ON TASTE Reading Chapter 17 (analysis)

Taste is a term literally employed to refer to one of the five senses, the one that provides gustatory discrimination and enjoyment. As a bodily sense, taste is inevitably linked with pleasure or displeasure; that is to say, it is a sensory response that tends to carry a positive or negative balance. This affective component is one of the features of gustatory taste that lends itself to employment as a metaphor of aesthetic enjoyment, for the object of taste is not only perceived but also liked or disliked.

1- taste needs first-hand experience. this is known as knowledge by acquaintance. Just as one cannot decide that soup is well-seasoned without actually sipping it, so one cannot conclude that music is lyrical and moving without hearing it. 

2-  though aesthetic taste is grounded in natural dispositions, it clearly requires cultivation.

Cultivation doesn't mean elitism. It means having access to the information.

3- taste is a kind of sensibility, although some theorists such as Edmund Burke insisted on the role of understanding in determining appreciation. In any case, taste soon became the chief term employed to explain the perception of beauty. 

All you have to do is surmise that appreciating a painting is a form of tasting it visually. 

4- taste is inter-subjective: one has it, but in addition, one learns about it through exchange of information with others.  

5- judgements of taste are about objects: the statement "X is beautiful" is not just a report that it pleases the speaker, but a debatable claim that refers to qualities in X, that may be noticed and enjoyed by others.

Scottish empiricist David Hume makes central use of the idea that taste in art is developed in ways rather similar to taste for food or drink. To advance his argument he tells an anecdote about two tasters of wine who are ridiculed because they can detect faint traces of metal and leather in a hogshead of wine that no one else can taste. But they are vindicated in the end, because when the cask is drained it is found to contain a key attached to a leather thong, and the discerning tasters are proved to have the most delicate taste.

Hume unknowingly is advancing a realist position in aesthetics, THE FLAVOR OF LEATHER IS IN THE JUICE. Sommeliers do this all the time. remind me to talk about Triff's formula for wine tasting.

Hume talks about the body of sophisticated judges, whose opinions converge over time in agreement what I've called BEST CONSENSUS.

Taste and aesthetic qualities:

These are qualities that can be noticed by anyone with normally functioning senses who is paying sufficient attention. Aesthetic qualities are properties that distinguish an object as worthy of appreciation or criticism, example: delicate, elegant, powerful, profound, stiff, awkward, and so on are examples of aesthetic qualities. They are not easily discerned by all perceivers but rather require the exercise of a certain sensitivity that the tradition labels "taste."

1- aesthetic judgements diverge more than descriptions about non-aesthetic qualities. why? because aesthetic properties depends upon the presence of non-aesthetic properties.

2- aesthetic realism defends the idea that aesthetic qualities are actual properties of objects. Perhaps they are ‘supervenient’ properties dependent upon non-aesthetic properties, such that objects with the very same non-aesthetic properties must have the same aesthetic properties.

3- taste may be considered an ability to discern subtle qualities in objects: in food or drink the person with (fine) taste can notice trace quantities of herbs or other flavors that lie beneath the threshold of detectability for others.

sketches for my lecture on beauty

INTERPRETATION, reading Chapter 21 (analysis)

Intentionalism

aesthetic works, AW's can be (for the purposes of this course many different things: a painting, good wine, an elegant coreography, a string quartet, a song, a delicious chicken broth, a beautiful building, etc.)

Intentionalism in aesthetics is the view that AW's are expressions of the actual intentions of their creators. Interpretations of art works assert that a work expresses this or that actual intention, and are true only in the event that the intention in question is expressed in the work.

YET... we can look for expressions of intention outside the art work or use background information to help generate more plausible hypotheses about the artist’s intention.

First, expressions of intention are not in general, to be identified with interpretations of one’s own behavior. Second, neither the artist’s interpretation of the work, nor his or her expressions or reports of his or her intentions automatically constitute the correct interpretation of the work.
Third, the artist’s interpretation of the work may be no better, and is often worse, than those of others.  
Expressions of intention can be inaccurate, insincere, or if issued before the work is completed, discarded rather than realized. 

In addition, there is no reason to suppose that a poem, or more generally, a work of art, is a direct expression of what is going on in the artist’s life.  Intentionalism unduly restricts the range of acceptable interpretations so that the proper aim of interpretation cannot be realized.

The monism/pluralism issue 

Monism: there is proper aim in aesthetics, interpretation should aim at satisfying this criteria.

Relativism: there are many equally good interpretations of AW,

Pluralism: there may be different interpretations of a AW, but that doesn't mean they are equally good. 

If art interpretation has a plurality of aims, it is quite possible that there are correct or true interpretations of works arrived in pursuit of some of these other aims that do not make statements about the artist’s intention. 

note: the pluralist idea is not interpretive as much as META-interpretive. i.e., when you interpret you are concerned with your own interpretation. the pluralist is not saying that all interpretations are equally good. what the pluralist is saying is that given a thing to be interpreted there are different ways to interpret, different versions.

Meaning

is there meaning in AWs? there are 3 views:

1- meaning is either something the thing has, 2- something one brings to the thing, 3- a combination of 1- and 2- 

if you believe 1- you are an objectivist, 
if 2- you are a subjectivist, 
if 3- you are a realist, 

Meaning and Intentionalism

Conventionalist meaning: AWs' meanings are determined by conventions. For example, the meaning of a literary work is determined by linguistic conventions, literary conventions, and perhaps other cultural conventions. Conventions are inter-subjective and consensus based. 

Hypothetical intentionalism 

Hypothetical intentionalism is not solely after what the actual artist actually intended, but with what an audience should or would understand to be intended, given certain background assumptions.

The innovative aspect of this view is that work meaning is to be identified with the hypothetical intention the audience is most justified in finding in the work.

So, for example, Picasso's Guernica has a meaning given backgrounds assumptions about the work itself. This is basically CONTEXT.

HW 6: Chapter 2, p. 62-66

1- (regarding consequences) explain the difference between short-term and long-term self-interest. how does this distinction may affect ethical decisions? p. 62

2-  (regarding neutrality) is neutrality desirable in ethical considerations? if so, why? p. 64

3- (empathy) in ethical considerations, does it help imagining oneself being (or as) the victim? explain your view. p. 65

HW 5: Chapter two, p. 45-52

1- once you agree that a person deserve rights, can they be taken back (forfeited)? how so?

2- "... it is possible for a criminal to regain lost self-respect and the respect of others once owed him." do you agree or disagree? explain why.

3- are rights absolute? if so, how about people like charles manson or ted bundy?

4- examine the definition of coercion stated on p. 48-49. granted, we sometimes engage in coercive practies with other people. in light of kant's idea of respect, is this right? why not?

5- does self-respect involves being respected by others?

6- from the ethical standpoint what if someone willingly doesn't care for respect?

7- according to p. 51, what is the difference between prescriptions and proscriptions?

8- what is fairness? p. 52

9- explain principle #3 on p. 52. do you agree with it? (see is this way: would you not like to see the happiness of your neighborhood being increased?)

HW 4: Chapter two

this homework is from p. 40-45

1. what is areté in aristotle's philosophy?

2. can virtue (areté) be achieved without community/political interactions? explain your answer.

3. explain the idea of happiness as an ideal.

4. p. 42: find aristotle's definition for virtue. do you agree?

5. p. 43 why is the community important in achieving virtue and happiness?

6. what does it mean to respect according to kantian ethics?

7. the author proposes the following implication:

respect -----> ethical action

meaning that one cannot have meaningful ethical action without respect. do you agree? if so why?

8. once we presuppose that we have the obligation to treat others with respect can we say that people deserve respect?  

9. if so, can one conclude that persons have rights? could you come up with one right that people deserve? 

Aesthetic experience and aesthetic attitude

Aesthetic properties (APs) is what, if anything, all these AP properties have in common that leads us to classify them all as aesthetic and to distinguish them from other kinds of properties.

1- APs require taste on the part of the subject to pick them out, unlike properties like redness or rectangularity, which require only functioning eyesight. So, APs have an objective component. 

2- Aesthetic properties are to be analyzed in terms of the shared responses of competent subjects with particular tastes (this is what we call CONSENSUS). 

3- So, aesthetic properties is inter-subjective.

Aesthetic experience

Dewey/Beardsely: Aesthetic properties emerge from the object and the individual's own taste. When these experiences are shared we obtain consensus on aesthetic properties. This seems to explain stuff such as wine, paintings, etc.

