THE SENSE OF BEAUTY : BEING THE OUTLINES OF AESTHETIC THEORY PDF, EPUB, EBOOK George Santayana | 294 pages | 08 Aug 2015 | Andesite Press | 9781296520298 | English | none The Sense of Beauty : Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory PDF Book And Levinson c proposes an account of aesthetic pleasure in which the cognitive is similarly central: pleasure in an object is aesthetic, says Levinson, when it is grounded in a perception of and reflection on the object's individual character and content, both for themselves and in relation to the structural base on which they rest. For the work of art should put before our eyes a content, not in its universality as such, but one whose universality has been absolutely individualized and sensuously particularized. Want more? Thus the question then arises whether such a universal and thoroughgoing opposition, which cannot get beyond a mere ought and a postulated solution, is in general the absolute truth and supreme end. Further, in its content, science is occupied with what is inherently necessary. Wollheim argued against identifying all artworks with physical objects, and against the opposite conception of artworks, perhaps attributable to Croce, Collingwood, and Sartre, according to which works of art are mental entities. Heidegger, as we shall see further on, later picked up on and radicalized these same thoughts. What fills his mind he just makes clear to himself and others in particular cases always, real or invented, in adequate examples, and so forth; for in his ideas anything and everything is shaped into concrete pictures, determined in time and space, to which there may not be wanting names and all sorts of other external circumstances. Undertaking the act of synthesis is, as in Kant, left to the productive imagination, which must form the material, concurrently bestowing appearance Erscheinen upon both intuition and the object. What is before us is only elements and aspects of it as they occur already in the different ideas of the beautiful and art held by ordinary people, or have formerly been accepted by them. Now this relation of desire is not the one in which man stands to the work of art. The first that we may encounter is the doubt whether fine art shows itself deserving of a scientific treatment. The extent to which this is true has become obvious since the dominance of the technosciences, which rely not only on mathematical formulas, but also on visualization and diagrammatic tools. Indeed, his summation remains a flawless classical statement. The expression of - or the association with - monetary value is one Santayana addresses very directly. Perhaps we should therefore favor Theodor W. Of course this form may be manifold in itself, as hope, grief, joy, pleasure; and, again, in this variety it may encompass different contents, as there is a feeling for justice, moral feeling, sublime religious feeling, and so on. In a second part of the book, Kant wrestles with the concept of teleology, the idea that something has an end, or purpose. Subscriber sign in You could not be signed in, please check and try again. Vermazen, B. Gaut and D. Goodman's moderate nominalist conception of a musical work, in particular, is that it is a class of performances compliant with a score, scores being complex symbols in a notation. This is the case, for example, with the gods of Greece. Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy. But in such examples and others it must at least occur to us at once that, instead of praising works of art because they have deceived even doves and monkeys, we should just precisely censure those who think of exalting a work of art by predicating so miserable an effect as this as its highest and supreme quality. Santayana is perhaps best known today for his remark that "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it", and the line "only the dead have seen the end of war"—the latter often falsely attributed to Plato. Nietzsche is at the beginning of a discovery of two different truths or concepts of truth, as well as of two different means of gaining knowledge. In this style, so untypical of the professionalized philosophy common in the English-speaking world during his lifetime, Santayana nevertheless articulated an epistemological critical realism and an ontology of essence and matter that drew the attention and admiration of philosophers and scholars. Currie believes that all artworks are types, even those that, like paintings and drawings, are ostensibly unique particulars see also Zemach Thought and reflection have spread their wings above fine art. While much of what Kant writes about aesthetics might strike us now as a bit dated, his work is historically very significant. In Sibley's view, the distinctive feature of aesthetic concepts is their non-condition-governedness , or non-rule-governedness: that an aesthetic term is true of some object cannot be justifiably inferred from any description of the object in non-aesthetic terms. In its first guise, aesthetics was an epistemological question that did not aim to define the difference between truth and falsity, because it constantly oscillated between the two, culminating in a discourse on beauty as the perfection of the phenomenon perfectio phaenomenon , as Baumgarten wrote in Metaphysica, which corresponds with the perfection of sensate knowledge perfectio cognitionis sensitivae. For example, there are the issues of whether film is an inherently realistic medium; of whether poetry can be usefully paraphrased; of p. It reveals something which had previously been invisible and readjusts the constellations of perception. The Sense of Beauty : Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory Writer Indianapolis, Ind. Theory of the Arts. Account Options Anmelden. London: Phaidon. For scepticism, see Carroll Hanfling, O. On this topic we shall speak at greater length later [in Part I, ch. Predelli, S. Vorwort In: Florian Dombois Hg. Yet even within the non-philosophical disciplines, doubts may arise about the existence of their objects, as, for example, in psychology, the science of mind, there may be a doubt whether there is a soul, a spirit, i. The non-condition-governedness of aesthetic concepts does not, however, prevent aesthetic properties from being dependent on and determined by non-aesthetic properties; the relation between those sets of properties, however, remains broadly causal rather than conceptual. Truth as difference is for Heidegger no longer a moment of sublime suddenness, but of a conflict that cannot be resolved. Taste in this sense concerns the arrangement and treatment, the aptness and perfection of what belongs to the external appearance of a work of art. Only so is it grasped absolutely in its truth : for, on the one hand, over against the sterility of one-sided reflection, it is in that case fertile, since, in accordance with its own Concept, it has to develop into a totality of specifications, and it itself, like its exposition, contains the necessity of its particularizations and of their progress and transition one into another; on the other hand, the particularizations, to which a transition has been made, carry in themselves the universality and essentiality of the Concept, as the proper particularizations whereof they appear. For nature and its products, it is said, are a work of God, created by his goodness and wisdom, whereas the art-product is a purely human work, made by human hands according to human insight. Yet Meyer in the book mentioned above thinks that this view has been superseded without trace and, as he maintains, to the benefit of art, on the ground that this idea would probably have led to something like caricature. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice. In this style, so untypical of the professionalized philosophy common in the English-speaking world during his lifetime, Santayana nevertheless articulated an epistemological critical realism and an ontology of essence and matter that drew the attention and admiration of philosophers and scholars. Mandelbaum also p. The influence of the passion of love. Take a Study Break. This view has roots in the work of the eighteenth-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who thought that the beauty of objects, artworks and natural phenomena alike, consisted in their ability to stimulate the free play of the cognitive faculties in virtue of their pure forms, both spatial and temporal, and without the mediation of concepts. Concurrently, art decidedly does not connote actions concerned with mirroring or representing the world and what holds it together, rather it springs from a practice of non-identity. Username Please enter your Username. It is remarkably appropriate that this work on aesthetics should have been written by George Santayana, who is probably the most brilliant philosophic writer and the philosopher with the strongest sense of beauty since Plato. The first that we may encounter is the doubt whether fine art shows itself deserving of a scientific treatment. Oxford Handbooks Online. Lopes, D. Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker. Kant granted art a role no greater than fine-tuning our powers of cognition just as we tune musical instruments to fulfill another purpose , after which he banned it to the outskirts of metaphysical cognition. These two paths or alternatives are related, but remain independent. Artists have also created environments for different senses, including exhibitions where blind people and seers were subjected to diverse haptic sensations. Still, how can original works of art for the touch be produced, without repeating a previous experience? In a second part of the book, Kant wrestles with the concept of teleology, the idea that something has an end, or purpose.