Aesthetic
Properties
Consider the beauty
of a sunset. Being beautiful is an example of an aesthetic property. I wonder
if aesthetic properties are like colors and sounds the following respects: (i) we can be directly aware of them; (ii) some aesthetic
properties are primary or fundamental building blocks of all others; (iii)
complex aesthetic properties are built from various “saturations” of primary
aesthetic properties (e.g., mixing beauty with cuteness). Although similar to
colors and sounds, the nature of aesthetic properties might be less well
understood than the nature of colors or sounds.
Are
They Subjective or Objective?
It is commonly thought that aesthetic properties are
purely subjective. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, as they say. I’m not
entirely sure what it means to be subjective. Perhaps it means this: P is
subjective just in case P can only be exemplified by a mental
substance or mental situation (like my being aware of the number 6). So the
question is, What sorts of things can exemplify
aesthetic properties?
Some of the early modern philosophers flirted with
the idea that aesthetic properties are exemplified by ordered
complexes. And that seems right to me. A complex of shapes and colors, such
as a painting, seems to itself have various aesthetic properties. On the other
hand, it might be that aesthetic properties are really only exemplified by
certain feelings that are caused by
my seeing certain complexes of shapes and colors. Although I have much respect
for this idea, I suspect that it derives from conflating the object of my
awareness and the feeling of awareness itself. Try the following experiment.
Bring to mind a picture that you take to be beautiful. Now focus on the feelings that the thought of this
picture generates in you. Do those feelings have the same aesthetic properties
that you wanted to ascribe to the picture in your mind? I assume not. When you
focus on your feelings, your so focusing may generate other feelings. But the aesthetic property grasped by means of a
feeling is evidently not itself a feeling or a property of a feeling. At least,
this is how things presently appear to me.
So, aesthetic properties are exemplified by ordered
complexes, and ordered complexes may exemplify aesthetic properties even if
there are no mental substances around. That makes some aesthetic properties
objective. However, it seems to me that feelings themselves exemplify aesthetic
properties. Since feelings are mental situations, some aesthetic properties are
subjective. Some aesthetic properties
might be exemplifiable by both mental and non-mental
things.
Axioms
of Aesthetic Properties
Axioms of aesthetic properties have yet to be put
forward. Here is an example axiom:
(1) For
any aesthetic property P, there is an aesthetic property Q, such that P is more
saturated with aesthetic property R (such as beauty) than is Q.
Notice that (1) is consistent with there being a maximally beautiful thing, but a theorem
of (1) is that there can be no minimally
beautiful thing.
Much more work needs to be done to
identify plausible axioms of aesthetic properties and to derive theorems from
them. For instance, aesthetic properties seem to supervene upon other properties. Perhaps
artists can be helped in their work if we identify supervenience relations between
various properties and various aesthetic properties.