Rustle in the Bush

Firstly, it is an outcome of an organized social life. And is what is outlined above. Though condemning Homer and Hesiod, Xenophanes and Heraclitus do so on the grounds it isn’t consistent with their natural philosophy and practical life as inseparable. Plato and Aristotle do little to change this view.

Will only use a distinction to bolster his argument that the unreal simulacrum is a bad (Moral) deviation from the true/good/ idea, as being an imitation of an already unreal likeness in perception. The imagination supplies these 2nd order images, being emotionally destructive to the rational drives of our souls. (Reminder: Plato’s tripartite soul, this is clearly relted in the public but can be seen from the sketch in the Pheado too). Poetic works have us imitate the feelings of desire. Excesses of unrestrained emotion, the poets appeal to our desire, rather than our rationality. Not just sad feelings, but even the laughable.

” Yes, indeed,” he said. “And so regarding the emotions of sex and anger, and all the appetites and pains and pleasures of the soul which we say accompany all our actions, the effect of poetic imitation is the same. For it waters and fosters these feelings when what we ought to do is to dry them up, and it establishes them as our rulers when they ought to be ruled, to the end that we may be better and happier men instead of worse and more miserable.” Rep. 606 D. The practical/artistic are judged in the same vein which is why ‘productive’ techne (Like States-craft, for the Philosopher King) is celebrated.

Aristotle is different, and sort of confusing, but will become more clear in his own section im sure.

Aristotle does not consider passion and character as motivating forces from the surrounding world. For us moderns, Aristotle doesn’t recognize that there are contradictions in the actions of stories and characters which show situations outside of standarized moral conventions

For Aristotle, tragic characters are represented (Translations not used by Bosenquet refer to artistic representation as an ‘object of imitation) as either better than in real life, worse, or just the same. These are the species of imitation. Bosenquet says, “It seems to him (Student of modern aesthetics, i.e. Goethe Shakespeare, even of Homer) that the poetic world is stronger and more emphatic in its attributes, alike in the good as in the evil than the world of everyday life, as presented to everyday observation” (HOA, 21).

Bosenquet works with this presupposition himself under what he calls our modern consideration, ” Beauty, indeed, within its own territory of expression for expression’s sake, is secure from praise or censure upon purely moral ground” (HOA, 22)

IF, “Wherever expression is not for expression’s sake then it is outside the aesthetic frontier, and moral criticism upon it is justified not only in substance but also in form” (HOA, 22). Almost no distinction between aesthetic/practical.

THEN, “the estimation of beauty by the practical standard of right and wrong, although unaesthetic in form, contains two elements of aesthetic value” (HOA, 22). So we have these aesthetic values arising from moral considerations.

And as an inauthentic art/beauty that is subservient to a practical end, which becomes no longer purely aesthetic and deserves justifiably from its nature, moral condemnation and censure.

The demand for completeness in art represents the powers being revealed in the order or the world where practical imitations are as significant as others.

It is demonstrated through a famous example of Plato’s in book ten which describes the 3 species of craftsmen, God, material craftsmen, and the artist (Image-imitator) to be found starting here going from 596-597. He notes that there are 3 primary points to be found in this devastating critique on the value/reality of art that shape its metaphysical importance:

1. Inferiority by this standard – Images of art must be judged according to their capacity (WHich is nil, and therefore must be condemned) to represent common reality. Reality is preferable to imitation
2. Aesthetic semblance – “Art works with images only and not with realities such as can act or be acted upon in the world of ordinary life.” (HOA, 26). In what sense can’t they be acted? They aren’t produced or created in the ‘real’ world because they are removed from reality. A mere semblance, not a true imitation i.e. representation
3. Relation to common reality – These images are not symbolic of God. In modern language, Bosenquet says it would go something like this “Of the relations and conditions which to a perfect knowledge would be present as determining or constituting any real object in the order of nature”(HOA, 26) (Symbolic representation of God). They are the semblance of the 2nd-order reality inhibited through true craftsmen by sense-perception. Proof of this position of found in Republic, X, 601:

“And shall we not say that the same holds true of everything”

“What do you mean?”

“That there are some three arts concerned with everything, the user’s art, the maker’s, and the imitator’s.”

“Yes.”

“Now do not the excellence, the beauty, the rightness of every implement, living thing, and action refer solely to the use for which each is made or by nature adapted?”

“That is so.”

“It quite necessarily follows, then, that the user of anything is the one who knows most of it by experience, and that he reports to the maker the good or bad effects in use of the thing he uses …….” Socrates then givs the example of the flute player who instucts the maker on the kind of thing he must produce in order to make the sounds

…..”And will the imitator from experience or use have knowledge whether the things he portrays are or are not beautiful and right, or will he, from compulsory association with the man who knows and taking orders from him for the right making of them, have right opinion?”

“Neither.”

“Then the imitator will neither know nor opine rightly concerning the beauty or the badness of his imitations.”

So, the first of the three is the only one worthy of aesthetic speculation. This conclusion is the only one that shows aesthetic value according to moderns, “For, so long as they are admitted (2 and 3), the standard of judgment lies ex hypothesi in the appearance and purposes of reality as accepted by every-day action and experience” (HOA, 27). 2 and 3 still admit of the pre socratic sentiments.

