Assignment #4: Hume

Read: Hume, "On the Standard of Taste."

Here's some background reading on Hume's aesthetics.  (Section 4 is most applicable):

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-aesthetics/

Take-home Quiz #1

Respond fully and succinctly to any 3 of the following prompts (approximately 1 typed page for each should be adequate):

1. What is Nehamas' conception of beauty; and on what basis does Tolstoy reject it?

2. What is Tolstoy's theory of the nature of art; and what are its strengths and limitations?

3. Is Weitz correct when he claims, following Wittgenstein's attempt to define games, that "there can be no logical basis for (classically) defining art?

4. Identify the strengths and limitations of Carlson's model of full aesthetic appreciation for nature (the "natural environmental view").

5. What kind of experience gives rise to art, in Dewey's view?

Due: October 7, in class.

Assignment #3: Dewey

1. Read: Dewey "Art as Experience."

Supplemental reading: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dewey-aesthetics/

Reminder: I will distribute "take-home essay-style quiz #1" on Monday, September 30.

Assignment #2: Aesthetics and Nature

Read: Carlson's essay in our text.

Supplemental: Auer, "Environmental Aesthetics in the Age of Climate Change,"

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/18/5001/htm

Also, be thinking about preferred methods of assessment for the course (i.e., grading).

Assignment #1: Beauty and Defining Art

Things to do:

1. Read the syllabus and handout CL; raise any questions in our next class. 

2. Purchase the Cahn and Meskin text.  (Reminder: I have placed a copy of our text on reserve at the library.)  

The first two chapters we will read from the text -- once we are prepared to do so -- are chapters 22 (Tolstoy) and 35 (Weitz).  Please acquire copies of the text/chapters asap.

In the interim, let's read and discuss Alexander Nehamas' "An Essay on Beauty and Judgment":

https://www.threepennyreview.com/samples/nehamas_w00.html

And, for a later conversation, here's a critique of Weitz (chapter 35):

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4318314.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A0cc4506bd7d495e892c81c099b8d2455