Aesthetics through history

Intro video- overview:

- A history of philosophy module- questions that relate to art in a historical
way
- First half- what greatest philosophers have thought about art- plato and
Aristotle and then jumps to Hume and Kant
- Second half- more topic focused- look at 5 topics that have preoccupied
philosophers in 20th century- still history of philosophy as its still looking
at classic readings that have sparked these debates.
- Topics= is photography an art form? Does it make a difference to the
aesthetic value of an artwork if it’s a forgery? How music expresses
emotion. The paradox of emotions in responses to fictions. What is it for
something to be true according to fiction.
- Two essays- one on historical and one on the topics

Lecture 1- Plato
Background: The aims of The Republic and the Theory of Forms:
- Had views on the nature of art which have been extremely
influential-giving people opportunity to oppose his views. Interesting
defenses concerning the value of art (due to his negative/pessimistic
view). (GABI NOTES)
- Most famous of Ps work- republic- tackles lots of different issues-
main focus is justice and what it would be to create a city state that’s
completely just- in doing so tackles different philosophical issues-
epist, philosophy of mind, ethics
- Also lots of philosophy of education in his work- for a city to be just
its rulers need to be the right kind of people and therefore we need to
educate these people- what should we teach people who are going to
be future leaders. He has issues with education in Athenian society-
especially its reliance on poetry- we will see later on
- Plato’s most detailed and most famous discussion of questions relating to
aesthetics takes place in two parts of The Republic, the first in Books 2
and 3, and the second near the end in Book 10. The Republic’s ostensible
subject is the nature of justice, and this question is pursued by trying to
design a perfectly just city-state. In doing this, Plato addresses many
other areas of philosophy, including epistemology, metaphysics, ethics,
philosophy of mind and aesthetics as well as political philosophy. The
Republic is considered a ‘middle dialogue’ in Plato’s career, which means
that what Socrates is portrayed as saying is probably what Plato wants to
 claim himself. Much of The Republic concerns the education and role of
‘Guardians’ - those who will rule the ideal state because of their
intellectual and moral superiority. Greek education involved reading and
learning a lot of poetry, so Plato needs to discuss which elements of this
standard education he wants to keep and which he wants to change. This
means that the discussion of poetry that follows happens in this context.
- First part of republic he discusses art in book 2 and 3- thinking of
possible future guardians being educated- most of the young people
in the republic- to what extent should they be reading and reciting
poetry- there was much more blurred line between reciting poetry
and being in play than today- as a lot of poetry was delivered in
dramatic way and plays were written in poetry rather than pros-
when talking about poetry hes talking about young people reciting
verses and acting it out.
- In Book 10 more about people living in the city not just about
children being educated- more about common people- is it good for
them to go and see a play or hear a poet perform- what effect will
music have on them.
- N.B- Plato was Socrates pupil- S never wrote any works of
philosophy- was controversial figure- S was said to be dubbed as the
wisest man in Greece but he didn’t think he knew anything- but he
knows he doesn’t know everything about anything whereas other
people think they know everything
- P believes was a bad thing there was no recollection of Ss
conversations and ideas- P attempts to faithfully represent the
arguments S had with other people- but then he develops ideas of his
own- perhaps he becomes frustrated with all the dialogues not ending
with a concrete conclusion- maybe he does have answers- has views
about what justice or knowledge is
- So there’s change between early and middle dialogues- scholars
believe that the character Socrates is not the historical Socrates (in
the middle ones?)- he becomes a mouth piece for Ps views-
- (GABI NOTES)- P using the dialogue form as a way of expressing his
own views (dominant interpretation that this really is what Plato
thinks about art)
- Maybe for early dialogues don’t say P argues? Not sure??
- SUMMARY- Republic is dialogue concerned with just city in which
P wants to know what education of young people would be like for
there to be a just city.
- The other piece of background we need is some understanding of Plato’s
famous ‘Theory of Forms’. The theory of forms is an answer to what
modern philosophers call ‘the problem of universals’. Take three
 particular things: a book, a brick and a loaf of bread. They all have
various properties: being heavy, being readable, etc. They share at least
one property: being cuboid. What kind of thing is the property of being
cuboid? One answer, Nominalism, says that it is particulars that are real.
The book, the brick, etc. are real and the properties that they exemplify
are just abstractions: mental items to which we give names as though they
were real things. Plato’s theory of forms is the best-known example of
the other answer, Realism: properties are real. In Plato’s version the
properties are more real than the particulars that have the properties. The
cuboid-ness of the bread is imperfect and approximate. Perfect
circularity is not found in the concrete world of particulars, but we can
still speak truly about the properties of the circle. Numbers provide a
useful analogy, one which Plato appealed to more than once. So as well
as the cuboid-ness of the book or the bread there also exists ‘the Form of
the Cuboid’ or ‘Cuboid-ness Itself’. Plato sometimes expresses doubts
about whether all properties have corresponding forms. In
the Parmenides he says that there is no form of dirt, for example. In the
Republic, however, he seems to take for granted that there are forms even
of artefacts like items of furniture.
- Objects in our world are never perfect- a pound coin looks to be
circular but really it has edges that are smoothed out- when we talk
about properties of a circle we talk about the properties of a
perfect/ideal circle- very likely that the ideal circle is never actually
in the real world- if we zoom in very closely every object will be
composed on molecules and the molecules wont be perfectly circular
therefore the object is not perfectly circular- GIVE EXAMPLE OF
SOMETHING THAT APPEARS TO BE ROUND?
- Main question is are universals real?- pen cap and a bottle top seem
real but in what sense do their properties exist? 1 answer is
nominalism- perfect circularity might not exist in the material world-
nominalism (we are giving a name to something that doesn’t exist-
perhaps perfect circularity doesn’t exist just a name)-
- Other view is realism- Plato is against this says a perfect circle is
more real than the imperfect circles in our world- any particular
circle is just going to be an imperfect copy- P gives examples of
numbers- if ask physicist number 6 doesn’t exist as it is not a
fundamental forces or particles-
- TOTF are important when discussing his ideas about art

The argument of Books 2 and 3:

- Ps real concerns when discussing art are moral and political- qs that
p is asking are not about nature of art but about the utility/effect of
 art- critical of the effect of art- his ideas have been controversial
because of how he argues for censorship.
- N.B- when referencing- use numbers on side rather than page
numbers- ) e.g Plato 380B
- Plato’s interest in the arts here is the role they will/should play in
developing the minds and characters of children who may grow up to be
Guardians.
- His ultimate interest is thus perhaps not aesthetic but moral/political but
he seems to take it for granted that aesthetic value must give way to moral
value. The relationship between aesthetic and moral value is one to
which we will be returning.
- Notoriously, Plato advocates strict censorship of the art that will be part
of children’s education and even of the art that will be allowed to be
performed in the ideal state.
- In book 2 (not in reading material) – asks question what’s education
like- pg 376- Greek education was based on gymnastics, music
(drama, poetry etc) and then later maths etc.
- P says when we start educating young people we divide stories into
two kinds, true and false (fiction and non-fiction). We tell fables to
young children (stories with supernatural with moral point)- P says
there might be unintended moral points e.g stories about God’s
fighting- sets bad example for young people and its false Gods
wouldn’t do this.
- He is most concerned with poetry, but in Ancient Greece this
encompasses what we would think of as drama as well as works like
the Illiad and the Odyssey.
- Two worries- 1st is we are telling the stories to impressionable young
minds- they are going to believe this behaviour is ok. 2nd worry is
Gods are being misrepresented- says G must be good and therefore
can only do good- cant teach children that God is bad.
- This censorship is argued for on two grounds. The first is that poetry
involves scenes which will not promote good character such as gods and
other seemingly approved-of characters acting in vicious or ignoble
ways. Plato says that even if such scenes were true-to-life they should
not be allowed because of their effect on character-development (378a).
- The second is that poetry involves mimesis. (GABI NOTES- often
translated as REPRESENTATION. But can seem like a
- better translation is IMITATION.)
- This word is often translated as ‘representation’ and Plato uses it in this
sense later, but here it means something more like ‘imitation’.
Sometimes a poet will ‘speak in their own voice’ as when they report
events, but sometimes they will speak as one of the characters in the
 story. Plato characterises this as a kind of attempt to deceive: ‘[the poet]
delivers as if he were himself [the character] and tries as far as may be to
make us feel that not Homer is the speaker, but the priest, an old
man’(393b). Mimesis can be translated into representation- in book 3
P seems to use it meaning imitation
- Two concerns P has with art. 1 is bad effects on the character of the
children who consume the art. 2nd is more of a concern purely with
misrepresentation- presenting a lie as if it is the truth- these two ideas
by themselves are reason to introduce censorship
- Book 3 goes on to discuss older children?
- Plato further argues that when such verses are recited, the speaker also
has to imitate in this way. Being a good imitator is a skill, and if
someone is a good imitator then Plato thinks that it will be harder for
them to be highly skilled in other ways - harder for them to be a good
ruler. Furthermore, if the person being imitated is in any way vicious,
there is danger that the speaker will themselves develop the vices that to
begin with they are merely imitating.
- In order to be a good reciter of poetry you have to become a good
imitator, and this worries Plato. He has this view of your ability to
develop talents- says we have a limited capacity to become really
skilled at more than one thing- if you become a good imitator that
will threaten your ability to become a good ruler- the whole point of
this is to prepare people to become good rulers of this just city.
- His other worry is what are you imitating? Is it something that will
be beneficial to your character? Do we want people to get good at
acting evil parts- will that not have an effect on them?
- If very good at pretending to be bad guy not going to have good effect
on your character- quite convincing?
- Plato therefore says that we should only be allowing art which is
going to provide examples of the type of behaviour we like- heroes
rising to challenges- people doing good deeds.
- If we are to allow mimesis it must always be imitation of the good-
should censor things that are bad or untrue- book 10 goes even
further with this.
- At the very least, in Plato’s view such imitation won’t help future
Guardians to develop good character, and so mimesis of this kind must be
kept to a minimum and permitted only when performing parts who have
admirable characters (395c).

