By “caught up” I mean with regard to TV — Lost, Doctor Who, and Heroes.
First: last week’s Lost and this evening’s episode — rock. Last week’s was slow, a slow-burn reveal of sorts, but this evening it was bang-bang-bang, and just as we tied Jack’s father to Claire, we’ve now tied Locke’s to Sawyer. It appears that the “purgatory/limbo” idea has been resurrected, pardon the pun, albeit in a modified form, and perhaps, Locke’s father hints, the island is simply Hell. And in the trailer for next week they promise to tell us.
Second: Heroes: that was an “OMG” episode, another episode along the lines of the mid-season return episode that took us back in time to see the “origin” of our Heroes, but this time five years in the future, with an even dorkier Peter sporting a facial scar, Matt turned into an ethics-less lapdog, and the Haitian likewise playing the role of fascist, while Nathan, the president, makes “hard decisions,” including those that lead to genocide.
But it was all about saving the cheerleader from Sylar, and that does not happen … she finally loses her head.
This Claire should have remained a blonde.
Third: As for Doctor Who, last Saturday’s episode was the second part of a two-parter, in which we encounter the last of the Daleks in 1930 New York, and all the New Yorkers sound like Brits emulating or imitating American accents. Even if they are North Americans. At times I would prefer a bit more of the Christopher Eccleston reserved, melancholic Doctor, but Tenant’s over-the-top exuberance (and yet cluelessness regarding Martha) is almost contagious.
In the realm of teaching, Carla gave only shorter assignments to her students; my 3-4 and 6-7 page papers are more than she assigned, and I am tempted to adjust the requirements downward … to be “nice” and to reduce my grading load, but I don’t want to be “giving in” either. And I think it’s a doable amount for the undies.
I still need to organize the Pomona reunion photos; there are hundreds of them, but many are near-repeats, multiple angles or such of the same shot, some good, some bad. Plus I have the non-reunion shots, such as those from L.A. or from the airports.
This evening I finally re-found my copy of the 3rd volume Tad Williams’ Otherland saga — I had misplaced it under a blanket on the back of the sofa. Which is why I was unable to take it with me to California.
I’ve had good “dissertation thoughts” recently, but I’ve not been productive at putting them down on paper, or the digital equivalent. In the shower I recently thought about the introductory chapter again, with its five sub-chapters (introduction to the current situation, a history of aesthetics, a lit-review of analogy, a typology of rationality, and an overview of the coming chapters), especially with regard to the analogy section, in particular in light of Hofstadter’s newest work and the linguistics resources I’ve received.
I think I should provide a more rigorous introduction to analogy, beginning with the medieval typography (Aquinas and Cajetan), perhaps with some Classical (Plato) influence or material, though that’s more about harmony, but might be useful in dealing with mathematical analogy. But the sub-chapter, still 10-20 pages as it is, over touches briefly on analogy in current discourses — linguistics, law, and cognitive studies, in particular.
One thing that interests me is analogy as a bridge, the perspective I’m trying to take, whereas much of the literature treats analogy as an alternative, as a surrogate, or as a replacement for logo-centric models of reason/logic. For anti-structuralists of the bottom-up, empiricist variety, all rules are a postiori and thus the result some processes of analogy, but induction (as a type of inference) conflates probabilistic or statistical similarity and case-by-case similarity. There is likewise the matter of creativity vs. explanation; that is to say, does analogy give us something new or only reveal connections already there? I suppose that’s a matter for Platonists and anti-Platonists to discuss, though I tend toward the latter camp, at least as a pragmatic position.
If I could write 10 pages a day, I’d have a crapload to hand Hans in a few weeks. But for that I should focus on the middle chapters. And a final note: physiology fits in the psychology chapter, and in particular there needs to be a discussion of the taste debate and of taste as a metaphor, which is to say that a physio-psychological discourse was metaphorically broadened to contain the “aesthetic.” This is not the analogon rationis, but the analogon gustibonis … oh, f**k, whatever the Latin could be.
As a result, the philosophy chapter can deal with the analogy between aesthetics and ethics and the derivation of the former from the latter (Kant; but also the tradition of matters of beauty being tied to the “good”). The psychology chapter then has the analogy between the sensual aesthetic realm of analogon rationis and the higher faculties, that is, aesthetics as a faculty analogous to reason but not reason. Plus the taste-metaphor (why compare aesthetic judgement / artistic judgment to “taste” and not sight, hearing, etc., as other writers note?). And in the poetics chapter there is Baumgarten’s original definition, of aesthetics to poetics as logic is to rhetoric. Plus there is the model of poetics relative to history (Aristotle) and, in the aphorism, relative to philosophy. I’m not sure this works as “analogy,” though.
But it does place aesthetics/poetics in the intermediary realm, with history and philosophy as teleological or otherwise rational discourses, with poetics defined in relation to them as accomplishing something similar, but somehow different. This is a major theme of mine, and incorporates the Broch quote from Jen, the one about “Dichtung” as its own type of reason or logic or truth, whatever the word was. Perhaps knowledge (“Erkenntnis”). We find these similar models throughout the history and literature of poetics and aethetics, the poetic/aethetic realm being this thing that emulates/mimics the world out there, but which is judged according to pseudo-ethical rules.
On the one hand, this is a type of bridge between “to be” and “ought to be” questions or statements; that which is created by man (as art) partakes of both realms — emulating the one but being judged like the other, thus incorporating analogs of the True and the Good all at once.
This of course falls apart in “aesthetics” of Art-for-art’s-sake as well as in non-mimetic art, and does not incorporate matters of aesthetic judgment applied to non-manmade phenomena, such as an aesthetics of nature, which is why the human-centered, primarily cognitive model with which I’m working, which borrows from both Baumgarten and Kant primarily, is of the most general yet still useful models of aesthetics we can find, I think. I like to think that it is descriptive but gives a descriptive explanation of normative statements without endorsing them.
But I’ll stop for now.
Now I have Rilo Kiley on (The Execution of All Things) and I just realized (well, when “The Good That Won’t Come Out” played) that Rilo is a “she” and not a “he.” I still think I got the music last year from Anne. Actually, “she” is not quite accurate, either, for Rilo Kiley is a band that is fronted by Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett — it’s just that I’ve heard more of her voice than his. There is something whimsical about much of the music, and it’s an enjoyable diversion, but I’d have to listen to it again before I begin to care about it.
