Aesthetics of Nature

We develop a series of theses on the philosophical aesthetics of design art. A sketch of an outline of a theory of objects is drawn from within a naturalistic worldview, that of abstract materialism and the general, still ongoing, quest to build a comprehensive philosophy of nature encompassing not only the physical world, but also culture, art, and politics.

Darwin hypothesized that some animals, when selecting sexual partners, possess a genuine “sense of beauty” that cannot be accounted for by the logic of natural selection. This hypothesis has been notoriously controversial. In this chapter I propose that the concept of agency can be useful to operationalize the “sense of beauty”, and can help identify the conditions under which one can infer that animals are acting as (aesthetic) agents. Focusing on a case study of the behavior of the Pavo cristatus, (...) I identify the types of evidence that would allow for the inference of agency through aesthetic choice. (shrink)

The cognitivist environmental-aesthetic theory of Positive Aesthetics—that holds that nature untouched by humans, known through the lens of science, is always aesthetically good—is not relevant to gardens. Nonetheless, I argue that every garden (with one possible exception) is aesthetically positive, that true summative aesthetic judgements about (bona fide) gardens are always on balance positive, and that every garden possesses more aesthetically positive features than negative ones. I offer three arguments for this thesis: (1) once a garden has more negative than (...) positive aesthetic properties, it loses both its design and its purpose; (2) once a garden has more negative than positive aesthetic properties, standard or typical gardening practices are no longer useful for maintaining the garden; and (3) a particular garden that has more negative than positive aesthetic properties is no longer the garden that it was; to bring it back, so to speak, is to redesign and reinstall a new garden. (shrink)

The attribution of perceptually based aesthetic properties to a garden should be indexed to whether that attribution is (1) to the ever-changing dynamic garden or (2) to some phenomenal capture of the garden in one’s experience, frozen like a photograph. Perceptually based aesthetic properties are used to identify objects, to compare them to others, to evaluate them, and to describe them as we seek to interpret or find meaning in them. This set of activities requires aesthetic properties that do not (...) change, or at least not much, if any degree of normativity is to be maintained. But those aesthetic properties that are derived from our immediate sensations of a garden only describe a garden at a certain time, under certain conditions, in certain states—all of which change constantly. Both descriptions are useful, and perhaps necessary, for appreciating gardens. (shrink)

There is a tendency to take mounted dinosaur skeletons at face value, as the raw data on which the science of paleontology is founded. But the truth is that mounted dinosaur skeletons are substantially intention-dependent—they are artifacts. More importantly, I argue, they are also substantially imagination-dependent: their production is substantially causally reliant on preparators’ creative imaginations, and their proper reception is predicated on audiences’ recreative imaginations. My main goal here is to show that dinosaur skeletal mounts are plausible candidates for (...) art-status. But, what is more, I think they are artworks—specifically, sculptures. (shrink)

For several decades, there has been interest in traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in ecological research and conservation. Traditional knowledge and practices are recognized as essential for understanding sustainable uses of natural resources and for developing enduring eco-social policies and cross-cultural conservation ethics. In addition, there has been a growing effort in environmental policy to recognize aesthetic and spiritual values that indigenous peoples attribute to nature. In philosophy, some Western aestheticians have turned their attention to aesthetic diversity and initiated cross-cultural approaches. (...) Nonetheless, environmental aestheticians have so far paid little attention to the potential of TEK in nature appreciation. In this article, I examine Sámi notions of landscape, the environmental knowledge of Sámi reindeer herders, and their appreciation of what is commonly referred to as the natural environment. I challenge scientific cognitivism, arguing that Sámi TEK employs perceptual categories that could provide the basis for a robust ‘cognitivist’ approach and, furthermore, that Sámi appreciation of nature exemplifies a unified view that Allen Carlson called for in his late work. However, I also argue that for cultural outsiders, acquiring TEK is fraught with epistemic and ethical challenges and requires humility and diligence. (shrink)

