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This article serves as an introduction to a collection of papers that respond to Jonathan Palmer's paper on the role of creativity in psychoanalytic work. The contributors, who are known for their creative approach to psychoanalysis and art, offer their unique perspectives on the theme of creativity in psychoanalysis. They emphasize the significance of creativity, aliveness, and play in the therapeutic process, drawing on personal experiences and artistic references. The papers encourage readers to reflect on their own sources of creative expression and consider the role of creativity in their own analytic encounters. [Extracted from the article]

This article delves into the relationship between art and psychoanalysis, specifically focusing on the concept of aesthetic experience and its impact on therapy. The authors discuss how aesthetic experiences can lead to transformative change for both patients and analysts, allowing for new approaches to life and the ability to confront difficult experiences. They emphasize the importance of the analyst's involvement and openness in creating an environment for these experiences to occur. The article also touches on the role of creativity in therapy and the analyst's responsibility to nurture the patient's own creative self. Overall, the article highlights the interplay between art and psychoanalysis and the potential for aesthetic experiences to deepen the therapeutic relationship. [Extracted from the article]

This paper discussed the art appreciation technique using Jerrold Levinson's artistic value in arriving at the importance of aesthetic experience in artwork. Levinson claimed that artistic value covers aesthetic value and achievement value, specifically in analyzing Juan Luna's Spoliarium, which is considered the largest painting in the Philippines and is proclaimed as a national heritage. This paper argued that art should have aesthetic engagement from the viewer's point of view which would lead them to discover its artistic value. Thus, this paper used the contextualizing technique since it augments and strengthens artistic engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Basically, humans desire nothing but to be happy. Humans exert much effort to make their lives meaningful and worth living. For humans, obtaining the meaning of existence is the foundation of happiness. However, despite humans' desire to be happy, an ugly truth still remains: life is a tragedy. Friedrich Nietzsche argues that life is a constant struggle and that to live is to suffer. By seeing this ugly picture of life, humans gradually fall into depression. "Depression is a common mental disorder that presents with depressed mood, loss of interest or pleasure . . . and may lead to suicide (WHO, 2021)." More so, science contends that specific brain dysfunctions cause depression, and various solutions are offered to address this, like taking anti-depressants and undergoing psychotherapy, but amidst all these, depression remains. In this case, what other means can be utilized to address the problem of depression? Using the philosophical-qualitative method, this paper will attempt to address the perennial issue of depression. This paper attempts to understand the problem of depression by tracing it to the degradation of meaning and will resolve it by explaining the essential role aesthetics plays in man's existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significance of nightlife and the nighttime economy has witnessed a growing prominence in the realm of urban development. The urban nightlife landscape, serving as the backdrop for urban nighttime pursuits, plays a significant role in determining nighttime consumption patterns and overall nocturnal experiences. However, there is a significant lacuna in the existing scholarship on the fundamental reasoning behind the formation of nightlife landscapes, with the primary analytical focus in earlier studies on daytime landscapes. Drawing upon a spatiotemporal geography perspective, this paper aims to uncover the underlying logic behind the various forms of urban nightlife landscapes. It seeks to identify the key factors that shape these landscapes, thus unveiling their formation mechanisms, overall typology and aesthetic characteristics. Based on the cases of four bar streets in Guangzhou, China, this study argues that the historical heritage and location advantages give rise to two developmental forces in shaping the nightlife landscape: romanticisation and commercialisation. The intertwining of these two forces results in four fundamental categories of urban nightlife landscape: ordinary leisure, gentrification, creative and nostalgic districts, each exhibiting distinct aesthetic characteristics. This paper provides insights into the formation and aesthetic mechanisms of urban nightlife landscapes, and emphasises the importance for urban planners and policymakers to take the spatial-historical context into account when formulating strategies for urban beatification initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last few decades have seen growing interest in the field of disciplinary aesthetics. While the physical sciences and mathematics have attracted significant interest in this area, relatively little attention has been given to the aesthetic potential of learning about the structure of one's own native language. Within this paper, we bring together ideas from evolutionary aesthetics, philosophy, psychology and neuroscience to explore the question of what might characterize an aesthetics of grammar learning. The paper connects our previous empirical findings with theoretical developments across these disciplines. We argue that explicit grammar learning has a particular potential to evoke aesthetic experience due to its role as a mediator between procedural and declarative knowledge. We suggest that by facilitating the transformation from knowhow to knowledge, grammar learning has the potential to generate cognitive consonance, experienced as an aesthetic-epistemic feeling of fittingness. The discussion draws parallels between the characteristics of grammar and the properties of entities more traditionally conceived to be aesthetic (such as art works and performances). In particular, we note that meta-linguistic labels (grammar terms) provide concrete tokens which facilitate virtual models, supporting the transition from 'automatism' to 'conscious reflection'. The paper concludes by exploring the implications for the field of disciplinary aesthetics and for developing pedagogies which maximize the aesthetic potential of grammar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vasily Sesemann's aesthetics is a transcendental philosophy that seeks to answer the question of how an experience of beauty is possible. Sesemann insists that aesthetics should focus on the study of the aesthetic object itself, and through it go to the problematics of the act of perception and creativity. Sesemann states that not only the relationship between the work of art and the perceiver is important in order to understand the aesthetic object, but also the relationship between the work of art and the creator. The aesthetic object in its sedimented form not only retains indications of the act of creation, but also makes demands on the perceiving subject. Aesthetic objects are sedimented passive structures that can be activated by the performative actions of the perceiver when she discovers the appropriate way of perception. Sesemann, like Moritz Geiger, claims that aesthetics is impossible without an analysis of feelings. He, like Geiger, recognizes the importance of empathy in aesthetic experience. However, Sesemann develops the concept of aesthetic empathy using Max Scheler's arguments. Empathy is necessary, because the perceiver must be able to understand expressions. The aim of this paper is to analyse the phenomenological aspects of Vasily Sesemann's aesthetics. Firstly, this paper analyzes the Sesemann's phenomenology of aesthetic experience. Secondly, it shows that the analysis performed by Sesemann demonstrates why empathy plays a leading role in aesthetic experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to introduce a meaning-making process called 'sensuous abstraction' as one approach to aesthetic experience in line with Dewey's philosophy. Dewey highlights aesthetic experience as the best form of experience that integrates emotional and intellectual qualities to foster deep learning and insights. Building on contemporary research on sensation, affect, and human brain, this paper identifies two distinct modes of human understanding: the linguistic/conceptual system and the sensuous-imaginative system. The former, often associated with abstraction and intellectual thinking, is heavily emphasized in traditional schooling, but the latter, integral to human cognition, is sadly neglected and overlooked. While situational meaning offers a way to bridge the two systems, it often falls short of leading to aesthetic experience. In response, sensuous abstraction can promote a process of meaning making that becomes more general than sensation but never as general as linguistic categories while maintaining its sensory wholeness as aesthetic experience demands. Using a classical artwork as an example, this paper concludes sensuous abstraction can be adopted as one approach for educators to create learning experiences by integrating sensory experience and generalizations and abstractions that lead to aesthetic experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jonathan Palmer's account of his artmaking practice illuminates the distinct role of intuition and the centrality of aesthetic experience in the creative process. The paper throws light on the work of creating a setting and framework that lends itself to an intuitive engagement, both in art-making and in analysis, an engagement that allows the painter and analyst to remain open to new formations of not-yet represented elements of experience. This paper shows what is entailed in keeping the possibly of fresh experience alive, by careful attention to the framing of things, the properties of the chosen medium, and the experimental posture of the practitioner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether an ethical flaw in an artwork can be an aesthetic merit. I explore two versions of immoralism from Eaton and Kieran. I will defend the immoralist claim that artworks containing rough heroes are ethically flawed. I will then argue that an indirect connection between an ethical flaw and aesthetic merit is sufficient for immoralism, so long as it is a necessary connection. On this understanding of immoralism, I will argue that Eaton and Kieran are both successful in showing that an ethical flaw in an artwork can make it aesthetically better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human needs, and their fulfillment, are the building blocks of human development, personality, and well-being. However, no published paper in the field of psychology has focused on exploring aesthetic needs. Maslow (1986) gave the topic little more than a paragraph; and Dweck [1], in her elegant Unified Theory of Motivation, Personality, and Development, never mentions aesthetic needs. The aim of this article is to describe developing a scale for measuring the intensity of aesthetic needs. The structure, psychometric properties, and criterion-related validity of the scale were verified with three independent samples (total N = 592). The results of an EFA and two CFAs indicated a three-factor structure: 1) the need to aestheticize everyday life (aesthetic experiences of everyday objects and events unrelated to art, such as the presentation of food or the appearance of a workspace, etc.); 2) the need for contact with aesthetic creations (the arts); 3) the need to aestheticize the built and natural environments (urban spaces, architecture, parks, wild nature, etc.). In addition, our criterion-related convergent validity studies have shown that people with high aesthetic needs are characterized by experiencing more intense experiences in contact with works of art, have higher aesthetic competence in art, are more intensely involved in four forms of beauty, have a higher ability to integrate beauty, a stronger trait gratitude, curiosity about nature, greater sensitivity to disgust, and the need for internal and external stimulation. This scale may prove useful in research on individual differences and the psychology of aesthetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vision and aesthetics are inseparable dimensions of national image building. Based on 106,562 China-related images from Twitter (renamed as X), this paper introduced a computational aesthetic approach to investigate the visual communication activities of social bots on Twitter and compared the similarities and differences between human and bot accounts' posted images so as to explore the influence of social bots' aesthetic strategies. The results show that social bots have displayed different aesthetic strategies in the construction of the China-related visual frame, and formed obvious stylistic differences with humans in brightness, saturation, color, etc. Negative binomial regression indicates that the aesthetic strategies of social bots contribute to more likes and shares. The automation of visual communication and aesthetic construction not only makes the global building and communication of national image face new situations and challenges, but also pushes the whole human visual aesthetic, creation, and communication activities under the potential subjectivity crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aesthetic experiences have the potential to promote learning and creativity by enhancing the ability to understand complexity and to integrate novel or