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Hermeneutics

Hermeneutics

Hermeneutics may be described as the theory of interpretation and understanding of a text through empirical means. It should not be confused with the concrete practice of interpretation called exegesis. Exegesis extracts the meaning of a passage of text and enlarges upon it and explicates it with explanatory glosses; hermeneutics addresses the ways in which a reader may come to the broadest understanding of the creator of text and his relation to his audiences, both local and over time, within the constraints of culture and history. Thus it is a branch of philosophy concerned with human understanding and the interpretation of texts. Recently the concept of texts has been extended beyond written documents to include, for example, speech, performances, works of art, and even events.

Etymology

The word hermeneutics (Hermeneutic means interpretive) is a term derived from the Greek verb 'to interpret' (hermēneuō) and has two derivations. One is from the Greek god Hermes in his role as patron of interpretive communication and human understanding, while the other is from the syncretic Ptolemaic deity Hermes Trismegistus, in his role as representing hidden or secret knowledge.

Biblical hermeneutics

Perhaps the most commonly used meaning of the word hermeneutics outside academic circles is in relation to Biblical interpretation. Throughout Christian history scholars and students of the Bible have sought to mine the wealth of its meanings by developing a variety of different systems of hermeneutics which are discussed in the main article Biblical hermeneutics. In contrast to the above definition, Biblical interpretation is not sought through empirical means alone, but through diligent study of the text and with objective truth in mind. An interpretation cannot merely be based on experiential evidence alone. Liberation theologians (including feminists) advocate hermeneutics of engagement rather than detachment. "Since no complete detachment or value-neutrality is possible, the interpreter must make her or his stance explicit and take an advocacy position in favour of the oppressed. To truly understand the Bible is to read it through the eyes of the oppressed, since the God who speaks in the Bible is the God of the oppressed. For a correct interpretation of the Bible, it is necessary to acknowledge the "hermeneutical privilege of the oppressed" and to develop a hermeneutics "from below"." Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, in 'Bread not stone', (1995).

Medieval hermeneutics

Medieval interpretations of text incorporated exegesis in a fourfold mode that emphasized the distinction between the letter and the spirit of the text. This handy scheme of various ways of interpreting the text was handed down from Patristic programs of Late Antiquity. The literal sense (sensus historicus) of Scripture denotes what the text states or reports directly. The allegorical sense (sensus allegoricus) explains the text with regard to the doctrinal content of church dogma, as a manifestation in which each literal element has a symbolic meaning. The moral application of the text to the individual reader or hearer is the third sense, the sensus tropologicus or sensus moralis, while a fourth level of meaning, the sensus anagogicus draws out of the text the implicit allusions it contains concerning metaphysical and eschatological secret understanding, or gnosis. :"The hermeneutical terminology used here is in part arbitrary. For almost all three interpretations which go beyond the literal explanations are in a general sense "allegorical." The practical application of these three aspects of spiritual interpretation varied considerably. Most of the time, the fourfold sense of the Scriptures was used only partially, dependent upon the content of the text and the idea of the exegete.... We can easily notice that the basic structure is in fact a twofold sense of the Scriptures, that is, the distinction between the sensus literalis and the sensus spiritualis or mysticus, and that the number four was derived from a restrictive systematization of the numerous possibilities which existed for the sensus spiritualis into three interpretive dimensions." (Ebeling) The customary medieval exegetical technique divided the text in glossa ("glosses" or annotations) written between the lines and at the side of the text which was left with wide margins for this very purpose. The text was further divided into "scholia" which are long, exegetical passages, often on a separate page. This fourfold categorization is also found in Rabbinical thought. It remains to be seen if this rabbinical conception predates the christian one. The fourfold categorizations are, in Hebrew; Peshat( simple interpretation ), Remez( allusion ), Derash( interpretive ), and Sod( secret / mystical ). More information can be found at Torah Study.

Renaissance hermeneutics

The discipline of hermeneutics emerged with the new humanist education of the 15th century as a historical and critical methodology for analyzing texts. In a triumph of early modern hermeneutics, the Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla proved in 1440 that the "Donation of Constantine" was a forgery, through intrinsic evidence of the text itself. Thus hermeneutics expanded from its medieval role explaining the correct analysis of the Bible. In the 19th century Wilhelm Dilthey's more historically conscious methodological hermeneutics sought to produce systematic and scientific interpretations by situating any text within the context of its production. Since Dilthey, the discipline of hermeneutics has detached itself from this central task and broadened its spectrum to all texts, including multimedia and to understanding the bases of meaning. In the 20th century, Martin Heidegger's philosophical hermeneutics shifted the focus from interpretation to existential understanding, which was treated more as a direct, non-mediated, thus in a sense more authentic way of being in the world than simply as a way of knowing. Advocates of this approach claim that such texts, and the people who produce them, cannot be studied using the same scientific methods as the natural sciences, thus use arguments similar to that of the antipositivism. Moreover, they claim that such texts are conventionalized expressions of the experience of the author; thus, the interpretation of such texts will reveal something about the social context in which they were formed, but, more significantly, provide the reader with a means to share the experiences of the author. Among the key thinkers of this approach are Wilhelm Dilthey, a historian and philosopher; the sociologist Max Weber; the philosopher Martin Heidegger; and the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer. Jürgen Habermas attacked the principles of hermeneutics as conservative and advocated critical theory as an alternative, although in contemporary usage one could reasonably call hermeneutics an aspect of critical theory. Paul Ricoeur has attempted to reconcile and synthesize these two opposing traditions, although his own work is not hermeneutics in the Gadamerian sense at all. Rather surprisingly (given its origins) hermeneutics has also become influential on some thinkers in the artificial intelligence tradition who see cognitivist or information processing views of human understanding as being inadequate.

Hermeneutic traditions

Hermeneutics in the Western world, as a general science of text interpretation, can be traced back to two separate sources. One source was the ancient Greek rhetoricians' study of literature, which came to fruition in Hellenistic Alexandria. The other source has been the contemporary Midrash traditions of Biblical exegesis, that were contemporary with Hellenistic culture. Scholars in antiquity expected a text to be coherent, consistent in grammar, style and outlook, and they emended obscure or "decadent" readings to comply with their codified rules. By extending the perception of inherent logic of texts, Greeks were able to attribute works with uncertain origin. Although the Jewish Rabbis and the early Church Fathers deployed similar philological tools, their Biblical interpretation stressed allegorical readings, frequently at the expense of the texts' literal meaning. Their interpretations found within the visible sign a hidden sense in deeper agreement with the interpreters' preconceived theme. Scholars in other traditions approached scriptural texts with similar hermeneutics: the Vedas and the Qu'ran and other sacred writings. Prefiguration and allegory seem typical strategies for reconciling texts whose surface banality was seen as beneath the dignity of an enlightened or moral world view. Hermeneutics in the Middle Ages witnessed the proliferation of non-literal interpretations of the Bible. Christian commentators could read Old Testament narratives simultaneously as prefigurations of analogous New Testament episodes, as symbolic lessons about Church institutions and current teachings, and as personally applicable allegories of the Spirit. In each case, the meaning of the signs was constrained by imputing a particular intention to the Bible, such as teaching morality, but these interpretive bases were posited by the religious tradition rather than suggested by a preliminary reading of the text. Thus, when Martin Luther and other 16th century reformers argued that Christians could interpret Scripture for themselves, the Catholic Church responded that the authority of tradition was necessary. The rationalist Enlightment and movement toward a more objective historical perspective led hermeneutics, especially Protestant exegesis, to view Scriptural texts as secular Classical texts were viewed. Scripture thus was interpreted as responses to historical or social forces, so that apparent contradictions and difficult passages in the New Testament, for example, might be clarified by comparing their possible meanings with contemporaneous Christian practices.

