Susanne Langer vs. The Reproductive Psychology of Inanimate

[mnoble]

Hello Philosophy Now Forum!

This is my first post. I am an artist with the distant past of a BA in Philosophy. My work is contemporary and often grounded in the conceptual although I very much believe in beauty and form. I am researching some ideas around our relationship to objects and I wanted to get some input from others who are willing and interested. My ideas right now are from:

Susanne Langer's Philosophy of Art, there's a general bit on her here p195-196: http://www.huthsteiner.org/Knauth/Susan ... io_DLB.pdf

and

The Philosophy Now article, "The Reproductive Psychology of Inanimate Objects" by Edward Ingram
http://philosophynow.org/issues/31/The_ ... te_Objects

Now it seems quite possible that there can be no parallels drawn between these two at all but something is tugging at me. As an artist I don't seek to make a thesis but to make a work that generates questions and discussion. Here's some questions that I am considering as I link these two works together along with another assertion by the psychologist Tim Kasser:

Is it the case, as Langer theorizes, that only art objects have a virtual entity of life? Or, do ordinary objects equally give way to experiences of imagination and spirit?

If all objects are as alive as us, per Ingram’s argument that actually we too are inanimate objects, is there (as he also writes) something fundamentally disturbing about their pervasive power over us?

How do these ideas feed into our popular consuming habits? Do human artifacts lead to our unhappiness because they don’t meet our psychological needs (as is asserted by the psychologist Tim Kasser).

Do Ingram and Kasser ideas impact Langer’s theory of art objects?
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Would love to read any and all rants you may have around these questions...

Thank you!

[Impenitent]

if the movies in the mind are of the perceptions of artfully produced animation or they are the perceptions of staged live action, does the lack of differentiation in perception of in-artful animation or the perception of un-staged live action negate the artfulness of one over the other?

does the image of the model (on the page) have more artistic pull as an image (in the mind of the viewer) than the image in the mind of the viewer of the living model herself?

all the world's a stage...

-Imp