Final Exam Study Guide

Question 1

Plato’s critique of art as mimesis

Answer 1

Mimesis is a copy of a copy of reality, twice removed from the truth

Question 2

What for Aristotle is tragic art a representation of?

Answer 2

Katharsis (purging/purification of own emotions through someone/something else’s)

Question 3

What for Aristotle is the difference between history and poetry?

Answer 3

Art is mimesis, but mimesis is nature to man

Question 4

Schopenhauer refers to as that radicalized transformation of consciousness into a pure intelligence without aims and intentions on the occurrence of aesthetic experience. What is the pure intelligence and what is its object of knowledge?

Answer 4

Pure intelligence- pure subject of knowledge

Object- Platonic idea

Question 5

Kant’s judgement of Taste (concerning the Beautiful)

Answer 5

An object is beautiful if it stirs disinterested pleasure (memorization); there is delight in the agreeable, good, and beautiful

Question 6

For Hume, what is one obvious cause why many cannot feel the proper sentiment of beauty?

Answer 6

There is no disputing matters of taste

Question 7

According to Hutcheson, the enjoyment of beauty rests upon both a subjective and an objective component. What are those components?

Answer 7

Subjective- taste in something

Objective- uniformity amidst variety

Question 8

The difference between the Dionysian and Apollonian impulses of art and nature.

Answer 8

Apollonian- vital energy

Dionysian- negative and destructive power

Question 9

What for Nietzche is the fusion of terrifying insight into the destructibility of the individual with the beautiful dream-image, producing a uniquely powerful form of art?

Answer 9

Tragedy

Question 10

The human condition for both Montaigne and Pascal?

Answer 10

Human condition is not to be transcended; we should accept human condition and learn to accept it, be aware of people who try to escape it

Question 11

What is the Epicurean end of human life?

Answer 11

atoraxia (tranquility and imperturbability of mind, body, and spirit)

Question 12

What is the Stoic end of human life?

Answer 12

Accepting what cannot be changed

Question 13

According to the tradition of “psychic distance” in aesthetics, if an object excites you to possess it, this James Joyce calls?

Answer 13

Pornographic

Question 14

What for Schopenhauer justifies art?

Answer 14

Art justifies itself as a means of escape from the tyranny of will and the misery of existence