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Kant's claims of subjective validity for judgments of taste rests on the notion of 'disinterestedness'. Recognition of the beautiful is universally true provided no personal interests enter into the judgment. The statement 'I love that painting because it reminds me of my parents farmstead' demonstrates the kind of personal interest that would disqualify, in Kant's mind, the declaration of that painting as universally beautiful.

Okay, okay so you're all going to declare 'eye of the beholder' right?

Is it even possible to make an aesthetic judgment without one's experience and therefore interests entering into that decision? Certainly there are some aspects of beauty we can all share across cultural and educational boundaries (which lie outside our personal interests.) Or not?

I don't necessarily think that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and Kant's "disinterestedness" are mutually exclusive. In principle, one can imagine the individual responding aesthetically to something without it being based on personal associations. I admit that in practice, I cannot actually think of an example.

However, even if an individual does "tap in" to some higher plane of beauty beyond personal projection, I don't believe that beauty is inherent to the piece. Rather, I think I'd say that aesthetic sensibility exists as potential in everyone, and that there exist certain patterns in nature that are basic enough to trigger this sensibility across cultural distinctions. (For example, I personally have never met anyone who told me they don't like trees). But there is no such thing as objective beauty. The aesthetic experience is entirely subjective.

I think all art is a mixture of interpretation and appreciation. Take the Mona Lisa - I think it is ugly, although noted for it's beauty. Some may feel it is beautiful, some may feel it is ugly, some may be reminded of something personal and some have no response at all. I have no personal feelings about the Mona Lisa per se, I just think it is ugly.

A Poster He or I wrote:I don't necessarily think that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and Kant's "disinterestedness" are mutually exclusive. In principle, one can imagine the individual responding aesthetically to something without it being based on personal associations. I admit that in practice, I cannot actually think of an example.

However, even if an individual does "tap in" to some higher plane of beauty beyond personal projection, I don't believe that beauty is inherent to the piece. Rather, I think I'd say that aesthetic sensibility exists as potential in everyone, and that there exist certain patterns in nature that are basic enough to trigger this sensibility across cultural distinctions. (For example, I personally have never met anyone who told me they don't like trees). But there is no such thing as objective beauty. The aesthetic experience is entirely subjective.

Agree with most of the points above.

It is true, aesthetic sensibility exists as potential in every normal human being. One good example is a baby's smile or the big open eyes of babies which is 'seductive' to any normal person. To men, there is beauty in a certain body ratio between the shoulders and hips of women. Points is all these are programmed by evolution to facilitate the preservation of the tribe and therefrom the specie.

I think Kant's 'disinterestedness' refers to those primal instincts that are programmed to be spontaneously 'attractive' to normal human beings to facilitate survival. Some of these modular features may also be spontaneously triggered from interactions with various objects, shapes and works of arts.

There are also ways where one can consciously reprogrammed one's brain to detach one sensibility and enable these primal "disinterestedness" to relate with the external ways directly and spontaneously. They can also be activated by drugs or brain damages related in sensibility inhibitors.

Spectrum wrote:

A Poster He or I wrote:I don't necessarily think that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and Kant's "disinterestedness" are mutually exclusive. In principle, one can imagine the individual responding aesthetically to something without it being based on personal associations. I admit that in practice, I cannot actually think of an example.

However, even if an individual does "tap in" to some higher plane of beauty beyond personal projection, I don't believe that beauty is inherent to the piece. Rather, I think I'd say that aesthetic sensibility exists as potential in everyone, and that there exist certain patterns in nature that are basic enough to trigger this sensibility across cultural distinctions. (For example, I personally have never met anyone who told me they don't like trees). But there is no such thing as objective beauty. The aesthetic experience is entirely subjective.

Agree with most of the points above.

It is true, aesthetic sensibility exists as potential in every normal human being. One good example is a baby's smile or the big open eyes of babies which is 'seductive' to any normal person. To men, there is beauty in a certain body ratio between the shoulders and hips of women. Points is all these are programmed by evolution to facilitate the preservation of the tribe and therefrom the specie.

I think Kant's 'disinterestedness' refers to those primal instincts that are programmed to be spontaneously 'attractive' to normal human beings to facilitate survival. Some of these modular features may also be spontaneously triggered from interactions with various objects, shapes and works of arts.

