What are some works AGAINST ABSTRACTION
why not understand it first before criticizing it? or do you need your arguments spoon fed to you instead
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJz-u8RJRhg
>>7886259
plato said art should be banned
Hegel.
Photography?
>>7886282
>le evil modern art meme
>le evil jews meme
:^D
how about AGAINST INTERPRETATION by Sontag
>>7886466
good essay
>>7886466
I had the same thought, even though that's not the topic at all.
>>7886406
Where does he say all of this?
>>7886802
About picture thinking and representation? Everywhere in his writings.
>>7886406
How is that against abstraction? That is Hegel making an argument FOR abstraction. Abstraction is the process by which we draw concepts from images by abstracting what is essential away from what is non-essential or accidental.
Hegel is wrong anyway. It is impossible for humans to have concepts without images, because that is the way we think. All of our knowledge has its origin in the senses. Abstraction relies upon sense data, from which concepts are abstracted; but our concepts will still always have some image or other sense impression attached to them. For example, if I look at the concept "chair", I can abstract it away from any particular colour, shape, size, material of a particular chair, but even that most generalised, abstract form of "chair", I still have the necessary picture of a surface which can be sat upon, even if that abstract surface does not have a particular colour, shape, size, or material. There is no pure thought or concept in human thinking.
His idea that religion is based on picture-thinking whereas philosophy is based on higher forms of abstraction is also just silly. Sure, religion has always made use of images to explain its concepts and make them more understandable to people not used to highly abstract form of thought, but many religions have had highly abstract core doctrines. Religion and philosophy are not opposed; I think he is mistaking religion for poetry, an antagonism between poetry and philosophy being something that Plato talked about. Although, that was due to Plato's hatred, like Hegel's, of the senses, which he too, like Hegel, thought was a source of delusion and took away from the mythical purely ideal realm. Aristotle thought that knowledge was derived from the senses, which is why he thought poetry, which by nature appeals to the senses, was a legitimate way to express thought, unlike Plato.
>>7886259
Tao De Ching.
Poems of Alberto Caeiro.
Basically, any nominalist philosophers. Nominalists are those that think that there are no essences or natures in reality, that there are only individuals and all universals, essences, natures are "imposed" on individuals by our names for things, which gives a general name to a group of individuals, e.g. there are individual creatures which we group together under the name "dog", but there is no universal "dog" nature or essence in reality. Modern philosophy is largely nominalist, although sometimes it goes to the other extreme and becomes Platonist.
There are 3 main positions on the problem of universals -
Universals before the thing (Plato)
Universals in the thing (Aristotle)
Universals after the thing (William of Occam)
The first two are often both called realist, because they both say that universals are real. The first, Plato's, is sometimes called extreme realist because it says that universals exist prior to individuals, and that individuals only exist as participations of a universal which subsists independently of all individuals in a higher realm or plane of existence, e.g. a horse is a horse because it participates in an ideal form or essence or nature of "horseness", which exists independently of any individual horse.
Aristotle's, where the universal is in the thing, is sometimes called moderate realism. Here, universal natures or essences exist, but they exist only in individuals and not separate from them, e.g. the nature or essence of a horse, "horseness", is to be found within individual horses. We discover the universal "horseness" by abstracting this essence from an individual horse.
Nominalism says that "horse" is just a name that we impose on any number of individual things. There is no such thing as "horseness" in reality, it is a purely mental construct.
>>7886948
Aristotle is right because the other two ultimately lead to disastrous consequences in philosophy. If Plato is right and the essences of things are located in a higher realm above all individuals, then the sensible world, which is made up of individuals, becomes a kind of mirage or shadow of the higher world of eternal essences, which destroys the relationship between our intellect and our senses. If the nominalists are right then our intellect is the source of illusion, because we artificially imposing concepts on a pure reality in which there are no essences in fact; so wisdom would be to allow yourself to experience pure "existence" with no essence, no abstraction, just let the flow of the senses pass through you, which, again, destroys the relationship between our intellect and our senses. The first exaggerates the role of the intellect and depreciates the senses; the second exaggerates the role of the senses and depreciates the intellect. Only in the middle one do you find a balance which allows the intellect and the senses to work together to find knowledge. This is what is best about Aristotle's metaphysics, namely, it makes the sensible world a fertile source of knowledge. It makes reality intelligible, a source of discovery, of science. Neither Platonic realism or nominalism do that, they both ultimately end up retreating from reality by destroying either the intellect or the senses, both of which are essential for human knowing.