Hermeneutics in Law

::Main article is at Legal hermeneutics. Some scholars argue that law and theology constitute particular forms of hermeneutics because of their need to interpret legal tradition / scriptural texts.

Hermeneutics in Sociology

In sociology, hermeneutics means the interpretation and understanding of social events by analysing their meanings to the human participants and their culture. It enjoyed prominence during the sixties end seventies, and differs from other interpretative schools of sociology in that it emphasises the importance of the content as well as the form of any given social behaviour. The central principle of hermeneutics is that it is only possible to grasp the meaning of an action or statement only by relating it to the whole discourse or world-view from which it originates: for instance, putting a piece of paper in a box might be considered a meaningless action unless put in the context of democratic elections, and the action of putting a ballot paper in a box. One can frequently find reference to the 'hermeneutic circle': that is, relating the whole to the part and the part to the whole. Hermeneutics in sociology was most heavily influenced by German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer (see 'Truth and Method', 1960).

Hermeneutics of Schleiermacher and Dilthey

Friedrich Schleiermacher explored the nature of understanding in relation not just to the problem of deciphering sacred texts, but to all human texts and modes of communication. The interpretation of a text must proceed by framing the content asserted in terms of the overall organization of the work. He distinguishes between grammatical interpretation and psychological interpretation. The former studies how a work is composed from general ideas, the latter considers the peculiar combinations that characterize the work as a whole. Wilhelm Dilthey broadened hermeneneutics even more by relating interpretation to all historical objectifications. Understanding moves from the outer manifestations of human action and productivity to explore their inner meaning. In his last important essay "The Understanding of Others and Their Manifestations of Life" (1910), Dilthey makes it clear that this move from outer to inner, from expression to what is expressed, is not based on empathy. Empathy involves a direct identification with the other. Interpretation involves an indirect or mediated understanding that can only be attained by placing human expressions in their historical context. Understanding is not a process of reconstructing the state of mind of the author, but one of articulating what is expressed in the work.

Hermeneutics since Dilthey

See Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur

Misuse

One prominent theme which arises in contemporary philosophical hermeneutics (i.e., the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer) is a serious calling into question of scientism. Scientism is the more or less unquestioned belief in the supremacy of the natural sciences when it comes to serving as models of knowledge. By calling scientism into question, hermeneutics is arguing for the legitimacy of (among other things) aesthetic, literary, spiritual, and philosophical knowledge, alongside (but not instead of) scientific knowledge. Not surpisingly, this critique of scientism has won hermeneutics some enemies within the natural sciences. One of the most famous of these is a physicist by the name of Alan Sokal. In an attempt to discredit hermeneutic, postmodern, and other forms of “non-scientific” knowledge, Sokal wrote a paper which he intended to be complete gibberish, to see if a postmodern cultural studies journal would "publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions". The paper, entitled "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" [http://www.physics.nyu.edu/~as2/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html] , was accepted and published in the journal Social Text. Critics of hermeneutics and postmodernism view this, the Sokal Affair, as evidence that the claims made by non-scientific fields of study are nonsensical, and therefore not worth studying. Critics of Sokal have pointed out that scientists who publish articles in scientific journals based on fabricated data are often expelled from the community of respected scientists. In addition, they claim that, despite Sokal's protestations to the contrary, his article did have a meaning, and one worth publishing and studying. Whatever the lessons of the Sokal Affair, it is clear that it, like many other things, it is capable of being interpreted in multiple ways, according to different intellectual (and political) interests. That, if nothing else, makes it a useful contemporary example of hermeneutics.

External links

- Stanford Encyclopedia's article on [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hermeneutics/ hermeneutics], by Bjorn Ramberg and Kristin Gjesdal.
- John C. Mallery, Roger Hurwitz and Gavan Duffy, "[http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/jcma/papers/1986-ai-memo-871/memo.html Hermeneutics: From Textual Explication to Computer Understanding?]", 1986
- [http://www.tversu.ru/Science/Hermeneutics/ Hermeneutics in Russia] (journal).
- Demeterio, F P A 2001. [http://www.geocities.com/philodept/diwatao/introduction_to_hermeneutics.htm Introduction to Hermeneutics]. Diwatao 1(1).
- [http://www.biblicalhermeneutics.net/philos.html Biblical Hermeneutics]. Links to websites, articles and books on philosophical hermeneutics.
- Gerhard Ebeling, "[http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/apr1964/v21-1-article3.htm The New Hermeneutics and the Early Luther]" from Theology Today, vol 21.1 (April 1964) Category:Branches of philosophy Category:Literary criticism Category:Social philosophy th:อรรถปริวรรตศาสตร์

Theory

Theory has a number of distinct meanings in different fields of knowledge, depending on the context and their methodologies.

Etymology

The word ‘theory’ derives from the Greek ‘theorein’, which means ‘to look at’. According to some sources, it was used frequently in terms of ‘looking at’ a theatre stage, which may explain why sometimes the word ‘theory’ is used as something provisional or not completely resembling real. The term ‘theoria’ (a noun) was already used by the scholars of ancient Greeks.

Science

In scientific usage, a theory does not mean an unsubstantiated guess or hunch, as it does in other contexts. Neither is a scientific theory a fact. Scientific theories are never proven to be true, but can be disproven. All scientific understanding takes the form of hypotheses, theories, or laws. Theories are typically ways of explaining why things happen, often, but not always after the fact that they happen is no longer in scientific dispute. In referring to the "theory of global warming" for example, the worldwide temperatures have been measured and seem to be increasing. The "theory of global warming" refers instead to scientific work that attempts to explain how and why this could be happening. In various sciences, a theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a certain natural or social phenomenon, thus either originating from or supported by experimental evidence (see scientific method). In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations made that is predictive, logical, testable, and has never been falsified. In physics, the term theory is generally used for a mathematical framework derived from a small set of basic principles, capable of producing experimental predictions for a given category of physical systems. A good example is electromagnetic theory, which encompasses the results that can be derived from Maxwell's equations. This theory is usually taken to be synonymous with classical electromagnetism. The term theoretical is used in science to describe a result that is predicted by theory but has not yet been observed. For example, until recently, black holes were considered theoretical. It is not uncommon in the history of physics for theory to produce predictions that are later confirmed by experiment; failed predictions, however, also occur, and sometimes work to falsify a theory. Conversely, at any time in the study of physics there can also be confirmed experimental results that are not yet explained by theory. For a given body of theory to be considered part of established scientific knowledge, it is usually necessary for it to characterize a critical experiment, namely an experimental result not predicted by any existing established theory. Unfortunately, usage of the term theory is muddled by scientists in such examples as string theory and various theories of everything, which are more correctly characterized at present as a bundle of competing hypotheses or a protoscience. A hypothesis, however, is still vastly more reliable than a conjecture, which is at best an untested guess consistent with selected data and often simply a belief based on non-repeatable experiments, anecdotes, popular opinion, "wisdom of the ancients," commercial motivation, or mysticism. Even worse, theory has almost the opposite meaning in common use than its definition in the sciences, and this change can be seen in modern dictionaries which now list theory as a "guess or hunch" in preference to the former scientific definition that used to be the dominant one. In everyday language, a theory is (Morrison, 2005, p. 39): :...a hunch that a detective comes up with in a murder mystery. It is one of several competing ideas, none of them proved. Fringe theories and conspiracy theories are crazy ideas that are out of the mainstream. New medicines or changes in the tax laws may be good in theory but don't work in practice. Among some scientists, theorists are thought to lack solid grounding in the facts... Even scientists tend to use the now common definition in everyday speech and writing, being more careful in published material. Yet a California Academy of Sciences exhibit on fossils included this line: "Scientists have a number of theories about why ammonites develop spines on their shells" (emphasis added; from Morrison, 2005).

