Aesthetics— Emotional information science (EN)

EN

Introduction

The word aesthetics comes from the Greek ‘Aisthesis’, meaning sensation, perceptible perception, to perceive through the senses. The person who gave its name to the science called aesthetics is Alexander G. Baumgarten, a student of Chr. Wolff, and he wrote a book called ‘Aesthetica’. In this book (theory of liberal arts, theory of lower knowledge, thinking about beauty, and a science of a faculty similar to reason), aesthetics is the science of sensory knowledge. Thus, there is a complete opposition between aesthetics and logic. One aims to reach the perfection of mental knowledge, the other aims to reach the perfection of sensory knowledge. Perfect knowledge is true knowledge. The perfect knowledge attributed by aesthetics is beauty. Aesthetics takes beauty, that is, sensory perfection, as its subject and reflects upon beauty.

Beauty is the truth of sensory knowledge, and aesthetics is considered as the logic of sensory knowledge. Within the boundaries of the science of aesthetics, besides the value of beauty, there are also values of the sublime, the tragic, the comic, the elegant, the interesting, the childlike, and even the ugly.

A person enjoys beauty and derives pleasure from it. The purpose of beauty is to give pleasure to people. Traditional aesthetics and contemporary aesthetics differ from each other. Traditional aesthetics, which stems from Baumgarten, Kant, and Hegel, finds its field of research either in beauty or in the philosophy of art. When traditional aesthetics speaks of beauty, it leaves out the beauty of nature and technique — what it calls “free beauty” — and focuses on artistic beauty. It also ties art only to the concept of “fine arts” and studies fine arts. Wittgenstein says that beautiful is an adjective and has a specific quality, namely the quality of being beautiful.

Today, aesthetics is defined as the science of beauty. People enjoy beauty and derive pleasure from it. The purpose of beauty is to give pleasure to people. Psychologist T. Fechner called the science that studies feelings from pleasure to pain “hedonics.” However, neither the word hedonics nor Hegel’s word kalliologie was adopted; the word aesthetics given to this science by Kant and Schiller was accepted.

According to B. Croce, the subject of aesthetics is ‘intuition’. These are intuitions: this river, this lake, this rain, this water in the glass. Intuitions are individual. Perceptions give us reality. Intuitions, however, give us not only reality but also the imaginary and the spiritual. S is expression and objectification, externalization. Intuition and expression extend over a wide range from everyday intuitions and expressions to artistic intuitions and artistic expressions.

What is aesthetic reality? Aesthetic reality is heterogeneous in nature and is related to a subject. An artwork or what we call beauty is an artwork or something beautiful for the aesthetic attitude and perception of a subject. According to psychological aestheticists, who base aesthetic appreciation on mental events, the aesthetic experiences that occur in the subject will be examined as a natural science of the psyche; this science is psychology, and aesthetics will be a branch of it.

Aesthetic existence is not only determined by the subject and the elements of the aesthetic object; it is also constituted by a being, which is the aesthetic value or beauty.

Aesthetic Subject Analysis — Subjectivist-Psychological Aesthetics

In general, the subject is understood as an element of knowledge. As a conscious being, a person perceives objects outside himself as well as his own existence, his own consciousness through introspection. This act of understanding is called knowing. In the act of knowing, the conscious being who perceives and understands is called the ‘subject’, while the entity that is perceived and understood is called the ‘object’.

There exists an entity that we call beautiful — a piece of nature, a work of art, in short, an aesthetic entity, an aesthetic object. Alongside this, there is a subject who, in aesthetic relation to this entity, perceives it aesthetically, enjoys it, or experiences aesthetic pleasure from it. This is called the aesthetic subject. The aesthetic subject is the conscious being — the ‘I’ — who perceives, understands, and aesthetically enjoys an aesthetic object. While the aesthetic subject comprehends the aesthetic object and feels pleasure from it, it adopts a stance towards the object. For perceiving, understanding, and enjoying an object means taking a stance towards it.

