Arto Haapala

In this paper, I connect some existential structures of humans with aesthetic considerations. One of the bedrocks of human existence is stability. We want to, and in most circumstances, we can rely on the fact that the circumstances in which we live, are, by and large, the same as they have been before. We do not have to worry every morning that there would be irreplaceable changes in our immediate living environment. When there is such a danger, the very roots of our existence are threatened. Large natural disasters such as storms and flooding or human made catastrophes such as wars pose threats to human existence. The ordinary and the everyday form the foundation of our routines and habits. Routines require time to be formed, and even though they can sometimes be a burden, they are very much a part of what we as humans are. It is simply not possible for any human being to create oneself anew all the time. It is in our nature look for and create routines and, in this way, make our lives smoother and more fluent than without the habitualized practices. Stability creates safety and comfort which is characteristic of any homey environment. We are in an environment which is familiar. The feeling of “being at home” has features which can be regarded as aesthetic. It is the atmospheric character of home as a whole that gives us comfort and satisfaction. This is the aesthetics of the homey and familiar. I do not deny that cracks and surprises in our everyday environment often have a positive aesthetic impact; we take aesthetic pleasure in experiencing something new. This has been the tenant in the Western arts and in philosophical aesthetics for long. My aim in this paper is to point out the aesthetic relevance of the ordinary and familiar, and their existential roots.

Heidegger’s philosophy has received radically different readings. These different approaches grow from philosophical differences rooted, at least to some extent, in national philosophical traditions. Although it is not possible any longer to draw strict boundaries between different philosophical traditions by reference to nationality or to language, there certainly are tendencies and points of emphasis that differ depending on the context in which Heidegger is read. There are many different ways of reading Heidegger. I confine myself to two: the orthodox approach and the applicative pragmatist approach. As an example for these approaches I have taken Heidegger’s controversial essay, “The Origin of the Work of Art.”

On 18–19 May 2018, a symposium was held in the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the death of Ronald W. Hepburn (1927–2008). The speakers at this event discussed Hepburn’s oeuvre from several perspectives. For this book, the collection of the revised versions of their talks has been supplemented by the papers of other scholars who were unable to attend the symposium itself. Thus this volume contains contributions from eighteen notable scholars of different disciplines, ranging from contemporary aesthetics and art theory through to philosophical approaches to religion, education and social anthropology. It also includes a bibliography of Hepburn’s writings. The essays were first published in two special issues of the Journal of Scottish Thought, vols. 10–11 (2018–2019). Ronald William Hepburn was born in Aberdeen on 16 March 1927. He went to Aberdeen Grammar School, then he graduated with an M.A. in Philosophy (1951) and obtained his doctorate from the University of Aberdeen (1955). His tutor at Aberdeen was Donald MacKinnon (1913– 1994), a Scottish philosopher and theologian, the author of A Study in Ethical Theory (1957) and The Problem of Metaphysics (1974). Hepburn taught as Lecturer at the Department of Moral Philosophy at Aberdeen (1956–60), and he was also Visiting Associate Professor of Philosophy at New York University (1959–60). He returned from the United States as Professor of Philosophy at Nottingham University. In 1964, he was appointed as a Chair in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and between 1965 and 1968 he was also Stanton Lecturer in the Philosophy of Religion at the University of Cambridge. From 1975 until his retirement in 1996, he held the Professorship of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh. He died in Edinburgh on 23 December 2008. His philosophical interests ranged from theology and the philosophy of religion through moral philosophy and the philosophy of education to art theory and aesthetics. Notably, Hepburn is widely regarded as the founder of modern environmental and everyday aesthetics as a result of the influence of papers in the 1960s which pioneered a new approach to the aesthetics of the natural world.

In the concept of place the problems of ethics and aesthetics overlap in a particularly interesting and fruitful way. When an area or site becomes a place for us, we are not indifferent to it. A place is something to which we have a strong and significant relation; in my usage of the term “place”, place is defined by our personal connections to an area. Not every environment suits everyone. Although we can visually familiarise ourselves with many milieus, “placing” ourselves somewhere is something else, and requires compatibility between individual and environment. Place is a place for me – its significance arises largely, although not exclusively, from meanings and values it gains through me. This has both ethical and aesthetic consequences: our judgments are based on the personal attachment we have to a place, and these judgments are strongly determined by our interests.

