IS NATURE EVER UNAESTHETIC? UNAESTHETIC?

Earle J. Coleman Coleman Virginia Commonwealth University University

ontemporary philosophers have won­ dered: Do virgin landscapes always Editors' Note: This paper was presented at C possess beauty? Unsullied by human the Central Division Meeting of the Society nature, is the natural world invariably aesthetic? for the Study of Ethics and Animals, held Examples in support of a negative reply are not wanting; when lightning causes a ground fIre, the in Chicago, Illinois, April, 1989. burned out, blackened forest may be experienced as an aesthetic liability, for the expected sights, aromas and flavors of the woods, the creatures, the sounds and bird song are now gone. Again, a natu­ ralist such as John James Audubon belittles one segment of nature in relation to another when he speaks of "the scrubbiness of the timber here, and the lofty and majestic trees of my dear country.nl Moreover, as was demonstrated recently in the community of Ducktown, Tennessee, even an undefIled and unscrubby forest can be aesthetically criticized. Copper smelters destroyed trees and veg­ etation in the area, thereby creating a "desert."2 Curiously enough, efforts at reforestation were attacked on the grounds that it would turn the "beautiful" landscape "into a dull, boring pine forest."3

AESTHETICS

Between the Species 138 Summer 1989 Is Nature Ever Unaesthetic?Unaesthetic7

In response to such cases, one might argue that Thoreau, and Martin Buber, is the best orientation, the natural landscape always exhibits, at least, some since it provides a more inclusive account of aes­aes-­ degree of beauty. The burned woods might evoke a thethetictic experiences ofnature. feeling of stark sublimity or some other aesthetic Ronald W. Hepburn represents a contextualist quality - perhaps an austere beauty similar to that position when he declares, "Any aesthetic quality conveyed by the dead flowers which the Japanese [including, of course, ugliness] is always provi­ fashion into striking arrangements. Holmes sional, correctable by reference to different,differen t, Rolston says ofscorched landscapes, ''No one would perhaps wider context or to a narrower one feature these places in landscape paintings, they are realized in greater detail."6 Consider the burned not picturesque."4 But might not a photographer or woods from the standpoint of a fresh perspective, painter be moved to capture such scenes because for example, as enhanced by the elixir of moon­ they exhibit significant form? Surely Audubon is light. If the play of moonlight upon a building, talking about degrees or varieties of aesthetic such as the Taj Mahal, is an important aesthetic quality, not its presence versus its total absence. For consideration for architects and appreciators of may not trees that are lacking in grandeur possess buildings, why not expect aesthetic significance in the aesthetic appeal of diminutive charm, dis­ the moon's illumination of the gutted forest? The tinctive coloration, a characteristic spontaneity of British painter John Constable is even more lines, or some other appealing feature - however emphatic in repudiating the ugly: impoverished our discourse may be when we I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the attempt to label it? Finally, although the pine forest form ofan object be what it may, - light, undoubtedly differs from the human-produced shade, and perspective will always make it desert in the quality and quantity of its aesthetic beautiful. It is perspective which improves the import, who would hold that it is wholly unaes­ form of this.7 thetic? Thus it is no wonder that twentieth century form of this. philosophers such as Bernard Bosanquet and Just as reason would caution us against judging a Benedetto Croce have raised serious doubts about painting on the basis of seeing a single, small the prospect of invincible ugliness, i.e., ugliness segment, common sense might warn us that it that is unredeemed by any trace of the beautiful.5 would be imprudent to judge a natural object apart While their discussions are largely in the context of from the larger setting in which it is rooted, i.e., the art, I wish to pursue the notion of incorrigible locus of various relations in which it participates. ugliness exclusively in terms of nature. Not only can we apprehend beauty by considering a Four models of aesthetic appreciation, each of natural object in the gestalt of a wider setting, but which argues for a negative answer to our title we can encounter beauty by examining subsets question, will be explored. First, the contextual within the object; adopting such a narrower, con­ model, illustrated by Ronald Hepburn and the textual perspective, one might, for example, appre­ ecosystem of Holmes Rolston, is weighed. Here I ciate the tracery of intricate veins within a stone. critically analyze the argument that although Could not even fecal matter, when viewed on the certain features in a segment of nature may not be microscopic level, possess aesthetic properties? intrinsically aesthetic, they can contribute to an aes­aes-­ Chuang Tzu did not hesitate to locate the Tao even thetic gestalt. Next, Immanuel Kant's phenomeno­ in piss and dung. It should be noted that the con­ logical model and the doctrine of the aesthetic textual perspective necessarily regards all beauty as attitude, which Kant anticipated, are evaluated. relational. Moreover, the relations which confer Third, Bernard Bosanquet's expressionist model, beauty upon a whole are decidedly conceptual which assigns the ugly to a weakness on the part of rather than perceptual. the spectator, identifies the beautiful with the expressive, and identifies a kind of intentional The rotting elk returns to the humus, its fallacy in the attribution of ugliness to nature, is nutrients recycled; the maggots become flies, considered. Finally, I will argue that a metaphysical which become food for the birds ... Every item model, exemplified by such figures as Lao Tzu, must be seen not in framed isolation but