A Mimetic theory of beauty is most clearly found on Plato’s classification of reality which says, “Plato’s first and highest reality has for us an intelligible meaning as practically corresponding to the completest conception in which the order of nature can be presented to a human mind.” (HOA, 27).

Bosenquet asks us then; since Aristotle is not so dualistically minded, does he truly follow these second two presuppositions? Bosenquet says some confusing things about a lack of difference big enough to make one between Plato and Aristotle’s distinction between reality for perception and reality for thought.

“This metaphysical estimate of image-making value. fine artj closely associated at least in Plato with an analogous psychological estimate of the imagination, although in form non-aesthetic, and profoundly hostile to the value of the poetic world, is in substance an important foundationstone of aesthetic theory.” (HOA, 28)

1. Aesthetic Semblance – To imitate means to make a likeness. But what’s a likeness? In what medium does it exist? What are its relations to practice and reality? These Platonic metaphysics can help us answer these questions. A likeness is a ‘superficial reproduction’ (semblance) of a real thing, which cannot satisfy its function toward the true reality from which its derived. The medium through which it exists, is the imagination, or image-making faculty. It produces illusions based not on the higher nature of the realm of Ideas, but based on the images of the already copied physical world. “The censure of inutility which follows upon this trenchant distinction, by denying the naive conception of an adequate relation to reality, leads us to the recognition of an aesthetic interest which is not that of utility, nor of relation to any satisfaction connected with the sensuous impulses.” (HOA, 29).
2. Semblance Inadequate to Reality – Just a final statement “Either artistic representation is worthless, or, out of the conditions imposed and possibilities revealed by reproduction in the medium of appearance, there must be developed an aim and interest, other than the aim and interest presented by the reality which is represented” (HOA, 30) These are just the conclusions of Plato’s theory which lead to this lasting effect on aesthetic theory, “The above negative result, together with the former and positive result that ‘Art has its being in appearance,’ not yet extended to the generalization ‘that beauty has its being in appearance,’ form the elements of permanent aesthetic value contained in the metaphysical principle upon which Hellenic theory concerning fine art is founded.” (HOA, 30). We see that art barely has its own ontological standing apart from beauty in almost every way.

1. The relation of whole to part, or unity and variety, or the one and the many is central to the concern of all Greek philosophy, and to these aesthetic concerns (Phaedrus, 268D). Likewise as regards tragedy, Aristotle contends it necessarily involves, beginning, middle, and end in proportion, and insofar as tragedy is “A representation of a whole action” (Poetics, 1-4), it follows that “Beauty depends upon size [so that the relation of the parts may be appreciable] and order.” (Ibid). Thus comes another accepted truth of Aristotle on the subject, that it would be impossible to add or take away from a beautiful object without spoiling it (Poetics, 4). This is the genuine Greek aesthetic Bosenquet claims.
2. This relation of part to whole -in the ancient’s aesthetic principle-is represented by geometrical relationships or rhythms, or spacial intervals as in the case of harmony presented in the Pythagorean theory. “And for this reason Greek philosophy is inclined to select mathematical form, ratio, or proportion, as the pure and typical embodiment of beauty.” (HOA, 33). (Refer to Philebus 51 and 64) “The principle of goodness has reduced itself to the law of beauty” or as said in 64d from the Philebus “The good has taken refuge in the character of the beautiful, for the qualities of measure and proportion… constitute beauty and excellence”.
3. So we have in Greek aesthetics, a presentation to sense of a principle which is not sensuous, answering the posed question. “What is the nature of beauty as a characteristic of experienced presentations?” It’s an ‘imitation’; but we cannot ‘imitate’ a non-sensuous principle in a sensuous medium. (The reason mathematics is the most beautiful)

1. Color and Tone – These are the most obvious examples of unity according to Bosenquet’s view on the ancients, lying in the quality of self-identity of color in space, or tone in time. (Sensous presentations of unity). This doesn’t explain (Serve as a reason) the enjoyment by the one viewing; this question belongs to the realm of reflection, not presentation. Not sure what he could mean by reflection though, maybe it will become clearer when we get to a people or theorist who considers that aspect of aesthetics.
2. Basic Geometry – It lies in the simple regularity of the shapes.
3. I will not do the rest of the examples; the point is clear, and the arguments and examples are valid. (Simple song music, Ethical and Logical Wholes -already partially treated through metaphysics-, poetry and drama). However, when it comes to the higher (Productive) and lower (Imitative arts), Bosenquet acknowledges that while they may have been blurred by ethical questions in their aesthetics, they recognized beaiuty in lower craftsmen ship (Today, ask many people, you willl discover a sign in them that they lack a faith in beauty if they say that it cannot be found in a handmade object of simple professions. Really, is it not hard to imagine a foolish statement like, “What? That’s not art, its just lamp, weapon,saddle” etc. Remember, it’s techne! “It is worth noticing that the beauty of animals and of plants is here mentioned in the same line with the beauty of various arts, showing how impossible it is to distinguish in any theoretical treatment between the direct perception or beauty of nature and the artistic perception or beauty of art.” (HOA, 39) He also notes that inanimate nature is not treated the same way. This concern we do not share. Fun fact he gives; the greek word for painter is translated as ‘a painter of living things’.