{"id":1288,"date":"2008-12-15T11:29:45","date_gmt":"2008-12-15T15:29:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/?p=1288"},"modified":"2008-12-15T11:29:45","modified_gmt":"2008-12-15T15:29:45","slug":"aesthetics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/archives\/1288","title":{"rendered":"Aesthetics"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ll be teaching the educational philosophy course during J-term. It\u2019s a course I enjoy teaching and one I think, when it connects with students, yields enduring understanding. Recently a former student wrote me to share his frustration at the lack of an educational philosophy at his church, and the effects it has on the practice of Christian education. It\u2019s gratifying when we see evidence that students have cultivated discernment and understand the importance of educational foundations\u2014theory and philosophy.<\/p>\n

The philosophical questions related to aesthetics\u2014beauty\u2014can be a challenge for students, and for the teacher. The starting point for conversations on the question tend to begin with the assumption that \u201cbeauty is in the eye of the beholder.\u201d Ultimately, it\u2019s a matter too subjective to allow one to plant one\u2019s feet and insist one way or another. Yet it\u2019s a question that moves quickly from the philosophical to the pragmatic when students grapple with the question in the context of worship and liturgy. <\/p>\n

I have one friend who is enthralled at the beauty in motorcycles, those machines that can invoke feelings and sentiments beyond their mere utility. I have another friend who appreciated the craft of the handgun. Listening to him describe a pistol can make one eye the object with appreciation for its craftsmanship and aesthetics and put aside, if only for the moment, associative feelings of fear or antagonism for what \u201cguns\u201d may represent.<\/p>\n

One of the things I do in the philosophy course is clip contemporary articles or pieces that deal with the perennial philosophical questions of ontology, epistemology and aesthetics. A willful technique for saying, \u201cSee, people still ask these questions!\u201d Peter J. Leithart has a short commentary in the current (Dec 2008) issue of Touchstone titled \u201cMusic of the Gears\u201d that touches on the aesthetic question:<\/p>\n

All things made by God are beautiful and pure,\u201d Athanasius wrote, \u201cfor the Word of God made nothing useless or impure.\u201d Note the contrasts: Pure-impure is obvious, but the contrast of beautiful-useless expresses a sensibility we have almost entirely lost.<\/p>\n

For moderns, the beautiful isn\u2019t opposed to the useless. The beautiful is the useless. At least since the Romantics clashed with the Industrial Revolution, we\u2019ve conceived of engineers and artists glaring contemptuously at one another across a razor-wire boundary.<\/p>\n

This need not be, and isn\u2019t always true. It is not too hard to find engineers in rhapsodies over the elegance of their design, or poets who think of themselves as technicians of language. <\/p>\n

But in the popular imagination, the useful and the beautiful are opposed, and we will go some ways toward regaining cultural health and integrity when we have ears to hear the mush of well-fitting gears.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

galindoconsultants.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ll be teaching the educational philosophy course during J-term. It\u2019s a course I enjoy teaching and one I think, when it connects with students, yields enduring understanding. Recently a former student wrote me to share his frustration at the lack … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1288"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1290,"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288\/revisions\/1290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}