There are also ways where one can consciously reprogrammed one's brain to detach one sensibility and enable these primal "disinterestedness" to relate with the external ways directly and spontaneously. They can also be activated by drugs or brain damages related in sensibility inhibitors.

Thanks for your responses. I really appreciate your thoughtful comments. Please consider the following:

1. Kant uses the term inter-subjective validity to indicate a judgment of taste as being true for all, so maybe not exactly objective but the next closest thing. The question of whether or not we have aesthetic common ground still remains. 2. Everyone may like trees but the attraction is not necessarily an aesthetic one. Someone who lives in the desert may like trees because they represent a water source, for instance. The same could be said about one's evaluation of the female body; that is the judgment is other than an aesthetic one. 3.The notion of a primal instinct is an interesting one. I wonder what those objects, shapes and works of art might look like.

HANDSON wrote:Kant's claims of subjective validity for judgments of taste rests on the notion of 'disinterestedness'. Recognition of the beautiful is universally true provided no personal interests enter into the judgment. The statement 'I love that painting because it reminds me of my parents farmstead' demonstrates the kind of personal interest that would disqualify, in Kant's mind, the declaration of that painting as universally beautiful.

Okay, okay so you're all going to declare 'eye of the beholder' right?

Is it even possible to make an aesthetic judgment without one's experience and therefore interests entering into that decision? Certainly there are some aspects of beauty we can all share across cultural and educational boundaries (which lie outside our personal interests.) Or not?

No it is not possible to make an aesthetic judgement without one's experience and interests entering into the decision.

HANDSON wrote:Thanks for your responses. I really appreciate your thoughtful comments. Please consider the following:
1. Kant uses the term inter-subjective validity to indicate a judgment of taste as being true for all, so maybe not exactly objective but the next closest thing. The question of whether or not we have aesthetic common ground still remains.
2. Everyone may like trees but the attraction is not necessarily an aesthetic one. Someone who lives in the desert may like trees because they represent a water source, for instance. The same could be said about one's evaluation of the female body; that is the judgment is other than an aesthetic one.
3.The notion of a primal instinct is an interesting one.
I wonder what those objects, shapes and works of art might look like.

Re Kant,'.. the modality of a judgement of taste holds that something beautiful is necessarily so; it is an object of necessary delight, but not because it is 'in possession of a definite objective principle' nor because it rests on an individual sense of necessity.'

What is "true for all" is likely to be fundamentally primal that is instinctual and free from discretion and conscious thinking. It is possible to explore and research to list down a list of common primal aesthetic elements. The point is these elements were programmed into humans over millions of years and thus would remain in service and not subject to change easily.
While they will not change within current time, however, whatever we are expose in the current phase of our evolution may be instinctual aesthetic elements in 2 million (if humans were to survive that long) years later.

If all the ancestors of homo-sapiens had been struggling in a dessert condition from the start and over 6 million years of evolution, it is likely that green trees and water would be significant aesthetic elements for all humans at present. But that was not the case then, as such, responses to trees and water at present are relative.

A sense of spontaneous aesthetic (with 'disinterestedness) is evoked base on a combination of so-called aesthetic elements. If you are familiar with photography and arts, there the fundamental principles in combination that would invoke 'aesthetic' in any work of arts, i.e. rule of the third, perspective, level horizon, no bulls-eyes, correct combination of colors, shapes like spirals, symmetry, etc. without the need for any conscious deliberation. These aesthetic elements initially has survival values and had been embedded in humans at the deepest level a priori beyond conscious discretion.

Whatever facilitate survival is connected to pleasure centers. Since the aesthetic elements facilitate surival, they in combinations or individuall will invoke the pleasure centers subliminally with a secondary feeling of beautifulness.

Spectrum wrote:
A sense of spontaneous aesthetic (with 'disinterestedness) is evoked base on a combination of so-called aesthetic elements. If you are familiar with photography and arts, there the fundamental principles in combination that would invoke 'aesthetic' in any work of arts, i.e. rule of the third, perspective, level horizon, no bulls-eyes, correct combination of colors, shapes like spirals, symmetry, etc. without the need for any conscious deliberation. These aesthetic elements initially has survival values and had been embedded in humans at the deepest level a priori beyond conscious discretion.