Numinous Fields has its roots in a phenomenological understanding of perception. It seeks to understand what, beyond the mere sensory data they provide, landscape, nature, and art, both separately and jointly, may mean when we experience them. It focuses on actual or potential experiences of the numinous, or sacred, that such encounters may give rise to. This volume is multi-disciplinary in scope. It examines perceptions of place, space, nature, and art as well as perceptions of place, space, and nature in (...) art. It includes chapters written by art curators, and historians and scholars in the fields of landscape, architecture, cultural geography, religious studies, philosophy, and art. Its chapters examine ideas, objects, and practices from the ancient time of Aboriginal Australians' Dreaming through to the present. The volume is also multi-cultural in scope and includes chapters focussed on manifestations of the sacred in indigenous culture, in cultures influenced by each of the world's major religions, and in the secular, contemporary world. Contributors: Samer Akkach, James Bennett, Veronica della Dora, Alasdair Forbes, Virginia Hooker, Philip Jones, Russell Kelty, Muchammadun,Tracey Lock, Ellen Philpott-Teo, John Powell, Rebekah Pryor, Wendy Shaw. (shrink)

Landscape, Religion, and the Supernatural presents a summa of current and classic theorizing on religion and the supernatural in relationship to the land and develops this theorizing further by confronting it with a rich set of folkloristic and historical data. Focusing on the themes of "time and memory", "repeating patterns", "identity formation", "morality", "labor", "playfulness and adventure", "power and subversion", "sound", "emotions", "coping with contingency", "home and unhomeliness", as well as "nature and environment", the book engages with a broad range (...) of theoretical concepts and approaches from the interdisciplinary field of landscape theory and the study of religions. It brings this theorizing into dialogue with the rich culture of local storytelling and landscape-related traditional beliefs of the Strandir district of the Icelandic Westfjords. In this rural region, landscape-related traditions have been collected since the early nineteenth century and continue to be important to this day. Confronting this rich heritage with the insights of landscape theory both in and beyond the study of religions allows important new contributions to theorizing landscape and religion, especially when it comes to considering the perspectives on landscape held by rural populations rather than the urban upper classes that have stood in the focus of research to date. The example of the Icelandic Westfjords shows the extreme richness of religious and supernatural approaches to the landscape that can be developed in rural communities, and how they are significantly and characteristically different from the urban perspectives of literature and the arts. (shrink)

Understanding the neural underpinnings of emotion enables a re-imagining of traditional aesthetics in which landscape art is conceived as "dance for the dancer." Eschewing the "ocularcentric" for the _kinesthetic_ yields a fresh theory of artistic expression in landscape applicable to all fine art.

El presente trabajo busca explicar cómo la filosofía de Leibniz da cuenta de una concepción radicalmente objetiva de la belleza a partir de las posiciones teológicas y cosmológicas defendidas por el alemán en contra de Descartes y Spinoza. Después de introducir, en la primera sección, el lugar de la estética en los sistemas filosóficos de los racionalistas, la segunda sección se centra en exponer la definición de belleza propia de Leibniz y configurar un criterio de objetividad estética con el aporte (...) de discusiones filosóficas históricas y contemporáneas. En la tercera sección, se revisa el argumento de Leibniz contra el voluntarismo cartesiano y el subjetivismo de Spinoza en relación a la noción de belleza. En la cuarta, evaluaremos si la propuesta ontológica sobre la belleza de Leibniz es compatible con la definición de objetividad desarrollada en la segunda sección. Se concluye que, a la luz de la cosmología y metafísica leibniziana, la belleza debe ser independiente de toda corroboración subjetiva, ya que la belleza de las cosas es lógicamente anterior, incluso, a la existencia de éstas, lo que resulta en una concepción autónoma y objetiva de la belleza. (shrink)

