Imagine the Unimaginable

Another thing I wanted to mention from classes that we had last week was a small topic that came up in use as a hypothetical proof. It was not something that was particularly relevant to the discussion of what literature is, and I do not even remember its original context, but the question as it was posed still seemed quite fascinating, and has been lurking in my mind ever since.

The question as it was brought up was: "try to consider what a new color would look like"

This seemed simply enough as something that should be shunned immediately from to much thought for its obvious impossibility in completion. However, as I was considering this fact over the course of this last week, I actually stumbled on a color that I had never seen before, and felt that it was necessary to bring this topic back to the drawing board. As silly as this may sound at first, I saw what infra-red actually looks like in trying to prove whether or not something I had heard was real. The test proposed to me was that in looking through a camera you can see the infra-red light that is emitted through things like t.v. remote controls, as can be seen in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgsbjlXQMLw

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that I wanted to then pose this question:

Do you think that it is possible that we are as philosophers simply ignoring some of the things that are of relevance, even though it just seems as if we can't see them?

Literature, the Oral Tradition

One topic that came up in class last week that I have yet to comment on, but still think to be truly interesting, is the argument over whether or not oral tradition should count as a form, or as part of the definition of literature. In my opinion, this is very specifically a touchy line to walk along, for many people disagree that talking is considered to be the same use of language as writing is. However, when I think of the way that language impacted stories before stories had the opportunity to be written down, I can only go with the opposite of the aforementioned statement and declare that literature (whatever that actually means) is very much inclusive of oral tradition, it does not even get a choice in the matter. For without the stories that existed before written language, there would not have been many of the stories that we still know of today, that we consistently refer to as literature without even realizing it. Thus, when it comes down to it, I think that it would be impossible to consider literature as non-inclusive of the spoken parts of our written language; that is unless you were to consider pieces such as the Odyssey or Beowulf as non-literature.

From the Q&A, Part 4

As a second part of this conversation, I will also walk through the other question that i posed when discussing the topics of literature in my Q&A. This question becomes a little bit more philosophical than it does come down to descriptions, for I begin to wonder if the term "literature" needs to, or even should exist as a useful term in the artistic styles within writing.

The question comes down to this: In understanding the difficulty that there is to be had with trying to come up with the best description for literature, why do we try to make it a term that only confuses and distorts the much better descriptive term of simply "writing". To help explain this confusion I have, consider these two points: 1. what does the word literature really mean to you? and 2. Once you have a good solid understanding of it in your head, what does it really tell you that the word writing could not also tell you?

To help, let us consider an example posed in class. 1. At one point someone mentioned the possibility that literature functions as a good way to describe a "good piece of writing". With this in mind: 2. thinking of it as a good piece of writing literally supersedes the necessity of the word literature in the first place.

Are there any good examples hat you can think of as a descriptive force that better elaborates what Literature actually is without arguably replacing writing as the proper descriptor?

From the Q&A, Part 3

As was discussed in class a lot this past week, I have been wondering very seriously about this conversation concerning the definitions of "Literature" and I think that after some time I have finally come to some of my conclusions on the subject. In my Q&A for last week I posed two questions that somewhat confound the definability and necessity of the term Literature, and I am going to discuss them here.

The first problem that I had with this concept comes down to the simple fact that it is a term that, if used the way that it has been argued by writers, sets the other forms of artistic expression out of balance. To elaborate, consider this: there is no other word that even remotely resembles the term "literature" within the fields of art or music (the other major figureheads of art in my opinion). With this being the case, literature as a term can be seen as somewhat of a braggart descriptor of writing in general, for all that literature really tries to do is make up a better description in the eyes of people trying to sell their novel; suggesting that their work is better than simple writing, for it is rich with "literature".

This is my first issue with the concept of literature, and I pose it as a topic I am interested in discussing further... so what are your thoughts?