Whatever facilitate survival is connected to pleasure centers. Since the aesthetic elements facilitate surival, they in combinations or individuall will invoke the pleasure centers subliminally with a secondary feeling of beautifulness.

So, I think you're saying an aesthetic response supervenes upon all objects related to need or desire. One can surmise objects of art are aesthetically successful only in so far as they conjure up or suggest to the viewer these primal needs and desires.

I wonder how, then, we place Dadaist objects like Duchamp's Ready-mades, the Urinal for instance, into the mix. Perhaps the response to things such as this does't fall within the aesthetic realm.

I wonder how, then, we place Dadaist objects like Duchamp's Ready-mades, the Urinal for instance, into the mix. Perhaps the response to things such as this does't fall within the aesthetic realm.

I did a paper on Dada many years ago. I concluded that Dada was more intellectual than aesthetic in its motivation and sensibilities. Its purpose (admittedly in the hindsight of critical analysis) was to question whether art qua art could really justify any formalizing of art at all, even to the point of questioning whether art could exist at all except as total pretension. It is very telling that Duchamp's ready-mades were everyday non-art objects merely juxtaposed outside of normal experience or simply declared to be art. In effect, Dada went beyond questioning established artistic sensibilities; it was outright deconstructionism--an intellectual nihilism born out of the ashes of World War 1.

HANDSON wrote:

Spectrum wrote:
A sense of spontaneous aesthetic (with 'disinterestedness) is evoked base on a combination of so-called aesthetic elements. If you are familiar with photography and arts, there the fundamental principles in combination that would invoke 'aesthetic' in any work of arts, i.e. rule of the third, perspective, level horizon, no bulls-eyes, correct combination of colors, shapes like spirals, symmetry, etc. without the need for any conscious deliberation. These aesthetic elements initially has survival values and had been embedded in humans at the deepest level a priori beyond conscious discretion.

Whatever facilitate survival is connected to pleasure centers. Since the aesthetic elements facilitate surival, they in combinations or individuall will invoke the pleasure centers subliminally with a secondary feeling of beautifulness.

So, I think you're saying an aesthetic response supervenes upon all objects related to need or desire. One can surmise objects of art are aesthetically successful only in so far as they conjure up or suggest to the viewer these primal needs and desires.

I wonder how, then, we place Dadaist objects like Duchamp's Ready-mades, the Urinal for instance, into the mix. Perhaps the response to things such as this does't fall within the aesthetic realm.

My hypothesis: an aesthetic response (taste) is activated when an external stimuli contains the necessary individual or combination of aesthetic elements to trigger the primal pleasure circuit and manifesting that feeling through other sub-circuits as 'beautiful'.

I have given a sample of examples of what constitute these aesthetic elements. I am sure there are many more, perhaps hundreds or thousands if we seriously research into it.

From the above we can grade the elements into the various degrees of 'aestheticity'. As such various combinations of these elements in a natural scenery or works of art will trigger different degrees of eastheticity. I think many artists intuitively and spontaneously exploit this principle. We also have to revert to Kant's 'disinterestedness" and whether such element is imputed into a work of art or not.

As for dada art, I think there is some element of "interestedness" rather than "disinterestedness". It appear to be something like "interested" in nothing or whatesoever, which is not Kant's sense of spontaneous "disinterestedness". While dada art may not be specifically "disinterestedness", any piece which by chance, happened to contain sufficient elements of aesthetic, it may naturally generate a feeling of aesthetic and beauty.

Spectrum wrote:
My hypothesis: an aesthetic response (taste) is activated when an external stimuli contains the necessary individual or combination of aesthetic elements to trigger the primal pleasure circuit and manifesting that feeling through other sub-circuits as 'beautiful'.

I have given a sample of examples of what constitute these aesthetic elements. I am sure there are many more, perhaps hundreds or thousands if we seriously research into it.

From the above we can grade the elements into the various degrees of 'aestheticity'. As such various combinations of these elements in a natural scenery or works of art will trigger different degrees of eastheticity. I think many artists intuitively and spontaneously exploit this principle. We also have to revert to Kant's 'disinterestedness" and whether such element is imputed into a work of art or not.