What Does It Mean to Take an Aesthetic Attitude?

To seek knowledge about a historical or art-historical subject is to take a cognitive attitude. The aim is to obtain accurate information about the object. Therefore, this attitude is called a cognitive or intellectual attitude. The perspective that asks about the monetary value of an object is called a practical-economic attitude. The third perspective is simply observing without asking any questions. Observing to enjoy and derive pleasure from it is called the aesthetic attitude. There is also a practical moral-religious attitude, called the aesthetic attitude that gives religious excitement.

1) The Purpose of the Aesthetic Attitude: The Feature of Being an End in Itself (Auto-Telos)

The attitude of having no purpose outside itself, that is, if a work of art is created solely with the desire to feel pleasure (for example, listening to music), the purpose of this attitude lies within itself. What determines the aesthetic is emotion. Because knowledge is the world determined by theoretical reason, and morality is the world determined by practical reason. Cognitive and moral desires dominate nature in life, surpass its power. However, in the aesthetic attitude, by putting both into a play, knowing and willing, the opposition between knowledge and morality is abolished, and they are brought into harmony. The aesthetic is where people are free. In both attitudes, there is an escape from reality, reliance on imagination and fiction. While adopting an aesthetic attitude, we move away from the real world and enter a fictional phenomenon. The aesthetic attitude is a subjective, individual attitude that a subject takes towards a work of art or an aesthetic object.

2) Aesthetic Attitude and Contemplation (Viewing)

Kant, in his book “Critique of the Power of Judgment,” says, “A judgment of taste is purely contemplative. That is, it is indifferent to the existence of the object; it bases the feature of the object on the pleasure or displeasure it causes.” That is, what matters in the aesthetic attitude is not the real existence of the object, but the effect it creates on the subject who has the aesthetic attitude, whether the subject derives pleasure from the object or not. In terms of aesthetics, what is important is not the object itself but the feeling it evokes in the subject who perceives it aesthetically. The aesthetic attitude must turn towards the object solely to derive aesthetic pleasure, set aside all material interests, and enjoy the object by observing it in terms of color and form integrity. Viewing simply for the sake of viewing is to be contemplative.

3) Aesthetic Attitude and Concept

The direction of the aesthetic attitude to an object for the purpose of deriving pleasure from it without expecting any confusion, in short, the contemplative nature of the aesthetic attitude, should also be completed from another aspect. This aspect is the distinction of the aesthetic attitude from the cognitive-conceptual attitude. For example, when the cognitive attitude says “horse,” it collects the common features of real horses under this concept. In the aesthetic attitude, however, it is not related to the general conceptual object, but to the aesthetic pleasure. Aesthetics should not be general, conceptual, or cognitive; it should be about what you feel here and now.

Kant argues that the aesthetic attitude is related to the sensory-individual appearance of the aesthetic object, not its conceptual structure. According to Croce, “There are two forms of knowledge: knowledge is either intuitive or logical; it is either knowledge born from fantasy or from the mind; either knowledge of the individual or of the universal; either knowledge of individual things or of the relationships among them; knowledge as a whole is made up entirely of images or concepts.” That is, conceptual knowledge is the knowledge of the relationships among things.

As for aesthetic knowledge, it is independent knowledge based directly on intuition. In everyday life, intuitive knowledge is constantly relied upon. Intuitive experience (aesthetic experience) arises within real life, formed within our daily experiences. Intuition gives us the individual; concept gives us the universal. Intuition: this river, this rain, this lake; concept: water, meaning anything that is water, no matter when or where. In the aesthetic attitude, there are fundamentally individual-reflective attitudes while looking at the object. In aesthetics, which is individual-emotional, there are also cognitive qualities.

At the core of the aesthetic object, there must be an object of knowledge. The artist concretizes the object of knowledge obtained from nature in his work. He shows an entity that he has seen, comprehended, interpreted. But once the object of knowledge has taken form, it ceases to be an object of knowledge and becomes an aesthetic object. At the foundation of a work of art is an object of knowledge. However, the aesthetic attitude of the subject interested in the work of art will relate to both the cognitive and the aesthetic layer. In this respect, for the aesthetic attitude, the aesthetic object represents a holistic structure composed of these two heterogeneous layers.

