Crossing the divide: A website about Literature, Art & Philosophy by Venkat Ramanan

Is aesthetics only about art that is beautiful as conventionally understood? If not, what purpose does art that may not be so serve? My new essay published in May 2022 in Blue Labyrinths        Image: John Constable, Hadleigh Castle (1837) (Public Domain)

  My research paper on “Time and the Observer in Jorge Luis Borges” has been published in the 2020 edition of the Literature & Aesthetics journal released a few days back. Abstract: Jorge Luis Borges is ambivalent in his views of time and is unwilling to completely accept a denial of the reality of time. I argue that this is because a view that refutes time denies the observer too along with it.  Borges tries therefore to identify a reconciliation between a refutation of time and its reality.  (Image: Edwaert Collier - Vanitas Still Life with a Statuette of an Antique Athlete and a Print of Michelangelo (1675) - Public Domain)

My essay Aesthetic ineffability and the rebirth of the reader  was published in May 2020 on  Aesthetics Research Lab ,  a "digital think tank and resource, revolving around theoretical and practical issues in aesthetics" conceived by Michael Spicher, PhD.  Here is the  link . This essay examine the idea that literature is as capable of giving rise to an experience of aesthetic ineffability as the other arts. Furthermore, the ineffable experience in literature may be a product of both the author and the reader, and that there is similarly a need for a confluence between the artist and viewer in other art forms too for ineffability to arise.

My essay  The Exile of Pessoa & Camus  was published in  The Punch Magazine  in May 2019 - and here is the  link. Poet and philosopher Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) describes himself as someone who is an “exile from the country of which he had always considered himself a citizen…” Is it apposite to associate exile with someone who — apart from spending nine years in South Africa during his youth — essentially never stirred out of his native Portugal? This essay examines this question by comparing Pessoa to another famous exile, Albert Camus.

My research paper on “Literature and the construction of reality” has been published in the 2018 edition of the Literature & Aesthetics Journal released in March. Peregrine falcons (Artwork: NY State Museum 1912, Public Domain) In this paper, I consider the idea that Ernst von Glasersfeld’s “radical constructivism” offers an ideal framework for putting in place a reality of the best fit for us. Along with this, I examine also the fundamental biological and epistemological limitations that we are faced with when trying to fathom objective reality and, secondly, the inescapable gap between language – which we use as a primary cognitive tool in our attempt to comprehend the world. The paper then show that literature – especially fiction – best meets the criteria for addressing these gaps and constructing such a model of reality in line with what radical constructivism proposes.

The courage that Steinbeck writes about is one of physical and moral bravery whereas the strength of character Levi portrays should properly be termed “spiritual” or “existential” valour. The Third of May 1808 , Francisco de Goya 1814 (Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons) e seem of late to be more and more concerned with the question of what makes us human. Perhaps this has to do with the rise of secularism or our angst about machines. But it would seem humans have mulled over this question for a lot longer than we realise (even if not with the same intensity). Aristotle for instance thought that reason was what was so unique about us. We were not only the only species to have the ability to exercise our intellect but are conscious that it is also morally good to do so. In more recent times, the historian   Yuval Noah Harari has steered clear  of reason and morality while holding that what is special about humans is the fact that they are the only animals who can work coll

The machines in this case exhibit not only vast intelligence but also considerable wisdom that far exceeds the purpose for which they were built and the algorithms that defined them. They have apparently acquired such wisdom by somehow transitioning from syntactics to semantics, gaining an ability to possess content and meaning. The leadys are not just a brain in a vat anymore; they are persons (or even better?) Will machines take over the world one day? This question has been in the news recently with leading thinkers like Professor Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk of Tesla expressing the worry that uncontrolled evolution of machine intelligence may one day presage the end of humanity. [i] This fear of rampant technology ruling the world is however is not of recent vintage, especially among the literati. Writers ranging from HG Wells and Aldous Huxley to more recent ones like Arthur C Clarke and scientist and writer Baroness Susan Greenfield have produced some well-known an