Is Folk Aesthetics Realist?

Here is a new paper I co-authored with Nicolas Pain. In this paper, we examine an argument in favor of Aesthetic Realism (=the thesis according to which aesthetic values are mind-independent properties of objects) that appeal to folk aesthetics. This argument goes like this: (i) lay people consider that aesthetic judgments can be right or wrong, which means that (ii) folk aesthetics is realist, which is (iii) a great advantage for Aesthetic Realism since other theories have the burden to explain away folk aesthetics (by developing error theories). In a series of experiments, we show that people are not generally realists, since most of them consider aesthetic judgments to be neither right nor wrong.

The idea that people consider their aesthetic judgments to have universal value is also an important starting point of philosophical Aesthetics: many philosophers working in this area think that there's something special about aesthetic judgments (i.e. they are based on feelings but considered universally valid) and that one of their task is to explain it. We discuss how our results suggest that there might not be something special about aesthetic judgments.

Comments are most welcome !

(And maybe this is the occasion to open a new category on Experimental Philosophy: Aesthetics. Yay!)

Comments

[Arnold Perey, Ph.D.]

I think the following paragraphs which are in my doctoral dissertation (Anthropology Dept. Columbia Univ. 1973)-- posted in the URL "http://www.perey-anthropology.net/Oksapmin_AE.htm" provide experimental evidence that meets scientific criteria (rather than the seemingly weaker standards of 'folk aesthetics') that, indeed "aesthetic values are mind-independent properties of objects." I learned this important, new fact in classes with the founder of Aesthetic Realism, Eli Siegel, beginning in 1968. Indeed, he proved definitively in a large number of works that "Beauty Is a Thing that Things Have" -- the title of one of his great lectures. Beauty isn't only 'in the eyes of the beholder,' it's in the object beheld. This was new to me, and I studied it with the scientific fervor I also studied physics. I was to learn, further: "All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves." (See http://www.terraingallery.org/IsBeauty.html and see http://www.terraingallery.org/Art-Talks-Archive.html .)

I quote from relevant paragraphs of my dissertation now, giving experimental evidence that there are universal criteria for beauty in art, which transcend individual, culture-bound opinion:

"Irvin L. Child in his article "And the Bridge of Judgment that Crosses Every Cultural Gap" (1972)... presents statistics showing that trained experts in aesthetics tend, significantly, to agree on judgments of art from cultures not their own and in styles they never saw before. The agreement is independent of time, culture, and observer, says Child. The experts consulted were Japanese potters of long experience, Fiji Island artisans, Bantu wood carvers, and New Haven students of art and art history. Child concludes: "We have to look again at the well-accepted view that esthetic judgment is completely culture-bound" (page 21). Although Child did not say what the cross culturally valid standards might be, he showed that some exist.

"However, we can see, in the art that particular peoples have traditionally liked for generations, a union of conflict and repose (Fernandez, 1966, 1968); a joining with tension of emotion and restraint (Devreux, 1964:362); a combination of aggression and nurturing, of male and female (Forge, 1965:8); a presentation of anxiety and its resolution (Firth, 1959:181); a resolution of the conflict between love and hate (Muensterberger, 1950:317); and a logical model to overcome such contradictions as that between life and death (Levi-Strauss, 1963:217, 226).

"All these examples suggest that Oksapmin* art, in making one of opposites in its own particular way, is doing what the art of all cultures does. Art presents a certain relation of things which are separate or opposed, and also united. It presents opposed tendencies of mind, such as anxiety and hope, and shows that while they are distinct they are still united. It is this that makes it beautiful."

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* Oksapmin, in Papua New Guinea, is the location of the tribal people whose culture this dissertation describes.
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It was Eli Siegel who first stated, and proved in many works over the years, that "All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves." The above-cited website provides some bibliography and more can be found on AestheticRealism.org, AestheticRealism.net, and TerrainGallery.org.

Aesthetic Realism, for those who might not know, is the philosophy founded by Eli Siegel in 1941. It is the source of the term Aesthetic Realism, now used too often without pointing to its original source.

Even though people tend to think their judgments on anything are universally "right" when they haven't a broad enough experience to justify the presumption, still a sufficiently informed person can indeed be "intersubjectively" right about ethical or aesthetic judgments, and know it.

Best wishes to you, Florian Cova and Nicholas Pain

[T. Gracyk]

Comment for Perey: And how does this thesis differ from Hutcheson's claim that beauty is unity amidst diversity? Since it's not clear what a non-verbal "opposite" is, Hutcheson would seem to have an advantage over Eli Siegel.

[Arnold Perey]

In response to Gracyk: If you look at Eli Siegel's "Is Beauty the Making One of Opposites?" (http://www.terraingallery.org/IsBeauty.html). You will see that Unity and Diversity are there, but they take the form of Oneness and Manyness. They are definitely needed for a work to be good. However, they are one of a series of opposites that one can see in a painting if one looks for them. Unity and Diversity will be accompanied by others. This is, perhaps, one difference from Hutcheson; I leave it to you to determine how large the difference may be.

I think you will see some of the power of Siegel's descriptions if you study a specific painting you like in the light of "Is Beauty the Making One of Opposites?" and ask yourself about the truth of each pair of opposites as to that work.

As to the clear definition of "opposite" that you're asking for, you will find such a definition quoted in my thesis -- a definition I use regularly in my anthropological work. It's at this URL: http://www.perey-anthropology.net/Oksapmin_AB.htm.

The concepts of Aesthetic Realism are based on philosophic definitions, making them wonderfully consistent logically and verifiable in terms of real life. I have found this to be so, to my great benefit.