Abstract
There is a well-established literature in philosophy on aesthetic experience and prima facie it seems that aesthetic experience is a topic about which we can theorize and make significant statements. Yet what are we talking about when we talk about aesthetic experience? It is a shocking admission to have to make, but I have to confess that I do not know. At the very least I find that the notion of aesthetic experience is unclear. I, or perhaps we, since I do not believe that I am alone in this matter, have no clear grasp of the notion. To ask what aesthetic experience refers to, or what it is experience of is liable to propel us into perplexity, unless perhaps we have already made the resolve to define the term in a certain way for theoretical purposes. But if one has no theoretical ambitions which require any idea of aesthetic experience and yet is armed with a philosophical curiosity about what aesthetic experience may be, then perplexity is the fate that is liable to await one.
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References
“Evaluating Works of Art,” British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Winter 1985).
Herbert V. Guenther, Buddhist Philosophy in Theory and Practice (1971, Penguin Books, 1972), p. 19.
See for example Timothy Binkley’s “Piece: Contra Aesthetics,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, XXXV (1977) and reprinted in J. Margolis, Philosophy Looks at the Arts (2nd edition, Temple University Press, 1978).
Franz Brentano, The Foundation and Construction of Ethics (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973), p. 345.
Since only so much can be done in one paper I am not interested here in the question what is art, having written extensively on that elsewhere. See my “The Republic of Art,” British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 9, No. 2 (1969); “Essentialism and the Definition of ‘Art’,” British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 13, No. 2, (1973); “The Idea of Art,” British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 17, No. 2 (1977); “A Place for Works of Art,” Ratio, Vol. XIX, No. 1 (1977); “On Defining Art,” British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 19, No. 1 (1979); and Tolstoy’s ‘What is Art?’: (Croom Helm, 1985).
There are some exceptions to this, e.g., Mary Mothersill’s recent book Beauty Restored (Clarendon Press, 1984), and I suspect that we shall see more to come.
Speech by Mr. John Baxter at the launch of the Commodore International Computer Art Challenge at the Hippodrome, London (March 1, 1984).
Tim Hilton, Review of Matisse Sculptures and Drawings at the Hayward Gallery, Times Literary Supplement (November 23, 1984), p. 1344.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nyetochka Nyezvanov in The Friend of the Family, trans. Constance Garnett (Heinemann, 1920, 1949), p. 286.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, “A Little Hero,” White Nights and Other Stories, trans. Constance Garnett (Heinemann, 1918), p. 271.
John Cowper Powys, After My Fashion (1919, first published in 1980 by Pan Picador), p. 137./ll//t
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© 1986 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht
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Diffey, T.J. (1986). The Idea of Aesthetic Experience. In: Mitias, M.H. (eds) Possibility of the Aesthetic Experience. Martinus Nijhoff Philosophy Library, vol 14. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4372-8_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4372-8_1
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