roots in social activism has always mattered to me. Given what I told you about how I believe social change happens, the advice I give to young people always has at least two elements. One is to be authentic. Be sure to have a discipline in your life that enables you to know your own interior well enough to stay in touch with who you really are. That, of course, will change and grow over time, but you need a discipline to understand how to stay in touch with your own core. You also need to be clear that committing to be a whole person is a lifelong process. As is so often said: it is a journey, not a destination. The second is that you need to be open and able to reflect on the possibility that you may have outgrown your combination of strengths and strategies, or that your context may have changed significantly enough to require new thinking and new strategies to continue to make a difference. Thus, we are back to personal awareness and behavior and paying attention to and understanding the systems you are operating to be a social activist who contributes positively and keeps the negative, unintended consequences of your actions to a minimum. One significant change in our society for young activists today compared to our society when I was a young activist is how women are treated. When we look back at the anti-war movement and the civil rights movement, we see how the men who were leaders in those movements were very disrespectful of and behaved oppressively toward women. Our society has evolved, and there is recognition that women have as much leadership capability as men do and should be supported to take equal leadership. This interview took place in July 2020 and made reference to current circumstances and social phenomena. Carolyn Lukensmeyer asked to add the following, given the dramatic changes we have gone through since July 2020.Since then, I have been asked many times whether President Biden can carry out that intention. The divides in the country have grown even deeper postelection, as former President Trump and his enablers continued to claim that the election was fraudulent and that Biden did not really win. This lie is a threat to our democracy going forward, and President Biden cannot heal the divides and unite the country on his own. It will take all of us dedicated to listening to one another and to showing respect to one another, as well as committing to defending the truth and defeating the lies. In words taken from President Biden’s Inaugural Address: “We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural against urban, conservative against liberal. We can do this if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts. If we show a little tolerance and humility. If we are willing to stand in the other person’s shoes just for a moment.”For decades, my nonpartisan activism has been focused on strengthening American democracy. We came very close to losing it on January 6, 2021. For all of us who were fortunate enough to be born in this country or who chose it as our adopted home, now is a time when enough of us must come together so that we can all move forward to take on the multiple crises facing our people and our country. We did that after the Civil War, through the Great Depression and two World Wars, and after 9/11. For the sake of our democracy and the freedoms we all cherish, we must do it again now.

Sour is an important taste in some foods, beers, and teas; organic acids, in particular, are thought to play a key role in the formation of the sour taste of beer. It has been generally thought that organic acids also contribute to some teas tasting sour. In this study, through sensory evaluation experiments with black tea (BT) and green tea (GT), the difference in the sour taste of BT and GT was quantitatively characterized. Then the organic acids in the two types of tea were identified and quantified via high‐performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with taste activity value (TAV) analysis. The results showed that both teas had 12 identical common organic acids (including 11 taste‐active components), but the results of the TAV analysis were not consistent with those of the sensory evaluation. Therefore, there is no direct relationship between organic acids and the acidity in BT and GT. It is related to the interaction between organic acids and other substances, pH value, or other sour substances in tea infusions. The mechanism of the disappearance of sourness in tea infusions was also discussed. These results help us to understand the correlation between tastes in teas.

The purpose of this paper is to pursue art educational meaning and direction of future by understanding aesthetic experience in the aesthetic practice of human beings who encounter art. I regard art as a prac-tice or act rather than a specific object, incident or thing. I hope to further clarify its aesthetic significance and its perspective on the educational aspect. Today, art is a culture that has unique characteristics that distinguish it from other academic disciplines such as society, politics, and economics, and it serves to broaden the horizon of understanding of the nature of the human spirit. Examine human aesthetic practice based on experience with art, and examine the meaning and character of 'aesthetic' as an educational ac-tivity of human beings surrounding art, treating art as a kind of human practical form as visual art. Aesthetic experience is the practice in which the object and the subject communicate with each other vigorously, and the practice is not a passive process of accepting the aesthetic attributes of the object, but a concrete practice. Aesthetic experience is differentiated from everyday human practice and has the power to re-flectively reflect on history and society, the world and myself. Through such aesthetic experiences, practical forms of aesthetic situations can be discovered and educational outcomes that are meaningful to human beings can be derived.

This chapter asks how an aesthetic practice which surfaces across multiple world localities can be analyzed, taking as a case study the trend to aestheticize or celebrate imperfection. This trend flourishes today across different social disciplines and world localities – from American pleas to embrace the imperfections that are a part of our everyday lives to purportedly raw-looking Danish cinema. The author uses two Russophone examples of this trend – a claim that ‘imperfection … makes us unique’ on an online dating sate and an essay on the ‘The Eroticism of Imperfection’ by art theoretician Boris Groys – to underline the importance of reading aesthetic practices transculturally. To conduct such a reading, the chapter introduces ‘transcultural thickenings’ – a concept that media theorists Nick Couldry and Andreas Hepp employ to unpack translocal meaning-making processes. According to Couldry and Hepp, to fully understand cultural developments we must unravel the various regional, national, social, and other communicative ‘thickenings’ or layers that feed them. By using ‘transcultural thickenings’ as a tool to study aesthetic developments, the chapter illustrates that transcultural analysis defies both universalist and strictly nation-bound aesthetic analysis. What it promotes instead is a transnational, multi-layered approach to the study of aesthetic objects.

In this article I aim to shed light on the question of whether aesthetic experience can constitute practical knowledge and, if so, how it achieves this. I will compare the approaches of Nelson Goodman and Edmund Husserl. Both authors treat the question of which benefits aesthetic experience can bring to certain basic skills. Though one could argue together with Goodman that repeated aesthetic experience allows for a trained and discriminating approach to artworks, Husserl argues that by viewing aesthetic objects we can learn to perceive in a more undiluted fashion and to qualify our own perceptions against the backdrop of the conceptual framework that shapes our everyday experience. As a consequence, aesthetic experience is not to be regarded as something that only contributes to a normatively loaded involvement in the distinct field of the ‘aesthetic’. Reading Goodman with Husserl and vice versa, I will argue in support of a practical aesthetic knowledge account that mediates cognitivist-constructivist and phenomenological concerns and can thus overcome some of their respective shortcomings. The account I present is useful for understanding the practical value of aesthetic experience in and beyond the confined field of the arts.