25 research outputs found
De gustibus est disputandum: An empirical investigation of the folk concept of aesthetic taste
Past research on folk aesthetics has suggested that most people are subjectivists when it comes to aesthetic judgment. However, most people also make a distinction between good and bad aesthetic taste. To understand the extent to which these two observations conflict with one another, we need a better understanding of people's everyday concept of aesthetic taste. In this paper, we present the results of a study in which participants drawn from a representative sample of the US population were asked whether they usually distinguish between good and bad taste, how they define them, and whether aesthetic taste can be improved. Those who answered positively to the first question were asked to provide their definition of good and bad taste, while those who answered positively to the third question were asked to detail by what means taste can be improved. Our results suggest that most people distinguish between good and bad taste, and think taste can be improved. People's definitions of good and bad taste were varied, and were torn between very subjectivist conceptions of taste and others that lent themselves to a more objectivist interpretation. Overall, our results suggest that the tension Hume observed in conceptions of aesthetic taste is still present today
De gustibus est disputandum: An empirical investigation of the folk concept of aesthetic taste
Past research on folk aesthetics has suggested that most people are subjectivists when it comes to aesthetic judgment. However, most people also make a distinction between good and bad aesthetic taste. To understand the extent to which these two observations conflict with one another, we need a better understanding of people's everyday concept of aesthetic taste. In this paper, we present the results of a study in which participants drawn from a representative sample of the US population were asked whether they usually distinguish between good and bad taste, how they define them, and whether aesthetic taste can be improved. Those who answered positively to the first question were asked to provide their definition of good and bad taste, while those who answered positively to the third question were asked to detail by what means taste can be improved. Our results suggest that most people distinguish between good and bad taste, and think taste can be improved. People's definitions of good and bad taste were varied, and were torn between very subjectivist conceptions of taste and others that lent themselves to a more objectivist interpretation. Overall, our results suggest that the tension Hume observed in conceptions of aesthetic taste is still present today
Lost in Intensity
Contrary to the emotions we feel in everyday contexts, the emotions we feel for fictional characters do not seem to require a belief in the existence of their object. This observation has given birth to a famous philosophical paradox (the âparadox of fictionâ), and has led some philosophers to claim that the emotions we feel for fictional characters are not genuine emotions but rather âquasi-emotionsâ. Since then, the existence of quasi-emotions has been a hotly debated issue. Recently, philosophers and psychologists have proposed to solve this debate by using empirical methods and experimentally studying differences between ârealâ and âfictionalâ emotions. In this paper, our goal is to assess the success of these attempts. We begin by surveying the existing empirical literature and stressing the methodological problems that plague most studies that might seem relevant to the debate, before focusing on recent studies that avoid this pitfall. We then argue that, due to conceptual problems, these studies fail to be relevant to the philosophical debate and emphasise new directions for future empirical research on the topic
Modes of imagining
Lâimagination est lâĂ©tat mental le plus fascinant de lâesprit ! Elle a, pour ainsi dire, une aura positive. De fait, chaque discipline revendique, dâune maniĂšre ou dâune autre, le dĂ©ploiement dâune forme dâimagination. En partie Ă cause de cette fascination, le terme "imaginer" apparait aujourdâhui comme galvaudĂ© : il prend tant de sens distincts quâil semble vain de postuler une unitĂ© entre eux.
Le but de cette thĂšse est double : mieux comprendre la nature de lâimagination via la distinction mode/contenu et mieux comprendre la nature des modes Ă travers lâĂ©tude de lâimagination.
Lâutilisation de la distinction mode/contenu est utile pour fixer des desiderata afin de clarifier ce quâAmy Kind (2013) nomme le sens primaire de lâimagination â câest-Ă -dire un sens qui rĂ©fĂšre Ă une habilitĂ© spĂ©cifique, irrĂ©ductible Ă dâautres Ă©tats mentaux comme les croyances, les dĂ©sirs, les Ă©motions, ⊠â et ainsi de rĂ©pondre au dĂ©fi de lâunitĂ© de lâimagination. La partie I de cette thĂšse est consacrĂ©e Ă lâidentification de ces desiderata et Ă la distinction mode/contenu.
AprĂšs avoir Ă©liminĂ©, Ă lâaide de desiderata, les mauvais candidats Ă un sens primaire proposĂ©s dans la philosophie contemporaine (partie II), je soutiens que "imaginer" est un terme gĂ©nĂ©rique qui renvoie Ă deux types dâĂ©tats mentaux : lâimagination sensorielle (S-imagining) et lâimagination cognitive (C-imagining).
