So this is Christmas

I always chuckle up when the newspeople to that annual interview with people: "Has consumerism caused us to lose the true meaning of Christmas?" I sure hope to hell it has. In fact I doubt if anyone ever really understood the true meaning of christmas. Christmas like all those other made up holidays is a conglomerate of meanings, sure it has something to do with the birth of jc but that is only part of the meaning and through the generations new meanings have been thatched on to it, and the by-product is what we have today. Sure it is in many regards a celebration of our consumer culture, but I have never felt obligated to go out and buy something for the sake of Christmas our out a sense of duty to this person or that.
I like the idea of presents, the giving more so than the receiving. I don't like receiving things, because they are usually things that I neither need or want, which is why people shouldn't buy gifts just to give them. I think that a well though of gift is a wonderful thing and it shows the degree to which you know someone. For example I realized shopping for my aunt and uncle how very little I know them. But for the little one I bought this remote control car, and he was very happy with it, and that in turn made me happy. I then spend the next three or so hours sitting on the floor assembling the rain set he got from my aunt and uncle.
I generally like to give books because I think once you are able to give someone a book they will enjoy it shows that you know them to a certain degree, especially when it is a book they had no heard of. Of course there are times you can get it very wrong, for example giving my sister the feminist mystic and gravity's rainbow may have been a little misguided, but at least she liked diary of a schizophrenic girl (good knows for what reason). I got my cousin the call of the wild of the wild so that i can teach him a little english to supplement what he isn't learning in school. He likes dogs, so wolves seems like a natural extension of it. It also isn't as sad as old yeller and where the red fern grows. We'll see how that goes. Kids these days I swear all they ever do is play video games there is no time to read anymore, pffft.

I have been watching romanian films lately and I am utterly disappointed I have not seen them before. Some of them are wonderful gems (i don't know why film people use that word). More and more films are being made in romania because of tax incentives, well romania and boston. but it seems that very few of the romanian films made in romania are a hot in romania, the much more prefer hollywood and bollywood films. But these films are simply great films, as great as any other foreign films and it really is a shame that they get lost in the mix. Romania has never been ever been a sexy place. There seem to be two things people know about romania, maybe three. That we had a dictator, Ceaucescu a gymnast Comaneci and we have a lot of orphans. Romania has no real military history and this is an immense draw back, hell the Swiss have more of a militaristic history, and they have Calvin... and chocolate. But it is utterly amazing how little separates romania and for that matter most post soviet countries from countries with more of a history. There is probably a matter of immigration, most of Romania's emigration has been either unsavory individuals or the really bright people that are stuck in front of computers. More about Romania when I get to it.

Romania

I need a cigaret and a long a walk. Kids are driving me crazy, kid to be fair. The older one is more stoic trying to impress me. He looks up to me, I hate that. Its been a while since I got back from Romania and I have quite a bit to write mostly about how I hate people and such, so here goes.

I don't care about countries, I find nationalism or loyalty to a group of people absurd. I cannot comprehend how someone can simply lump a group of people and make outrageous claims. I am willing to concede somethings, if you wear a turban you are more likely to blow up my plane , if you are Irish my car, etc. There are many problems with even these generalizations, but they at least have a fighting chance. To claim that Hungarians are a nation of thieves in comparison to the Romanians is not. To claim that Italians are "dirty Gypsies" who are seek ing retribution against Romanians for stealing their men because Romanian women are the most beautiful in the world, is another absurd claim. I don't really understand what to when I am presented with such claims. Should I nod my head and smile, or should I call them an idiot? What if that person is your grandmother?

I drove to Cluj with my Uncle and spend the night at his family's house. I drove through Hungary on the way there, or rather he did and I slept. There wasn't very much to see. Hungary unlike Romania has highways. In Romania we traveled through towns that time forgot, or will shortly. It was interesting to see the EU flag fly next to the national one. It is obvious who is the most important player is in Romania and probably most of Eastern Europe.LAst time I was home, seven years ago the dollar was golden and America was still king. But how far and fast the might have fallen. Romania as a country still has a some allegiances to America being part of NATO and all that. But at least with the people I have talked to, it is not longer the land of milk and honey. Many aren't looking past Germany.

After the fall of communism a many of the utilities and services become privatized they were bought by outside investors, many people feel that we have sold our country. That they have raped Romania. Some even feel as if the revolution was a mistake. It is not uncommon especially amongst the older generations to almost wish that Communism would return. Sure we can say anything we want now but at least we all had jobs, now we can't afford to eat. I was watching a tv show about the revolution and this reporter went around my hometown asking whether or not life was better after the revolution, not one gave an unqualified yes. That utterly baffles me. Sure it was tv and what not but it is a common complaint.

Romania is full of paradoxes, people that can't afford to eat by 1000 euro cellphones. The growth of the country, and there has been growth, is very uneven. Those that deserve to do well, don't. You have million dollar house next to hose that look like they are made of shit. The capital is building huge sidewalks and the tallest tree in Europe but can't fix potholes. Parliamentarians are becoming rich because they are in power as opposed to the good ol' american system where the rich become powerful. Most people seem to so self absorbed with Romania's imagined greatness and the idea that the international is somehow snubbing them that they can't seem to see any flaws in the country. Ah that's how we Romanians are, or so we say.

I'm tired I need to go to bed, I'll write more tomorrow.

My Two Cents about Art

From my limited understanding of poetry, originally they were a combination of both singing and words. They were presented orally. The poem in that instance could not be separated from those elements. We no longer think of poetry that strictly. We are more lenient about what we consider poetry. Essentially I hold that anything that holds itself to be art is art (or poetry) anything that is considered art as long as it provides some relevant historical technical based justification for its existence can be considered good art. I think demarcating and limiting the idea of art is silly, it achieves very little if anything besides providing humans with a privileged position. Here are two of the papers I wrote last term. Yes they are full of grammatical mistakes, and yes they are confusing, my professor shares your pains, and thus I offer my sympathies.

