Defining the Art Object as Symbolically Significant, Sensuous, Manifold.

The need to externalize oneself, to achieve recognition from the other, and self recognition through the other, are needs intrinsic to embodied subjectivity, if therefore, it can be shown that certain kinds of artefacts fulfil these needs in a distinctive and positive way, then we would rightly assign to them (whatever ostensible, social or utilitarian functions they may serve) a universal significance in the ecology of human experience. In this study I shall claim this status for Art.; as Symbolically Significant, Sensuous, Manifold.

pg 10 Art and Embodiment: From Aesthetics to Self-consciousness
Paul Crowther
Publisher: OUP Oxford; New edition edition (5 April 2001)

Reductionism a Problem of Philosophy

‘The problem here is the conflict between ‘full and explicit’. for when we adopt a reflective attitude we can analyse the elements which are operative in a particular experience. However by analysing by taking the whole apart – we change the structure of the experience, it finds expression as a fragmented whole. The fullness, the qualitative unity – of the reciprocity is lost. The problem here is problem of philosophy itself. ‘

Art and Embodiment: From Aesthetics to Self-consciousness
Paul Crowther
Publisher: OUP Oxford; New edition edition (5 April 2001)