4) Aesthetic Attitude and Sensation

The aesthetic attitude is an attitude based on a sensory foundation. It means comprehending through aesthetic sense. According to Plato, art is a form of knowledge, but not knowledge provided by reason, not knowledge that contains truth (episteme), but a deceptive, uncertain, sensory knowledge (doxa). D. Hume also states that reason provides the knowledge of right and wrong; taste, on the other hand, provides the sense of beauty and ugliness, virtue and vice. E. Burke says that we perceive beauty through inner sense. This inner sense gives us the unity and beauty of forms, the reality of characters. The beauties, symmetries, and proportions we see externally are grasped from within by this inner sense. When pleasures and senses are ranked, physical senses and the pleasures derived from them are at the bottom; pleasures arising from the comprehension of order, especially by the inner sense, are in the middle; and pleasures arising from the mind are at the top because they are the purest. External beauty is symmetry and proportion, internal beauty is the reality of character, the beauty of form, the unity of beauty.

Psychological aesthetics divides sensations into ten classes:

1- visual sensations

2- auditory sensations

3- olfactory sensations

4- taste

5- touch

6- temperature sensations

7- sensations of muscle movement

8- balance

9- sensations of pain

10- vitality sensations.

Visual and auditory sensations are related to aesthetic experience. Muscle movement is indirectly related, and pain sensations have no connection to aesthetic sensation. Painting, sculpture, architecture, and all arts are related to seeing; music and literature are related to the sense of hearing; theater and opera are related to both senses.

Taste, temperature, smell, and vibration require direct contact with objects. In contrast, in seeing and hearing, there is no direct touch. The independence of visual and auditory senses from bodily contact allows for sensory dependencies, sensory orders, and sensory forms in sensory fields. These sensory orders and sensory forms reach their most perfect forms in aesthetic objects. This is the reason why aesthetic perception and the aesthetic attitude are found only in the fields of seeing and hearing.

Especially concerning the senses of smell and taste; a perfume I smell is effective only as long as the sensation lasts. When the sensation ends, the pleasure also ends. There is no wholeness or permanence. The same is true for the sense of taste. However, visual and auditory senses create sensory forms, sensory orders, and these orders are called aesthetic objects in the broad sense and works of art in the narrow sense. The relationship established with the aesthetic object and the work of art is not dependent on the process of sensation.

According to the Impressionist understanding of art, apart from individual visual and auditory sensations, art cannot have another subject. To comprehend a work of art means that the subject perceives that work of art as a totality of these sensations.

5) Aesthetic Attitude and Perception

When we direct ourselves toward an aesthetic object, a work of art, with an aesthetic attitude and establish a relationship with it, we first enter into a perceptual relationship with it. In psychology, this is defined as the comprehension of a whole. By “whole” is meant the complex shown by the sensations provided by our senses and the support this complex finds in memory. Our senses give us individual sensations related to the external world, and our perceptions build a perceptual world based on them. In this sense, perception gives meaning to objects, grasps them as a meaningful whole. Perception gives us objects (stove, table, etc.). Perception provides us with what exists, the object.

Perception creates a unity with our senses and the meanings derived from them. Perception is achieved through the senses, but it is grasped as emotions. However, this feature of perception has been acquired only after many years of human experimentation and education. In primitive humans and children, pure perception activity is mixed with emotional activities. Perception grasps objects, existence, not only as realities, but also as objects of sympathy and antipathy. This grasp has been understood as worlds of reality and sense. With the development of the mind and intelligence in humans, perception gradually purifies itself of these emotional elements and finally becomes a pure act of knowing. The development of mind and intelligence brings about the purification of perception from emotions and results in knowing. Nevertheless, emotional acts continue to influence people in daily life.

