I have 2 problems with this good commnent on aesthetics from Michael. 1. There need to be some aesthetic experiences that are not learned from models ( like the Pieta example he gives). It's entirely commonplace, I think, for us to see things or to experience events aesthetically when we see them in surprise or unconnected with their usual fiunctions, identities, etc. Sometimes we have the aesthetic response to those same events when we first recognize their functions or appreciate them newly. Thus nothing of a class or use demands or prohibits the aesthetic response or experience but yet we can be safely assured that some exterior cause is involved. The problem is that intuitively or apriori we know that some causes are not aesthetic and some are, even if they can change their roles for various reasons. This does not lead us back to the view that anything is possiboy an aesthetic cause because we need to know why some thinbgs are the causes of aesthetic experience and others are not., if we can.
2. I reject his comment re materialism, that there are no 'spiritual or non-mterial forces or causes of experiences we sometimes call aesthetic for the reason that he cnnot prove this to be the case exceptt by asserting 'belief'. To not believe something is no different from believing it if independenty proved evidence is not available. The absence of discovered evidence is not proof that it does no exist. For instance, if the murderer has not been named does not mean that no murder or murderer exists. When people say they don't believe in god they are still claiming a belief. How can a belief in god be any different from a belief in no god? If a person says I know there is no god, then they must provide independent evidence or be ubderstood to be using the word know incorrectly. Ditto for the person who knbows there is a god. It all comnes down to belief. The closer we look at belief the more we recognize that at root, all of our thinking and reasoning is based in belief. We must, for example, believe what we know in oder to know. Bottom line. We can't ever exclude belief entirely. It's false to make a claim based on the absence of belief. It's also false to make a claim based on belief. Any workable definition of the aesthetic experience needs to allow for some belief; any definition that excludes belief is false because all thought and experience engages some degree of belief. wc ________________________________ From: Michael Brady <[email protected]> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2013 4:12 PM Subject: Aesthetic feelings and other things I have mulled the following notion over for a long time and have essayed a few attempts at getting it down on pixels, but nothing so far. So I will briefly set out what I am thinking: 1. AFAWK, the entirety of the universe is a continuous field in which energy and mass are interrelated and convertible. That is, all of everything is an energy field. 2. The surface of Earth is covered with a variety of "stuff," some of which are inanimate and other are animate. Among the animate, some are self-motivating, auto- and loco-motive. These entities are called living things. 3. The locomotive living things--animals--exhibit the ability to move purposively for an end (digging, building structures, etc.). 4. Some of the animals exhibit the property of self-awareness and the sense of time. (That would be us humans.) 5. Humans exhibit the ability to fabricate things and to communicate with each other in various ways with a great deal of subtlety, detail, and precision. 6. Humans have described "feelings" and "emotional states" that they experience under various circumstances, and these "feelings" seem to be caused by or correlated with the release of or heightened or lowered levels of chemical substances in the brain. Well, that gets us to the status quo. I believe (strongly suspect) that an "aesthetic feeling" is one that is produced or stimulated by the experience (perception or memory) of certain objects or events. I also strongly suspect that the difference between "aesthetic" and "non-aesthetic" feelings is that one is stimulated by previously denominated "art" objects. You see the "Pieta" and you experience a response to an object already known to be an artistic creation. From my personal experiences, every aesthetic feeling I experience is unique to that work and moment; no two are identical, and no two experiences of the same work are identical, either (analogously to the way you speak the same work differently in different contexts and circumstances). There seems to be a similarity of some quality or characteristic in the experience of widely different objects or events, such as Cheerskep's football game or an infant or a view of the Grand Canyon or landing in an airplane (that's mine!), that can be discerned in the aesthetic experience of known works of art. FWIW, I am entirely a materialist. I do not believe that there are "ineffable" or "spiritual" forces or experiences. I do not believe that "inner power" or other mystical and unseen agent acts or exercises any influence in the universe. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady
