 Okay, hi, and welcome back to great text and philosophy. We're talking about John Dewey's art as experience chapter 8 the organization of energies At the end of the previous chapter Dewey introduces the this theme of the organization of energies as a way of understanding the dynamic character of What he said calls the unity in variety the unity in variety that characterizes the work of art Okay, so that's what he's told us this chapter is going to be about at the end of the last chapter and Certainly in the last several chapters we focused a lot on what Dewey calls here the art product or the ob art object or the expressive object, right? and the conditions of its production and Appreciation but very much centered on the object of the product at the beginning of this chapter Dewey reminds us of the distinction. He's drawn between the art product and You know the statue the painting whatever and the actual work of art Which is the product what the product does in experience? Thus a significant part of the focus of this chapter concerns artistic perception and sort of the psychological aspect of all of this Now according to Tom Letty Dewey gives us here at the very beginning of the chapter his own definition of art per se So quoting Dewey from that's the very first paragraph into the first paragraph when the structure of the object is such That it's force interacts happily, but not easily with the energies that issue from the experience itself When their mutual ethnicities and antagonisms work together to bring about a substance that develops Cumulatively and surely but not too steadily toward a fulfilling of impulsions and intentions Then indeed there is a work of art Let he says this definition like a definition of a later philosopher of art Nelson Goodman Answers not what is art so much as when is art? When is an experience an example of a work of art? and The importance of rhythm which we've talked about before and in the last chapter it's implicit here right in the discussion of mutual affinities and antagonisms in the discussion of the sort of cumulative movement towards fulfillment Those those notions of rhythm from previously are still are still at work now it's easy to think about a musical piece as an example of a work of art that has rhythm right in terms of the repetitions in time Behind very the variations in the music in the melody and what have you It's so easy to think about this a kind of example that it leads to a mistake that Dewey is at pains here to disabuse us of Namely the mistake that the mistaken idea that rhythm is only a product of temporal arts in like music Arts that play out in time Whereas there is no rhythm in spatial arts like painting and sculpture I mean take this painting by van Gogh is the rhythm in this in this painting I mean certainly I can perceive complex symmetries and asymmetries Order and disorder of spatial arrangement in this painting of a sunflower or a pair of sunflowers But where's the rhythm? Right Okay, now but remember Dewey According to Dewey, it's not the painting itself Or this reproduction of the painting in this video that is the work of art This is only the art product the the work of art Is what happens to the the product in perception Or how it works in perception So to crudely oversimplify the act of artistic perception One views the work right with one perceptual apparatus And this also Produces and goes along with motor responses And so there's that back and forth characteristic between the creature and the object I also have my immediate reaction to the work You know one has that surrender that Dewey talks about in the terms of the last chapter As well as reflection and discrimination About the work. There's more intellectual appreciation Which also forms a rhythm back and forth rhythm with the acts of immediate or the the element of immediacy and perception And it's just in this whole complex process of perception That rhythm and Dewey sense is a part of the work of art So in these mistaken ideas of of rhythm that focusing too much on the art product and on this distinction between the temporal and the spatial arts Creates One Dewey calls the tick tock theory This is based on the idea that that rhythm is literal recurrence in a mechanical sense like the The tick tock of a clock over and over again a metronome In this case would be an example a keen example of rhythm, but that's not what Dewey means by rhythm Dewey also Considered the idea that rhythm is concerned with the repetition of beats He calls this the tom-tom theory and points it to tribal music as a as an example But Dewey here, uh, you know reminds us that Uh, the the tribal music or no kind of music just has a kind of Drum beat by itself or absent other kinds of instruments Dancing variations of the the drumming and all and all sorts of things like that Right. So both of these are are mistaken ideas about how exactly rhythm works So Dewey tells us the identification of rhythm with literal recurrence with regular return of identical elements conceives of recurrence statically or anatomically Instead of functionally and there's that that word function or functional Functionally, this is a common Dewey in theme For the latter that is the functional notion of rhythm Interprets recurrence on the basis of furtherance through the energy of the elements of a complete and consumatory experience So this here sums up Dewey's notion of rhythm in perception As against the literal or mechanical recurrence theories as about the relation of elements in experience furthering the development of the experience through time Of course rhythm in that sense is uh, is part of the perception of any work of art, right any any Any interaction within our products statuaries architecture Painting or music or drama or anything that that's what Now Dewey uses the term objectivity again in this chapter in a in a notable way I think it's worth remarking on So quoting Dewey But the objective measure of greatness is precisely the variety and scope of factors Which in being rhythmic each to each Still cumulatively conserve and promote one another and building up the actual experience Um, and so I think we need to ask ourselves here. What does Dewey mean by objective in this paragraph by greatness in fact It it might seem like he's attempting to provide a kind of universal criterion for good versus bad art Right in terms of this objective measure of greatness But I'll remind you that Dewey's conception of objectivity is unusual. We talked a lot about that last time um, and notably When Dewey talks about objectivity It includes elements concerning experience and concerning individual reactions to a work of art Or any kind of situation which we would normally class as subjective Right, but for Dewey object, you know number one experience takes place not sort of In the skull of the individual but in the world in the interaction between the the live creature and the environment Right, not just in the live creature by itself and number two objectivity here means not so much universal or material But just existing right observable perhaps But not necessarily something that is totally Sort of absolute And indeed Uh When Dewey talks about the greatness of the work of art It's not the art product. He's discussing right, so it must include the perceiver as a term right um Because the work of art is precisely involved what is happening in experience and perception Um, also in the following paragraph after this quote Dewey in contrast the term greatness with fineness, right? This to me indicates that greatness um Is a particular type of quality not a sort of soul sort of measure of artistic value But one of several good qualities of art when it can be great. It can be fine None of the sense of it's fine, but in the sense of fine art as opposed to You know popular art or or industrial arts or something like that We might also contrast great with classic from prior discussions, you know, a classic work is one that Sort of is fruitful in many people's experience across many different sort of times and cultures um So what Dewey says here in this quote is that When the art product has a variety of different kinds of factors That interact in different ways with the perceiver Such that despite that variety there is rhythm cumulation A culmination in an experience, right? In an experience, I mean, that's the objective measure of greatness, right? If if it fulfills those Conditions, then it is a the work of art is great at least for that perceiver So that's all I've got for today. Um, there of course are a lot of examples from poetry literature painting and sculpture in the text this week And uh, we'll discuss some of the those examples some of Dewey's examples and whether Or not and and how they fit these ideas during class. So we're going to leave the examples for class Um, I look forward to hearing what you think about this and uh, if there are threads in the chapter I didn't follow as there were many and always are I'm eager to hear about them and hear what you think about those things as well So I'll be reading the discussion boards looking forward to talking to you in class and also, you know, welcome to leave a comment on the video Um, if you want to discuss some of those other aspects Or or tell me what you think about how I've Have explained these other these other elements these these elements that I was interested in So, uh, otherwise have a great week and I'll see you. Uh, see you later