Defining Art
The Need for an Archeology

Anybody interested in defining art should first ask himself or herself what would constitute a successful definition of art. If this question is too hard, we can approach this end by a series of steps. First we must determine whether or not a definition should act prescriptively or descriptively. The obvious answer seems to be that a definition is descriptive. If a definition tries to act prescriptively it runs the high risk on not being accepted by the very people who are suppose to profit from the definition. It seems that a definition must be able to adhere to what to its use. It at first may not seem controversial to argue that a definition must be essentially descriptive in nature but most of the current definitions of art are not entirely descriptive and try to reclaim some of the ground lost to contemporary and experimental artists by lacing their definitions with prescriptive elements.
Before we can accept a descriptive definition of art based on the notion that it best represents the common use of the word we should ask whether or not such a definition should really be based on the common use. Leaving aside difficulties of capturing the common use of a word, imagine that art was defined in such a way that it required some amount of knowledge to be understood. The first problem comes in determining how much knowledge is necessary to make an accurate judgment concerning the status of a thing as art.
Arthur Danto in his now famous journal article, The Artworld, presents us with the caricature, Testadura “a noted plain speaker and philistine.” Testadura challenges Danto to answer the question: What is the difference between an art object and a real object? The answer that Danto provides, the precursor to the Institutional theory of art, eliminates the possibility that Testadura can know the definition of art, at least not immediately. For Danto before one can make a judgment about the status of an object as art they must be aware of the “is of artistic identification.” The “is of artistic identification” is the ability to distinguish the property of an object which allows it to fall within the dialogue about art from those that fall outside it. (I am, perhaps improperly introducing a term which foreshadows my conclusion. By dialogue I mean the context of already established art in the socio-historical sense.) Only a person aware of the dialogue of art can make judgments regarding the status of an artwork in relation to that dialogue. Testadura as a noted plain speaker and philistine does not have the proper knowledge to distinguish between art objects and real objects.
This conclusion begs the question, who can distinguish between art objects and real objects? One would imagine that an established artists would have the ability to distinguish between art objects and real objects. Oswald Hanfling presents us with the anecdotal story of an artists banned from an art gallery for eating another artist’s work. The artist’s work was a bag of doughnuts on a pedestal (Hanfling 4). It would seem that even being part of the artworld is not enough of a prerequisite to make judgments of art. One also has to be aware of the role of the specific object in relation to the dialogue. One is required to already know that something is part of art world, or least that one is a candidate (to borrow something from Dickie) before a judgment about the object’s status can be made. It does not seem necessary that everyone within the artworld have the proper understanding of the dialogue specific to doughnuts in order to grant that object the status of art. For example someone who has specialized in Medieval art is probably not aware of doughnut art. Such a person would not be able to confer the status of art on the doughnuts, even as they are part of the artworld. So not only is a person required to have specific knowledge of a specific object but one is also required to be aware of a specific context within the artworld. If specificity of context is required than someone aware of any context of art has some claim to the artworld; and if specificity of the object is required it is possible for someone to understand the role a specific object within that context while denying it to a very similar object which would also be art. For example Testadura has an ornate gun. At the gun show there was an exhibit on guns as art. He noticed the similarities between the guns there and his gun thus he came to conclude that he is in possession of a work of art. But when he was hanging out with his friend Bill he was not aware that Bill also has a piece of art, Bill’s own ornate gun. Testandura by attending the show was able to gather enough knowledge about the specific context of art to classify his own gun as art, but not so enough to qualify Bob’s gun. All that seems required is that someone is aware of some part of the dialogue of art to be able to make a judgment of art. If that is correct, than very few people if any would fall outside the artworld.
The only prerequisite to the artworld that Danto should have is that an individual is aware of some art to make judgments of art. This seems a very fair requirement and would not in anyway argue against a definition of art as common usage. George Dickiem understanding perhaps this or some other problem with Danto’s definition, would include everyone willing to join into the art world: “Every person who sees himself a member of the artworld is therefore a member” (Dickie 36). Stephen Davies identifies this as the point of divergence between Danto and the Institutional persuasion (Davies 81).
Having settled that first, a definition of art must be descriptive, and second a definition must be based on common usage; it is necessary to ask whether a functional or procedural definition is superior. I very much agree with Davies’ conclusion that disagreements between art theories depend on disagreements between the ways one thinks about art. According to Davies one can have either a functional or a procedural definition of art. He considers the Institutional theory of art to be emblematic of the procedural definition. The Institutional theory of art posits that for an object to be a work of art it must be declared a work of art by someone who is part of the artworld. A procedural definition defines an object as art after it has undergone a certain process, in the case of the institutional theory this process is recognition by the artworld.
A functional theory of art on the other hand seeks to find a common function of art that would act to unify the concept. Kant’s theory of art would be considered functional in so far as a piece of art creates a certain interplay between the harmonies. The art creates a certain something in the viewer. After Morris Weitz’s critique of a common intrinsic property to art based on the Wittgensteinian notion of family resemblance most people have shied away from a dunctional approach. Wittgenstein argued that both a and b and c fall under x but the similarity between a,b and c is not x. For example (a) card games, (b)football, and (c)board games are all (x)games but the similarity, the resemblance of these games is not found in the concept game. There is nothing specifically that the concept game says about each of the games that would both be necessary and sufficient to define a game and exclusive to games (Mandelbaum, Family Resemblances and Generalizations Concerning the Arts). Weitz separated the concept art form the individual arts (painting, sculpture etc.) and says that there is nothing in the concept of art that is necessary and sufficient to all works of art (Davies 5-7). After this critique those who wish to hold an essentialist position (that there is some thing similar to all works of art) have turned not to intrinsic characteristics of art but to a function that the art plays.
Davies presents Beardsley’s account as the most plausible of the new wave of essentialist positions. On page 53 Davies presents 5 characteristics necessary for an aesthetic experience, which is the function that art plays in Beardsley’s definition. It seems possible to have something that falls outside of these 5 and still be considered an art Davies provides the example of Fountain. Because we have decided that the role of a definition of art cannot be prescriptive it has to be decided that Beardsley’s theory fails to account for all objects which are considered art objects as I believe Davies, much more convincingly than me. points out. If there is any essential nature to art either intrinsic or in some other regard it must come only after art becomes a closed concept (it cannot change), it cannot close the concept of art itself. There should be no doubt that art is currently an open definition. It is not impossible for there to be a functional definition of art but it must come after a procedural definition is established and accounts for all past, present and possible future works of art. It may very well be possible that the justification implicitly used were based on some yet unfound characteristic of art. The Institutional theory of art leaves open this possibility.
So far we have established that a definition of art must be descriptive, based on common usage and procedural (at least until a suitable essentialist definition is proposed). There is one further requirement for a definition: it must be useful. If a definition is not useful, there would be no reason to have one. A useful definition, as Maurice Mandelbaum points out, is one that can form a basis for art criticism. “The work of any critic presupposes at least an implicit art theory, which-as the critic-it is not his aim to establish or, in general, to defend” (Mandelbaum 228). A definition of art has to allow us to be able to understand the concept about which we are talking in the process of criticism. If two different critics disagree this disagreement may be settled with a useful definition of art that would allow for meaningful disagreement.
The question originally proposed, “What is a successful definition of art?,” is answered in this way: A successful definition of art is descriptive, based on common usage, it is procedural and it is useful. Determining if such a definition is successful we require the aesthetician to look and see if it is the definition of art being used. The closest definition to this is that I have come across is the form of Institutionalism presented by Dickie. There are indications that both Richard Wollheim and Davies have more advanced ideas.
Dickie presents five arguments for his stance as reported in Davies (it is worth reproducing these in full):
(1) An artists is a person who participates with understanding in the making of an artwork; (2) a work of art is an artifact of a kind created to be presented to them; (3) a public is a set of persons who are prepared in some degree to understand an object that is presented to them; (4) the Artworld is the totality of all Artworld systems; (5) an Artworld system is a framework for the presentation of a work of art by an artists to an Artworld public. (Davies 84)
There are three kinds of works that may not to fall into this classification: works in isolation, works my non-humans, and works that are not artifacts.
In Art and the Aesthetic Dickie made it clear that one artists can constitute an artworld and can bestow the status of art on an object (Dickie 38; Davies 84-90). If the person is aware of the artworld than all the 5 qualifications are met. It would not seem possible for someone to think of something as art unless they are aware of art, and art is only possible in the context of the artworld. Competing concepts of art can exist independently of the art world. For example there is a parallel identical world to ours and they have the exact same concept of art as ours and we are not now or will never be aware of their existence. Under Dickie’s 4 what is produced is not art because it is not part of the same. It seems wrong to assume that if there is nothing to unite the two worlds one’s art counts as art and the other would not be considered art underneath the other’s concept of art. It would seem necessary to say that if we were to become aware of that world we would immediately recognize it as ours and Dicke would have no problem with that. There is still a tension, there seems to be an inclination to say that such works are works of art independently of our being aware of them. This tension will be examined more fully later, but sadly will not be resolved.
Dickie by his own account cannot deny the status of art to non-human art. The example presented in the Art and the Aesthetics was that of chimpanzees who painted and their paintings were on display at the zoo. Dickie seems to be required to concede that if the zoo keepers treated the paints as art they must be art. It is not necessary for the paintings to be exhibited at an art museum as he argued but merely displayed as works of art. The condition is and should be much weaker. If exhibition at an art gallery is required the paints one sees in coffee shops would not properly be considered art (assuming we are unable to assertion anything else about them). But even in a coffee shop the works are presented as works of art thus it is necessary for Dickie to concede that exhibited chimpanzee paintings are works of art even if they are presented by the zoo.
Dickie originally had a very broad definition of artifact; in Art and the Aesthetics he claimed that an artifact is anything touched by human intention (Dickie 42). This is of course contrasted with artifact as something through work (Davies 123 at least part a of the definition). This is an essential distinction in aesthetics. The degree to which Dickie holds what qualifies something as an artifact should be first examined before ascribing him a position. If a piece of driftwood is taken home and used as art than Dickie would call it an artifact. But it is also imaginable that if someone were to not touch the piece of wood and build around it because it is a piece of art it would qualify that piece of driftwood as an artifact. Yet, Dickie not would qualify the Grand Canyon as a work of art even though humans have build around it (Davies 122). Dickie seems to be walking a fine line by even considering no human creations as works of art, but he needs to do this because drift wood art is considered art. Any theory that does not account for drift wood art is in danger of offering a prescriptive definition. Dickie should not be so hesitant to say that works of art should be artifacts. If at one time non-artifacts will be considered art, so be it. The definition does not limit the concept it merely describes it.
What aesthetics needs is an archeology, like Michel Foucault provided for madness. Archeology in this sense is the history of a concept. The work of Kristeller and Tatarkiewicz goes a long way towards this end, but they fail to continue the history to the current understanding of art, or at least much closer to it. This was also a fault of Foucault’s. These histories show just how messy a definition of a concept can be. I will try to briefly sketch such a paradigm (but the graph us much easier to follow): a has x, y1, and z1; a is defined as art because x was the necessary and sufficient condition for art; b1 has y2, and c1 has z2; b1 and c1 are classified as art because of the similarities to a not because they have x even though it is possible that they have x; b2 has y3, b3 has y4, c2 has z3, and c3 has z4; b2 ,b3, c2 , and c3 are classified as art not because they have x, y2 , and z2 but because they share something with b1 and c1. A graph will be much more useful:
Though this paints a nice clear picture there are many possibilities within the system that would complicate the system. For example b3 and c2 could be the same thing. What is important to realize from this chart is that objects that are classified as art are not done so in terms of what was originally defined as art but in terms of the commonality with a specific established art. There are many complications that can only be shown with a proper archeology. There are certain things which may share yn where one is considered an art and the other is not, and example would be brick laying and either architecture or sculpture.
Danto’s point that Andy Warhol’s Brillo Box would not have been able at any other point in history than at the one it came about is only partially correct (Davies 92, Danto 581). The only thing that cannot happen on the chart is a jump from bl to bs where one does not immediately follow from the other. But it seems that the Brillo Box bears enough similarity to Greek sculpture to make a case that such a jump was possible, but not actual. Matters such as this can be established in a proper archeology.
There can be a bl and bs as long as there was once a bridge between these two different arts. This indicates that something that was once considered an art may no longer be considered an art. These occurrences are not common but they happen, Kristeller presents the example of gardening. A definition of art that defines an art in terms of established art is a simplified Institutional account which has no possibility of saying anything prescriptive about art. The only one condition that this theory requires is that there cannot be a jump between bl and bs. This is a justified assumption because it seems impossible for some to call something art which has no relation to anything that is established art.
This theory does not account for the tension brought up earlier concerning two independent definitions of art that do not share a common development. The only defense that I see is to argue that it is highly unlikely that two independent similar definitions of art can arise. It seems possible though that the Chinese and the Europeans have a different a as their starting point. One may start at an a which is another culture’s bn in this way there is not one nice progression, but more importantly there seems to the need for something that encompasses a and abn. This critique takes the form the “Third Man Argument” in Plato. I am convinced that if such a problem arose it could be resolved, if there is a proper archeology which can highlight both the similarities and the differences.
Richard Wollheim offers two critiques of the Institutional theory that are very much worth considering. The first is that when someone calls something like a piece of drift wood, art they are using the word art in a very different sense; they are not classifying the work, but merely describing it (Wollheim 159 Mandelbaum makes the same point). This will open up the scope of the definition, the definition will become too wide. Wollheim continues on this point to show that it is likely that the Institutionalist would do answer whether or not a member of the art world has a good reason to classify something as art. This would make the concept even wider, so wide in fact that Wollheim believes that the definition become trivial. It cannot offer grounds for distinguishing between good and bad art and it breaks the connection between art and its status (ibid. 163-4). The first point is not very convincing and it does not seem that it is the duty of a definition to create such a distinction. The second is much more troubling because there does seem to be a certain sense in society that there is a value to art. Yet, to adjust the definition to encapsulate this sense would be to offer prescriptive definition of art. It is not the definition that is diminish the value of art, but art itself as Wollheim himself seems to imply (165-6).
An Institutional theory of art does not forfeit all claims to a prescriptive definition, only in so doing could it become a successful definition of art. The theory I proposed would give up these pretensions and it would in the end be much less susceptible certain critiques. It does have problems, mostly of becoming trivial but I believe these can be avoided. The theory demonstrates the need for a proper archeology of art describing the way in which the definition of art has developed. Both Kristeller and Tatarkiewicz began such a project but it ended much too soon and it was too Euro-centric to offer a complete archeology. Nevertheless these two works tells us more about the definition of art than most of the philosophy on the subject.


