From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Expertise and aesthetic experience
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 12:46:24 EDT
In a message dated 10/11/08 11:27:45 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> Most philosophers say that whatever the aesthetic "experience" is, it
> cannot be fully explicated because to do that is to describe it in terms
separate
> from the experience.
>
For William's sake, I'll say this as quickly as I can: Any philosopher who
hunts for what something allegedly "IS" -- i.e. what non-verbal "thing" a
given
word in some way "signifies" -- is doomed, not only in the particular
pursuit,
but in useful work in general in many sub-divisions of philosophy.
But William's core point is right. In general, the only successful way to
convey what we have in mind when it's experiential is by ostensive
definition
--
"pointing at" the thing. Picture someone who's been blind for the first
twenty
years of his life. He undergoes a curing operation, and wakes up in a
totally white room. There's no conceivable way that someone can convey to
him
with
words what the visual experience of red is. You have to "show" him.
How one "shows" him is a bit more complicated than it sounds -- for
example,
you have to make sure he's connecting your utterance "Red!" with the color
and
not, say, with the shape of the object you hold up -- but it can be done.
Something of the same sort of difficulty obtains when trying to convey what
you have in mind with "aesthetic experience". It has complications of a
different sort. It's a commonplace in philosophy that, in fact, even when
you
and I
agree a given object is red, I can never know for sure that your visual
sensation is the same as mine. You may be "seeing" what I would call blue
if I
could
somehow have your visual sensation at that moment. But I can't.
If you and I stand and look at Van Gogh's SUNFLOWERS together, I know I
will
be feeling something I call an "aesthetic experience". It's something of a
combination of being awestruck and quietly ecstatic. But I may have looked
the
same way standing in front of the nursery window in the hospital the day
our
first child child was born. If I look at you, and you are nodding and
smiling,
I can't be sure your feeling is (roughly) what I'd call an a.e..
I say "roughly" because no two experiences are ever absolutely identical
even
those of raw sense data.
And note that my total experience at that moment is multiplex. I can
identify
in my consciousness the portions that are "visual sense data", and the
portion that is the exultant feeling I'm calling an "a.e.".
So as we gaze at SUNFLOWERS together, your smiling and nodding may be out
of
admiration, not exultation. You may be admiring, say, Van Gogh's technical
skill with the brush and paint, without being "moved" in the peculiarly
ecstatic
way I am. In truth, though, if we talk about it enough, we can usually
clear
up any confusion about that. However, though I may become convinced you are
experiencing what I'd call an a.e., I could never claim it's identical in
character with my a.e. -- but I could feel it's close enough.
When Luciano absoslutely nailed his "Vincero!", my wife and I could look at
each other know we had "shared" an a.e.
If I do become convinced of your feeling in front of SUNFLOWERS, I could
say,
"THAT'S what I mean by 'aesthetic experience'!" In sum, I would not have
conveyed my notion of a.e. by using words; I would have done it
ostensively.
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