Both landscape and aesthetics are all too often considered disengaged categories associated with leisure and contemplation. This book establishes landscape as a key concept in contemporary thought and rethinks aesthetics in political and activist terms. In order to do so, it challenges the dualism of "the environment" as the space inhabited by humans and the province of the natural sciences about which philosophy has little to say. (This separation is evident even in the name of the recent field of environmental (...) humanities.) In a holistic view, landscapes are at the intersection of environment and human, place and people, and nature and culture, and aesthetics provide an immersive and engaged approach to them. Landscapes are ways of being in the world and aesthetics practical means of inhabiting them. Utilizing a pragmatist, antiessentialist lens, Alberto L. Siani characterizes landscapes (as opposed to environments and territories) as concrete, experienced habitats, performative ways of making sense of the world, while aesthetics (following Dewey) identify values and ordering criteria that permeate them. He addresses issues such as temporality, environmentalism, justice, education, and interdisciplinarity within this framework and in conversation with scientific positions. A coda gives three phenomenological accounts of intensely experienced and inhabited landscapes. (shrink)

Conceptualism in natural aesthetics takes knowledge of natural objects to be necessary for their appropriate appreciation. Concentrating on animals, I explore a particular version of conceptualism – functionalism – in light of debates about the effects of cognition on perception - so-called ‘cognitive penetration of perception.’ I establish the claims about cognitive penetration to which functionalism is committed, and assess the implications of its assumptions for the normative claim that functional appreciation is most appropriate to nature. I argue that functionalism (...) has not yet provided strong reasons for thinking that knowledge affects perception in the relevant ways, and in ways required by its normative claims. (shrink)

Among the infinitude of nature’s various forms, precisely what should we aesthetically appreciate? And supposing we come to achieve such discernment, how should we properly appreciate the aesthetic qualities we thereby find? To address these questions, Carlson has argued that the aesthetic appreciation of nature ought to be guided by scientific insight. In response, non-cognitivists have levelled criticism and suggested alternatives, yet Carlson’s (2009) scientific cognitivism remains the best-argued approach to nature appreciation in the field. One non-cognitivist position that Carlson (...) rejects—although much too quickly—is Berleant’s (1985) engagement model. The purpose of this paper is to modify and revive that model. Specifically, I will argue that genuine engagement requires a particular form of disinterest. The result is a non-cognitivist approach to the aesthetic appreciation of nature, stronger than the extant alternatives. (shrink)

Œuvres sans titre, sans auteur, les formes naturelles furent collectées à de nombreuses époques et dans différents lieux du monde. Universelles, elles apparaissent dans la diversité d'usages d'une pluralité de cultures comme les signatures matérielles d'invisibles forces, supports cultuels ou supports de contemplation, traits d'union entre le naturel et le surnaturel, le visible et l'invisible, mais surtout comme l'indice de préoccupations esthétiques. Ainsi Yves Le Fur cherche-t-il à comprendre ce que leur énigme révèle de notre regard sur les œuvres d'art"--Page (...) 4 of cover. (shrink)

Scholars criticize privileging aesthetics over social and ecological considerations in park design. I argue that the real culprit is not aesthetics, but aestheticism. Aestheticism treats aesthetic objects as if they were ontologically distinct from everyday objects. Aestheticism in park design—treating parks like artworks to be admired like paintings—dovetails into treating parks like representations of a romanticized wilderness: of pristine, untouched landscapes. I argue that aestheticism is a means of constructing an ontological distinction between the beholder and the beheld, for landscapes (...) are not truly pristine if they are sullied by human presence. As an alternative, and while drawing on the works of John Dewey and Yuriko Saito, I argue for a continuity between everyday objects and aesthetic objects. I also draw attention to the question of whose every day is privileged and propose to introduce Wittgenstein’s concept of multi-aspectivity in the analysis of everyday affordances. (shrink)

