Frances to Chris and others... 1 This topical issue of sensible "qualities" existing in things, and their debatable status as being mainly general and objective or special and relative or universal and subjective, has unreasonably remained unsettled and incomplete and unfinished, despite the valiant efforts of learned scholars here who are reportedly expert in this phenomenal field of study. 2 It is likely that all objects found in nature and culture will have intrinsic formal "qualities" given uncontrolled to sense that are innately felt. Those "qualities" may be mainly of say brightness or roughness or hardness or heaviness or roundness or coldness or loudness or sourness or highness or nearness, and then may be mainly of say ideality or continuity or nicety or ugly or sublimity or unity or beauty. These objective "qualities" alone, aside from any life with mind to subjectively feel or sense them, would admittedly be pointless and meaningless and useless, therefore the objective must be relative to the subjective, if anything is to be made of this topical issue. The identity of any such "quality" in the form of an object is perhaps by way of feelings that may be similar in structure to those forms, so that the phenomenal structure of the objective form is probably like the neural structure of the subjective feeling we feel for the form. The mind after all is also of form and of matter, so that even physical matter in effect is effete or weak mind, because matter obviously grows by habit in the best way possible. What is given of the objective to the subjective is realized by the relative, in that only token manifestations of material substance in the form of signs that stand for stuff can be sensed. If a tonal quality like a fleeting impression, or a typical law like a normal class, is to be felt or sensed at all it must be done so via a token fact like a technical member. It is this conforming relation of the subject to the object that makes them both seem real to sense in mind. Without the relative, no object can be made subjective, and no subject can be made objective. 3 These felt "qualities" like niceness and beauty found by sense in any ordinary object may also be necessary for art, but they alone however would likely not be sufficient or efficient to make the ordinary object an extraordinary "aesthetic object" of nature or culture. The identity of formal "aesthetic qualities" like purity and ugly and sublimity and beauty and unity, as properties embodied in and carried by objects of nature and its culture as say works of nonart and as works of art, is made possible by experiencing the force and power that the form of the object is indeed able to evoke in users. If the force of the form in being original and unique furthermore bears or has the power that is able to immediately evoke intense responses of mainly an emotional kind, then the artwork is likely a lofty work of high fine art. 4 The good of an object and its quality, be it an aesthetical or ethical or logical good, is however not to be found in its value or need. The act of innocent enjoyable murder will have value as an object if for example it merely satisfies the pleasurable sexual needs of a disturbed sadistic pervert. The value however is independent of any aesthetical or ethical or logical concerns. The need furthermore is a subjective psychological determination, and is also aside from the action or object or value and from any norm of what ought to be good. If such an act is nonetheless admired by a normal percipient to be nice and fine at least for them solely alone, then it might potentially be emotionally felt by them subjectively to be a beautiful act and even an artistic work. The needing and feeling by such persons of such actions however does not and will not make the object beautiful or artistic, nor should they. Some other aspect must clearly be considered as causing or sourcing or making the object to be found or held or deemed as being beautiful and even artistic. It is further not likely that such an aspect could lay merely in the given form of the object or in its referred content or in the interpreted effect of the object, nor in its assigned meaning or conferred worth, nor even in its function or context or usage. 5 The start of realizing what makes say purity or nicety or beauty or even ugly in objects that are reasonably agreed to be art or not art must be found initially in the form of the object as given uncontrolled to sense, but even then aspects of the form alone are inadequate to do this making, because the form of fakes and forgeries and frauds might do this as well or better, not to forget the form of those unsettled and incomplete and unfinished works of art that are nonetheless held as aesthetically and artistically finalized. It seems to me that the form of art to bear or carry or yield a "quality" like beauty as an embodied or engrained property must have some force and power that the form of nonart and unart or bad art does not have. This enforced and empowered fact would it seems to me make the ordinary object of nonart and unart or bad art into an extraordinary work of fine art. 6 The phenomenal differentia of "qualities" sensed in the forms of ordinary objects as being bad or good, whether those objects exist as part of nature or in its diverse culture, will be found in any object bearing or having the ability to conform to their dispositional tendencies, which is to grow habitually in the best way possible, because things are inclined to evolve in the direction of good end goals, aside from any bad exploratory paths temporarily taken. The differentia thus is simply found in the bent or trait. The aesthetic and artistic differentia of natural and cultural objects and their forms with their "qualities" is to further be found in the force and power they have to reflect worthy values and to evoke intense responses in extraordinary ways. The differentia of artworks is found in the ability of their form to be empowered and reflective and evocative in ways not possible with ordinary objects of nonart. The form of an aesthetic object to be agreed as a work of art must bear and yield this power, and to further show this power as being able to reflect worthy values and to evoke intense responses. 7 It still seems reasonable for me to conclude that the sentient percipient is brought into a relation with the objective object of sense, and not merely with their subjective sense of the object. It is the object with its form and "quality" after all that is held to be nice and pretty and beautiful and ugly, and that may even be held as artistic, but it is not the sense of the object that is held to be so.
Chris wrote... "Beauty is a property of things perceived by humans, who can judge and evaluate abstractly. And since beauty is considered to be a culmination or perfection of specific qualities or characteristics, there is also ugly, the deficiency of those qualities. But these qualities are socially valued. Remember: there are no ugly things "in Nature." (taken from Michael's new blog) Not by me (is beauty considered to be a culmination or perfection of specific qualities or characteristics) -- because I can't identify them so that I might say "this one has a little of it, and that one has a little more, while that one must be ugly because it doesn't have any" Can anyone else here identify any such specific qualities or characteristics? "Nature,by nature, does not differentiate between beauty or ugly,people do." (Mando) That's what Michael said, too, but you're wrong unless you distinguish between beauty/ugly and attractive/unattractive.