Summer 1989 139 Between the Species Is Nature Ever Unaesthetic?

framed by its environment, and this frame moved by that favorite oak tree in our front becomes part of the bigger picture we have to and this especially tangled and knotted banyan tree appreciate - not a 'frame' but a dramatic rather than its neighbors. Even in the negative play. The momentary uglin~ss is only a still encounter ofJean-Paul Sartre's novel, Nausea, the shot in an ongoing motion picture... The use­ main character, Antoine Roquentin, recoils from a fulness of a tree in the ecosystem is only half specific chestnut tree, not from cogitations about over at its death; as an old snag or a rotting chestnut trees in general. Irrespective of whether hulk it provides nesting cavities, perches, or not concepts were central to a full-fledged aes­ insect larvae, food for birds, nutrients for the thetic appreciation of nature, a point that soil and on and on.8 Immanuel Kant denies, would they not need to be "instantiated," "enfleshed," or "enmattered" in spe­ Thus the decaying animal or plant, which is cific concrete forms if we are to have robust aes­ repulsive in the context of unreflective experience, the~ic experiences? Must not one's aesthetic becomes beautiful in the holistic context of appreciation of nature be grounded in per~eptual biology. According to Rolston, to take up an ecosys­ experience, i.e., in a sensory apprehenSIOn ­ temic perspective is to adopt an aesthetic outlook, however much it may be augmented by concepts or for ugliness is thereby transmuted into something intuitions? For Rolston, any ugly aspect of nature beautiful. inevitably contributes to the whole complex of His account poses two basic questions: First, does nature itself: ''Yet this is not so much viewed as expe­ it make sense to speak of an aesthetic appreciation rienced after one reaches ecologically tutored of nature when the thematic phenomena are understanding. It is not so much a matter of sight as imperceptible? Rolston declares that myriad things of insight into the drama of life."12 But if one occur underground or out of sight; hence, "they delights in such conceptual, aesthetic experiences, are not scenic at all, but an appreciation of them is may one not be neglecting the perceptual char­ aesthetic."9 Presumably he is thinking of the non­ acter of aesthetic experiences? Could not one perceptual but unmistakably aesthetic sort of derive conceptual, aesthetic pleasure simply be delight which accompanies "seeing" a mathe­ reading about the marvels of nature? To know the matical solution, discovering a winning chess move confluence of facts, laws, or principles that govern, and the like. Surely there is something aesthetic say, the flight of the bald eagle is not to aestheti­ about the satisfaction that we derive from detecting cally behold the majestic movement of this bird. relations between or among concepts, but if we Also, if one finds conceptual beauty in a system or remain in this zone, we are in the realm of abstrac­ whole, she might, nonetheless, find perceptual tions, general principles, or universals. Here we ugliness with respect to a part. One may question reflect upon the "formula" which belongs to the the phenomenology implicit in Rolston's claim that life cycle of all moths, or the common denomi­ the ugliness of the momentary scene is just a frame nators of all oak trees. Let us call this a conceptual, in a continuing motion picture. Is it phenomeno­ aesthetic appreciation of nature. But do not the logically accurate to say that "momentary ugliness paradigm cases of nature appreciation invQlve is a still shot in an ongoing motion picture?"13 In encountering particulars? Do nature lovers not discussing the problem of evil, Bertrand Russell seek a turn to individual phenomena rather ~han argues that every act of cruelty remains what it is to nature in general? Rqger D. Sorrell states:tgat for all time and cannot become "good" by St. Francis of Assisi "never used the term 'natUra' absorption into some mysterious whole.I4 Similarly, ... The Biblical literature Francis draws on is rich one might argue that any appearance of ugliness, in specific terms for things in creation, but rarely no matter how fleeting, remains what it is and indulges in abstract conceptualization."10 Consider cannot disappear into a whole.When any such Martin Buber's proposal for a shift to an I-Thou ugliness "disappears" is it not a conceptual rather apprehension of nature: "Instead of considering than a sensory evanescence? Also, for anyone who nature as a single whole, as we usually do, we must adopts Constable's formalist perspective (in whi~ consider its different realms separately."ll We are aesthetic experience is grounded upon an apprecl-