Beardsley and Dewey talk of aesthetic experience as unified or coherent, and complete.

Eddy Zemach adds that we also experience negative aesthetic properties as well – ugliness, dreariness and so on – so their characterization is both too narrow and has the wrong logical priority between aesthetic experience and aesthetic properties.

Goldman: the difference between properties of experience caused by objective properties, and objective properties themselves. The movement from the dominant to the tonic chord in tonal music is typically experienced as expectation or tension, and its satisfaction or resolution. Although the tension is not literally in the tones but in our response to them, even a formal description of the work must note the tension.  

Zemach is nevertheless also correct in saying that we think of aesthetic properties as those which contribute to the positive or negative values of art works.

Aesthetic attitude

From the beginning the hallmark of the aesthetic attitude was held to be disinterest. This notion has been defined variously. We are to attend to the object as an object of contemplation only, to its phenomenal properties simply for the sake of perceiving them. We are to savor the perceptual experience for its own sake, instead of seeking to put it to further use in our practical affairs.

Jerome Stolnitz (1960) Aesthetic perception, by contrast, is once more disinterested. It aims at the enjoyment of the experience itself, grasping its object in isolation from other things,

Edward Bullough (1912) adds emotional detachment. To appreciate a tragic play properly, we must be sufficiently detached not to be tempted to interfere in the action ongoing on stage; to appreciate a storm at sea aesthetically, we must be detached from the fear that prompts precautionary action.

Triff: Not always. Lessing, following Aristotle speaks of emotional attachment as catharsis, and he believes is to be important, as if "we come to the tragic drama (unconsciously, if you will) as patients to be cured, relieved, restored to psychic health."

Zemach (1997) argues that an aesthetic interest in objects is simply one interest among other possible ones, and a self-centered interest at that, aiming at one’s own enjoyment.

Goldman's conclusion: Despite these criticisms, there are once again grains of truth in the traditional account of the aesthetic attitude. It remains the case that ordinary perception is absorbed in and functions in the service of practical action, which normally prompts attention only to aspects of objects insufficient for aesthetic appreciation of them.

HW 3: for next Tuesday pp. 8-22

1. What are ethical claims about?

2. "Unfortunately there are limits of tolerance ... and there are things that most people if not all would agree are simply wrong."  Agree? Disagree? If so, why?

3."Brutus was wrong to have killed Cesar." Provide a relativist and an objectivist reason.

4. How can we provide grounds for justification? (take a look at p. 13-15)

5. Do you agree with the author that there are critical thinking benefits in adopting objectivist judgments?

HW 2: (Chapter 1) Is it all a matter of opinion?

To properly understand chapter one, we need to have these definitions ready:

Opinion: A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof:

Belief: A mental state of acceptance.

Subjectivism: The truth of moral judgments is dependent upon people's beliefs.

Objectivism: The truth of moral judgments is independent of people's beliefs.

Relativism: Truth is relative to point of view (subjectivism), culture (cultural relativism).

Moral relativism: same as above, but now concerning moral judgments. So, moral judgments are not true independent of people's point of view or culture.  

Justification: something, such as facts or reasons given to hold a belief.

Knowledge: Justified true belief.

p. 13: Ethics involves non relative claims, that is, claims that are either reasonable or unreasonable.

On the other hand, ethical claims are not easy. They involve personal bias, prejudice and emotional commitments.   

HW 1: a dialogue

Let's read the assignment p. 1-7.

"dialogue" goes back to Plato's dialogues. dia = two, logue = logos (reasoning, using language)

see that the point here is to show philosophy "in action."

Rick and Nina are discussing (a "discussion" in philosophy means just a serious conversation).

Let's pay special attention to these terms. Go here and enter each term and write down these definitions in your notebook. In order to discuss, we need to be in command of the terms' definitions: 

human rights

right & wrong, and for whom?

culture, subculture

reasons and "good reasons"

"correct view" 

claims

opinion

culture-blind

What do we learn here?
Who is Nina? Who is Rick?
Whom do you agree with? Who wins the discussion? Why?

BEAUTY chapter 20

click here for my sketches on beauty,

Mothersill's causal theory of beauty

Genuine judgements of beauty presuppose aesthetic theory and aesthetic theory presupposes principles of taste (this is called redundancy). 