This work was presented at the Research Center for Philosophy of Science of the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (Iran) – in Aug 2020. --- -/- Briefly, in the first section of this Persian book, first of all, I (Hereafter: the writer) have presented generalities of Aesthetics and an interpretation of aesthetic universality (Hereafter: φ) and it is argued that each definition of art has to admit φ and this is a Kantian, minimalist, and subjective perspective view (some others would incline (...) objective interpretation of φ, but it is beyond the purpose of this work). What’s more, this view could be applied to all definitions of art e.g. Functionalism, Conventionalism, or Hybrid Theories. Additionally, the writer has replied to some objections, those would promote definitions of art without φ, it seems that they could not be successful to refuse φ, since it appears that φ is a premise in every aesthetic judgment. Next, in another section, the writer has written some primary notes on creativity, those have come from contemporary literature of it, and it is argued that there is a relation between creativity and φ. It is also claimed that the relation is the same φ by the creative processes, creative products, and creative persons, both scientifically and philosophically; and so, the relation represents that φ is true. Besides that, the writer has presented some potential objections to the writer’s aspect of the relation and the writer has also replied to those objections. --- -/- In the next section of the book, the writer has applied the φ by creativity to the philosophy of animal-made art, the writer revolutionarily illustrates that first of all, the normativity of the philosophy of animal-made art is prior to the descriptive one. Second of all, φ is principally the criterion to know that animal-made art is impossible. The writer’s position recognizes those other works of animal aesthetics, which means aesthetics of all of the non-human creatures in the earth or cosmos as a new part of environmental aesthetics, is the marginally second order of animal aesthetics. It is owing to the fact that first of all, the question, of whether animal-made art is possible or not, is normative. Second of all, if one does not concern normativity of the question, then one could not get the answer to the nature of it. Next, one could not distinguish between on the one side, the pleasure of drinking water when one’s thirst may cause death, on the other side, the one’s pleasure of listening to music when there is no urgent necessity of it. The fourth argument is that one needs to identify the normativity of animal-made art because one could generalize aesthetic judgments if one sets φ as the basis of it, and then, one identifies that φ is one of the most fundamental bases in Aesthetics. --- -/- The main section of this book is that the writer’s argument -Animal-Made Art Impossibility Argument- is in favor of the impossibility of animal-made art i.e. Functionalist, Conventionalist, or Hybrid Theories of the definitions of animal-made art, also the writer has replied to some possible ideas and objections to the argument. --- -/- Pouya Lotfi Yazdi --- Iran | June 2022. (shrink)

La nature fait aujourd'hui l'objet d'une prise de conscience écologique : une impulsion cependant trans-séculaire qui peut en fait inciter à la méditation, s'inscrire dans un rapport à la philosophie, voire au mysticisme. Cet ouvrage traite de la production artistique, littéraire de cinq artistes religieux par vocation (Léon Boudal, Sabine Desvallières, Franz Stock, Émile Legault et Dom Robert) engagés dans un processus créatif prenant appui justement sur un rapport au milieu naturel. Acteurs d'une société imprégnée de mutations socioculturelles, tous les (...) cinq ont été à la recherche d'une esthétisation de la nature que leur connaissance affinée de la Genèse a sacralisée. L'auteure analyse alors pour chacun d'eux la part de dimension esthétique du sacré et la part de subjectivité personnelle (conditionnée par le vécu, l'éducation, les valeurs sociales) en matière de perception esthétique de cette nature, de leur approche de l'Art, déterminant l'intérêt créatif de leurs productions respectives"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

The appreciation of nature and natural beauty demands our attention as environmental issues become ever more urgent. In this timely introduction, Glenn Parsons provides an overview of philosophical work on the aesthetics of nature, identifying key conceptual questions, clarifying central theories, and analyzing the ethical ramifications of our experience of natural beauty. Outlining five major approaches to understanding the aesthetic value of nature, this second edition explores the aesthetic appreciation of nature as it occurs in wilderness, in gardens, and in (...) the context of appreciating environmental art. Now updated to cover recent developments in the field, it includes: · A new chapter on the sublime, the picturesque, and the beautiful · Expanded discussion of empirical and evolutionary accounts of nature appreciation, as well as the appreciation of the environment in non-Western cultures · A new chapter on the aesthetic appreciation of animals · An in-depth analysis of the appreciation of nature through cinema and photography · Discussion of the relation between environmental appreciation and climate change __ Combining a clear and engaging style with a sophisticated treatment of a fascinating subject, _Aesthetics and Nature_ explores the aesthetic dimension of humanity's relationship with our physical surroundings. This a must-read for anyone who cares about nature and the future of our environment. (shrink)

