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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: poetry and philosophy, beauty a
Message-ID: <117400127@inmet>
Date: Thu, 9-Oct-86 10:04:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.117400127
Posted: Thu Oct  9 10:04:00 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 16-Oct-86 06:27:44 EDT
References: <747@ihlpf.UUCP>
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Nf-From: inmet.UUCP!janw    Oct  9 10:04:00 1986


[cher@ihlpf.UUCP ]
>> NO. Common usage recognizes intrinsic beauty as well  as  beauty-
>> to-somebody.   Consider  the statement: "I have never noticed be-
>> fore how beautiful this is." Does it  jar  your  ear?  The  usage
>> seems  quite common to me. This proves the beauty is *not* in the
>> eye of the beholder. Otherwise, it would not have been *there* to
>> notice until it *was* noticed.

>Actually, I considered that statement when composing my previous
>article. It is about the potential of an object or an idea to 
>exite and please *human* senses or mind.

(1) Not all pleasure is aesthetic in nature. E.g., a fruit
may be more beautiful before bitten into, but
more pleasurable after. On the other hand, there is such
a thing as beautiful suffering.

(2) Potential to please is one property of intrinsic beauty,
just as potential to convince is one property of intrinsic
truth. One may define beauty as that which can please
(in certain ways) just as one can define truth through
its potential to be verified. Each has a facet turned
to an observer, and an objective side, too.

>Sounds like it has everything to do  with  mind  and  senses  and
>nothing to do with anything 'intrinsic' in the object. Humans can
>be fascinated with anything from roses to incest.

And they can also recognize the existence  of  roses  or  incest.
And  they  do  it with their mind and senses. Does it follow that
that existence "has everything to do with  mind  and  senses  and
nothing to do with anything 'intrinsic' in the object" ?

Existence, size, color, beauty are characteristics of objects, 
equally objective, equally recognized by mind and senses,
equally capable to be defined through potential recognition.

>> "Antipodes, if they existed, would have to walk  upside  down"  -
>> true  or  false? Depends on what up and down mean to you. Yet the
>> meaning changes with knowledge; there was a time when that state-
>> ment was enough to disprove the existence of antipodes.

>Well, as long as the meanings of the words are explained the people
>can communicate ideas, and figure out the root of the disagreement...

Quite true: and the  same  applies  to  aesthetic  disagreements.
Taste can be educated. The same statement that was untrue or ugly
before certain words were redefined, may become true  or  beautiful
after.  E.g.,  "Antipodes walk upside down" implies at first both
"in reverse position to us" and "reversed with respect to  gravi-
ty".  In  everyday experience, the two meanings always go togeth-
er. One needs education to split them apart, and then the  state-
ment  becomes true (or false). A similar clarification transforms
the statement "we are descended from apes"  from  an  ugly  one
into a beautiful one. The analogy is precise.

		Jan Wasilewsky