Baudry Rose 2008

Rahsaan, it's sort of odd to read this discussion, because it seems like you have in the past often asked about wines that you have not had before (or seem to have in your cellar). Sometimes I have had the impression that you are asking about wines that you have no intention of ever opening, unless a chance bottle comes your way.

Asking those questions, as you have, wouldn't really seem to benefit you directly in any way except academically.
 
What's wrong with academia! :)

As I think many people here would agree, there is a lot of benefit in knowledge.

I had not really noticed any pattern in the wines I ask about other than wines that interest me. At the moment I have a (very) small cellar so I'm not asking for the sole reason of deciding whether to open a bottle that I already own.

I think like most of us here, I read notes, threads, and ask questions because I'm interested in learning more about wine. And there is a lot of wine out there to explore/purchase/drink/learn about.
 
originally posted by Levi Dalton:
Rahsaan, it's sort of odd to read this discussion, because it seems like you have in the past often asked about wines that you have not had before (or seem to have in your cellar). Sometimes I have had the impression that you are asking about wines that you have no intention of ever opening, unless a chance bottle comes your way.

Asking those questions, as you have, wouldn't really seem to benefit you directly in any way except academically.
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You mean in the long run we're all dead?
 
originally posted by Thor:
But how would he know?
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I'm not sure what nit you are picking with this one.

But you are correct, one cannot know before reading so if a note/thread/article/book/etc is not providing me any benefits, I stop reading.

However, at this point, on a board like this, I think we all know whose notes will provide us with benefits by looking at the author!
 
I'm not picking a nit. I'm responding to "I don't read things unless I get some sort of benefit from them," which I earlier pointed out was a Rahsaan-centric view of tasting notes. You objected, but then doubled down by applying the notion to words in general. I don't find the response particularly unusual. I do find the specificity of its application vis--vis tasting notes ("basic information about how a wine is showing relative to the aging curve, still shut down, not yet shut down, etc.") a little restrictive for my tastes.
 
originally posted by Thor:
I'm not picking a nit. I'm responding to "I don't read things unless I get some sort of benefit from them," which I earlier pointed out was a Rahsaan-centric view of tasting notes.
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Well I am Rahsaan.

Since you seem to have a problem with my calculation, what influences your decision about whether or not to read something?

I do find the specificity of its application vis--vis tasting notes ("basic information about how a wine is showing relative to the aging curve, still shut down, not yet shut down, etc.") a little restrictive for my tastes.
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Of course that is restrictive, because that is only ONE of the MANY ways in which tasting notes provide benefits. You're the one doing all the restricting.
 
I don't consider "benefit" or "useful" to be synonyms for "interesting," but it has been a long time since I was involved with academia, so maybe I've forgotten something. Anyway, this is an entirely stupid thread drift, don't you agree? I stopped reading it a while ago, because it wasn't...interesting.
 
originally posted by Thor:
I don't consider "benefit" or "useful" to be synonyms for "interesting," but it has been a long time since I was involved with academia, so maybe I've forgotten something..
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I don't know how much this is related to academia in general or how recent it is, but from my exposure to social sciences (political science, economics, sociology), weighing costs/benefits to explain behavior is a pretty widespread notion.

And the cost/benefit analysis is very comfortable including subjective perceptions (like whether something is considered 'interesting') to determine why people blow up buildings/sign political agreements/read tasting notes, etc.
 
Jonathan - you are right about Kant's use of 'judgment'.

I still think there are some interesting things to be said about what wine critics can do to enhance our experience of the wines they write about. I will try again at another time on another thread.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Oswaldo,

The statements you make that account for historical agreements are theoretically conceivable accounts but in the absence of further argument, Ockham's razor would prefer the easier reading that different people across long periods of time have agree on evaluations of some works because they were perceiving the object that is there. They are on strong grounds in saying that that's what they do because, in the absence of other evidence, it's a good guess that that's what they're doing. Controverting their claim and offering another description of what they do doesn't yet count as having evidence.

Vasari's definitions of works of art (paintings on walls and canvas, statues and buildings, he didn't bother with music and literature) was sufficiently bounce your nose against it obvious looking that no one controverted it for many hundreds of years. When Hegel said offhandedly that everyone can tell the difference between screaming and singing or jumping up and down and dancing, again, he said something that no one would have had a problem with until a hundred years later. Duchamp and Warhol contest this agreement by producing objects that don't have these bounce your nose off of it obvious attributes and have been called works of art. I hope it won't surprise you that there have been very strong arguments about how to define art in the fact of these works, some more persuasive then others, but none meriting your position that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, your position is the most obvious.

