On Beauty Perhaps the most influential philosophical exploration of…

Question Answered step-by-step On Beauty Perhaps the most influential philosophical exploration of… On BeautyPerhaps the most influential philosophical exploration of the idea of beauty, of the experience of the beautiful, was provided by Kant. (Notice how Plato, Aristotle, and Kant keep reappearing in this class? Sign of how important they are in the history of philosophy.)Let’s introduce Kant’s basic idea by way of an image, Apples by Paul Cézanne.   Lots of apples…..now, let’s assume you really like apples a lot, and looking at the picture your desire to eat an apple is triggered. Or maybe you hate apples, and the picture triggers disgust.Either way, according to Kant, those responses would not lead to an experience of the beautiful. Because in both cases, you’d be influenced by your desires and aversions (Kant would say, by your interests).But now imagine looking at the above picture and appreciating it just for its own sake, without, as it were, wanting to grab one of those apples and eat it (or throw it away). We could call this a more contemplative kind of experience–and this is, according to Kant, the essence of the aesthetic experience; in his words, we experience “disinterested pleasure”: freed from our personal desires, we find pleasure in something beautiful.To use another example: think of your experience of human beauty. There’s a difference between being attracted to someone because you think they’re “hot” vs. noticing a person’s beauty without being led by your own (sexual) desires.Remember the categorical imperative? There’s a connection here, as we’re experiencing something/someone as an end in itself, and not as a means (to satisfy our desires). Excerpts from Gravity and GraceSimone Weil (1909-1943) further developed some of these ideas of the beautiful; here some excerpts from her collection Gravity and Grace:The beautiful is that which we can contemplate. A statue, a picture which we can gaze at for hours. The beautiful is something on which we can fix our attention.The beautiful is a carnal attraction which keeps us at a distance and implies a renunciation. This includes the renunciation of that which is most deep-seated, the imagination. We want to eat all the other objects of desire. The beautiful is that which we desire without wishing to eat it. We desire that it should be.The attitude of looking and waiting is the attitude which corresponds with the beautiful. As long as one can go on conceiving, wishing, longing, the beautiful does not appear.    Discussion # 3: On BeautyDo Emmanuel Kant’s and Simone Weil’s ideas make sense to you? Explain why or why not.Share some of your own experiences with beauty. How important are these experiences for you?  Arts & Humanities Philosophy PHIL 220 Share QuestionEmailCopy link Comments (0)