Mike I accept Nehamas' point and it sounds 'complete' enough for me as a working concept. Boris Shoshensky
-- "Mike Mallory" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Beauty? I think not! > Somebody said that all beauty implies completeness. > Is not, Derek, your examples of not beautiful Goya's or Isenheim > Altarpiece > have that spiritual completeness? > Even reasoning is beautiful when it has flavor of completeness. > Boris Shoshensky > ______________________________________________________ While "completeness" doesn't have to imply finality, I thought I would alert you to Only a Promise of Happiness: The Place of Beauty in a World of Art by Alexander Nehamas http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8357.html This is a 2007 publication. I found it both honest and insightful. Nehamas argues that "Beauty" is an open concept defering finality. He sees "beauty" as the promise of happiness. To say that something is "beautiful" for Nehamas is to claim a fulfilling, yet perpetually incomplete state of contentment. We keep returning to beautiful things in the hope of discovering the Omega point of happiness, but if we ever reach the point where a work of art no longer has more to say, we are at once disillusioned and discontent. I was persuaded to accept Nehamas' point of view, with a side of Spinoza. You may recall that Spinoza defined Joy as the promise of perfection. I prefer Spinoza's construction to Nahamas' so I now regard the experience of Truth, Beauty and Goodness to be Joy in Spinoza's sense of the promise of perfection. What is perfection? I use that term in a relational way based on the context of the particular. In the case of The Great He Goat, The Witches Sabbath, it may be a perfect appreciation of my own animalistic nature or perhaps the role of Bacchanalian archetypes in my life. My POV may be a little incomplete, but I think it has a lot of promise. :) Mike Mallory _____________________________________________________________ Click to get 150,000 in student loans and find the lowest rates http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2221/fc/Ioyw6i4txDYUVzS4QiJgF5wKoubXsI fU7Qddibs9JX8f4D5OpzrJjO/?count=1234567890