The Great

I was pondering one of the things that was discussed in class earlier this week and began trying to get down to a conclusion of some sort. The question seemed easy at first, but then I began to struggle with the reality of it more and more as time passed. In talking about literature, a contradiction was posed asking whether or not a great piece of literature could exist without anyone who liked it. My initial reaction was to dismiss it immediately, that it was simply just silly that such a thing would be unanswerable, for I was thinking from the perspective of "liking" meaning specifically that it was read, not that it was thought to be good. I did not realize that the reality of "great" could very well mean great in a terrible way, and this is where I began thinking.

Despite the fact that it may be terrible in nature does not necessarily qualify it as unlikeable, but I could only phrase this in metaphor. Consider, if you will Hitler, a person that everyone in the world hated for his brutality. Even though he was very much the boon of the happiness of so many, and so greatly hated, there are still people who liked and appreciated his "greatness" even though it was a dark great in nature. Thus it is my conclusion that even if almost everyone on earth did not like something, admitting that it remained great, I believe that it would at this point be statistically impossible that someone didn't like it... But I suppose that would be something fun to try and prove wrong.

From the Q&A, Part 2

The second question I had posted to myself within the Q&A offered this week is actually somewhat correlated to the concept of the other post on the subject. In having considered what style I thought was more significant, I began wondering exactly what it was that I thought to be the best form of transportation within the conveyance of philosophy. Taking the extra time to think about this I have come upon very little success, for there are just realistically so many possibilities.

However, there is one genre that I have always fallen back on with respect to shear appreciation of some concepts that I have witnessed within the genre itself, and that is animation. Now I must say quickly that when I mention animation, I am not talking about "anime" for I find that this generally has a different goal in mind, and thus is considered a different genre. But consider the movie that came out this past year titled "The Illusionist" (I know, you probably haven't seen it, but you should try it some time), it is a film that achieves a monumental derivation of of thought, emotion, and sense of how to live life; which when it comes down to it is like a definition of philosophy. More importantly though, this concept coordinates with two genre's that would seem at first, to be incapable of transferring this philosophy: Art and Sound, without Word or Language. It is this fact that I think sways my decision in the end to say that Animation currently takes he cake as the true conveyance tool of philosophy.

The Literary - Philosophy Continuum

One of the discussion topics that was brought up in class yesterday was whether or not Literary and Philosophical styles of writing were their own respective categories, or rather that they belong on a continuum of technique. Having taken a little time to contemplate this, I have been wondering about both sides quite a bit.

On the front of keeping them separated, I think that it would be more simple for the hope of trying to organize the situation at large. I say this because with the advent of being able to categorize any piece of work by simply declaring that it is either a piece of pure philosophy or an unspecified example of literature, we would be able to get through a lot of examples very quickly for not many works would fall into the pure philosophy category. The only difficulty this process of organization presents is the potential complication of setting the dividing line of what designates the pure philosophy form.

However, the potential to fix that problem is the second option that we had contemplated in our discussion, which would be to organize all of it onto a continuum. This seems at face value to make the most sense, for continuum's are very favorable of organization like this, where there is not necessarily an issue anymore of what the middle ground anymore. The real issue with this concept though is that there would be some serious difficulty in attempting to actually construct this continuum, and it would be very non-descript in its conclusions beyond simply giving an answer to the problem.

Thus, it appears that neither option is the wiser without further adaptation and quite a bit of effort to give elaborate examples; that is unless the goal was to achieve some simple argumentative conclusions. So I ask you oh fruitful blogging community, what do you think? can the continuum / non-continuum argument offer itself as a useful tool to us in this class? and which would you prefer?

From the Q&A, Part 1

On the Q&A for this week I found myself asking my two questions a slight bit more introspectively than I usually do, and having taken some time to consider the things that I asked, here is the first of my thoughts. The first question I had asked of myself was whether I found myself leaning towards literary style or pure philosophical style in my desired interpretations of knowledge and meaning. Do I prefer the literary illusion? or is raw knowledge, non-confounded, straight to conclusions better?

What I have decided is that it is certainly the literary talent that holds my attention the best when I am attempting to accept a new piece of information, but at the same time scares me a slight bit more. The reason I am intimidated by this style is that I believe the possibility of a swayed decision is much more likely, and that the bias' that may be created in a literary work are much more difficult to ignore. However, this still does not ignore the fact that I simply learn better and with much more ease if I can follow a story that derives meaning rather than just reading through the rule book.

