more from this thinker     |     more from this text


Single Idea 18546

[filed under theme 21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 2. Aesthetic Attitude ]

Full Idea

Like the pleasure in friendship, the pleasure in beauty is curious: it aims to understand its object, and to value what it finds.

Gist of Idea

The pleasure taken in beauty also aims at understanding and valuing

Source

Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 1)

Book Ref

Scruton,Roger: 'Beauty: A Very Short Introduction' [OUP 2011], p.26


A Reaction

At least he is trying to pin down the way in which aesthetic pleasure is phenomenologically different from other kinds of pleasure.


The 22 ideas with the same theme [distinctive frame of mind in aesthetic experience]:

The disinterested attitude of the judge is the hallmark of a judgement of beauty [Shaftesbury, by Scruton]
Forget about beauty; just concentrate on the virtues of delicacy and discernment admired in critics [Hume, by Scruton]
Only rational beings can experience beauty [Kant, by Scruton]
The aesthetic attitude is a matter of disinterestedness [Kant, by Wollheim]
It is hard to see why we would have developed Kant's 'disinterested' aesthetic attitude [Cochrane on Kant]
Hegel largely ignores aesthetic pleasure, taste and beauty, and focuses on the meaning of artworks [Hegel, by Pinkard]
Schopenhauer is a chief proponent of aesthetic experience as 'disinterested' [Schopenhauer, by Janaway]
Experiencing a thing as beautiful is to experience it wrongly [Nietzsche]
Imaginative life requires no action, so new kinds of perception and values emerge in art [Fry]
Everyone reveals an aesthetic attitude, looking at something which only exists to be seen [Fry]
Good art produces exaltation and detachment [Bell,C]
Aesthetic enjoyment combines pleasure with insight [Ross]
Consider: "Imagine this butterfly exactly as it is, but ugly instead of beautiful" [Wittgenstein]
Interpretation is performance for some arts, and critical for all arts [Wollheim]
A love of nature must precede a love of art [Wollheim]
The aesthetic attitude is nothing more than paying close attention [Dickie, by Giovannelli]
The pleasure taken in beauty also aims at understanding and valuing [Scruton]
Art gives us imaginary worlds which we can view impartially [Scruton]
Aesthetic experience informs the world with the values of the observer [Scruton]
We don't often respond to events in art as if they were real events [Jacobson,D]
Maybe literary assessment is evaluating the artist as a suitable friend [Gaut]
Aesthetic experience involves perception, but also imagination and understanding [Davies,S]