Pynchon's "muse" (was ...

[Otto Sell]

> >
> > http://www.uni-magdeburg.de/iphi/ww/papers/Beyond.html#text8
> >
> > from 'Aesthetics Beyond Aesthetics'
> >
> > [ ... ]
>
> "And these new concepts will certainly have some aspects in
> common with the
> concepts formerly dominant, but differ from them sharply in
> other, no less
> important, aspects. This is obvious in every shift from one
> style or paradigm to
> another."
>
> This is an important step for the Pluralist.
>

Welsch has always put major emphasis on the point that's impossible to draw
an exact Mason-Dixon line between Modernism and Postmodernism, as he has
spoken out against the anything-goes attitude some people tried to sell as
Postmodernism.

>
> "Hence, artistic paradigms are connected by some overlaps
> from one
> concept to the next (by `family resemblances' in the
> Wittgensteinian sense), but
> there is no universal pattern common to them all or
> representing an essential core of
> all works of art."
>
> Excellent!
>
>  "There is no such thing as an essence of art."
>
> Now, there are several problems here. First, the so called
> "Traditional Aesthetics" in this essay is Platonic, not
> Greek, not Classical.  The arguments here is against
> generalities that ascend to ideals. So one should not fall
> into generalities. But of course I'm playing a bit unfair
> here with the language, i.e., "classical," "traditional."
> However, although he traces the etymology to Greek, it's a
> bad habit, one that drives me mad, to treat the Greeks as if
> they all agreed with Plato. Or with Aristotle for that
> matter. They did not. Wittgenstein's "family resemblences"
> (PI 66,67),  an expression, has to do with characterizing
> similarities. Kinda like Aristotle not Plato. Also, W's
> claim to the particulars of perception is Greek, but it
> belongs to the Sophists and  does not privilege the eye,
> this could be said of Aristotle.  In any event, oh yes, he
> gets Dewey wrong, but it's an interesting essay, not because
> of what it fails to get right but for what it proposes.  For
> this aesthetic beyond aesthetic see Plato's Hippias, the
> Sophist most impervious to the reality of universals, whose
> mastery over the  multitude of particulars is demonstrated
> by his ear and family resemblences--his ability to remember
> fifty names after Hearing them only once.
>
> Socrates: He asks you not what is beautiful, but what is
> beauty.
>
> Hippias: I understand, my good sir, and I will indeed tell
> him what is beauty, defying anyone to refute me. I assure
> you Socrates, if I must speak the truth, that a beautiful
> maiden is beauty.
>
> http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/burbules/ncb/syllabi/Materials/Eagleton.html
>
> http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n22/eagl2022.htm


There are necessarily and inevitably a lot of ubiquitious patterns in all
cultural artefacts but the idea of a "universal pattern" that represents an
"essential core" of all works of art sounds at first hearing like one of
those metaphysical concepts that are deconstructed by postmodernism.

Personally I think that it could come closest to such a point when
perceiving some of those works of arts Robert posted or reading a really
good poem, story or novel, when you "know" what he/she/it means and your not
questioning.

Thank you very much for the Eagleton-link.

"Philosophy is merely what binds us to the fact that everything is just the
way it is. Everything is open to view, nothing is concealed. No ground, no
essences, no first principles ..." (p. 18).

""We search for what's hidden," Wittgenstein went on, "dupes that we are of
a dream of depth. Anything to avoid the unbearable presence of reality. If
we could register that for one moment in our mind we'd be free. Or perhaps
we would go mad ..."" (pp. 20-21).

Otto