The argument of Book 10:

- In the last book of The Republic Plato goes much further. Here he is
considering the role that poetry and the other arts should play in the lives
 of Guardians rather than in children’s education. Once again he focuses
on mimesis, but this time with its other sense: representation. Plato seems
to take it for granted that art involves mimesis: that art represents objects
that it depicts, narrates, etc. In combination with his theory of Forms, this
gives Plato reason to regard all art as involving untruthfulness,
deceptiveness and unreality.
- Most fully developed and controversial in their conclusions- P has
two main arguments- 1st depends on theory of forms
- Plato argues that when a craftsperson makes something such as a spoon
or a couch, they ‘have their eye’ on the Form of the item in question,
which Form they then (imperfectly) copy in making the concrete object
(596b). P is saying when the craftsperson is thinking what bed should
be like they are thinking about what the ideal bed is like- but thing
they actually produce is just a copy of the ideal bed- going to be less
perfect.
- Suppose you see a bed in a mirror- if didn’t know there was a mirror
you would think there is another bed- e.g not realising a mirror in a
room and think room is twice as big- takes a minute to realise there
aren’t acc tables and chairs they are reflected images of the table of
chairs. P says if you hold a mirror up to a bed you have not made a
bed, at most you have created an image of the bed.
- P says that images of material objects like bed shows us the
appearance of the objects but not the reality or truth of the object.
- If a painter were then to paint a picture of the couch that the craftsperson
had made, they would be making a copy of a copy, or an imitating an
imitation, in the same way that holding a mirror so that it showed an
object would show us ‘the appearance of them, but not the reality and the
truth’ (596e). Such images, whether in mirrors or in paintings, are two
steps away from the truth and reality of the Form, and making them
requires knowledge only of the appearances of concrete objects, not the
real nature of the particular, still less of the Form that it copies.
- When you’ve got an image of a material object we are 2 steps away
from the reality or the truth- but when you have artistic image of a
form it’s at a third remove from truth- it’s a copy of a copy of a
form- seems only 2 steps why 3rd remove? Couple of reasons why- 1)
suppose we take the bed and we make a full size copy of it in a 3d
printer that would be copy of the bed but because its full size and 3d,
our copy would capture a lot of the information of how the physical
object looks- its proportions/size etc. We have two steps- but what if
it was a painting- would have to decide angle they would paint it
from- can only capture only some of the information about how the
bed looks- only getting visual data and only the sides of the bed that
 are visible from the angle the painter has selected it. 3rd step= painter
at best only captures one perspective of bed.
- 2nd reason- painter does not need to have any knowledge about bed
making- means they may introduce inaccuracies in their painting- we
shouldn’t think of painted bed as being a bed at all. It is simply a
painting of a bed- we haven’t introduced another copy of a bed, just
paint on a canvas- fools the viewer into thinking there is a bed.
- HERE ARE STEPS- the form (more real than what we normally
think of as reality), the bed in what we think of as reality, then we
have some copying process, then the copying process is copying only
part of the beds appearance from a certain point of view.
- Painting thus involves imitation merely of appearance, demoting it still
further from reality and truth (putting it at ‘a third remove from truth’
(599d, 602c)) and the painter does not need knowledge of the true nature
even of the particular and has no expertise concerning the objects that
they depict (598b-c).
- Same thins is true when it comes to poets- when poet represents
certain scenes, even if those events took place, we are getting poets
point of view and their potential misrepresentation.
- Suppose we think of a story of someone doing a courageous deed and
the events took place- we have courage itself instantiated in people
and their actions- e.g a firefighter running into burning building
(think of own courageous act)- then we have dramatic retelling of
event- scriptwriter and director who have own view on events- we
have a depiction of these people’s views of one aspect of the actual
event which itself is an imperfect instantiation of the form of courage
itself.
- Poets are doing something similar, according to Plato. ‘[A]ll the poetic
tribe, beginning with Homer, are imitators of images of excellence and of
the other things that they ‘create,’ and do not lay hold on truth’ (600e).
Homer describes people being great rulers, or mighty warriors, but he has
no knowledge of how to rule or to fight himself. But readers of poetry
can be taken in, and think that the poet can describe things well only if
they have real knowledge of them.
- Poets presents thing to us as if they are authoritative voices e.g
Homer giving images of courage, leadership, wisdom but H might not
know anything about these things just good at writing poetry. Only
getting Hs idea of how those events happening- imperfect
representation of what Odysseus did.
- P says art is always a lie- it presents us with things that are fake- they
don’t capture the truth- its false- shouldn’t have anything to do with
it- it will lead us astray.
Video 4:
- Biggest problem with art is the effect it will have on our character.
- This is his most significant argument- this is the chief cause for alarm
when thinking of allowing art in society.
- Readers and spectators find poetry and performance delightful and
absorbing, but this attraction is driven by an inferior part of the soul or
psyche, a part which resists the rule of reason. Sometimes a drama
moves us in a way that we know is not rational, but we may admire it all
the more for its ability to do so. Plato thinks that we should resist being
moved in this way and refuse to allow such art to be performed in the
ideal state. Art prompts us to extremes of emotion that we would be
better-off avoiding and in doing so it exhibits the ‘chief cause for alarm’:
its ‘power to corrupt, with rare exceptions, even the better sort’ of person
(605c). When we watch dramas, we may let our guard down and indulge
feelings that we would in real life keep under control. This can have an
insidious effect: if we see depiction s of suffering in a drama something
curious happens: we feel pity and sorrow but at the same time we are
enjoying the experience. This will lead us to become self-indulgent:
‘what we enjoy in others will inevitably react upon ourselves. For after
feeding fat the emotion of pity there, it is not easy to restrain it in our own
sufferings’(606b).
- His worry about effects on character- not about children being set
bad examples- even adults, normal members of society are liable to
be corrupted by art. In one way it pays a compliment to the
effectiveness of art- P acknowledges the poetry and drama can be
extremely compelling- in this way he is complimentary of art and its
power to move us.
- Need to understand Ps understanding of the psyche- three parts to
psyche- reason, (both underneath reason) two components of desire.
Gives example of seeing a crashed chariot- you feel repelled and also
curious and attracted to it- want to slow down and look but also
wanted to look away- so must be two parts of us that want two
different things.
- P is not hostile to desire- doesn’t think it should be eliminated-
Chariot analogy- being pulled by two different ways
- Suppose you go to theatre and see tragedy- will experience various
emotions. Will feel sympathy towards protagonist- sorry for their
suffering- may experience horror at what they undergo- but this
protagonist doesn’t acc exist.
- Suppose I said ive been very fearful lately because of monster under
bed- person would react saying really, would ask if you believe there
 is monster- and I say I don’t believe its there but I’m scared- would
think I’ve gone mad- if I know there’s no monster under my bed, I
know it’s a figment of my imagination seems inappropriate to have
these feelings towards it- somethings gone wrong with my psyche-
likewise P says when u see sad story at movies and you cry and feel
sorry for person that’s a bad thing- that’s you allowing an irrational
part of yourself to be in control. Might think when you turn off movie
you are then fine and back in control of yourself but P still worries
that this might be harder than we may think-(look above where this
quote is) ‘what we enjoy in others will inevitably react upon ourselves.
For after feeding fat the emotion of pity there, it is not easy to restrain it
in our own sufferings’(606b).
- Emotions like self pity are bad and should be avoided- we are making
ourselves more at risk of corruption when we see a play or read
poetry. At best it should only be those forms of art which are going to
keep us morally upright and of good character.
- So Plato seems to end up not wanting to permit any art in his ideal state
on the grounds that (a) it pretends to a status of knowledge and truth that
it does not really have and (b) that it corrupts even those who would
otherwise be virtuous by arousing excessive and unchecked emotions.
Additional points to note:
- Although P is hostile to art he is not hostile to beauty- appreciation to
beauty is an important training mode to become a better person.
Plato is suspicious of the value of art, but he extols the importance of (the
love of) beauty. Famously places the good, the true, the beautiful as
the three most important things that we should be devoted to and
should love. But beauty in art he is very suspicious of.
- Plato is highly critical of dramatic poetry, but he does this in a dialogue in
which he himself seems to be guilty of many of the sins he condemns in
others. P does the things he says to be bad- writing a dialogue that
seems to be a drama- putting words in Ss mouth- there is a dramatic
retelling of a convo that never took place or not like this- some kind
of irony involved. Some kind of occult message in Plato’s writings.

Possible responses from Gs notes

- 1 way of responding to Platonic challenge- is to accept this
framework but to say that art can give us an insight into reality.
Some way art can transcend the mundanity of particular objects and
their imperfections. Somehow, even though art is only a
representation an be a representation of truth and reality. Iris
Murdoch deeply platonic- her answer is that art gives you an
opportunity to see death held up before you in a way which is
available for contemplation in a way in which the real world it isn’t.
 Tolkin (Lord of the Ring) also had a similar view- spoke about art as
sub-creation. Devout Christian who thought that G-d activity of
creating the world could be miniked by an artist who could create
within the world. This sub-creation could give us an insight into the
nature of reality which could give us an insight into the nature of G-
d.
-
- Don’t need to think of art as a 3 steps way from reality but think of it
as holding a mirror not to the particular objects but to the World of
the Forms. Gives us a window into that deeper reality.
- Arts power on an aesthetic level is part of the problem- the way it
captures us on an emotional level. Overall concern is a moral/ethical
concern- consumption of art on our character is the real problem.
- Even though art succeeds as art- that it is good in itself and helps us-
not good in a moral view- moral value trumps aesthetic value. “Art
the power to corrupt[..] even the better sort of person.”
- Arts ability to arose emotions in us- will have a bad effect on our
character. Tragedy is going to make us feel emotions of pity for those
who are suffering. We feel pity for them even though those
characters are not real.
- Problem 1- irrational part of the soul has taken over the person.
Emotion directed at a non-existence object. Not anti-emotion just
believed should be felt when reason says to feel it e.g when a real
person is suffering. If this irrational part of the soul gets
strengthened within us- will be hard to control our tendency to feel
self-pity. If we watch too much art/read to many plays books etc
which depict suffering in others- likely to give in to a temptation to
feel pity for out own suffering. We are feeling this pity but aso
enjoying this experience. PARADOXICAL- see tragedy in play
experience fear etc but are watching a play. Something attractive
about this- why so insidious. Emotion of pity and fear becomes a
pleasant one. Corrupts us
- “What we enjoy in others will inevitable react in ourselves.’ ‘Not easy
to restrain it in our own suffering.’

Summary from Gs notes

- P thinks art is bad and seems to not to want to permit any
consumption of art.
- Because art is pretending to have a status it does not really have-
pretends to have K it doesn’t really have.
- And going to corrupt the people who indulge in it-corrupt emotions
and make them more susceptible to self- indulgence.
 - However elsewhere seems positive about beauty- human tendency to
love beauty is a positive thing. Good,true and Beautiful. Believes
beautiful is good for the soul-loving beauty prepares us to love truth
and goodness.
- Aesthetic is servant to the moral. Clearly says aesthetic value must
give way to ethical value.

Lecture 2- Aristotle

Background:
- Aristotle started out as Plato’s pupil at Ps academy but ended up
disagreeing with him and founding his own, rival school of Philosophy-
because he departed from Ps ideas concerning epistemology,
metaphysics and aesthetics.
- A was Alexander the Greats tutor
- Only part of his work concerning aesthetics survives: the first part of
the Poetics, which focuses on poetry and tragedy. Only a 3rd of his
works survived. Most of his ‘works’ are probably notes taken by
students at the lectures he gave.
- A second part focusing on comedy is known to have existed but is lost.
- Like most if not all works by Aristotle the Poetics appears to have started
out as notes taken in lectures he gave. This means that they may at some
points misrepresent or garble Aristotle’s actual proposals and arguments,
and there may also be additions from later writers. (The oldest surviving
texts of the Poetics are medieval.)
- We don’t have originals for any of these sets of notes- they were
written down in 300BC roughly and then various people would copy
them and sometimes these books would be lost. There is a process of
transmission which leads to copying errors or people adding bits-
might be later interpolations by other writers. Some of what the text
says shouldn’t be attributed to Aristotle at all.
- In the Poetics, Aristotle has several aims. He wants to give accounts of
what poetry and tragedy are, and of how they function and in doing this
 he wants to refute several elements in Plato’s criticism of poetry and
tragedy. The part concerning comedy is lost- we only have part
concerning tragedy. Some people say the Poetics is the first work of
literary theory in the world- what P fails to do in Republic, Aristotle
pauses to think what kinds of things poetry and drama are. How do
we distinguish poetry from other art forms? What is the essence of
drama/tragedy? Part of what A is trying to do is classify various
types of art. Says there is some art we don’t even have names for.
- So starts off by pointing out there is a need for classification and that
there is a need for classification and sorting out. There are different
ways we might do this.
- Suppose we think of some people who write funny narratives and
some people write funny scripts for actors. Some people who write
serious scripts and serious narratives. How do we divide these up?
Either is it narrative or script or we could think are these people
trying to write funny or serious work.
- A points this out and says if we are thinking about the means they
use- we would identify this person and this person as both poets but
one is writing serious treaties and others are writing comedies- surely
cant lump them all into category of poetry. We need various ways to
draw these distinctions. Early on in poetics he identifies 3 dimensions
to make these distinctions 1) means the artist uses- do they use prose
of rhythmic speech; do they use music or not 2) representations-
objects of the artwork- what’s being represented in the work. A
thinks tragedy’s in general represent people who are better than
average, and comedies represent people who are worse than average.
3) the method by which the story is told- distinguish this from the
means although this isn’t entirely clear in the text.
- Means=are u writing, play, novel, comic strip? Objects= who is
represented. Method= further variations that are possible within
that.
- A assumes if we are talking about tragedies we are already talking
about drama- prose narrative for A couldn’t be a tragedy. Tragedy
for A is a subset of drama.
- A is right to think we have this implicit sense for something to be a
tragedy- but sometimes we will have edge cases- is this a tragedy or
not? What he does in poetics is to come up with an account of what
the essence of tragedy is.
- Another thing he wants to do is defend tragedy and defend its value
and by extension of drama and by further extension of art all togther.
- In contrast- P is critical of drama, art and tragedy- the biggest part
of problem was that we can induced to feel pity for people who don’t
 exist- tragedy does this- biggest problem that P had with art was with
tragedy.
- A is trying to give a reply to Plato- its v tempting to read poetics as
direct response to Plato.

- Aristotle offers the following characterisation of tragedy:

- Tragedy is, then, a representation [mimesis] of an action that is heroic and
complete and of a certain magnitude—by means of language enriched
with all kinds of ornament, each used separately in the different parts of
the play: it represents men in action and does not use narrative, and
through pity and fear it effects relief [katharsis] to these and similar
emotions. (1449b)- quote- rest of videos are picking out important
parts of this quote.
- This gives us several elements to focus on: the nature
of representation (mimesis), the sense in which tragedy represents action,
the idea that this action is heroic, and the idea that this representation
brings about catharsis.
- Could argue he is trying to do a conceptual analysis of tragedy- Not
clear whether Aristotle wants this to be a definition or a description
of tragedy. (GABI NOTES)

Mimesis:
- Representational quality of tragedy and drama
- You’ll remember that Plato is pretty dismissive/hostile of mimesis, seeing
it as either a form of lying, or as something which pretends to a status it
does not deserve. He says that artistic representations do not really give
their consumer any knowledge and are several steps away from reality
and truth.
- Both P and A agree that tragedy is representational art- but A goes
into a lot more detail about what it is that gets represented. What
tragedy represents is primarily plot (sequences of incident)- also
represents character and thought.
- Aristotle, by contrast, thinks that mimesis is a way of learning.
Representations are things we can learn from
- He asserts that we learn some of our earliest lessons as children by
representing, and that we take pleasure in representations because we can
learn through doing so, recognising depictions of things we know from
life. Some reason to agree with A about this- young children are
given picture books as ways of helping them learn about the world.
- “We learn our first lessons by representing things” e.g children
mimicking other people’s behaviour (E.g Bandura’s Bobo doll
experiment). GABI NOTES
 - When we look at things we can distinguish them from other things
and recognize them in the real world (e.g recognizing a cow for the
first time). We can recognize a cow without every really seeing them
due to the fact we have had representations of them. GABI NOTES
- Some of these things might be unpleasant to actually witness but seeing
representations of them is enjoyable. (E.g of Francis Bacon’s paintings.
Fascinating to look at but not something you want to encounter)
GABI NOTES.
- Part of this enjoyment may be due to the presentation, but some of it is
also due to learning. This ability to recognise what something is in a
representation of that thing is pleasurable.
- A says it’s this representational quality that gives rise to this
pleasurable feeling of recognition. However- there are counter
examples - see representation and not know what thing represented
is. But say the art is beautiful- A says in that case you are just
judging the formal properties of the aesthetic object in front of you.
- Plato has a further complaint, however. He accuses mimesis of only
being able to capture some aspects of the nature of the represented thing,
e.g. how it looks from one angle, at one particular time. Mimesis, he
argues, can’t provide us with general principles or universal truths, and
this is the kind of knowledge that he thinks is important. Even if they do
give us information its of poor-quality e.g only one point a view of a
bed- can only tell us very limited kinds of information about the bed.
- Aristotle appears to agree to some extent about the importance of
universal principles, but argues that art, or at least tragedy, can provide us
with this sort of knowledge. A differs from P by saying drama can give
us general truths.
- A says plot is the first principle of drama and therefore tragedy-
can’t just be a sequence of events.
- Wants to refute Ps claim that representational art does not give us
anything truthful or value- wants to say at least some
representational art presents things that are valuable for us to learn.
N.B cite Aristotle use the bits on side (340b for example)

