On Oct 11, 2008, at 11:17 PM, GEOFF CREALOCK wrote:
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?
The antecedent condition: others often remark about having an "aesthetic experience," by which the almost always mean a positive or approving experience, that is, a positive response. In other words, the expression AE is often used to designate someone's conclusion or judgment that the aesthetic effect of X was good, as if the AE sprung full grown from their foreheads. (Sometimes, the judgment is negative, but usually the writer doesn't call that an AE at all, but just an example of a bat WOA.)
Aesthetic responses span a gamut from a negligible impact to a full- blown epiphany, and they also range from favorable to condemnatory.
I disagree with a lot of the discussions in which the term "art" is used to signify a level of quality of representation, rather than the nature of the representation. And I disagree with the similar way AE is used in a valorizing or honorific way to mean a positive reaction to a WOA, and in a lesser way to scenes of natural splendor.
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.
When did I say you "should" have responded? | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady [EMAIL PROTECTED]