The time of the landscape is not the time when people started describing landscapes in poems or representing gardens in works of art: it is the time when the landscape imposed itself as a specific object of thought. This object of thought was constituted through quarrels about how gardens were to be arranged, through accounts of travels to solitary lakes and remote mountains, or through evocations of mythological or rustic paintings. Jacques Rancière retraces these narratives and quarrels, showing how they (...) gave rise to a form of sensibility capable of modifying the existing configuration of modes of perception and objects of thought. The time of the landscape is the time when both the harmony of arranged gardens and the disharmony of wild nature contributed to a revolution in the criteria of the beautiful and the meaning of the word ‘art’. It coincided with the birth of aesthetics, understood as a regime for the perception of and thinking about art, and also with the French Revolution, understood as a revolution in the very idea of what binds a human community. The time of the landscape was the time when the conjunction of these two upheavals brought into focus, however hazily, a common horizon: that of a revolution that no longer concerns only state laws or artistic norms, but the very forms of sensible experience. This brilliant and wide-ranging book will be of interest to students and scholars in philosophy, literature, the visual arts and the humanities generally, and it will appeal to anyone interested in critical theory and philosophy. (shrink)

The subject of the thesis is the relationship between aesthetic and God. It aims to discuss whether the sense of beauty is proof of the existence of God and to determine the plausibility of aesthetic proof. As a matter of fact that reality and the perception of beauty point to two-way consciousness. In this context, it will be inevitable to mention God's relation with consciousness in the emergence of beauty. In the first part, the concepts of aesthetics will be analyzed, (...) and their philosophical discussions will be investigated. In the second part, the source of beauty will be questioned, and beauty will be grounded way of a priori and a posteriori with God. Afterward, aesthetic proofs will be presented and an evaluation will be made in the context of naturalistic claims and objections. Among the traditional arguments in the philosophy of religion, aesthetic proof offers a value-oriented approach rather than a mechanical view. It appreciates beauty from an inclusive perspective and has an existential aspect. The study concentrates on the nature of beauty and aesthetics, philosophical discussions, and the rational value of aesthetic proof and concludes that it is rational to suppose that the existence of God can be ontologically and epistemologically explanatory for aesthetic properties. (shrink)

As aesthetic appreciators of the environment, we often encounter cases where our environmental commitments and our aesthetic responses do not seem to match. Some highly altered or contaminated environments may occasion powerful and insightful aesthetic experiences. In this article, I discuss some arguments that have been offered in favor of the view that this mismatch is not possible when we appreciate a particular environment with full awareness of its damaged or altered condition. I show that these arguments are not conclusive (...) and that there is room for valuable experiences of damaged or highly altered environments. Our knowledge of the damaged condition of an environment, while perceptually significant, does not necessarily make the resulting aesthetic experience to be negative. Finally, I show that these cases do not necessarily diminish the role that aesthetics can play in shaping our environmental sensibility and commitments. (shrink)

