Socialism for the Rich; (Heartless) Capitalism for the Rest

Health care hypocrisy:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/28-1

Midterm Assessment of Blogging Complete

I have completed the midterm assessment of all course-based blogs, according to the original rubric, viz.:

I will assess the quality and frequency of blogs twice during the semester: once at midterm, and once during finals week. You will receive a grade of A-F on both occasions. At the time of assessment, blogs that (a) contain the minimum number of regular entries (# required weeks of blogging x 2); (b) contain the right number of appropriate kinds of entries (that is, # required weeks of blogging x 1 “open” entries and # required weeks of blogging x 1 reply entries); and (c) incorporate an appropriate, yet not outstanding, degree of substance (insight, creativity, depth of analysis, etc.) will receive a “B.” Those blogs that satisfy (a) and (b) above and reflect an exceptional degree of substance will receive an “A.” Those blogs that fail to satisfy conditions (a) and/or (b) will receive a grade of no greater than “C,” regardless of their otherwise substantive natures. The grades of “D” and “F” will be applied to those blogs that both fail to satisfy conditions (a) and/or (b) and, to one degree or another, fail to reflect sufficient substance.

I have not focused my assessment efforts on the "right kinds" condition of (b), since, to my mind, it has served its basic purpose (i.e., to promote interblog communication). I've fallibly assessed condition (c) with a check, check-minus, or check-plus, the latter two designations capable of adjusting grades down or up from the base grade I assign on the basis of condition (a), that is, the number and regularity of postings over the half-term review period. The review period encompassed 6.0 weeks (9/14 - 10/25, ending this past Sunday; note that posts dated after 10/25 count only toward the second review period). The most common reason for a low midterm assessment turns out to be either an insufficient number (less than 12, the minimum) or insufficient regularity of posts (weeks with less than 2), or both. Therefore, I used the following guidelines for assigning a base grade:

(# of postings through October 25th/base grade)

12 or greater/B


9-11/C


6-8/D


less than 6/F


Of course, actual midterm grades, in accordance with the full assessment procedure above, will depend on my assessment of condition (c).

(A&P) Mnemonics for Biological Taxonomy

Found a couple:

King Phillip came over for great spaghetti

Kingfish, Pickerel, Catfish Over Flowed God's Seas

Kings Play Cards On Fat Green Stools

Kids Prefer Cheese Over Fried Green Spinach

(Not one memorable one in the bunch, in my view.)

Art and Nature

Thoughts on the “appropriate aesthetic appreciation” of nature:

1. Aesthetic means “involving the arts.”

2. Aesthetic appreciation refers variously to our valuation/assessment/enjoyment of the arts.

3. “Appropriate” aesthetic appreciation is variable and context-dependent.

4. Therefore, (from 1 &2) only art objects (including events) are the proper object of (appropriate) aesthetic appreciation.

5. Art objects are, minimally, intentional artifacts.

6. Nature is not an intentional artifact.

7. Therefore, (from 5 & 6) nature is not an art object.

8. Therefore, (from 4 & 7) there can be no (appropriate or inappropriate) aesthetic appreciation of nature.

Book Reading at Water Street Books

Matt Silliman and I will being reading selected passages from our new book, Bridges to the World, next Wednesday, November 4th, at Water Street Books, Williamstown, MA at 6:30 pm. All are welcome.

(AE) The Dismal Science

The law of diminishing marginal utility (applies to the consumption of art as well):

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/law-of-diminishing-marginal-utility.html

(A&P) Wittgenstein on Games: A Debate

Warburton -- the "Virtual Philosopher" -- discusses briefly Suits' suggestion that Wittgenstein was wrong about games:

http://virtualphilosopher.com/2007/12/was-wittgenstei.html

(AE) Music and Torture

Yet another immoral use of art:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/23-4

(AP) Definability and Openness

Morris Weitz claims that art is an indefinable-because-open concept. I want tentatively to suggest that he conflates indefinability and openness, overlooking in the process the possibility of a definable-yet-open conception of art.

Furthermore, Weitz -- or perhaps Wartenberg -- apparently assumes that a satisfactory definition of art must be an intensional one (a specification of the necessary and jointly sufficient conditions required of each member of the set under consideration). But Weitz's preferred extensional (in this case, ostensive) definition of art is still, obviously enough, a definition.

Even so, I remain hopeful that we might construct a satisfactory -- however inclusive and broad -- intensional definition of art. See Jeff Strayer's handout for a brief summary of the relations between necessary and sufficient conditions and any attempt to define art.

