Aesthetic Philosophers notes PDF

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Aesthetic Philosopher’s Simplifications: Plato (420sBCE-348BCE) Founder of modern philosophy. Socrates’ student, Aristotle’s teacher. Writing The Republic. – Artistic representation is always bad because it is an imitation of the true reality and form. Art is a shadow of a shadow of a shadow. Beauty lies beyond our observation – theory of forms. Allegory of the cave. Beauty is more than and different from prettiness – appropriate, useful, beneficial, ethically right. Beauty is sensory – brings joy when experienced/received. Concerned that art lulls us into a content with the shadows instead of enticing us to ponder the light/good/true forms. “The world of our sight is like the habitation in prison, the fire-light there to the sunlight here, the ascent and the view of the upper world is the rising of the soul into the world of mine; put it so and you will not be far from my own surmise, since that is what you want to hear; but God knows if it is really true. At least, what appears to me is, that in the world of the known, last of all, is the idea of the good, and with what toil to be seen!” Hippaes and Socrates – “The good life” (taking care of parents, etc) is beautiful. “He asked you, not what is beautiful, but what the beautiful is.” Aristotle 384-322 BCE. Poetics. – Mimetic (imitation) representation is always good because it always teaches us something. Universal constants determine what is beautiful (symmetry, pattern, harmony, repetition, order, etc). Geometric beauty, perfect forms. Beauty encountered by close observation. Art is valuable because it brings us closer to the true form of beauty. Science to art – laws of proportion and perspective. Spectators feel the things they observe, and learn empathy. Catharsis – purging of negative emotions through art. Involves audience’s response to art. “Epic poetry and Tragedy, as also Comedy, Dithyrambic poetry, and most flute-playing and lyre-playing, are all, viewed as a whole, modes of imitation.” Brecht 1898-1956, Nazi-period. The street scene. – Artistic representation is good as long as it has a social purpose. Hardest thing to see is the good. Good = source of beauty and the correct. Beauty is the ability to detect the good, and shy away from imitation to real truth. Hated catharsis, and Aristotle in general. Art is a distorting copy of a truthful original (Plato). Mimesis. “There is no question but that the street-corner demonstrator has been through an ‘experience,’ but he is not out to make his demonstration serve as an ‘experience’ for the audience.” Concerned that art lulls us into content with shadows instead of enticing us to ponder the light/good/true forms. Wants art to provoke and alienate us. “There is no question but that the street-corner demonstrator has been through an ‘experience’, but he is not out to make his demonstration serve as an ‘experience’ for the audience.” Keats – Beauty is found in common items (urn) and situations. “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter” is questing for that perfect form/true reality. Dickinson and Williams – Similar to Plato, in that what is appropriate for an item is beautiful in it’s effectiveness. Simple things are beautiful. Concedes that the definition of beauty is none/it doesn’t exist, and also that beauty originates from/is synonymous with God.

Thoreau (Bug on the table analogy. 1817-1862, Naturalist, student of Emerson’s. Walden, describes two year journey of living alone in a cabin in the woods.) and Emerson (1803-1882, Founding American transcendentalist, spiritual analogue to the Manifest Destiny essay. Beauty.). (Calvin, 1609-1654 French Protestant, Psalm 104) – transcendentalist. Nature (symmetry, etc as per Aristotle) is beautiful. Agree with Plato that art is imitation but thinks it is good and necessary. Source of beauty is God (Similar to Dickinson and Williams). Fabric of world = God’s perfection = beauty. However, there’s a crucial divergence from Plato, in that we can’t understand the perfect forms, and can only admire and be humbled by them. We can’t try to see God, it’s impossible and crazy. Emerson “Nothing is quite beautiful alone: nothing but is beautiful in the whole. A single object is only so far beautiful as it suggests this universal grace. The poet, the painter, the sculptor, the musician, the architect, seek each to concentrate this radiance of the world on one point, and each in his several work to satisfy the love of beauty which stimulates him to produce. Thus is Art, a nature passed through the alembic of man. Thus in art, does nature work through the will of a man filled with the beauty of her first words.” Thoreau “We are acquainted with a mere pellicle of the globe on which we live. Most have not delved six feet beneath the surface, nor leaped as many above it.” Calvin “We profit little in the contemplation of universal nature, if we do not behold with the eyes of faith that spiritual glory of which an image is presented to us in the world.” Hume (1711-1776. Scottish philosopher. Of the Standard of Taste. Father of “modern”, postPlatonic philosophy.) – Beauty resides in the observation process, the experience. Taste not inborn; must be educated into refinement. Beauty is attached to the viewer, not the object. Aristotle and Plato approach the world as factual, but Hume approaches the world as experiential. Cognitive experience of encountering the beautiful. Beauty is subjective. “It is plainly an error in a critic, to confine his approbation to one species or style of writing, and condemn all the rest. But it is almost impossible not to feel a predilection for that which suits our particular turn and disposition. Such preferences are innocent and unavoidable and can never reasonably be the object of dispute, because there is no standard by which they can be decided. For a like reason, we are more pleased, in the course of our reading, with pictures and characters that resemble objects which are found in our own age or country.” Kant (1724-1804, father of modern, post-Platonic philosophy. Wrote a series of Critiques of Reason and Judgment based on the empiricism of Hume.) and Doty (Still Life with Oranges and Lemon.) – Pleasure conveyed by physiological senses (hearing, taste, …) but beauty involves the cognitive sense (feel ourselves thinking when we encounter the beautiful). Therefore, that which prompts marked thoughts and cognitive processes is the beautiful. We know some things instinctively. Similar to ideal forms (Plato). “Pleasant” is subjective – makes physical interactions. “Beauty” is a property of things, and judged for everyone. Universal. Difference between beauty and good (similar to Plato, again). (example of the rose – very attractive, but it has no obligation to be good, and can actually hurt you). Good is different as per everyone’s judgement, but the good comes from an overall beauty. Transcendence. Art and otherwise describing and representing the world around us brings us closer to the true beauty – “what we are”. (Doty) “In a judgment of taste (about the Beautiful) the satisfaction in the object is imputed to every one, without being based on a concept (for then it would be the Good).”