Nature aesthetics is concerned with four core questions: What is a natural environment? What is relevant, psychologically speaking, to the aesthetic appreciation of natural environments? How ought we to aesthetically appreciate natural environments? What is the relationship between nature aesthetics and environmental ethics? In this essay, I first address in Section 2 whether theorizing about nature aesthetics is possible by challenging the non‐aesthetics view, according to which aesthetic appreciation of nature is not possible, and the relativity view, according to which (...) aesthetic appreciation of nature is possible, but it is an anything goes affair. In Section 3, I outline the core arguments for scientific cognitivism and provide objections to those arguments, making room for alternative views. In Section 4, I outline the distinction between cognitivism and non‐cognitivism and discuss the benefits of the engagement view. In Section 5, I outline the sympathetic imagination view of nature aesthetics. In Section 6, I discuss the emotions view. In Section 7, after summarizing the lessons learned from these debates, I argue for a new view— Enacting Nature's Value— which proposes that we need to rethink nature aesthetics in terms of an enactivist account of aesthetic agency according to which the aesthetic appreciation of nature is a skilled action. In Section 8, I close by considering four future directions for nature aesthetics in the second generation of inquiry. (shrink)

The value of up-hill skiing is double, it is first a sport and artistic expression, second it incorporates functional dependencies related to the natural obstacles which the individual aims to overcome. On the artistic side, M. Dufrenne shows the importance of living movement in dance, and we can compare puppets with dancers in order to grasp the lack of intentional spiritual qualities in the former. The expressivity of dance, as for, Chi Gong, ice skating or ski mountaineering is a particular (...) innocence and lightness which is called grace. It is life without the burden of worries. Grace, in slow progression uphill on snow, is as dance for Dufrenne, it has the most central and specific aesthetical quality of life. Others compared dance to a landscape, a landscape is for the sight, what dance is for life, a symbolical space, different from a usual space, where utility and dependency are present. A mountain can be a space of experience of natural beauty. Aesthetical qualities can be closely related to function related qualities as when a climber needs to adjust his movements to the natural convex inclination of the rocks, and avoid slippery forms of inclination, present on the other side of the mountain. The natural object, the quality of the snow or the rock differ from the aesthetical quality of the style of ascent by the absence of neutralization of the object, in case of a purely instrumental approach. On the contrary, grace in the rhythm of the progression of ski climbers needs a difference of attitude, which is not only proper to the playing, and delimited by the conditions of that play, but as a contingency driven attitude, without signification as radical alterity, without any finality. First ascent of the Matterhorn succeeded from the Swiss side, and not from the Italian side because of the different inclination of the rock on both sides. Grace in dance as in martial art or mountaineering is allowing to perceive an autonomy of the expression, as the truth of the perceived object, it puts away a cognitive and practical orientation and replaces it by a new meaning as movement in the whole set of movements done by the climber. This replacement of the functional expression resembles that operated by the painter who chooses a color in the whole set of colors in a painting, or a shape in the whole set of possible existing shapes. -/- Ref. Dufrenne, Mikel, (1989): The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience. Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, trans. by Edward S. Casey, 1st publ. in 1953, Evanston: Northwestern University Press. (shrink)

Global climate change has been characterised as the crisis of reason (Val Plumwood), imagination (Amitav Ghosh) and language (Elizabeth Rush), to mention some. The ‘everything change’, as Margaret Atwood calls it, arguably also impacts on how we aesthetically perceive, interpret and appreciate nature. This article looks at philosophical theories of nature appreciation against global environmental change. The article examines how human-induced global climate change affects the ‘scientific’ approaches to nature appreciation which base aesthetic judgment on scientific knowledge and the competing (...) ‘non-scientific’ approaches which emphasise the role of emotions, imagination and stories in the aesthetic understanding of environment. The author claims that both approaches are threatened by global climate change and cannot continue as usual. In particular, he explores aesthetic imagination in contemporary times when our visions about environment are thoroughly coloured by worry and uncertainty and there seems to be little room for awe and wonder, which have traditionally characterised the aesthetic experience of nature. Finally, he proposes that art could stimulate environmental imagining in this age of uncertainty. (shrink)

