Q&A #1: Question 2

My second question regarding this week's topic was to respond to Kant's notion that pleasure in the aesthetic is not grounded in nor produces desire. From our reading alone there are several sections in which Zangwill discusses that we seek agreement in our aesthetic judgments, we desire the agreement of other about our claims about beauty. In addition to desiring universal agreement about our claims of beauty, the desire to encounter the beautiful and the aesthetic seems to me to be a plausible theory. Given Kant's support of a priori faculties and abilities in the human mind, would it be untenable to say that people are drawn towards the aesthetic; that we have a natural inclination and desire to seek out the beautiful. While it would be difficult to explain what that inclination would look like, these were just some possible responses I mulled over when rereading the piece for a second time.

More on Recognizing beauty

After our brief discussion about the nature of beauty in last class, I still feel myself leaning towards the idea that beauty itself is a property of an object or experience (although it may be a property determined by its other non aesthetic properties). That would explain why often there is at least some consensus about whether a sunset or painting or song is beautiful; if beauty is a property anyone can recognize and is present in the object, then it would come as little surprise why many can come to same judgement. This would mean however that all people would recognize a present beauty in an object or experience, and given the fact we do have typically have at least one dissenter who disagrees about the beautiful, I have yet to understand why some people would and others would not call something beautiful. Just some thoughts I've been mulling over since last class but I would love to get some feedback if anyone has any comments or questions.

Additional Kant reading

The link provided gives some additional information about Kant's theory on aesthetic judgement and its conditions for those looking for more insight into his theories.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/kantaest/

Q&A #1: Question One

Question One: Is beauty a property we believe is present within objects or one we assign to an object?

I was intrigued by the notion that we often say something is beautiful as if an object or scene possesses the quality of beauty. However there are situations in which we may look for beauty or may be convinced that to some degree an object or experience is beautiful. It seems similar to our working definitions of art, there are contexts in which we  may not apply the term work of and others might. In the same way it seems that two observers could view a painting and one could state that it is beautiful and the other may disagree. I had always considered beauty to be a property which was recognized or discovered in an object or setting, but it seems that more often we apply the term beauty rather than find it. Questions and Comments always welcome so blog away.

Introductions

Hello all! For those who you who do not know me I am senior at MCLA, philosophy major with a minor and social justice and anthropology. I am currently working on my thesis regarding the potential relationship between music and language and how similar the two may be. I am looking forward to a great semester and lets see if we can figure out this whole reality thing together.