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Alex asked:
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I read somewhere that, "Art upsets, science reassures." — Can you explain that please? Can't it be
the other way round?
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============
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Not knowing who said this or why, I can only guess at what it means. It could be that art presents us
with the unknown in the sense that our responses, our aesthetic ideas and our concept of art itself are
not reducible to facts. Even if we take art as consoling, the how and why is not reducible to solid facts
either. Science reassures since it enables to confirm and increase our knowledge and extend our
powers over the world.
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However, this seems absurdly theoretical. Art doesn't in fact upset us, but does console us and
provides us with an enormous of pleasure. So you can change this around since science can be held
to upset us because it in fact leads us to less natural forms of behaviour or some such thing. If you
want to change this around, you can stick to facts. It is less plausible to say that science upsets us
because it arouses in us fears that things may not be as they seem, because for most persons this is
not the case. No normal person has such fears! This sort of thing is only considered in the philosophy
class room when we consider the difference between our sense perceptions and what the physicists
claim there is. However, if statement "art upsets, science reassures" is understood as a philosophical
claim, this abstract, theoretical fear might lead us to deny its truth.
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Rachel Browne
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