disparate information. Offering a theoretical framework for understanding the cognitive benefits of aesthetic experiences, this paper argues they are the necessary outcome of human learning, in which natural objects or artworks are evaluated in a multi-dimensional preference space shaped by Bayesian prediction. In addition, it contends that the brain-states underlying aesthetic experiences harness configurations of the apex three transmodal neural systems--the default mode network, the central executive network, and the salience network--that may offer information-processing advantages by recruiting the brain's high-power communication hubs, thus enhancing potential for learning gain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to account for the power that art holds over us? Why do artworks touch us deeply, consoling, transforming or invigorating us in the process? In this paper, we argue that an answer to this question might emerge from a fecund framework in cognitive science known as predictive processing (a.k.a. active inference). We unpack how this approach connects sense-making and aesthetic experiences through the idea of an 'epistemic arc', consisting of three parts (curiosity, epistemic action and aha experiences), which we cast as aspects of active inference. We then show how epistemic arcs are built and sustained by artworks to provide us with those satisfying experiences that we tend to call 'aesthetic'. Next, we defuse two key objections to this approach; namely, that it places undue emphasis on the cognitive component of our aesthetic encounters—at the expense of affective aspects—and on closure and uncertainty minimization (order)—at the expense of openness and lingering uncertainty (change). We show that the approach offers crucial resources to account for the open-ended, free and playful behaviour inherent in aesthetic experiences. The upshot is a promising but deflationary approach, both philosophically informed and psychologically sound, that opens new empirical avenues for understanding our aesthetic encounters. This article is part of the theme issue 'Art, aesthetics and predictive processing: theoretical and empirical perspectives'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The role of personality in shaping engagement with aesthetics in science has been almost entirely unexplored. Whereas artists and arts settings (e.g., museums) are well-studied from a psychological perspective, the practice of science has often been seen as purely rational or dry. In response, this study presents novel findings on the critical role of scientists' individual differences, which shape their engagement with aesthetics, such as the frequency of their experiences of beauty, wonder, and awe in their scientific work. Methods: Based on a very large and representative four-country study of scientists in the fields of biology and physics (N = 3,092), this study analyzed the associations of Big Five personality traits among scientists with (i) dispositional aesthetics (DPES-awe), (ii) the frequency of aesthetic experiences in scientific work, and (iii) aesthetic sensitivity in science. These survey-weighted OLS regression models included extensive statistical controls for sociodemographic factors. Results: As hypothesized, openness is positively, and neuroticism is negatively linked with dispositional aesthetics, the frequency of aesthetic experiences in scientific work, and aesthetic sensitivity in science. Unexpectedly, agreeableness and conscientiousness (but not extraversion) are highly significant and strong predictors of the three trait and state aesthetic engagement variables. Discussion: The aesthetic engagement and personality framework of this paper is empirically supported and demonstrates the importance of personality types of scientists in the practice of science. The unexpectedly strong association of agreeableness with aesthetic engagement points to the importance of cooperation, collaboration, and communication to maximize scientific creativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In this paper, my purpose is to take into serious consideration Adorno's explicit conception of the artwork as a force field. With this expression he intends to emphasize the inner constitution of the artwork as a movement of antagonistic tensions, a dynamic of elements that are not simply juxtaposed, but dialectically interacting with one another. In a similar configuration, the aesthetic experience of the artwork consists in letting their friction explode to its extreme, achieving a balance which remains nevertheless substantially precarious and inconclusive, ready to be immediately set in motion again. Thanks to the aesthetic trait of the force field, these tensions are brought to unity in a way that it does not suppress the enactment of antagonisms, but keeps their multiplicity alive: Homer's tale of Penelope as an allegory of art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We live in times when neuroscientific methods have become standard methods that many researchers can easily use. While this offers excellent opportunities to understand brain activities linked with aesthetic processing, we face the problem of using sophisticated techniques without a proper and valid theoretical foundation of aesthetics. A further problem arises from sophisticated methods often demanding strict constraints in presenting and experiencing aesthetic stimuli. However, when experiencing aesthetic items, contextual factors matter, e.g., social and situational affordances are essential in triggering a true and deep "Kunsterlebnis" (Experience of Art). Additionally, in Art, it is often not the artwork as an object that matters but the close relationship with and the processing of the artwork. However, art is only one facet of the whole aesthetic domain, beside, e.g., design, architecture, everyday aesthetics, dance, literature, music, and opera. In the present paper, I propose a dynamic and holistic aesthetic perspective that includes the respective context, situation, cognitive and affective traits and state of the beholder, ongoing processes of understanding, Zeitgeist, and other cultural factors, which can be applied to different aesthetic domains. When ignoring such temporal and dynamic factors, we will not understand the qualia of aesthetic processing. These considerations might help researchers in the field of aesthetics to better understand the experiencing of aesthetic items of all kinds—if we ignore these factors, we are missing the essence of experiencing aesthetic items, especially artworks. We aim to sensitize and inform readers about these ideas to inspire a deeper understanding of experiencing aesthetic items and the advancement of a theoretical framework addressing the experiencing of aesthetics from different domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indian Classical Drama is a field widely discussed, from Sanskrit treaties to modern theoreticians, but little was written about it by the Romanian academics, much less in the Theological field. For this instance, the present paper is an attempt in providing a short introduction to one of the “cornerstones” of Classical Drama: rasa. Classical Theatre exceeds the expectations of realism, developing ‘exaggerations’ understood only in the context of a fictional dramatic universe, created specifically for them to meet their purpose: the aesthetic experience. To accede such a cosmos of beauty, sophistication (based on imagination, sensibility, and openness of the mind) is required from the audience, and not only from the performers, with the goal of transcending oneself through aesthetics, and even uniting with Brahman. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a conversational form, we weave together our experiences of making curious and conscious encounters with a work of art in a gallery, while grounding our nonlinear understandings of our shared aesthetic experience on the works of Maxine Greene, Peter de Bolla and Arnold Berleant. Holding, as our conceptual framework, seeds a kind of sensibility in us towards holding space to be dynamically in relation to each other and the work of art. The embodied and textual ways of conversing in this paper become a form of invitation to critically and creatively engage with the diverse meanings of aesthetic experience; an invitation to pause with and contemplate about how our embodied togetherness in the gallery led us to unexplored potentialities for seeking alternative ways of encountering the work aesthetically and internalising the aesthetic sensibilities and qualities that we experienced together in the gallery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the complex relationship between ethics and literature by applying the perspective of everyday aesthetics, a branch of philosophy. Focusing on Francesco Piccolo's fiction work, Moments of Unnoticed Happiness (2012), we argue that the protagonist adopts an Aristotelian-based ethical stance, viewing happiness as a path to well-being and finding significance in life. Additionally, the character embraces an aesthetic attitude toward the nuances of daily existence, aligning with the theoretical framework of everyday aesthetics. This framework expands the scope of aesthetic experiences beyond traditional art domains, emphasizing a transformative shift in perception. We use these concepts to illustrate how engaging with the ordinary enhances personal well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of this paper is to examine the practice of describing intellectual pursuits in aesthetic terms, and to investigate whether this practice can be accounted for in the framework of a standard conception of aesthetic experience. Following a discussion of some historical approaches, the paper proposes a way of conceiving of aesthetic experience as both epistemically motivating and epistemically inventive. It is argued that the aesthetics of intellectual pursuits should be considered as central rather than marginal to our philosophical accounts of aesthetic experience, and that our views about the relation between the aesthetic and cognitive domains should be reconfigured accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how everyday aesthetics shape and are shaped within dementia care settings. The authors draw upon research that explored the significance of clothing and textiles in care home settings, to identify the varied and complex aesthetic experiences of people with dementia. The study was carried out using a series of creative, sensory and embodied research methods working with people with dementia and care home staff. Findings demonstrate that aesthetics are important in care homes at a number of levels. People with dementia discussed personal aesthetic preferences and demonstrated such preferences through embodied practices. Attending to aesthetics facilitated moments of togetherness between people with dementia and care home staff, creating person-centred encounters outside task-orientated conversations. This paper supports the importance of everyday aesthetics within dementia care settings and demonstrates that greater attention should be paid to this, to reconsider and enhance not only the look and feel of care homes and everyday items, including clothing, but also dementia care practice more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I show my painting process. That is, how I arrange my emotional and physical space together with my medium to allow a receptive and responsive experience of painting. I describe how my use of color allowed me to access previously unavailable aspects of my psychoanalytic work with a patient. Through showing as closely as possible my process as a painter, I hope that the reader will find resonance to their psychoanalytic work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper defends a 'noetic' conception of aesthetic experience whereby such experience is best conceived as a kind of explorative thought process. Although not directly aimed at acquiring knowledge, this process often leads to an enhanced understanding or improved epistemic grasp of the object of appreciation itself and the world. On this conception, aesthetic value acts as an invitation to engage in a series of contemplative and reflective processes during which we rely not only on the perceptual, imaginative, and affective abilities which have occupied such a central role in aesthetic theory, but also on our capacities for sense-making, problem-solving and theory-building. Cases of intelligible beauty or aesthetic value should thus lie at the heart of accounts of aesthetic experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing literature in philosophy of science focuses on the role of aesthetics in scientific practice, with the experiment recently recognized for its aesthetic value. However, the literature on aesthetics in experimentation grows out of case studies from the history of science, leaving open the question as to how contemporary scientists experience aesthetics in their experimental work. In this paper we offer the first qualitative, empirical analysis of aesthetic experiences regarding experimental practice, drawing from in-depth interviews with 215 scientists in four countries. We identify six categories of aesthetic experience we find in experimentation, their function, and new questions emerging from our study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aesthetic experiences have the potential to promote learning and creativity by enhancing the ability to understand complexity and to integrate novel or disparate information. Offering a theoretical framework for understanding the cognitive benefits of aesthetic experiences, this paper argues they are the necessary outcome of human learning, in which natural objects or artworks are evaluated in a multi-dimensional preference space shaped by