What is Philosophy of Art? | Episode 2002 | Closer To Truth

What is the nature of art? What makes something "art", and why should we value it? What is aesthetics and art theory? Can philosophy of art enhance appreciation and practice of the arts? Featuring interviews with Gordon Graham, Nicholas Wolterstorff, E. Thomas Lawson, Jean-Luc Jucker, Anjan Chatterjee, Stephan van Erp, and Nathan A. Jacobs.
Season 20, Episode 2 - #CloserToTruth
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Closer To Truth host Robert Lawrence Kuhn takes viewers on an intriguing global journey into cutting-edge labs, magnificent libraries, hidden gardens, and revered sanctuaries in order to discover state-of-the-art ideas and make them real and relevant.
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Closer to Truth presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[@belectronix]

This is outstanding 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻bravo!!

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

(7:49) *GG: "All I'm trying to ask about is what makes art especially important?"* ... On an existential level, art is a reflection of an intelligence (Consciousness) that was present prior to the emergence of the universe. Through art, we reenact how consciousness manifests existence. *Example:* An artist first conceives an image within the non-dimensional realm of consciousness, works out the mechanics on how to actualize the image, and then brings the image into physical, multidimensional existence. This is an "Evolutionary Process." People commonly misconstrue "Evolution" as a completely benign process that is void of any outside intelligence, but that is not the case. *Example:* A Lamborghini represents a +150 year "Evolution" from the Benz Motor Car (or Ford's Model T), but clearly consciousness, intelligence, and aesthetics were involved within this Evolution. Nobody argues against that. Clearly, this automobile evolution never would have taken place without first being "conceived" by Carl Benz and Henry Ford. All of the automobile designs that have become extinct over time serve as a reflection of a universal Evolutionary process. "Product Evolution" is really no different than the "Evolution of Species." What is able to survive, does. -- Whatever cannot survive becomes extinct. *Summary:* It's not a wand-wielding metaphysical god or a benign process void of any and all intelligence that's in play.. It's a single "Consciousness" trying to work out the nature of its own existence. ... We simply cannot bring ourselves to accept this as reality.

[@chrisc1257]

Automobiles don't evolve nor do non dimensional realms, even exist (in the first place). The ARTS are egotistical, chaotic and sexual.

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

@@chrisc1257 *"Automobiles don't evolve"* ... If you don't believe there has been an evolution in the automobile industry from the archetypal, rudimentary vehicles to modern-day supercars, then you're on your own.

[@ArtistJoshuaWeigand]

@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC I enjoyed reading your well thought out remarks. I agree with the majority of what you wrote. However we are not God.

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

@@ArtistJoshuaWeigand *"However we are not God."* ... I agree. We are not what religion defines as an omnipotent being.

[@ArtistJoshuaWeigand]

@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC I do enjoy the way you use words. Although I cannot help but feel you and I do disagree on some fundamental level, pursuing the discovery of that exact disagreement would seem a waste to me. I am curious about your taste in art though. I am a visual artist and wouldn't mind learning what kinds of visual art a person as well spoken as yourself enjoys or finds moving.

[@judemorales4U]

Being a digital artist and appreciating all the arts, I found this completely fascinating! One of the best episodes ever! Btw, I can find ‘art‘ in a shadow on a wall or a crack in the sidewalk. The individuality of one‘s perception of what art is, makes it as vast as the universe.

[@Mr.Wonderful888]

Yes! This! Art is everywhere.

[@MaTTheWish]

Wouldn't a shadow be a subject for you to create art? Art doesn't occur until you move your body (paint, dance , sound) to express the emotions that you felt from the shadow on the wall. I think art is the self expression of emotion from the input of our senses. Painting shadows is an endless subject for visual artists. But the art doesn't happen until you move your body, with or without tools. I'm Just thinking about it. 😊😊

[@Mr.Wonderful888]

I appreciate this video and the thought provoking. Thank you. Long love art.

