Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 14:50:43 +0100
From: Colin Wight <Colin.Wight-AT-aber.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: Reply to Colin


Hi Tobin,

Holy smokes, you seem to be proceding entirely on actualist grounds on this
>issue.  

Could be, i'm not convinced that actualism may be that much of an error as
far as aesthetics is concerned. Let me not reply to your post in detail,
but put the position starkly as I see it. If, as you seem to want to argue
(although if I am wrong please correct my apologies), there is an objective
aesthetic structure to objects/events etc. then you must be prepared at
some level to say, for example, that seeing/tasting smelling X can/should
produce aesthetic experience Y.

It simply can't be that you want to argue that the same objective structure
in X can be allowed to produce differing aesthetic experiences, perhaps Y,
Z, T, since this simply lets you have it all ways. In which case what is
the objective aesthetic structure of the combination of red and salmon? Is
it disgusting or is it not? On your reading (unless I have totally
misunderstood) if the objective aesthetic structure tends towards yuk!,
then presumably those who like red wine and salmon are deficient, or wrong,
in some way. And all that remains is that we re-educate them correctly. I
want to say if you enjoy red wine combined with salmon then fine, who I am
to tell you that you are failing to understand the complex aesthetic
structure I enjoy.

Is this aesthetic experience You seem to be saying that if an artwork
doesn't produce aesthetic
>pleasure each and every time it is encountered, then it possesses nothing in
>itself to produce such pleasure, and therefore aesthetic structures don't
>exist, only subjective aesthetic experiences do. 

My position doesn't entail this at all. A thing encountered can produce
many experiences but the aesthetic ones are supplied by the subjective
(socially constructed - just to head that one off) and do not inhere in the
thing itself. Only this can explain changing subjectives experiences of
unchanging things. What is changing is not the thing, but your/mine/our
subjective appreciation of it.

 So are you able to watch a
>re-run of *The Honeymooners* and experience *Oedipus Rex*?  Do you also say
>color red is wholly subjective and has no connection to the wine seen as
>red? 

Sorry Tobin, this latter point has littel if anything to do with aesthetics
(as I understand it).Of course, the structure of the world plays a role in
whether I see red or not. But this structure in itself is not aesthetic. Do
I like/hate this colour red. if you want to argue that the structure of a
thing in virtue of which it is that kind of thing is its aesthetic, then I
think we really do have amjor disagreements.

 Does the use of particular hops have no bearing on the flavor of your
>beer?  Well, yes of course, but do I like these hops is the question that
is at issue. Not do these hops make this beer taste thus.


>My position is that aesthetic experiences are the result of complex
>interactions between person, culture, artifact, and context, and that the
>artifact possesses a structure (or set of structures) which gives it powers
>that may or may not be realized in any particular interaction.  You seem
>willing to grant that analysis for your strong red, which you say goes badly
>with salmon and so *doesn't* give you aesthetic pleasure in that
>circumstance, although it does in others.  

What i am saying is the aesthetic experience that i have when drinking red
wine with salmon, is unique to me. This explains why my partner
(philistine) drinks red wine with salmon. She like it, i don't. The
structure of the aesthetic event is not objective, or else we would both
excperience the same thing.

Is this wine or water does not seem to me to be an aesthetic question.

I think Michael is right in his assessement, I am thinking of aesthetic
questions as evaluative ones. Maybe what you should be trying to do is to
convince me otherwise.

Still, what is the objective aesthetic structure of Hamlet, for example, is
another question i would like to see answered? An answer moreover, that
says more than it is a play that has X characters, in X acts, with X
dialogue, with X structure. In effect, don't give me a definition of
Hamlet, tell me what the objective aesthetic structure is.

This is not aesthetic actualism BTW, in the same way that water laced with
cyanide fails to quench thirst (well it may do for a short time). For on an
aesthetic example, there may be no change in the structure of the event (in
the way that water added to cyanide changes the composition of the liquid),
but only a change in my subjetcive state.

That's why when I listen to certain bits of music on a CD at different
times I experience them differently, even though there has been no change
in the objective structure of the music recorded on the CD.

Thanks,

P.S. I haven't time to check this over. I can also see the points in your
arguments, but remain unconvinced, but open to persuasion.



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