Variant reading and complexity of the definition
Summary
Slavi-Avik M. Harutyunyan
Key words – “the philosophical theory of the value”, the genre, the determination, the term, the Socratic method, the sex, the aspect, the value, the content, the logical schemas of T. Monroe, the extensional approach, the intentional approach, the aesthetic valuations, “the utilitarian” art.
In the given article the problems of the conception and the determination of the genre are examined in philosophy, in the sciences of art, culture, and literature. There are two main approaches of the genre determination which are considered: extensional and intentional.
From one hand, it’s an empiric and inductive approach where the author is relying on already existing multiple types of art and he is looking for signs corresponding to those types. On another hand, it’s a theoretical, deductive and an individualizing method thanks to which certain functions of the genre are regarded as a whole unit. Depending on these approaches, which are intertwined in a certain way, the term of genre is characterized by consistency and content which refer to the unified set of significant signs based on which the group of objects stand out, i.e. the volume.
The classification and the division imply the sequential division of some original notion into its kinds, and the kinds are, in their turn, divided into sub-kinds.
Therefore, the classification begins from the analysis of the logical operation of the division by splitting the volume of the generic notion into the unending volumes of the notions of the kinds. However, the operation is done in a way that, the notions of the kinds end up depleting the entire volume of the generic notion.
While performing such an analysis in a generic aspect on a specific historic and cultural material, it becomes clear that the level of the relative “independence” of the art is different depending on the era and, moreover, that “independence” tends to increase. That process of the increasing “independence” starts from boundary diffuseness in the framework of the syncretic primitive culture, it acquires a certain “independence” in the Ancient world and Middle ages up to the significant independence and recognition of its self-value in the era of Renaissance and Illumination, and finally, it reaches the point of “the art for the art”. Thus, the demand of the splitting the notions in a way other than “classical and generic” is rather related to the science development, it is also caused when a specific type of art, aesthetic and culture sciences push their own boundaries. In a chain of four classification problems, the lowest point, according to the author, is the problem of the genres, and the highest point is the differentiation of the arts and “no arts” (that being said, the forms and the products of the human activity related to the arts). All those problems can be considered productive only in the case of consistent and complex analysis because each of those problems has the boundary issue. Nevertheless, each of those classification problems is relatively self-sufficient and has immanent for its own of reflexion. The problem of correlations between various spheres of culture (including art) is first of all examined in philosophy and cultural studies: in philosophy it is studied due to its connection with more generic problems such as the law of being. In cultural sciences it is studied due to its connection with culture and ongoing studies of synthetic character.