the materialist tradition in ancient Greek aesthetics

  

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The Origins of Aesthetic Thought in Ancient Greece
// Aesthetics Today

I have been reading James L. Porter's The Origins of Aesthetic Thought in Ancient Greece:  Matter, Sensation, and Experience.Cambridge U. Press, 2010.  This is an immensely important book both for everyday aesthetics and for aesthetics in general.  Porter is in the Classics Department at UC Irvine and would probably be off the radar for most philosophers who do aesthetics and philosophy of art, although he also has written an interesting book about Nietzsche's philosophy of art.  The intended audience for The Origins must be exclusively classicists since Porter regularly uses Greek without transliteration....so be sure to have your Greek alphabet with you as you read.  Fortunately, most Greek quotes are translated into English.  The primary importance of this book for aestheticians is made clear from the beginning:  no similar work has ever been written on the materialist tradition in ancient Greek aesthetics.   Porter develops the idea of a counter tradition to that of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle (the idealist tradition) which he carefully recovers from every source possible including presocratic fragments, Hellenistic testimonia, ancillary fields, and archaeological evidence.  One side effect of this work is to put to rest the common view that the ancient Greeks did not even have anything like an aesthetic theory.  More important in terms of the project of everyday aesthetics is that this book emphasizes the connection between aesthetics and sensuous experience.  A result of this approach to the classical sources is to bring aesthetics back to a continuity between everyday aesthetics and art aesthetics.  It is not surprising then that John Dewey's aesthetic theory is an important inspiration for this effort.  "Dewey's book articulates what will in fact be one of the central theses of the present study": in particular he agrees with Dewey that there are no fine arts that can be cut off from utilitarian arts or from everyday life. (36)  It is also noteworthy that Porter is aware of the implications of his study for everyday aesthetics as he mentions Yuriko Saito's seminal work prominently in the last paragraph of the book.  Porter also has some really interesting things to say about the concept of the sublime which, surprisingly, he traces back to a materialist aesthetic to be found in the Presocratics.  Another important aspect of his book is a reconstruction of the history of ancient Greek aesthetics, pushing it back to the Presocratics (although strangely neglecting the Pythagorean tradition, although perhaps this is because that tradition is more allied with the Platonic idealists) covering such figures as Democritus, Protagoras, and Gorgias especially.  If you care about aesthetics, the history of aesthetics or everyday aesthetics, read this book.  At least get your library to order it:  it is expensive and I was only able to read it by constantly reordering it through interlibrary loan.



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NDPR review - Merleau-Ponty and the Art of Perception

NDPR review HERE.

Duane H. Davis and William S. Hamrick (eds.), Merleau-Ponty and the Art of Perception, SUNY Press, 2016, 309pp., $95.00 (hbk), ISBN 9781438459592.
Reviewed by Keith Whitmoyer, Pace University

This volume strives to take this injunction seriously by bringing together contributions that challenge the boundary between what we might consider the "inside" and "outside" of thinking. Here, the task of thinking with and through Merleau-Ponty's writings is taken up by philosophers and non-philosophers, some who have worked closely with Merleau-Ponty's texts and have specific training in the history of philosophy, and others who approach his thought from a vantage point outside of that closeness. The result is a collection that sees the his writings and what is expressed in them from the often restricted point of view of the specialist, burdened by the weight of tradition and its assumptions, as well as an intimacy and proximity that often obscures one's point of view. But the collection also examines his body of work from a multiplicity of angles and interpolates frictions and tensions alongside what otherwise may have struck the reader as "obvious."

NDPR review - Diagrammatic Immanence: Category Theory and Philosophy

Rocco Gangle's book on relational immanence in Peirce, Deleuze, Spinoza, and  category theory reviewed at NDPR, HERE..