The causal relation between the beautiful object and the pleasure it evokes in the subject might be identifiable and illuminating without resulting in laws and hence principles of taste.

An aesthetic theory has to explain the difference between the pleasure evoked by beauty and other kinds of pleasure. 

Now, is this implying that "I like Picasso's Guernica"? is very different from "I love Zak's the Baker's baguettes?"

AW's evoke pleasure in the observer by virtue of its aesthetic properties: this is the basis of a genuine judgement of beauty.

All that is required of a subject is that there be something he takes to be beautiful and further that at least one such taking be allowed by him to be an aesthetic conviction. He can then concur in the claim that some judgements of taste are genuine judgements.

Is she saying that the strength of my belief that "Picasso's Guernica is a masterpiece" is genuine and the reason is IN Guernica's aesthetic properties?  

According to Mothersill, aesthetic properties are those qualities of objects that have no simple names and are revealed only by acquaintance. 

Disinterested pleasure 

For Aquinas (thirteenth century), the pleasure aroused by beauty is distinct from biological pleasures associated with physical desires and satisfactions.

Shaftesbury (eighteenth century) recognizes in the pleasurable response to beauty an impartiality, a lack of self-interest. He adopts the term "disinterested" from ethics to describe the pleasure recognized as associated with beauty.

Kant (1987) The pleasure of beauty according to this tradition is a pleasure caused by an object which is not accompanied by desire for the object. It should not be confused with the pleasure taken in the sensuous for its own sake; such as that which sparks that poignant sensation of our physical being in the world. Neither should it be confused with un-interest. Disinterest does not mean disengaged.

The pleasure of beauty is like perceiving a solution to a problem, and enjoying it for its own sake, rather than because personal rewards are anticipated.

The pleasure-principle tradition 

Beauty evokes a pleasurable response. If while perceiving an object you do not experience pleasure, you are not perceiving beauty.


Sircello's theory (1975), an object is beautiful when it contains a Property of Qualitative Degree to a very high degree. 

A Property of Qualitative Degree (henceforth a PQD) is a property that cannot be measured in a quantitative sense, such as can temperature or weight. Sircello further delineates a PQD by excluding those qualities that are experienced as deficiencies. 

So there is no PQD in deficiency. It seems that if a fundamental quality of the object cannot become a deficiency. Example: the sliminess of a slug and the sourness of a lemon are not deficiencies in the context of a slug’s and a lemon’s nature. As it stands, this would mean that the slug’s sliminess and the lemon’s sourness are beautiful. 

Sircello says that only those with sufficient experience of the particular quality involved can judge whether it exists in the object to a qualitatively high degree, and hence whether it is beautiful.

This would mean that according to Sircello’s theory, the sourness of the lemon is beautiful. 

Sircello speculates that the reason the experience of PQDs pleases us is because we only experience PQDs when we are seeing clearly.

Perhaps no theory of beauty can offer non-contradictory conditions. The role of an aesthetic theory is to offer plausible approximations.

Perceptual principles in beauty: are there perceptual principles in beauty?

1- Perhaps there are perceptual principles of beauty that constitute a part of the architecture of the mind of HOMO SAPIENS... as such, they are not themselves represented explicitly and unequivocally in language (could not be matched with language schemata).

2- Hence, although there are no principles of beauty as such, there would be a physical basis (a rational basis) for genuine judgements of beauty. 

3- For example, we can look at Indian sculptures, Japanese tea ceremonies and Gothic cathedrals, and while we can enjoy their perceptual beauty, we may not be able to experience their intellectual beauty in the way that someone could whose world view was saturated with the outlook exemplified in these works. 

4- So, the apprehension of intellectual beauty, from scientific to moral beauty, would demand a shared background of knowledge or a shared world view. It would be possible for an art work to arouse a response to beauty through its perceptual form without providing the phenomenologically more total beauty experience, which is a combination of relations emerging within and between its perceptual form and conceptual content. It may be that the work simply does not provide the opportunity for the latter, or it may be that the viewer does not share the same world view (metaphysical/religious) as the artist, which makes the intellectual component of the work inaccessible to the viewer.

