But I say everything has it (radiance) and one needs to be sensitive to it. Insensitive art is merely art that fails to evoke it sufficiently. Derek is very dogmatic in his view that some stuff has it and some doesn't. Since beauty is a matter of description and not definition, I agree that everyone could indeed have different descriptions. However, since people are quite alike in their modes of describing (cultural usages and the like) we can share them fairly successfully. If not, we can debate the differences, using the object/s in question as a reference. If people of high sophistication fail to intuit the quality of radiance (or if you prefer, Agent Intellect) then they are hampered, deficient, since one does not need to learn this except by sensing and being self-aware.
Again, I'm insisting that description is not definition and descriptions are infinite in the sense that nothing can really be fully described. Descriptions are metaphors, and open to modification, debate, judgment, improvement, etc., in soliciting consensus. You are committed to a mechanical, literal, materialist objectivity in a situation re art and beauty, etc., as concepts (however open-ended) that are not subject to such measurements. So is Derek, as far as I can tell. WC > > > My second point in this posting: In a core regard, > William seems to me a lot > closer to Derek than I suspect William would like to > be. William's notion of a > "radiance" being somehow "in" a work is very like > Derek's conviction that a > work either has "artness" or it does not. Beats me > how either man reconciles > this view with a realization that other folk of high > sophistication and > demonstrable sensibility can look at the same work > -- that William and Derek > perceive has "radiance" and "artness" -- and say the > work fails, it's a bummer.
