The word "aesthetics" is very often used to designate a philosophical
description of formal properties in various objects in the world.
Maybe we've been looking at it wrong. Perhaps aesthetics accomplishes
something different.
Bear with me on this, because it came to me a short time ago and I
haven't worked it through entirely. (And I haven't read much in the
area of aesthetics, much less "aesthetic cognition," in a while.)
IF the human brain is particularly adept at pattern recognition, as
many people assert; and
IF speech, image recognition (especially facial), bilateral dexterity,
and other skills are especially crucial to humans; and
IF artifacts of many kinds are the hallmark of human activity;
THEN the ability to discriminate among different patterns, different
sounds, and different memories in order to choose one or more
individual instances may have been a valuable skill and may have
arisen through evolutionary forces. More than that, humans may have
developed an "aesthetic" sense, not as a way to appreciate artifacts,
but as a way to produce them. An "aesthetic" sense may have been used
as a cognitive tool or technique of a practical nature, as much as of
a disinterested or speculative nature.
Thus, "aesthetics" as a cognitive tool would contribute to analytic
thinking about the sensory appearance (or sound, or taste, etc.) of a
thing. Our "aesthetic" vocabulary includes words that refer to sensory
phenomena (colors, textures, tastes, sounds) and to the relationships
between them (color and sound harmonies) or particular qualities
(loudness or softness, pitch, tartness, granularity).
But as happens, sometimes the paradigm reaches a limit and, in order
to accomplish something more, the paradigm must be abandoned or
broken. I'm thinking here of the Stealth Fighter, which appears so
different from every other airplane up to its invention. Not merely
different (and not merely non-airworthy, which it certainly seems from
outward appearances), but unattractive. It doesn't look like an
airplane, much less the sleek, impressive, and powerful predecessors
that formed our notions of beautiful and admirable in aircraft. The
Stealth Fighter redefined aerodynamic beauty, or at least expanded its
definition--very much like how modern music (e.g., jazz) or painting
(e.g., abstract Surrealism) moved the boundaries in their fields.
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Michael Brady
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