The Context of Aesthetics

With the semester coming to a close here in London, I find myself frequently visiting the idea of aesthetics. In so doing, I find that aesthetics have an influential power that extends far beyond the arts. London (and more so Europe) is a great place to contemplate philosophy and aesthetics. Here are a few of my thoughts on the matter.

In the course of studying philosophy lately, one concept has continued to interest me. This is the importance and evanescence of the creative process. Creativity seems to inform science just as much as it informs art. In the philosophy of science, a distinction is made between the context of justification and the context of discovery. The former is the study of how a scientific claim can be justified as valid, while the latter deals with the elusive question, "how are scientific theories discovered in the first place?" Some philosophers of science have attempted to reject questions about the context of discovery saying that it's ultimately of no relevance. It comes down to asking "why" instead of "how." These philosophers suggest science shouldn't ask "why" and instead this should be left to metaphysicians who according to Carnap are really just "musicians without musical ability." We should really only ask "how" scientific theories are corroborated. This way we avoid the "irrational" elements of science and make the system fervently rational. I find this preposterous (read that sentence in a British accent). There is no way to divorce the creative process from the rational - any scientific theory has convincingly relied on both.

What is so interesting about this discussion over the context of discovery is the extent to which "aesthetics" influence our thought process. I am using aesthetics here in a broad sense - referring to that phenomenon that occurs when one has an aesthetic experience. These experiences are subjective, but at the same time universal. Like I've said previously, we can't say what it is, we can only say that it is. An aesthetic experience comes through pondering art, ruminating over literature, and losing oneself to find oneself in music. These experiences however, are also present in scientific discoveries, philosophical inquiries, and many other disciplines we often consider to be purely rational. It is difficult to quantify, yet there is some creative influence, be it internal or external, that informs even our most rational thought processes. The source of this influence is equivocal. What is it? How does it work? These are questions better addressed by the metaphysician. Perhaps the metaphysician really is nothing more than a 'musician with no musical ability,' but to me, a musician who uses words and abstractions as instruments to inspire aesthetic experiences in human beings that often lead to great discoveries of knowledge is hardly the pejorative Carnap might have intended. This leads me to another interesting idea. Perhaps metaphysical philosophy is to be read from an aesthetic perspective. Carnap was worried about the problem of verifiability. Fine. Perhaps we should read metaphysics employing our reason and experience where possible, but search for truth in the words in an aesthetic rather than a purely rational way. This can lead to corroborated theories in the sciences as well as other great discoveries of human knowledge.


It is important to better understand these aesthetic experiences - at least to the extent to which we are capable of doing so. First of all, we must be vigilant not to confuse the aesthetic with base sensory pleasure. Hume described moral and aesthetic judgment as a sort of "mental taste" (I will discuss this further below). Secondly, we ought to address the old cliche "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." This cliche is usually meant to advocate subjective relativity in regards to beauty, which I reject (I won't put forth a full argument here - let's just say Beethoven's 9th is of more objective worth than Brittney Spears' "music"). The previously stated mantra though is true in a different sense. I have argued on this site before against the idea that the external world exists independent of the human mind. This idea is further elucidated when considering beauty. Naturally there is no beauty out in the external world itself. When we see the color red, all we are seeing are refractory properties. Rods and cones. There really is no such thing as "red" in the external world, let alone beauty. Thus, again the interpreter is the one responsible for experiencing (even creating) beauty. Quite literally, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We then project a sense of beauty onto an object. The sunset becomes beautiful, when the sunset itself holds no inherent beauty at all. This for Hume is called the "sentiment of approbation." This projection of beauty corresponds to our constant interpretation of the world (which I've previously defined as an absolutely necessary condition of "being"). There are still many metaphysical questions to be asked about how this happens, but again it does happen.


I want to briefly address Hume's concept of aesthetic experiences as a sort of mental taste. While there is plenty of room for differing interpretations in the arts, it is not true that "anything goes." An aesthetic experience is something more than just a warm fuzzy sensation (it is not a purely physical or emotional state). Beyond this, some thing, some truth is being communicated in these moments. This is a mental taste that draws a line of demarcation between that which is fun or that which feels good, from that which is truly insightful. Greater knowledge yields greater insight and understanding as to what is being aesthetically communicated. I found this passage from Hume's An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, "in many orders of beauty, particularly those of the finer arts, it is requisite to employ much reasoning, in order to feel the proper sentiment; and a false relish may frequently be corrected by argument and reflection. There are just grounds to conclude, that moral beauty partakes much of this latter species, and demands the assistance of our intellectual faculties, in order to give it a suitable influence on the human mind." So while we have an immediate response to a work of art that is more relative according to taste, an application of sense, reason, and knowledge improves and refines.

So beauty is in the mind of the interpreter, and the aesthetic experience is a sort of mental taste where some truth is gained. This truth is subjective, yet there is a more objective framework of knowledge by which this subjective aesthetic experience is shaped and refined to increase its magnitude and clarity. Going back to the beginning of this post, I think these aesthetic experiences are deeply valuable for human experience. We cannot fully separate the truths gained from a moment of aesthetic inspiration from the more purely rational truths gained from the empirical sciences or other more concrete/rational disciplines. Perhaps Carnap was right in criticizing metaphysics. Even so, perhaps we should approach metaphysics as a sort of aesthetic truth to be gained by employing mental taste. I think in such speculative fields, we should do our best to employ our knowledge and reason to avoid error, but where we cannot do so, perhaps we should weigh the concepts with our experience and read the metaphysicians' musical work from an aesthetic perspective. In so doing, we should be prepared to thank metaphysics for great discoveries in the "rational sciences" that come from its creative nature.

There are all kinds of implications the reader can draw from what I've written and I hope that he/she/you will do so. Take it a step further, think about your own aesthetic experiences. Think about your spiritual beliefs/experiences. Think about your lack of spiritual beliefs/experiences. I really hope that my philosophical ramblings go beyond an easily dismissed interesting idea and actually help people think about things in a relevant way. Anyway, I am further working through the impact aesthetics have on our moral sentiments/moral judgments, for I am increasingly convinced that aesthetics have a role here as well. Perhaps I will explore this in more depth at a later time.