Derek -- we already know why you don't like to use the word 'aesthetic'
(the "conceptual baggage" etc) -- but when you raised the question of whether
we "know what the word 'aesthetic' means." -- and then you answered : "Alas,
no one seems to." -- Cheerskep wondered whether you just feigning ignorance.
And indeed -- you seem to know quite well what 'aesthetic' means to most of us
(at least as well as you know what any word means):
*"'aesthetic experience' carries with it the idea
that a response to art is essentially a form of pleasure"
*"'Aesthetic' is also strongly associated with the idea that
art is somehow essentially beauty."
So .... maybe you should set the question of your dis-ingenuity aside - and
address another of Cheerkep's concerns.
************************************************************
Re: ' When he continues to insist he has no idea what we're
> thinking when we say "aesthetic experience" I frankly
> don't believe him. He's being disingenuous.'
But I'm quite happy to agree that someone who loves Mozart's
22 piano concerto for example may have the same kind of
'experience' I do when they listen to it. etc I just don't want
to call that an 'aesthetic experience'. Why? Because it's a
phrase that carries all kinds of conceptual baggage -
baggage which would want to attach itself to me but which I
absolutely disown.
For example, 'aesthetic experience' carries with it the idea
that a response to art is essentially a form of pleasure
(unhelpfully called 'aesthetic pleasure'). I think that idea
trivialises art and I want nothing to do with it.
'Aesthetic' is also strongly associated with the idea that
art is somehow essentially beauty. I think that idea is
false to art and want nothing to do with that either.
Also the phrase numbs the brain. People are told that their
response to art is an aesthetic experiecne. It sounds rather
grand ('aesthetic' after all sounds specialised and sort of
deep). So they think 'Oh gee, isn't that great. An aesthetic
experiecne, hey! What about that? L'il ol' me.' And that's
the end of the matter. No more thought. No more analysis.
Nothing. Case closed.
(I know you made further points Cheerskep, but I think I
will stop there for now.)
DA
----- Original Message -----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Taste
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 22:05:46 EDT
> Derek writes:
>
> "Before one could say whether aesthetic experience is real
> one would need to know what it is. (Otherwise one be
> describing something else and calling it aesthetic
> experience). To do that, one would need to know what the
> word 'aesthetic' means. Alas, no one seems to. Or rather
> everyone seems to have a different idea of what it means.
> (A case of Cheerskep's 'fuzziness' run riot.)"
>
> Derek continues to be a combination of disingenuous and
> ineducable. I was just browsing through the archives,
> where I find him repeatedly claiming he has no idea what
> other listers can have in mind when they say "aesthetic
> experience", while at the same time repeatedly mentioning
> his "response to art". I see I've worked to explain how
> most of use an ostensive definition: We point at
> something and say the likes of, "That's what I mean by
> XXXX." It's quite a serviceable way of conveying much of
> one's notions. I watched my children acquire a
> serviceable use of language that way.
>
> I've told Derek numerous times, "There -- that feeling you
> call your response to art, the feeling you get from
> Mozart and 'Crime and Punishment" -- that "response to
> art" is the kind of feeling the rest of us have in mind
> when we say "aesthetic experience".
>
> When he continues to insist he has no idea what we're
> thinking when we say "aesthetic experience" I frankly
> don't believe him. He's being disingenuous.
>
> Derek says, "a word has meaning only in its relevant
> speech community," and he says some public signs "have
> meanings which sometimes stretch beyond a given speech
> community," and he says we " need to know what the word
> 'aesthetic' means." Since my view is that words are inert,
> they don't DO things, I obviously feel they can't carry
> out some action Derek has in mind when he says that words
> "mean", or they "have meaning".
>
> So I described in detail why we tend to think words are
> "doing" something, why we assume they are carrying on the
> action we call "meaning": It's because repeated
> juxtaposition of the uttered word with an idea, image, or
> feeling has produced in the mind an ASSOCIATION between
> the uttered word and those ideas, images, feelings.
> "Milk!" "Hot!" "No!" "Angry!" So when we see
the word and
> the image comes to mind, we feel it's the word "doing" it
> , but it's only our associating mind that's doing
> something.
>
> When I ask him "to describe as precisely as he can what he
> has in mind when he says, "a word has meaning" -- in
> particular what he has in mind with the word 'meaning'
> and the word 'has'," his response is a quintessential duck
> and run: " If I could do that I would be able to describe
> human consciousness, which I can't."
>
> Derek would hide behind what he would insinuate is an
> impossibility -- "describe human consciousness". But I've
> asked Derek to describe only a PART of human
> consciousness -- i.e. what he has in mind when he utters a
> certain word -- and I asked that he do it not perfectly
> but only as precisely as he can.
>
> He must have a notion in mind when he uses a word to
> convey it. Since I'm quite sure my description has
> conveyed a serviceable replica of my notion of the
> associating mind and inert words and "meaning", I'm
> convinced that we can serviceably describe the notion
> behind lots of words. So I don't believe Derek when he
> says he can't do it. I DO believe that upon trying to
> describe his particular notion of "meaning" he found it
> so chaotic and fuzzy he couldn't describe it. But that's
> the fault of his particular notion, not because he's being
> asked to do the generically impossible.
>
> The suggestion that we can never describe -- as precisely
> as we are able -- what we have in mind when we use a word
> seems to me false, and inexcusable in an aesthetician.
> Granted, the notion behind some words is harder to
> articulate than others. But it's an essential assignment
> in aesthetics. No one can be taken seriously who, when he
> uses a word bound to occasion all sorts of disparate
> notions in readers, says, "Oh, don't ask me to describe
> the particular notion I have in mind when I use a word.
> That would be asking me to describe human consciousness!"
>
> The prototypical word his notion for which we've asked him
> to describe is 'art'. He refuses even to try -- evidently
> on the grounds that it's impossible. But Bruce Attah did
> a yeoman's job of describing what he had in mind with the
> word. Attah's most basic error was in in effect asserting
> this "IS" art. He could have survived the forum's
> onslaught by merely asserting "This is MY notion of art,
> what I have in mind when I use the word." I believe Derek
> is fundamentally wrong in claiming one can't describe a
> notion because it's "human consciousness".
>
> I feel that Derek often puts acute challenges to what
> other listers have asserted, but he leaves us with the
> feeling he has nothing to "say" himself.
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