The Nature of Aesthetic Value

165 Pages·1986·25.12 MB·English

by  Hugo A. Meynell (auth.)

THE NA TDRE OF AESTHETIC VAL DE
By the same author
SENSE, NONSENSE AND CHRISTIANITY
GRACE VERSUS NATURE
THE NEW THEOLOGY AND MODERN
THEOLOGIANS
GOD AND THE WORLD
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF
BERNARD LONERGAN
FREUD, MARX AND MORALS
THE INTELLIGIBLE UNIVERSE
THE NATURE OF
AESTHETIC
VALUE
Hugo A. Meynell
M
MACMILLAN
© Hugo A. Meynell1986
Soft cover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1986
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission
of this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied
or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance
with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended).
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to
this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and
civil claims for damages.
First published 1986
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Meynell, Hugo A.
The nature of aesthetic value.
I. Aesthetics
I. Title
III '.85 BH39
ISBN 978-1-349-07926-1 ISBN 978-1-349-07924-7 (eBook)
DOl 10.1007/978-1-349-07924-7
Contents
Acknowledgements Vi
Introduction 1
1 ON THE GROUNDS OF AESTHETIC VALUE 3
2 AESTHETIC SATISFACTION 25
3 GOODNESS IN LITERATURE 49
Illustration and Demonstration of What is of Central
Importance for Human Life 50
Originality in Use of Language, and in Treatment of
Plot, Character, etc. 54
Representation of People, Things and Circumstances 57
Overall Unity in Variety of Substance and Effect 66
Seriousness of Theme 75
Original Treatment of the Medium of Words and
Ideas 76
The Bringing Out of How Things Are or Might Be 80
Overall Unity of Substance and Effect 87
4 GOODNESS IN VISUAL ART 93
Enhancement of Our Perception and Imagination 99
Emotional Significance 109
Unity in Variety of Substance and Effect 113
5 GOODNESS IN MUSIC 117
Exploitation of the Medium As Such 117
Clarity and Intensity of Depiction of Emotion and
Mood, and Importance of the Emotions or Moods
in the Business of Human Living 119
Unity in Diversity 125
Conclusion 133
Notes and References 134
Index 154
v
Acknowledgements
My thanks are due to Linda Chalton, Peggy Craven, Eileen
Harris, and Rose Purdy, for typing this book; and to Alastair
Stead and Tony Hughes, of the Departments respectively of
English and of the History of Art at the University of Leeds, for
reading it through and making many helpful suggestions. I also
owe a great deal to the class on aesthetics which I conducted at
Leeds, especially to Paul Crowther and Jenny Chapman. Ver
sions of the first two chapters have appeared in the British Journal
of Aesthetics; the material appears here with the kind permission
of the Editor of that journal.
VI
In trod uction
The object of this book is to propose, and to argue for, an answer
to the cental problem of aesthetics. What is the nature and what
are the grounds of aesthetic judgment? On what basis, with what
right, and under what principles, is it to be determined that a
work of art is good, or great, or bad, or better or worse than
another?
A distinguished writer on aesthetics recently made a point of
avoiding this particular issue. 1 I make no apology for returning
to it. Aesthetics is notorious, even among the branches of philos
ophy, for the number of intractable problems which it presents.2
It seems to me, as will appear, that if this central problem is
resolved, the others will be well on the road to solution, at least
in principle; whereas so long as it is not, they will remain as
baffling as ever.
The practice of aesthetics, as of the philosophy of value in
general, is apt to be vitiated by an assumed contrast between
criticism on the one hand, and the more 'objective' kinds of
inquiry typified by science. One of the more interesting develop
ments of recent philosophy has been an increasing realisation
that, on the criteria of meaning according to which such subjects
as ethics and aesthetics are irreducibly 'subjective', science is
really so as well.3 You cannot logically deduce any statement
about experience from any moral or aesthetic judgment; but
neither can you do so from the characteristic statements of any
mature science. However, it may be argued, at least it remains
that the data or facts of experience may tend to corroborate one
scientific theory against its rivals. But just the same, as I shall
argue, applies to aesthetic judgments.
A word is in order about the method of approach followed by
this book. The majority of philosophers of science assume that
the procedures of scientists are in general justifiable, and aim at
setting out clearly and distinctly just what these procedures are
and why they are justifiable. I shall make the same assumptions
H.A. Meynell The Nature of Aesthetic Value © Hugo A. Meynell 1986
2 The Nature of Aesthetic Value
about critics of the arts, and similarly try to clarify and justify
their basic methods of inquiry and argument. The actual judg
ments of reputable critics are, as it were, the data against which
is tested the theory about the nature of aesthetic judgment argued
in the book as a whole.
In the first chapter, it is proposed that aesthetic goodness, the
property in virtue of which works of art are valuable, is a matter
of their capacity in appropriate circumstances to give satisfac
tion; this thesis is then defended against objections which have
been raised against it. The second chapter inquires further into
the nature of this satisfaction, which, it is argued, consists in the
extension and clarification of consciousness; thus there is pro
vided a basis for treatment of the ancient problem of the relation
between cultivation of the arts on the one hand, and the pursuit
and maintenance of the true and the good on the other. The
remaining chapters are summaries of judgments and arguments
of critics on literature, the visual arts, and music; they are
designed to show that good criticism is what one would expect
on the theory developed in the first part of the book.
1 On the Grounds of
Aesthetic Value
How, if at all, are aesthetic judgments objective, and in what
sense can they be so?
In the sixth chapter of Ayer's Language, Truth and Logicl there is
succinct argument for the view that all value-judgments, whether
moral or aesthetic or of any other kind, are essentially nothing
but expressions of emotion, or at most demands that other
persons should share one's attitude. The argument is divided
into two parts, the first of which is the same as the one previously
used by G.E.Moore to refute all 'naturalistic' definitions of
'good'.2 Some people have claimed, the argument runs, that
what is good is by definition what contributes to the greatest
happiness of the greatest number of people; others, that it is
what fosters the evolution of the human species towards greater
power and intelligence; others still, that it is what is decreed by
the law of God. But the same form of argument suffices to show
that all these attempted definitions are wrong. Suppose that the
good is to be defined as that which contributes to the greatest
happiness of the greatest number. In that case it would be a
contradiction to assert that anything is good and yet that it does
not contribute to the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
But this is not a contradiction; if someone were to say this, we
might certainly wish to say that he was wrong; but not that he
was contradicting himself. Therefore, by an impeccable modus
tollendo tollens argument, the good cannot be definable as that
which contributes to the greatest happiness of the greatest
number. The will of God, evolutionary development, and all
other candidates for providing definitions of good are disqual
ified by the same form of argument.
Moore himself concluded that good is a simple property, like
yellow, which one either perceived or did not perceive to belong
to an object. Being simple, it could not be defined in terms of
3
H.A. Meynell The Nature of Aesthetic Value © Hugo A. Meynell 1986