Action:
- According to Aristotle a work of art is a tragedy only if it represents
action (1449-1450). A says action is necessary for a drama to count as
a tragedy
- For a tragedy to be a tragedy a bad thing has to happen to the central
character. A groups these bad things into 3 categories, discoveries,
reversals and calamities (only one that has to be tragic unless the
calamity falls on someone who deserves it)
- Discovery- when important plot point is revealed to character and at
same time audience- other characters don’t know it- creates dramatic
tension.
- Reversal- when someone goes from a bad situation to a good one or
vice versa. Suppose there is character who is on way to be executed.
Just as about to get executed a dragon attacks and they attack
dragon so become a heroic character= good reversal. Reversal not
coupled up with discovery.
- Here his account is informed by what he observes in the tragedies of his
day.
- He remarks that although most tragedies include representations of both
plot (sequences of events) and studies of character, the former is essential
while the latter is not: ‘you could not have a tragedy without action, but
you can have one without character-study’ (1450a).
- Divides the contents of drama into 2 components- Plot and Character
GABI NOTES
- Claims that action and plot (not character study) are the heart of
drama. By plot means merely sequences of events. Plot is the first
principle and soul of tragedy. More complexity up to a point is better
than a simple plot- need connection between character and calamity
they face.
- Plot is the ‘first principle’ and ‘soul’ of tragedy. This plot must have a
unity, not through focusing on a single hero but through telling a coherent
story about a single piece of action (even though this ‘single piece’ may
be large and composed of various smaller incidents, like the Odyssey or
the Iliad). The sequence of incidents should not just be one after another
without any reason, but one should follow from another. An incident
may come as a surprise to the audience, but once it has happened, they
should be able to see why it is a consequence of earlier events (1452a).
Because tragedy is concerned with plot rather than with depicting
individual character, general lessons can be learned.
- The reversals of fortune suffered by someone who is in general ‘better
rather than worse’ but who suffers because of ‘a great flaw’ illustrate
general truths about human life.
- ‘Heroic’ action
- As just noted, tragedy does not concern itself with wicked people getting
their just deserts. That would not be tragic and it would not arouse ‘pity
and fear’ in the audience (1453a). Nor does it show ‘worthy’ people
suffering, since this simply ‘shocks our feelings’ rather than inspiring pity
or fear.
- Tragedy focuses on the fate of someone of ‘high station and good
fortune’ who suffers reversals, setbacks and ‘calamities’ not because they
 do anything terribly bad – such as would make them deserve their
suffering – but because they have a ‘great flaw’ (1453a).
- The translation we’re using uses ‘heroic’ to translate the Greek spoudaioi,
but ‘high’ or ‘serious’ might be better.
- Although the idea of the tragic hero brought low by a tragic flaw has been
influential in the history of drama, Aristotle’s main concern seems to be
that tragedy not be like ‘torture porn’.
- He wants the suffering witnessed by the audience to have some sort of
moral significance, but not the simple sort of fairy-story moral of wicked
people getting their just deserts.
- This is a difficult puzzle to resolve: the suffering should not be merely a
justified come-uppance (which might be satisfying to watch but would
not arouse the feelings of pity and fear that the tragedian aims for) but at
the same time must not just be random.
- The word translated as ‘flaw’ is hamartia, which in New Testament
Greek means ‘sin’. Aristotle uses it in a different sense which might best
be translated as ‘mistake’: the tragic heroes he refers to are ones whose
sufferings begin with a single significant mistake such as any normal
person who is neither ‘pre-eminently virtuous’ nor ‘villainous’ might
make. more likely A is not talking about flawed characters but its
talking about basically good characters, not heroic- what happens is
not a flaw but a mistake.
- The tragic hero has the misfortune of being in a plot which shows how
everyday mistakes can lead to calamity, thus arousing in us pity (for his
misfortune) and fear (that we might make similar mistakes with similar
consequences).
- The fact that it’s a mistake not a flaw is important- if we see a
tragedy and we attribute the calamities to a flaw in their character
which I don’t think I have I’m less likely to feel the feelings of pity
and fear because I can’t relate. But if someone is of ordinary sort and
they make a mistake- a mistake any one might make and this is what
leads to calamities they suffer then I will think that could be me-
much more relatable.
- In official definition of tragedy- in text for this week- A says tragedy
must evoke pity and fear in order to bring about relief- but in rest of
poetics he doesn’t talk about that relief he just talks about needing to
evoke pity and fear. All of his other claims about what plot the
tragedy needs to have, what characters- these are all driven by does it
produce pity and fear- doesn’t talk about Katharsis.

Katharsis: relief
- Katharsis is the single most important idea in the whole of the
poetics- the notion of things being cathartic, of art bringing about
katharsis has been extremely influential- puzzling to see what A
meant by it in poetics.
- A uses the term in the official definition of tragedy- “brings about
Katharsis” but when you get into details of what tragedy is and how
it works he returns again and again about pity and fear.
- No mention of Katharsis- all around pity and fear
- Katharsis is the most famous and influential element in Aristotle’s
account of tragedy, but he doesn’t give us any account of what it is.
Some commentators have even suggested that this is a later addition to
the text and not part of Aristotle’s account at all. The evidence for this is
the absence of any further comment from him in the Poetics about what
catharsis is or how it works and the appearance later in his discussion that
arousing pity and fear is in itself the goal of tragedy. Evidence against is
the fact that in another work, the Politics, he also says that tragedy
achieves catharsis in its audience- says tragedy brings about
Katharsis. Whether or not the idea is Aristotle’s it has been so
influential that we need to understand it. The idea that tragedy brings
about Katharsis is so influential.
- One meaning of katharsis in the Ancient Greek of Aristotle’s time is
‘cleansing of the digestive tract’ – it was used in contexts of prescribing
purgatives or laxatives in the hope that noxious substances would be
removed from the body. A kind of purging of stuff from the body that
was doing you harm. A uses it in this sense but with emotions
- One way of understanding Aristotle’s use of the term in the context of
tragedy sees him as offering a straightforward analogy: feelings that we
are better-off being rid of are purged and expunged. We feel them but
feeling them in the context of tragedy allows us to get rid of them and
move on without them. This is probably the dominant interpretation, and
close to the meaning that ‘catharsis’ has as a loan-word in English.
Excess anger for example can be purged away from an individual.
You can get rid of emotions that are bad to have.
- We speak of an emotional experience as being cathartic when undergoing
the extreme emotion leaves us calmer afterwards. This goes hand-in-
hand with the idea that we can harmfully repress emotions, keeping them
‘bottled up inside’ and that it is good for us to allow ourselves to
experience them as a means to ridding ourselves of them.
- Once play is over the feelings go away- would explain the through
pity and fear effect- we have fear within us and in order to get rid of
fear we make you feel the fear and through feeling the fear you then
get rid of it.
 - This interpretation of catharsis is the one that has been influential in the
history of ideas, but there’s a problem: it doesn’t seem very Aristotelian-
not in keeping with what A has to say about emotions elsewhere in
his work.
- Aristotle’s general approach to the emotions is to emphasise that they
should be neither eliminated nor excessively indulged.
- As part of his larger ethical project he thinks that it’s important for
happiness and virtue that emotions be felt in response to the right sort of
stimuli, at the right sort of time and to the right sort of degree. For
reasons of this sort some philosophers such as Martha Nussbaum (in her
1986 The Fragility of Goodness) have suggested that katharsis doesn’t
mean the purging or eliminating of emotions such as pity and fear, but the
refining and clarifying of those emotions, bringing them better into line
with what they should be. Tragedy can prompt me to feel pity for the
suffering of the protagonist, which in turn may make me a more
compassionate person in real life. (Compare Plato last week, who
worried that it was self-pity that would develop.)
- Rival interpretation put forward by MN- N argues that A thinks that
emotions are good and important and appropriate, but they have to
be calibrated and this means we have to train ourselves to not feel
excessive or too little emotion. By Katharsis A means clarification-
we ought to feel pity and fear and the role of tragedy is to clarify to
what objects and to what extent we should feel these emotions in real
life. Also says feelings themselves can be informative (A says when we
see representations we can learn)- N says we can learn through being
prompted by our emotional responses.
- Trouble with this is that there is no real evidence in poetics that A
had anything like this in mind- if he wanted to say that what happens
when we feel pity and fear is clarification why didn’t he use this
word- he uses it in other parts of his work- instead he uses katharsis
- Katharsis is a real puzzle- extremely influential but not clear whether
the influence it has had is based on a correct interpretation of A. Not
clear if K is even an idea of A in the poetics at all.