Bayesian prediction. In addition, it contends that the brain-states underlying aesthetic experiences harness configurations of the apex three transmodal neural systems—the default mode network, the central executive network, and the salience network—that may offer information-processing advantages by recruiting the brain’s high-power communication hubs, thus enhancing potential for learning gain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neuroaesthetics research explores brain, body and behavioral responses to engagement with the arts and other aesthetic sensory experiences. Evidence indicates that such experiences can help address various psychological, neurological and physiological disorders, and that they can support mental and physical well-being and learning in the general population. The interdisciplinary nature of this work contributes to its impact and promise; however, it also creates challenges as various disciplines approach and define research and practice in varied ways. Recent field-wide reports have noted that a consensus translational framework is needed to support further neuroaesthetics research that can deliver meaningful knowledge and interventions. The Impact Thinking Framework (ITF) was designed to meet this need. Through a description of the framework's nine iterative steps and a presentation of three case studies, this paper posits that the ITF can support researchers and practitioners in understanding and applying aesthetic experiences and the arts to advance health, well-being, and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides, in the first part, a critical examination of the standard framing of the subjectivism vs objectivism dualism in the concept and practice of 'landscape character' (LC) and, in the second part, some philosophical suggestions for its improvement. After a brief overview of the emergence of the LC notion, partly in response to the modernist-aestheticist view of landscape, and of the mentioned dualism that this notion harbours, I will discuss some main problems associated with the currently dominant 'objectivist strain' in the framing of the dualism. Such problems have a common root, namely a narrow unexamined view of experience and the aesthetic dimension. In the constructive part, I will propose to reframe the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity on a pragmatist-aesthetic basis, drawing on Simmel's notion of landscape 'mood'. Finally, I will outline some implications and advantages of the suggested alternative over both the objectivist strain in the current discourse and the modernist-aestheticist paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on some of the most recent studies on aesthetic emotions, the purpose of this paper is to examine how aesthetic concepts and aesthetic experience are translated and adapted from Felix's Vita sancti Guthlaci into Old English prose. Looking into the Old English terms from the lexical domains of beauty and aesthetic pleasure, this paper highlights very specific translation practices on the part of, especially, an Old English author, who implements an additional aesthetic dimension that is not generally found in the Latin source. This paper highlights an apparent hybridity between the cognitive and the sensory in these literary texts, and it also stresses how one of these authors in particular frequently uses sensory evaluations to describe the complex and abstract ideas that are typical of the hagiographical genre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question regarding how to characterize aesthetics has been revived with the publication of Bence Nanay's Aesthetics as Philosophy of Perception. This paper takes seriously Dustin Stokes' criticisms of Nanay's book regarding Nanay's inability to distinguish between ordinary expert visual tasks (e.g., sorting for sock color or ornithology) and aesthetic experience. Using empirical research on gist perception and its reliance on low-level features in visual experience, I develop a theory that distinguishes expert visual tasks and aesthetic experiences by differentiating two different kinds of distributed attention over properties. I argue that expert visual tasks are instances of property attribution in a mode of conscious attention, while aesthetics is a kind of distributed attention that significantly relies on the reiteration of gist-like lowlevel features. Gist, often referred to in visual science as "preattentive" mode, gives us a model to understand the perceptual processes that are specific to aesthetics. This comports with our common-sense definition of aesthetics as both distinguishable from ordinary expert visual tasks and an experience that makes prominent sensory aspects of visual experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the normalisation of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank on the part of their inhabitants. Focusing on the so-called 'non-ideological' settlements that evolved from ideological outposts into middle-class suburbs over the last three decades, this study engages spatial politics in Israel/Palestine in general, and the transformations of the settlement project in particular. Based on ethnographic research in the region, I argue that the acceptance and normalisation of the settlements among Israelis is closely related to their affective and aesthetic experiences. I focus on the co-production of space/territory, affect and aesthetics to show how physical transformations of the settlements since their establishment have turned many of these key nodes of the Israeli occupational apparatus into family-friendly communities, thus erasing the violence of the Israeli control over the Palestinians from settlers' lives. I further demonstrate that these notions are not disrupted even by one of the most prominent symbols and technologies of the occupation, the fence/wall. This study thus contributes to understanding of how the interplay of spatial, territorial, aesthetic and affective practices works to normalise colonial conquest and domination by making their manifestations seemingly natural and even appealing on the part of the privileged segments of the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philosophy of aesthetics and beauty has traditionally prioritized the sense of vision while deprioritizing the more basic-bodily and thus less "noble" sense of touch. This paper examines bodily aspects of how beauty appears in the experience of visual art and motivates the view that touch is fundamental to such experiences. We appeal to Merleau-Ponty to show the relevance given to touch in his phenomenology of aesthetics, to unfold the meaning of touch as "reversible," and to understand how vision can be conceptualized as a form of touch. Further, we present four cases of feeling touched by beauty in experiences of visual art collected through interviews with art museum visitors. The descriptions of these experiences show that