Necessary and Sufficient Conditions

Necessary conditions:

X is a necessary condition for Y means, 

if we don't have X, then we don't have Y, or without X, you won't have Y

To say that X is a necessary condition for Y does not mean that X guarantees Y

Having gasoline in my car (I have a gasoline engine) is a necessary condition for my car to start. Without gasoline (x) my car (y) will not start. Of course, having gasoline in the car does not guarantee that my car will start. There are many other conditions needed for my car to start.

Having oxygen in the earth's atmosphere is a necessary condition for human life. However, having oxygen will not guarantee human life. There are many other conditions needed for human life other than oxygen in the atmosphere.

Being 18 years of age is a necessary condition for being able to buy cigarettes legally in North Carolina. Yet, being 18 years of age does not guarantee that a person will buy cigarettes. There are many other conditions that lead to a person buying cigarettes than being 18 years of age.

Sufficient conditions:

X is a sufficient condition for Y means,

if there is X, then Y happens (X guarantees Y)

Rain pouring from the sky is a sufficient condition for the ground to be wet.

click here for a nice video explaining these concepts.
______

Test yourself: 

* Is sunlight a necessary or sufficient condition for the flowers to bloom?

* Is earning a final grade of a C a necessary or sufficient condition for passing the course?

* Is being a male a necessary or sufficient condition for being a father?

* Is having AIDS a necessary or sufficient condition for having the HIV virus?

* Is studying for a test a necessary or sufficient condition for passing a test?

* Is being a bachelor a necessary or a sufficient condition for being single?

definitions for chapter 2 (ethical and cultural relativism)

MORAL NORMS: they happen to be fundamental rules for human welfare.

ETIQUETTE: important rules but not fundamental to human welfare.

LEGAL NORMS: are commands or rules dealing with specific present issues of importance to human welfare (a legal system is a closed, logical system in which correct decisions are deduced from predetermined legal rules without reference to social considerations, they are called "precedent").

LEGAL ≠  MORAL

example: "in 1819 slavery was legal but immoral" 

moral disagreements are inevitable. disagreements and difference is part and parcel of the moral landscape.

moral theories analyze and normativize moral disagreements.

the existence of disagreements doesn't rule out ethical consensus and best consensus.

note: don't confuse tolerance or understanding with relativism. you can understand a person and yet realize that what she does is wrong. see that tolerate and defend are different things. you may tolerate what you disagree and defend its right to exist, but the tolerance stops once you realize that someone is exploiting or abusing another human being. why? because that action is wrong. you don't tolerate or defend wrong doing.  

descriptive ethical relativism: different people have different moral values that are right to them. here you are merely stating a fact, not morally evaluating it.

ethical relativism: what makes an action right is that someone approves of it.

counterarguments to ethical relativism:  

1- an action cannot be both right and wrong at the same time.
2- it makes the ethical relativist infallible, and there's no point in discussing the disagreement. no one will ever win.
3- if you were an ethical relativist you don't have any way to convince someone that disagrees with you other than saying: "the action is wrong because I disapprove of it". 
 
cultural relativism: what makes an action right is that it's approved by that culture. 

cultural relativity of behavior: different people express different behaviors. that's culturally obvious. note: you may disagree with costumes of your culture. I do, and having said that I add: I love my culture. THEY ARE NOT EXCLUSIVE. i.e., values that are not fundamental, manners, eating, hygiene, dressing, mating, family, etc. these are called cultural peripheral values.
counterarguments to ethical relativism:

1- an action cannot be both right and wrong at the same time for different cultures. it's contradictory. we need to further investigate the issue.
2- moral norms express deeper values. and moral values (or norms) seem to be trans-cultural. many different cultures surprisingly agree with core values: do not kill your own, incest is wrong, respect the elders, do not cheat, worship your gods, etc.
3- cultural relativism happens not because people have different views o morality but because they have different views of reality.  
 4- it doesn't tell us how to act when cultures overlap. if you're a haitian-american you know that you are different than a haitian from the island (my haitian students confide me all the time of the shock they have when visiting the island for the first time). how to explain that hybrid that agrees and simultaneously disagree with her culture? she's between two cultures! who is right?  2-  cultural relativism doesn't say WHY we should act in a certain manner. all it says is "it's right to act in this manner because we believe it."  (cultural relativism lacks moral reasons).