Between the Species 140 Summer 1989 Is NatureNa.ture Ever UnaesUaetic1Una.esUaetic1

ation of the relations which obtain between and conceptualization. By contrast, Immanuel Kant dis­ among such elements as light, darkness, color, tinguishes between pure and dependent beauty, the shape, line, tone, movement, or the play of forces former being independent of concepts,I7concepts.I7 Thus one which underlie equanimity) there is no ugliness, could appreciate a stunted or underdeveloped· not even temporary ugliness. bonsai tree for its own formal properties rather Second, how can Rolston, or other contextualists than in terms of how well it compares to the estab­ - including Constable, make room for the beauty lished paradigm. To use standards of perfection is, of any simple entity? Since antiquity, contextualists after all, to intellectualize or conceptualize. Kant have described beauty in terms of a unity amidst holds that the person who appreciates the beauty of variety. This unity is variously spoken of as an order, the parrot is freer than the ornithologist who an arrangement of parts, a synthesis of elements, a appreciates the bird because it compares favorably balance, a proportion, a symmetry, a harmony, or with similar birds. There is no discursive reason at an interdependence of components. But how can work in judgments of pure beauty; instead, there is this view accommodate the beauty of a single, iso­ the free play of our cognitive powers. Taoists and lated phenomenon such as an unbroken stretch of Buddhists would agree with Kant that discursive blue sky that ftllsfIlls one's field ofvision, unmodulated reason is not necessary for the enjoyment of by variations of hue or the leavening influence of natural beauty, but they would substitute prajna, any clouds. Contextualism, by definition, requires i.e., intuition, for his "free play." that beauty be a function of relations and becomes lustjust as Kant maintained that apprehending pure mute before the simple beauty of, say, a pure tone. beauty depended upon the sort of consciousness For contextualists, there is always the beauty of a one brought to the aesthetic object, proponents of system, but not the intrinsic beauty of any part the "aesthetic attitude" theory hold that a disinter­ which contributes to the whole. ested perspective is a prerequisite for aesthetic Rolston does identity one sense in which a neg­ experience. A suspension of self regard, i.e., the ative answer fits the question: Is nature ever unaes­ practical relevance of the aesthetic data for the thetic? "Neither aesthetic experience ... nor individual, is illustrated in Edward Bullough's mathematical experience exists prior to the coming famous discussion of a fog at sea,18sea)8 The beholder's of humans."Hi"l!i Without humans or without granting feelings can alternate between anxiety toward the aesthetic sensitivities to nonhuman animals, nature dangers posed by the fog and aesthetic delight in itself would be neither aesthetic nor unaesthetic the otherworldly apparitions conjured up by it. .but anaesthetic. The present essay, however, presup-presup­ Here the ugly might be said to be constituted, not poses that humans are beholding nature when it by the perceptual features of the fog as such, but by asks if nature, free from human intervention, is the menacing or intimidatingintimidating powers of the fog­fog ­ ever unaesthetic. Neither will the present study conceptual considerations which Kant's appreci­ adopt the Augustinian perspective from which one ation of free beauty rules out. Bullough states that can argue that any ugliness in nature is unreal in the shift from an apprehensive perception of the that it pertains to a privation of form, i.e., an fog to an aesthetic perception takes place as a sort absence rather than an existing presence. For all of mental distance puts "the phenomenon, so to such approaches fail adequately to address per­ speak, out of gear with our practical, actual self."19 ceptual ugliness. One further reason can be added Returning to the ugliness of Rolston's decaying elk, to the grounds for asserting that nature is never it is notjust that we fail to see the rotting animal in unaesthetic: To say that a thing is good or bad, a broader context of the ecosystem, but that we do beautiful or ugly presupposes that it could have interpret it in terms of our selves. Purged of ref­ been otherwise, but if the natural universe pro­ erence to oneself, would the beholder still find the ceeds from the nature of God or the Tao, then moose to be ugly? Through their suppression ofthe nature could not be any different. merely practical, Kant and the aesthetic attitude Agreeing with David Hume that reasoning is theorists encourage the aesthetic appreciation of needed to appreciate some kinds of beauty,16 nature. They do, however, face two problems. They Rolston's ecosystem model clearly depends upon are sometimes subject to the same criticisms which

Summer 1989 141 Between the Species Is Nature Ever Unaesthetic?

apply to contextualists; and, without the appro­ Representing the expressionist theory, which priate metaphysics, they may fmd nature to be cate­ sees the artist as one who bodies forth inner states, gorically unaesthetic. Bosanquet argues: Bernard Bosanquet holds that "there is no such If the intentional attempt at beauty is the thing as invincible ugliness;" instead, the unaes­ main condition ofugliness, then in nature the thetic is always a function of human weakness.20 main condition ofugliness is certainly absent, Eventually Bosanquet discusses "insuperable while immeasurable stores ofform and order ugliness" in terms of "insincere and affected art," are as certainly present for those who can finding in the latter "the very root of ugliness ­ 26 the pretension to pure expression, which alone can elicit them. have clear and positive failure. "21 Bosanquet's Concerning nature there can be no aesthetic mentor, Croce, had declared that beauty was syn­ failure, since this would require unfulfilled inten­ onymous with the realization of expression and tions. Since we cannot impute to nature any con­ that ugliness is unrealized expression or "unsuc­ scious attempt at beautiful expression, any so-called cessful expression."22 As Bosanquet commented in natural ugliness must follow from our own "mis­ his history of aesthetics: "False characterization selection," i.e., failure to select beautiful form from seems then to be the essence of ugliness. "23 nature's "infinite wealth of appearances and con­ Similarly, Wassily Kandinsky, a father of modern texts. "27 Consider the epistemological problems painting, has asserted that the ugly pertains to an involved in a) knowing God's aesthetic intentions unattained expression of an inner need; whereas, and b) knowing whether or not they have been "everything which adequately expresses the inner realized. Bosanquet's contextualism becomes man­ need is beautiful.''24John James Audubon raises an ifest when he discusses how apparent ugliness interesting question for the expressionist theory of becomes a part of beauty. Taking the amusing case art when he speaks of being put off by the sight of of a dachsund's ear, Bosanquet claims that even if stuffed birds: "1 cannot bear them no matter how you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, you well mounted they may be. "25 Is he disturbed can make a work of art from the dachsund's ear. because the "life" being expressed is a pseudo­ Attached to a human head, the dog's ear is ugly, vitality or because the birds' true, spiritless nature but if the dog-eared man is subordinated to the is not being expressed? beauty of a fairy tale, the dog-eared human is trans­ muted into something enchanting rather than repugnant.28 The ear is not expressive by itself but only as a part of the dramatic whole. Thus beauty has to do with expressiveness and expressiveness with compounds. Naturally, this renders Bosanquet vulnerable to the same criticism that applies to Rolston: How can a contextualist make room for the beauty ofany simple entity? Several versions of the metaphysical model of aesthetic appreciation will not be reviewed. In Plotinus, nothing is categorically ugly, since the beautiful is what symbolizes reason and everything, in one way or another, does so. "We know of nothing in which law is not revealed."29 Again, in classical Taoism, the Tao or Ultimate Reality is lawful and law-giving; it is the way by which things operate naturally or the Law of laws. To go against the grain of nature would be to act unaesthetically or unharmoniously, but any such "ugliness" would pertain to human nature rather than the natural

Between the Species 142 Summer 1989 Is Nature Ever Unaesthetic7

landscape. Thus one version of the metaphysical Tao or God interpenetrates and suffuses all things, model equates the aesthetic with the lawful. This then even the smallest of these is pervaded by the version, which calls to mind the regularity, order, invisible beauty of the Divine. Dr. C.YC.Y. Chang would proportion, form or balance emphasized in Greek prefer to speak of the Tao as the "origin of aesthetics, can be contrasted with Nietzsche's view beauty."54"M It follows from the metaphysical model ofnature as offensive: that no natural object can be unmitigatedly ugly. The model is also related to chapter two of the Tao Imagine a being like nature, wasteful beyond Te Ching, in which we read that "When people know measure, indifferent beyond measure, without beauty as beauty, ugliness arises." One is to have an purposes and consideration, without mercy intuitive, aesthetic appreciation of nature, not a andjustice, fertile and desolate and uncertain conceptual grasp in which distinctions or discrimi­ at the same time...!O50 nations prevent her from enjoying a holistic grasp But those with a religious metaphysics cannot fail to of the natural world. Nature is never ugly or unaes­ see nature, in all its manifestations, as pervaded by thetic for the Taoist, because her intuitive appreci­ the spiritual. Hence a second version of the meta­ ation of nature transports her beyond any physical model associates the aesthetic with the superficial distinctions between the beautiful and spiritual as opposed to the physical. In a Taoist the ugly. When one makes no intellectual classifica­ exchange, one figure who has lost his leg, speaks to tions of the ugly versus the beautiful, one tran­ another about their Master: scends all such relative distinctions and can enjoy the invisible beauty of the Tao as well as the beauty I have been with him nineteen years without ofall things which shimmer with its beauty. being aware of my deformity. Now you and I The metaphysical model has the virtue of being are roaming in the realm of the spiritual, and able to explain why every thing, no matter how you are judging me in the realm of the small, simple or homely, can be an object of aes­ physical. Are you not committing a mistake?51 thetic satisfaction. How else could one explain the fact that every object in nature has the potential to In the same text there is a discussion of deformities fact that every object in nature has the potential to be the subject of an aesthetic experience? If the - which would seem to be paradigms of ugliness - in which Confucius is quoted as follows: spiritual hypothesis is true, then the Absolute is omnipresent together with its attendant aesthetic From the point ofview oftheir sameness all value. Traditionally, the Absolute has been things are one. He who regards things in this regarded as the confluence or ground of truth, light does not even trouble about what reaches beauty, and goodness. The Taoist or Zen Buddhist him through the sense ofhearing or sight, but savors a spiritual or transcendent beauty: lets his mind wander in the moral harmony of Ifheaven and earth, with all the manifold things. He beholds the unity in things, and objects between them, issue from the one root does not notice the loss ofparticular objects. which you and I also come from, this root And thus the loss ofhis leg is to him as would must be firmly seized upon so that there is an be the loss ofso much dirt.52 actual experience of it; for it is in this expe­ An ethical model of beauty, a third version of the rience that Nansen's flower in its natural metaphysical model, is evident in the above ref­ beauty appealed to his aesthetic sense.sense.!1555 erence to "moral harmony." Again we see a form of contextualism, but one in which all lesser unities Note that with the metaphysical model, a flower dissolve into the unity of all things. The perceptual petal can be a microcosm, with the whole ofnature discernible in this single, fragile object. This makes mysticism of visions and apparitions has been tran­ the metaphysical model the most comprehensive scended in a higher intuitive realization which den­ the metaphysical model the most comprehensive sort of aesthetic encounter in which one can par­ igrates "the superficialities of sight and sound."55 ticipate. Moreover, it involves the irony of But the aesthetic as metaphysical model need not beginning with the isolated beauty of a tiny entail an aversion toward particularity, for if the fragment of nature, rather than a contextualist'scontextualist'S

