(This, I'm afraid, is the first of several postings on the subject above.) I have long suspected that many serious people believe in the mind-independent existence of what they call "art" because of the special, prizable experiences they have when they contemplate certain works. The argument in their minds goes roughly like this:
"I get a sui generis sort of experience when I contemplate certain things. The vast majority of things I contemplate in life don't give me that sort of experience. Since every event must have a cause, obviously those things that do give it to me must have something, there must be something 'in' them, that the other things lack. That special "something" that gives me the sui generis experience I'm talking about is what I mean when I say the word 'art'. In sum, aesthetic experience is undeniable, it has to have a cause, and that cause, which must reside, obtain, BE in only certain things, is art." In other words, they don't start with "art" or "artness" as a given. They start with what they feel is an undeniable -- "aesthetic experience". It's clearly an effect. So it must have a cause. I have many times pouted on this forum that listers should tackle what is for me the fundamental puzzle in philosophy of art -- the experiences that are often called "Aesthetic experiences". In fact, in phrasing it that way, I've advanced beyond some of the dimness of my past exhortations in this way: I used to say the subject is "the aesthetic experience". I've now dropped the 'the', and I've used the plural. Which implies I was muddled when I asked questions like these about "the aesthetic experience": "What is it?" "What's happening when we get it?" "Why does it happen when we contemplate some things and not others?" I was muddled because the "it" I used hasn't been justified. I cannot just assume at the outset there is a single sui generis experience -- "aesthetic experience" -- as generically unique as, say, the taste of "sweet" is, or of "bitter" (both of which are registered by separate taste buds.) For example, some aestheticians of the past have insisted the alleged "aesthetic" experience we get in theater is not aesthetic at all, it is "vicarious". Other aestheticians may have asked, "Why not call the experience occasioned by comedians 'aesthetic'? We say a sad soliloquy or poem is 'aesthetic' because it moves us 'emotionally'. But a comic can move us to laughter. Isn't mirth an emotion? Why not call them both 'aesthetic'?" (Playwrights of comedies are as a rule assiduously avoided by professional aestheticians. Goldsmith, Congreve, Sheridan, and Wilde almost seem like an embarrassment to them. When have you ever read an academic paper about Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Mike Nichols, or even Lenny Bruce? Evidently none of them has ever done anything "aesthetic'; they are not "artists".) But if that point is conceded, why don't we call "aesthetic" the experience from witnessing any event in "real life" that moves us to sadness or laughter ? And what about those real life events that have prompted sophisticated, sensible people to say, "It was a real life drama unfolding before our eyes"? Drama? Then there is that vexatious word, 'beautiful', and even 'sublime'. Many brave sophisticated folk have admitted the pleasure they have derived from a sunset, a sunrise, a Hudson Valley scene "in the flesh", a nude woman, has afforded them a pleasure as powerful as that from any comparable painting -- and they have admitted it is indistinguishable in feeling from the experience occasioned by renderings of effectively identical subjects by certain revered painters. Oh, but a real sunset is not something executed by the hand of man (or woman)! No, it isn't. Nevertheless many people have called the experience of contemplating such not-made-by-human- hand objects "aesthetic". To use an old-world phrase, "where is it written" that one cannot get an "aesthetic experience" from such things? Remember: at this juncture we are talking about the various experiences that have been called "aesthetic". Can anyone point to an aspect of THE EXPERIENCE FROM CONTEMPLATION that is different when the object is human-made? Where am I going with this? I'm going on to ask this: Why do we assume that all the experiences that have been called "aesthetic" (by one sophisticate or another) must, in some "sui generis" way, be "the same"? And how would our answer affect the argument that the existence of a sui generis experience entails the existence of a sui generis cause -- "art"? ************** You're invited to Hollywood's biggest party: Get Oscars updates, red carpet pics and more at Moviefone. (http://movies.aol.com/oscars-academy-awards?ncid=emlcntusmovi00000001)
