AESTHETICS

also spelled Esthetics, theoretical study of beauty and taste constituting a branch of philosophy. The term aesthetics, derived from the Greek word for perception (aisthesis), was introduced by the 18th-century German philosopher Alexander Baumgarten to denote what he conceived as the realm of poetry, a realm of concrete knowledge in which content is communicated in sensory form. The term was subsequently applied to the philosophical study of all the arts and manifestations of natural beauty. also spelled esthetics, the philosophical study of beauty and taste. To define its subject matter more precisely is, however, immensely difficult. Indeed, it could be said that self-definition has been the major task of modern aesthetics. We are acquainted with an interesting and puzzling realm of experience: the realm of the beautiful, the ugly, the sublime, and the elegant; of taste, criticism, and fine art; and of contemplation, sensuous enjoyment, and charm. In all these phenomena we believe that similar principles are operative and that similar interests are engaged. If we are mistaken in this impression, we will have to dismiss such ideas as beauty and taste as having only peripheral philosophical interest. Alternatively, if our impression is correct and philosophy corroborates it, we will have discovered the basis for a philosophical aesthetics. This article seeks to clarify the nature of modern aesthetics and to delineate its underlying principles and concerns. Although the article focusses on Western aesthetic thought and its development, it surveys some of the seminal features of Marxist and Eastern aesthetics. Additional reading Two of the most useful anthologies of contemporary aesthetics are Eliseo Vivas and Murray Krieger (eds.), The Problems of Aesthetics (1953); and Joseph Margolis (ed.), Philosophy Looks at the Arts, 3rd ed. (1987). Others are John Hospers, Introductory Readings in Aesthetics (1969); and Harold Osborne (ed.), Aesthetics (1972), which contains a particularly useful bibliography. More recent collections include Richard Shusterman (ed.), Analytic Aesthetics (1989); and Philip Alperson (ed.), The Philosophy of the Visual Arts (1992). Monroe C. Beardsley, Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism, 2nd ed. (1981), provides a broad, scholarly overview of the subject; while Richard Wollheim, Art and Its Objects, 2nd ed. (1980, reissued 1992), is more narrow. A comprehensive survey is also attempted in David E. Cooper (ed.), A Companion to Aesthetics (1992). For the definition of aesthetics, the above texts are relevant, as are Roger Scruton, The Aesthetics of Architecture (1979); Paul Ziff, "The Task of Defining a Work of Art," The Philosophical Review, 62:58-78 (1953); George Dickie, Aesthetics: An Introduction (1971); Jerrold Levinson, Music, Art, and Metaphysics (1990); and Nicholas Wolterstorff, Works and Worlds of Art (1980).The first approach to the subject as addressed in the article is exemplified in John Casey, The Language of Criticism (1966); the second in Roger Scruton, Art and Imagination (1974, reissued 1982); and the third in Wollheim's book (above). The classical study of the aesthetic recipient remains that of Immanuel Kant, Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790); to which one may add Bernard Bosanquet, Three Lectures on Aesthetic (1915, reissued 1968). The aesthetic object is dealt with in considerable detail by Roman Ingarden, The Literary Work of Art (1973; originally published in German, 1931); and Mikel Dufrenne, The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience (1973; originally published in French, 1953). The differences between the various art forms are explored in John Dewey, Art As Experience (1934, reissued 1980); and Susanne K. Langer, Feeling and Form (1953, reissued 1973). In addition to the works already cited, the following are particularly important discussions of paradoxes: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Lectures & Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief, ed. by Cyril Barrett (1966); and F.N. Sibley and Michael Tanner, "Objectivity and Aesthetics," in Aristotelian Society (great Britain), Supplementary Volume, no. 42 (1968), proceedings. Some philosophical approaches to imagination are summarized in Mary Warnock, Imagination (1976). The most important 20th-century texts are Jean-Paul Sartre, The Psychology of Imagination (1948, reissued 1991; originally published in French, 1940); and Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 3rd ed. (1968, reprinted 1986; originally published in German, 1953), part 2. Later attempts to describe the place of imagination in aesthetic experience as a whole are found in Scruton's Art and Imagination (above); and Kendall L. Walton, Mimesis as Make-Believe (1990). The matters of emotion, response, and enjoyment are considered in some depth in Bernard Bosanquet, "On the Nature of Aesthetic Emotion," in Bernard Bosanquet (ed.), Science and Philosophy and Other Essays (1927, reissued 1967); and in the study by Casey (above). A detailed bibliography on the understanding of art can be found in the section Philosophy of art in the bibliography to the article Philosophies Of The Branches Of Knowledge.Many of the individual problems are discussed in the book by Wollheim (above); Roger Scruton, The Aesthetic Understanding (1983); Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key, 3rd ed. (1979); Roland Barthes, Elements of Semiology (1967; originally published in French, 1965); Benedetto Croce, Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic, 2nd ed. (1922, reissued 1978; originally published in Italian, 1902); R.G. Collingwood, The Principles of Art (1938, reissued 1975); Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art, 2nd ed. (1976); P.F. Strawson, "Aesthetic Appraisal and Works of Art," in his Freedom and Resentment (1974); and Oscar Wilde, The Critic As Artist (1925). Discussions of the logic of music include Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception, expanded and rev. ed. (1974); Heinrich Schenker, Harmony (1954, reissued 1980; originally published in German, 1906); Roger Scruton, "Understanding Music," in his The Aesthetic Understanding (above); the work by Levinson (above); and Peter Kivy, Music Alone (1990).Criticism and aesthetic judgment are dealt with in F.N. Sibley, "Aesthetic Concepts," The Philosophical Review, 68:421-450 (1959), and "Aesthetic and Non Aesthetic," The Philosophical Review, 74:135-159 (1965); William K. Wimsatt, Jr., and Monroe C. Beardsley, "The Intentional Fallacy," in William K. Wimsatt, Jr., The Verbal Icon (1954, reissued 1989); and F.R. Leavis, "Literary Criticism and Philosophy," in his The Common Pursuit (1952, reissued 1984). Anthony Savile, The Test of Time (1982), is a discussion of some contemporary problems. Philosophical discussions of particular art forms include Malcolm Budd, Music and the Emotions (1985, reissued 1992); and Richard Wollheim, Painting as an Art (1987).An idiosyncratic but useful historical summary is provided in Monroe C. Beardsley, Aesthetics from Classical Greece to the Present (1966, reprinted 1975). A full summary, although in an outmoded idiom, is given by WLadisLaw Tatarkiewicz, History of Aesthetics, 3 vol. (1970-74; originally published in Polish, 1960). Additional information pertaining to ancient aesthetics may be found in the articles Platonism and Aristotelianism. Maynard Solomon (comp.), Marxism and Art (1974), is a treatment of Marxist aesthetics. More recent Marxist writings have tended toward skepticism concerning the concept of the aesthetic, notably Terry Eagleton, The Ideology of the Aesthetic (1990).Thomas Munro, Oriental Aesthetics (1965), includes a comparison of Eastern and Western attitudes and beliefs (with many bibliographic notes). Other informative studies are Indian Aesthetics and Art Activity (1968); Mai-Mai Sze, The Tao of Painting, 2nd ed. with corrections, 2 vol. (1963); and Makoto Ueda, Literary and Art Theories in Japan (1967, reissued 1991). Roger Scruton