Lecture 3- Hume

Background: Hume’s Empiricism

- Hume is probably the most important and possibly the most
extreme empiricist philosopher. Was in a school of thought known as
the empiricists- term applied to them by Kant later
- He argues that we can get knowledge only through experience – that there
are no ‘innate ideas’, contrary to philosophers like Plato, Descartes
(proof of the existence of external world- reasons is out using cogito
ergo sum) and Leibniz (rationalists- a priori knowledge)
- Empiricists on other hand- says if we want info about the world, we
can’t just reason we have to go and look.
- Like his empiricist predecessor Locke, Hume sees the mind as a tabula
rasa, a blank slate that experience fills in- we aren’t born with innate
knowledge- we acquire concepts we have through encountering the
world. Experience provides us with what he calls ‘impressions’.
- Term Hume uses when talking about sensations we have is
impressions. If take water bottle- we get impression of water bottle-
can see blackness and shininess- get impressions of size and shape. If
just watching video of it don’t get impression of its texture.
- Take the experience you might have if you held a Lego brick. You would
have visual impressions of its shape, size and colour. You would have
tactile impressions of its shape, weight, size, smoothness, etc. You
probably don’t have a Lego brick with you right now, so as you think of
this experience and these properties, you are calling to mind memories of
what it’s like to have experiences and impressions of this sort. Hume
says that when we do this our minds work with ideas rather than
impressions of shape, size colour and so on.
- We can only get simple ideas from having experienced simple
impressions, but we can combine ideas using imagination to form
complex ideas of things we have not encountered in experience. When
we see a vivid colour, we have impression but if we later call that
colour to mind, we are working with an idea of that colour. Only way
ideas of that kind can get into our mind is via impressions.
- Hume has this idea about colours we have seen- what if we have seen
every shade of blue but one- can think of it in colour wheel- there
might be ideas we can arrive at without having impressions
- Much of Hume’s philosophy is trying to work out how we could have
acquired certain concepts such as causal necessity, the self, moral
obligation, and so on. Hume wants to know if its possible for us to gain
knowledge of the existence of the self- how can we have a coherent
concept of these things- the only way is if we had impressions which
gave rise to these ideas.
- A lot of Hs philosophy proceeds in a sceptical way
- He ends up occupying a sceptical position concerning many things,
arguing that we can have no knowledge of anything except via experience
or by analysing ‘relations of ideas’ (conceptual reasoning).
- This has become known as ‘Hume’s Fork’, and he famously concludes
his Enquiry into Human Understanding (second major work) by saying
that any work of Philosophy which pretends to deliver knowledge derived
in any other way should be ‘consigned to the flames’ as containing
‘nothing but sophistry and illusion’.
- Hs fork- if we have a piece of philosophy- anything that claims to be
knowledge- we should ask ourselves whether it concerns relations to
ideas (conceptual knowledge) or matters of fact (empirical
knowledge-looking at world- direct sensory contact with world) If we
have set of claim that are neither H says its nothing but ‘sophistry
and illusion’. H is saying that tons of philosophy is not saying
anything- Hs fork

Hume on Value
- Hume is famous for his sentimentalism: the view that the wrongness of
an act is not really a property of the act itself, but grounded in an emotion
that we feel in witnessing or thinking of the act. Has a passage where he
talks about moral value- suppose we try to have an impression when
we are looking for wrongness- e.g take example of punching sister in
face- observe action- can you see the wrongness- is the wrongness
available to your senses- do you get impression of wrongness- H says
no- we only get this impression when we turn the attention to
ourselves. There will be a feeling of disapproval towards the action.
- Take any action allowed to be vicious: Wilful murder, for instance.
Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real
existence, which you call vice. In which-ever way you take it, you find
only certain passions, motives, volitions and thoughts. There is no other
matter of fact in the case. The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you
consider the object. “You never can find it, till you turn your reflexion
into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation which arises
in you, towards this action. Here is a matter of fact; but ’tis the object of
feeling, not of reason. H appears to be saying that moral values are
not properties of objects and events- wrongness of punching isn’t a
property of the punching. The wrongness is within us- we feel in
response to punching. Some interpret H being an emotivist.
- “It lies in yourself, not in the object. So that when you pronounce any
action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the
constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from
the contemplation of it.(seems emotivist up to here) Vice and virtue,
 therefore, may be compared to sounds, colours, heat and cold, which,
according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects, but
perceptions in the mind.” (Hume, Treatise III, I, I) people like Locke
and Newton had investigated sight and colour vision and newton had
figured out that our perception of colour has as much to do with us
as it has to do with the object. When we see object as red, light of a
certain wavelength is being reflected and we perceive this and
interpret in it and this gives rise to the look of the colour red. The
way H puts it is that redness isn’t a property of the object it’s
something which the object gives rise to in us- doesn’t sound like
emotivism.
- H not an emotivist? H is not denying the reality of moral value- just
saying that moral value is a power that objects of events have to give
rise to a certain experience.
- Hume extends this basic idea to all value, not just to moral or ethical
value. In one sense of that difficult term, he thinks that evaluative
judgements are subjective, in that they report something about the subject
rather than something that is really a property of the object. Just how we
should interpret this basic idea is an area of controversy in Hume
scholarship. Some think that he’s a kind of emotivist, others (taking their
inspiration from the last sentence in the quotation above) argue that he
does think that evaluative properties belong to objects, but that these
properties are (like colours) powers to cause certain experiences in us
(visual experiences in the case of colours; emotional experiences in the
case of values).
- By time H was writing- although term aesthetics has not been coined-
philosophers were talking about what they called judgements of taste.
What kind of thing are we judging that this work of art has or
doesn’t have. What is it to make a judgement of taste- kind of
question H wants to answer.

Hume’s aesthetics:

- The time H was writing the term aesthetics was coming to have the
meaning it has these days.
- Hume had intended that his first great work, the Treatise of Human
Nature, would include sections on ‘criticism’ in its third and final book
but he abandoned this plan when the first two books were poorly
received.
- There are occasional mentions of criticism, beauty, and judgements of
taste scattered through his works, especially the Enquiry into the
Principles of Morals, but the only works in which he pays sustained
 attention to issues in aesthetics are two essays published together with
others on different topics: Of the Standard of Taste and Of Tragedy. The
first of these is his most famous work on the topic, but it was written in a
hurry in order to make the collection of essays long enough to be worth
publishing.
- How do we work out what the rules are for art being good? P in that
time claimed that there were rules- DaVinci better artist than
Banksy- this painting is better than this one. If true, and they did
think this was true- then there must be a set of rules/criteria which
we can identity in that the work of Davinci is ticking those boxes and
Banksy’s work is ticking less boxes (GABI NOTES)
- Question H is addressing is one that a lot of people can recognise as a
puzzle concerning aesthetic judgments.
- Of the Standard of Taste concerns a puzzle. Aesthetic judgements,
judgements of taste, are like moral judgements in that they are delivered
not by reason but by sentiment. As such, they are neither true nor false.
Despite this, we can’t help thinking that some people are incorrect in
finding some artworks to be beautiful or worthy of admiration- some
opinions are clearly worse than others. If we think all aesthetic
judgement is merely taste, it’s hard to understand how we can have
any ground for that kind of thought- this is the puzzle that H is
concerned with in standard of taste.
- We could just all be in error in having this sort of reaction, but that’s not
the way Hume resolves the puzzle. Instead, he tries to show how he can
reconcile the claim that judgements of taste are subjective deliverances of
sentiment with the claim that some critics have better taste than others,
and that some judgements are better than others.
- Despite his subjectivism about value, Hume defends the claim that there
is a ‘standard of taste’, something like an objective set of rules governing
what is aesthetically valuable and what is not.
- Take pain- pain is a subjective experience- if I am in pain I can feel it
directly- other people around don’t- if someone else sees me can infer
they are in pain but their knowledge about my pain v different to
mine- so pain in this sense is a subjective state. It’s not subjective in
the sense that there is no fact of the matter of whether something is
painful.
- What H is trying to do is beyond the side of people who think
aesthetic judgements are expressions of pleasure or emotion
(sentiments) but nevertheless still say there is a standard- some
opinions are better, and some are worse.
- The whole essay is H trying to reconcile these thoughts. On one hand-
sentimentalism is true- aesthetic value is nothing but feelings of
 approval within us. On other hand- some opinions are better than
others.
- The essay begins by noting that there is a lot of disagreement when it
comes to matters of taste (Hume 1757, 1).
- Hume even argues that this disagreement might go further than it appears,
because everyone may agree that it’s good for prose to have certain
qualities, but disagree when it comes to particular cases of deciding
whether prose is lively or leaden (2). He goes on to note what might
seem to be the obvious implication of his views about value: that there is
no hope of deciding who is right in such cases any more than there would
be any point in trying to decide which of two people who disagree about
whether the flavour of marmite is pleasant is correct (7). But he says that
adopting this implication of his sentimentalism would lead us to ‘absurd
and ridiculous’ results, because we would have to say that a critic who
said that Bieber was as good as Beethoven was justified in reaching this
conclusion. In fact, he thinks that such a critic is as guilty of error as
someone who is incorrect about a fact: they ‘defend no less an
extravagance, than if [they] had maintained a mole-hill to be as high as
Tenerife, or a pond as extensive as the ocean’ (8).
- For this reason, Hume says that ‘It is natural for us to seek a Standard of
Taste; a rule, by which the various sentiments of men may be reconciled;
at least, a decision afforded, confirming one sentiment, and condemning
another’ (6). If there is such a standard or rule, then it seems that despite
the ‘sentimental’ basis of judgements of taste, we could reach an
objective verdict about whose judgement is correct. But it’s a puzzle
what such a rule could be based on. Hume asserts that it can’t be based
on ‘reasonings a priori’ (9) i.e. just by thinking about relations between
ideas. The rule must, therefore, be based on experience.
- Para 7 saying what an extreme sentimentalist would say- not his
view- says why sentimentalism might lead to that view- can deceive
yourself into thinking that’s what H believes- just saying what we
might be seen to be committed to if we are sentimentalists- next para
says this leads to absurd results.
- Natural for us to seek for a standard of taste- but because our
aesthetic reactions are merely expressions of sentiment- we can’t find
rules derived from reason. How we can do this has to be using
empiricist methods- have to consult our experience of looking at
things and finding them beautiful.

