The aesthetic is usually associated with euphoria or the dread of the
sublime, and any attempt to disassociate it and make it into something
touched off by a football touch down seems very wrong. Almost
postmodern in the superficial sense.
-----Original Message-----
From: William Conger <[email protected]>
To: aesthetics-l <[email protected]>
Sent: Tue, Dec 10, 2013 6:50 pm
Subject: Re: comment invited
The whole point of seeking a definition of the aesthetic is to
distinguish it
from the non-aesthetic. If, as claimed below, there is no distinction
between
the aesthetic and any other 'sudden' feeling then we don't have a
definition.
If it can't be falsified, as the scientists like to say, it can't be
claimed
as a defintion or theory. I would suppose that the sensation of being
shot is
not an aesthetic one. When I stub my toe on the damned table it is not
an
aesthetic feeling. In history, the aesthetic has always been
associated with
a sensation of euphoria or a sense of helpless dread or awe, as is
typically
associated with the sublime.
wc
________________________________
From:
armando baeza <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Cc:
armando baeza <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 4:00
PM
Subject: Re: comment invited
Tom, you ,once referred to an aesthetic
experience as when at the
final second of a football game your team caches the
long pass in
the end zone, winning the game. as an aesthetic experience as (
pleasure)
And I agree with that. But another person of the opposing team felt
the
same aesthetic experience as (displeasure)
I take the word "aesthetic" to
be equal in meaning as the word "temperature"
A place one can feel extremely
cold to one that's extremely hot, and in
between.
ab
On Dec 9, 2013, at
11:45 AM, Tom McCormack wrote:
On Dec 9, 2013, at 12:03 AM, armando baeza
wrote:
"Aesthetic experiences" as i originally understood it, was that
any thing
under the umbrella
between the two extremes of taste ,likes
and dislikes.
good-bad,ugly-beauty,etc could
be an "aesthetic
experience".
To me,that means that any sudden feeling of any kind from
nature or man
made
art could
be an aesthetic feeling.
The problem I
see is that some people get a pleasant surprise feeling,
while
others
may feel the opposite from the same experience. Yet both are really
"aesthetic
experiences",.
ab
Not for me. Someone recently sent me a
series of precarious
mountain-climbing
photos. Every single one was scary. I
guarantee I got a "sudden feeling"
from
some of them. But I have no
inclination to call that feeling an "aesthetic
experience". Why, though? I'm
ready to call the experience occasioned in me
by
very disparate things like
a Dickinson poem, a Hokusae wood print, and
Beethoven's Ninth "aesthetic
experiences", but not a photo of a gruesome
car
crash, or the photo of
someone jumping out of the ninetieth floor on 9/11.
Why? There'a lot to be
learned about just what is going on when we hear a
Mozart piano concerto, or
watch Allegra Kent dancing
L'aprhs-midi d'un faune.