The Ontology of Fakes

Art forgery presents a problem to any philosopher attempting to provide a definition of art. It seems very hard to deny these works some status but one feels so disappointed by them. These are the two inclinations we have in the presence of a forged work, and they need to be reconciled. Our first inclination, when we merely “see it” is to think it is a good work if it has certain qualities we generally admire and vice versa. The second inclination is to feel cheated by the work and reject it. It seems hard if not impossible to take a position which would deny us one of these inclinations or that would challenge their validity. Instead, if we seek to reconcile the two inclinations it should be done wearily so as to not open our aesthetic theory to unnecessary strangeness.
Clive Bell is a vocal champion of the first position, which denies that the first inclination is not genuine. He holds that a forgery contains minor imperfections that we may not notice when the work was not described as a forgery. These small differences between a genuine and a forgery are enough to justify disliking the work once we find out it is a forgery. Perhaps, this is true and the imperceptible differences matter that much. Yet, in the case of the famous Dutch Vermeer forger Han van Meegeren his Vermeers were considered some of the best Vermeers until they were found out, it seems a little strange to retrospectively find significant flaws (Lessing 72). If Clive Bell seeks to conclude that we see perfection where there is imperfection, there should be no reason for him to also conclude that we may also see imperfection where there is perfection. The sword cuts both ways. Furthermore, masters’ works are often not masterly, yet we value these works higher than we do better works by lesser artists (Meyer 89-90). This demonstrates that we very often do not judge the works on their pure “aesthetic” qualities alone. If we are willing to accept a lesser work by an artist as a good work of art, why should we be unwilling to accept a minimally lesser work by a different artist as a good work of art?
Most philosophers try to separate different kinds of the judgments we can make about artworks. Even though splitting an artwork or our approach to it may reconcile the two inclinations we have about forgeries it may place the artwork in an ontologically strange position. Once you start describing an object as several different things it is hard to find something that would unify them all into one thing. An art object’s ontology, its status as a thing, would need to have a firm base or at least be able to provide us with a unifying concept that would allow us to talk about the art object as a thing.
Before turning to forgeries we first must consider the ontology of art objects. Philosophers draw a distinction between particular art objects and type art objects (Strawson 184). The particular is the individual, only one of which can exist. This most often applies to statues and paintings, things that have an individual aspect to them. Particular art objects are thought of as synonymous with a particular thing (Wollheim 4-5). Other things are best thought of as types with particular instances of that thing, examples would include novels, poems, plays etc. A type contains individual instances, tokens, that all have that type in common. To use Wollheim’s example Ulysses does not exist as any particular piece of paper. The copy I have of Ulysses is not Ulysses it is merely a token. No copy of Ulysses is Ulysses not even the original manuscript; if any of those were lost we would not lose Ulysses (Wollheim 5-10).
P.F. Strawson raises the objection that we cannot fully think of particular art objects as particulars but we must think of all objects as types (Strawson 182-184). Even though we may not be able to make perfect imitations of existing art objects that does not mean we can logically distinguish between particular art objects and types, everything is a type. Strawson requires that we take, for example the Mona Lisa, and by reproducing it perfectly we would have two instances of the same type. It is logically possible that we can reproduce the Mona Lisa perfectly, thus it would have the status of a type. Perhaps we do not have to go to Strawson’s extreme, if we can reproduce the Mona Lisa even imperfectly does that alone than not designate it as a type?
Levinson (What a musical work is) points out that musicians interpreting a piece of music often change it. As long as they do not change it too much, as long as they do not go against the explicit directions of the composer they do not change the musical piece. As long as the correct number of instruments is preserved than the piece is an accurate token, one missing clarinet and the piece fails. I think that even Levinson holds his position too strongly and with no reason to stop short of the absurd, would the piece fail as a token if one of the members forgot to play a certain section or if someone’s clarinet’s reed had a slight chip, or was not properly wet. Levinson seems to this point only in passing, he says that we may wonder which clarinet will do better, one from 1800 or 1970? But if he is willing to be stringent enough to set the amount of instruments should he not be stringent enough to specify the instrument and all other conditions? Regardless, Levinson allows for variation as long as that variation is not at the expanse of what has been dictated by the composer. If we accept this variation for musical works can we not than accept reproductions of paintings and forgeries as variations on a theme?
Levingson in perhaps anticipation of this point argues that if two works are identical but are produced by two different authors they are two different works. If we were to set this argument aside for the time being we can argue that a reproduction of the Mona Lisa does not change anything essential to the artwork or does it? We still have the idea of the Mona Lisa and for most it may be sufficient. Perhaps we may not want to accept a reproduction in a book for the Mona Lisa but other paintings whose painter, as Edward Wind accuses, make their paintings to be easily reproduced in an art books. Even if we accept that book printing is insufficient and we would only accept something that could “fool” most art critics; we should at least be willing to accept that imperfect reproductions should be seen as tokens. Furthermore the existence of multiple tokens of a painting should not be relegated to the merely logically possible.
I now wish to turn to two different methods of “splitting up” works of art as a way to reconcile our two inclinations about fakes. Alfred Lessing represents the first view of splitting a work. He examines what is necessary for a work to be considered original in a strong sense using five different understandings of originality. A fake fails the last and crucial moment, that it must have creative originality. I will then turn to Mark Sagoff who goes beyond Lessing. Colin Redford also “splits up” works but he is less concerned with this splitting up than he is with distancing himself from Bell, Goodman, and Beardsley. Because of his concern he only provides a very broad and imprecise theory.
Lessing uses Van Meegeren’s The Disciples at Emmaus in his discussion to represent the most successful of original fakes. This work is a fake that sought to be seen as a Vermeer. For a time it was considered one of the greatest Vermeers and it was exhibited in Boymans Museum in Rotterdam until it was uncovered (Lessing 64). Lessing grants this work four qualities: 1) particularity; 2) originality to distinguish it from other works; 3) originality which adds something new to the body of art at large; and 4) original in a stronger sense than 3 ie. greatness. A work does not need to be any of these to be a work of art (even though 1 is somewhat trivial ); these are a testament to its originality. A work does not have to be original, but great works seem to demand it and The Disciples professes to be a great work. The fifth sense of originality is that a work must have an achievement which goes further than other works which precede it. This is in a sense a historical context, but it is also a point about technique. The technique must be novel for the work to be considered original. The Disciples is not original in this last regard because it cannot be seen as an improvement of, or a comment on a previous work of art (Lessing 69-75).
Sagoff holds that “many aesthetic quality relations have the form of attributives: they are two place relations” (Sagoff 133). Two place relations are for example: a greenish-yellow banana is yellow compared to a leaf vegetable; or Robert Redford is handsome compared to everyone else. Describing something as something requires something else to which it can be compared. Fakes may have all the attributes of art but they will not share those with an original work of art, because the stylistic qualities that they both posses are routed in two different reference classes. A reference classes is a group or a category to which a certain thing belongs. For example to say that Robert Redford is beautiful is a relation in the same way was to say that the Taj Mahal is beautiful but these two relations belong to two different classes. Robert Radford is a man and the Taj Mahal is a building. Even though we are using the same word, beautiful, we would be talking nonsense when we said that one is more beautiful than the other. No comparison can exist between two different classes.
Sagoff holds that a work of art belongs to one reference class and a forgery to another. This will allow him to say that we cannot talk and compare genuine paintings and forgeries because we lack any good grounds on which to discuss these works (Sagoff 131-6 All citations by Sagoff will refer to The Forger’s Art). The only way we would be able to compare forgeries and originals is as paintings, which Sagoff terms “useless” because it is too broad of relation (Sagoff 135).
