I’ve been ignoring you because you keep giving flippant comments, like the above, which shows that you do not take ideas seriously.
Yeah, it doesn’t surprise me that you would see my pointing out the irrationality of your position as being “flippant.”
As to your claim that part of Miss Rand’s aesthetics was based on Kant…
I did not claim that Rand’s aesthetics was based on Kant. Rather, what I said was that it would be “closer to the truth” to say that Kant’s ideas on aesthetics are the basis of the Objectivist Esthetics. In other words, there are many similarities between Kant’s aesthetics and Rand’s, especially his concept of the Sublime, where there are none between his views and the “modern art” that Rand hated and blamed him for.
Also, Kant’s aesthetics had some influence over Romanticism, and obviously Rand was influenced by Romanticism, and therefore there is at least an indirect link between Rand and Kant via Romanticism.
…please provide the appropriate evidence from Kant’s writing and from Rand’s writing showing a similarity in thought.
Why? Aren’t you aware of Kant’s aesthetic views? Haven’t you read his Third Critique and seen for yourself the similarities to Rand?
I’m more than willing to provide evidence, but, in return, will you do what Rand failed to do: provide evidence that Kant’s Critique of Judgment is the basis of “modern art”?
Anyway, here’s some of my evidence:
To Kant, the experience of the Sublime was our enjoyment of having our capacity to reason stimulated, to feel our will to resist whatever powerful forces man or nature may throw at us, and to adhere to our highest chosen principles. His view of the Sublime was that our experiencing mind-boggling magnitudes, seemingly infinite and therefore formless phenonena, and awesome, threatening powers allow us to feel our cognitive and moral superiority.
He wrote,
"Every affection of the strenuous type (such, that is, as excites the consciousness of our power of overcoming every resistance [animus strenuus]) is aesthetically sublime, e.g., anger, even desperation (the rage of forlorn hope but not faint-hearted despair)…
“Everything that provokes this feeling in us, including the might of nature which challenges our strength, is then called sublime, and it is only under presupposition of this idea within us, and in relation to it, that we are capable of attaining to the idea of the sublimity of that being which inspires deep respect in us, not by the mere display of its might in nature, but more by the faculty which is planted in us of estimating that might without fear, and of regarding our estate as exalted above it.”
All of Rand’s novels are excellent examples of Kant’s notion of Sublimity – they each contain overwhelming objects of terror – especially political tyranny – which is amorphous and of immense magnitude, and which threatens the novels’ characters. Its terror stimulates readers’ will to resist, to adhere to their highest principles, and to “regard their estate as exalted above it.”
In other words, as I quoted Vacker and Johnson in this post on OL:
“Rand’s aesthetic signature is captured better by the concept of the sublime, an experience in which elements of chaos — mind boggling magnitudes and fearsome powers — are incorporated into an elevating aesthetic phenomenon by the experience of man’s cognitive mastery and moral superiority over them.”
Clearly, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged express the natural and technological sublime, a modern aesthetic style born of post-Kantian aesthetics and industrial utopianism (Nye 1994). Rand’s passionate explication of the sublime is the main reason those novels have become such revolutionary classics. Yet, What Art Is claims to present Rand’s theory of aesthetics, not only absent the beautiful, but even without discussion of the sublime, the aesthetic style most emblematic of Rand’s own writing.
Since Kant’s mind was so disconnected from reality that he never gave *any* concrete examples of what the hell he was talking about, good luck with that.
Have you read his Third Critique? Apparently not. He gives plenty of examples.
As to architecture, Miss Rand was clear, though there isn’t much of a passage I can quote you from the online Lexicon: “The so-called visual arts (painting, sculpture, architecture) produce concrete, perceptually available entities and make them convey an abstract, conceptual meaning.”
Did you miss the part in my last post where I quoted Rand as saying that architecture “does not re-create reality”? Would you mind focusing on that point and addressing it?
Now, I would agree that people can find architecture to be “conceptually meaningful” – just as meaningful as people can find abstract paintings to be – but that doesn’t mean that it complies with Rand’s stated definition and criteria. She said that art is a “re-creation of reality,” and that architecture is an art form that “does not re-create reality”! In other words, just like abstract art, its aesthetic means is not mimesis, but rather its abstract relational aspects (color, texture, proportion, etc.). I repeat: Rand’s stated position was that architecture “does not re-create reality,” but that it was somehow still a valid art form! Understand?
And, speaking of the online Lexicon, are you not aware of the fact that there is no entry for “architecture” because, according to Binswanger, Rand was having second thoughts about its status as an art form just prior to her death? She saw the contradiction! Isn’t that enough to make you see it?
This becomes very clear simply by pointing to the obvious differences between a hut on the beach, a suburban home, a sky scraper, or a cathedral. Each type of building by it’s shape, size, and visual outward design and inside spatial arrangements convey different meanings as to the nature of reality and man’s place in it.
You seem to be saying that a beach hut, a suburban home, a sky scraper and a cathedral can’t all have the same aesthetic meaning, or that they each have meanings inherent in their utilitarian function. Is that what you believe? Do you think that a beach hut, for example, can’t be designed to express the glory of existence? If so, you’re disagreeing with Rand.
For more details, read “The Fountainhead”, a whole novel on the relationship of architecture to philosophy.
The Fountainhead offers no answers on how architecture can qualify as “re-creating reality” when it “does not re-create reality.” It’s a work of fiction which deviates from reality. It is not a philosophical treatise which addresses the problems of architecture qualifying as art according to Rand’s criteria.
J