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| 24174 | Beauty is fittingness, of details uniting within a pattern |
| Full Idea: Scruton describes beauty in terms of the sense of 'fittingness'. …Another way to put this is that we find things beautiful at the moment we realise that they contain patterns that will allow lots of detail to be reconciled or predicted. | |||
| From: Tom Cochrane (The Aesthetic Value of the World [2021], 2.5) | |||
| A reaction: [Scruton 2009 Ch.4] I don't think this explains my love of some particular turn of phrase in Bach, or some startling metaphor from Shakespeare. Pinning down the essence of beauty looks a doomed project to me. Aesthetics over-emphasises painting. |
| 24175 | Accounts of sublimity differ over whether we learn something good about ourselves |
| Full Idea: Egoistic accounts of the sublime allow that our fragility is revealed, but also claim we feel something positive about ourselves. Non-egoistic accounts question whether the self-negation is so terrible after all. | |||
| From: Tom Cochrane (The Aesthetic Value of the World [2021], 3.2) | |||
| A reaction: [compressed] I think I favour the non-egoistic approach. It is like the thrill of seeing a great performance in the arts or sport. It humbles me - but also I feel part of something greater than me. Like a child on the winning side in a war. |
| 24173 | We can only understand form if we grasp the whole of which things are parts |
| Full Idea: To appreciate form we must consider how the parts relate to the whole, which needs some idea of what counts as a part. We must organise our perceptual data in some way, and our understanding of the object is an indispensable contributor to this process. | |||
| From: Tom Cochrane (The Aesthetic Value of the World [2021], 2.2) | |||
| A reaction: Abstract painting is a tricky case. It seems to need a precise boundary or frame. But we might enjoy the form of some pattern in nature, while being ignorant of the nature of what we are observing. I see his point, though. |
| 24169 | We can treat value as a verb; we value something when we positively engage with it |
| Full Idea: The aesthetic attitude allows us to treat value as a verb: as valuing, rather than some property we identify in an object. When I value something, I engage with it, or take pleasure in it, or act in a nurturing manner towards it. | |||
| From: Tom Cochrane (The Aesthetic Value of the World [2021], 1.3) | |||
| A reaction: A nice thought, but clearly rather stipulative. Personally I only value things by how much someone will pay me for them. I'm trying to re-educate myself by reading Cochrane. Perhaps I should start with why I would pay a lot for something… |
| 24176 | A person's activities have value when they receive full attention |
| Full Idea: It has been proposed (by Dorothea Debus 2015) that it is sufficient for a person's activity to have value that they give full attention to it. | |||
| From: Tom Cochrane (The Aesthetic Value of the World [2021], 4.6) | |||
| A reaction: Rather narrow, but interesting. An expert might do something very valuable while being bored and inattentive. Cochrane observes that torturing someone needs full attention. But we think life is going well if we are fully absorbed in our activities. |
| 24168 | Aesthetic value appreciates a thing objectively, as a good in its own right |
| Full Idea: Aesthetic value is a way to value something in an objectified manner; practical values always include a first-person perspective, whereas the aesthetic value activity focuses only on the object, …as just good in its own right. | |||
| From: Tom Cochrane (The Aesthetic Value of the World [2021], 1.3) | |||
| A reaction: [compressed] This is the main concept around which his book is constructed, and he offers aesthetic value as a 'final value', and hence as a beacon for human living. Not sure about the thesis, but I admire his book. |
| 24171 | Morality is not a final value; it concerns how we distribute the things we actually finally value |
| Full Idea: I doubt whether morality is an object of final value. It seems to have more to do with distributing the things we finally value (like health or security) than something we value for its own sake. | |||
| From: Tom Cochrane (The Aesthetic Value of the World [2021], 1.3) | |||
| A reaction: Note the paradox of the virtue of compassion, that it actually requires miserable suffering to exist. It can't be an ultimate value if the total elimination of suffering is a good. I think Cochrane is right. |
| 24167 | Love is a mutual reciprocation, not just a desire for something |
| Full Idea: The relationship we seek in love is essentially one of mutual reciprocation. As much as I desire my beloved, I want them to desire me; to seek in me the source of their well-being. It makes no sense to have this desire for landscapes, art or the stars. | |||
| From: Tom Cochrane (The Aesthetic Value of the World [2021], 1.2) | |||
| A reaction: [contra Nehamas] Does this mean that being 'in love' does not count as love at all? Presumably we have to distinguish love with someone from the yearning for that love. (This the view of love is the one my wife and I settled on many years ago!). |
| 24165 | Pleasure has an intrinsic (independent) value, but that is not a final (for its own sake) value |
| Full Idea: It is a mistake to think pleasure is the only thing that is valuable for its own sake. It confuses final value with the intrinsic value of pleasure. (note: Intrinsic value is apart from any relationships or contexts). | |||
| From: Tom Cochrane (The Aesthetic Value of the World [2021], 0.2) | |||
| A reaction: Cochrane says the value of most pleasure is extrinsic (i.e. valued because of its connection to something else). Cochrane is defending aesthetic appreciation as a final value. Not sure his distinction is clear enough. But interesting. Hedonists disagree. |
| 24166 | Pleasure serves to maintain our relationship with its source |
| Full Idea: Pleasure is not merely a nice sensation. It has the important psychological function of lining us up with whatever it is that is generating the pleasure, such that we maintain our relationship with it. | |||
| From: Tom Cochrane (The Aesthetic Value of the World [2021], 0.2) | |||
| A reaction: It is certainly absurd to give the highest value to pleasures, without ever thinking about their biological purpose. |
| 24164 | Even non-theists can wonder what, if anything, makes the universe good |
| Full Idea: Natural and moral evil is not just a problem for theists. …Anyone can wonder what, if anything, makes the universe a good one when it contains so much suffering. | |||
| From: Tom Cochrane (The Aesthetic Value of the World [2021], 0.1) | |||
| A reaction: I take Bernard Williams to be definitive on this topic. I would personally say that the universe as a whole has no value one way or the other. If you think it might be good, you should enquire after the source of your idea. What is the universe FOR? |