Models

Humans construct theories in order to explain, predict and master phenomena (e.g. inanimate things, events, or the behaviour of animals). In many instances, this is seen to be the construction of models of reality. A theory makes generalizations about observations and consists of an interrelated, coherent set of ideas and models. According to Stephen Hawking in A Brief History of Time, "a theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations." He goes on to state, "any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis; you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory." This is borne out by what Isaac Asimov said in "Understanding Physics". He spoke of theories as "arguments" where one deduces a "scheme" or model. Arguments or theories always begin with Hawking's "arbitrary elements" which are here described as "assumptions". An assumption according to Asimov is "something accepted without proof, and it is incorrect to speak of an assumption as either true or false, since there is no way of proving it to be either. (If there were, it would no longer be an assumption.) It is better to consider assumptions as either useful or useless, depending on whether deductions made from them corresponded to reality. .. On the other hand, it seems obvious that assumptions are the weak points in any argument, as they have to be accepted on faith in a philosophy of science that prides itself on its rationalsim. Since we must start somewhere, we must have assumptions, but at least let us have as few assumptions as possible." (See Ockham's razor) An example of using assumptions to formulate a theory is when Albert Einstein put forth his Special Theory of Relativity. He took two phenomena that had been observed i.e. that the "addition of velocities" is valid (Galilean transformation) and that light did not appear to have an "addition of velocities" (Michelson-Morley experiment). He assumed that both of these were correct and formulated his theory based on these assumptions by simply altering the Galilean transformation to accommodate the lack of addition of velocities with regard to the speed of light. Therefore, the model created in his theory is based on the assumption that light maintains a constant velocity (or more precisely the speed of light is a constant). An example of how theories are models can be seen from theories on the planetary system. The Greeks formulated theories that were recorded by the astronomer Ptolemy. In Ptolemy's planetary model, the earth was at the center, the planets and the sun made circular orbits around the earth, and the stars were on a sphere outside of the orbits of the planet and the earth. Retrograde motion of the planets was explained by smaller circular orbits of individual planets. This could actually be built into a literal model and illustrated as a model. Mathematical calculations could be made for the prediction of where the planets would be to a great degree of accuracy, so that this model of the planetary system survived over 1500 years until the time of Copernicus. So one can see how a theory is a model of reality that explains certain scientific facts yet may not be a true picture of reality and another more accurate theory can later replace the previous model.

Types of theories

There are two uses of the word theory; a supposition which is not backed by observation is known as a conjecture, and if backed by observation it is a hypothesis. Most theory evolves from hypotheses, but the reverse is not true: many hypotheses turn out to be false and so do not evolve into theory. A theory is different from a theorem. The former is a model of physical events and cannot be proved from basic axioms. The latter is a statement of mathematical fact which logically follows from a set of axioms. A theory is also different from a physical law in that the former is a model of reality whereas the latter is a statement of what has been observed. Theories can become accepted if they are able to make correct predictions and avoid incorrect ones. Theories which are simpler, and more mathematically elegant, tend to be accepted over theories which are complex. Theories are more likely to be accepted if they connect a wide range of phenomena. The process of accepting theories, or of extending existing theory, is part of the scientific method.

Further explanation of a scientific theory

As noted above, in common usage a theory is defined as little more than a guess or a hypothesis. But in science and generally in academic usage, a theory is much more than that. A theory is an established paradigm that explains all or much of the data we have and offers valid predictions that can be tested. In science, a theory is not considered fact or infallible, because we can never assume we know all there is to know. Instead, theories remain standing until they are disproved, at which point they are thrown out altogether or modified to fit the additional data. Theories start out with empirical observations such as "sometimes water turns into ice." At some point, there is a need or curiosity to find out why this is, which leads to a theoretical/scientific phase. In scientific theories, this then leads to research, in combination with auxiliary and other hypotheses (see scientific method), which may then eventually lead to a theory. Some scientific theories (such as the theory of gravity) are so widely accepted that they are often seen as laws. This, however, rests on a mistaken assumption of what theories and laws are. Theories and laws are not rungs in a ladder of truth, but different sets of data. A law is a general statement based on observations. A canonical example of a disproved theory is the geocentric model of the universe proposed by Ptolemy. Evidence, in the form of Galileo's observation of the phases of Venus in 1610, was produced which was completely incompatible with the predictions set forth by the theory. This falsification, though, did not necessarily mean that only one alternative theory was necessarily the "correct" replacement — both the Copernican system and the Tychonian system predicted the phases of Venus.

Characteristics

In science, a body of descriptions of knowledge is usually only called a theory once it has a firm empirical basis, i.e., it # is consistent with pre-existing theory to the extent that the pre-existing theory was experimentally verified, though it will often show pre-existing theory to be wrong in an exact sense, # is supported by many strands of evidence rather than a single foundation, ensuring that it probably is a good approximation if not totally correct, # makes predictions that might someday be used to disprove the theory, # is tentative, correctable and dynamic, in allowing for changes to be made as new data is discovered, rather than asserting certainty, and # is the most parsimonious explanation, sparing in proposed entities or explanations, commonly referred to as passing Occam's Razor. This is true of such established theories as special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, plate tectonics, evolution, etc. Theories considered scientific meet at least most, but ideally all, of the above criteria. The fewer which are matched, the less scientific it is; those that meet only several or none at all, cannot be said to be scientific in any meaningful sense of the word. Karl Popper described the characteristics of a scientific theory as: 1. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory — if we look for confirmations. 2. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory — an event which would have refuted the theory. 3. Every "good" scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is. 4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice. 5. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks. 6. Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. (I now speak in such cases of "corroborating evidence.") 7. Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers — for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by reinterpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status. (I later described such a rescuing operation as a "conventionalist twist" or a "conventionalist stratagem.") One can sum up all this by saying that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability."--end quote

Mathematics

In mathematics, the word theory is used informally to refer to certain distinct bodies of knowledge about mathematics. This knowledge consists of axioms, definitions, theorems and computational techniques, all related in some way by tradition or practice. Examples include group theory, set theory, Lebesgue integration theory and field theory. The term "theory" also has a formal usage in mathematics, particularly in mathematical logic and model theory. A theory in this sense is a set of statements closed under certain rules of inference. A typical theory will present certain axioms and rules, corresponding to a useful or interesting abstraction, and then derive non-obvious theorems from those axioms. The resulting theorems often provide solutions to real-world problems which correspond to the original abstraction. Obvious examples include arithmetic (abstracting the concept of number), geometry (the concept of space), and probability (the concept of randomness). However, Gödel's incompleteness theorem shows that no consistent theory capable of defining the concept of natural numbers can derive all true statements about those numbers. This sets a fundamental limit to the applicability of any mathematical system.

Other fields

Theories exist not only in the so-called hard sciences; but in all fields of academic study, from philosophy to music to literature. In the humanities, theory is often used as an abbreviation for critical theory or literary theory, referring to continental philosophy's aesthetics or its attempts to understand the structure of society and to conceptualize alternatives. In philosophy, theoreticism refers to the overuse of theory.