There are superficial arguments for both of the incorrect positions. The Platonists can say that sometimes our senses deceive us, which is true; and the nominalists can say that sometimes our concepts of things are false, which is true; but that does not change the fact that our senses are very reliable and consistent most of the time and so are our concepts. If you think our concepts are more often false than true, just think how often you use concepts like direction, time, place, shape, colour, person, family, friend, law, money, price, good/evil, beautiful/ugly, true/false, etc., every day, even things like car, shoe, window, door, road, etc., are conceptual. Practically all our language/communication is based on concepts. True, we are often wrong in our concepts, ESPECIALLY on the more philosophical matters (Aristotle says that the more fundamental a truth is, the more obscure it is to our intellect; this is why philosophy and religion are so disputed, because they deal with fundamental or first principles, and to a lesser extent this is true of politics), but the fact is that we are constantly interpreting our environmental conceptually and learning new concepts which we use constantly and reliably.
>>7886928
>is based on picture-thinking whereas philosophy is based on higher forms of abstraction is also just silly.
It is silly indeed, because that's not what he means at all. I really hope you have read Hegel and you're not making this huge post out of that pic alone.
Here's a good account of nominalist metaphysics from an ancient Buddhist text
And King Milinda asked him: "How is Your Reverence known, and what is your name, sir?"
"As Nagasena I am known, O Great King, and as Nagasena do my fellow religious habitually address me. But although parents give name such as Nagasena, or Surasena, or Virasena, or Sihasena, nevertheless, this word "Nagasena" is just a denomination, a designation, a conceptual term, a current appellation, a mere name. For no real person can here be apprehended."
But King Milinda explained: "Now listen, you 500 Greeks and 80,000 monks, this Nagasena tells me that he is not a real person! How can I be expected to agree with that!" And to Nagasena he said: "If, Most Reverend Nagasena, no person can be apprehended in reality, who then, I ask you, gives you what you require by way of robes, food, lodging, and medicines? Who is it that guards morality, practises meditation, and realizes the [Four] Paths and their Fruits, and thereafter Nirvana? Who is it that killing living beings, takes what is not given, commits sexual misconduct, tell lies, drinks intoxicants? Who is it that commits the Five Deadly Sins? For, if there were no person, there could ne no merit and no demerit; no doer of meritorious or demeritorious deeds, and no agent behind them; no fruit of good and evil deeds, and no reward or punishment for them. If someone should kill you, O Venerable Nagasena, would not be a real teacher, or instructor, or ordained monk! You just told me that your fellow religious habitually address you as "Nagasena". Then, what is this "Nagasena"? Are perhaps the hairs of the head "Nagasena?"
"No, Great King!"
"Or perhaps the nails, teeth, skin, muscles, sinews, bones, marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, serous membranes, spleen, lungs, intestines, mesentery, stomach, excrement, the bile, phlegm, pus, blood, grease, fat, tears, sweat, spittle, snot, fluid of the joints, urine, or the brain in the skull-are they this "Nagasena"?"
"No, Great King!"
"Or is "Nagasena" a form, or feelings, or perceptions, or impulses, or consciousness?"
"No, Great King!"
Then is it the combination of form, feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness?"
"No, Great King!"
"Then is it outside the combination of form, feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness?"
"No, Great King!"
>>7886989
"Then, ask as I may, I can discover no Nagasena at all. This "Nagasena" is just a mere sound, but who is the real Nagasena? Your Reverence has told a lie, has spoken a falsehood! There is really no Nagasena!"
Thereupon, the Venerable Nagasena said to King Milinda: "As a king you have been brought up in great refinement and you avoid roughness of any kind. If you would walk at midday on this hot, burning, and sandy ground, then your feet would have to trend on the rough and gritty gravel and pebbles, and they would hurt you, your body would get tired, your mind impaired, and your awareness of your body would be associated with pain. How then did you come on foot, or on a mount?"
"I did not come, Sir, on foot, but on a chariot."
"If you have come on a chariot, then please explain to me what a chariot is. Is the pole the chariot?"
"No, Reverend Sir!"
"Is then the axle the chariot?"
"No, Reverend Sir!"
"Is it then the wheels, or the framework, of the flag-staff, or the yoke, or the reins, or the goad-stick?"
"No, Reverend Sir!"
"Then is it the combination of poke, axle, wheels, framework, flag-staff, yoke, reins, and goad which is the "chariot"?"
"No, Reverend Sir!"
"Then, is this "chariot" outside the combination of poke, axle, wheels, framework, flag-staff, yoke, reins and goad?"
"No, Reverend Sir!"
"Then, ask as I may, I can discover no chariot at all. This "chariot" is just a mere sound. But what is the real chariot? Your Majesty has told a lie, has spoken a falsehood! There is really no chariot! Your Majesty is the greatest king in the whole of India. Of whom then are you afraid, that you do not speak the truth?" And he exclaimed: "Now listen, you 500 Greeks and 80,000 monks, this King Milinda tells me that he has come on a chariot. But when asked to explain to me what a chariot is, he cannot establish its existence. How can one possibly approve of that?"
The 500 Greeks thereupon applauded the Venerable Nagasena and said to King Milinda: "Now let You Majesty get out of that if you can!"
