forum for week of 2 October

I had a problem inputting in the box above (don't format!). This is the same material as in the box above. To continue, I would like to try throwing a few terms into the discussion here that I haven't seen presented so far. The terms are: empathy, seduction, desire, aesthetics, taste (and distaste, or alternatively attraction and repulsion) and last but not least play (as in playfulness, or role playing). Art, as method reverses the scientific approach. In order to discover truth, it plays for effects rather than seeking causes or underlying reasons as in scientific inquiry. The artist develops an arsenal of lures designed to seduce. Those which work are retained, those which don't are discarded. In this way susceptibilities are revealed which tell us what people either believe or may be led to believe. More importantly, through the play-acting of art, unconscious beliefs and prejudices may be revealed which quite likely, if left unrevealed, would in all likelihood influence or distort conscious reasoning. Decisions made on such unrelieved reasoning, even though based on opinions which may otherwise be considered quite rational, and therefore correct may indeed be quite false. Regarding taste: To hold a belief, it helps if one has a taste for it. Rather than accept a taste or appetite at face value, an effective artist may question, persuade, and, through art, lead an unsuspecting audience through the magic of imaginative re-framing, paradoxically, to the acceptance of previously quite unpalatable truths. Empathy: This term is a work in progress for me, admittedly a mystery. All I have to offer is a note I made from our class discussion. I wrote: we collectively operate on the experienced truth, or in other words we operate on faith, the faith that this commitment will carry us through from moment to moment. It seems to me that keeping faith builds empathy, while breaking faith weakens empathy. Is this properly philosophy? If not, should it be?