Once again, you are wrong in thinking I disagree with you either about evaluation or about artworks. I am being far sniffier than that. I think these positions have important requirements to meet or they are easily dismissable and I don't think you are taking those requirements with sufficient seriousness.
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Funny how the parallel arguments criss-cross this thread, so PoMo...

Anyway, it will come as no surprise that I disagree with your first paragraph. Most people believe in some deity, but that is not an argument in favor of God's existence. The notion held by many that art has intrinsic qualities is similar. God may exist, and art may have intrinsic qualities, but it's not the numbers of people who believe that make it so. The earth was once thought flat by most.

I don't think it is possible to meet the requirements that you say my statements require. But the same goes for yours, which are equally subjective, though I understand that you see yourself as arguing and see me as affirming. I don't think claiming numbers of believers is arguing. I don't think saying such and such luminary thought this and that is arguing. Again, about many concepts we hold dear, like spirit, love, art, metaphysics, etc., we can either affirm or stay silent. I don't begrudge you your beliefs about artworks, but I do begrudge your notion that you have more defensible grounds for your beliefs.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:

Perhaps we can have a satisfactory definition of what an artwork is: any object that the tastemaking establishment of a time and culture determines to be an artwork as the result of prevailing in the course of political and economic negotiation.
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This approach has been tried, e.g. by George Dickie and our old friend Bourdieu. It is also, the way you have stated it, both circular (how is 'determination to be an artwork' not dependent on some prior concept of artwork?) and empty (since e.g. a neutrino is surely any object that the fundamental physics establishment of a time and culture determines to be a neutrino). There's no easy path in philosophy.

I have some possibly useful stuff for you on the issue of how you can have non-individual standards deriving from subjective judgments, but I am going to wait a while before bringing up anything relating to philosophical aesthetics on here again. I see that my original instinct about this board requiring more or less the same level of precision and attention as normal academic communication was correct, and I don't mind that, but it does slow things down.
 
originally posted by Steven Spielmann:
I still think there are some interesting things to be said about what wine critics can do to enhance our experience of the wines they write about.
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Putnam has done this for me several times. I have understood a certain wine more clearly after reading his writing on that wine.

There was at least once, and probably more times, that Thor's writing has helped me to better understand a certain wine.

SFJoe's Loire reports have helped me extraordinarily.

I think Gilman is great at setting a context and providing details to better understand a specific bottle.

There are other examples.

Edited to add:

Gerald Asher had such a sweep to his writing. I learned a lot from him. And he can really turn a phrase.

Peter Liem has such an extraordinary mind and grasp of information. He provides so much New context from the questions he asks.

Chris Coad had (has?) a real sense of joy in his writing. It provided a real entree into a subject. Like you really wanted to go on that trip with him.

Neil Dorosin has a sense of wonder about wine that is really rare in the business.

In terms on preparing a mental attitude to better approach and learn about wine, reading Joe Dressner's writing was and is really fundamental for me.

If it is bad, nobody is better at saying a wine sucks than Lyle Fass. An unequalled master at the form, actually.
 
originally posted by Steven Spielmann:
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:

Perhaps we can have a satisfactory definition of what an artwork is: any object that the tastemaking establishment of a time and culture determines to be an artwork as the result of prevailing in the course of political and economic negotiation.
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This approach has been tried, e.g. by George Dickie and our old friend Bourdieu. It is also, the way you have stated it, both circular (how is 'determination to be an artwork' not dependent on some prior concept of artwork?) and empty (since e.g. a neutrino is surely any object that the fundamental physics establishment of a time and culture determines to be a neutrino). There's no easy path in philosophy.
Thanks, Steven, it's a relief to respond to something I actually wrote. I agree that the definition is both circular and empty.

The circular part reflects how culture develops in practice, each generation responding to its inheritance and building new constructs according to current needs. All dialectics are circular.

As for the empty part, unlike a neutrino, whose existence can be established satisfactorily by scientific standards, artifacts only become artworks when people believe they are. So it is entirely fitting that a satisfactory definition of art incorporate the emptiness of its founding tautology.

Jeff, thanks for the wakeup call. Will shut up and dedicate myself to living this beautiful Sunday.
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There was at least once, and probably more times, that Thor's writing has helped me to better understand a certain wine.
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Aw, thanks, Levi.

Of course, since this was posted after midnight, I'm forced to wonder of it shouldn't have been posted in the PWI thread...
 
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