Aesthetic Thinking II

The other day I noticed a young child dragging his fingers along a chain-link fence. Touching it, as if to get to know it. That sight made me think more about how we, as children, acquaint ourselves with the world. Johann Jakob Bodmer, following John Locke, wrote that we come into the world knowing nothing, possessing only our senses to make "sense" of things: "Die Welt ist eine Academie, und der Mensch ein Schüler, welcher bey dem ersten Eintrite in dieselbe von aller Wissenschafft entblösset ist, und allein darin von todten Wercken der Natur sich unterscheidet, daß er Instrumente besitzet, welche ihn tüchtig machen etwas zu fassen und zu erlernen, nemlich die fünf Sinnen" (The world is an academy, and the human being a pupil who, with his first entry into it is denuded of all science and is only distinguished from other dead works of nature by the possession of instruments that make him industrious to grasp and to learn, namely, the five senses).

He continues: "And an attentive avariciousness (Wundergierigkeit), in addition to a love for everything that is new, excites us to employ these tools of knowledge (Werkzeuge des Wissens)."

The senses are our first "instructor," and through them we are moved by what we touch or see or taste and form concepts of things. But our knowledge of the world would be quite narrow if we only had the senses. After all, we spend half of our days asleep. How would it be if every evening, with the departure of light, we put aside everything we had experienced during the day and had to start again anew in the morning? The Creator, however, having a special purpose for humans, endowed the soul with a special capacity: the imagination, which allows us, at will, to recover all the concepts and sensations we felt in our original contact with the objects. He goes on to say that attention and practice help us to cultivate our imagination. Indeed, poets must have a great store of imagination and make readers forget that they are reading only words and to believe instead that the objects are before their eyes.

The senses are something that we have in common as humans, and we all seem to agree on the pleasure associated with certain experiences (or the converse): most small children like to run through puddles. With time and experience we develop our individual taste for things and, indeed, probably set aside many of the things that gave us pleasure as children. I remember when I first went to college about half the girls in my dormitory had a copy of a painting by Margaret Keane (although back then everyone thought the artist was her husband).

Something about those big-eyed girls moved us, which is, according to Bodmer, the purpose of art. Of course, back in my college days our professors were trying to draw us away from our appreciation for the Keane paintings, to develop better judgments about art, but that initial reaction of pleasure was a first step. And for Kant, it is our ability to respond subjectively, whether to the beauty of sunsets or even to the Keane paintings -- that make our other cognitive accomplishments possible. In other words, because we feel, we can think. That is aesthetics, in a nutshell.

(By the way, a movie is currently being made about Margaret Keane, appropriately titled Big Eyes.)

Picture credits: Mohammed Abdullah; Diyosa; Steve Lombardi

Aesthetic Thinking

"As spectators of art we enter a state of calm passivity and enhanced objectivity, and the various art forms allow us to recognize diverse aspects of reality from a vantage point where our own individual will is not engaged."

The above is from an essay in the Times Literary Supplement (Oct. 15, 2010) by Christopher Janaway, who is here discussing Arthur Schopenhauer's view of the value of art, namely, its disinterestedness, which allows us to escape from the demands of "will." The sentence struck me, reminding me of something I read long ago in Freud. Though I have not been able to rediscover it since, Freud wrote something to the effect that reading a novel allows us, as in no other way, to enter into the "head" of another person. In other words, to see the world from another's viewpoint. I think he may also have been suggesting that reading of novels allows us to develop empathy for others.

When I reflect on my own thinking, it seems that it is characterized by two things. One is obsessiveness: I go over (and over) a subject, as if trying to solve a problem. Unfortunately, the subject is usually very banal. The other is "aesthetic." Often this second manner of thinking concerns art, though in a very broad sense, in that I am often absorbed by the beauty or ugliness of my surroundings. But aesthetic judgments are even broader than that, characterizing my reactions to people. Sometimes my reaction is pleasure (in the case of someone really pretty or handsome); sometimes it is revulsion (do I need to give examples?). Those reactions I would almost consider "objective," since many people might have the same reaction. But my judgment also includes reactions to people's behavior: approval, disapproval, and the like. Once upon a time, say, when I was growing up back in the 1950s, there were some "universal" standards for judging behavior. We all knew who the juvenile delinquents were. Now, of course, you can't even use that term.

It was in the 18th century that the arts -- literature, music, painting, sculpture, and so on -- became subject to discussion on a wide scale. There was a sense that the traditional authorities -- Aristotle, Horace, and so on -- no longer provided direction. Longinus appeared in this fluctuating situation as a gift, requiring that art move us. Thus, the role of feeling entered into the judgment of "taste," the word that suggests a standard but at the same time withdraws the imprimatur of objectivity. We know what is beautiful, and we expect others to feel the same.

In a sense, however, the arts are beside the point. We judge, and we expect others to share our judgments.

German philosophers since Kant have been particularly interested in the arts, for instance, Hegel and Schopenhauer (both of whom Goethe knew), Nietzsche. This interest reminds me of the Greeks: Plato and Aristotle. The Germans might be said to have returned to Western philosophy's origins and preoccupation with the mind.

Picture credit: Jeff Hopkins