(AE) That Strange Word...

Elasmobranch:

"Any of numerous fishes of the class Chondrichthyes, characterized by a cartilaginous skeleton and placoid scales and including the sharks, rays, and skates." (The Free Online Dictionary).

Reminder: Next Stage of Research Essays Due Friday

From the original guidelines for multi-stage research essay writing:

Outline and tentative bibliography: due: 10/23/09. Students missing this deadline will have one letter grade subtracted from their final grade for the project.

Deadlines are absolutely final -- no exceptions/extra credit/partial credit.

(AP) The Art of Dewey's Pedagogy

My pedagogical assumptions owe much to the pragmatic philosophy of John Dewey. In the aesthetic/artistic arena, Dewey parses "an experience" as a consequence of wresting from the relatively inchoate and undifferentiated flow of experience a finite temporal span (one with a clear beginning and ending) imbued with a certain degree of significance or meaning (so that the cessation -- the ending -- has the character of a consummation). In like fashion, a successful learning experience is one born of those deliberate efforts to cull an educational experience from conscious life generally.

Consider this summary from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

The roots of aesthetic experience lie, Dewey argues, in commonplace experience, in the consummatory experiences that are ubiquitous in the course of human life. There is no legitimacy to the conceit cherished by some art enthusiasts that aesthetic enjoyment is the privileged endowment of the few. Whenever there is a coalesence into an immediately enjoyed qualitative unity of meanings and values drawn from previous experience and present circumstances, life then takes on an aesthetic quality--what Dewey called having "an experience." Nor is the creative work of the artist, in its broad parameters, unique. The process of intelligent use of materials and the imaginative development of possible solutions to problems issuing in a reconstruction of experience that affords immediate satisfaction, the process found in the creative work of artists, is also to be found in all intelligent and creative human activity. What distinguishes artistic creation is the relative stress laid upon the immediate enjoyment of unified qualitative complexity as the rationalizing aim of the activity itself, and the ability of the artist to achieve this aim by marshalling and refining the massive resources of human life, meanings, and values.

It seems to follow as well that "intelligent and creative human activity" in educational settings can and should include Dewey's aesthetic emphasis on immediate satisfaction. That is, along with its obvious utilitarian virtues, learning can and should be enjoyed for its own sake.

(AE) Reflection on Yesterday's Class

Here's a brief argument that I jotted down while listening to the discussion yesterday:

1. Only actions, in contrast to mere objects, can be moral/immoral. (Jacob)

2. Art objects, in contrast to mere (perhaps aesthetically pleasing) objects, are always at least artifactual.

3. The artifactuality of art objects makes them, at least in part, performances. (Dutton)

4. Performances are actions.

5.Therefore, art objects can be moral/immoral.

(AP) Clive Bell and Circularity

According to “formalist” Clive Bell, all and only those objects with significant form are art. But what makes some forms (combinations of lines, shapes, and colors) significant? Here. as I understand it, is Bell's answer:

1. We know significant form by its effect on us: it evokes (in the ideal observer), a “peculiar” aesthetic emotion. Yet,

2. We know these aesthetic emotions only as those triggered by our observation of significant form.

Unfortunately, Bell’s tight little circle brings us no closer to an appreciation of the difference between significant and insignificant (artless?) form. We might decide on Bellian grounds to leave significant form undefined (or defined only in terms of an equally ill-defined and “peculiar” aesthetic emotional reaction). But then his central thesis that all and only those objects with significant form are art reduces to one of two apparently insignificant claims:

3. All and only those objects with some unknown property are art. Or

4. All and only those objects that evoke some unknown aesthetic emotional reaction are art.

----

On another note, others have found Bell to be unjustifiably elitist. Here's a review of The Intellectuals and the Masses which contains a brief poke at Clive Bell's inflated regard for his own tastes: http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/carey_2.htm

Roger Scruton's Blog

http://roger-scruton.blogspot.com/

"Marx" on Campus

A note from M. Silliman, Honors Director:

Marx himself (or rather an actor portraying him) will be joining us next Wednesday, October 14th, in a performance of Howard Zinn's marvelous play "Marx in Soho." The honors program is sponsoring this one, so please demonstrate that we're using our resources well by being sure not to miss.

7pm, Murdock 218.

Reminder: Raise Questions!

A reminder to all bloggers: you are required to close all posts with a question.