It is one thing to experience a so-called aesthetic feeling but it is another thing to describe it. Artworks, and I include all the arts and literature, frequently show or make sounds or tell what the aesthetic feeling is, by proxy, by metaphor, by analogy, allusion, etc. The description does not produce the feeling. I agree with Conroy, however, that for the feelings themselves, they are just that, a physical function, undifferentiated and thus associated with any number of experiences. Cheerskep seems to conflate the experience with its description. He wants to describe a feeling by reproducing the feeling but that is not a description. This is the central problem in the discussion about closing the gap between tacit and explicit knowledge. Sometimes a description can enable one -- or a machine -- to duplicate the cause of a feeling and thus particularize it or contextualize it but sometimes it cannot guarantee that a duplication will result in the same contextualization. For example, I may have a different feeling each time I listen to a concert or see a painting despite a near perfect duplication of the occasion for that feeling.
Artists are involved in imitating feelings by proxy, by some means or actions. They cannot claim to produce aesthetic feelings or experiences. An artwork, even a great masterpiece of art, may not cause the so-called aesthetic experience but a crumpled rag in the gutter may -- for no stable reason. The aesthetic quality of an artwork -- projected to it -- has little to do with the social contexts that define it as an artwork. In other words, I don't think there is any necessary connection between an artwork and the idea of the aesthetic and between the aesthetic and feelings. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: joseph berg <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tue, March 13, 2012 4:12:47 AM Subject: Re: Psychedelic art On Sun, Mar 11, 2012 at 5:57 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > I agree with William about the "subjectivity" of art. There is no absolute, > mind-independent, ontic "quality" of "artness" up in Plato's heaven. Even > those who have been sufficiently involved in a genre to be called > "sophisticated" can disagree in their response to works in that genre. The > variety of > sensibility can be startling. It's astonishing how many highly literate > people profess disgust at Shakespeare. > > For me, the most interesting inquiry in aesthetics continues to be focused > on what I'll call the "aesthetic experience". I know even that phrase will > be disputed and rejected by some. But I'm fairly firm about saying I know > it > when I feel it. I'm convinced there are those who all their lives read > poetry, visit visual-art museums, listen to music, but who fail in one or > more of > the genres ever to have an "aesthetic experience". One can encounter a > bemused blankness when trying to convey what an "a.e." is like. It is > roughly > comparable to trying to convey the feeling of an orgasm... Can an a.e. be contemplative?