Summer 1989 143 Between the Species Is Nature Ever Unaesthetic?

perspective, but ending with the most far-reaching tingency is possible. This model avoids the any­ sort of contextual appreciation, for the smallest thing-can-happen threat of Sartre's existentialism part is like a monad which represents all that lies and the nature-as-uncertain denouncement by outside it. Because a microcosm represents all that Nietzsche. For Sartre, who sees nature as being so there is, it made sense for Thoreau to go to ugly that it is obscene, this world affords us no aes­ Walden Pond in order to find himself, for his self thetic experiences, these being reserved for the was there, waiting to be detected in the woods, domain of art rather than life as such. Only art can clouds, pond water, and surrounding creatures. substitute the intelligible and the stable for the Just as he could discover his true selfin nature, he absurd contingency of nature. But defenders of the speaks of discovering nature within himself. religious metaphysical model can assert that the Discussing the signs of Spring in a letter, Thoreau supposedly irreducible grotesqueness of Sartre's concludes "that there are as many within us as we chestnut tree in Nausea is actually a variety of what think we hear without us."!j6 Bosanquet calls difficult beauty.42 He argues that Jean-Paul Sartre's atheistic metaphysical model apparent ugliness is actually difficult beauty and eliminates the possibility of aesthetically appreci­ that such beauty depends upon three circum­ ating nature. For him, nature has no purpose; stances: (1) Intricacy - the spectator is often con­ there is no teleology at work, no intelligibility to be fronted with so much that he cannot "take it all in." found. Nausea or disgust is evoked by the fact that (2) Tension - few have the capacity to undergo sheer existence is absurd; we cannot explain why and savor "feeling at a high tension." (3) Width­ there are things rather than mere nothingness. some are too narrow to see, for example, the Existence itself is repulsive. As Alfred Stern humor as well as the sublime in religion. From the remarks, "The absurd is that which cannot be religious perspective no natural object is actually deduced logically. Thus Sartre has to include all ugly, for it is sustained by and continuous with the nature in his absolute absurdity. "37 But, even if invisible beauty of the Absolute. Nevertheless, one human nature and nonhuman nature are equally always encounters difficulty in penetrating the inexplicable givens, the natural landscape (which superficial features of seemingly obnoxious objects Sartre speaks of as "being-in-itself') is alien from in order to reach the aesthetic quality which coin­ human nature (which Sartre characterizes in terms cides with their metaphysical essences. of consciousness or "being-for-itself'), since man is Martin Buber is famous for his distinction never exactly what he is; instead, he is forever in between I-Thou and I-It relations. In the former the process of realizing new possibilities or making kind of relationship we regard the other as a free himself. Nature or being-in-itself "coincides with person; with the latter we view the other as a deter­ itself, is what it is."38 Early in the novel Nausea mined thing. Buber contributes to the religious Antoine Roquentin experiences a "sweetish metaphysical model for the aesthetic appreciation sickness" when he picks up a stone.39 He later of nature when he speaks about having an I-Thou remarks, "The very existence of the world [was] so relation with a tree.43 This is possible because the ugly that I felt comfortable, at home."4O Looked at tree as a Thou participates in the personhood of in terms of its existence, a thing is meaningless, the Eternal Thou or God. Buber also holds that it without foundation, a nothingness at base. is impossible to fully hate a Thou, since every Thou Nausea epitomizes the response of some existen­ resonates with the personhood of its own individu­ tialists to the radical contingency of nature. ality and is also a conduit for the personhood of Roquentin exclaims, "I see it, I see this nature ... I the Eternal Thou. Thus a St. Francis of Assisi, who know that its obedience is idleness, I know it has no adopts an I-Thou stance toward all of creation, can laws: what they take for constancy is only habit and neither hate nor be repulsed by any thing, for it can change tomorrow."41 It is the lawless, gratu­ every object is radiant with the personhood of a itous, irrational character of nature which renders Thou, every object possesses spiritual beauty. Ben it ugly. With the religious metaphysical model, Ami Scharfstein comments on Carl Jung's expe­ God, the Tao, or Brahman as lawgiver insures that rience of sitting on a stone and imagining the nature will be lawful; no absurdity or radical con­con- stone saying "he is sitting on top of me."44 When

