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44 CHAPTER THREE The Aesthetic Attitude f IN THE PRESENT CHAPTER I would like to highlight the fact that the aesthetic values treated in the previous chapter are aesthetic precisely because they are intrinsic and immediately felt. At the other extreme are what Hartshorne calls economic or ethical values, which are extrinsic (or instrumental) and eventual (as opposed to immediately felt). Most human activities, at least, contain a mixture of the two. In mathematics, for example, we usually use numbers as a means to an end, but some revel in the beauty of the mathematical relations themselves. In effect, objects (perhaps subjects, too) are suitable for the enjoyment of intrinsic, immediately felt (aesthetic) value when they exhibit certain features, such as unity-in-variety, as discussed in the previous chapter.1 A related goal of this chapter is to examine the following two Hartshornian claims: (a) aesthetic value is presupposed by ethical value; and (b) nonetheless ethics is not to be reduced to aesthetics. We will later see in relation to certain ethical issues in environmental ethics both that we cannot understand such issues apart from a consideration of aesthetic value and that, even with such a consideration, we cannot resolve such issues without the aid of ethical theory. Hartshorne describes the aesthetic attitude, which is that attitude wherein we are most attentive to experience in its concreteness, in the following way: From usual definitions of the aesthetic attitude it follows that it is in this attitude rather than in making ethical decisions or solving practical or cognitive problems that we are most attentive to experience in its concreteness. In listening to music, for instance, at least under ideal conditions, it is the whole of what we hear that we enjoy. DombrowskiFinalPgs. 44 2/2/04 5:34:21 PM The Aesthetic Attitude 45 Similarly, in adequate concentration upon a painting, it is the whole of what we see that is relevant. By contrast, in practical affairs, only certain features of the seen or heard count. Cognitive pursuits tend to be even more selective, even farther from the concrete in their interests . In spite of this, innumerable philosophers have discussed the content of perception almost exclusively as it appears to the pragmatic or cognitive stance, not as it is present in and for aesthetic experience. (CS, 75–76) I should make it clear that by “intrinsic value” Hartshorne means the first of three possible meanings of this term: () noninstrumental value, or something that is valuable in itself; (2) something that is valuable in itself in the sense that it is nonrelational; or (3) something that is valuable in the sense that it is independent of any valuer. We will see that there are good reasons to be suspicious, along with Hartshorne, of these last two meanings of the term. I should also note at the outset that by the “aesthetic attitude” and “intrinsic value” Hartshorne is not necessarily wholly committed to the art-for-art’s-sake position in aesthetics that was popular at the beginning of the twentieth century, as we will see later in this chapter. Intrinsic values are those of experiences as such, even if we often live for the sake of the future. That is, aesthetic values are more basic than, and broader than, ethical or economic values. In fact, they are also more basic than, and broader than, those found in the fine arts, as we will see (CA, 99). The roots of all abstract ideas, including those in ethics, are found in concrete experiencing of some kind. Hence it is in the aesthetic attitude, rather than in the ethical one, that we are most attentive to concrete experience. In the type of selectivity associated with ethical affairs or cognitive pursuits, only certain practical or intellectual features of what we see and hear count, in contrast to what occurs when we view a painting or listen to music, where what is at issue is a different sort of selectivity that privileges intrinsic, immediately felt value. (We have seen above that Hartshorne misleadingly indicates that there is no selectivity at all in aesthetic experience; I take it that what he means is that in aesthetic experience we do not select away or ignore concrete, immediately felt value.) Thus those philosophers who discuss the content of perception almost exclusively in cognitive DombrowskiFinalPgs. 45 2/2/04 5:34:21 PM [18.224.93.126] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 12:24 GMT...

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