HAMLET My father!--methinks I see my father. HORATIO Where, my lord? HAMLET In my mind's eye, Horatio. From this we know that the ‘inward eye which is the bliss of solitude’ was a current notion in Shakespeare’s day, and doubtless it is a great deal older than that; yet a conversation I had today reminded … Continue reading The Mind’s Eye: Digital Camera or Camera Obscura?
Category: philosophy
reflections in a philosophical strain
‘Is there light in Gorias?’ – reflections on metaphor and truth
‘Metaphor: a figure of speech by which a thing is spoken of as being that which it only resembles, as when a ferocious person is called a tiger‘ – Chambers Dictionary Saddling metaphor with a definition like that (which is typical, even down to the threadbare example) is akin to giving it a criminal record … Continue reading ‘Is there light in Gorias?’ – reflections on metaphor and truth
Can you be offside in chess?
(The Football Players by Henri Rousseau) Two people are arguing; one insists that you can score a drop goal in football, the other that you can’t. Eventually it emerges that the first is talking about rugby football, gaelic football and Australian rules; but the other means only association football. So who is right? Once we … Continue reading Can you be offside in chess?
Four Myths
(picture: 'la reve' by Henri Rousseau, Museum of Modern Art, NY)I have touched elsewhere on our ambivalence about stories and story-related words, in particular that we use a range of them as synonyms for lying and falsehood. The word ‘myth’ falls into the same category, except that its case is perhaps more extreme: for the majority … Continue reading Four Myths
Means and ends, motes and beams
‘O wad some power the giftie gie ustae see oursels as ithers see us!it wad frae mony a blunder free us,an foolish notion.’- Burns, ‘to a Louse’The end does not justify the means: you may not do evil that good might come; you may not violate your principles in defence of them. If I had … Continue reading Means and ends, motes and beams
Head and Heart (1)
A thought about therapy in relation to art and music struck me after listening to James Rhodes in a TV programme, Notes from the Inside, in which he - a classical pianist and former psychiatric patient - takes a grand piano into a psychiatric hospital to play pieces he hopes will resonate with patients: calling … Continue reading Head and Heart (1)
A Way of Thinking
Poetry is a way of thinking. By ‘poetry’ I mean not just poetry but everything that works in a similar fashion - by imagination and instinct - such as music and art generally (it’s handy to remember that ‘poetry’ just means ‘making’) - and by ‘thinking’ I mean rather more than the narrow sense in … Continue reading A Way of Thinking
But is it REAL? Is Art a Joke? – Five Funny Things
I have been thinking about abstraction recently, particularly the relation of what is abstracted to what it has been abstracted from, since it seems to me to have a bearing on things that are of interest to me, such as philosophy, metaphor and art. So I was amused to run across a couple of things … Continue reading But is it REAL? Is Art a Joke? – Five Funny Things
Why is a raven like a writing desk? The power of abstraction.
Abstraction is an interesting notion. The word itself is derived from the Latin preposition ‘ab’ meaning ‘from’ or ‘away from’ combined with the verb ‘trahere’ ‘to pull or draw’ (which also gives us our word ‘tractor’) - thus it means, literally, ‘to pull or drag away from’ so that it conveys the sense of separation, … Continue reading Why is a raven like a writing desk? The power of abstraction.
A strange and deep-rooted suspicion: why does art make us uncomfortable?
Here is a list of words that all relate to laudable, creative activity - as practised by artists, writers and the like - but what else do they have in common? fabrication fantasy fiction imaginary invention made-up story tale Yes - they can all be used in a pejorative sense, as synonyms for deceit or … Continue reading A strange and deep-rooted suspicion: why does art make us uncomfortable?
COMPLEAT TROWZER 