But King Milinda said to Nagasena: "I have not, Nagasena, spoken a falsehood. For it is in dependence on the pole, the axle, the wheels, the framework, the flag-staff, etc, there takes place this denomination "chariot", this designation, this conceptual term, a current appellation and a mere name."
"Your Majesty has spoken well about the chariot. It is just so with me. In dependence on the thirty-two parts of the body and the five Skandhas, there takes place this denomination "Nagasena", this designation, this conceptual term, a current appellation and a mere name. In ultimate realtiy, however, this person cannot be apprehended.
And here is nominalism explained by a modern Portuguese poet, Alberto Caeiro
A butterfly passes in front of me
And for the first time in the universe I notice
That butterflies don’t have color or movement,
Just like flowers don’t have perfume or color.
Color is what has color in a butterfly’s wings.
In a butterfly’s movement the movement is what moves.
Perfume is what has perfume in a flower’s perfume.
A butterfly is only a butterfly
And a flower is only a flower.
***
A row of trees far away, there on the hillside.
But what is it, a row of trees? It’s just trees.
Row and the plural trees aren’t things, they’re names.
Sad human souls, putting everything in order,
Tracing lines from thing to thing,
Hanging signs with names on absolutely real trees,
And drawing parallels of latitude and longitude
All over the earth itself, innocent and more green and more flowering than that!
***
On an excessively clear day,
A day when you wish you’d worked a lot the day before
So you’d have no work left to do,
I glimpsed, like a road between trees,
What might be The Great Secret,
That Great Mystery false poets talk about.
I saw that there is no Nature,
That Nature doesn’t exist,
That there are hills, valleys, plains,
That there are trees, flowers, weeds,
That there are rivers and stones,
But there is not a whole these belong to,
That a real and true wholeness
Is a sickness of our ideas.
Nature is parts without a whole.
Maybe this is the mystery they talk about.
This was what I hit upon without thinking or pausing,
This must be the truth
That everyone goes to look for and doesn’t find,
And only I found it because I wasn’t looking for it.
And here it is from the Tao De Ching
When beauty is abstracted
Then ugliness has been implied;
When good is abstracted
Then evil has been implied.
So alive and dead are abstracted from nature,
Difficult and easy abstracted from progress,
Long and short abstracted from contrast,
High and low abstracted from depth,
Song and speech abstracted from melody,
After and before abstracted from sequence.
The sage experiences without abstraction,
And accomplishes without action;
He accepts the ebb and flow of things,
Nurtures them, but does not own them,
And lives, but does not dwell.
***
the attraction of this kind of thinking it that it saves you from ever becoming mentally exhausted, of ever getting tied up in thinking and abstracting
but it ultimately destroys all grounds for science, ethics, and aesthetics
it ends in quietism; if our abstractions are delusions then we cannot speak really, because we always speak in abstractions; so this is why the Buddhist writers speak only to point out the futility of speech, because ultimately they believe knowledge cannot be communicated.
classically, there are 3 sophisms
1. There is no truth.
2. Even if there is truth, it cannot be known.
3. Even if it can be known, it cannot be communicated.
These are sophisms because they destroy themselves, e.g. if there is no truth, then how can the statement "there is no truth" be true? You end up in paradox and absurdity, self-contradiction.
This nominalist thought becomes attractive to people who are confused in a pluralist society where there seems to be no ultimate truth, so the wisest thing to do seems to be to give up and say there is no truth, all abstraction is delusion so retreat into quietist meditation.
>>7886406
Really lad? To me that's an argument for abstraction.
>>7887047
I guess I should read the whole thread first, hung? Major facepalm returning to base.
>>7887047
That's because you are proceeding from the common conception that sensuous things are real in themselves, Hegel, however, rightly acknowledges that they have no truth as such but only their universal principle, that which subsists in and contains those particulars in itself, is the truth. This principle nature cannot represent (as a object) and it is a work of rational consciousness (think about laws of nature, or the genus of animals).
Abstraction for Hegel is to take things as we perceive them, that there are objects outside us, and these objects are finite and bear some kind external relation to one another.
>>7886948
I can't remember which of Borges' stories features the extreme version of this idea on language? I think it was the library of babel, might have just been a sentence in passing though
>>7886405
If you think Plato is 'against abstraction' then you completely misunderstand him. That or you don't understand what abstraction is.
>>7886406
this is an argument FOR abstraction dummy
>>7887072
we all make mistakes :3
>>7886259
Tractatus-era wittgenstein i guess? i don't know what you mean by abstraction
>>7886259
Hartry Field's "Science without Numbers" is a key text for contemporary nominalism. No numbers, no sets, no abstract objects of any kind.
>>7887934
Someone should troll /sci/ with this
>>7887934
If you know Hartry Field you are better than 4chan. I've met him. He wears old shoes.
>>7888144
You saying you better than 4chan or what is this