More on aesthetics- next video

- Could start essay by saying when talking about art talking about it in
its widest sense- not just art work but tv shows, video games- using
art in an expansive sense.
- Suppose in situation where listening to piece of music and you give
up cos you decide it’s not the right circumstances for you to
appreciate music- could be distracted- not having its normal effect on
you. You see it as failing to be good music- same for other forms of
art- watch a comedy and don’t find it funny as not in good state of
mind- H starts his search by observing that this is the case.
- Hume tries to deal with the problem that we don’t seem to obey the rules
(one person thinks that Human Centipede 2 is aesthetically valuable,
while another deems it to be irredeemable trash, etc.) by saying that how
we respond emotionally to art is vulnerable to being distorted by
imperfect circumstances.
- ‘Those finer emotions of the mind are of a very tender and delicate nature
and require the concurrence of many favourable circumstances to make
them play with facility and exactness, according to their general and
established principles. The least exterior hindrance to such small springs,
or the least internal disorder, disturbs their motion, and confounds the
operation of the whole machine.’ (10) H is likening us as consumers of
art to machines which have very intricate and easily disturbed
mechanisms. These mechanisms can be disturbed by something going
wrong internally (being preoccupied by other thoughts) or externally
(listen to music in a loud environment).
- So, one task for Hume is to specify the conditions under which the
‘machine’ will operate in an orderly and unhindered way. Once we have
done that, we will be able to say that the judgements, based on sentiments
that art provokes, which are reached in these ideal circumstances, are the
correct ones. We will expect these judgements to persist over time.
- In para 16- although beauty is not in the beautiful object nevertheless
there are certain qualities in objects which are fitted by nature to
produce these particular feelings- take analogy of colour- what it is
for something to be red is for its surface to have certain properties
which means it absorbs certain wave lengths of light and reflects
others into our eyes. Redness is not really in the object but in me, the
subject. Now take beautiful piece of music- beauty isn’t really in the
music, I hear the music and this gives rise to a sentiment of approval
and liking, nevertheless it is objectively true that the music is such as
to give rise to this kind of feeling if it is heard in right circumstances.
- Since we do in fact find that some art works aren’t just found pleasing
briefly but continue to be judged to be good long after they were made,
 there is some evidence that there are such general rules, according to
Hume (11 & 12).
- Furthermore, we’re aware of ways in which we can be impaired in
making good judgements. Just as we can mistake something’s colour if
we judge it in the wrong circumstances, so we may be mistaken about an
object’s beauty if we are not in the right setting or frame of mind. In each
case, neither the colour nor the beauty is really in the object, and yet there
is a ‘true standard’ which our judgements can match when the
circumstances are right (12). We can fail to achieve this standard through
a lack of ‘delicacy of imagination’ (13)
- If we want to know what colour something is we need to look at it in
good light in same sense- whether a painting is beautiful or a piece of
music is good aesthetically perhaps there are circumstances that are
ideal or less than ideal for looking at painting or listening to the
music. If we agree with H who says there are objective properties in
objects that give rise to the way we feel and if we are in right
conditions, maybe disagreement about aesthetic value goes away.

Last video: - taste

- Last video talking about being in right circumstances to make
aesthetic judgments- something else we might need is to be good
judges ourselves- some people are able to make better judgements
than others.
- At this point the same ambiguity that we noted in Hume’s account of
moral value reappears. He says both that beauty is not a ‘quality in the
object’ but ‘belongs entirely to the sentiment’ nevertheless ‘there are
certain qualities in objects, which are fitted by nature to produce those
particular feelings’ (16).
- Hume distinguishes ‘mental and bodily taste’. Bodily- tasting things and
determining whether they are sweet etc. Aesthetic value is found by
mental taste- but two are v similar. The latter is the kind involved in
registering a sensation as pleasurable, like eating chocolate or relaxing in
a warm bath, or literally tasting something and realising what it is.
Aesthetic taste is mental. The two are similar, however. He borrows a
story from Don Quixote concerning bodily taste to illustrate what he
wants to say about mental taste. Hume presents Sancho Panza as telling
this story:
- Two of my kinsmen were once called to give their opinion of a hogshead,
which was supposed to be excellent, being old and of a good vintage. One
of them tastes it; considers it; and, after mature reflection, pronounces the
wine to be good, were it not for a small taste of leather, which he
 perceived in it. The other, after using the same precautions, gives also his
verdict in favour of the wine; but with the reserve of a taste of iron, which
he could easily distinguish. You cannot imagine how much they were
both ridiculed for their judgment. But who laughed in the end? On
emptying the hogshead, there was found at the bottom an old key with a
leathern thong tied to it (15). Two men taste wine- one says its good but
tastes of leather- perhaps not good at wine tasting- the other one says
but there is a faint taste of iron. When barrel was emptied there was
an iron key with a leather key tied to it. No one else could pick up the
subtle taste of leather or iron but they could.
- E.g someone who has covid and lost taste or smell- doesn’t mean that
certain curry is spicier than another one or one fruit is sweeter- even
though taste is subjective we still think there are facts of the matter
and H says same is true of aesthetic value.
- Just as some people are more discriminating in bodily taste, so some have
more ‘delicacy’ of mental taste. Experience and training can enable us to
improve in both respects. We can be good discriminators in some
respects and not in others: the person with the acute nose may have poor
hearing; and the excellent judge of music may not be a good judge of
painting. Someone who has delicacy of mental taste for the particular
object, and who is able to form their judgement in good circumstances,
will be able to deliver an accurate verdict about the aesthetic quality of
the object. If we pay enough attention to their verdicts, we may be able
to identify the rules. ‘To produce these general rules or avowed patterns
of composition, is like finding the key with the leathern thong’ (16)
- H arrives at the idea that if we have a set of judgements which are
made by the people who tick the necessary boxes of being experts and
the judgements were made in right circumstances then we should see
this convergence of opinion and this will be our standard of what the
truth is about the aesthetic value of the art being judged.
- ‘Thus, though the principles of taste be universal, and nearly, if not
entirely, the same in all men; yet few are qualified to give judgment on
any work of art, or establish their own sentiment as the standard of
beauty. […] Strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by
practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice, can alone
entitle critics to this valuable character; and the joint verdict of such,
wherever they are to be found, is the true standard of taste and beauty
(23). If we make sure we only pay the highest respect to the views of
people who are good at making aesthetic judgements- then we will
find a consensus emerges and this can provide us with a standard of
taste. Ask people who are highly trained in area.
- We might understand Hume as suggesting that there are two stages in
finding something beautiful. The first is perceptual: registering the
 properties that the object has. Some people will be better than others at
this stage, such as the people in Sancho’s story whose palates were
sensitive enough to detect the traces of leather and iron in the wine.
Perhaps some people with delicacy of taste are better at detecting real
properties of films, books, etc. Just detecting properties in this way is not
making an aesthetic judgement, however. That requires the second stage,
in which we feel some sort of emotional (‘sentimental’) response. If two
judges are equally good at the first stage but differ at the second, Hume
concedes that ‘diversity in judgment is unavoidable, and we seek in vain
for a standard, by which we can reconcile the contrary sentiments’ (28).
However, he thinks that disputes are more commonly because of defects
at the perceptual stage and that for the most part ‘true judges’ i.e. those
who perceive accurately, will converge on the same aesthetic
judgements.
- Thus Hume attempts to reconcile the intuition that some aesthetic
judgements are better than others with the seemingly contrasting belief
that aesthetic judgements are subjective.
- There are some aesthetic judgements that are incorrect or some
better than others.
- Whether or not H is successful remains uncertain.
Look at Gabis notes- criticism for Hume and podcast on Hume

Lecture 9- Emotions & Fiction

Emotional responses to fiction

Background: the rationality of emotions

- Start off by talking about emotions in general and whether we can
say an emotion is rational or irrational.
- Some things are rational or irrational. Other things don’t belong to either
categories.
- If Aristotle is right when he says that the human being is a ‘rational
animal’, does this mean that humans are not irrational? Does it imply
that non-human animals are irrational? Presumably not: the idea is that
humans are rational (and thus capable of being irrational) in a sense
which contrasts not with irrationality but non-rationality. Documented
ways in which human beings are predisposed to irrationality.
However, when A says this, they don’t mean rational as contrasted
with irrational they mean it as contrasted with non-rational. Because
we could be expected to behave rationally it makes sense to say we
 are irrational but perhaps doesn’t make sense to say that for non-
human animals.
- Our behaviour could be said to be irrational precisely because we are
the kind of creature whose behaviour could be expected to conform to
norms of reason. The behaviour of an out-of-control car isn’t rational,
but it isn’t irrational either.
- Suppose something was to break in a bookshelf and shelf collapses
and all books fall. It wouldn’t make sense to say that of the shelf that
it had behaved irrationally or rational- they were just behaving the
way they behave under mechanical forces. So not rational or
irrational they just are.

