Hi all.
Any one see the Lawrence Wechsler's article "The Looking Glass" (_New
Yorker_ 1/31/00) on David Hockney's theory that the Old Masters (Holbein,
Caravaggio, Bellini, etc.) used lenses or viewing devices to produce their
paintings? From what I understand the ideas may be much like Arthur
Wheelock's work in this area, so they are neither new nor novel. Still,
from what I hear, Hockney discusses the difference between the way artists
look at paintings and the way non-artists (e.g., art historians) do -- so
Hockney's ideas might be a useful when compared with those of someone like
Wheelock, who is an art historian.
I have not read the article, but plan to soon. Thought I'd mention it here
because we have been quiet and because I, personally, am particularly
interested in how the brain interprets what the eyes see. How viewing
devices and lenses change what the eyes see fascinate me as well. If anyone
has read the piece, feedback would be welcome.
Also, this synopsis of an interview with John Searle might be of general
interest. There is a web address at the bottom for anyone who might want to
see the entire piece. By the way, the synopsis is from The Chronical of
Higher Education.
All the best,
Amy
------------------------------------------------------------------------
>From the February issue of "Reason":
Philosophy and reality as seen by John Searle
The Enlightenment's quest to displace superstition with "the
attainment of scientific truth and the advance of human rights
and democratic government" remains incomplete and worth
continuing, and postmodernism unreasonably disparages that
quest. So says the eminent philosopher John R. Searle, who
teaches at the University of California at Berkeley, in an
interview. Mr. Searle says his contribution to continuing the
Enlightenment's goals has been to explore how consciousness and
intentionality are structured and operate in the brain. He says:
"We want a unified account of our knowledge, and I think we can
get it." The "postmodern movement" has not particularly helped,
because it has sought to "advance the view that what we think of
as reality is largely a social construct" -- often, an
oppressive one. Of course, he says, "all knowledge is our
knowledge," but it doesn't follow that "therefore you can never
have objectively valid knowledge of how things really are." Mr.
Searle wonders why socialism, a carefully intellectualized
system, is "dead," even though in the 1950's it was thought
certain to supersede capitalism, a more haphazard system.
He praises Friedrich Hayek's 1944 "The Road to Serfdom" as
"certainly among the books of the century," because it
prophetically argued "that there wasn't any halfway point of
democratic socialism, that it would naturally collapse into
various forms of oppression." That leads him to recall his own
role in the free-speech movement of the 1960's, as one of the
first activist Berkeley professors. He later became disenchanted
with student radicals who, he believes, "only wanted free speech
for views that they agreed with" and wanted "to revolutionize
society and overthrow capitalism."
He also criticizes affirmative action, arguing that at first it meant
"that people who would never have tried to get into the university
before would be encouraged and trained so that they could get
admission. I was all for that." But then, with "catastrophic
effect," he argues, "race and ethnicity became criteria not for
encouraging people to enter the competition, but for judging the
competition." Fortunately, he says, "we've given up on that."
The interview is available online at
http://www.reasonmag.com/0002/fe.ef.reality.html
___________________________________________
Amy Ione
PO Box 12748
Berkeley, CA 94748-3748 USA
Phone: 1 (510) 548-2052
Fax: 1 (510) 548-2054
email: ione@lmi.net
URL: http://users.lmi.net/ione
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