The interesting question would center on the distinction and integration between innate sensory preferences and acquired cultural preferences. For example, in some cultures artists are unidentified or can be anyone at all. Thus if the pleasure condition is universal, and since people in those cultures just mentioned don't have named or otherwise specified artists, how does Bloom's assertion that our "enjoyment of art depends on knowing the artist" apply? Answer, it's a limited cultural habit, and thus not universal. That invalidates his thesis. It's just more junk psychology aimed at the popular audience for the sake of the almighty buck, even from Yale. wc
----- Original Message ---- From: joseph berg <[email protected]> To: aesthetics-l <[email protected]> Sent: Sat, February 19, 2011 12:49:06 AM Subject: "What matters most is not the world as it appears to our senses. Rather, the enjoyment we get from something derives from what we think that thing is . . . For a painting, it matters who the artist was..." (From the new book HOW PLEASURE WORKS...): - What matters most is not the world as it appears to our senses. Rather, the enjoyment we get from something derives from what we think that thing is . . . For a painting, it matters who the artist was... http://www.newsweek.com/blogs/we-read-it/2010/06/16/how-pleasure-works-the-new-science-of-why-we-like-what-we-like.html