Rocco Gangle, Diagrammatic Immanence: Category Theory and Philosophy, Edinburgh University Press, 2016, 256pp., $132.00 (hbk), ISBN 9781474404174.
Reviewed by Jean-Pierre Marquis, Université de Montréal

In this book, Rocco Gangle attempts to weave together three threads: an interpretation of immanence in Spinoza, Pierce and Deleuze, the construction of a model of ontology on diagrammatic relations and the introduction of the fundamental concepts of category theory to philosophers. The second and third threads are in fact, even according to Gangle, already interlaced. The book's six chapters exhibit the pattern of the tapestry: they alternate between philosophical discussions surrounding relational immanence and the introduction and discussion of the basic notions of category theory, sketching the model of an ontology of relational immanence at the same time

Schelling SEP entry updated (SEP entry update)

By Andrew Bowie. His Schelling book was among the first introductory secondary literature sources I consulted during my dissertation writing on Peirce, Schelling, and Heidegger.

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Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling
// Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

[Revised entry by Andrew Bowie on August 4, 2016. Changes to: Main text, Bibliography] Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775 - 1854) is, along with J.G. Fichte and G.W.F. Hegel, one of the three most influential thinkers in the tradition of 'German Idealism'. Although he is often regarded as a philosophical Proteus who changed his conception so radically and so often that it is hard to attribute one clear philosophical conception to him, Schelling was in fact often an impressively rigorous logical thinker. In the era during which Schelling was writing, so much was changing in philosophy that a...
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James Williams Process Philosophy of Signs

"Williams develops this new process philosophy of signs through a formal model, in contrast to earlier structuralist definitions. He draws on the philosophies of Deleuze and Whitehead, criticises earlier work on the sign in biology by Jakob von Uexküll, and connects to contemporary work on process in the philosophy of biology by John Dupré."

NDPR Review of Williams' A Process Philosophy of Signs HERE, also many good papers available on Deleuze by Williams at his website HERE.

Avenessian's Metanoia

Table of contents for Armen Avanessian's forthcoming book, Metanoia. Great to see inclusion of more Peirce, something of an increasing trend. I plan to use Avanessian's notion of postcontemporary meaning that "the past is over" in my own forthcoming ms which is still under construction. I also like his idea of Peircean abduction as poietic procedure. This looks very interesting!

quote of the day

"Speculative realism is an appellation designating in itself nothing important but with which I have become associated.  It does not quite correspond to my enterprise since it also comprises the option that I seek to counter."

- Quentin Meillassoux

"Infinity, Cosmos, and Panentheism in Nicholas of Cusa" (Reflections on a post from Imago Futura blog + a great number of links)

 The world has its center everywhere and its circumference nowhere, for its circumference and center is God, who is everywhere and nowhere. - Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464)

Austin Roberts / Imago Future blog has an interesting post up introducing Nicholas of Cusa for those who are unfamiliar with him, HERE. It's similar in nature to my "philosopher profile" posts that I used to do (I only ever covered Paul Weiss, Nicholas Rescher, and with the help of Bryan from Speculum Criticum blog, Justus Buchler.  In the future - if ever time I'd certainly like to do John William Miller, Wilfred Sellars, and perhaps Brand Blanshard). But Austin's post is a really good read.  So do check it out.

The main thought that I had from reading his post was just how important the concept of infinity is to panentheism. This plays out not only in Cusa, but in the likes of Plato, Schelling, Peirce, Hegel, Hartshorne, Whitehead, Emerson, James, and Coleridge, to name but only a few.  With respect to Scholastic (classical) metaphysical theology one may wish to consult John Scottus Eriugena (one of my favorite Medieval philosophers in addition to Duns Scotus) or in same vein but from the twentieth century and with a Heideggerean-Schellingean twist, the Jesuit philosophical-theologian Erich Przywara and his (finally translated and published) Analogia Entis: Metaphysics - Original Structure and Universal Rhythm.

Regarding panentheism, there really are two books essential for learning that term's meaning.  The first is Philosophers Speak of God edited by Reese and Hartshorne.  This book is pretty much the gold standard for understanding the logically possible varieties of pantheism and panentheism and provides a detailed history.  The second is Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers - From Plato to the Present by John W. Cooper.  This is abit less technical but still very good because it is for the generalist and can be informative as an introduction.

Some penultimate statements of the panentheistic viewpoint would of course be Whitehead's Process and Reality, Hartshorne's The Divine Relativity, Schelling's Ages of the World, or less known, Samuel Alexander's Space, Time, and Deity. Even Plato's Timaeus has panentheistic elements (see the book Plato's Cosmology for example) which essentially sets stage.

