Philosophy and Art Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words

Philosophy and Art - Essay Example He is a philosopher obsessed with clarity and light.Thus, if a discussion in which light, vision, and its abstract are constitutive of its very logic may be called ocularcentric, then it would be difficult to deny that Descartes' philosophy exemplifies ocularcentrism (Levin 1993). This essay discusses the ocular metaphoric and the part in plays in the lives of the contemporary American society today. It will demonstrate the extent to which vision constitutes the essential analogical figure in the readings of Jay, Bryson and Lacan. The paper will examines the role visual imagery plays in these writers main arguments, analyzes why it is so important to their theoretical framework, and considers the rhetorical work it is used to carry out. This essay will attempt to discuss how ocularcentrism shapes the understanding of what is central to the American society and what is peripheral; what is "visible" and "invisible" within the theoretical framework, and what the nature and limits of it are. Thus, the inherited advantages and disadvantages of this belief in ocularcentrism will be discussed, along with its effect on visual art. It is impossible to separ... modernity to be changed in its concepts, Jay asks for it to be seen as a diverse and complex body rather than a harmonious body of theories and practices. This essay claims that maps and plans are necessary to explain the components of modernity. He goes on to divide the body of the essay into three parts: Cartesian perspectivalism, seventeenth century Dutch art and baroque art. In his essay Jay refutes the concept of Cartesian perspectivalism to be the reigning form of any kind of visual model for modernity. While this claim is amongst the first to be made by critics, it does have its flaws. For starters, Jay refuses to create an argument that can fit into a specialized field of visual presentation. It aims at acknowledging local and international ideas which touch a large cultural stratum. The scale implied by Jay is coarse in its ability to touch such a large and dynamic field which is known not only for its various models but because of the centuries of art it covers. Thus, while Jay's argument can be considered inspiring in its attempt to break the routine form of ideological thinking, it is flawed in its ability to cover such a diverse cultural body. Instead, Jay could have used a concept which is smoothed down to a finer level thus allowing the subtle distinctions that arise in different pieces to be observed. Philosophy is a subject which changes over time. As the world develops, old problems fade away and new ones take their place. Art is a perfect display of the different developments in human sciences. It is representative of the cultural forms in any given society. However, another shift has also occurred bringing down the possibility of the art form from a means of human science or public culture. In American history this can be traced back to the 1980's