[@chefporry]

I've never heard the comparison between art and skills, but I agree with that section of the video the most

[@AbdulAbdul-qp4yo]

Overwhelming ❤❤❤

[@carlito8003]

There are some idea or maybe concept that are hard to grasp by simply visualizing and imagining as for example, but by applying the wide range of art in grasping or explaining the idea it clearly explain the idea by simply looking at it, art is like mathematics a tool for understanding abstract idea

[@publicopinion3596]

this is the perfect comment that exactly what art is like!

[@sundaysclosed]

Excellent.

[@David.C.Velasquez]

Hey it's Grand Rapids MI, I live 30min from Meijer Sculpture Garden. Imagine randomly running into Dr. Kuhn... I have much I'd like to speak with him about. My mother's family name is Koehn oddly enough.

[@soubhikmukherjee6871]

Many of us lack sense of art 🎨, so this is really beautiful Robert.

[@leejamison8436]

As an artist from childhood I have always been deeply disappointed in the lack of insight in the Philosophy of Art. It seems missing even from the "expert" opinions in this episode. The fact of the matter is that if you see something that is obviously art you KNOW it was created by a human. In my own experience even at the age of two, and possibly sooner than that, I HAD TO DO IT. It was a drive in me like breathing. As I advanced in my college career I got books on cave art because this seemed to offer a better insight into what drove me than Roger Fry's empty blathering about significant form. There is something deep here nobody is saying, something that goes straight to the religious assertion that man is made "in God's image". 45,000 years ago some young human in Indonesia was so powerfully animated by the mental construct of a pig, a construct fashioned from visceral experience, that he or she HAD to make the construct HAPPEN IN THE REAL WORLD that person shared with other humans. Now, think about this. Is not that very act of having a construct in one's mind that we simply MUST make real the very essence of what marks us as human!? Follow the arc of creation from that painting, through Chauvet Cave

[@LeeJamison100]

My phone cut me off as I was posting this. So, to continue: Follow the arc of creation from that Indonesian painting, through Chauvet Cave, though Lascaux and Alta Mira, into Gobekli Tepe, Egypt, the Sistine Chapel, etc., and what you see is people driven to take an image inspired by interaction with the world, framed conceptually inside a human mind, and finally DRIVEN, if you will, out of that mind (as though out of a "garden of Eden?") into the cold examination of the "real" world. And it is not just that humans create Art. I am absolutely convinced that Art, all of the arts, are instrumental in the creation of what humanity is. It's not just paintings that go back tens of thousands of years. Flutes, made both of bird feathers and of bone bear witness to human beings engineering their own soundscapes for the effect that engineered sound had on their minds. Art, the human activity, is deeply expository of what is most unique about our species- that we are not merely biology, nor even biology plus some culture. We are in a fashion like the resonant chamber of an organ pipe where a seemingly chaotic application of some input is shaped by the space within us to be expressed as a clear tone. And we have the power to consider the "tone" we want, to play with the idea of it, to imagine how others will respond to it, even to fear the response and be paralyzed in the anticipation of it. Then we can overcome the fear to create rockets to Mars like Chesley Bonestell or Rockets to Mars like Elon Musk.

[@mariaaaa1128]

More videos about art

[@wotabottle]

Love and understanding of Art.

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

Maybe art more an experience of reality than knowledge, and from that experience an understanding of existence? Each subject can have own experience of reality and understanding of existence? Existence and reality something of a jigsaw puzzle with every person and thing having a small piece of that puzzle?

[@richmeister1960]

Art is a philosophy within itself.

[@aaron2709]

Yes.

[@minacarroll8867]

A cup of coffee sitting on my bedroom windowsill at 5 o clock on July 26th 2018 with the cool morning sunlight flowing through the net curtain, that's art .art is the universe saying look at my mystery isn't it beautiful.

[@normally4020]

The description itself is art I'd say. Everybody has their own aesthetic (perception of beauty of their surrounding). That's beautiful yet conflicting because it becomes subjective and for studying aesthetics objectivity is a prerequisite hence a general definition feels better.

[@tolbaszy8067]

Life is Wonder or Despair. Artists point out Wonder.

[@NerdyRodent]

Nothing is Art, but anything can be art?

[@joedarrow5422]

Why if there's 52 comments, can I only see one

[@soren1921]

Nice video! Can you talk about ethics?

[@markc4176]

Where definitions abound, understanding is lacking. Aesthetics requires an understanding of both cognition and expression. Since materialists refuse to acknowledge the chasm between the two, we cannot begin to understand either one. Ultimately, only when we accept that mankind’s expression is a partial reflection of an immaterial connection between the two will we be able to recognize that “art” is a tiny sliver of a much larger pie. The pie includes many of our distinctly human characteristics, albeit not always in the form by which psychologists know them-language, for instance, is both a form of expression and a method for cognitive recognition, yet this fact often goes unnoticed among both artists and psychologists. The result is overuse of the word “art,” and therefore the reduction of its impact. We don’t often call all writing poetry, as a parallel example, yet almost all forms and shapes in any medium is considered “art” by both groups. I’m in the process of creating a hierarchy of types of art, and this conundrum in the art world is just the tip of the iceberg…it’s just one very evident example of why aesthetics isn’t as easy to either comprehend or discuss as “scientists” would like us to believe.

[@markc4176]

Here’s to hoping that the comments here can rise above anecdotal ideas about what makes art art.

[@brandursimonsen4427]

Cognition is to unite all expressions to a whole. The understanding and the mind. Such is right brain thinking and all art and all spiritual life. Analytical thinking is left brain thinking. It cuts out expressions into its parts until there is no cognition and no recognition of the divine. Like music as notes on paper. Scientists take notes and make music. Artists take music and make notes. If artists are to do philosophy of art, they must operate as scientists and recover their cognition from their expressions. I think.

[@belectronix]

I’d be interested to see your hierarchy of art if and when it gets completed! A tall order to be sure :) Sounds fun

[@stevecoley8365]

The truth is that "life is art"...creating joy. Not sucking it out. The real Mission Impossible The wall of lies saying that "life is business" (greed) must crumble...so that the truth that "life is art" (creating joy) floods the earth and washes away it's ignorance (hate). Then life can become a celebration with joy spilling out of the smiles of everyone. Like Love intended for life to be in the first place. Darkness (business) exists so that stars like US have a place to shine in heaven (joy, beauty and harmony). Stars like US don't exist to be sucked out of heaven by a giant black hole in space called "greed" and it's ignorance (hate).

[@Impaled_Onion-thatsmine]

That's for the clients, I didn't touch it. There's a whole bunch of philosophy of courses for a minor.

[@jamessmith989]

Metaphors.

[@keencole]

What about an episode about Philosophy of the day being guided by Art? Romantic, Modern, Post Modern and whats next Meta-Modern?

[@cheaterxl243]

Art is a kind of creativity expressed in many different kind of ways.

[@TheDeepening718]

Art is what there is. The power of Shakti is not mere force. It is the power of creativity.

[@ianduckett7182]

I think art is quite simply 'communication'.

[@albertalvarez9923]

needs elaboration.

[@jojomojojones]

Thrawn

[@renaissanceman5847]

The philosophy of art is to sell it to some rich fool

[@richardc861]

Nope what you say is rather the economic philosophy of capitalism

[@aaron2709]

Ironic 'Renaissance Man' has such bottom-line thinking.

[@renaissanceman5847]

@@richardc861 the world doesnt move on art... it moves on emotion. and the primary movers of emotion are money and pain. All successful artists have a deep need to be recognized, most have an emotional problem. This is why we have the term "starving artist"

[@richardc861]

@@renaissanceman5847 fair enough but your original comment is still flawed. It is art dealers whose philosophy it is to sell art to the rich/highest bidder. Philosophy of art is a whole different topic.

[@homerbartshow3101]

Religion does not give your life meaning!!!!!!!!!!!

[@jonsl2000]

Lol love how dummies who can't hack stem create another discipline e.g fine art, humanities to create fake complexity and mystery

[@AmandaMG6]

So wrong. Logic and knowledge are foundational. Ethereal realm is where innovation and genius occur.

[@yyyyaiza]

Drop the superiority complex buddy. Both are real and equally important

[@n.y.c.freddy]

Well HEY? Why wasn't I invited, included? Huh? Prof. R. L. KUHN! Huh? Damn! Nothing ever offered, and offered -- for free? *Peace ..