List of famous theories

- Mathematics: Axiomatic set theory - Chaos theory - Graph theory - Number theory - Probability theory
- Statistics : Extreme value theory
- Physics: Theory of relativity - Special relativity - General relativity - Quantum field theory - Acoustic theory - Antenna theory
- Planetary science: Giant impact theory
- Biology: Evolution by natural selection - Cell theory
- Chemistry: Atomic theory - Kinetic theory of gases
- Geology: Continental drift - Plate tectonics
- Climatology: Global warming
- Humanities: Critical theory
- Sociology: Social Theory - Critical social theory - Value theory
- Philosophy: Speculative reason
- Literature: Literary theory
- Music: Music theory
- Computer science: Algorithmic information theory - Computation theory
- Games: Rational choice theory - Game theory
- Other: Obsolete scientific theories - Phlogiston theory

Reference

- Morrison, David. 2005. "Only a theory? Framing the evolution/creation issue". Skeptical Inquirer, 29 (6): 37-41.
- Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, London: Routledge and Keagan Paul, 1963, pp. 33-39; from Theodore Schick, ed., Readings in the Philosophy of Science, Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company, 2000, pp. 9-13. Theories Category:Scientific method Category:Mathematical terminology Category:Philosophy of science ja:理論

Interpretation

Interpretation, or interpreting, is an activity that consists of establishing, either simultaneously or consecutively, oral or gestural communications between two or more speakers who are not able to use the same set of symbols. By definition it is available as a method only in those cases where there is a need for interpretation - if an object (of art, of speech, etc.) is obvious to begin with, it cannot draw an interpretation. In any case the term interpretation is ambiguous, as it may refer to both an ongoing process and a result. Interpretation is a term used in informal education settings to describe any communication process designed to reveal meanings and relationships of cultural and natural heritage through first hand involvement with an object, artifact, landscape or site. This is primarily known as heritage interpretation. An interpretation can be the part of a presentation or portrayal of information altered in order to conform to a specific set of symbols. This may be a spoken, written, pictorial, mathematical, sculptural, cinematic, geometric or any other form of language. The purpose of interpretation would normally be to increase the possibility of understanding, but sometimes, as in propaganda or brainwashing, the purpose may be to evade understanding and increase confusion.

External links

- [http://www.babels.org Babels] - an international network of volunteer interpreters for the Social Forums. Category:Hermeneutics

Text

In language, text is a broad term for something that contains words to express something. In linguistics a text is a communicative act, fulfilling the seven constitutive and the three regulative principles of textuality. Both speech and written language, or language in other media can be seen as a text within linguistics. In literary theory a text is the object being studied, whether it be a novel, a poem, a film, an advertisement, or anything else with a linguistic component. The broad use of the term derives from the rise of semiotics in the 1960s and was solidified by the later cultural studies of the 1980s, which brought a corresponding broadening of what it was one could talk about when talking about literature; see also discourse. In mobile phone communication, a text (or text message) is a short digital message between devices, typically using SMS (short message service). In computing, text refers to character data, or to one of the segments of a program in memory. In academics, text is often used as a short form for textbook.

References

- Mowitt, John. Text: The Genealogy of an Antidisciplinary Object. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1992. Category:Discourse analysis ja:テキスト

Exegesis

This article discusses textual hermeneutics. For the British est offshoot, see Exegesis (group) ---- Exegesis (from the Greek ἐξηγεῖσθαι 'to lead out') involves an extensive and critical interpretation of a text, especially of a holy scripture, such as of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, the Talmud, the Midrash, the Qur'an, etc. An exegete is a practitioner of this science, and the adjectival form is exegetic. The word exegesis means "to draw the meaning out of" a given text. Exegesis may be contrasted with eisegesis, which means to read one's own interpretation into a given text. In general, exegesis presumes an attempt to view the text objectively, while eisegesis implies more subjectivity. Traditional exegesis requires the following: analysis of significant words in the text in regard to translation; examination of the general historical and cultural context, confirmation of the limits of the passage, and lastly, examination of the context within the text. [http://www.godward.org/archives/BS%20Notes/Basic%20rules%20for%20NT%20exegesis.htm] Although the most widely-known exegeses concern themselves with Christian, Jewish and Islamic books, analyses also exist of books of other religions.

In Christianity

According to some forms of Christianity, two different forms of exegesis exist: revealed and rational.
- Revealed exegesis considers that the Holy Ghost inspired the authors of the scriptural texts, and so the words of those texts convey a divine revelation
- Rational exegesis bases its operation on the idea that the authors have their own inspiration, so their works result from human intelligence

Roman Catholic traditions

Roman Catholic centres of biblical exegesis include:
- the School of Jerusalem founded in 1890 by the Dominican order's Marie-Joseph Lagrange. The school became embroiled in the modernist crisis, and had to curtail its New Testament activities until after Vatican II
- the Biblical Institute of Rome practises exegesis in a more canonical way

Protestant traditions

For more than a century, German universities such as Tübingen have had reputations as centres of exegesis; in the USA, the Divinity Schools in Chicago, Harvard and Yale became famous. Nowadays many secular universities such as EPHE (École pratique des hautes Études) in France concern themselves with exegesis. See higher criticism.
- NPOV: This paragraph is debatable and would require some evidence.
- Robert A. Traina's book Methodical Bible Study has become influential in the field of Protestant Christian exegesis. Many regarded it as the standard text describing the inductive approach to interpreting the English-language Bible. Translations of the Hebrew Bible, like the Septuagint and the Vulgate, based on Jewish exegesis, have also become the objects of exegetic studies.

In Judaism

Traditional Jewish forms of exegesis appear throughout rabbinic literature, which includes the Mishnah, the two Talmuds, and the midrash literature. Jewish exegetes have the title meforshim (commentators). The Midrash forms an exposition of biblical exegesis of the Pentateuch and its paragraphs related to Law, which also forms an object of analysis. The Halakhah comprises an exegesis of the written Law. The Aggadah is an exegesis of the parts of the Pentateuch not connected with Law. The Mikra comprises the exegetical study of the Pentateuch, the Prophets and the Hagiographa, the three divisions of the Old Testament or Jewish Bible. The Masorah is the exegesis that determined the rules and principles that govern the biblical texts. The redaction of the Talmud resulted from exegetic studies, and the Talmud itself has become the object of study and analysis. Jewish exegesis did not finish with the redaction of the Talmud, but continued during ancient times, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: it remains a subject of study today. Jews have centres for exegetic studies around the world, in each community: they consider exegesis an important tool for the understanding of the Scriptures.

In Islam

Main article: Tafsir.

External links

- [http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/index.jsp JewishEncyclopedia.com]
- [http://www.godward.org/archives/BS%20Notes/Basic%20rules%20for%20NT%20exegesis.htm Basic Rules for New Testament Exegesis by Brian Knowles]
- [http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_inerrancy_france.html Inerrancy and New Testament Exegesis by R. T. France] Category:Jewish texts Category:Christian texts

Gloss

: For other uses of the term Gloss, see Gloss (disambiguation). A gloss (from koine Greek γλώσσα glossa, meaning 'tongue') is a note made in the margins or between the lines of a book, in which the meaning of the text in its original language is explained, sometimes in another language. As such, glosses can vary in thoroughness and complexity, from simple marginal notations of words one reader found difficult or obscure, to entire interlinear translations of the original text and cross references to similar passages. A collection of glosses is a glossary. A collection of medieval legal glosses, made by so called glossators, commenting legal texts, is called an apparatus. The compilation of glosses into glossaries was the beginning of lexicography, and the glossaries so compiled were in fact the first dictionaries. Glosses are of some importance in philology, especially if one language—usually, the language of the author of the gloss—has left few texts of its own. The Reichenau glosses, for example, gloss the Latin Vulgate Bible in an early form of one of the Romance languages, and as such give insight into late Vulgar Latin at a time when that language was not often written down. A series of glosses in the Old English language to Latin Bibles give us a running translation of Biblical texts in that language; see Old English Bible translations. Glosses of Christian religious texts are also important for our knowledge of Old Irish. Glosses frequently shed valuable light on the vocabulary of otherwise little attested languages; they are less reliable for syntax, because many times the glosses follow the word order of the original text, and translate its idioms literally. Glosses are extremely important in theology. They are a primary format in medieval Biblical theology, and were studied and memorized almost upon their own merit, without regards to the author. Many times a Biblical passage was heavily associated with a particular gloss, whose truth was taken for granted by many theologians. This phenomenon occurred also in medieval law: the glosses on Roman law and canon law created for many subjects standard starting points of reference, a socalled sedes materiae (literally: seat of the matter). In modern linguistics, interlinear glosses are often used between a text and its translation. It has become standard to gloss each morpheme separately when these are relevant; a semi-standardized set of conventions and abbreviations can be found at the [http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/files/morpheme.html Leipzig Glossing Rules]. Category:Documents Category:Lexicography Category:Linguistics