- Is it possible to assess an emotion as being irrational? Should we think

emotions are things that happen to us which just are and makes no
sense to assess them as being rational or irrational. Or should we
think emotions atleast sometimes can be assessed as R or IR.
- One might think not. It might seem that there are no normative standards
by which we can assess emotions: we can’t control what we feel, and
there’s no correct or incorrect way to feel about anything anyway. This
might suggest that emotions belong to the non-rational category.
Something our feelings are just our feelings and we shouldn’t have
expectations for the way we feel. Perhaps this is evidence to say
emotions are in the non-rational category as they don thave
standards that apply to them- they seem to be exempt from certain
kinds of norms.
- But last week we encountered the thought that emotions incorporate (at
least usually) representations of the way the world is. If I am sad, it is
because I am in some way representing my situation as involving loss; if I
am afraid it is because I am in some way representing my situation as a
dangerous or threatening one. That might allow us to say that emotions
involve some component that is belief-like and thus capable of being
assessed for rationality/irrationality. If we feel emotion of fear- aswell as
having a set of bodily feelings e.g heart racing, sweaty palms etc. also
a cognitive component- e.g if angry aswell as bodily feelings- also im
representing some part of my environment as having wronged me
- If there is this representational cognitive part to emotions this gives
us reason to think emotions can be evaluated as rational or
irrational.
- However- This might be too quick, though. There are other states we
can be in which involve representing the world and arguably they are
no rationally evaluable- Consider perceptions. They also represent the
world as being a certain way, but can we say of a perception that it is
 rational/irrational? Perhaps not. Maybe perceptions can be correct or
incorrect, but it might seem that it is not irrational to see what you see.
Perceptions which can fail to represent world correctly- e.g optical
illusions, oral illusions (the sound that can be heard as laurel of
yanny). Doesn’t seem to be rational to perceive that- doesn’t seem to
be correct to apply standards of rationality to perceptions.
- Take e.g of Muller-Lyre illusion. The lines are the same length- on
knowing this they still look different. If you believe these lines are
different lengths might claim this is a irrational belief. Beliefs can be
irrational- the belief the world is flat is irrational. However, the
perception that the lines are different length can’t be irrational. (Gabi
notes)
- If emotions are like perceptions, we might argue that despite having
representational content they aren’t (ir)rational.
- We seem to be helpless in correcting ourselves when seeing illusions-
can update your belief but our perception seems to resist this rational
revising.
- Beliefs can be said to be rational or irrational because they stand in
inferential relations to other beliefs and to knowledge. If I believe p and
I believe that p → q, then my belief -q can appropriately be said to be an
irrational belief. If all of this is correct maybe emotions can also be
rational or irrational in themselves rather than the subject (the
person) being rational or irrational for having the belief. We might
need to decide whether emotions are more like beliefs or more like
perceptions in order to decide.
- Big Question- where do we put emotions? Are they like beliefs where
can be evaluated as rational/irrational or are they non-rational like
perceptions where they can’t be evaluated in the same way. (Gabi
notes)

- Going to assume that emotions can be evaluated as irrational or

rational- looking for emotion can be rational if.. certain conditions
can be met- looking at what these conditions are
- Here’s some evidence for thinking emotions can be assessed as being
rational or irrational; we speak of them in this way quite naturally. We
might say of someone’s fear that it is perfectly rational, and we also see
no problem in speaking of irrational fears. We think that anger can be
justified (and unjustified). Someone’s sadness can be said to be
‘understandable’. So maybe emotions can be rational, and we can try to
identify the conditions under which they are rational.
 - Suppose I told you that I was afraid of a monster under my bed. You
might ask why I was afraid of it, and I might describe its fearsome
appearance, sharp teeth and catching claws. You might well say ‘so you
believe that there’s a scary-looking monster under your bed?’. I think
you’d be taken aback if I replied ‘Oh no. I don’t believe there’s a
monster. I’m just frightened of the monster.’ You might start to think
that I was playing a game, or that I wasn’t really afraid. But if I could
persuade you that I really was afraid of the monster, wouldn’t you think
that my fear was irrational? Wouldn’t be denying that I’m afraid- my
behaviour around the bed might give u every reason to think I’m
afraid- but would say it’s an irrational fear. There seems to be a
constraint on the rationality of emotions- the object of these emotions
needs to be believed to exist by the person who feels the emotion.
Called the reality constraint. For some emotions we seem to think
they obey a rationality constraint.
- We could suggest that one condition for the rationality of certain
emotions is a belief in the intentional object of those emotions. (Why
only certain emotions? Because emotions directed at contingent future
states of affairs can be rational even if the object doesn’t exist and might
never exist. Hope, anxiety and similar emotions have a different
rationality condition, perhaps one relating to it’s being possible, or likely,
that the hoped-for thing will happen.)
- This leads to a problem. If it is irrational to be sad about or afraid of
something that doesn’t exist, what are we to make of our emotional
responses to fictions? If we say that there is a reality constraint, then
we will say our emotional responses to fiction must be irrational.

Colin Radford
- Paper was the first paper to call attention to the existence of this
problem- given birth to large amount of literature on the paradox of
fictional emotions. There is oddity when someone cries for a fictional
character.
- The problem of emotional responses to fiction (sometimes called the
‘paradox of fictional emotions’) was brought to philosophers’ attention
by Colin Radford’s paper ‘How Can We Be Moved by the Fate of Anna
Karenina?’. He notes that in most cases our emotional response to, say,
sad news about someone being hurt, goes away if we learn that what we
heard was not actually news but made-up:
- 'It would seem then that I can only be moved by someone's plight if I
believe that something terrible has happened to him. If I do not believe
 that he has not and is not suffering or whatever, I cannot grieve or be
moved to tears.' (Radford 1975, .68)
- He considers possibility that we don’t really feel emotions in response
to fiction- what we are feeling is not real emotion- but he rejects this-
thinks we are moved by fates of various fictional characters. His issue is
whether or not we can treat this emotional response as a rational one.
- The paradox= 1) in order for us to be rationally moved whether it be
tears, fear etc. we need to have an existence belief- need to believe in
existence of objects we are having a response to. 2) we don’t have
existence beliefs about fictional characters and entities 3) we
nevertheless are moved, perhaps rationally. These three things
together constitute the paradox of fictional emotions.
- Perhaps Radford should have said ‘I cannot rationally grieve or be
moved to tears’ because of course he is well aware that we frequently
do have emotional responses to things we don’t believe in: we are
moved by what happens to fictional characters in the films and TV shows
we watch, the books we read, and so on. Or so at least it appears.
- Radford notes that someone might deny this. They could point out that
the emotional response to fictions differs from emotional responses to
the same things happening in real life. We don’t eat popcorn while
watching people suffer and die in real life, but we will do so during a
horror movie even while we shudder. Maybe we do not really fear the
monster.
- Radford admits that this may be true, but he insists that we are having
some sort of emotional response. I may not grieve for Boromir, but I am
moved by his death. Radford thinks that this is a problem that calls for a
solution, and he considers several:

Radford- 6 possible solutions and his rejection of them:

- N.B- Radford rejects these solutions and claims that our emotional
responses to fiction are irrational. 6 proposals he considers and rejects-
start on pg 71
- N.B.B- By fiction R doesn’t mean just reading knowledge- any
engagement with any type of fiction.
1. Forgetting its fiction- whilst I’m absorbed in the art I forget it’s not real.
We don’t believe the characters and events aren’t real. For a while, we
are so absorbed in the fiction that we ‘forget’ that it’s not real. Not just
the case that I fail to have a belief in the existence of these things. I
actually believe they don’t exist. E.g when watching Paddington 2 the
proposal is I forget my belief that P is not a real talking bear. Radford
 rejects this on the grounds that (a) it turns us into children and (b) we
don’t behave as we would if this were the case: theatregoers don’t call
out to Romeo or Othello to prevent them from acting as they do. A)
Maybe small children do this- he has example of child being taken to
theatre maybe they get confused if its real or not. B) if watching
Romeo and Juliet and this was the case- you really believed it was real-
you might take steps to try and stop the murder. The fact little children
do this is evidence of this. Our behaviour is not consistent with the
belief that they aren’t real.
2. Suspending disbelief- I in some way participate in an active process of
suspending my disbelief. Not believing that Paddington exists but
suspending willingly my disbelief. We deliberately do something part-
way to forgetting it’s not real. We ‘suspend our disbelief’. We take steps
to produce the illusion of reality, and resent intrusions that interrupt us
(or – this is my point rather than Radford’s – bad plots that make it hard
to keep our disbelief aloft). Some truth/merit in that. Probably have all
experienced this suspension become impossible for us- watching
something and then something happens that breaks the illusion. Could
be something in content of drama or neighbour rustling sweets or taking
phone out. Like going to see your friend in a play- want to believe they
are the actor but can’t help seeing them as your friend. Radford admits
that we do this but argues that even when this ‘suspension’ happens it
doesn’t mean that we believe the fiction is real. Suspending belief
doesn’t meet the belief condition that we starting off saying was a
necessary condition.
3. Accept we are moved- it’s just a ‘brute fact’ that we are moved by
fictions- We accept that being moved by fictions is something we do. But
this just states the problem rather than solving it. Saying it’s a brute fact
doesn’t help. Doesn’t make it rational that we have this kind of
response.
4. Reject the Belief Condition- We could reject the belief condition on non-
fictional emotions or say that it applies only in certain circumstances. We
might argue that someone can be moved just by contemplating certain
events, rather than believing in them. Just thinking about the scenario
of a loved one dying might make one upset. Radford gives the example
of a man whose sister gets on a plane that later crashes. Gets caught up
in this imaginary scenario and he gets upset. Wife replies your being
silly. Might happen but this is irrational- need it be kept for RATIONAL
emotions. If it doesn’t seem irrational- scenario which is at least
possible or close to be true. Suppose this man’s sister wasn’t getting on
 an imaginary plane that doesn’t imaginary crashes. Suppose going into a
risky surgery where there are many risks and as such gets upset. Maybe
this is rational- because contemplating something that may happen.
Radford argues that this can be rational but only to the degree that the
imagined event is likely. The emotion is rational only if the imagined
pain ‘is pain that some real person may really experience’ (Radford
1975, 74).
5. The object is someone real- The fiction might prompt us to think of
some similar real person, and we are being moved by the thought of
their suffering. Fiction reminds us or is associated with a real person or
real event. Radford says that this simply isn’t true: when we weep at
Dobby’s fate, we weep for him, not for some real person somehow like
him. Fifth solution is dealt with very quickly
6. Two types of sadness- So maybe there are two similar emotions of
sadness, one that has a belief constraint and is felt in response to real-
life losses and one that does not which is felt in response to fictions. The
fear you feel at a horror movie is not the same as the fear you feel
when you realise you are being mugged. The fear in cases of actual
danger to you might be different to fear you feel in cinema. Radford
argues that the two kinds of sadness aren’t different enough – they have
too much in common for this suggestion to be plausible. Further, even if
we could make this distinction, it just means that the sadness-we-feel-in-
response-to-fiction is the problem. That kind of sadness still seems
‘incoherent’ (Radford 1975, 76). What is it that we are sad about, given
that we know none of these events really took place?
- Radford concludes ‘that our being moved in certain ways by works of
art, though very 'natural' to us and in that way only too intelligible,
involves us in inconsistency and so incoherence’. (Radford 1975, 78). His
conclusion is that its impossible for us to have these feelings, just
believes these emotional responses are irrational.

