"Aesthetic experiences" as i originally understood it, was that any thing under the umbrella between the two extremes of taste ,likes and dislikes. good-bad,ugly-beauty,etc could be an "aesthetic experience". To me,that means that any sudden feeling of any kind from nature or man made art could be an aesthetic feeling. The problem I see is that some people get a pleasant surprise feeling, while others may feel the opposite from the same experience. Yet both are really "aesthetic experiences",. ab
On Dec 8, 2013, at 11:29 AM, [email protected] wrote: > A position like mine -- shared, I realize, by many others including William > -- is that there is no mind-independent ontic status "art" such that a > given object or act either "IS" art or it's not, regardless of what any of us > think/feel. Still, any one of us is allowed to try to frame a description of > when we personally are willing to bestow the honorific label 'ART'. The > description is very likely to be fuzzy, but, minimally, serviceable. E.g., "I > call 'art' any object or event that gives me personally an aesthetic > experience." > > What constitutes an 'aesthetic experience' is subject to much discussion > (which I'd be pleased to see the forum embark on). And the description as > given is too short, leaving many questions. ("What? You'd call non-man-things > like a sunset or a piece of driftwood 'art'??!!) Note that this is a > stipulation about word use, not about ontic status. I'm not saying "If a work > occasions in me an a.e. it IS art." I'm saying only, "If a work occasions in me an > a.e. I CALL it art." The stipulation has the narrow use of helping a reader > realize what's on my mind when I say 'art'. > > I still ultimately cling to the feeling that the most intriguing question > is WHY do some things occasion a.e.'s in me. The second most is, Given the > disparity among genres -- music, arthitecture, dance, poetry, drama etc -- are > the feelings I get from each such that I can defend calling them all > 'aesthetic experiences'?
