The purpose of this book, we are told right at the start, is to address anew 'the old question, often neglected in contemporary aesthetic debates, about art and truth, or art and cognition' (p. 1)
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Art and Truth after Plato // Reviews // Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews // University ... - 4 views
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His purpose is to survey these varied responses, trace their development and adjudicate among them
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very widely, and considers many writers who get scant attention nowadays
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His opening chapter sets out Plato's contentions about art and truth
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In any event, though the chapter on 'Christian Platonic and Anti-Platonic Art' is not noticeably shorter than the others, it does not have a key role in the philosophical trajectory that Rockmore is tracing.
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very widely, and considers many writers who get scant attention nowadays
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Not clear if these are positive or negative points, but the focus on those who receive scant attention point seems positive.
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rather long and unusual excursion through Marxist aesthetics.
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There is implicit judgement here, and no imagination about why Rockmore might be taking this approach. More generosity needed here.
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This is a hugely ambitious book, and the range of reading that has gone into its making cannot but be impressive, though the steady flow of many lengthy summaries and brief references to a huge number of writers makes for rather heavy going on the part of the reader.
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Praise, tempered by a sort of critique here. As if a simply positive remark can't stand on its own. Also, the vocabulary is one of coercion "cannot but be impressive."
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more importantly flawed, and in a number of critical ways
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No real evidence is offered of this neglect, and indeed the book is remarkable for making virtually no reference to contemporary work in aesthetics.
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Fair point about references, but fine. Then belittling language "even the briefest survey would show..." - shame tactic.
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Rockmore might object
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Indication that the reviewer is imagining his way into the mind of the author - imagine a response. Good.
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Viewed in this light, however, it does not come out very well.
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So simple positive comments are avoided, but simple negative ones are not. Then ... "conspicuous failures."
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(to my mind)
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serious methodological weaknesses that undermine some of its claims.
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what most people recognize to be a caricature
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It is no pleasure to give a serious and substantial philosophical work such a low rating. So on the positive side I think it can safely be said that readers will undoubtedly benefit from Rockmore's range of reference.
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Overview of target project. Seems like one the author would endorse, but it's impossible to know without asking the author, and difficult to guess without having read the work being reviewed.
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hat 'long ago'
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story
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Referring to the content of the book as a story rather than as a historical overview implies that the work lacks academic legitimacy
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'Middle Ages'
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The use of scare quotes here, and the qualifiers that follow, imply a veiled criticism. It seems that criticisms must be open in order to be collegial, for otherwise they imply that the target's author is too dimwitted to grasp a meaning which is plainly grasped by the reviewer and the audience.
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even the briefest survey would show, I think, that 'aesthetic cognitivism', as it is increasingly referred to, is not only widely discussed, but alive and wel
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Very critical language, framing a serious critique. Yet it seems that the obvious has not been stated: the author was too focused on the continental tradition, and the reviewer was largely unfamiliar with that tradition (so much so that he saw the "excursion" into marxist aesthetics as unusual)
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For example, he uses the expressions 'art and truth' and 'art and cognition' more or less interchangeably. But the conflation of 'truth' and 'cognition' confounds many of the issues he want to discuss, because there are important dimensions to cognition other than truth
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with which contemporary aesthetics is concerned.
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One has to worry here of how the discipline is being defined. Does analytic philosophy have dominance over the field?
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In doing so he ranges very widely, and considers many writers who get scant attention nowadays, devoting a whole chapter to 'Marx, Marxism, and Aesthetic Realism', for instance.
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n any event, though the chapter on 'Christian Platonic and Anti-Platonic Art' is not noticeably shorter than the others, it does not have a key role in the philosophical trajectory that Rockmore is tracing.
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Implies that the chapter is unnecessary, and does not attempt to see why it would have been left in. Even if a philosophical aesthetics is not present in this long period, the author may have chosen to discuss it for the sake of completeness, and to show to what extent a philosophy of art/ aesthetics existed in the middle ages.
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