Malcolm Budd

                                            Aesthetics



Aesthetics owes its name to Alexander Baumgarten who derived it from the Greek aisthanomai, which
means perception by means of the senses (see Baumgarten, A.G.). As the subject is now understood,
it consists of two parts: the philosophy of art, and the philosophy of the aesthetic experience and
character of objects or phenomena that are not art. Non-art items include both artefacts that
possess aspects susceptible of aesthetic appreciation, and phenomena that lack any traces of human
design in virtue of being products of nature, not humanity. How are the two sides of the subject
related: is one part of aesthetics more fundamental than the other? There are two obvious
possibilities. The first is that the philosophy of art is basic, since the aesthetic appreciation
of anything that is not art is the appreciation of it as if it were art. The second is that there
is a unitary notion of the aesthetic that applies to both art and non-art; this notion defines the
idea of aesthetic appreciation as disinterested delight in the immediately perceptible properties
of an object for their own sake; and artistic appreciation is just aesthetic appreciation of works
of art. But neither of these possibilities is plausible.

The first represents the aesthetic appreciation of nature as essentially informed by ideas
intrinsic to the appreciation of art, such as style, reference and the expression of psychological
states. But in order for that curious feeling, the experience of the sublime – invoked, perhaps, by
the immensity of the universe as disclosed by the magnitude of stars visible in the night sky (see
Sublime, the) – to be aesthetic, or for you to delight in the beauty of a flower, it is unnecessary
for you to imagine these natural objects as being works of art. In fact, your appreciation of them
is determined by their lack of features specific to works of art and perhaps also by their
possession of features available only to aspects of nature (see Nature, aesthetic appreciation of).

The second fails to do justice to the significance for artistic appreciation of various features of
works of art that are not immediately perceptible, such as a work’s provenance (see Artistic
forgery) and its position in the artist’s oeuvre. A more accurate view represents the two parts of
the subject as being related to each other in a looser fashion than either of these positions
recognizes, each part exhibiting variety in itself, the two being united by a number of common
issues or counterpart problems, but nevertheless manifesting considerable differences in virtue of
the topics that are specific to them. In fact, although some issues are common to the two parts,
many are specific to the philosophy of art and a few specific to the aesthetics of non-art objects.
Moreover, not every object of aesthetic appreciation falls neatly on one side or the other of the
art–non-art distinction, so that appreciation sometimes involves an element of both of artistic and
non-artistic appreciation (see Gardens, aesthetics of; Environmental aesthetics).

Both works of art and other objects can possess specifically aesthetic properties, such as beauty
and gracefulness. If they do possess properties of this sort, they will also possess properties
that are not specifically aesthetic, such as size and shape. And they will be susceptible of
aesthetic and non-aesthetic appreciation, and subject to aesthetic and non-aesthetic judgments.
What distinguishes an item’s aesthetic from its non-aesthetic properties and what faculties are
essential to detecting aesthetic properties (see Aesthetic concepts)? What is the nature of
aesthetic appreciation? It has often been thought that there is a particular attitude that is
distinctive of aesthetic appreciation: you must adopt this attitude in order for the item’s
aesthetic properties to be manifest to you, and if you are in this attitude you are in a state of
aesthetic contemplation (see Aesthetic attitude). This suppositious attitude has often been thought
of as one of disinterested contemplation focused on an item’s intrinsic, non-relational,
immediately perceptible properties. But perhaps this view of aesthetic interest as disinterested
attention is the product of masculine bias, involving the assumption of a position of power over
the observed object, a reflection of masculine privilege, an expression of the ‘male gaze’ (see
Feminist aesthetics §3). Another idea is that awareness of an object’s aesthetic properties is the
product of a particular species of perception, an idea which stands in opposition to the claim that
this awareness is nothing but the projection of the observer’s response onto the object (see
Artistic taste).

An object’s beauty would appear to be a relational, mind-dependent property – a property it
possesses in virtue of its capacity to affect observers in a certain manner. But which observers
and what manner? And can attributions of beauty, which often aspire to universal interpersonal
validity, ever attain that status (see Beauty)? The great German philosopher Immanuel Kant
presented a conception of an aesthetic judgment as a judgment that must be founded on a feeling of
pleasure or displeasure; he insisted that a pure aesthetic judgment about an object is one that is
unaffected by any concepts under which the object might be seen; and he tried to show that the
implicit claim of such a judgment to be valid for everyone is justified. But how acceptable is his
conception of an aesthetic judgment and how successful is his attempted justification of the claims
of pure aesthetic judgments (see Kant, I. §12)?

1 Aesthetics of art

Those questions that are specific to the philosophy of art are of three kinds: ones that arise only
within a particular art form or set of related arts (perhaps arts addressed to the same sense),
ones that arise across a number of arts of heterogeneous natures, and ones that are entirely
general, necessarily applying to anything falling under the mantle of art.

Here are some of the most salient facts about art. Not everything is art. Artists create works of
art, which reflect the skills, knowledge and personalities of their makers, and succeed or fail in
realizing their aims. Works of art can be interpreted in different ways, understood, misunderstood
or baffle the mind, subjected to analysis, and praised or criticized. Although there are many kinds
of value that works of art may possess, their distinctive value is their value as art. The
character of a work of art endows it with a greater or lesser degree of this distinctive value.

