M3

AESTHETICS
The word aesthetic is derived from the Greek αἰσθητικός (aisthetikos, meaning
"esthetic, sensitive, sentient, pertaining to sense perception"), which in turn was
derived from αἰσθάνομαι (aisthanomai, meaning "I perceive, feel, sense" and related
to αἴσθησις (aisthēsis, "sensation"). Aesthetics in this central sense has been said to
start with the series of articles on “The Pleasures of the Imagination” which the
journalist Joseph Addison wrote in the early issues of the magazine The Spectator in
1712. The term "aesthetics" was appropriated and coined with new meaning by the
German philosopher Alexander Baumgarten in his dissertation Meditationes
philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus ("Philosophical considerations of
some matters pertaining the poem") in 1735; Baumgarten chose "aesthetics"
because he wished to emphasize the experience of art as a means of knowing.
Aesthetics, a not very tidy intellectual discipline, is a heterogeneous collection of
problems that concern the arts primarily but also relate to nature. even though his
later definition in the fragment Aesthetica (1750) is more often referred to as the first
definition of modern aesthetics.
Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and appreciation of
art, beauty and good taste. It has also been defined as "critical reflection on art,
culture and nature". The word "aesthetics" derives from the Greek "aisthetikos",
meaning "of sense perception". Along with Ethics, aesthetics is part of axiology (the
study of values and value judgments).
In practice, we distinguish between aesthetic judgments (the appreciation of any
object, not necessarily an art object) and artistic judgments (the appreciation or
criticism of a work of art). Thus aesthetics is broader in scope than the philosophy of
art. It is also broader than the philosophy of beauty, in that it applies to any of the
responses we might expect works of art or entertainment to elicit, whether positive or
negative.
Aestheticians ask questions like "What is a work of art?", "What makes a work of art
successful?", "Why do we find certain things beautiful?", "How can things of very
different categories be considered equally beautiful?", "Is there a connection between
art and morality?", "Can art be a vehicle of truth?", "Are aesthetic judgments
objective statements or purely subjective expressions of personal attitudes?", "Can
aesthetic judgments be improved or trained?"
In very general terms, it examines what makes something beautiful, sublime,
disgusting, fun, cute, silly, entertaining, pretentious, discordant, harmonious, boring,
humorous or tragic.
 
Theories of art and art itself exist within a context—philosophical, cultural, class and
gender specific—from which it emerges and without which it does not exist.
Philosophers and art theorists cannot escape the influence of past philosophers and
theorists any more than they can remain untouched by current trends in film,
technology, and architecture. Art and culture and theories of art and culture are
inseparably and organically linked together. Furthermore, this is not a static or eternal
pattern but one that is dynamic, fluid, constantly changing historically over time.
Principal changes in philosophy (generally) are likely to become more influential in
the philosophy of art. There is a profound convergence between general philosophy
and philosophy of art. Let me express three general trends that are important to keep
in mind  as we discuss pre-aesthetic, aesthetic, and postmodern theories over the
duration of this course.   As Sartwell points out, (p8)Europe only developed the
concept of the aesthetic in the 18th century.
Here are the three broad movements in philosophy that are important to remember
when we reflect upon questions concerning art:
Deep suspicion that we cannot hope to fix any single ontology, any universally
adequate unchanging account of human cognition or human interests or human
concerns.
   2.  We must reflect upon the contingent and tacit practices of human life. These are
central to philosophical reflection
   3.  There cannot be any canon or principles or conceptual priorities in accord with
which philosophical theories may be shown to be approaching systematic closure on
any questions.
Aesthetics (as the study of art and beauty), aesthetic experience (the proper way of
approach and experience art and beauty), and modern art (art for art’s sake) all
arose together at approx. the same time as expressions of modernist culture
(somewhere between the Renaissance and the middle of the 20th century).
Aesthetics is the name of the philosophical study of art and natural beauty. It is a
relatively new branch of philosophy that arose in the early 18th century (early
1700’s )in England and Germany, over 2000 years after the beginnings of other
branches of Western philosophy (which began in Greece around 600 B.C.E.)
Aesthetics is closely related to the concept of aesthetic experience. Baumgarten who
coined the term aesthetics, claimed that humans experience the world in two
fundamentally ways—logically and aesthetically.
Logically—that is a thorn, it will hurt if it pricks me
Aesthetically—enjoying a sunset, looking at seashells, enjoying a work of art. These
things are beautiful because you are looking at them aesthetically.
What we call art, or more properly fine art, is therefore, according to the 18th +19th
century tradition of the aesthetic, those objects made by humans to be enjoyed
aesthetically. So, Paleolithic European cave paintings, Native American wood
carvings are not really art according to some because they were made by people
before the emergence of aesthetic experience.
So, art created as art, aesthetic exp. And aesthetics are notions that all arose
together. These human ways of interpreting the world have not always existed since
the dawn of human society and not even since the beginning of Western civilization.
Philosophy is often thought of as a kind of systematic reflection of our ordinary
commonsense intuitions and deeply rooted beliefs and assumptions. This would
mean that aesthetics is a reflection on ideas we already have about art, artists. If
aesthetics is a branch of philosophy and philosophy is a reflection of our ordinary
commonsense intuition, then, in a sense, we already know what art, aesthetics, and
artists are.
But these commonsense intuitions may be so deeply engrained and internalized that
we may take them for granted. Perhaps we can more fully experience artworks if we
enlarge our perspective. How do we do this?
Our way of viewing art from an aesthetic point of view is only one way of looking at
things. It appears at a certain point in the history of certain cultures and may just was
easily disappear and be replaced by another way of viewing things.
The ideas of aesthetic enjoyment and fine art and artist arose in what we call the
modern period (end of 17th century to middle of 20th). Main points of modernist
aesthetics
Aesthetic experience is nonutilitarian
AE is detached from ordinary self-interested pursuits (is disinterested)
Works of art are made to be viewed aesthetically—and so just to be enjoyed (For no
other purpose)
Everyone can appreciate art just by adopting the aesthetic point of view
Artists see things in a unique way and creatively find innovative ways of
communicating that vision to us
Artists show us how to look at the world, how to understand ourselves, who we are
Works of art express these unusual ideas of artists
Great works of art must be innovative and creative, expressing new ideas in new
ways
The history of art is the history of these great innovations by these great artists
Art is not hard to understand—it just requires that we adopt the aesthetic point of
view
The story of aesthetics begins with Hobbe’s claim that all human perception is self
interested. Many people disagreed with Hobbes and though that some human
actions were disinterested, that is, done for their own sake, enjoyed and appreciated
for their own sake. And one large subset of such disinterested actions were those
associated with art and natural beauty.
The reaction began in Britain with the Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713) who said we
can love things for themselves (good wine, a beautiful sunset, a painting). Deciding
what we should love and appreciate in this way is a matter of taste, a kind of inner
sensation, or feeling. It is not something you can learn from a book.
As I mentioned earlier, In the 1750’s Alexander Baumgarten pursued this idea by
dividing all human thought into two broad categories—logic and aesthetics. After
Baumgarten, the British worked on the idea of good taste as kind of refined sensibility
available to anyone who would adopt the detached, disinterested aesthetic point of
view. And still later, at the very end of the 18th century, the German philosopher,
Immanuel Kant synthesized the work of the British taste theorists and the German
attempts to define the aesthetic as differentiated from the logical, and Kant’s efforts
pretty well defined and stabilized the tradition of the aesthetic attitude for the next
150 years.