From: "hugh bone" <hbone-AT-optonline.net>
Subject: Re: What's wrong with mainstream sensibilities?
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 01:12:05 -0500



----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Moretti <moretti-AT-mac.com>
To: <film-theory-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2001 9:49 PM
Subject: Re: What's wrong with mainstream sensibilities?


> "Percepts without concepts are blind; concepts without percepts are
empty."
> (Kant)

Objects are necessary to perceiving and concepualizing.
Kant promoted the "thing in itself", and Nietzsche said that things
(objects) are described in terms of size, weight, color etc. which qualities
give it its thingness.  And that such qualities are determined only by
relating the thing to other objects.  Take away other objects, and what is
left?    Maybe K was right, but its diffcult to imagine things without
qualities.

> The innate ability to recognize objects must precede our ability to
> understand them, but each are dependent upon one another.

An infant or a person blind at birth who gains sight after a medical
procedure, is said to "see" only spaces of light and dark, and must learn
through repetition and memory to recognize faces and other objects.  The
faculty of learning is innate in the infant, but it takes days to learn to
recognize faces, months to learn to speak  and walk.  Some other species,
grazing animals for example,  walk on their first day.

 I think it's  important to allow for a physical basis of our convoluted
illusions - in the gulf between the two is where we find food for art. And
religion. Etc.
>
Agreed.  As I understand Kant, he thought appearances were an aspect of  an
underlying and unknowable "thing-in-itself" reality.  In that sense all
appearances might be considered illusions.

But dreams are another kind of illusion, as is the appearance of a straight
stick in the water,  or hallucinations from fever or drugs.

Pictorial art, including film art, is a deliberate illusion, and so are
marks on paper when they form novels or poems.

In architecture, such as gothic cathedrals, the material reality is not
illusory, but a sense of worship and relating to higher powers may be.

Hugh
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Michael
>
> > I think my quote was from Gellner.
> >
> > The Hegel quote doesn't mention emotion.
> >
> > but compare T.S. Eliot:
> >
> > "What is actual is actual only for one time and only for one place."
> >
> > It doesn't mention rationality.
> >
> > More recent statements point to the role of perception, as Feyerabend:
> >
> > "...neither the object nor the perception can exist by itself; act,
object
> > and perception form an indivisible block".
> >
> > Is it rational to regard objects, subjects, perceptions as actual and
real,
> > when know that on-screen or off-screen they are often convoluted with
> > illusions which  permeate our mainstream sensibilities.
> >
> > emotionally,
> > hugh
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: <kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.ca>
> > To: <film-theory-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
> > Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2001 5:08 PM
> > Subject: Re: What's wrong with mainstream sensibilities?
> >
> >
> >>
> >> On Sun, 7 Jan 2001 16:56:07 -0500 hugh bone <hbone-AT-optonline.net>
wrote:
> >>
> >>> Occasionally I remember that we : "Rationalize our emotions and
> > emotionalize
> >> our reasons".
> >>
> >> I've heard that before: "The actual is rational, and the rational is
> > actual"
> >> (Hegel, Preface, Philosophy of Right)
> >>
> >> totalisticality,
> >> ken
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>      --- from list film-theory-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >    --- from list film-theory-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>
>
>
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