A work of art such as Van Gogh’s Night Café (to use Sagoff’s example) has a certain style that is unique to that artwork. The style identifies a work of art as existing at one time, place, and is the result of one specific artist. Sagoff considers style an aesthetic quality as long as what style gives a painting is acting aesthetically. The property that Night Café is an “everyday tavern scene” is both a stylistic property and an aesthetic property. The stylistic properties somehow maps on to an aesthetic property.
Then Sagoff posits something very strange he holds that: “If a painting has an aesthetic feature a quality which is characteristic of an author, school, or period, that feature will not count as stylistic, however, unless the panting also belongs to that class” having already followed Goodman in assuming that “style consists in those features of the symbolic functioning of a work characteristic of author, period, place or school” (Sagoff 136-7). We should hesitate in granting Sagoff both points; it seems he may be begging the question. We have already seen that the “features of the symbolic functioning of a work,” style, map on to aesthetic properties. Yet, these features, or this style, can only be determined by knowing “author, period, place or school.” To than go back and separate the style of an author period, place or school from the reference class is to assume the very thing you are trying to prove. For example we would considered works done in a certain style as post-Impressionistic if they have certain attributes, not because it was done at a certain spatiotemporal location by a group of individuals.
Art historians may use spatial temporal qualifiers to determine the style of a painting but those relations are not enough, otherwise you could not have simultaneous art styles. The styles have to be distinguished by certain characteristics. Sagoff’s point is that if someone painted in the post-Impressionist style today we would not consider it a post-Impressionist painting because that area has ended, those considerations are no longer aesthetically relevant or at least their status has changed. A forgery “merely repeats the solution to a problem already solved” (Sagoff 146). But so do paintings in the style of post-Impressionism and nobody would consider them forgeries, merely unoriginal as Lessing has already established.
Sagoff follows Kant in comparing the sounds of a nightingale and the sounds of a mischievous boy imitating a nightingale. These two sounds even though they may sound the same differ due to their authors, thus they have a different style. Sagoff argues that the relational qualities of the sounds, the style, which we have granted and has mapped on to aesthetic qualities makes these sounds different. Once we are able to uncover the source of the sounds we are able to determine that we have a reason to privilege one sound over the other on aesthetic grounds. We would have no way to relate the boy’s sound to the bird’s even though it has the same harmonic features. Let us grant that Sagoff does not beg the question and he is able to convince us to see stylistic differences as aesthetic differences, how would that than alter the way we think of a work’s ontology?
We should be more than willing to grant that the same sound existing as two different tokens is the same type very broadly. Furthermore it seems we should accept that a certain type-technique could have two or more different tokens. To return to the post-Impressionist painting and paining in the style of a post-Impressionist painting. The token techniques in both these paintings refer to the same technique even though they are separated by spatiotemporal considerations. Sagoff seems to want to deny that these techniques are tokens of the same type, or perhaps that there are enough other considerations that would negate that two different paintings share the same type identities. Sagoff wants to make the stronger claim, claiming that if any aesthetic relevant similarities existed between forgeries and paintings they would either be trivial or ignorable (Sagoff 143-4). Sagoff must maintain that the token techniques are qualitatively different and are in fact not token techniques, and he does this based on spatiotemporal considerations.
If we allow Sagoff to deny that seemingly similar techniques are qualitatively different we must add another element to the ontology of paintings, something that we cannot gleam from merely perceiving them. Both Sagoff and Goodman raise problems with the idea of merely seeing a work and what that entails (Sagoff 149-150, Goodman 94-5). But we can grant them the strongest sense of the word even though we may not need to do this. But how are aphysical considerations attached to a painting’s identity?
If we reject the physicality of paintings it would be considerably easier to argue that there are aphysical elements to paintings, but than we should also have no problem with fakes that are tokens of that type (as previously argued). Unless of course we talk to Levinson who would argue that the same work composed by two different authors would be two different works. It would seem that Sagoff would use that argument as well for the same reason. Works have a historical context that is deemed as important as their perceptive qualities. When we look at a work we should not only see what is before us but all the history that it encompasses. If we accept this there seems to be no reason to go beyond Lessing and assert that fakes lack originality, but they fall under the same reference class. The essence of differential calculus does not change regardless if either Newton or Leibniz is the author.
If we resolve these considerations there is still a problem. How can a work of art maintain anything else besides its type identity through time? As things that lack memory, artworks cannot maintain their own identities, but there would be no objection to having someone else maintain artworks’ identities for them. In fact if a work of art is purely nonphysical in all respects its identity through time is entirely dependent on the existence of physical things that can maintain its identity through time. We should now ask ourselves which elements are essential to an artwork’s identity. If we lose the type we would lose the work, but if we lose everything else we can still have an artwork. Thus it seems that even if an artwork has different elements to its identity the only essential one is its existence as a type. It would seem strange to conclude that both are equally essential for its existence. Even though we know there was a Colossus of Rhodes we do not have the work itself. We cannot say the work still exists even though we have the work in a historical sense. That sense does not allow us to make what we would consider aesthetic judgments.
Even if we are to grant the above argument we can allow for both our inclinations. We are justified in rejecting a work because it lacks something inherent in great works, the spatiotemporal-historical element. We are justified in rejecting fakes on more than merely psychological grounds avoiding Beardsley’s criticism against similar veins of this critique (Notes on Forgery). But it also allows us to be justified in thinking that a fake is a good piece of art because its type identity is more essential to its identity than the spatiotemporal-historical element. It seems that we are able to reconcile our intuitions about fakes without having to feel guilty about condemning or praising them, because in some regard we are justified to do either.

plans and trains

So tomorrow I am heading for Romania to see my grandmother, "Omi," she is a terrifying woman that has scared both her children with her tyrannical rule over them. She also has a plan which intends to "relax." I assume it involves a lot of churches. One thing I do want to see is my grandfather's grave. anyway, i am leaving in a couple hours and i need some sleep, hmm

Leaving today

So tonight I leave, or maybe tomorrow morning I still haven't figured out exactly when I want to catch a bus. I have to take a bus to Heathrow for a 6 15 flight. A little early I was thinking about staying up all night at the airport, but I could always sleep and catch a bus at like two in the morning. I haven't quite figured out what I want to do.

I'm packing up my room for all the students that are coming to Oxford to interview about getting into this place. They let the kids stay here a night or two and they make them undergo an interview as part of their application process. The school system here is tilted towards the rich 50 percent of students at Oxford and Cambridge come from public schools (read private), and public schools only have 10 percent of the students. There really is a big class problem in this country.

So I'm leaving, I am moving into a single next term which should be nice, I almost didn't want to. This was the first time I enjoyed my roommate enough that I would have considered staying in the double. There is something nice about having someone to talk to that is always immediately there. pfft.

I hate the idea of spending 4-6 weeks at my aunt's place. I hate being an inconvenience, at least I cook and shit, maybe take the kids to school or whatever. Vienna is a beautiful city, i think I may end up doing a lot of walking. A shame that my shoes are falling apart. There is nothing I like more than wearing out a pair of shies. Walking in them until there is no sole left and you can't walk through the rain because the level of water in your shoes is only slightly higher that that on the street.

I've decided I am leaving at twelve and I'm going to try to do some reading at the airport.

So its taken all day to write this blog and in 5 minutes I leave this room never to return. Hopefully nothing goes wrong.

So I was a little drunk last Saturday

And I sent one of my professors an email which I had been thinking about sending for quite some time. In fact the first time I had this idea I stayed up half the night contemplating wether or not I should sent him an email right than and there. But thankfully cooler heads prevailed and I relegated this idea to the list of things I probably shouldn't even try to attempt. That was about 6 months ago. Last week I say a bunch of short films made but I assume grad students. Most were filmed in video and I got the brilliant idea that I can do that too, make a film. I've I also been contemplating going to the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar which is a film seminar for documentary films.
So I send my professor telling him I want I want to make a film. He said that as a film historian he doesn't know much about film but he would be more than happy to sponsor me.
So... what is the film about? My school does this thing where during one of our two week spring break we go down South and help do something. Its what we Yanks do so they can forget about Sherman (Mclwee was actually an inspiration). Last year I went to a "National Recreation Area" called Land Between the Lakes www.lbl.org. It was a pretty place, I didn't think it was particularly spectacular. We did most of our work on a homestead which sough to teach people about the lifestyle during the 1800s. They had a working farm which was very interesting. They also grew tobacco which they smoked for chewing tobacco. Very strong stuff, I almost passed out.
The park has (according to them) only OHV park in a Park run by the forest service or something like that. Within LBL thee is an area which allows most anybody bring almost any vehicle and do whatever they want with the terrain. The park rangers took us to this one area which had deep gashes carved into a hill. There were just so many riders and so the park had been opened for so long that the land is almost completely destroyed. The rangers have tried to impose a map on the riders which would allow them to roam free through the park and would allow the rangers to try to heal some of the land. There is a lot of opposition from the riders and the rangers simply cannot police the park enough to enforce the rules. There are other related issues but that is the base of the problem.
I feel this story reveals so much about competing ways of life. There is the tension between tradition and novelty, how one might be ruining the other. There is the question about our place in this world. The tensions between preservation and conservation. In so many ways there seems to be one right answer, Fuck the riders. But it is in many ways a microcosm for our own existence in relation to this earth. We are a parasitic species for centuries we have destroyed this earth and there will be a time when we have to confront our role. We will have to draw lines in the sand limit ourselves to certain areas. We will have to change our lives in order to preserve our lives. There will be those that do not with to change that seek to do whatever they want to do; if people like that dominate we will end up destroying ourselves.
Hegel in the philosophy of right begins by allowing for self determination, the individual is all that really matters. But the individual cannot enforce their own will without coming into conflict with the wills of others. So there has to be a civil union of sorts whereby the wills are order so as to accommodate everyone. Hegel was a bit full of shit, but this is an interesting idea, he just left a few will out. We have to learn to live in such a way that we achieve the ends we desire by so living. We cannot think of the immediate future and ignore the long term consequences. At least that is what I keep telling myself.
I would interview a series of people and create some sort of story, based on subjects and on the chronology. This part would be filmed in video. The other part would be filmed in film and it would be long shots of the course's "challenge areas" contrasted with other parts of the park that are undergoing conservation efforts. The film would be shown on one screen and the video on the other. I assume most people would look at the video, for several minuets the video would cut out to a blank screen and the film would continue. I do not know how to shoot film. The equipment is very expansive and I do not know where I would have the facilities to edit it. Furthermore I do not know how I would be able to record the sound. I am not sure if this will happen, in fact I am rather sure I will end up embarrassing myself somehow. But if nothing else it was an interesting idea.

End of Term reminiscing

My first term is over next week. Two papers to write by than. It is amazing how quickly the time has gone by. I do not feel as if I have really experienced England, which is entirely my fault. During the break I am going to Vienna to see my Aunt, Uncle and cousins. Two small cousins that I have not seen in a couple years. The older one, Adrian is apparently mischievous. The last time I saw him, about 5 years back, he was this blond headed blue eyed kid. I use to walk with him on my shoulders. It was fun he liked me. Every-time we talked on the phone after that he has always seemed in awe of me. The other one, Marius, was a baby when I last saw him. Sweet kid. My Aunt has always had a special place in her heart for me. She is my mother's sister and I was the first born. There seems to be something about the first born, and apparently I was a cute baby. The cuteness has worn off. She is an interesting woman, a pianist following in my grandfather's footsteps, who turned to medicine and now has given that up to work with computers. My uncle has been in medical school for about the last 15 years, its seems that almost every season he has to pass a new test. He wants to become a psychologist. Vienna is undoubtedly the place for it.
After Paris I think Vienna is my favorite city in Europe, considering how few cities I have been to that does not mean very much. Vienna has a certain air of majesty about it. Paris seems like an enchanted place, and London like a bookkeeper's paradise.
I will also be going to Brasov my hometown. It is a beautiful, beautiful city and I am proud to have been born there. It is a poor city with a history of industry that has disappeared in recent times. I will be seeing my grandmother there, not to mention the hordes of relatives whose names I don't remember. It sad, they are so proud of me and I don't even know their names, nor to be quite honest do I really care. Family has never been a big draw for me, an accident of birth. My grandmother is a very Christian Orthodox woman, like catholic but less groveling and more intellectual disparaging. She considers herself an intellectual and is very elitist in that way. Anyway it should be interesting if nothing else. I haven't shaved since I left the states should I should awe my cousins even more, hah.

I have been thinking about my next vacation. It will be in the spring. I think I am going to by a Euro rail pass and travel around Europe. I will probably buy the most expansive one and just go from place to place as the whim strikes. Its not something I would think myself doing, but it seems the thing to do. There are several places I want to go to and others places where I ought to go. I defiantly want to go to the big ones, ie. France, Italy, Spain, Amsterdam but there are also spots that I feel as if I need to visit. I think I should go to the Somme, and to Auschwitz. The gas-houses at Auschwitz are sinking in to the ground, and they will soon be gone.
When I was younger, in middle school, I wen through a Nazi period. I read so much about that time, all the secrete organizations, the SS, SA, SD, Gestapo, about Himmler, Heydrich, Mengele all of that shit. I was and remain mystified how something like that could have happened, what I would have done. I am the introspective sort, a complete narcissist so it is always about me. I asked myself could I have stood up, would I have done anything. I know the answer, I would have done nothing, look at what is happening in Darfur, what have I done? Thrown some money in a tin can, listened to some insipid speeches? What good? No I don't care, it is to far removed from my life. I remember a while back, long before the hip to care about Darfur, reading about this 13 year old girl that was raped an murdered by soldiers on her birthday. Anecdotal stories like that make you hurt, until you move on to the next horrible thing. In some ways there are simply too many things to care about that it seems wrong to care about anything too much. That is of course no excuse to remain paralyzed. It is so very hard to imagine other people's pain, as Elaine Scarry has eloquently pointed out, we cannot imagine what it means to live in that sort of environment. In principle we know that there is someplace out there that someone is suffering, but we see, distracted by something like the price of gas. To abstract from our immediate existence is almost impossible for some people. Not to mention that issues such as Darfur, are over there. How do we help? Throw some money in a tin? Its almost like carbon offsets, we purchase clarity of mind. Some how that seems too contrived, too easy. All the while another 13 year old girl gets raped....

I want to go the Somme because of what it represents. My thoughts on war revel some of my flagrant internal contradictions. Something like the Somme reveals the very worst of war, but something like the beginning of WWII demonstrates the very worst of fearing war. Violence is never the answer until it is the answer. I like the idea of non-violence, I really do. I think it is very effective in protesting governmental wrongs. I do not see how it would work against someone like Hitler. I do not see how it would work against someone intent on doing harm. It is a fine choice to make for yourself, but when you make the choice you are condemning people to suffer who shouldn't. I was against the war in Afghanistan, I was one of the few. I believe that in many instances diplomacy does work. But it is so very hard to relay on it when you have the ability fight. I do not want to be Chamberlain with the Treaty of Munich in my hand, but I do not W either. When do you determine when violence is correct? It seems absurd to say it is never correct, but when it is a possibility we turn to it too soon. When is it right to fight? What is worth fighting for? Some situations you are forced to fight because the other person is so intent on fighting. The ghetto in Warsaw should have rebelled. That situation is very clear cut to me. If ever any rebellion was justified that one was. But the Somme, how do you justify something like that? It is so absurdly silly to think of two groups of people pelting each others with billions of tons of metal. To what end? When is it right to fight? when every other option is exhausted. When is that? How do you know? How much are you willing to risk? I am willing to say that I do not want to fight ever, but when I make that choice do I not condemn others to the same fate? If I were in the Warsaw ghetto would I have found a spot an lit myself on fire? No, would I have fought? I hope the answer to that is yes. Nonviolence requires more courage than violence, but you too often condemn others to a fate of your choosing. As the incomparable Churchill, or perhaps Burke said (and various others) "All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." But we should be careful to judge to quickly, but again we need to act, now.