The Philosophy Toolkit

Having just read through the various sections of the philosophy toolkit on the DKJ blog, I must say, the thing that I found the most interesting was the declaration of the seven Intellectual Virtues of the highly reasonable thinker. It seems that these were very wise things to have chosen for this category, specifically on the front of the three forms of intellectual responsibility. These are listed as Intellectual: Honesty, Humility, and Courage, and when it really comes down to it, I think that these are potentially the three most important things on this list. To hone in on what I mean, the other four primary pieces of this equation seem to focus primarily on the general respect of all information that surrounds the self. However, when analyzing the three aforementioned intellectual responsibilities, these are the things that make up the receptive rules of the knowledge that we must collect to ascertain our reality; and this tribunal covers exactly the most important parts when doing such. Thus, this is the thing that I wanted to discuss, for I find it to be very true and very useful to consider when in a phiosophy class.

Who Am I?

For once I was and since have stopped; but returned I have to post a lot.

This is the blog that has endured philosophy about art, and belief, and life; and today it returns to discuss the things that I think when given literature as the topic at hand. To remind some people who may not have been to this blog in the past, I am Alex Massar and as it is right now I am a student by profession, specifically in music, but just about anything is interesting to me unless you want to talk about politics.I have blond curly hair, blue eyes, and I am excited that you are reading this because it means that you have made the first step in getting to know me, but there is not much that I could tell you via the blog that I feel would truly represent who I am; thus if you really wanted to know who I am, I would prefer if you just asked me about it anytime you may see me (its ok, I don't bite).

As for the blog itself, I have but one rule when it comes down to using this blog and it is thus:

I write this blog in hopes that someone reading this blog has something that they would like to add to the conversation I pose, and I invite those inquiries openly with the request that you leave your response as a response on my post, rather than just saying that you have responded on your own blog: this aggravates me more than anything you will ever say about anything I have said.

With that being said, I look forward to the semester, and I hope to have many blogging conversations.

Life Philosophy

So, in class last week we discussed the various different ways that different terms could be organized to help direct a flow to how we think and live. The terms that we had available to us to be organized were as follows: Creativity, Imagination, Knowledge, Emotion, Understanding, Intuition, and Instict. Needless to say, this was not something that was going to be simple, but to help try and make it all a little more clear, I added the terms: Desire, Wisdom, Intelligence and Results.

The way that I have laid out these terms allows for a cycle of repetition that allows the format to be repeated however many times it needs to. The chart when organized looks like this:

~Click to Enlarge~

I like this chart because with the way that it is now organized, it can be used to visually explain how I think when choice making / problem solving thought process's go on in my head. What I am now interested in is seeing how you feel about this organization, do you thinkin the same fashion as I do? do you think that this chart would be organized differently to how you think? Let me know what you think...

Response to Natalie's Post

In response to the post found here: http://npozzetti.blogspot.com/2011/05/paulo-coelho.html?showComment=1305134941397#c4861583029047587684 these are my thoughts:


This "art equates out to miracle" suggestion is an interesting proposition. I do not necessarily agree with the way that this is implied on a few levels of what you have suggested, especially to have come to this conclusion.

The first thing would immediately be that I do not think that art is typically made out of love; for there are various other foundations of emotion that art can be derived from whence being created. In fact I would even argue that love is rarely the inspiration for art that is indented to be witnessed by anyone other than the one whom is loved, thus most art that is grounded on love is something that typically would not be seen.

Secondly, I do not give love the grace of being considered a "miracle". Love is rare, and though it is something that should be meddled with carefully, love is real, love is achievable. I think that looking at love with the title of miracle will forever undermine the real love you have in your life; one must be careful, for the use of a word as strong as love should be considered greatly before applying to another word as strong as miracle.