Between the Species 144 Summer 1989 Is Nature Ever Unaesthetic1Unaesthetic?

he stone becomes a Thou, one can neither hate it Notes lOr ignore its aesthetic value. Martin Buber reports .hat, as an eleven year old, his aesthetic rapport 1 John James Audubon, Audubon and his Journals,Joumals, Volume ¥hile petting a horse was broken when he attended One, ed. Maria R Audubon (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., :0 the sensation on his own hand and forgot about 19B6,1986, a republication of the first edition originally published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1897), p. 155. :he Thou of the horse.45 In extreme cases the

person merges with the other. Chuang Tzu wakes 2 Wilton Barnhardt, 'The Death of Ducktown," Discovery IIp having dreamt that he was a butterfly and Magazine, October 1987, pp. ~5-4~. wonders: "Am I a man who dreamt that he was a !l Ibid, p. 41. butterfly or am I a butterfly who is dreaming that he is a man?" The point of the anecdote is to 4 Holmes Rolston III, Environmental Ethics (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988). p. 242. underline the interpenetration between the two. Temple University Press, 198B), p. 242. Jung himself asked: "Am I the one who is sitting on 5 See Bosanquet's Three Lectures on Aesthetic (Indianapolis & the stone, or am I the stone on which he is New York: Bobbs-Merrill, Co., Inc., 1963), Lecture III and sitting?"46 Croce's Aesthetic, (New York: Noonday Press, 1968). The religious model of aesthetic appreciation 6 Ronald Hepburn.Hepburn, ''Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature,' in does not culminate in a pantheism which enjoys Aesthetics in the Modem World, ed. Harold Osborne (New York:

nature as an end in itself.47 Instead, besides appreci­ Weybright and Talley Inc., 1968), p. 53.5~. ating all beauties in their individuality, one partici­ 7 C. R. Leslie, Memoirs of the Life ofJohn Constable" ed. by pates in the further aesthetic pleasure of beholding Jonathan Mayne (London: Phaidon Press, 1951), p. 280.

them as emergents from the invisible, spiritual 8 Rolston, p. 239.2~9. beauty of GodGod· or the Tao. To consider the sum total of natural objects as exhaustive of beauty is to 9 Ibid. affirm pantheism, but to appreciate them in the 10RogerlORoger D. Sorrell, St. Francis of AssiriAssisi and Nature: Tradition context of their origin is to affirm transcenden­ and Innovation in Western Christian Attitudes toward the talism, i.e., the existence of a higher, ultimate Environment, (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, reality. Pantheism involves the savoring of per­ 19B8),1988), pp. 7-8. ceptual and conceptual beauty, but in transcenden­ 11llMartinMartin Buber, I and Thou, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New talism such enjoyment is deepened, because it is York: Charles Scribner's Sons.Sons, 1970), p. 172. tinged by a sense of the awe-inspiring, spiritual 12Rolston, p. 241.

