Michael: If my gall bladder secretes bile, I might well not notice it.
However, if I'm weakly affected by a potentially aesthetically moving
object/event I fail to understand how it could be known if I don't notice
it. sooner or later. How would you infer a response if I failed to
demonstrate one? You could claim that I should have responded, that almost
all other people respond but I'm not clear how you could infer a response
from me. You could infer that water will freeze at 32 degrees F but that's
not subjectively mediated.
Geoff C
From: Michael Brady <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Unconscious aesthetic experience
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:43:36 -0400
On Oct 11, 2008, at 8:32 PM, GEOFF CREALOCK wrote:
"lack of awareness of one's aesthetic response does not mean that the
object did not evoke any response;"
Michael: if the experiencer is unconscious/lacks awareness of an
aesthetic response, how does someone else know that the experiencer had
the experience? From studying others' responses to a stimulus/ art work,
one might be led to assume a response but how would anyone know if the
experiencer fails to report it. Or, could you know something about my
experience that I don't know? Well, OK, brain imaging studies aside.
First, my statement pointed to a logical inference: For me to say that I
was not aware of an aesthetic response to X does not mean that X did not
evoke a response in me: perhaps the stimulus was weak and the reaction
unnoticed, or I was distracted or concerned about something else, etc.
Second, whether one can discern another's reactions is not the point. I
can't taste what you taste, nor feel the pain you report, etc. I can only
report that something affected me in an "aesthetic" way, or perhaps I can
only report that I felt no stimulus from something that excited you. The
matter here isn't whether your response is evident to me or not. It's
whether it's evident to you. I've had many occasions to remark that the
works of Y have "grown on" me to the point that I now take notice of them,
whereas before, I was neutral, i.e., unaffected by them.
Point 2: It doesn't trouble me, but I think we're meanng different things
by aesthetic. I might refer to what you refer to as simply a response - I
don't get the aesthetic part in your sense
Aesthetic: of the senses, of perceptible things. cf. anaesthetic.
Nowadays, "aesthetic" is used almost exclusively to mean the appreciation
of beauty ... until it is extended to mean the appreciation of the natural
effects of, say, a sunset ... and then speaker often stretches the usage
until it begins to embrace "the sublime" and other emotional states
occasioned by the vastness of natural phenomena.
"I trust I make myself obscure?"
"Perfectly, Thomas."
--A Man for All Seasons
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Michael Brady
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