Writing

Writing may refer to two activities: the inscribing of characters on a medium, with the intention of forming words and other constructs that represent language or record information, and the creation of material to be conveyed through written language. (There are some exceptions; for example, the use of a typewriter to record language is generally called typing, rather than writing.) Writing refers to both activities equally, and both activities may often occur simultaneously.

Methods for recording information

Logographies

A logogram is a written character which represents a word or morpheme. The vast array of logograms needed to write a language, and the many years required to learn them, are the major disadvantage of the logographic systems over alphabetic systems. However, the efficiency of reading logographic writing once it is learned is a major advantage. No writing system is wholly logographic. All have phonetic components as well as logograms ("logosyllabic" components in the case of Chinese, cuneiform, and Mayan, where a glyph may stand for a morpheme, a syllable, or both; "logoconsonantal" in the case of hieroglyphs), and many have an ideographic component (Chinese "radicals", hieroglyphic "determiners".) For example, in Mayan, the glyph for "fin", pronounced ka, was used to represent the syllable ka whenever clarification was needed. However, such phonetic elements complement the logographic elements, rather than vice versa. The main logographic system in use today is Chinese, used with some modification for various languages of China, Japanese, and, to a lesser extent, Korean in South Korea. Another is the classical Yi script.
Syllabaries
A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate) syllables. A glyph in a syllabary typically represents a consonant followed by a vowel, or just a vowel alone, though in some scripts more complex syllables (such as consonant-vowel-consonant, or consonant-consonant-vowel) may have dedicated glyphs. Phonetically related syllables are not so indicated in the script. For instance, the syllable ka may look nothing like the syllable ki, nor will syllables with the same vowels be similar. Syllabaries are best suited to languages with relatively simple syllable structure, such as Japanese. Other languages that use syllabic writing include the Linear B script for Mycenaean Greek; Cherokee; Ndjuka, an English-based creole of Surinam; and the Vai script of Liberia. Most logographic systems have a strong syllabic component.
Alphabets
An alphabet is a small set of symbols, each of which roughly represents or historically represented a phoneme of the language. In a perfectly phonological alphabet, the phonemes and letters would correspond perfectly in two directions: a writer could predict the spelling of a word given its pronunciation, and a speaker could predict the pronunciation of a word given its spelling. As languages often evolve independently of their writing systems, and writing systems have been borrowed for languages they were not designed for, the degree to which letters of an alphabet correspond to phonemes of a language varies greatly from one language to another and even within a single language. In most of the alphabets of the Mid-East, only consonants are indicated, or vowels may be indicated with optional diacritics. Such systems are called abjads. In other, vowels are indicated through diacritics or modification of the shape of the consonant. These are called abugidas. Some abugidas, such as Ethiopic and Cree, are learned by children as syllabaries, and are often called "syllabics". However, unlike true syllabaries, there is not an independent glyph for each syllable. Sometimes the term "alphabet" is restricted to systems with separate letters for consonants and vowels, such as the Latin alphabet.
Featural scripts
A featural script notates the building blocks of the phonemes that make up a language. For instance, all sounds pronounced with the lips ("labial" sounds) may have some element in common. In the Latin alphabet, this is accidentally the case with the letters b and p; however, labial m is completely dissimilar, and the similar-looking q is not labial. In Korean Hangul, however, all four labial consonants are based on the same basic element. However, in practice, Korean is learned by children as an ordinary alphabet, and the featural elements tend to pass unnoticed. Another featural script is SignWriting, the most popular writing system for many sign languages, where the shapes and movements of the hands and face are represented iconically. Featural scripts are also common in fictional or invented systems, such as Tolkien's Tengwar.
Historical significance of writing systems
Historians draw a distinction between prehistory and history, with history defined by the advent of writing. The cave paintings and petroglyphs of prehistoric peoples can be considered precursors of writing, but are not considered writing because they did not represent language directly. Writing systems always develop and change based on the needs of the people who use them. Sometimes the shape, orientation and meaning of individual signs also changes over time. By tracing the development of a script it is possible to learn about the needs of the people who used the script as well as how it changed over time.
Tools
(see methods of representing text)
Writing in Historical Cultures

Mesopotamia
The original Mesopotamian writing system was initially derived from a system of clay tokens used to represent commodities. By the end of the 4th millennium BC, this had evolved into a method of keeping accounts, using imprints of a wedge-shaped stylus (hence the term cuneiform), atfirst only for numbers, and finally a general purpose writing system, initially used to represent Sumerian. This writing system was originally a logographic writing system, but had begun to evolve phonetic elements by the 29th century BC. By the 26th century BC, this script had been adapted to another Mesopotamian language, Akkadian, and from there to others such as Hurrian, and Hittite. Scripts similar in appearance to this writing system include those for Ugaritic and Old Persian.
Egypt
The earliest known hieroglyphic inscriptions are the Narmer Palette, dating to c.3200 BC, and several recent discoveries that may be slightly older, though the glyphs were based on a much older artistic tradition. The hieroglyphic script was logographic with phonetic adjuncts that included an effective alphabet. Writing was very important in maintaining the Egyptian empire, and literacy was concentrated among an educated elite of scribes. Only people from certain backgrounds were allowed to train to become scribes, in the service of temple, pharaonic, and military authorities. The hieroglyph system was always difficult to learn, but in later centuries was purposefully made even more so, as this preserved the scribes' status. The world's oldest known alphabet was developed in central Egypt around 2000 BC from a hieroglyphic prototype, and over the next 500 years spread to Palestine and eventually to the rest of the world.
Phoenician writing system and descendents
The Phoenician writing system was adapted from the Proto-Caananite script in around the 11th century BC, which in turn borrowed ideas from Egyptian hieroglyphics. This writing system was an abjad - that is, a writing system in which only consonants are represented. This script was adapted by the Greeks, who adapted certain consonantal signs to represent their vowels. This alphabet in turn was adapted by various peoples to write their own language, resulting in the Etruscan alphabet, and its own descendents, such as the Latin alphabet and Runes. Other descendents from the Greek alphabet include the Cyrillic alphabet, used to write Russian, among others. The Phoenician system was also adapted into the Aramaic script, from which the Hebrew script and also that of Arabic are descended.
China
In China historians have found out a lot about the early Chinese dynasties from the written documents left behind. From the Shang Dynasty most of this writing has survived on bones or bronze implements. Markings on turtle shells have been carbon-dated to around 1,500 BC. Historians have found that the type of media used had an effect on what the writing was documenting and how it was used.
Indus Valley
The Indus Valley script is one of the most fascinating and mysterious aspects of ancient Indian culture as it has not yet been deciphered. Although we have many example of the Indus script, without true understanding of how the script works and what the inscriptions say, it is impossible to understand the importance of writing in the pre-Indo-European Harappan Civilization.
Elsewhere
Many other systems have been developed independently, e.g. the complex Mayan writing; Etruscan is still not deciphered despite a fairly large corpus of material (mainly Latin and Greek).
Creation of text or information

