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Barrret Cyril and Ot. - Symposium: Wittgenstein and Problems of Objectivity in Aesthetics
Barrret Cyril and Ot. - Symposium: Wittgenstein and Problems of Objectivity in Aesthetics
And the reason why he considers it stupid is given, e.g. in his fourth
lecture, where he says:
We can dream of predicting the reactions of human beings, say to works of art. If
we imagine the dream realized we'd not thereby have solved what we feel to be
aesthetic puzzlements, although we may be able to predict that a certain line of
poetry will, on a certain person, act in such and such a way. (Ibid., p. 29)
we say, e.g. of a bass, "It is too heavy; it moves too much," we are not
saying, "If it moved less, it would be more agreeable to me." Such a
statement as, "That bass moves too much," is not a statement about
human beings at all.' Wittgenstein cites Brahms's reply to Joachim, who
suggested that the Fourth Symphony should open with two chords. It was
not, says Wittgenstein, that 'that wouldn't produce the feeling he wanted
to produce', but something more like 'that isn't what I meant'.
Now there is obviously room for a distinction of this kind between
scientific and aesthetic explanations. If it were possible (and Wittgen-
stein doubts, if he does not deny, such a possibility)—if it were possible
is wrong, or misleading because although we do use the word 'cause' in the sense
of'what it is directed to' ('What made you jump?' 'Seeing him appear in the door-
way*), we often use it in other senses also {Ibid, p. 15 nl).
The person-may still not be convinced, but he has a weight of, at least,
quasi-evidence to explain away.
This, I think, does give a certain objectivity to an aesthetic explana-
tion, in spite of the fact that ultimately it is only the explanation that
satisfies which can be correct. But all this presupposes agreement on
value judgements. Wittgenstein poses the aesthetic puzzle in the form:
What is wrong with this piece of music, this sentence, etc? But suppose
the other person sees nothing wrong with it. Wittgenstein does not
seem to have considered this situation. You may get the other person to
see what you see, but how do you get him to see it as something wrong
with the work, if he is quite satisfied with the work? It is not good
error on our part, I think, if we lost sight of the fact that Wittgenstein,
although he has little to say about aesthetic judgements of the kind:
'That's a fine Gothic cathedral,' does not dismiss them altogether.
Wittgenstein's contentions that philosophers ought to stop construct-
ing theories about beauty and art and start from the positions of critics
and artists, is an extension of the concluding paragraphs of the Tractates
(6. 53, 6.54) where he states his views regarding correct philosophical
procedure. 'The correct method in philosophy would really be the
following: to say nothing except what can be said, i.e. propositions of
natural science.' Propositions regarding the correct measurement of
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WITTGENSTEIN AND PROBLEMS OF OBJECTIVITY IN AESTHETICS
I would like to say very briefly what this picture is, how completely
inadequate it is for aesthetics and how Wittgenstein's analysis of the
concepts 'seeing-as' and 'aspect' provide a way out of this picture. To
speak very roughly indeed, because aesthetic judgements, concepts and
perception do not attain certain standards of objectivity in the latter
sense mentioned earlier, i.e. intersubjectivity, it has been held by a great
many writers in aesthetics—Santayana, Richards, Carritt, Samuel
Alexander, to name a few—to be perfectly obvious that aesthetics could
have nothing, or very little, to do with the public, shareable world
accessible to more than one person, the world in which all of us suppose
we live. Indeed to suppose otherwise, that aesthetic features were
Notes on Aesthetics serve to bring out what is most important about the
remarks on 'seeing-as'. As Fr. Barrett points out, Wittgenstein is there
preoccupied with the kind of explanation which aims at persuasion by
getting others into the proper frame of mind, proposing ways of looking
at the thing, and so on, which enables one to seefor oneself thzt the object
is whatever has been claimed for it.
The alternative 'picture' or model Wittgenstein's notion of'seeing-
as' leaves us with is, then, of a many-faceted object, like a jewel, which
can present different facets to different observers. All the facets belong to
the jewel (are objective, that is, in the one sense); yet there is no one facet
1 2 *
WITTGENSTEIN AND PROBLEMS OF OBJECTIVITY IN AESTHETICS
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