Which brings us to the most controversial point to me. Art is not a miracle. Viewing art is not a miracle. Art is possibly about the farthest thing possible from a miracle in my mind. It has no ties to the ethereal as it stands by itself. However, one of the best things about art is that it is a portal to the ethereal, the aesthetic universe, the mind and imagination. It is one of the strongest forms of communication, but that does not make it any more a miracle than the fact that you can read this sentence and know what my meaning is.

I do not want this response to come off as offensive, but it is a particular frustration of mine when love and art are used in such an immature fashion. I can’t support the suggestion that having art in our life is a miracle any more than still being able to still see is a miracle.

Response to Kurt's Post

In the conversation of video games as art found here: http://kurtwords.blogspot.com/2011/05/digital-art-part-2-video-games.html?showComment=1304960945781#c7096904235939138875 This is my input:


As I was looking for the response to my post I stumbled upon this on your blog, and let me tell you I am extremely happy that I did. This is an argument that I have been wondering about and have been a part of almost from the beginning of the "consol gamers’ era".

Here is how I would preface my conversation: there are two series of games that I have been following for most of my life as they have been released as consol games.

The first and foremost is certainly the Legend of Zelda series, I have played all of the games that are worth playing that have come out in this series. Having the opportunity recently to do a lot of research on the subject for another class, I would argue that the core games of the Zelda series with respect to the main story that has been posed is something that will forever be archived as part of Nintendo's history. To make sure we are on the same page, the core set that I am referring to is thus:

Zelda -> Zelda II -> A Link to the Past ->
Ocarina of Time + Majora's mask ->
Twilight Princess + Windwaker

The important thing to remember here is the divide in timelines of the same story that comprise the Majora & Windwaker games in this lineage.

However, to keep to the conversation, I think that the sheer girth of story that is made up of these seven games is on par if not cooler than the girth of story that is found in any good series (like Star Wars for example), and can certainly be considered art if the movies are.


Now, to return to the note at the beginning, the other game series that I have fallen into as I have grown up is the Elder Scrolls, to which I have played the third and fourth games in the series extensively (for the first two games were computer based and not part of my life till far past the Xbox). The thing that I have to say specifically about these games is that they are so good that I would be willing to argue that most of my academic interest nowadays can certainly be tied back to things I had been interested in while playing these games.

The notable difference between this and Zelda though is a key factor here in terms of different styles of artistic video games. Zelda poses a story for you to follow with help as to the linear aspect of the game. Where as The Elder Scrolls is a sandbox game that allows you to immerse yourself in the feel of the society in the game and become part of an alternative world that you can explore. This aspect allows you to follow any number of different outcomes in the game if you so choose, to the extent that I rarely even care about the linear game they program into it.


When it comes down to it, I think that the point of a piece of art is to let your mind become a part of the artist’s world for the time that you spend in the presence of it. Thus, if you can get so involved in a game that it sometimes feels like you have been to these other places, and have experienced exactly what the artists want you to, how can it be argued otherwise that a videogame can't be art?

A Map for Collingwood

Having now discussed Collingwood in class, I thought it would be interesting to show what my interpretation of his art concepts were when I read through the description of his thoughts:

T0 help elaborate on what the picture is showing, here is my interpretation of Collingwood. I think that when it comes down to it, Collingwood's most interesting point of conversation is the addition of the "Feeling" into the description of how an artist translates any sort of information via art to an observer. It allows us to focus on what exactly is happening in the head of the artist by pointing out the following process: 1. Artist Conceives Feeling 2. Feeling is dumped into pool of limitless Expression Outlets 3. Artist works with raw expression and a preferred medium to which eventually turn into Artistic Representation of "Expression 1".

Now the next interesting thing is what happens after the artist has an oppertunity to put fourth artwork, as seen by the second process that takes place: 1. The Observer witnesses Artistic Display of "Expression 1" and 2. Interprets the piece as "Expression ?" which can be one of almost as infinite as the infinite pool of Expression as mentioned before;

3. However, if the oppertunity arrises that the Observer may talk to the Artist on the subject of their piece, then the Observer understands the original feeling that is now sugar coated in artistic expression. Thus the best description available to be heard is implimented to the translating of how the artist came to try to explain the original feeling that they experienced; even though they may not even know it themselves as the artist.

