Aesthetics/ethics.
Attila Sohar (supnurse@hotmail.com)
Sun, 03 Aug 1997 07:57:52 PDT
On July 30th,CDuffy wrote:
"It is the space of the world as read object which invites language to
exist."
"Speak that I can see what is human in your cruel body made of the verbs
of life and death."
First I want to thank you for a very insightful writing about the
merit of language as it evolved.The spoken word is a physiological
reaction,I mean it uses bodily features like mouth,tongue,throat...
which results into these different layers..."the thousands of visible
layers which mark our beings,our becoming,our consciousness."So while I
can totaly appreciate your argument about the importance words have
had to extract a level of humanity unreachable prior to its mastery,I
have a sense that the word without the body apparatuses giving it a
dimension in space would not be as compelling a phenomenon.Aesthetics
and metaphisycs are inseperable.I agree that the eye always expects a
level of perfection hard to provide constantly;but if we thrive toward
an aesthetic that probes the space where concept and figure,as well as
word and image intersect,then gaps of imperfection open the spacetime
that draws the viewer-reader into an active apprehension which would be
a reproduction that is not simply a repetition of the same but is the
articulation of something different.
The only aesthetic worthy of the name is an aesthetic that saves by
refiguring itself in a world deserted by the gods.
CDuffy also wrote:
"But the space of words which provided the humanity allowing us to speak
was merely the first station between the truth and reality station."
In modern philosophy the first and foremost aim is a philosophy of the
subject,a constructive subject who creates the world in his or her
image.So it is always difficult to speak of "truth and reality".
"But the fiction of words can create empires which last for centuries."
Isn't that as despicable as the raw violence of the body?
In an article by Mark C. Taylor:
"Since the time of Plato,the process of creation has been interpreted as
involving a synthesis of form and matter.In Plato's myth of origins the
world is created through the activity of a Demiurge,who brings together
the transcendant eternal forms and the chaotic flux of matter.Kant
translates the form matter distinction into epistemological
structures.While the platonic forms become the forms of intuition,and
categories of understanding reappear as the sensible manifold of
intuition.The stuff of sensation is,in William James' apt
phrase,a"bloomin',buzzin'confusion,"until it is ordered and organized by
the structures of intuition and understanding.In a manner analogous to
the Platonic Demiurge,the knowing subjects creates the world by uniting
form and matter.
Though the process of world making is subjective,it is not,according to
Kant,idiosyncratic.Like Plato's forms or archetypes,Kant's forms of
intuition and categories of understanding are universal and immutable.
Consequentely,constructive subjects create a shared world in which
common structure unite otherwise separate individuals.There is however a
significant price that must be paid for this unity.Since they are
universal and unchangeable,the forms of intuition and categories of
understanding constitute an irreversible for knowing subject.Epistemic
structures,in other words,are unavoidable."
The undertaking of an aesthetic that saves,is to reverse the seemingly
irreversible destiny of the modern subject;to develop the phenomenology
of perception.
Again I thank CDuffy for an enlightning read,you do bring out a great
humanity that is yours through a beautiful choice of words.Hope you keep
writing.
Like the Austrian painter Hundertwasser said:
"When one dreams alone,its only a dream.When many dream together,it is
the beginning of a new reality."
Attila.
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