Wallace (Roger Federer as Religious Experience. 1962-2008. Reformed philosopher, nationally ranked junior tennis player). – Agrees with Hume and Kant, experience and cognitive sense are what is beautiful. Beauty as it involves the human form. His “Federer Moments” is a Doty Moment, involving intimacy, and beauty described and explored through an unplanned, emotional experience. It’s human beings’ reconciliation with the fact of having a body. Women are generally considered beautiful, maybe universally, and it’s rare for men, especially out of the context of war (similar to Emerson). Presents an irreligious counterpart to beauty with the cancer boy. “Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty. The relation is roughly that of courage to war…But the truth is that whatever deity, entity, energy, or random genetic flux produces sick children also produced Roger Federer.” Sontag (An Argument about Beauty and A Woman’s Beauty – Put-Down or Compliment? 19332004, Essayist, professor, and political activist). Harris (The cute and anti-cute). – Feministic beauty, viewed in parts. Problematic association of beauty with women. Momentary gladness of the senses, soon lost. Superficial, available for sensory consumption vs. lasting, inner beauty. Christianity made this distinction between internal worth and goodness with external seduction and ornament. Great art can’t be cute because it’s not serious; underlying meaning and use for good art. “Gladness of the senses…Beauty of nature – a nature that is distant, overarching, unpossessable. Burke (A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. 17291797, Irish politician, support of American independence and horror at French Revolution. Marked the transition from the Neoclassical to the Romantic period.) – Connect the emotional/physiological experience of perception with the properties of the objects or prospects that cause them. Difference between the beautiful and another sensation or aesthetic quality, designated the ‘sublime.’ Must cause pain, or terror, or it is merely pretty or interesting. “The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature is astonishment…that state of the soul in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror. In this case the mind is so entirely filled with its object, that it cannot entertain any other, nor by consequence reason on that object which employs it.” Benjamin (1892-1940. Friend of Brecht. Martyr of the Nazi regime.) –Wants art to function in multiple ways. Uniqueness, rise of reproducibility got rid of originality, and therefore true art. Mentions nature. Aura is the light cast by the beautiful object (similar to Plato). Similar to Brecht, social basis, involvement, and purpose for beauty. Emerson says the eye is the miracle organ for perceiving beauty; Hume says this is influence by our culture and time; Benjamin says this is influenced by our personal experience. “Social basis of the aura’s present decay…linked to the increasing emergence of the masses and the growing intensity of their movements. The desire of the present-day masses to ‘get closer’ to things, and their equally passionate concern for overcoming each thing’s uniqueness by assimilating it as a reproduction.” Shakespeare (Merchant of Venice. 1564-1616, leading playwright of the English Renaissance.) – Mercy is beautiful. Problematic to discuss now because of the politically incorrect terminologies. The play itself does not uphold or confirm the anti-Semitic meanings made of it. The play becomes

a Rorshach Test of its readers and performers. Shylock. “The quality of mercy is not strained: it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. Mercy is above this sceptred sway…it is an attribute to God himself.” DuBois (1868-1963. Scholar, social activist, co-founder of NAACP. Criteria of Negro Art.) – Practically and philosophically, white American culture is a poor home for black art. “How is it that an organization like this, a group of radicals trying to bring new things into the world…can turn aside to talk about Art? After all, what have we who are slaves and black to do with Art?” Chronological order: Socrates Plato 420sBCE-348BCE Aristotle 384-322 BCE Shakespeare 1564-1616 Calvin 1609-1654 Hume 1711-1776 Kant 1724-1804 Burke 1729-1797 Emerson 1803-1882 Thoreau 1817-1862 DuBois 1868-1963 Benjamin 1892-1940 Brecht 1898-1956 Sontag 1933-2004 Wallace 1962-2008...