Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T17:07:52.226Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Aesthetic Value: Beauty, Ugliness and Incoherence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Matthew Kieran
Matthew Kieran
Affiliation:
University of Leeds
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

From Plato through Aquinas to Kant and beyond beauty has traditionally been considered the paradigmatic aesthetic quality. Thus, quite naturally following Socrates' strategy in The Meno, we are tempted to generalize from our analysis of the nature and value of beauty, a particular aesthetic value, to an account of aesthetic value generally. When we look at that which is beautiful, the object gives rise to a certain kind of pleasure within us. Thus aesthetic value is characterized in terms of that which affords us pleasure. Of course, the relation cannot be merely instrumental. Many activities may lead to consequent pleasures that we would not consider to be aesthetic in any way. For example, playing tennis, going swimming or finishing a book.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 72 , Issue 281 , July 1997 , pp. 383 - 399
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Immanuel, Kant, The Critique of Judgement, trans. Meredith, J. C., (Oxford University Press, 1951), Book I, Section 12, p. 64.Google Scholar

2 See, for example, Kendall, Walton, ‘How Marvellous! Toward a Theory of Aesthetic Value’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 59, No. 3, pp. 499–510Google Scholar, Malcolm, Budd, Values of Art, (London: Penguin, 1995), pp. 1–44,Google Scholar and Jerrold, Levinson, ‘Pleasure, Aesthetic’ in David, Cooper (ed.), A Compatriot to Aesthetics (Oxford: Blackwells, 1992), pp. 330–335.Google Scholar

3 Monroe, Beardsley, Aesthetics (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1958), Section 24, pp. 456–470,Google Scholar and Monroe, Beardsley, ‘On The Generality of Critical Reasons’, Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 59, No. 18, 1962, pp. 477–486.Google Scholar

4 John Constable as quoted in Leslie, C. R., Memoirs of the life of John Constable (1873), Chapter 17.Google Scholar

5 Noel, Carroll makes a similar point about the value of horror films in his The Philosophy of Horror (New York: Routledge, 1990), pp 158–195.Google Scholar

6 Richard, Hülsenbeck, ‘First German Dada Manifesto (“Collective Dada Manifesto)’”, pp. 254–255,Google Scholar in Charles, Harrison and Paul, Wood (eds), Art in Theory 1900-1990 (Oxford: Blackwells, 1992).Google Scholar

7 Picasso as quoted in a conversation on Guernica recorded by Jermoe, Seckler in 1945 excerpted in Chipp, Herschel B. (ed.), Theories of Modern Art (Berkley: University of California Press, 1968), p. 488.Google Scholar

8 Shakespeare, , Twelfth Night (1601), Act 3, Section 1, 1. 159.Google Scholar

9 Frank, Sibley, ‘Aesthetic Concepts’, Philosophical Review, Vol. 68, 1959, pp. 421–450.Google Scholar

10 See David, Hume's essay. ‘Of the Standard of Taste’ in his Selected Essays (Oxford University Press, 1993), Copley, S. and Edgar, A. (eds), pp. 133–154.Google Scholar

11 This kind of line is suggested by Jerrold, Levinson, ’, British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 32, No. 4, 1992, p. 300.Google Scholar

12 Plato, ,The Republic, trans. Lee, D., (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974), 2nd edn, Book IV, pp. –215216, 1. 439e-1.440a. The italics are my own, to emphasize that Leontion delights in the sight of the corpses.Google Scholar

13 See Kendall, Walton, Mimesis as Make Believe (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), p.257,Google Scholar and Alex, Neill, ‘On a Paradox of the Heart’, Philosophical Studies, Vol. 65, 1992, pp. 53–65.Google Scholar

14 See Alasdair, Maclntyre's ‘Pleasure as a Reason for Action’ in his Against the Self Images of the Age (London: Duckworth, 1971), pp. 173–190.Google Scholar

15 See Berys, Gaut, ‘The Paradox of Horror, British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 33, No. 4, 1993, pp. 339–344, makes this point in relation to our enjoyment of fearful and horrific fictions.Google Scholar

16 See David, Lewis, ‘Dispositional Theories of Value’, Aristotelian Society Suppl. Vol., Vol. 63, 1989, pp. 113–137.Google Scholar

17 Immanuel, Kant, The Critique of Judgement, trans. Meredith, J. C., (Oxford University Press, 1951), Book 1, Section 16, pp. 72–74.Google Scholar

18 SeeMatthew, Kieran, ‘The Impoverishment of Art’, British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 35, No. 1, 1995, pp. 15–25,Google Scholar and ‘Art, Imagination and the Cultivation of Morals’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 54,No. 3, Fall 1996.Google Scholar

19 This example was suggested to me by Roger White.

20 John, Ruskin, The Stones of Venice (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1874), Vol. I l l , Chapter III, Section XV, p. 121.Google Scholar

21 Ibid., Section XVI, p. 121.

22 Robert, Hughes, ‘The Decline of the City of Mahagonny’ in his Nothing If Not Critical (London: Collins Harvill, 1990), pp. 3–28.Google Scholar

23 Plato, , The Republic, trans. Guthric, W. K. C. , (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1956), Book X, pp. 421–439. This paper is a heavily modified version of one presented at the Flemish Society of Aesthetics conference in Antwerp, 26–29 September, 1996, in whose proceedings a summation of the earlier version is due to be published. I would like to thank all those present, and Roger White, for their helpful comments.Google Scholar