The term “panenetheism” literally means “all-in-God-ism,” or the Greek-English translation of the German term Allingottlehere, the doctrine that “all is in God.” Karl Krause introduced the term to update and describe the philosophies of Schleiermacher, Schelling, and Hegel.

Later, “panentheism” came into common usage in the twentieth-century and was popularized by Hartshorne to describe his own philosophy, but also that of Whitehead's. Process philosophers usually take panentheism to mean, as Michael Raposa has put it in describing Peirce's God (and also Schelling's):

"One who views the world as being included in but not exhaustive of the divine reality. Such a view neither undermines the doctrine of creation nor collapses the distinction between God and the universe."

The panentheistic viewpoint is one main pillar in my ecotheological view as to how all of cosmos can be found sacred, whether the smallest of seed or the most distant star.  It supports a deanthropocentric view of divine reality in that, if God is "everywhere and nowhere," then no one species or form of existence is center.  All is equally non-center given the nature of the infinite, yet center in axiological value both in depth and breadth. I do not see this as a "leveling" down of all things human but only a "bringing up" to the same level of value and importance whatever has achieved being - human and nonhuman alike.  From an ecotheological perspective this enables one to consider the reality of sacredness for plant and non-human animal as well.  Many years ago I hinted to this in my post HERE "Do Animals Grieve?" (from October 2011, which still seems to be a very popular post all of these years later, initially linked by Graham Harman). One might also see my more recent post "Animal Theology," HERE.

In considering infinity but also with respect to the logic of theism a few years ago I ran a reading group that we decided to call "Philosophical Perspectives on Infinity."  Two very helpful books for that were A.W. Moore's The Infinite and the more analytical Philosophical Perspectives on Infinity by Graham Oppy. I'd also recommend the fantastic text The Logic of Theism and THIS MP3 lecture (24MB) by Kevin Staley (Saint Anselm College) on unifying classical and neo-classical accounts of divinity, including perfection and infinity, which mentions Hartshorne in connection to Cusa.

If readers of my blog are interested to read After Nature posts with similar content to that of Austin's post on Cusa, please see the below which discuss infinity and panentheism in some measure or another:

"Bad Infinity"

"Metaphysics of the Infinite"

"Infinite Density and Aesthetics"

"The Logic of Theism"

"God and the Logic of Worlds"

"The Vatican Still Refuses to Endorse Evolutionary Theory"

Is Laruelle an Ideal-Realist? (Let the Laruellians feast)

My discussion considering how idealism is a realism seems to have provoked more than a few curious onlookers in the blogosphere (to read that post, see HERE).  Although, ...

I happened to stumble upon an old blog post which I can repost below for the curious to read.  Now, here is the interesting part.  In re-reading the below post I must ask, "is Laurellian non-standard philosophy an Ideal-Realism?"  And, "Is Laruelle's "in-One" an Ideal-Realism?" Perhaps the Laruellians could educate me.

But please read the below where the query of "is Idealism Realism?" comes right to the fore. Answers or retorts are of course always welcome.  My email is to your right in the sidebar.

Finally, if you are well versed in Laruelle please do not "eat me alive."  I am by no means an expert on Laurelle's philosophy but am indeed very curious about it.

Alright (*deep breath*), here goes...

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Original Post: May 15th, 2014.  
"The Essence of Multiplicities: On Laruelle and the One Beyond Multiplicities."  

by After Nature blog. 

This late spring/early summer I've been re-reading some Laruelle, in addition to listening to some lectures by Alex Galloway on Laruelle (Galloway has some fantastic material out there, be sure to look it up).

Laruelle expresses “disappointment in the philosophies of difference” (as conceived in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, so Nietzsche, Deleuze, Derrida, and Heidegger) and is instead enchanted by the Absolute “as such.”  From reading Laruelle, it is interesting to consider the way in which his Absolute admits difference “deeply” as an "in-One."  It seems that for Laurelle, as he points out, that ontological difference is not relative but is continuous among and between multiplicities such that multiplicities are not “static” but are always immanently “in relation” in-One.  From these comments I am inspired to read more about Laurelle’s criticisms of Deleuze especially (see here: https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/44829-franois-laruelles-philosophies-of-difference-a-critical-introduction-and-guide/)

For Laruelle, the One is without unity save for difference; it is “beyond” Being – and taking that step beyond Being we go not into the emptiness of difference but a “beyond filled” with  the multiplicity of difference.  Against this notion philosophies of difference only provide “relative” multiplicities however, contained within hypostases of Being, of the Idea.  What we need then is a “new” philosophy of difference, one free of the same false promises and enslavement to multiplicities traditionally conceived.

