Aesthetic Appreciation: Crash Course Philosophy #30

Aesthetic appreciation shapes our daily experiences, from sensory enjoyment to how we define art itself. This chapter explores the philosophy of aesthetics, examining what makes an object a work of art, whether beauty is purely subjective or objective, and how we can refine our taste.

1. What is Aesthetics? (Defining the Field)

Many people assume they do not care about art, but this stems from viewing art in too narrow a scope. Consider everyday life:

• Listening to music during a drive.
• Displaying photos or computer stickers.
• Admiring a sunset, a colorful bird, or an attractive stranger.
• Enjoying the first bite of a favorite meal.
• Empathizing with characters in books or shows.

Note: All these experiences are examples of aesthetic appreciation—the pleasure derived from sensory experience and feeling. Philosophers who study how and why aesthetic materials affect us and what value they bring to our lives are known as aestheticians.

2. The Bronze Cat and the Chain: A Thought Experiment

To understand the complexity of art, Arthur Danto introduced a famous scenario involving a bronze cat:

• Imagine a cute bronze cat statue placed on a high step at a massive university.
• To prevent students from messing with it, university officials wrapped a heavy chain around its neck to keep it secured to the platform and protect it from theft on rowdy Friday nights.
• The artist originally forged the statue without any chain.
• However, the chain remained for so long that generations of students came to know the sculpture simply as "The Cat with the Chain."

Core Philosophical Question: Is the chain part of the artwork? Was it originally a sculpture of an unchained cat, or did it become a sculpture of a chained cat?

3. Categorizing Aesthetic Objects

Aestheticians generally divide aesthetic materials into two main categories:

1. Artworks: Objects made by humans.
2. Natural Beauty: Phenomena found in nature (e.g., sunsets, landscapes, wildlife).

However, each category is fraught with captivating and difficult questions regarding where art begins and ends. For instance, are picture frames, chains on sculptures, or scratches on a vinyl album part of the artwork? Furthermore, does the value of art lie solely in what the artist put into the piece, or does it depend on the audience's experience?

4. Leo Tolstoy vs. Audience-Centric Theories of Art

Philosophers have fiercely debated the source of art's definition and value, leading to two major schools of thought:

Leo Tolstoy's Expressionism (Artist-Centric)

• Core Premise: Art is primarily about the artist. It is an expression of the artist's indescribable feelings.
• Function: The artist creates a channel to communicate emotions to others—often feelings that cannot be put into words.
• Alternative Drive: Sometimes, creating art is not about communication at all, but rather a mechanism to purge overwhelming emotions boiling up inside the artist.

The Strict Intentionalist View

• Core Premise: An artist's intention is paramount. For an object to be considered art, the creator must have intended to evoke specific aesthetic emotions in the audience.

Accidental Art & Animal Creators

If artist intent is mandatory, it excludes natural objects from being art and raises tricky edge cases:

• Can non-human animals make art? Is a finger-painting monkey an artist?
• If a skunk walks across wet paint and leaves footprints on paper, did it create art?
• Even if the skunk is not an "artist," is the resulting pattern still art?

Audience-Centric Reaction

Opposing Tolstoy, some philosophers argue that what makes something art is the aesthetic feeling it elicits in the audience, regardless of the creator's original intent.

5. Wittgenstein’s Approach: Knowing It When You See It

As you dive deeper into defining art, the task begins to look impossible.

Conceptually: Ludwig Wittgenstein argued that the concept of "art" cannot be strictly defined. Instead, we rely on a family resemblance approach: You cannot define it precisely, but you know it when you see it.

While Wittgenstein's approach is practical, it fails to resolve concrete dilemmas like whether the chain belongs to the bronze cat.

6. Arthur Danto’s Red Paintings Thought Experiment

To probe the ontology of art, Arthur Danto proposed a thought experiment involving visually identical objects:

The Philosophical Dilemma: All four paintings are visually indistinguishable. What makes one superior to another, or one an artwork while another is merely primed canvas?

Danto’s exercise forces us to conclude that there is a non-physical, historical, or contextual element that makes something worthy of being called art—residing either in the artist's mind, the audience's interpretation, or the historical facts surrounding its creation.

7. Subjective Taste vs. Objective Value

Aesthetics falls under value theory (alongside ethics). However, unlike ethics—where many believe absolute rights and wrongs exist (e.g., murder is wrong)—people often treat beauty as entirely subjective.

8. David Hume on "Good Taste"

18th-century Scottish philosopher David Hume argued that while personal preference is entirely subjective, aesthetic value has an objective baseline:

• Universal Human Responses: Humans are naturally drawn to images representing health and repulsed by decay. We gravitate toward symmetry and abhor asymmetry.
• The Aesthetic Sense: Just as we have senses for smell, sight, and hearing, humans possess a natural capacity to detect and appreciate aesthetic properties.
• Expertise and Nuance: Just as someone knowledgeable about wine or sports notices subtle details that amateurs miss, individuals can cultivate good taste.

How to Acquire Good Taste:

• Innate vs. Learned: Even if you are not born with "good taste," you can learn it over time.
• Active Exploration: By studying and engaging with art forms or domains you initially do not appreciate, your perception shifts. Over time, you begin to see the beauty and complexity that experts value.

Summary and Key Takeaways

• Broad Scope of Aesthetics: Aesthetic appreciation extends far beyond fine art galleries into everyday sensory experiences, nature, food, and design.
• The Art Definition Problem: Defining art is notoriously difficult, sparking debates between artist-centric (Tolstoy), intent-based, and audience-centric theories.
• The Bronze Cat Dilemma: Real-world objects acquire aesthetic history over time, blurring the line between what the artist made and what context adds.
• Danto’s Red Paintings: Visually identical objects prove that art's status relies on non-physical, historical, and contextual dimensions rather than visual properties alone.
• Wittgenstein's Insight: Sometimes concepts like art resist rigid definitions and are recognized through intuitive familiarity ("knowing it when you see it").
• Subjective vs. Objective Tension: While personal preference ("Do I like this?") is entirely subjective, assessing artistic quality ("Is this a good work?") involves shared human standards.
• David Hume's Theory of Taste: Humans share baseline aesthetic sensibilities (valuing symmetry and health) and possess a trainable aesthetic faculty.
• Cultivating Good Taste: Much like developing expertise in wine tasting or sports, aesthetic appreciation can be actively trained, studied, and refined over time.