Tandis que le premier type dâimagination concerne la plupart de nos images mentales ; le second type concerne notre habilitĂ© Ă nos immerger profondĂ©ment dans des narrations ou des personnages. Lâexploration de ces deux Ă©tats mentaux, leurs architectures et leur normativitĂ© sont au cĆur des parties III et IV de cette thĂšse.
Dans la partie V, qui conclue mon enquĂȘte, je soutiens que ces deux modes sont unifiĂ©s par un mĂȘme type dâaspect architectural â ĂȘtre le miroir dâun autre Ă©tat mental â et un mĂȘme type dâaspect formel â tous deux visent spĂ©cifiquement Ă susciter une expĂ©rience Ă la premiĂšre personne.
A partir de lâĂ©tude de la particularitĂ© de lâimagination, je soutiens Ă©galement que, contrairement Ă ce quâavance la doxa en philosophie de lâesprit, lâimagination nâa pas un rĂŽle doxastique dans la cognition. Elle ne traque pas, per se, une propriĂ©tĂ© dans le monde actuel ou possible.
Cette considĂ©ration permet de repenser la maniĂšre dont la littĂ©rature contemporaine aborde les modes psychologiques. En parallĂšle, cette considĂ©ration permet de faire un lien nouveau entre lâimagination et lâart : tout comme la valeur de lâart est dite "finale" (ou une fin en soi), la valeur de lâexpĂ©rience imaginative ne se trouve pas une quelconque contribution Ă la vĂ©ritĂ© mais est une fin en soi.</p
C'est quoi ça "philosophie"?
Je présente briÚvement l'objet d'étude de la philosophie académique ainsi que les différents courants philosophiques
[Compte rendu de :] Supposition and the Imaginative Realm. A Philosophical Inquiry / Margherita Arcangeli. - New York : Routledge, 2018
In her excellent monograph, Margherita Arcangeli offers a defense of supposition as a sui generis kind of imagination. Endorsing a simulationist account of imagination according to which every imaginative attitude simulates/reâcreates a genuine counterpart (visualizing reâcreates visual perception, for instance), she argues against this backdrop that supposition is a reâcreative state of acceptance. Arcangeli's inquiry concentrates on the most recent literature. She starts by critically examining certain putative features of supposition that place them outside of the realm of imagination (Part I. §1. Phenomenology, §2. Emotionality, §3. Participation). She then explores the positive features of supposition (Part I. §4. Features proper to supposition) and, then, the deflationists' attempts to define supposition in terms of nonâimaginative (Part II. §5. Supposition as nonâimaginative) or imaginative (Part II. §6. Supposition as imaginative) mental states. Through technical and yet crystalâclear prose, Arcangeli provides what is, in my opinion, the best defense of the imaginative account of supposition to date
La maladie infantile de la politique (le gauchisme, le droitisme)
Dans cet article j'analyse le vice politique du gauchisme et du droitisme. A cause de cette maladie infantile de la politique, gauche et droite sont aujourd'hui ridiculisées au point qu'il n'est plus permis de se référer à nos institutions sans recevoir un rire méprisant. Je définis le gauchisme/droitisme à l'aide de trois conditions nécessaires et suffisantes: 1) son hyper-sensibilités à certaines valeurs qui cause son grand engagement politique; 2) sa double naïveté (manque de maßtrise des raisons pour lesquelles il milite; manque de maßtrise des outils pour répondre aux problÚmes qu'il croit percevoir); 3) son attachement exclusif à la valeur paradigmatique de la gauche (l'égalité) ou de la droite (la liberté)
Aphantasia and the Decay of Mental Images
Testimonies about aphantasia are still surprisingly rare, more than a century after Galton. It is therefore difficult to understand how a person devoid of (a kind of) imagination actually thinks. In order to outline "what it is like" to be aphantasic, I will start by compiling two qualitative interviews with aphantasics that I will then compare with other testimonies collected in literature and online. The fact that aphantasia is poorly documented may also explain why few philosophers (with the notable exception of Phillips 2014) seem to take this phenomenon seriously â contrary to others phenomena such as blindsight for instance. To redress the balance, the second part of this paper will consider three debates to which aphantasia could contribute
Et paf ! Ca fait des unités organiques!
Je présente briÚvement la notion mooréenne des unités organiques