more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
The central problem of aesthetics is how satisfaction with and pleasure in an object are possible without any reference thereof to our willing.
Gist of Idea
Aesthetics concerns how we can take pleasure in an object, with no reference to the will
Source
Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], II:415), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 6 'Aesthetic'
Book Ref
Janaway,Christopher: 'Schopenhauer' [OUP 2002], p.71
A Reaction
This does seem a good distinction. We can divide pleasures into willed and unwilled. Compare thinking that some remote stranger (in a photograph) is very beautiful, with falling in love with someone.
Related Idea
Idea 21370 Schopenhauer is a chief proponent of aesthetic experience as 'disinterested' [Schopenhauer, by Janaway]
| 8063 | Baumgarten founded aesthetics in 1750 [Baumgarten, by Tolstoy] |
| 12157 | Kant gave form and status to aesthetics, and Hegel gave it content [Kant, by Scruton] |
| 18549 | Nineteenth century aesthetics focused on art rather than nature (thanks to Hegel) [Hegel, by Scruton] |
| 21372 | Aesthetics concerns how we can take pleasure in an object, with no reference to the will [Schopenhauer] |
| 23198 | Aesthetics can be more basic than morality, in our pleasure in certain patterns of experience [Nietzsche] |
| 12156 | Aesthetics has risen and fallen with Romanticism [Scruton] |
| 8108 | Aesthetics presupposes a distinctive sort of experience, and a unified essence for art [Gardner] |
| 20327 | Modern attention has moved from the intrinsic properties of art to its relational properties [Lamarque/Olson] |
| 20416 | By 1790 aestheticians were mainly trying to explain individual artistic genius [Kemp] |