This volume uses the art of Rome to help us understand the radical historical break between the fundamental ancient pre-supposition that there is a natural world or cosmos situating human life, and the equally fundamental modern emphasis on human imagination and its creative power. Rome's unique art history reveals a different side of the battle between ancients and moderns than that usually raised as an issue in the history of science and philosophy. The book traces the idea of a cosmos (...) in pre-modern art in Rome, from the reception of Greek art in the Roman republic to the construction of the Pantheon, to early Christian art and architecture. It then sketches the disappearance of the presupposition of a cosmos in the High Renaissance and Baroque periods, as creativity became a new ideal. Through discussions of the art and architecture that defines proto-modern Rome- from Michelangelo's terribilita' in the Sistine Chapel, Caravaggio's realism, Baroque illusionism, the infinities of Borromini's architecture, to the Grand Tour's representations of ruins- through an interpretation of such major issues and works, this book shows how modern art liberates us while leaving us feeling estranged from our grounding in the natural world. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, architectural history, classics, philosophy, and early modern history and culture. (shrink)

Den tredje earlen av Shaftesbury (1671–1713) var en av 1700-talets mest inflytelserika filosofer. Dialogen Moralisterna är Shaftesburys viktigaste verk, i vilket han undersöker den godhet, kärlek och skönhet som utmärker naturen och samhället. Med sin säregna blandning av moralfilosofi, estetisk teori och poesi intar Moralisterna en unik plats inom den europeiska upplysningen. -/- Karl Axelsson är lektor i estetik vid Södertörns högskola. Utöver själva översättningen bidrar han med en omfattande inledning om Shaftesburys filosofi, förklarande noter och hänvisningar till Shaftesburys övriga (...) verk. (shrink)

The other way marries a designer's visual response to the details and textures of the land with poetic, descriptive and philosophical writing about the land and his relationship with it. There are 13 themed Chapters, each one of which is based on one trip that David has made to a--usually--remote part of the world, often off the beaten track. But in Europe he also turns his eye to more domestic environments. As well as his own photographs, there are pencil sketches (...) and doodles from his diaries. The book itself is a beautiful designed object, printed and bound in New Zealand with the option for a limited edition carved wooden box. (shrink)

One of the aims of the encyclical "Laudato Si’" is to help us “marvel at the manifold connections existing among creatures”, to show how we are also involved, and to motivate us thereby to care for our common home. Are there new dimensions of beauty available to us today because of recent advances in biology? In this paper I seek to answer this question by first recalling the basic criteria for beauty, as expressed by Aristotle and Aquinas, and then evaluating (...) their applicability as regards three ways in which some prominent twentieth century philosophers of biology have sought to overcome the limitations of reductionism. The overall argument refers especially to the works of Jakob von Uexküll and Georges Canguilhem. The results indicate that harmony, proportion, and integrity in the natural order should be more evident than ever before, especially as regards the way the organism and its environment codetermine each other. This insight allows a deeper appreciation of the message of "Laudato Si’". (shrink)

This book defends Aestheticism- the claim that everything is aesthetically valuable and that a life lived in pursuit of aesthetic value can be a particularly good one. Furthermore, in distilling aesthetic qualities, artists have a special role to play in teaching us to recognize values; a critical component of virtue. I ground my account upon an analysis of aesthetic value as ‘objectified final value’, which is underwritten by an original psychological claim that all aesthetic values are distal versions of practical (...) values. This is followed by systematic accounts of beauty, sublimity, comedy, drama, and tragedy, as well as appendix entries on the cute, the cool, the kitsch, the uncanny, the horrific, the erotic, and the furious. (shrink)

Pierre Hadot’s legacy is a vision of ancient philosophy not only as a system of abstract concepts and logical procedures but as a practical philosophical methodology. A key element of this interpretation is consideration of ancient philosophical practice as a series of spiritual exercises to improve one’s own life. The present paper aims to show, more humbly, that by highlighting the aesthetic dimension of the practice of gardening we can consider it part of the set of philosophically charged spiritual exercises. (...) Gardening supports the improvement of one’s own experience of the world through the meeting of different temporal experiences. The appropriation of such different temporal nuances in stark contrast to the accelerated pace of modern life, or periods of tiresome repetition, makes it possible to question one’s own rhythm in the world. In other words, I defend the thesis that horticulture can be considered therapeutic also from a philosophical perspective. (shrink)

