I started my last response to the question of whether beauty is a real property of objects or is simply in the eye of the beholder by affirming that beauty was both a real property found in objects and a matter of subjectivity that changes from eye to eye. I now completely disagree with what I first said. I now argue that beauty is neither a real property of objects nor is it purely subjective (where subjective means opinion based on the viewer). I think part of my first paper that proves problematic for me now was my confusion of the word objective. Where I should have taken the word to mean a property of objects, I found myself thinking of it in terms of universality. When I look at objective as being a property found in an object, the overall unit question gains more clarity. My final thought, as of now at least (Kant was allowed to change his mind so i’m keeping that open) is that beauty can’t be objective because no one property is beautiful and can fulfill what the word beauty means but it can’t be subjective because that in some way dilutes the meaning and illegitimizes it.
For me, It was easy to see why at first, at least after reading and discussing Wollheim’s “Art and It’s Objects,” how I could feel that beauty is both a distinct property in something and also left up to the judgement of the viewer. For instance, in class we discussed how those who feel beauty is objective feel so because there is a certain conviction when we say something is beautiful that leads us to argument. We want to explain and fight for why we think a full, orange moon is the most gorgeous thing we’ve ever seen whereas with a perfume or a milkshake flavor, we don’t care - there is no urge or conviction. This sense of conviction led me to believe that okay, there has to be something actually in this thing that is making it beautiful. However, these readings helped me see some flaws with that way of thinking. On the other hand, it was also easy to claim beauty is purely subjective because those that feel that beauty is subjective see that what is deemed beautiful can be a singular feeling to the viewer and that there is often wide diversity of judgement on the matter.
I found a lot of truth in the Kant reading as I interpreted his argument to be a rejection of beauty as being a property of something and also dismissing the idea that it is merely a property of the subject who makes the claim. Kant argues that someone who says this moon is beautiful is really only telling someone something about themselves, not about the moon and I completely agree. However, because saying the moon is beautiful says nothing about the moon but about the viewer, yet so many people think that the moon is beautiful, we see the possibility of a third category or way of thinking of beauty.
The Lockean distinction between primary and secondary qualities really me process this idea. We said that primary qualities (ie. shape, location, solidity) belong to the object itself, and secondary qualities (ie. color, taste, feeling) belong to our perception of the object. Also, we agreed that primary qualities cause secondary qualities. I think the interesting thing here that really backs up Kant’s point that beauty is neither objective nor subjective is that beauty can’t be a secondary quality (or subjective) because it can’t point back to a primary quality (the property of the object) that caused it. I think another way to think about this is to say the feeling can’t point back to a singular primary quality that alone caused it. Yes, I can say the moon is beautiful because of it’s shape and because of how it’s positioned in the sky or because of how big it is in size tonight, but no one quality would be enough to legitimize why it is beautiful.
Another interesting point, made by Kant, that goes back to a new way of thinking about beauty is honestly how weird of a phenomena it is. He says that the fact that beauty pleases us without regards to being good or agreeable (ie. my sandwich is good for sustenance, agreeable because i’m hungry - but the moon is beautiful and gives us pure pleasure not because it does anything good for us or provides any sort of personal gain but just because). The real existence of something that we find beautiful doesn’t matter it’s just that pure feeling of pleasure that cannot be related to any one property. I think that’s the weird, awesome thing about that makes beautiful things or judgements of the beautiful seem to follow some undeterminable set of rules but at the same time be so unexplainable. I think the key sentence that I took away from these readings was on the first page of “A Critique of Judgment” where Kant says “if we wish to discern whether anything is beautiful or not... we refer to “means of the imagination (acting perhaps in conjunction with understanding).
I think if we are going to try and define what beauty is and how it works, we have to employ a bit of imagination because nothing else works and alter the way we understand the word.
***This part below is just an aside because i’m not convinced that what I’m saying is right, but I wrote it in a jumble of thought and figured I should include it***
While I honestly have a difficult time incorporating Devereaux into this argument with any sort of confidence, I think there is something in her writing on “new aesthetics” that can support the argument that there is no one property that makes something beautiful but also that beauty is something more than trivial subjectiveness. Her negative thesis challenges the neutrality of artistic vision arguing that the subject cannot look objectively at art because there is “no pure looking” our gaze is already encoded in gendered expectations; however, her positive thesis (i think) says that art in itself is motivated my male concerns so that it can never be objective in itself anyway. However, in class we discussed saying no to both of these arguments. If we say that the beholder’s vision isn’t the beholder’s vision, we challenge notions of subjectivity. If we say no art isn’t objective because there is no neutral vision than we claim that beauty can’t be a property of art. I think the most interesting claim made was that “everyone can be a subject and an object at times, and that we’re not to avoid objectification of other people but leave room for them to be a subject to themselves.” To me this relates to the “something more” of beauty that throws out both claims and says beauty can be both, it can be more. I also found something significant in her proposed solution to change the way we view art when she references Kuhn’s new pair of spectacles, saying that “the new pair of spectacles provides an education not in what to think but in how.” If we apply this to our questions of beauty, perhaps it is “how” we are thinking about it that needs to be altered to fully understand it.
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