Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1998 16:14:27 -0500 (EST)
From: Matthew King <making-AT-yorku.ca>
Subject: Re: Aesthetic bottom line.


On Thu, 24 Dec 1998, Anthony Beck wrote:

> Two nights ago I saw for the first time The Golen Cockerel by Rimsky: the
> second Act simply was transfixing.
> No doubt this can be rendered in discourse but at the time there was a
> spontaneous response: the aesthetic sense - wonderful!  So - bottom in that
> in judging a work of art the response is ultimate there is nothing to
> reduce it to (cannot be deconstructed as Derrida said of Justice); and
> bottom in that that is what matters more than anything: a value.  
> You can fill in the rest if you wish.

"I should like to say:  'These notes say something glorious, but I do not
know what.'  These notes are a powerful gesture, but I cannot put anything
side by side with it that will serve as an explanation.  A grave nod.
James:  'Our vocabulary is inadequate.'  Then why don't we introduce a new
one?  What would have to be the case for us to be able to?" (Wittgenstein,
_Philosophical Investigations_ para. 610).

Matthew