When I look back now on Langer as we were taught her in my undergraduate
Philosophy Art course, two thoughts come to mind.
The first is that she seemed to be trying to address the question I keep
urging on the forum: What is happening when we get a feeling we're ready to
call
an "aesthetic experience" (or "my response to art" -- i.e. any phrase meant to
point at the kinds of reaction most of us recognize)?
The second is that I suspect -- probably because we were mere undergraduates
-- her notion of "feeling and form" was oversimplified. It came across as
saying something this limited: slow minor-key music makes us feel sad because
"sadness" is a slow, minor-key feeling. (Slow I could understand; I forget her
explanation of how sadness is minor key.) Since this left so little
"accounted for", Langer was soon dismissed, and we passed on to the utter
foolishness
of Clive Bell's ultra-vague "significant form".
As an "accounting for" a.e.'s, Langer's would-be explanation would seem to
have the fatal failing of not explaining why some slow, minor key music
occasions an a.e., but other (most) does not.
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