Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Clement Greenberg (1909-1994), although an art critic , not an artist, is to me the most fascinating figure in 20th century U.S. art history. He first made a splash with the essay " Avant-Garde and Kitsch ," published in the Partisan Review in 1939. Here, BTW, is a link to a discussion of the history of the PR.  But I'm more interested in that word "kitsch." Nowadays it has a somewhat more favorable, or at least a less unfavorable, meaning than Greenberg meant to give it , in appropriating the German word for tacky. Greenberg would dislike the note of sentimental indulgence that has crept into some usages of the word. He wrote, "Kitsch is mechanical and operates by formulas. Kitsch is vicarious experience and faked sensations. Kitsch changes according to style, but remains always the same. Kitsch is the epitome of all that is spurious in the life of our times. Kitsch pretends to demand nothing of its customers except their money -- not even their ti...

Can we agree that there are shifts in artistic taste, that is, shifts in what is considered beautiful, over time? I'll try to describe them in broad brush terms here. This will be part of the broader project of uniting my Moore-ish breakthrough in ethics (really in axiology) on the one hand, and the still-powerful historicist/Jamesian memes at large in my skull on the other. We should be able to talk about beauty in historical terms.  If we try, we notice at once that there is an underlying battle between connoisseurship and novelty. Suppose that we are living in a time when the impressionistic style is dominant in the world of painting. The smart people are the ones who know something about impressionism, who have developed and shared with one another standards that determine which painters are doing it best, etc. A recognition of beauty arises and is understood within this universe of discourse. BUT ... there is also an innate human drive for n...

On July 23, here,  I referenced three books about religious matters. I knew nothing more about them than what I got from a book catalog, and a bit of surmise. But one of them in particular intrigued me and in the meantime I have purchased the book. Here's what I wrote at the time. Thomas de Wesselow, THE SIGN: The Shroud of Turin and the Secret of the Resurrection Dutton 2013. De Wesselow, an art historian by trade, contends that the famous shroud is not a work of art or a fraud but an authentic burial cloth from first century Palestine. Also, he contends that the shroud was central to the origins of Christianity. He seems not to believe in the orthodox Christian account of events -- he is skeptical that the tomb was found empty or that Jesus later appeared to his disciples and ascended into heaven, etc. But he does believe that the early Christians believed in the resurrection with sufficient ardor to be martyred for it. So ... what convinced them? A mysteri...

I've recently received the Midsummer catalog for Daedalus Books. Here are three of the offerings the especially caught my eye. There is a common theme to them, as indicated by the headline above. I'll just present the bibliographic particulars here without further comment. 1) Thomas de Wesselow, THE SIGN: The Shroud of Turin and the Secret of the Resurrection Dutton 2013. De Wesselow, an art historian by trade, contends that the famous shroud is not a work of art or a fraud but an authentic burial cloth from first century Palestine. Also, he contends that the shroud was central to the origins of Christianity. He seems not to believe in the orthodox Christian account of events -- he is skeptical that the tomb was found empty or that Jesus later appeared to his disciples and ascended into heaven, etc. But he does believe that the early Christians believed in the resurrection with sufficient ardor to be martyred for it. So ... what convinced them? A mysterious piece of c...