Ingmar Meland:
Connecting Patterns in Patterns which Connect:
Neuro Science, Aesthetic Pedagogy,
and Philosophical Aesthetics
sub specie Ernst Cassirer’s Philosophy of Symbolic Forms.
«Aesthetics and Children with Special Needs – an
Interdisciplinary Approach»
Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, Oslo
April the15th 2015
THE MAIN CLAIM
• 1. Main claim: what we call aesthetics is of outmost
importance for
– the emotional,
– moral,
– and cognitive development of human beings,
• whether they are children, adults or elderly (with or
without special needs).
• In short: Aesthetics is important in teaching and
education, i.e. for learning how to cope with the
world.
THE TALK IN OUTLINE
I. EXORDIUM
II. KEY CONCEPTS, FOCUSING ON AESTHETICS
III. «THE MEANING OF THE BODY»
IV. THE PHILOSOPHY OF SYMBOLIC FORMS AND
ITS TOPICALITY
V. CONCLUDING REMARKS: WHY ASTHETICS
MATTER
II. Key concepts: Mario Perniola
II. Key concepts: The Meaning of the
Body
Key concepts: Gregory Bateson
III. The meaning of the body: neuro
science
… and biosemiotics
III. The meaning of the body:
Education and aesthetic pedagogy
III. The meaning of the body:
The Double Helix
III. The meaning of the body: the cell
III. The meaning of the body: the brain
III. The meaning of the body:
The brain – again.
III. The meaning of life: classification
III. The Meaning of the Body
• “aesthetics becomes the study of everything
that goes into the human capacity to make and
experience meaning.
• This entails that an aesthetics of human
understanding should become the basis for all
philosophy, including metaphysics, theory of
knowledge, logic, philosophy of mind and
language, and value theory.” (Johnson, 2007, p.
x).
III. The Meaning of the Body
• “Aesthetics is properly an investigation of
everything that goes into human meaningmaking, and its traditional focus on the arts
stems primarily from the fact that arts are
exemplary cases of consummated meaning.”
(Johnson, 2007, p. xi).
IV. Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of
culture
IV. Cassirer’s Philosophy of Culture:
von Uexküll’s Model
IV. Cassirer’s Philosophy of Culture:
Animal Symbolicum
• “Reason is a very inadequate term with which to
comprehend the forms of man’s cultural life in all
their richness and variety. But all these forms are
symbolic forms.
• Hence, instead of defining man as an animal
rationale we should define him as an animal
symbolicum.
• By doing so we can designate his specific
difference, and we can understand the new way
open to man – the way to civilization.” (ECW 23,
p. 31).
IV. Cassirer’s philosophy of culture
• “To re-establish the legitimacy of the philosophical
approach to art, language, myth and religion, without
breaking the relation between philosophy and the science
of nature, this was the fundamental intention of the
German philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945)
• who, without devoting an entire work to aesthetics,
occupies and important place within the panorama of
cognitive aesthetics. In fact, differently from Croce, Husserl
and Gadamer, he claims that attributing a theoretical value
to art is not at all in contradiction with recognizing a
theoretical value to science.
• Therefore, he arrives at asserting the primacy of
philosophy, as others have done, but in a way less tortuous
and fortuitous.” (Perniola, 2013, p. 68).
IV. Cassirer’ Philosophy of Culture:
Symbolic Forms and Symbolic Pregnance
IV. Cassirer’s Philosophy of Culture:
The dynamics of Cultur
• “Symbolic formations are acts of the spontaneity of
the human mind.
• They are shaped according to the symbolic medium
in question.
• The activity of symbolic understanding and symbolic
creation starts with symbolic pregnance.
• Inasmuch as a phenomenon which has been
captured in symbolic pregnance is worked through,
worked out and refined, processes of ongoing and
indefinite formation take place.
• The whole dynamics of culture take place between
these two poles.” (Paetzold 1997, p. 7).
IV. Cassirer on the case of Helen Keller
• “The decisive step leading from the use of signs
and pantomime to the use or words, that is, of
symbols, could scarcely be described in a more
striking manner.
• What was the child’s real discovery at this
moment? Helen Keller had previously learned to
combine a certain thing or event with a certain
sign of the manual alphabet. A fixed association
had been established between these things and
certain tactile impressions.
IV. Cassirer on the case of Helen Keller
• But a series of such associations, even if they are
repeated and amplified, still does not imply and
understanding of what human speech is and
means. In order to arrive at such an
understanding the child had to make a new and
much more significant discovery.
• It had to understand that everything has a name
– that the symbolic function is not restricted to
particular cases but is a principle of universal
applicability which encompasses the whole field
of human thought” (ECW 23, p. 40).
CONCLUDING REMARKS: THE ARGUMENT
BECAUSE OF:
2. CLAIM: Concerning the organization of the human
body as a biological organism (pertaining to genes, cells
and brains).
3. CLAIM: Concerening the ecological body (pertaining
to the structuring of the organism-environment
coupling).
1. MAIN CLAIM:
Aesthetics is important in
teaching and education!
4. CLAIM: Concerning the phenomenological body
(pertaining to the feeling-willing-thinking body and it’s
«I can», i.e. it’s concrete subjectivity).
5. CLAIM: Concerning the social body (recognizing
oneself as another , i.e. the meaning of the body in it’s
sociality).
6. CLAIM: Concerning the cultural body (pertaining to
what we know about ourselves through symbolic forms,
i.e. cultural patterns which connect [Bateson/Cassirer]).
7. CLAIM: Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms gives us a
philosophical framework to understand why aesthetics is important
and deal adequately with the current “problem of the aesthetic”.
THE TALK IN OUTLINE
•
I. EXORDIUM
(A) THE MAIN CLAIM (1): aesthetics is important in teaching and education!
(B) The talk in outline.
•
II. KEY CONCEPTS, FOCUSING ON AESTHETICS
(A) The patterns which connects
(B) Neuro science
(C) Aesthetic pedagogy
(D) Philosophical aesthetics
•
III. «THE MEANING OF THE BODY»
(A) 2. CLAIM: Concerning the organization of the human body as a biological organism (genes, cells and
brains).
(B) 3. CLAIM: Concerening the ecological body (the structuring of the organism-environment coupling).
(C) 4. CLAIM: Concerning the phenomenological body (the feeling-willing-thinking body and it’s «I can», i.e.
it’s concrete subjectivity).
•
IV. THE PHILOSOPHY OF SYMBOLIC FORMS AND ITS TOPICALITY
(A) 5. CLAIM: Concerning the social body (recognizing oneself as another , i.e. the meaning of the body in it’s
sociality).
(B) 6. CLAIM: Concerning the cultural body (what we know about ourselves through symbolic forms, i.e.
cultural patterns which connect).
(C) 7. CLAIM: Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms gives us a philosophical framework to understand
why aesthetics is important and deal adequately with the current “problem of the aesthetic”.
•
V. CONCLUDING REMARKS: WHY ASTHETICS MATTER
III: The meaning of the body: