Week 2

1)  The first video was very interesting as it described what could be considered the evolution of aesthetics. It was essentially a timeline of theories and philosophies about aesthetics and how they have changed over time. It is interesting to see who contributed their theory to the argument over a large period of time to give us what we know today as the aesthetics of art.

The second video was also quite interesting as it described the process the human body goes through when it is evaluating art. I think the most interesting thing that came to my mind is even though the process is the same for everyone, there can be so many diffferent outcomes when people analyze art.

2) I think Immanuel Kant's theory on aesthetics is one of the most important. He was an 18th century philosopher. Kant's philosophy on aesthetics included the belief that judging the beauty of art is not rule bound because it is based on feelings. I think this is important because people feel and experience different things when they experience something so there can be no formal guidelines to what beauty is.

3) It is very interesting to look at the scientific side of how the human body views art. Some of this video did tend to be a little hard to understand though. Changeux explains that as society has changed so has the art, the views of the people living in certain time periods played a huge role in the art that was created at this time. I think Ramachandran does a good job explaining that people essentially view art based on things they know to be real life occurances.

4) The videos do a great job by expanding on the theories and science behind aesthetics. The book supplied the basic fundamentals and the video added more depth.

5) I think overall the videos were very helpful in explaining aesthetics although they were a tad long. I do feel as though I have a better understanding of aesthetics after watching the videos, the book was a little vague. The video touched on all the major points and supplied a lot of additional information.