Članek poda fenomenološki prispevek k estetiki vsakdanjosti, pri čemer izhaja iz nekaterih konceptov, ki jih je razvil Martin Heidegger. Cilj je razumeti pravo naravo same vsakdanjosti v vsej njeni dolgočasnosti in sivini ter poudariti, da v vsakodnevnosti obstaja estetski vidik. Estetika vsakdanjosti ni le »izjemno v navadnem«. Da bi razumeli celoten obseg estetike vsakdanjosti, moramo raziskati fenomen navadnega in vsakdanjega. V pričujočem članku je ontologija človekove vsakdanje eksistence razložena s pojmi kraja, življenjskega sveta, domačnosti in tujosti. Estetski vidik vsakdanjega temelji na teh eksistencialnih strukturah. Človekova eksistenca se večino časa godi na domačem kraju – ki je lahko dom, delovni prostor ali pa poznani predeli v domačem mestu. Ko se premikamo po domačem območju, občutimo izkustveno ukoreninjenost in varnost. Element nepričakovanosti, ki je včasih povezan z občutkom tesnobe ali celo strahu, umanjka. Prav to dejstvo, da ni nobenih presenečenj, da stvari potekajo gladko, kot pričakujemo, je prijetno. Početi stvari na rutinski način ima določene vzorce, ki so zadovoljujoči, v njih pa je tudi estetski vidik. Estetika vsakdanjosti se nahaja v odsotnosti izjemnega, v občutku počutiti se doma in imeti nadzor. Estetika domačega je estetika manka, tiha fascinacija z odsotnostjo zahtev iz okolice.

The concept of chiasm has played major role in continental philosophy, where it has referred to various phenomenological and hermeneutic structures of reversibility, intertwining, and encounter. In Chiasmatic Encounters: Art, Ethics, Politics, fourteen international contributors representing various fields of expertise analyze this central concept and its significance for contemporary cultural theory. The authors discuss the work of major philosophers like Merleau-Ponty, Beauvoir, Habermas, Levinas, Derrida, and Deleuze, adapting their ideas of chiasmatic relations to cultural analysis. As the internal and external horizons of perception and experience are intertwined and reversed, various cultural texts, like a Vermeer painting, a symphony of Sibelius, a David Lynch movie, or a young girl walking in her summer dress, are seen from new and unexpected angles. The book also addresses the chiasmatic crossing between ethics and politics-- between unconditional ethical responsibility and always conditional political choices. Representing the cutting edge of contemporary cultural theory and interdisciplinary thinking, Chiasmatic Encounters is essential reading for anyone working in continental philosophy, aesthetics, or political theory.

This article gives an overview of Finnish aesthetics in the past forty years. I will introduce major figures who have done research in aesthetics and topics that have been investigated. I will divide the field of aesthetics in two: philosophy of art and environmental aesthetics. Especially the latter has gained a lot of prominence in Finnish aesthetics, and there are also institutional settings that have made this possible. But philosophical problems in the arts have been scrutinized intensively, too. Finnish aestheticians have taken inspiration both from the Anglo‐American analytic tradition and the German and French phenomenological tradition. In order to put the contemporary considerations into some perspective, I will give a brief outline of the early stages of Finnish Aesthetics. The early 20th century was a heyday in Finnish Aesthetics

Heidegger’s philosophy has received radically different readings. These different approaches grow from philosophical differences rooted, at least to some extent, in national philosophical traditions. Although it is not possible any longer to draw strict boundaries between different philosophical traditions by reference to nationality or to language, there certainly are tendencies and points of emphasis that differ depending on the context in which Heidegger is read. There are many different ways of reading Heidegger. I confine myself to two: the orthodox approach and the applicative pragmatist approach. As an example for these approaches I have taken Heidegger’s controversial essay, “The Origin of the Work of Art.”

In this article, we want to show the relevance and importance of melancholy as an aesthetic emotion. Melancholy often plays a role in our encounters with art works, and it is also present in some of our aesthetic responses to the natural environment. Melancholy invites aesthetic considerations to come into play not only in well-defined aesthetic contexts but also in everyday situations that give reason for melancholy to arise. But the complexity of melancholy, the fact that it is fascinating in itself, suggests the further thought that it may be considered as an aesthetic emotion per se. To this end, we argue that it is the distinctive character of melancholy, its dual character and its differences from sadness and depression, which distinguishes it as an aesthetic emotion.