Summary Of Ellen Dissanayke's Homo Aesthetticus

Focusing primarily on chapter 7 of Homo Aesthetticus, we discuss the obliteration or removal of art through writing. The belief that writing erases art is not necessarily a new motif in postmodernist art and theory, but the manner in which Dissanayke discusses it is. Ellen Dissanayke ascertains that throughout history and our educations, we’ve assumed “that the authors (i.e. Plato, Aristotle) thought about art in the same ways that we do.” (194) However, Plato, Aristotle, and other traditional philosophers never really discuss “art”, instead they the word “Techné”. (194) This is sort of a blanket term, not refereeing specifically to art, the art world, or art works. Instead, it refers to the ability to correctly understand the principals involved in the creation of something.
Drawing comparisons between oral and literate cultures. Doing so highlights a crucial connection between oral and literate cultures, as well as past and present. Oral is inherent, literacy is not. Oral is personal and involved. Speaker and audience must be in close proximity and the audience can ask for clarity if there is confusion. Written language is impersonal and detached. This can lead to confusion or miss iteration of information. This would indicate societies can modernize without a high level of literacy. Writing creates detachment by making it possible to view a word as a thing Modernism and postmodernism focus too heavily on reading and writing, prompting artists to focus heavily on concepts and labels to describe aesthetic experience. Dissanayke argues that you cannot describe or purposely elicit another’s aesthetic understanding to be the same as yours. Each viewer experiences a different aesthetic experience based of their perception and past. There may be commonalities, but ultimately, each’s aesthetic is