As for dada art, I think there is some element of "interestedness" rather than "disinterestedness". It appear to be something like "interested" in nothing or whatesoever, which is not Kant's sense of spontaneous "disinterestedness". While dada art may not be specifically "disinterestedness", any piece which by chance, happened to contain sufficient elements of aesthetic, it may naturally generate a feeling of aesthetic and beauty.

As Misty suggested earlier not all aesthetic responses are positive (in so far as perceiving ugliness is an aesthetic response.) The local landfill, for most people, will elicit a negative aesthetic response relative to visual chaos and bad odor.

Obviously there are degrees of conscious aesthetic response. When viewing things as art or nature as beauty our aesthetic responses are very near the surface of our consciousness whereas , when experiencing our daily routines the aesthetic response, while still there, may be nearly subliminal. Walking to work through busy city streets, dodging on coming pedestrians and, possibly, various detritus on the side walk our minds will be fully occupied but subliminally or after the fact an aesthetic response will supervene.

So, can we then surmise aesthetic responses supervene upon all experience?

So, can we then surmise aesthetic responses supervene upon all experience?

I find that possibility aesthetically pleasing.

HANDSON wrote:As Misty suggested earlier not all aesthetic responses are positive (in so far as perceiving ugliness is an aesthetic response.) The local landfill, for most people, will elicit a negative aesthetic response relative to visual chaos and bad odor.

Obviously there are degrees of conscious aesthetic response. When viewing things as art or nature as beauty our aesthetic responses are very near the surface of our consciousness whereas , when experiencing our daily routines the aesthetic response, while still there, may be nearly subliminal. Walking to work through busy city streets, dodging on coming pedestrians and, possibly, various detritus on the side walk our minds will be fully occupied but subliminally or after the fact an aesthetic response will supervene.

So, can we then surmise aesthetic responses supervene upon all experience?

From what I read of Kant re aesthetic and the OP, I was relating aesthetic to the sublime and beautiful.

There are many perspectives to aesthetic,
1. pertaining to a sense of the beautiful or to the science of aesthetics.
2. having a sense of the beautiful; characterized by a love of beauty.
3. pertaining to, involving, or concerned with pure emotion and sensation as opposed to pure intellectuality.

If based on point 3 above, we can state, 'aesthetic responses supervene upon all experience', which is true, but I don't think this is a common usage. It would be more effective to discuss this aspect within the topic of primal emotions in terms of 'heavenly' or 'hellish'.

Handson #1 wrote:

Is it even possible to make an aesthetic judgment without one's experience and therefore interests entering into that decision? Certainly there are some aspects of beauty we can all share across cultural and educational boundaries (which lie outside our personal interests.) Or not?

I understand that it is definitively proved that young babies are genetically primed to be emotionally attached to the human face. I don't remembner whether the 'human face' is represented to the baby as two eyes in an oval frame. However some very early human representations of faces is just so formalised and stylised.

In a similarly naturalistic vein the human emotion of disgust has been scientifically examined and this emotion arises when unhealthy material such as dead bodies is smelled or sighted.Notably carrion eaters that ingest dead bodies are not likely to be disgusted or harmed by ingesting them.

Nurture is all-important when appreciating the truth or beauty of sophisticated art forms. This is because an individual who has been nurtured among the learning, feelings, ideas and behaviours of some sophisticated culture understands the common meanings of the art forms of that culture. In a society where art forms are very sophisticated the individual in order to appreciate the art forms has to undergo some sort of formal schooling in them.

Despite all this nurture, I do believe that nature is at the bottom of art appreciation.

One of the dictionary meanings of art is: creation by human beings rather nature - beautiful or thought provoking - Aestheticism per dictionary is: 1) the philosophical doctrine that all moral principles are derived from beauty 2) devotion to beauty. Have you ever met a beautiful looking person only to find them ugly after you spend some time with them, or met a ugly looking person but found them to start looking beautiful after spending time getting to know them? Depending on a person's experiences will determine beauty or it's negative. Beauty and ugly can change so there is no truly set description that can be applied to either. Hitler destroyed all kinds of people, yet some found him a nice guy!