Creativity
In order to write a creative essay or short story, there are several tools that you can employ: dialogue (conversation and your thoughts) sensory imagery (the five senses and your feelings) dialect concrete details (as opposed to abstract ideas) literary devices (such as similes, metaphors, personification, hyperbole, and understatement)
Author

Critiques
Writers will often search out others to evaluate or critique their work. This can give the writer a better product in the end. To this end, many writers join writing circles, often found at local libraries or bookstores. With the evolution of the internet, writing circles have started to go [http://www.dragonfly-publishing.com/members/index.php online].
See also

- author
- boustrophedon text
- calligraphy
- communication
- creative writing
- decipherment
- interactive fiction
- linguistics
- literacy
- manuscript
- orthography
- pencil
- printing
- publishing
- speech
- graphonomics
- word processing
- writer
- writing slate
- writing systems
- List of writers' conferences
Further reading

- A History of Writing: From Hieroglyph to Multimedia, edited by Anne-Marie Christin, [http://www.flammarion.com/groupe/ Flammarion] (in French, hardcover: 408 pages, 2002, ISBN 2080108875)
- [http://www.lichtensteiger.de/methoden.html Das "Anrennen gegen die Grenzen der Sprache" Diskussion mit Roland Barthes, André Breton, Gilles Deleuze & Raymond Federman] by Ralph Lichtensteiger
- [http://www.authorssociety.org/ By writers for writers Authors Society.org]
- [http://www.ancientscripts.com/ws.html Origins of writing on AncientScripts.com]
- [http://www.delmar.edu/engl/instruct/stomlin/1301int/lessons/language/history.htm History of Writing]
- [http://www.writing.com/ Writing.Com: Online Writing]: A site for writers to exchange feedback ;ERIC Digests
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/2001-3/writing.htm Writing Instruction: Current Practices in the Classroom]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/2001-3/development.htm Writing Development]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/2001-3/views.htm Writing Instruction: Changing Views over the Years]
- ja:筆記 simple:Writing

Document

For the R.E.M. album, see: Document (album) A document is a writing that contains information. Traditionally, the medium of a document was paper and the information was applied to it as ink either by hand (to make a hand-written document) or by a mechanical process (such as a printing press or a laser printer). Through time, documents have also been written with ink on papyrus (starting in ancient Egypt) or parchment, scratched as runes on stone using a sharp apparatus, stamped or cut into clay and baked to make clay tablets (i.e. in Sumerian and Mesopotamian civilisations). Paper, papyrus or parchment might be rolled up as scrolls or cut into sheets and bound into books. Stacks of clay tablets might also be thought of as books. Small documents might also be stapled. Today, electronic means for storing and displaying documents are also popular; a variety of computers and displays can be used, for example:
- a desktop computer with a monitor
- a laptop
- a Personal Digital Assistant
- refreshable electronic paper Documents in all forms are frequently found to be material evidence in criminal and civil proceedings. The forensic analysis of such a document falls under the scope of questioned document examination. Author Michael Buckland has discussed the document in terms of Librarianship in depth, here [http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~buckland/whatdoc.html]. ---- For an in-depth, recent and multiapproach study, see the collective text Document: Form, Sign and Medium, As Reformulated for Electronic Documents, written under pseudo Roger T. Pédauque ([http://archivesic.ccsd.cnrs.fr/sic_00000511.html French version] or [http://archivesic.ccsd.cnrs.fr/documents/archives0/00/00/05/94/sic_00000594_02/sic_00000594.html English version]). ----

Performance

A performance comprises an event in which generally one group of people (the performer or performers) behave in a particular way for another group of people (the viewer or viewers, or audience). Sometimes the dividing line between performer and audience may become blurred, as in the example of "participatory theatre" where audience members might get involved in the theatrical event. Examples of performance genres include:
- musical genres:
- concert
- opera
- operetta
- musical
- theatrical genres:
- play
- opera
- operetta
- ballet and other types of dance
- musical
- other genres:
- circus acts
- performance art performance art Performances might take place daily, or at some other regular interval. Similar activities can take place in a religious or occult setting whereby the performance becomes a ritual. In a scientific setting, the carrying out of predetermined actions in a controlled environment becomes the performance (execution) of an experiment. A music performance (a concert or a recital) may take place indoors in a concert hall or outdoors in a field, and may require the audience to remain very quiet, or encourage them to sing and dance along with the music. In a street concert by one or more street musicians (or, in British English, buskers), often the public consists of people who happen to pass by. Such performers do not require payment, but do welcome it. See extended technique. Similarly other street artists may carry out street performances, e.g. performing acrobatics. The same applies in other public places. The word performance may also describe the way in which an actor(ess), or artiste in such a production performs. Or in a solo capacity; such as a mime artist, comedian, conjurer, etc. conjurer] Performance, as in What a performance! is also used sarcastically in reference to an individual's overwrought or excessive emotional outbursts. ---- In engineering, performance relates to measuring some output or behaviour. Techniques for [http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Transwiki:Monitoring monitoring] performance include:
- sampling
- logging
- taking snapshots
- testing Computing performance provides a case in point for engineering performance - see:
- performance testing
- performance tuning Performance, in a business context, a sub-set of engineering performance, refers to the activity of a unit (be it individual, team, department, or division) of an organization intended to accomplish some desired result.