I have this friend that went to Settle for a year to dig himself out of a ditch. He went there hoping that it would revitalize him. I maintained that he would simple bring the ditch with him. A year later he was back. We had a falling out (over my emotional inadequacies or something). The other day I noticed he go engaged, to this girl that he has been dating for less than a year. She is a singer whit hopes of becoming a librarian. Lives in Albany. He moved there from New Platz. It seems strange to decide to spend the rest of your life with some one so very quickly. But than again he was always very romantic, and Catholic. It is nice to see him engaged. I know that he will do well for himself, he is a very smart guy.

I have been thinking about my graduate school today. I think I will finish my undergraduate having taken more philosophy classes than most people. This year, in which I am taking nothing but philosophy classes, will not count towards my major allowing me to take up to 8 philosophy classes when I return to my school. Yet, I do not feel as if I know anywhere near enough to begin teaching in the next couple years. I will probably spend the next 10 years of my life in graduate programs trying to learn enough to be able to marginalize myself. I will undoubtedly end up teaching philosophy at some mediocre school. Is that what I really want out of life, to become self absorbed via philosophy? Philosophy is both a curse and a blessing. I love it, but it will ruin my life.

If you have not yet seen The Darjeeling Limited I highly recommend it. The film is life many other Wes Anderson films but what is very striking here, even more so than in the Life Aquatic is the colors. The colors are simply stunning. I there are films I love which are devoid of color i.g. most Bergman, Godard, and Kurosawa films but I love some films that simply radiate color. I love the scene in Vover when Penélope is mopping up the blood with that brightly colored mop in her kitsch kitchen. That is simply amazing. Or the scenes in Cinema Paradiso or the sky scene in Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding. The films could be shit (they aren't) and the color alone would prove their salvation. Besides I have always love India, there is a certain je ne sais quoi about it. Perhaps I just prefer it to China.

There are fireworks going off outside my window... it is strange... I don't think there are any British holidays this time of year. I wen to a market today with my room mate. They may have fired off fire works, but they are not coming from that direction.

So, what else..? I want to write something more but I I do not know what you might find interesting...

Ha, so it was thanksgiving.. pffft. Holidays defiantly under the category of things I do not understand about the human race. First there is the whole family element to it all, then there is the celebration of a non event. Thanksgiving never reall happened the way we remember it. Holidays such as this are never about what they are really about what they are about. Its a shame we need special days to remind us to care about such obscure things as each other, but such is the case with the human race. It is truly a shame.

I still have this bottle of absinth, about two thirds of it to be exact. I have decided to try to see if it still has some potency after they removed all the wormwood. So far nothing. I am increasingly drunk but it is a regular drunk nothing special. I am not a big fan of drugs, besides caffeine, alcohol and nicotine(no longer!). Its just that I feel as if it is something I should do, absinth that is. An absolute let down. I am going to see some short films later tonight, I guess now I really nothing to write about...


I have been listing to this song almost non stop since I saw the The Darjeeling Limited

little boxes

Some of my books came today. My dad sent me my symbolic logic book, the rest of my Wittgenstein, Being and Nothingness, and Jon Rawl's Theory of Justice. I doubt I will read them, besides the sybmo I am thinking of taking a class in that, I think it would be fun, i really like doing logic, something that demonstrates that there is a surprising amount of creativity allowed within a narrow set of rules. To be perfectly honest my books did not come today, seeing as it is Sunday and the UK is a union town. It probably came one Friday, but I was not here to receive them.

The program that is organizing this whole study abroad experience sponsored a weekend in London where they fed us and too us on a boat tour. So I left on the rail Friday mid day and didn't do very much, actually we went to a couple bars and we met this very interesting guy from South Africa/Ethiopia. He had studied in the UK, the US, Sweden, and Mexico. And for about a half hour he just went on and on telling us how much he wished to be back in school and how much he missed it. He worked as a recruiter for some IT company, and judging from the neighborhood, how he was dressed, and the tax he paid on his apartment (£600) he has done very well from his self. But the one thing he seemed to miss the most was freedom. Whichever way you want to look at it we, or rather I, as a student have so much freedom. Sure I have much less freedom in some ways than others because of certain financial situations. But I have the freedom to get up and leave. I have not become settled into a life not yet.

I spend most of the day saturday with 35mm camera in hand taking pics for the family. My roommate said he would take the film back to the states and mail it to my family, no point in wasting money here. The boat trip was a bit of a waste of time. Seeing the Thames at night was nice, but the boat was crowded an there was only one deck outside. I spend most of my time there... smoking. I've decided to quite that, yellow was never my favorite color. Unless of course, its a Van Gogh yellow. I saw some Van Gogh in the National Gallery, I just quickly walked through. The more I think of it the less I like museums as a form for presenting art. Once you make an institution of something like art you sap all its power, it becomes something lifeless and dead.

I was too cheap spend £4 on a tube ticket this morning so I walked the 2 miles or so to Paddigton station. I would say it was a nice walk but, most of the walk was through a very residential area, and affluent residential area. London is unlike New York in that regard, affluence and whatever the opposite of non-affluence would be, are not mixed. London is a very expansive city and it lacks the tall residential areas that in many ways define New York. There are places like that but they are shoved on the outskirts of the city hidden from the prying eyes of tourists. Paris is like that as well. Looking at a map of PAris in is amazing to see the growth of the city in the last 50 years compared to all the centuries before that. But one rarely things of anything new relating to Paris, besides the Center Pompidou, and the Eiffel Tower. But those were both very controversial.

I have always liked trains. One of my earliest memories is of ridding on the train to Vienna to visit my Aunt, and the trolly going to preschool. There is a certain majesty in trains that is lacking in every-other form of transportation. The train seems to have more power, more presence more nobility. Something about adhering to certain laws. Niestzche would certainly make fun of my preference for self tyranny. I abhor the idea of absolute freedom. I see no value in a thing which hurts others. Perhaps I am weak, so be it. This idea of freedom as unconstrained will is ridiculous. What you do or do not do has an amazing echo, and it should not be something that destroys. Littering has always annoyed me. I do not understand why someone would be so careless as to simply drop something on the street. They are not thinking of the person that has to pick that up. We do not think of the long term influence of our actions. But that again if we were to thing of the impact of our actions we would be petrified to do anything.

On the train we passed many different kinds of neighborhoods. I remember looking at one set of houses with their own couple feet of fenced in back yard and seeing how they were all very different. Some had paved their backyard, others had trash, others had a trampoline, others a small flower garden. The outside looked all the same, but inside in this fenced in backyard each house was unique. I never understood the obsession with symmetry, with neat rows of houses all bunches up together like little boxes. Yet, perhaps I have been to often too quick to judge. Everyone wants to maintain the same front, but in their backyard where they really matter they have a very different idea of what they want. Nobody wants to be ordinary, not really (this generalization may not be fair but..). Laws that seem constraining often allow for the greatest freedom to be shared by all. Certain things have to be certain, to abide to laws to allow others to flourish. I do not think we should have the laws dictated to us, but they should come from within us. When we act we know what we should do and if we were to think about are actions a little more we would begin to better understand the power that actions have.

Il Troubadour

I wonder, if anybody ever took love seriously enough to die for it. Or rather I am talking about Love, not the plain love. Love the thing which has metaphysical properties, somethings intermingled with the concept of purity, chastity, respect, and duty. Isn't that the Love found in operas about 15th century baronesses. Love that can be lost, gained or transfered at a moment's notice. That love is certainly the love that the bible describes, especially in that standard wedding reading, 2nd Corinthians 13, I believe. The Love in this opera was much more like a possession. They seemed to be saying put your will in me, property in Hegelian terms. Isn't that what Love is? Mutual self sacrifice for mutual benefit, never mind the companionship bit. The idea of complete and utter devotion, to one and only one thing, one person. Seems somewhat silly, no wonder Love doesn't mean anything. Especially when such great Loves are lost from one moment to the next.

Theater was ok, the staircase smelled like piss. There seems to be a British custom to sell sherbet at shows. Than the customers are required to leave the containers in strange places. A sort of hide and seek for the clean-up gang.

Operas would sound horrible in any other language, besides Carmen in french... and Carmina Burana in whatever language that is. The lyrics leave a lot to be desired.

Well off to the paper I've been avoiding.

Healthcare and Welfare

Went with my roommate to the hospital on Friday night. Actually we walked there, it was a nice walk all two miles of it at 12 and then coming back at 5. He wasn't really sick or so I assume: shortness of breath, and poor circulation. The doctors left at him or so he told me, he was quite angry that nobody took him seriously. There was also a kid from catz who had an unfortunate collision with a dance-floor.