when people open themselves to an artwork they also open themselves to themselves. Based on the qualitative descriptions, we discuss how Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of touch is revelatory of the meaning of feeling "touched" in experiences of beauty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When monastics of the Indic North and Northwest around the turn of the Common Era made the decision to introduce art into monasteries, current cultural assumptions regarding the aesthetic experience of such objects, which were axiomatically negated by Buddhist ideology, led to certain confrontations in law and praxis and an attempt to resolve these within certain monastic legal codes (vinaya) redacted during this period. Tracing the historical relation between monasticism and art in this context, this paper focuses on two such uneasy relations. The first deals with an opposition between the worldly aesthetics of pleasure associated with art and fashion and the aesthetics of asceticism as a representation of monasticism's renunciate ideal. The second considers the aesthetics of fear associated with images of deities, the rejection of such objects as mere signs, and the resulting acts of theft and iconoclasm enacted upon them. It will show that resolution to both was sought in a particular semiotic which negated the aesthetic experience of such objects and rendered them signs with a significance that accorded with Buddhist ideology. Yet the solution remained incomplete, with issues arising when the same ideology was applied to monasticism's own representation in the art of monasteries, stūpas and Buddha-images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For almost two years now the COVID-19 pandemic impacted in most different forms habits, models of organization, socio-political dynamics and economic assets. Arrangements and orders taking decades to reach stabilization have demonstrated an unsuspected precarity, demanding a profound reorganization of dynamics we had been long accustomed to. As the distant, sanitized character of interaction, transmission, fruition and creation processes has turned from a contingent measure into the unamenable norm of these days' routine, every aspect of social interaction is changing accordingly. "Contact", "contagion", "proximity" and "distance" are not features of a transient period anymore: they are keywords of today's experience. Indeed, while these concepts were already at stake in masscommunication and social media, it was not before nowadays that their precipitate on art forms could be taken into account more pristinely, for especially performative arts never had to amend their "familiar ground" in order to pursue their goals. Hence, how did artforms adjust themselves to wholly new forms of participation? What are we supposed to expect next? The main aim of this paper is to sketch out, relying on some classical loci of the history of Western aesthetics such as Plato, Aloïs Riegl, Walter Benjamin, this new, re-configured notion of aesthetic and artistic experience in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the subjective nature of people's aesthetic experiences with respect to images, personalized image aesthetics assessment (PIAA), which can simulate the aesthetic experiences of individual users to estimate images, has received extensive attention from researchers in the computational intelligence and computer vision communities. Existing PIAA models are usually built on prior knowledge that directly learns the generic aesthetic results of images from most people or the personalized aesthetic results of images from a large number of individuals. However, the learned prior knowledge ignores the mutual influence of the multiple attributes of images and users in their personalized aesthetic experiences. To this end, this paper proposes a personalized image aesthetics assessment method via multi-attribute interactive reasoning. Different from existing PIAA models, the multi-attribute interaction constructed from both images and users is used as more effective prior knowledge. First, we designed a generic aesthetics extraction module from the perspective of images to obtain the aesthetic score distribution and multiple objective attributes of images rated by most users. Then, we propose a multi-attribute interactive reasoning network from the perspective of users. By interacting multiple subjective attributes of users with multiple objective attributes of images, we fused the obtained multi-attribute interactive features and aesthetic score distribution to predict personalized aesthetic scores. Experimental results on multiple PIAA datasets demonstrated our method outperformed state-of-the-art PIAA methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores two dimensions of visitors' immersion into museum experience: aesthetics and escapism. Following the socio-cultural activity theory, it examines the impact of interactive technology available in museums on aesthetic and escapist experience. Additionally, it examines the role of hedonic expectations and the level of visitor scepticism (or its absence) towards museums with regard to immersion into the experience. Quantitative research was carried out on a sample of 313 museum visitors surveyed in two Croatian cities. Partial least structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used for model testing. The results showed that interactive technology enhances immersion, also helping less sceptical visitors as well as those with hedonic expectations get immersed in the museum experience quickly. Aesthetic experience can enhance escapist experience. While both dimensions of immersion into experience contribute to the overall satisfaction, the aesthetic experience of museum visits was found to contribute to it more. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much has been written about the neoliberal aestheticization of cities and its role in fostering consumption not just in, but also of, urban space. However, at a time when the pursuit of aesthetic experiences has become increasingly common, its exclusive association with privileged urban groups needs to be revisited. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in the Bisagno Valley, a postindustrial periphery of Genoa, Italy, this paper explores how forms of resistance to redevelopment may challenge a dominant distribution of the sensible condemning postindustrial peripheries to the ruinations of redevelopment. Valley activists, it suggests, seek to subvert the categorization of peripheries as non-places by promoting ways of sensing and making sense of urban space that, while deeply intimate, are also consistent with neoliberal aesthetics. By recasting their neighborhood as meaningful and worth protecting, activists reclaim a role as heritage consumers that may allow them to participate in conversations about its future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores students' involvement in an extra-curricular journalistic activity set up in a transnational university in China, by drawing on the connection between art, emotions and experience postulated by the philosopher John Dewey. The article will show how undergraduate students verbalized their experience of writing news features and other items for a campus magazine, their motivations for taking part in the magazine, their expectations, the obstacles they had to overcome, and the ways in which they felt rewarded by this experience. This study argues that looking into students' reflections on a magazine production can help broaden our understanding of student media practice as an aesthetic dynamic and structured endeavor characterized by the following traits: novelty, instinct, emotion, struggle, and transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kant's treatment of infinity seems to be plagued by two contradictions. First, the Transcendental Aesthetic claims that space is an infinite given magnitude, whereas the First Antinomy argues that the spatial world cannot be infinite. Second, the Transcendental Aesthetic claims that the representation of infinite space belongs to sensibility, but the third Critique seems to argue, instead, that infinity is an Idea of reason. This paper resolves these apparent contradictions by noting that Kant groups his various conceptions of space into three kinds: (1) merely subjectively given space, (2) objectively given space, and (3) objective space as a mere Idea. Attending to these three conceptions of space illustrates that the Transcendental Aesthetic, First Antinomy, and third Critique refer to different conceptions of infinite space and thus do not contradict one another, illuminating the importance of Kant's various conceptions of space for his critical project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reid's discernment between a 'relative' and a 'distinct' conception plays a significant role in his theory of secondary and primary qualities and in his postulations on 'instinctive' and 'rational' aesthetic perceptions. However, relative conceptions and, hence, the relative/distinct conception discernment, are absent from one model of aesthetic perception which Reid endorses, as well as from his theory of 'moral approbation'. This paper aims (1) to explore the importance of Reid's relative/distinct discernment for the conception of qualities and aesthetic features and (2) to point out and explain the significance of a different model of conception, which excludes relative conception, embraced by Reid for a certain context of aesthetic perception and for moral approbation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bedhaya is the avant-garde of Yogyakarta and Surakarta (Java, Indonesia) court dance. This classical dance replete with Javanese symbols, spirituality and cultural values embedded in its aesthetic elements. Furthermore, the Bedhaya was created not for entertainment but rather as a meditative medium that would allow individuals to gain wisdom and higher consciousness. These noble characteristics of the dance suggest that the Bedhaya has psychological purposes for the performers and the spectators. We may gain insight into the process of attaining mental growth through studying the embodied wisdom and aesthetic ideal of the Bedhaya, which reflects the development of the human's psyche. Therefore, the author proposes an interpretation of Bedhaya's underlying symbolism, aesthetic experience, and potential as means of psychological growth. The paper's primary argument is delivered by studying a set of theoretical ideas that present Bedhaya as a distinguished aesthetic with psychological capacities. Further, art as an embodiment of cultural wisdom and ethics is also discussed by connecting Bedhaya and other artistic forms drawn from varied cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are living in the era of street art. Since Nick Riggle's pivotal work on the definition of street art, several philosophers have addressed issues in the philosophy of street art. The goal of this paper is to summarize the literature. I consider the following matters, which have been at the core of philosophical discussions on street art: demarcation, value, illegality, and the ethical foundation of intellectual property (IP) protection. In answering the question 'What is street art?,' philosophers have generally resisted skeptical approaches by developing a wide range of real and essentialist definitions of street art (Section 2). When considering street art's value, I distinguish between aesthetic and non‐aesthetic centered accounts. If the former focus on the aesthetic side of our experience of street art, the latter generally place emphasis on its activist nature and political significance (Section 3). In discussing the relationship between street art and illegality, I canvas different takes on the issue. If for some scholars illegality is either a necessary or sufficient condition for street art, philosophers tend to agree that it is neither, while not denying its relevance at the level of identity and authenticity (Section 4). Finally, I consider matters of IP protection of street art. On the one hand, copyright optimists defend the view that current IP legislations may very well have a positive impact on the promotion and preservation of street art. Pessimists, on the other hand, argue that an extension of copyright privileges to works of street art is likely to jeopardize the counter‐cultural and rebellious nature of this urban art kind (Section 5). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the question how future studies can productively engage with the future by considering how art is engaging. This question is pertinent, as doubts about the future are increasingly urgent, while the need to engage with the future is not sufficiently addressed by the quantitative growth of future studies. In the case of climate change, for example, the future consequences of global temperature increase are well-known, but do not invoke action accordingly. While some see the use of art as an effective means to engage with the future, others criticise such usage as reducing art to an instrumental value, at the expense of aesthetic values. This raises fundamental questions about how art and imagination can be engaging and what this implies for future studies. To address the issue, we resort to a pragmatist understanding of art. We present a reading of the work of John Dewey (1859–1952). In his Art as Experience, Dewey claimed that art can be seen as a "mode of prediction not found in charts and statistics". He presents the experience of art as a reciprocal process that is imaginative: in our engagement with art, we experience the artwork, while the experience also produces us. The aesthetic experience is transformative. This mutual coming into existence is not a planned creation, but insinuates an open future as well as an open past. As a next step, we review the production of futures in future studies, using Dewey's understandings on how imagination and the future connect in the aesthetic experience. First, we look at methods to produce futures: extrapolations, Delphi Surveys, surveys, simulations and scenarios. Second, we evaluate how the produced futures engage their audience, distinguishing between narratives, symbols, graphs and images. We conclude that while futures studies have been successful in showing routes to the future, they also have difficulties to relate to futures in a more open, imaginative and responsible way. They are informative but not transformative. The difficulty of future studies to engage, hinders responsible responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experimental philosophy of aesthetics has explored to what extent ordinary people are committed to aesthetic realism. Extant work has focused on attitudes to normativism – a key commitment of realist positions in aesthetics – the claim that aesthetic judgments/statements have correctness conditions, invariant between subjects, such that there is a fact of the matter in cases of aesthetic disagreement. The emerging picture is that ordinary people strongly and almost universally reject normativism and thus there is no strong realist tendency in ordinary people's thinking about the aesthetic. This has been taken to dissolve the traditional puzzle in aesthetics of how to best account for the fact that (a) aesthetic judgments seem intersubjectively valid, while (b) aesthetic experience seems subjective. This paper presents studies which further enrich our understanding of ordinary thinking about the aesthetic: ordinary thinking about the aesthetic may not be so vehement in its rejection of normativism; and where previous results suggested that, in many cultures, the dominant trend is to reject correctness conditions for aesthetic judgments, the current results suggest participants think aesthetic judgments have correctness conditions (albeit perhaps very finely relativized to specific circumstances of judgment). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords: Aesthetics; agency; games; phenomenal experience; C. Thi Nguyen EN Aesthetics agency games phenomenal experience C. Thi Nguyen 380 391 12 12/22/21 20211101 NES 211101 In his fascinating new book I Games: Agency as Art i , C. Thi Nguyen claims that games construct and frame forms of human agency in a way that gives rise to a genuine I aesthetics i of agency. Three extensions of Nguyen's view I'll argue that the aesthetics of agency can incorporate three elements Nguyen left out: emotions of agency, patterns of attention, and affordances. Like Dewey, Nguyen begins with a refreshingly expansive understanding of those experiences that can have (or confer on their objects) genuine aesthetic value.[2] What Dewey left out, according to Nguyen, is the role of a I player i in a game. This is a tall order, but Nguyen does constrain his task: 'I don't mean to imply that aesthetic experiences are essential to art, nor to claim that games' sole purpose is to provide aesthetic experiences', he writes. [Extracted from the article]

Debates over the metaphysical status of aesthetic properties have persisted for decades in Aesthetics. One question that consistently arises in any discussion of aesthetic properties is whether they are fundamentally evaluative or descriptive in character. Aesthetic properties are often treated as parallel to moral properties which means many philosophers take it for granted that aesthetic properties are fundamentally evaluative. There are some philosophers, like Frank Sibley and Jerrold Levinson, who take the road less traveled and treat aesthetic properties as primarily descriptive in character. In this paper, I outline Levinson's intriguing view that the evaluative aspect of an aesthetic property can be canceled leaving us with the descriptive essence of the property. I refer to this as the separability thesis. It contends that evaluative reactions to aesthetic properties can be separated from the objective, perceptual content of an aesthetic experience thereby leaving us with the non-evaluative core of the property. I go on to defend the separability thesis from a powerful challenge developed by Rafael De Clercq. Ultimately, I contend that while De Clercq's argument is clever and insightful it fails to undermine the separability thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wisran Hadi, a prominent Indonesian playwright, was born in the cultural background of the Minangkabau ethnic group, one of the ethnic groups in Indonesia that have received the most attention from world researchers. There are two main reasons, which make this ethnicity get special attention in humanities studies. First, because the Minangkabau ethnic contributed many thinkers during the formation of the Indonesian nation-state, which is believed to have originated from its egalitarian and democratic culture; and secondly because the matrilineal system in its customs is strongly intertwined with Islam which tends to be patriarchal. In this endless paradox, many literary writers are born. Wisran Hadi was one of them and became the most prolific and strongest of his time. In his drama works, Wisran Hadi makes the eternal paradox between Islam and Minangkabau a dialogical force, from which aesthetic value emerges as the ability to negotiate and make appropriations. When staged, the dialogue between the two sources of paradox is presented in the form of visual games, which gives the impression that differences of mind for the Minangkabau ethnic are understood as a game of life, a source of wisdom, and even a philosophy of life that is useful for shaping humans and their humanity. This paper is intended to show that in the form of typical dramaturgical architecture, this endless paradox becomes the aesthetic experience that Wisran Hadi offers to his audience through his drama works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will look at Kant's views of the aesthetic experience, in relationship to Buddhist philosophical and political discussions of art and social organization. The primary focus in Kantian literature explores the relationship between free and dependent beauty, as well as Kant's paradox of taste. The central argument of the Kantian portion is going to navigate the paradox of taste via Graham Priest's epistemic and conceptual distinction pertaining to the limits of thought. Secondly, I shall contextualize the debate with similar argumentation found in medieval Tibetan literature, by thinkers such as Tsongkhapa and Drakpa Gyaltsen. Lastly, I shall look at the political and artistic state of affairs in Yuan and Ming Dynasties and assert the applicability of both Kantian and Tibetan discussions of effibility in the context of Tibetan poetry and Thangkas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]