Art

Art (or the creative arts) commonly refers to the act and process of making material works (or artworks) which, from concept to creation, hold a fidelity to the creative impulse —ie. 'art' is work distinct from creative work that is driven by necessity (ie. vocation), by biological drive (i.e. procreation), or (in art-purist contexts) by any undisciplined pursuit of recreation. The creative arts essentially denotes a collection of disciplines whose principal purpose (or sole purpose) is in the output of material whose creation is compelled by a personal drive —untainted by materialist, gratuitous, or wanton concerns—and echoing or reflecting a message, mood, and symbology for the viewer to interpret. As such, the term 'art' may be taken to include forms as diverse as prose writing, poetry, dance, acting, music (both performance and creation), sculpture and painting. In common parlance, 'art' is most commonly used to refer to the visual arts —in particular painting, drawing, and sculpting.
Etymology
The word art derives from the Latin ars, which, loosely translated, means "arrangement" or "to arrange". This is the only universal definition of art, that whatever is described as such has undergone a deliberate process of arrangement by an agent. A few examples where this meaning proves very broad include artifact, artificial, artifice, artillery, medical arts, and military arts. However, there are many other colloquial uses of the word, all with some relation to its etymological roots.
Currently recognized forms of art
There are a variety of arts, including visual arts and design, decorative arts, plastic arts, and the performing arts. Artistic expression takes many forms, painting, drawing, sculpture, music, literature, performance art, printmaking, film, and possibly architecture are the most widely recognised forms. However, since the advent of modernism and the technological revolution, new forms have emerged. These include, photography, comics, video art, installation art, conceptual art, land art, computer art and, most recently, video games. Within each form, a wide range of genres may exist. For instance, a painting may be a still life, a portrait, a landscape and may deal with historical or domestic subjects. In addition, a work of art may be representational or abstract. Most forms of art fit under two main categories: fine arts and applied arts, though there is no clear dividing line. In the visual arts, fine arts refers to painting, sculpture, and architecture, arts which have no practical function and are valued in terms of the visual pleasure they provide or their success in communicating ideas or feelings. The one exception is architecture, which involves designing structures that strive to be both attractive and functional. The term applied arts is most often used to describe the design or decoration of functional objects to make them visually pleasing. Artists who create applied arts or crafts are usually referred to as designers, artisans, or craftspeople.
Defining art
There is often confusion about the meaning of the term art because multiple meanings of the word are used interchangeably. Individuals use the word art to identify painting, as well as singing.
General characteristics of art
There follow some generally accepted characteristics of art; after this there is some lengthier discussion of several of those facets perceived as universal or central to art:
- encourages an intuitive understanding rather than a rational understanding, as, for example, with an article in a scientific journal;
- was created with the intention of evoking such an understanding, or an attempt at such an understanding, in the audience;
- elusive, in that the work may communicate on many different levels of appreciation; one may take the example of Gericault's Raft of the Medusa, in the case of which special knowledge concerning the shipwreck the painting depicts is not a prerequisite to appreciating it, but allows the appreciation of Gericault's political intentions in the piece;
- in relation to the above, the piece may offer itself to many different interpretations, or, though it superficially depicts a mundane event or object, invites reflection upon elevated themes;
- demonstrates a high level of ability or fluency within a medium; this characteristic might be considered a point of contention, since many modern artists (most notably, conceptual artists) do not themselves create the works they conceive, or do not even create the work in a conventional, demonstrative sense (one might think of Tracey Emin's controversial My Bed);
- the conferral of a particularly appealing or aesthetically satisfying structure or form upon an original set of unrelated, passive constituents.
Skill
Art can connote a sense of trained ability or mastery of a medium. It can also simply refer to the developed and efficient use of a language so as to convey meaning, with immediacy and or depth. A common view is that the epithet 'art' (particular in its elevated sense) requires a certain level of creative expertise by the artist, whether this be a demonstration of technical ability (such as one might find in many works of the Rennaisance or in the plays of Shakespeare) or an originality in stylistic approach, or a combination of these two. For example, a common contemporary criticism of some modern painting occurs along the lines of objecting to the apparent lack of skill or ability required in the production of the artistic object. One might take Emin's My Bed or Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, as examples of pieces wherein the artist exercised little to no traditionally recognised sets of skills. It should be noted that this is for varying reasons: in the first case, Emin simply slept (and engaged in other activities) in her bed before simply placing the result in a gallery; in the second, Hirst came up with the conceptual design for the artwork, and left its eventual creation to employued artisans. These approaches are exemplary of a particular kind of contemporary art, that being conceptual art. The exclusionary view that art requires a certain skill level to produce is often described as a lay critique and derives from the fact that in Western culture at least, art has traditionally been pushed in the direction of representationalism, the literal presentation of reality through literal images. On the other hand, criticism has often been brought to bear on modern artists for having no creative involvement whatsoever in their creations: one might take Hirst's work again as emblematic of this approach.
Judgments of value
Somewhat in relation to the above, the word art is also used to apply judgments of value, as in such expressions as "that meal was a work of art" (the cook is an artist), or "the art of deception," (the highly attained level of skill of the deceiver is praised). It is this use of the word as a measure of high quality and high value that gives the term its flavor of subjectivity. Making judgments of value requires a basis for criticism: at the simplest level, a way to determine whether the impact of the object on the senses meets the criteria to be considered art, whether it is perceived to be attractive or repellent. Though perception is always colored by experience, and thus a reaction to art on these grounds is necessarily subjective, it is commonly taken that that which is not aesthetically satisfying in some fashion cannot be art. However, "good" art is not always, or even regularly, aesthetically appealing to a majority of viewers. In other words, an artist's prime motivation need not be the pursuit of the aesthetic, and art often depicts terrible images made for social, moral, or thought-provoking reasons; for example, Francisco Goya's painting depicting the Spanish shootings of 3rd of May 1808 is a graphic depiction of a firing squad executing several pleading civilians, yet at the same time, the horrific imagery demonstrates Goya's keen artistic ability in composition and execution, and his fitting social and polical outrage. Thus the debate continues as to what mode of aesthetic satisfaction, if any, is required to define'art'. It should also be noted that the assumption of new values or the rebellion against accepted notions of what is aesthetically superior need not occur concurrently with a complete abandonment of the pursuit of that which is aesthetically appealing. Indeed, the reverse is often true, that in the revision of what is popularly conceived of as being aesthetically appealing allows for a re-invigoration of aesthetic sensibility, and a new appreciation for the standards of art itself. Countless schools have proposed their own ways to define quality, yet they all seem to agree in at least one point: once their aesthetic choices are accepted, the value of the work of art is determined by its capacity to transcend the limits of its chosen medium in order to strike some universal chord, or by the rarity of the skill of the artist, or in its accurate reflection in what is termed the zeitgeist.
Communicating emotion
Art appeals to human emotions. It can arouse aesthetic or moral feelings, and can be understood as a way of communicating these feelings. Artists have to express themselves so that their public is aroused, but they do not have to do so consciously. Art explores what is commonly termed as the human condition; that is, essentially, what it is to be human, and art of a superior kind often brings about some new insight concerning humanity (not always positive) or demonstrates a level of skill so fine as to push forward the boundaries of collective human ability. This is not to say that technical skill is a necessary prerequisite of art, but rather that a high degree of skill goes some way in conferring a judgement of high standard upon an artist or artwork.
Creative impulse
From one perspective, art is a generic term for any product of the creative impulse, out of which sprang all other human pursuits — such as science via alchemy, and religion via shamanism. The term 'art' offers no true definition besides those based within the cultural, historical and geographical context in which it is applied. Though to the artists themselves, the impulse to create is undeniable; an artist can no more deny that impulse than he/she could ignore breathing (one might compare Kandinsky's inner necessity to this popular view). It is because of the overbearing need to create, in the face of financial ruin, public obscurity or political opposition, that artists are typically conceived of as unstable, even crazy, or misguided.
Differences in Defining Art
Definitions of art and aesthetic arguments usually proceed from one of several possible perspectives. Art may be defined by the intention of the artist as in the writings of Dewey. Art may be seen as being in the response/emotion of the viewer as Tolstoy claims. In Danto's view, it can be defined as a character of the item itself or as a function of an object's context.
Plato
For Plato, art is a pursuit whose adherents are not to be trusted; given that their productions imitate the sensory world (itself an imitation of the divine world of forms) art necessarily is an imitation of an imitation, and thus is hopelessly far from the source of the truth. Plato, it may be noted, barred artists from access to his ideal city, in his Republic.
Aristotle
Aristotle saw art in less of a bad light; though he shared Plato's poor opinion of it, he nevertheless thought that art might serve a purpose in catharthis. That is, by witnessing the sufferings and celebrations of actors onstage onlookers might viacriously experience these same feelings themselves, and thereby purge such negative feelings.
Institutional definition
Many people's opinions of what art is would fall inside a relatively small range of accepted standards, or "institutional definition of art" (George Dickie 1974). This derives from education and other social factors. Most people did not consider the depiction of a Brillo Box or a store-bought urinal to be art until Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp (respectively) placed them in the context of art (i.e., the art gallery), which then provided the association of these objects with the values that define art. Most viewers of these objects initially rejected such associations, because the objects did not, themselves, meet the accepted criteria. The objects needed to be absorbed into the general consensus of what art is before they achieved the near-universal acceptance as art in the contemporary era. Once accepted and viewed with a fresh eye, the smooth, white surfaces of Duchamp's urinal are strikingly similar to classical marble sculptural forms, whether the artist intended it or not. This type of recontextualizing provides the same spark of connection expected from any traditionally created art. It should be noted, however, that Duchamps act might be as readily interpreted as a demonstration of the (not always beneficial) power of artistic institutions, rather than the universal art potentially inherent in all objects. It should also be noted that the placement of an object in an artistic context is not taken as a universal standard of art, but is a common characteristic of conceptual art, prevalent since the 1960s; notably, the Stuckist art movement criticises this tendency of recent art.
Related Issues