Accordingly, the most fundamental general question about art would seem to be: what is art? Is it
possible to distinguish art from non-art by means of an account that it is definitive of the nature
of art, or are the arts too loosely related to one another for them to possess an essence that can
be captured in a definition (see Art, definition of)? Whatever the answer to this question may be,
another entirely general issue follows hard on its heels. It concerns the ontology of art, the kind
of thing a work of art is. Do some works of art fall into one ontological category (particulars)
and some into another (types) or do they all fall within the same category (see Art works, ontology
of)? And a number of other important general questions quickly arise. What is a work’s artistic
value and which aspects of a work are relevant to or determine this value? Is the value of a work
of art, considered as art, an intrinsic or an extrinsic feature of it? Is it determined solely by
the work’s form or by certain aspects of its content – its truth or its moral sensitivity, for
example? Can judgments about a work’s artistic value justifiably lay claim to universal agreement
or are they merely expressions of subjective preferences? And how is a work’s artistic value
related to, and how important is it in comparison with, other kinds of value it may possess (see
Art, value of; Formalism in art; Art and truth; Art and morality; Schiller, J.C.F.)? What is
required to detect the critically relevant properties of artworks, over and above normal perceptual
and intellectual powers, and how can judgments that attribute such properties be supported (see Art
criticism)? What kinds of understanding are involved in artistic appreciation, and must an
acceptable interpretation of a work be compatible with any other acceptable interpretation (see
Art, understanding of; Artistic interpretation; Structuralism in literary theory)? In what way, if
any, does the artist’s intention determine the meaning or their work (see Artist’s intention)? What
is an artist’s style and what is its significance in the appreciation of the artist’s work (see
Artistic style)?

2 Aesthetics and the arts

One question that arises only for a small set of art forms concerns the nature of depiction. It
might be thought that the analysis of the nature of depiction has no special importance within the
philosophy of art, for pictorial representation is just as frequent outside as inside art. But this
overlooks the fact that real clarity about the ways in which pictures can acquire value as art must
be founded on a sophisticated understanding of what a picture is and the psychological resources
needed to grasp what it depicts. So what is it for a surface to be or contain a picture of an
object or state of affairs? Must the design on the surface be such as to elicit a certain species
of visual experience, and must the function of the means by which the pattern was produced, or the
intention of the person who created it, be to replicate features of the visible world? Or is a
picture a member of a distinctive kind of symbol system, which can be defined without making use of
any specifically visual concepts (see Depiction; Goodman, N. §2)? Another question that has a
limited application concerns the distinctive nature and value of a particular artistic genre, the
response it encourages from us, and the insight into human life it displays and imparts. For
example, whereas a comedy exploits our capacity to find something funny, a tragedy engages our
capacity to be moved by the fate of other individuals, and erotic art aims to evoke a sexual
reaction; and this difference in the emotional responses at the hearts of the genres goes hand in
hand with the different aspects of human life they illuminate (see Comedy; Emotion in response to
art; Erotic art; Humour; Tragedy).

Questions about the individual natures and possibilities of the various arts include some that are
specific to the particular art and some that apply also to other arts. On the one hand, relatively
few art forms (architecture and pottery, for example) are directed to the production of works that
are intended to perform non-artistic functions, or are of a kind standardly used for utilitarian
purposes, and, accordingly, the issue of the relevance to its artistic value of a work’s
performing, or presenting the appearance of performing, its intended non-artistic function
satisfactorily is confined to such arts (see Architecture, aesthetics of). Again, only in some arts
does a spectator witness a performance of a work, so that issues about a performer’s contribution
to the interpretation of a work or about the evaluation of different performances of the same work
are limited to such arts (see Art, performing). And since only some works of art (novels, plays and
films, for example) tell a story, and only some refer to fictional persons or events, questions
about the means by which a story is told or how references to fictional objects should be
understood have a restricted application within the arts (see Narrative; Fictional entities). On
the other hand, most, if not all, arts allow of works within their domain being correctly perceived
as being expressive of psychological states, and, accordingly, give rise to the question of what it
is for a work to be expressive of such a condition (see Artistic expression). But the means
available within the different arts for the expression of psychological states are various: poetry
consists of words, dance exploits the human body, and instrumental music uses nothing other than
sounds. And these different artistic media impose different limits on the kinds of state that can
be expressed by works of art, the specificity of the states, and the significance within an art of
the expressive aspects of its products (see Gurney, E. §2). Furthermore, it is a general truth
about the various arts, rather than one special to expression, that what can be achieved within an
art is determined by the nature of the medium the art is based on. Accordingly, an adequate
philosophy of art must investigate the variety of such media and elucidate the peculiar advantages
they offer and the limitations they impose (see Abstract art; Dance, aesthetics of; Eliot, T.S.;
Food, philosophy of §2; Film, aesthetics of; Hanslick, E.; Langer, S.K.K>; Lessing, G.E. §2; Music,
aesthetics of; Opera, aesthetics of; Painting, aesthetics of; Photography, aesthetics of; Poetry;
Wagner, R.).