I personally think that this is a particularly interesting and clever tool of showing how the various ways of interpreting of art can be put into a chart like this one and not be overcomplicated. I especially enjoy the concept of the possibility that the artist could get the true message across via other means if the artwork couldn't display the perfect thought process everytime. I additionally like the fact that this chart makes it pretty clear just how unlikely it is that we will ever be able to tell exactly what it was that was going through an artists mind at the time of the creation, because its true.

What are your thoughts on this chart? / Theory

Response to Brycen's Post

In response to the post that Brycen created, found here: http://brycen-honorsartandphilosophy.blogspot.com/2011/04/performance.html?showComment=1303753976831#c2154931601607662769 I wrote:

I read through this post and kim's response, and I must say I am certainly one to lean more towards what Kim has said. I think that the signifigance of either side cannot be declared as better or worse on the whole. It is also specifically important to point out that their differences are the reasons each can be qualified as an interesting an independant for of its own art.

The concept of the live show being more "real" or "imperfect" only allows you to see the actual actions of what the live performers are doing at x,y,or z showing. The recording of their work though is the closest thing that we can witness and experience to what the artist was trying to convey... it is the closest we have to the perfection that they concocted. And when it comes down to it, both sides of this coin are equally interesting and valuable towards our goal of having something to listen to and enjoy as receptors of art.

Do you personally feel that the concept of live show or stagnent art are equal or that one is better... and why?

Artistic Philosophy: Anthology Puns

So I was flipping through my notes earlier this week andI remembered that I had been doing this thing for most of the semester where I would write down the name of the philosopher that we were talking about in any given week, and a little joke about what their standpoint on the subject is. So, in looking for things to blog about, I figured I would show you some of the ones that I could find in my notes:

Bell: -Art is the successful avoidence of Science-

Dewey: -Art is Everything-

Weitz: -Why Define Art?-

Hume: -How good is Good?-

Goodman: -It is Art.... but only for right now.-

Danto: -Art is a club of dedicated persons... did you bring your membership?-

Dickie: -Can we justify some of the people breaking the rules some of the time?-

Piper: -Art is a power that pieces of art do not represent-

Collingwood: -I do not think you see what you think you see-


That's what I have thus far, I know most of them are pretty silly, but I feel that some of them are actually pretty funny. How accurate do you feel these claims are of these philosophers?

The Perceptions Complex

Three people look out into the distance and see a tree. This massive tree immediately peaks the interest of the three traveling men. Noticing one another, the three men each declare what it is that they have seen in the tree:

The first man looked out into the distance and pointed, declaring in a booming voice:

"My, What Beautiful Lumber!"

The second man disagreed, speaking out in his defined and wise voice:

"No, it is but the perfect place for my house!"

The third man disagreed even further, declaring:

"No, this is a magnificent location for me to paint this beautiful tree!"

All three of the men started to quarrel with one another on the subject, trying desperately to prove that they are indeed more correct. While arguing a fourth man approached and listened to their plight. The original three men requested the truth of this old and knowledgable looking man who has thus been innocent to the conversation.

The Fourth man looked out into the distance and laughed.

"I see all of these things. I see none of these things."

Then he walked away....

Response to Gina's Post

In response to the post that Gina put up, found here: http://gmarieexistence.blogspot.com/2011/04/one-more-comment-on-dickie.html?showComment=1303216806160#c8786751146794309360, this is what I had to say:

Yea, I can definately see where you are coming from on this point. I definately was not that fond of what Dickie had to say when we went over him in class. I think that he is a classic example of someone trying to sound smarter than they actually are, and most of his point have been brought up in different conversations about other philosophers anyway.

The biggest issue that I have is that he is horribly vague. Obviously art has to be an artifact, its about the only distinguishing factor between human intereaction and nature. When it comes down to it though, I feel that the classifications of what makes art the art that it is requires more defining, despite how difficult that may be. All in all, I feel that Dickie was just a cheap reiteration from our past genius' and he does not get that much praise in my book.