Even today, we do not comprehend life and people solely through sensory perception; we also comprehend and give meaning to them emotionally along with perception. Sensory perception informs us of what exists.

We can say there are two kinds of comprehension. The first comprehension, through the mediation of the senses (the real — the existent), is directed at what exists. The second comprehension, however, is directed only at something that exists for us, for the observer — something unreal. These two comprehensions complement and are connected to each other. Sensory perception and emotional perception form a unity of comprehension. This is called aesthetic comprehension, aesthetic perception. Aesthetic perception, also called aesthetic attitude, presents us with the aesthetic object as such a holistic comprehension. Aesthetic perception gives both perceptions together. The aesthetic object (real) leads to a subjective attitude as a result of sensory perceptions. We take only one attitude toward the aesthetic object, which is the aesthetic attitude. This removes it from being a mere object of nature. The subjective attitude here is based on a real foundation. The aesthetic object, on this real, sensory foundation, is formed as a subjective world.

6) Aesthetic Attitude and Emotion

A person who takes an aesthetic attitude enters into a subjective relationship with a work of art, such as a poem, a painting, or a sculpture. This is the subject establishing an emotional bond with the object. The emotional bond established with the aesthetic object is guided by the feeling called aesthetic pleasure. One looks at objects with these heterogeneous emotions, thus attributing emotional qualities to the object. The object of knowledge can also be the object of emotion, that is, we attribute emotional qualities to all objects we perceive. Emotions are as real as real life.

E. von Hartmann characterizes the emotions we call aesthetic emotions as having the quality of “appearance — schein” in objects, defining them as unreal emotions. Konrad Lange also calls this “emotion illusion.” But this appearance of emotions does not mean that they are not real or pure emotions. This appearance quality arises not from them being emotions, but from the representational quality of objects. According to J. Volkelt, aesthetic emotions, despite lacking reality, are pure emotions. These emotions do not belong only to us; everyone who sees, reads, or observes feels these emotions. J. Volkelt calls these objective or object-related emotions.

Heterogeneous Emotions:

1 — Emotions belonging to the object

2 — Emotions unique to us (empathy emotions; emotions belonging to the subject who reads the work)

3 — The pleasure emotion that pervades the whole work (state emotion)

The aim of a work of art is to create the third type of emotion.

7) Aesthetic Attitude and Identification (Einfühlung, Empathy)

In daily life, we enter into relationships with the objects that surround us. Within such emotional relationships, a process of emotional identification with objects occurs. This process is formed by attributing emotional qualities to objects. The qualities we attribute to objects (the raging sea, proud mountains, a cute house, an attractive car) are qualities belonging to our spiritual life. Perceiving and experiencing objects emotionally expresses the event of identification — empathy. What we perceive and experience is not the object itself, but our own emotions that we attribute to the object (a ruined column — oppression, a mighty plane tree — sublimity). By attributing our own emotions to objects, it is as if we establish identification with them. This is called the event of identification.

Identification is a psychological event. Karl Gross developed the concept of “inner imitation.” By giving our own emotional and spiritual life to inanimate objects, we suddenly animate them. This emotion does not originate from the object but from the subject who observes it. According to Lipps, if we schematize the event of identification, its stages are as follows:

1st stage:

Subject — sensory perception → object

2nd stage:

Subject — sensory perception → object < — desire for activity — <

3rd stage:

Subject — sensory perception → object < — desire for activity — < → spiritual, emotional activity →

According to Lipps, aesthetic pleasure does not originate from the object, but from the pleasure we feel and project onto the object. In this sense, pleasure is a subjective event. We also make a value judgment in the presence of this object: we call this object beautiful.

8) Aesthetic Attitude, Aesthetic Enjoyment, and Aesthetic Pleasure

From what has been written so far, we see that at the end of taking an aesthetic attitude and aesthetic perception, an aesthetic enjoyment or aesthetic pleasure arises. Every object approached with an aesthetic attitude creates aesthetic pleasure in the person.