Wie wichtig Natur für menschliches Glück ist, als Ort der Freude am Leben oder zumindest der Zuflucht, ist zuletzt vielen von uns aufgegangen. Trotzdem hat Landschaft bisher keine Lobby. Dieses unkonventionelle Buch tritt für die Schönheit der Natur ein. Es argumentiert gegen die Dominanz der anthropozentrisch-rechnenden Weltbemeisterung und für eine «ästhetische Ökozentrik». Unkonventionell ist das Buch aber auch deshalb, weil es die philosophische Arbeit an Begriff und Argument mit literarischen Passagen von grosser Leuchtkraft verbindet. Diese Passagen stammen aus Peter Kurzecks (...) Roman Vorabend. Alle fünf Kapitel : zum Leid der Igel, zur bedrohten Schönheit und Heiligkeit der Natur, zu ihrem Wert als Heimat und zu unserem besinnungslos zerstörerischen Konsum werden im Ausgang von einer solchen Passage entfaltet. Denn es braucht die Literatur in der Naturethik. (shrink)

+++Englisch Translation in "Proceedings of Schopenhauer Congresses 2018-2020 (JSPS)"+++ Der Beitrag geht der Frage nach, warum es in Arthur Schopenhauers System keine Abhandlung über japanische Gärten gibt. Zunächst wird erläutert, dass die Systemphilosophie des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts auf Vollständigkeit in der begrifflichen Darstellung abzielte. Schopenhauer behandelt daher neben vielen anderen Künsten auch die nationalen Besonderheiten der Gartenkunst in Europa und Asien und bestimmt begrifflich deren Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede. Aufgrund der Isolation Japans hatte Schopenhauer jedoch keine Kenntnis von japanischen Gärten. (...) Im letzten Teil des Aufsatzes wird argumentiert, dass japanische Gärten gut in Schopenhauers System gepasst hätten, da der Steingarten, der Teichgarten, der Moosgarten usw. gut mit den Ideen korrespondieren, die Schopenhauers Ästhetik begründen. (shrink)

While the idea of art as self-expression can sound old-fashioned, it remains widespread—especially if the relevant ‘selves’ can be social collectives, not just individual artists. But self-expression can collapse into individualistic or anthropocentric self-involvement. And compelling successor ideals for artists are not obvious. In this light, I develop a counter-ideal of creative receptivity to basic features of the external world, or artistic objectivity. Objective artists are not trying to express themselves or reach collective self-knowledge. However, they are also not disinterested (...) or emotionless. They can be unmoved by personal feelings and human concerns, but they are still receptive—just attuned to the more elemental forces that creatively inspire them. I elaborate this ideal in dialogue with John Ruskin’s influential critique of the pathetic fallacy. By contextualizing Ruskin’s view vis-à-vis Romantic and Modernist poetics, post-Kantian aesthetics, modern environmental art, and contemporary theories of expressiveness, I show how it indirectly motivates my account. (shrink)

Beginning in the 1960s, the belief in landscape's degradation provides a kind of rallying cry for psychoanalysts and cultural critics attempting to diagnose the state of contemporary society.

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I present a brief overview of different theories of the beauty of nature. I will start by discussing two historical accounts that I believe have most impacted our current conception of the beauty in nature: the picturesque and the sublime. I then turn to a discussion of contemporary accounts of the beauty of nature, dividing these accounts into conceptual accounts, non-conceptual accounts, and hybrid accounts of nature appreciation. What I hope to show is that there is no one-principle-fits-all solution for (...) all aesthetic experiences of nature. An immersive experience of river rafting will be different from birdwatching. Knowledge in some cases will add depth to our aesthetic experiences, while in other cases will impede our ability to appreciate. We should thus embrace a pluralistic model of aesthetic engagement, one that allows us to employ different models to different objects—or different models at different times in our life. (shrink)