Kendall Walton
- In ‘Fearing Fictions’ Walton argues for the solution that Radford
dismissed before even listing the six candidate solutions: that we do not
really experience emotions in response to fictions at all.
- The way he tries to resolve the problem of fictional emotions is the
way that Radford dismissed so quickly didn’t even make it into his 6
possible solutions.
- His way= to say we don’t really feel emotions in response to fiction at
all.
- Walton’s central example is fear when watching a horror movie or
scary play.
- He uses the example of a filmgoer, Charles, who reports that he is
terrified of the ‘green slime’ monster in the horror film he’s watching.
Walton asserts that to allow that we really have ‘psychological attitudes
toward fictional entities is […] to tolerate mystery and court confusion
(Walton 1978, 6).
- Walton accepts that Charles is, during the period that he takes himself to
be terrified, in some condition that shares some features with fear: fast
pulse, clenched fists, etc. He proposes that we call this condition ‘quasi-
fear’ but that it is significantly different from ordinary fear. Given that
Charles does not believe that he is in any danger, he simply cannot truly
be afraid. He is not denying that Charles felt something- he is in some
sort of state- his pulse was probably faster- got physiological
components of fear nevertheless Walton says we can’t call this fear
because it involves a representation of the world as threatening to
you. Because Charles doesn’t really believe that the slime threatens
him, the fear state he is in cannot involve this cognitive component.
Given that this component is absent, we can’t say he is really afraid.
- Walton claims our emotions are Quasi-Emotions. Like emotions- some of
the features of emotions but don’t have all of the features of emotions.
They don’t have representational content. When experience the quasi-
emotion of fear in response to killer slime it’s not that you believe in
these things. Something else is going on.
- Like Radford, Walton allows that at the same time as knowing that the
slime is fictional, and he is watching a film there might be some sense in
which Charles ‘suspends his disbelief’ and in some way believes that the
slime is real. But Walton says we can’t understand this situation as one
of Charles being unsure whether the slime is real or not – if he thought it
even possible that the slime was real, he would be at least partly
inclined to flee.
- Perhaps, Walton suggests, we could distinguish what we believe
intellectually with ‘gut beliefs’. This is like the person who knows
intellectually that they are quite safe but who nevertheless has some
sort of belief ‘in their heart’ that they will fall, etc. all evidence suggests
your perfectly safe, but gut tells you your going to fall. There’s a
difference between intellectual belief and gut belief. This won’t work,
he says, because the person who has these gut beliefs tends to act on
them in a way that Charles doesn’t act on his alleged fear of the slime-
e.g abseiling challenge have to tell yourself your safe. Charles takes no
 deliberate actions that suggest he believes he has reason to flee, etc.
Only his ‘automatic reactions’ are consistent with fear- he would be
cowering, but he is not doing that. We can attribute a gut belief to the
person who intellectually knows that they are safe because of their
marked reluctance to stand in the high place, or whatever. Their actions
need to be explained by reasons. Automatic reactions don’t.

- Walton’s account of what’s going on when we experience what seem to

be emotions in response to fiction is this:
- Walton’s account says we are engaging in a game of make-believe.
- We can speak of what is true ‘according to the fiction’. According to the
‘Superman’ fiction there is an alien on earth with superpowers, for
example.
- Each fiction gives rise to a ‘fictional world’ which contains multiple
fictional truths. One kind of fictional truth is created by making
believe that something is true (Walton 1987, 11) If we agree among
ourselves to make-believe that when a glob of mud is in the crate there
is a pie in the oven, we create a fictional truth that there is a pie in the
oven when we put the mud in the crate.
- Games of make-believe have rules or follow principles that govern what
is the case according to the make-believe. In a way similar to children
playing such games, ‘representational works of art generate make-
believe truths’. (Walton 1978, 12) So Charles can be compared to a child
playing a make-believe game of monsters with his dad: the child may
scream and run when the ‘monster’ appears but he is not really afraid.
He is ‘make-believedly afraid’. Walton suggests that Charles is joining in
a game of make-believe with the film. Representational works of art
generate make believe truths in the same way that the childrens
games do. What Charles is doing is joining in- what we do when we
have emotional responses to fiction. When C says hes terrified of the
slime hes playing a role in the fictional world,
- Charles’s making-believe ‘supplements the movie he is watching in the
way an illustration supplements what it illustrates’ (Walton 1978, 17).
The story might not dictate that a certain character has a big nose, but
the story plus its illustrations do. Likewise, the film alone doesn’t make-
believe anything about Charles, but the film plus Charles’s make-believe
generate a fictional truth that Charles is afraid of the slime.

- Walton thinks that we are most of us prone to ‘playing along’ with

fictions, as when we talk to each other about fictions we’ve seen or
 read. We don’t say ‘according to the fiction there are robots in
disguise’. We just say ‘so there are these robots in disguise…’ Having
quasi-emotional reactions to fictions is simply an extension of this. We
make-believe that Tony Stark is real and make-believedly envy his
wealth, intellect and wit. This helps us to understand what it is for us to
be ‘caught up’ in a story and hence emotionally involved in what
happens (Walton 1978, 21). This may in turn help us to understand the
value of fictions. ‘The important place that novels, plays, and films have
in our lives appears mysterious only on the supposition that we merely
stand outside fictional worlds and look in, pressing our noses against an
in-violable barrier. Once our presence within fictional worlds is
recognized, suitable explanations seem within reach’ (Walton 1978, 25).
Reading novels etc according to him isn’t something passive
- Walton concludes by arguing that two phenomena that are otherwise
puzzling are neatly explained by his account. One is the pleasure we can
take in re-reading and re-watching (Walton 1978, 26). It seems that we
can enjoy even detective novels and suspense movies a second time
although we remember who the murderer is and what will happen to
the protagonists. This is because we join in with the make-believe that
we do not know these things and experience appropriate quasi-
emotions. We play along with the characters
- The other concerns someone who has seemingly contradictory desires
about how a fiction should end. Caught up in the fiction they hope that
it ends happily but at the same time seeing it ‘from the outside’ they
hope that the ending is sad, because the fiction will be a better one if
that is so. This person is not conflicted: one of their apparent desires is a
make-believe one. As part of the fiction they hope that the ending is
happy. Their real desire is that it is not. Only one of your desires is
really your desire the other is a make-believe desire- Walton’s solution.
True desire is that the play has a proper ending- if it’s a tragedy you
want there to be a tragedy. So no real conflict.
- Quite tempting according to Iain- neat explanation- knowledge is part
of non-fictional world- hope that there’s a tragedy is part of the fiction
that the writer has created.

Advantages of Walton’s view (Gabi notes):

- Explain the role that fiction has in our lives
- Puzzle of re-watching/re-reading-suppose re-watching a movie where
something bad happens. True to say when re-watching hope it doesn’t
 happen even if it does. You are joining in make-believe and make-
believe hoping it doesn’t.
- Can also appear to have contradictory wishes- contrary to fiction you
hope the victim escapes and there is a happy ending but you hate happy
endings. Not a problem for Walton- you don’t really want there to be a
happy ending just make-believe it doesn’t.
- Only real problem- the PHENOMONOLY- do you accept that u weren’t
really sad when Dobby died? Just quasi emotions? Wouldn’t you say that
you were genuinely sad and moved?