What is aesthetic pleasure? Every aesthetic attitude is based on an emotional foundation. This emotional foundation is found especially in the senses of sight and hearing. Sensuality is a necessary foundation for aesthetic attitude and experience. Sensual enjoyments (a cold drink in hot weather, a warm room in cold weather, a good meal) are sensory pleasures. However, when external stimuli disappear, sensory enjoyment also disappears. Aesthetic pleasure, on the other hand (music listened to, a play watched), can remain for days.

Aesthetic pleasure is based on the senses, but it is not limited to them. It goes beyond the field of sensation and addresses the whole human personality. Sensory enjoyment is a momentary event and has no effect on our personality. A smell does not have any effect on our personality. In contrast, with aesthetic pleasure, there is a change in our personality, it gives us happiness, saves us from the passions of daily life, daily doubts and anxieties, and purifies our soul. The happiness we feel when leaving a concert is the aesthetic pleasure we are experiencing.

Sensory pleasure always has a positive emotional tone, which is the opposite of what we call pain. In aesthetic pleasure, however, the feeling of pain can also be experienced, but we can still derive great pleasure from it. Yet this sense of pain does not have the feeling of opposition. Aesthetic pleasure is beyond both sensory pleasure and pain. According to Kant, sensory enjoyment is enjoyment dependent on interests and inclinations, and depends on the person’s current psychological state. In contrast, aesthetic pleasure is independent of all interests and inclinations. Because aesthetic pleasure is not based solely on simple sensory stimulus, but on the harmony between our faculties of

Aesthetic Attitude and Aesthetic Liking, Aesthetic Pleasure

From what has been written so far, it appears that at the end of taking an aesthetic attitude and aesthetic perception, an aesthetic liking or aesthetic pleasure arises. Every object approached with an aesthetic attitude produces aesthetic pleasure in the person.

What is aesthetic pleasure? Every aesthetic attitude is based on an emotional foundation. This emotional foundation is found especially in the senses of seeing and hearing. Sensuality is an essential foundation for the aesthetic attitude and experience. Sensory pleasures (a cold drink on a hot day, a warm room in cold weather, a good meal) are sensory pleasures. But when the external stimulus disappears, the sensory pleasure also disappears. Aesthetic pleasure, however (a piece of music listened to, a play watched), can have an effect that lasts for days.

Aesthetic pleasure is based on sensation but is not limited to it. It goes beyond the field of sensation and turns towards the whole of human personality. Sensory pleasure is a momentary event, having no effect on our personality. A smell does not affect our personality in any way. In contrast, in aesthetic pleasure, there is a change in our personality; it gives us happiness, saves us from the passions, doubts, and anxieties of daily life, and purifies our soul. The happiness we feel when leaving a concert is the aesthetic pleasure we are experiencing.

Sensory pleasure always has a positive emotional tone, which is the opposite of what we call pain. In aesthetic pleasure, however, the feeling of pain can also be experienced, yet one can still derive great pleasure from it. But this pain does not bear the sense of opposition. Aesthetic pleasure is beyond both sensory pleasure and pain. According to Kant, sensory enjoyment is a pleasure dependent on interests and inclinations, and depends on the person’s current mental state. In contrast, aesthetic pleasure is independent of all interests and inclinations. For aesthetic pleasure is based not simply on a sensory stimulus, but on the harmony between our faculties of sensibility and mind. This harmony, though subjective, is a general phenomenon for all people and does not change from person to person. Therefore, aesthetic pleasure will also be universal.

Within this meaning, aesthetic pleasure contains a deep psychological-aesthetic significance. This high-level state, based on a value without a sensory reaction, bringing the mental forces into harmony, allows us to feel satisfied, free, and happy as a human being. In this sense, aesthetic pleasure enables us to experience our humanity and gives us happiness. Harmony, allows us to feel satisfied, free, and happy as a human being. In this sense, aesthetic pleasure enables us to experience our humanity and gives us happiness.