Social criticism
Art is often seen as belonging to one social class and excluding others. In this context, art is seen as a high-status activity associated with wealth, the ability to purchase art, and the leisure required to pursue or enjoy it. The palaces of Versailles or the Hermitage in St. Petersburg with their vast collections of art, amassed by the fabulously wealthy royalty of Europe exemplify this view. Collecting such art is the preserve of the rich. However, there is a (not always deliberate) tradition of artists bringing their vision down to earth, and inhabiting a mundane, even poverty stricken, world. The life of Vincent van Gogh is a classic example of this starving artist tradition, as is that of William Blake. It hardly needs to be mentioned, however, that few find such a state of existence desirable, and (bearing in mind that "poverty" in this sense also connotes a certain lack of public approval or appetite) that one of the near-defining characteristics of artists is a desire to be seen universally, if not always to be understood. Before the 13th century in Europe, artisans were considered to belong to a lower caste, since they were essentially manual labourers. After Europe was re-exposed to classical culture during the Renaissance, particularly in the nation states of what is now Italy (Florence, Siena), artists gained an association with high status. However, arrangements of "fine" and expensive goods have always been used by institutions of power as marks of their own status. This is seen in the 20th and 21st century by the commissioning or purchasing of art by big businesses and corporations as decoration for their offices.
The Issue of Utility
There are many who ascribe to certain arts the quality of being non-utilitarian. This fits within the "art as good" system of definitions and suffers from a class prejudice against labor and utility. Opponents of this view argue that all human activity has some utilitarian function, and these objects claimed to be "non-utilitarian" actually have the rather mundane and banal utility of attempting to mystify and codify unworkable justifications for arbitrary social hierarchy. It might also be argued that non-utilitarian is, in this context, a mis-usage; that art is not in and of itself, useless, but rather that it particularly use does not manifest itself in any traditionally demonstrable way (though advances in neuroscience may arguably enable the isolation of those assocaited cortexes of the brain concerned with the creation or appreciation of art). Art is also used by clinical psychologists as art therapy. The end product is not the principal goal in this case; rather a process of healing, through creative acts, is sought. The resultant piece of artwork may also offer insight into the troubles experienced by the subject and may suggest suitable approaches to be used in more conventional forms of psychiatric therapy. The "use" of art from the artist’s standpoint is as a means of expression. When art is conceived as a device, it serves several context and perspective specific functions. From the artist’s perspective it allows one to symbolize complex ideas and emotions in an arbitrary language subject only to the interpretation of the self and peers. In a social context, it can serve to soothe the soul and promote popular morale. In a more negative aspect of this facet, art is often utlisied as a form of propaganda, and thus can be used to subtly influence popular conceptions or mood (in some cases, artworks are appropriated to be used in this manner, without the creator's initial intention). From a more anthropological perspective, art is a way of passing ideas and concepts on to later generations in a (somewhat) universal language. The interpretation of this language is very dependent upon the observer’s perspective and context, and it might be argued that the very subjectivity of art demonstrates its importance in providing an arena in which rival ideas might be exchanged and discussed, or to provide a social context in which disparate groups of people might congregate and mingle.
History of Art
The term 'art history' typically refers to a historical examination of the various trends of the visual arts through certain periods of human history. It may also be taken to encompass a study of the theories of art, which may or not not include an examination of their historical context. See main article: Art history
Symbols
Much of the development of individual artist deals with finding principles for how to express certain ideas through various kinds of symbolism. For example, Vasily Kandinsky developed his use of color in painting through a system of stimulus response, where over time he gained an understanding of the emotions that can be evoked by color and combinations of color. Contemporary artist Andy Goldsworthy, on the other hand, chose to use the medium of found natural objects and materials to arrange temporary sculptures. See main article: Symbols
See also

- Aesthetics, the philosophy of beauty
- Art criticism
- Art groups
- Art history
- Art sale
- Art school
- Art styles, periods and movements
- Art techniques and materials
- Art theft
- Artist
- Definition of music
- Applied art
- Fine art
- Modern art
- Psychedelic art
- Philosophy of art
- What Is Art?
Further reading

- Peter Magyar, Thought palaces. Amsterdam: Architectura & Natura Press, 1999
- Aristotle, Metaphysics
- Plato, Theory of forms
- Carl Jung, Man and his Symbols
- Gyorgy Doczi, The Power of Limits.
- Benedetto Croce, Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic, 1902
External links
Resources
- [http://www.artlex.com ArtLex.com] - Dictionary of art terms
- [http://www.artcyclopedia.com/ Artcyclopedia.com] - Reference site
- [http://www.art-atlas.net Art-Atlas.Net] The International Art Directory
- [http://www.nelepets.com/art The Art Millennium] - Comprehensive Art Encyclopedia
- [http://www.all-art.org History of Art] - The Complete History of Art
- [http://www.theartsdirectory.info Art Directory] Directory of art links Essays
- [http://www.centrebouddhisteparis.org/En_Anglais/FWBO/The_Arts/the_arts.html Art and the spiritual life]
- [http://samvak.tripod.com/artist.html Art as a private language]
- [http://www.cycleback.com/fashiondisasters.html The Impossibleness of Art] by noted art historian David Cycleback
- [http://www.primitivism.com/case-art.htm The Case Against Art] Websites for Artists
- http://www.wetcanvas.com
- http://www.deviantart.com
- http://www.portraitartist.com
- http://www.passionforpaint.com
- http://www.multimediakunst.net
- http://www.artabus.com Category:Arts
- ms:Seni ja:芸術 simple:Art

Etymology

Etymology is the study of the origins of words. Some words have been derived from other languages, possibly in a changed form (the source words are called etymons). Through old texts and comparisons with other languages, etymologists try to reconstruct the history of words — when they entered a language, from what source, and how their form and meaning changed. Etymologists also try to reconstruct information about languages that are too old for any direct information (such as writing) to be known. By comparing words in related languages, one can learn about their shared parent language. In this way, word roots have been found which can be traced all the way back to the origin of the Indo-European language family. The word etymology itself comes from the Greek ἔτυμον (étymon, true meaning, from 'etymos' true) and λόγος (lógos, word).

Basic ideas in etymology

- Words may start with a longer, possibly more complicated form which becomes simpler or shorter. For example, lord comes from hlāf weard, meaning "bread guard".
- In contrast to the point above, short words may be lengthened by the fusion of affixes to a word. For example, elucidation (enlightening) comes from e+lucid+ation.
- Longer words may also be formed by compounding. An example is bluebird.
- Slang words may enter the common language. Sometimes, common words become slang.
- Vulgarisms may become euphemisms for other words, and sometimes euphemisms become vulgarisms.
- Taboo words may be avoided and lost, often replaced by euphemisms or a circumlocution.
- Words may meld together to become portmanteau words, such as smog, a blend of smoke and fog.
- Words may start off as acronyms, like snafu.
- The boundaries between words may move. For example, a napron became an apron.
- Words come from specialist trades (font), different cultures or subcultures, and even works of literature (chortle from Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass). Words may be named after a particular place (toponyms, e.g. china) or after a particular person (eponym, e.g. Achilles' tendon).

English etymology

:Main article: History of the English language. As a language, English is derived from the Anglo-Saxon, a dialect of West Germanic (as was Old Low German), although its current vocabulary includes words from many languages. The Anglo-Saxon roots can be seen in the similarity of numbers in English and German, particularly seven/sieben, eight/ach