Improvments on Color Wheel Theory

So previously, I had made a post about my theory on how the color wheel could be utilized in order to help understand how to organize where genre's of art derive from in terms of the hierarchy of original major genre classifications. Alas, as I would only expect, there were some problems with the way that I had laid things out, thus this will try to reorganize a few of the concepts with a better description and some revamped pictures.

So for starters, it is important to understand how the placement of the color wheel idea fits into the entirety that becomes the hierarchy chart that I have just mentioned. The simplistic layout of the hierarchy would look something like this:

Fine and Performing Arts

Color Wheel

Division of Lesser Genre's

Thus, starting at Fine and Performing Arts as a singular title, we break into the three primary figureheads that are the basis of the Color Wheel: Music, Writing, and Art; which can then be subdivided once more into the lesser genres in various ways. I also point out that as of right now, the artistic qualities that pertain to scent and taste are not listed here on the color wheel level, for they would change the rules a little bit with how they relate to everything else on the color wheel.

With this established, we can now take a look at the layout of the Color Wheel, which I have now filled out the Primary (Red, Blue, Yellow), Secondary (Orange, Green, Purple), and Tertiary (RV, BV, BG, YG, YO, RO) positions of Genre's that are unique of each other and combinations of each other:

(Click to Enlarge)

Now that this has been established in a more complete and organized manor, we can begin to clearly see how the first major level within the hierarchy logically divided away from the concept of just "Art" to which I continue to label as "Fine and Performing Arts".

Interestingly enough, this division continues on to a third level, to which we can subdivide the concepts that have already been laid out here. There are however some things that are important to note when observing how this chart progresses to the next stage. First off, it is significant to note that there are many options for how the viewer may need to use this chart in order to find the proper subcategory that they may be seeking. As an example seen in the image below, when taking note of the subcategories that pertain to music, the choices available allow for numerous categorizations that are unique to the major subject of music; when one is chosen, we can observe the specific examples to choose from in describing our goal. To this last degree we designate the concept of the Tone Chart to lay out the various different qualities that the spread of genre's allow us to seek variety with, as seen here:

(Click to Enlarge)

Now the road map of the genre's can become more clearly visible for describing the exact location of where ones interests lie.

The curious thing now though is the reason we would ever even be interested in where we stand in terms of these locations. Well from what I can discern, this is not only a map to the "art world", but this concept also functions in a manor of allowing one to be able to point out the shape that the web creates of one's concept of art. For if it shows the locations of the things that you personally pertain to in the art world, then your definition of art will stand in relation to that webbing of interests, with special consideration to where more or less of the cluttering of interests happens. Thus, the unique shape that person "A" has on this chart in comparison to person "X" becomes what defines art as a whole: The visual representation of what your interests are and how you use them, in combination to how you relate to any singular other person's same understanding.... and in using the artistic representation of the color wheel even makes it fun.

I hope this helps to clarify exactly what is going on in my head... if you have any questions or thoughts on the subject feel free

Response to Andrea's Post

In response to Adrea's post on Hume, found here: http://momenttospare.blogspot.com/2011/03/on-hume.html?showComment=1302575018409#c4058554772067051527,

Personally, I think that the argument Hume poses for us is actually one of the stronger conversations for how to interpret art. The thing that is important to keep in mind when discussing this however is the concept of setting a precedent, which is exactly what Hume did best.

To elaborate on what I am talking about, obviously no single person could possibly be perfect at judging something with the concept of freedom from influence. However, a person can try to take this standpoint while taking in and interpreting a piece of art. By attempting to focus your view of a piece of art from the standpoint of no influence from other art, then you can most accurately attempt to see the beauty of the thing itself without preconception. You don't have to be perfect at it, but the better you are at this, the less convolution you have to fight past when judging art.

Additionally, taking this standpoint with the idea that you are attempting to achieve as close to perfect as possible, rather than perfection, then objectivity / subjectivity becomes arguable. Taking the standpoint of no preconceptions would mean that you would be judging from the standpoint of the people as a whole, thus removing subjectivity from the equation.

Do you feel that this standpoint makes any sense?