Its been a while since I had last been in a hospital, was in one a couple of years back getting an EKG. Before that was there once getting my hand sewn up after it had an unfortunate collision with a pane of glass. The only time I really remember spending time in a hospital is with my grandfather. I never really liked hospitals and after reading Foucault and a book from one of my former professors, "Beyond Caring," I liked them even less. Every-time I walk into a big institution like that I feel a little less human, a little less like an individual. The hospital itself was very clean and modern looking, all besides the elevators, the elevators seemed the most beat up of all.

Waiting there for five hours we got to talking about which is system is better the US or the UK. I generally like the idea of socialized health care. I think everyone should have the ability to receive healthcare and that such a stem may actually save more because it prevents the need for more serious treatment. I do not think that the Uk system is perfect yet and I think that dental service over here is shit. I feel hesitant to conclude that the reason the healthcare system in the uk is generally poorer is because it few people are motivated to become doctors due to the low salaries. The UK imports a lot of its doctors which caused some problems earlier this year. There is a lot of pressure on the NHS to import doctors because there are simply not enough. From what I have heard, actually read, France isn't much better. Perhaps it is not a matter of health care but of culture but I heard that french doctors are more judgmental. No system is perfect but I think the semblance of universal health care is better than what the US has.

Both of my professors last week indicated that I should be evaluated for dyslexia. One told me that his daughter had it, and his wife was a teacher in that area. I am somewhat disgusted by the idea of medicalizing personality traits. If was to be diagnosed as having dyslexia what would that really change? Why can't I just say that I am a horrible speller and have a hard time reading out loud and prefer certain ways of learning. I see no reason this should become part of the socio-medical complex. I am what I am, and that has gotten me this far, there is no reason to apply a name to certain personality traits so that I am to make them more sensical to others and to in some ways excuse what I am.
I am thinking about writing an article for an undergraduate philosophical journal on the research I did this summer. I just don't have very many of my sources with me, but there is a rather nice library here which should provide me with most of the sources. I just need to get my shit together and bite the bullet.
I
am writing a paper today which is reminds me why I started doing this whole philosophy thing. It allows me to see how many things are connected together. I am probably not going to finish the paper in time, I am going to see Il Trovatore with my roommate.

358 and counting

didn't my leave my room today at all, besides two trips to the kitchen

i was able to perfect making "bird in a basket,' which is a combination of toast and egg easy over.. or hard for that matter,

I've been pretending to write my paper the whole day but that was rather unsuccessful.. in fact its 11 and i have 358 words and i need ten times as many in the next 11 hours

hank williams was an interesting guy, i've been reading about him on the wiki, its amazing how such a short life can produce so much, at times it seems that their production isn't in-spite of their short life but because of it, when you die young you have no time to grow old and "sell out" and make commercials for cadillac on youtube

schiele is another one, but he produced so very much in those few years, it makes me thing what have i done?

the obvious answer is not much, perhaps it is a bit early to start having a mid life crisis, but it seems that even in philosophy so many of the worthwhile contributed when they were young, when youth was still running in their veins energizing them to create, than again Kant was well into the his life when he begun is "mature period"

kant never left his home town, writing long papers such as the one I am writing now i often think what's it all worth that i can distinguish between the way that kant establishes his ethics on synthetic a priori deduction and hegel doesn't think our morality can have any determinate content and doesn't have an ethics, its not about making me a better person kant was tad puritanical and hegel, well nobody really knows what to make of hegel

i've been thinking about going and getting a kebab, they are the night time snack over here, during the day its sandwich shops and at night it is kebab vans

i've decided that i will try to make an index and a dictionary of the critique of pure reason over the next break, just go through the whole book flag key concepts and develop an outline of what kant is trying to do, doesn't sound like much fun does it?

but that is what people like me do we don't go to vietnam and study how to dig ditches we read incomprehensible books to give us a sense of ... well something... i have been looking at one of my friend's facebook photo-albums from vietnam and that looks horrible, i mean there are certain things that look attractive, but on the whole i cannot conceive the value of such an experience, i mean you see beautiful things sure, and you test yourself physically but the experience you get, well how does it make you a better person? perhaps better is wrong, it makes you a more complete person, it makes you more aware of life, which is all and nice and good, but towards what end? i very much doubt that my friend, caring person that she is, will now few motivated to help the third world in some substantial way, it seems experiences such as this are what one has before descending into the obscurity of middle age

when I choose my program abroad, the dean was looking at this as an wasted academic year, you go abroad to absorb a different culture and then you return to your home university to continue you academic studies so that once they kick you out you will not only have a a solid educational basis but you would have a "global perspective"

if that was the intent they should have not stirred me to oxford, they take academics rather seriously, and due to the way the classes are structure (one on one tutorials) there isn't much room for some that has what may be roughly described as a self imposed social phobia, social life here generally consist of working until dinner, going to hall which is a huge room where everyone sits at communal tables and is served a three course meal, after that comes the pub followed shortly after that by the club, not only is this life style financially draining it is not terribly interesting, i would much rather prefer vietnam

Remember the V of November

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

Fireworks have been going of here since thursday. Every-night after the sun sets, about 5, fireworks go off, you can't ever really see them you just hear them. That is the extent of irregular in the past week. Well besides having fish and chips at a pub, horrible by the way. Frozen fish is utterly horrible. I bought tickets for Vienna the other day, my flight leaves at 5 in the morning, I think I am just going to go to London the night before and walk around until the time, might need someplace to store my shit though. I have and acquaintance studying in London, but I don't think he likes me enough for me to impose myself.

I've been reading about Kant and Hegel's moral theories and it has made me realize just how badly taught I was. I took this ethics class my freshman year in school. When we covered Kant we were presented with a dilemma if a Nazi comes up to somebody's house who is harboring Jews and asks if there are Jews there, should the person a) lie b)give up the Jews. The idea in Kant (in the way that it was presented in the text and by the professor) is that any action has to be universalized it is one of the four moments of the "categorical imperative." Lies cannot be universalized because that would create a "practical contradiction," if everyone would lie it would be pointless to assume that anyone was telling the truth. We would have to assume that honesty is a good thing for this to work. So we would have to choose a, we could not lie to the Nazi. The professor acted as if there were ways to get out of it such as saying the that the Nazi being a Nazi has lost his worth as a person (Kant also says we should respect everyone because they are human beings and we should not treat others as means to ends but as ends in themselves) but the final conclusion was that it was a devastating critique because it was counter intuitive. The issue comes down to wether or not Kant can in some way order laws so as one does not have two follow two seemingly contradictory laws. Assuming he can't (even though he can, and anyone that has read more the the Groundwork should realize that) there is a section in the metaphysics of morals specifically addressing such issues, he gives to certain ambiguous cases one being of necessity. If your action would in someway negate the base of the (roughly self perfection and promoting the happiness of others) than you should not engage in that action even though that action may seem moral. This is rather straight forward, don't do something if it causes more harm than good. This should be rather obvious to anyone teaching Kant's moral philosophy much the less writing a text book about it.

People like my philosophy professor raise up straw man just to be able to dismantle them. Simplicity seems to necessarily give rise to straw men. I have been recently accused of doing that very thing in my writing. Creating caricatures of authors just to be able to criticize the hell out of them. Leaving aside the issue that I do this, it is hard to simplify a work and analyze it. Simplification always produces error. See?

Through a Glass Darkly

Tried absinthe for the first time this weekend. I remember reading Hemingway: The Sun also Rises and The Garden of Edan, I remember Monet's and Picasso's absinthe drinkers and all the stories about the post-impresionists. I wasn't sure what to expect maybe some sort of different experience. It tasted like herbal tea, especially since i heated the glass up. I did not have a proper spoon or cared to light my room on fire, so the absinth wasn't served as it is traditionally meant to be served. All that aside, I felt nothing, or I did I didn't realize it. Doctors have a hard time distinguishing between s. and dug users, S. do not know as they are slipping into delusions, they only realize that in retrospect. It would seem you would only be able to know if you had felt something different in retrospect. The only thing I remember feeling is slightly awake... and hungry for some odd reason hmm. I was thinking about writing something just to see if I would be more creative, but I ended up going out that night. I saw Hairspry which was fabulous...

It seems that the people here are nicer to drunk kids. I went to the movie theater when I was sober and the cashier was down right rude, but the one last night was very nice. As was the bartender in the pub where I waited. I love walking the streets smoking here. I remember when I was younger and walking through Venice how I felt that each stone was filled with history. I have the same feeling here. I just imagine all the brilliant people that walked these very same streets as me. It is a very humbling feeling to know your place in life. Yet, I don't think you should ever accept that place when you are young, youth should be the fight against the monotony of old age. That that older people are necessarily boring. In fact the ones I have talked were quite interesting. Perhaps their life just seems monotonous, at least when we think about it at this age. I don't know, I don't think I am coming off to well in this discussion. In the I think you should be aware of your limits as a person and try to push beyond them to see if you think correctly, but not by making great strides but by little steps. Everything in moderation. But that seems to imply that I am afraid of changes... which would seem fair.