beauty from which all earthly beauties flow. From 2~9. this perspective nature is neither a substitute for I!lIbid, p. nor a mere conduit to the Absolute. In artistic 14Bertrand Russell, A History of WestemWestern PhilosopJry (New York:

terms, nature is the medium through which the Simon and Schuster, 1945), p. 580. Absolute is expressed, but just as the artist's 15Rolston.15Rolston, p. 2~5. medium and content are inseparable, nature and Ultimate Reality interpenetrate. When one's aes­ 16David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (Indianapolis & New York: Bobbs-Merrill, Co., Inc., 1957), p. 6. thetic receptivity incorporates a spiritual per­ spective, her aesthetic experience is enriched by 171mmanuel Kant, Critique ofJudgment, trans. J.H.j.H. Bernard (New York: Hafner Publishing Co., 1951), pp. 55-56. the infusion of the purposiveness, intelligibility, or teleological significance which Roquentin so des­ 18Edward Bullough, " 'Psychical Distance' as a Factor in Art perately craved. and an Aesthetic Principle," BritishJoumal ofPsychology, 5 (1912), p.88.

19Ibid.

20Bernard Bosanquet, Three Lectures on the Aesthetic, p. 5~. ~ 21Bosanquet, p. 56.

22Croce, p. 79.

Summer 1989 145 Between the Species ......

Is Nature Ever Unaesthetic?

23Bosanquet, A Histury ofAesthetic (London: George AIlen & Unwin, 1892), p. 355.

24Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, trans. M.T.H. Sadler (New York: Dover Publications, 1977), p. 36.

25Audubon, p. 279.

26Bosanquet, Three Lectures, p. 57. Campfire Talk

27Ibid, p. 56. Birds don't need opinions 28Ibid, p. 54. because they have pinions. 29Bosanquet, Histury, p. 115. What is the opinion of the pinon pine 3ONietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Walter Kaufmann on whether Christianity is (New York: Random House, 1966), p.15. for or against homosexuality? 31Lin liItang, The Wisdom of China and India (New York: A flower doesn't need a savior Random House, Inc., 1942), p. 653. to be able to bloom. 32Ibid, pp. 651-652. A waterfall doesn't need a guru 33Ibid, p-652. in order to gush. A caterpillar doesn't need a Bible 34C.y' Chang, Tao: A New Way of Thinking (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), p. 211. to become a butterfly. A lake doesn't need a Ph.D. 35D.T. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1959), p. 353. to become a cloud. A rainbow doesn't need a fresh coat of paint 36August Derleth, Concord &beL' A Life of Thoreau (New York: Avon Books, 1962), p. 143. every year. Worms don't need to study existentialism 37Alfred Stern, Sartre: His Philosophy and Existential Psychoanalysis, second ed. (New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., to exist. 1967), p. 33. Mountaintops don't need to kneel 38Stern, p. 63. and ask forgiveness for their sins. Capitalism and Communism mean nothing 39Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea, trans. Lloyd Alexander (New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1964), pp. 2, 11. to every tree that alchemizes light. No whale will ever know who Christ is. 40Sartre, p. 174. No chipmunk will ever follow Buddha. 41Sartre, p. 158. No eagle gives a shit about Mohammed. 42Bosanquet, Three Lectures, pp. 46-52. No grizzly will ever consult a priest. 43Martin Buber, I and Thou, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New No seagull will ever become a Mormon. York: Charles Scribner's Sons», p. 173. No dolphin has to learn computers 44Ben-Ami Scharfstein, Mystical Experience (Indianapolis: if it wants to get along Bobs-Merrill, 1973). p. 84. in the modern world. 45Martin Buber, "Autobiographical Fragments," The Philosophy No sparrow needs insurance. of Martin Buber, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp and Maurice Friedman No gorilla needs a God. (LaSalle, Illinois and London: Open Court Publishing Co., 1967), p.10. -Ander 46Scharfstein, p. 84.

47Edward A. Armstrong, SL Francis: Nature Mystic (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1973), p. 17.

Between the Species 146 Summer 1989