ART (Aesthetics Research Torino) Philosophical Seminar 

 

Giacomo Croci

(FU Berlin/Immanuel Klinik Rüdersdorf)

 

April, 27. h 6 pm

 

Online

https://unito.webex.com/unito/j.php?MTID=me9e69ec1a079dff0f771211eb3ef3ae0

 

Through a glass darkly: artefactual obscurity and aesthetic intelligibility

Recent developments in philosophical aesthetics have increasingly explored the significance of art and aesthetic practices within and with respect to non-aesthetic practices and objects. Specifically, attention has been devoted to the notion that artworks are products of human activity and, as such, artefacts, as shown by debates concerning material engagement and culture as well as the aesthetic appreciation of functionality. However, whereas artefacts in general seem to be characterized by their functions, it is unclear how and which functions apply to cultural products that qualify as artworks. In this context, I intend to develop an understanding of artworks that focuses on their artefactual obscurity, i.e., artworks as products of human activity whose function is unclear or obscure. To do so, I will critically discuss two accounts concerned with the same issue, namely organizational and critical aesthetics, and the teleological models that both accounts presuppose more or less overtly: the internal teleology of self-organization and the teleology implied by social agency. Against this background, I will elaborate on the conceptual resources developed by Friedrich Schelling’s early philosophy of art and Ernst Bloch’s reflection on utopia to deliver a more comprehensive account of the obscurity of artworks as an essential feature of their aesthetic intelligibility within and with respect to non-aesthetic practices and socio-material reality. 

Giacomo Croci is currently Research Associate at Medizinische Hochschule Brandenburg. He completed his PhD thesis, „Die Konstitution von Subjektivität als Geschichtlichkeit. Im Anschluss an F. Schellings System des tranzendentalen Idealismus und M. Heideggers Sein und Zeit“ (forthcoming), at Freie Universität Berlin. His research primarily focuses on philosophy of mind and political and social philosophy.

 

ART (Aesthetics Research Torino) is a periodic philosophical seminar organized by the Department of Philosophy and Educational Sciences of the University of Turin and the PhD Program FINO.

 

Coordinators:

Prof. Alessandro Bertinetto (University of Turin). 

Prof. Federico Vercellone (University of Turin). 

 

Members:

Prof. Carlo Serra (University of Turin/University of Calabria)

Prof.ssa Serena Feloj (University of Pavia)

Dr. Alberto Martinengo (University of Turin)

Dr. Paolo Furia (University of Turin)

Dr. Lisa Giombini (University Rome 3)

Dr. Gregorio Tenti (University of Turin)

Dr. Amalia Salvestrini (Istituto Italiano per gli Studi FIlosofici, Naples)

Dr. Francesca Monateri (Pisa, Scuola Normale)

Dr. Francesca Perotto (FINO)

Dr. Ivan Quartesan (FINO)

Dr. Sofia Boz (University of Padova)

Dr. Leonardo Pietropaolo (University of Turin)

Dr. Luisa Sampugnaro (University of Turin)

Dr. Nicola Davide Angerame (Turin)

 

 

ART addresses different topics of the contemporary debate in Aesthetics: philosophy of beauty, philosophy of the arts, theory of sensory experience, philosophy of image and imagination, and history of aesthetics.

 

ART is supported by:

Centro Interuniversitario di Ricerca sulla Morfologia Francesco Moiso (CIM)
Centro Studi Arti della Modernità

Centro Studi Filosofico-religiosi "Luigi Pareyson"

 

ART is sponsored by: 

Italian Society for Aesthetics (SIE) 
European Society for Aesthetics (ESA)