On Feb 27, 2009, at 3:04 PM, [email protected] wrote:
In sum, for me to think I proved "good art" "exists" by asserting,
"HAMLET
is good art!" -- would by fatuous. I enjoy HAMLET; Tolstoi did not.
In the end
my entire argument for calling it in some absolute way "good" would be
reduced to my pointing at elements that gave me enjoyment (I won't
say "aesthetic
enjoyment" because in this particular context that too would
probably be
rejected as amounting to begging the question.) ...
How do you get yourself out of the Blind Alley of Solipsism, when it's
marked as a one-way street? How can you discuss something ostensibly
objectively present, such as qualities that can be evaluated as "good"
in a work, when you cannot get around the fact that the stone you stub
your toe on is only known to you as a sensory notion? Don't you have
to set up a few ground rules, such as "All statements about external
'objects' tacitly include the caveat, 'As constructed internally by
perceptions, interpretations of those perceptions, and conclusions
based on them'"?
I have previously asserted that things "out there" contain, i.e.,
convey, meaning by virtue of some structural properties they have. And
the meanings inhere even when no one is present (the sound of
Berkeley's tree falling in the woods). Indeed, when someone speaks
Chinese in front of me, I do not receive the meaning of their words,
but the Chinese speaker next to me does. I believe it is possible to
speak of good and bad qualities in things, and these qualities are
independent of the perceiver's/interpreter's set of standards for such
things. They raw material that leads to "good" and "bad" predicates
reside in the objects, not exclusively in our heads.
I should say these are not mere devil's advocate arguments. I
sincerely
believe these things. The very things in Johnson or Shakespeare that
give me
pleasure might bore or disgust the next person. "Well, you shouldn't
be bored! You
should be transported like me! And if I am transported, it can only
be because
there is good art there. Thus do I prove good art exists!" I can
imagine a
devotee of Beckett saying that to me about WAITING FOR GODOT.
You don't really get transported somewhere, do you? Not, like, really?
You're just using one of those metaphor things, aren't you?
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Michael Brady
[email protected]