About Laruell’s deep monistic-pluralism Terry Blake writes “The Absolute is not won through to by active and willful negation, but is attained more passively and patiently, by letting go, allowing oneself to be convinced, letting oneself be enchanted…”  In the words of Laruelle, “Consenting at last to the One as to that which keeps the multiplicities beyond Being itself.”  Enchantment is central for his project in terms of how one is to grasp the sort of difference he wants to portray.

“Relative pluralism,” so says Laruelle, is not enough.  One must consider instead a “non-relativist essence of Multiplicites.”  Philosophical thought, or better, “non-philosophical thought,” is “thought of the multiple and of becoming, of dispersion and of dissemination” and it is at work in the “contemporary hopes of an overflowing…Representation” with a “thought of the Absolute … a thought of the One, but of the One without unity, beyond the Idea, the Logos, even of Being.”

This pluralism is more deeply committed to a deeper sense of ontological difference and relation found among and between multiplicities; it seeks non-philosophically to consider a deeper general essence that is, in some sense, “beyond” the multiple “in-One” as a generality of Being.  This seems to be a greater sense of true generality that is in-One or in-different, perhaps the One as such as multiple difference.

For more thoughts on Laruelle's non-relativist plural monism see Agent Swarm on "The Renunciation of the Mentors" HERE and "Non-Philosophy, Disappointment, and Enchantment" (HERE).

In a post from last year I've posted some introductory materials about Laruelle HERE.

Immanence blog with some helpful links in ecocritical theory

Adrian / Immanence blog has put up some helpful links pointing to recent series' publications in ecocritical theory, HERE.  Interesting as well to note he points out the vigor of Lexington Books' Ecocritical Theory and Practice series.

Lexington Books were a pleasure to work with.  I've published two books with them (A Philosophy of Sacred Nature - pictured above - and Charles Sanders Peirce and a Religious Metaphysics of Nature) and the folks at Lexington have been nothing but absolutely outstanding.

They are a solid press and are expanding.  Check them out if you can.

Is Idealism Realism?

Question: Is Idealism Realism?

A1. Monism: Metaphysical (Ontological) Idealism: All is mind. No dualism possibile as any appearance reduces to mind. Reality *is* mind.

A2. Dualism: Epistemological Idealism: to to know matter "external" to the mind is to explain mind itself (cannot explain matter without mind). No monism possible.

B1. Monism: Metaphysical (Ontological) Materialism: All is matter. No dualism possible. All appearances reduce to matter. Reality *is* matter.

B2. Dualism: Epistemolgical Materialism: to explain "mind" is only to explain matter itself (cannot explain mind without matter). No monisim possible.


Is a monist realism possible? Yes, only in Hegel - so only Hegel is the true "realist."

Argument:
Premise : Realism: B2 is always A1 or A2. Realism is always an idealism.

Scientific / reductive materialism is a realism (matter more real than mind).

Naive realism, same as above.

Non-reductive materialism, same as above.

Conclusion: It seems that dualistic positions are contradictory to monist ones, yet rely upon them for veracity. Only A1 can handle the contradiction. To be a materialist is to be an idealist and to maintain co-related matter and mind: dualism, requiring one side to be "more real " than the other, which begs either A1 or A2. A2 is stronger than B1 or B2, so the prior positions deduce to A1.
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1. Ideal Realism:
2. Transcendental Idealism:
3. Transcendental Materialism:
4. Transcendental Realism:
5. Speculative Idealism:
6. Speculative Materialism:
7. Speculative Realism:
8. Immanent Idealism:
9. Immanent Materialism:
10. Immanent Realism:

Question: What cannot be deducted back to A1? (The above was inspired by my reading of Pratt's "What is Speculative Idealism?")