Cooked for the symposium today, actually spend most of the day cooing, a little bit of reading about the definition of art. The symposium was a little disappointing, few people showed up and the discussion didn't last very long, but it was fun if nothing else. Everybody loved my food which is nice to hear but never worth believing. In a world where compliments are dashed out for everything the not only lose their force but seem almost required when one works for something. I think hard work is over rated. Passion is as well, just because you want something doesn't mean you deserve it.

There is a film society that runs films every sunday night. There are several film societies but this one has the most interesting films, and the documentary film society never emailed me. I saw Bergman's Through a Glass Darkly, for the second time. I enjoyed it much better this time around a quote from the movie really struck me and I think I will use it in a paper I have to write. There of the characters are in a play and this quote is part of the play: "[A] thoroughbred artist: a poet with no poems, a painter with no pictures, a musician with no music. I despise ready... made art, the banal result of vulgar effort. My life is my work..." Art isn't about the products it is about the individual we value these individuals because they color our lives differently. We care that works are authentic because they are a tie to a person with a certain way of viewing the world. Forgers may duplicate artworks but as long as they do not capture the concepts behind the pieces they remain merely craftsman. I have always appreciated artists almost as much as I hate how they do not fit into my neat logical system. Emotions and the subjective aren't very parsimonious.

I went to a lecture friday after my tutor pointed out not so kindly that I should consider taking more. The lecture was whether there was a problem in taking a mixed view of the existence of time and modality. For example if you thought that all things exist you should probably think that everything exists presently. The discussion was very surreal it was as if some people took *real* concepts and reduced them to logical terms and started playing games with them. The paper presented didn't advance some philosophic thought, but tried to reconcile certain positions held by famous philosophers. One of those philosophers was there, and was able to holds the room's attention by merely describing the position he now holds. No justification was needed, he was one of the high priests of the field. Everyone was merely sucking his toes. I don't want to do that, doing things like that is the reason why I am so hesitant to go into academia. It is a world in itself with no relation to anything. It is like a beautiful chess match that only few are privileged to see. I like playing chess as much as the next eastern european, but I can't see myself living in a world so oblivious to everything else. There are practical applications to philosophy but they are rather worthless. Oh well, que sera sera... I have that Doris Day song stuck in my head my head. I went too a play about Sylvia Plath and that song was in it.

For anyone with an hour to waste this is worth seeing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HqdnjgkExY.

different night same place

I am less tired tonight than I was last night but I am still here scrambling to write a paper before my eyes glue themselves shut. My tutor forget we had an appointment which will force me to do more work.. Now I am comparing Kant's concept of freedom in the Metaphysics of Morals against Hegel's concept in the Elements of the Philosophy of Right.
Kant likes to think that there are two worlds the world of appearances, everything that as human beings we have access to; the other world is the world of noumena of things in-them-selves. We cannot know anything about this world it is beyond our ability to know (how can make such a claim is a problem). We are not free in the world of the appearances we act according to the causal laws of nature, but we are free in the world of the noumena and thus we can think of ourselves as free even when others see us as determined. Kant likes to have his cake an eat it too.
Hegel on the other had believes in only one world in which there is no divide between our thoughts and objects. We come to have freedom from indeterminesse, from the empty abyss of nothing, the ummmm, the universal. This universal is absolute possibility, freedom. Once a certain thing is willed there is a unity between the particular (that which wills a certain individual thing) and the universal because the particular is contained in the universal and the universal only finds determinacy in the particular, this union is the will which is simultaneously free and constrained. Hegel read too much eastern philosophy, he deals in contradiction much too often...
I prefer Kant to Hegel, but what he describes is not really freedom, it is the hope that we are free, maybe it is even what happens when we act. I read a bout a psychological studied that a certain area of the brain is activated before we choose something to give us the illusion that we have free will.
These are the things that I like the most in philosophy the self, freedom of the will (or lack thereof), and morality. I guess I don't really mind staying up with these friends.... so long

I think I would like to live here

For whatever reason I am unbearably tired right now. I have to finish two papers rather quickly and have to get a move on there. I enjoyed Sunday and it made me think that Oxford is the type of city I would like to inhabit in the near future. In the morning I red some philosophy, in the evening I cooked a meal, my roommate bought some read wine, and we with some friends had a "symposium." We discussed what the definition of normal. Most of their definitions gravitated towards a concept which involved a statistical norm. That is obviously wrongs, the concept of normal that our culture espouses is different from the statistical normal. And even if they coincided that definition of normal would lack any power as a relative term. Unless normal is grounded on some objective criteria it cannot be burdened with value judgments. Anyway...
After dinner I saw If... at a film society. Shitty screen and sound projection, but it was an interesting experience. THere was a social gathering after the film which I skipped because of all the work I ended up not doing. But just walking in the cold dark air I thought to myself, I would not mind doing this in the future; I would like to live in a place like this.

Settling in

So now that I have settled in it would seem the perfect time to reflect on what has thus happened.

I left from Newark airport. My parents drove me, my sister was away at some camp peer leadership event. My mother took the wrong turn and we ended up in Orange or Newark, not the most welcoming of neighborhoods, or so I thought. We got in time at the airport and sat with my parents talking about all the little things you do before you don't seem your parents for about 9 months. Told them that I am considering law school that I think the philosophy department at my school likes me etc. My dad was rather happy with the last part, not quite sure why... that's a lie.

I bought a cartoon of cigarets and a bottle of Scotch at the Duty-Free. Tried reading for a while, but never really managed, something about my nerves, I don't like having to deal with authority even in the form of airport security. Had a pint at a bar in the terminal, a Sam Adam's Octoberfest. It was a decent beer. This guy Paul disagreed. Paul was american of polish decent and he was going to Poland to mary his girlfriend which had lived in the States for three years but got tired of waiting for Paul to marry her, so she returned to Poland. If you aren't able to give a reason to stay they take flight, or so I am told...

The plane was rather uneventful, but its strange how all the flight attendants are pretty like polished silicone. I went to the UK through a program by the name of Butler, so they put us up in a hotel and oriented us on how to make the most of the little time we are studying here, so as to make the most of our time here. We they also mentioned how cold the and unfriendly the English are. Lies, all lies. I also liked the assumption that we were her for the culture. Maybe some are, I am here for the education.

Classes started off as soon as we got to the college. I am stuck in the least physically attractive college. It reminds me so much of my home institution that it almost feels like I never left. I am also stuck with a roommate, I say stuck lightly because I actually like my roommate. He is from Jersey like me, goes to Bates. Nice kid we aren't very similar in a lot of things, but I am happy to have know him. I just don't like the idea of spending so much time with someone, I would end up hating anyone after a month or two of their exclusive company.

The fist tutorial I have is currently on Hegel, it is an overview of his philosophical system. I like my tutor but there is a certain strangeness in him, he is slightly eccentric but in a reserved way. He wears strange socks. Hegel's system can be described briefly as an attempt to escape the problems of a foundational philosophy by not having any foundations to his philosophy. the philosophy comes about naturally fro indeterminacy and nothing providing us with the four categories of Kant and Aristotle. I am now suppose to be studding how Hegel establishes free will.

My other tutorial is on aesthetics in which I am reading about Kant my favorite philosopher. Hard to read though very hard to read.

All the architecture over here is beautiful in an overwhelming way (besides my college). It is everything I imagined it would be. I like walking around at night smoking, pr during the day just taking everything in. I am really happy that I am here. There is so much to do that at times it is overwhelming. I will only be at Oxford for a little over 25 weeks, time is so very short.

There are two term breaks In which I will be traveling through out Europe, I want to spend some time in France and Spain. I will be spending Christmas in either Austria or Romania. My tutor also recommended that I travel through out Britain and I think I will next week, go somewhere there is green and hike, by a bottle of some red wine and walk around a bit.

I do most of my own cooking which is somewhat cheaper. I make a lot of indian food because it is easy to make, a lot of spices and a lot of boiling. Made beef tikki masala last night, making hummus tonight which isn't really indian... I enjoy cooking it is relaxing. I found a lot of interesting shops with more exotic food, I have to ask my Pakistani friend what it all means. But I have discovered garlic and ginger paste which is nothing short of marvelous.

I bought a bottle of absinth... we'll see how that goes.

I'm here

Spent almost a week in Felton outside of Heathrow and London so that the program sponsoring me could orient us. The night I have spent with some British students has generally undid all of that orientation.

Oxford is the largest town in which i can remember living. It is not a huge town but it is your stereotypical college, british town. The little I have seen is amazing and I feel very lucky to be here. I have some work to do so I won't spend too much time on this blog.

So tomorrow I leave

Tomorrow I leave for the UK and Oxford. It strange saying goodbye to everyone, a handshake and a I'll see you next year. You spend so much time with some people and the beginnings and the ends are always so inconspicuous. Tomorrow I will meet some people with which I will undoubtedly be spending a long long time. I think I will keep this blog not so much for others as for myself, to better remember.