Aesthetic absolutism
Absolutism, in aesthetics, is a term applied to several theories of aesthetics with the same inherent approach. This being that beauty is an objective attribute of things, and not merely a subjective feeling of pleasure to the one who perceives it. It follows from this that there is an absolute standard of the beautiful by which all objects can be judged. The fact that, in practice, the judgments even of connoisseurs are perpetually at variance, and that the so-called criteria of one place or period are more or less opposed to those of all others, is explained by the hypothesis that individuals are differently gifted in respect of the capacity to appreciate.[1]
Definitions
James O. Young, of the University of Victoria, suggests that aesthetic absolutism can be defined as "Aesthetic propositions which only become true if, and only if, the proposition is a matter of fact, by virtue of the judgement being related to the art itself."[2] Aesthetic absolutism can, in this sense, be applied to any object that can be considered a work of art, so long as the object meets the condition of being capable of an aesthetic judgement that is either ontologically true or false in nature.
Within philosophical logic, the application of aesthetic absolutism within a truth-value system can be understood as attempting to describe the nature of art through the perspective of faultless disagreement. For example, regardless of whether statements A and not-A differ in regards to the substance of an object, they can simultaneously be true judgements at the same time.[3] David Malet Armstrong and others note that the underlying principle behind these truth judgements can be derived from the truthmaker theory, in that the ontological grounding for relations between objects within truth-judgements exists as such.[4][5] In a simplified form, absolutism implies that the correlative nature between an aesthetic object and objective beauty exists in one, static state.
History
Socratic and Pre-Socratic Aesthetic Absolutism
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Plato |
The earliest definition of aesthetic absolutism that can be found within Western philosophy arguably lies within Platonist philosophy and within the broader Platonic Academy. Within Plato's Symposium,[6] Diotima of Mantinea's definition of Beauty understands it as existing within itself through the Theory of Forms. The theory denotes the concept that, within the periphery of aesthetics, the non-physical essences of aesthetic judgements are absolute, universal and unchanging in nature.
It [beauty] is not anywhere in another thing, as in an animal, or in earth, or in heaven, or in anything else, but itself by itself with itself, it is always one in form; and all the other beautiful things share in that. (Plato, Symposium, 212a-b).
Plato's articulation as to how this possible was not necessarily 'absolutist' in the modern sense of the word, but rather was based on his conceptualization of the need for something to be understood within an evaluative system, designed to guarantee stable references of objects.[7] This is the same justification behind his inference for the separation of 'Forms' and the sensible world, or the world of intelligible objects. This can be seen as a contrast from the Eleatic school, particularly in the case of Parmenides, where the primacy of the 'Form', or what is 'to be' (in Ancient Greek, 'εστι' ) was denoted as having an absolute resolution in the cosmos itself, where it was not divided between what can be intelligibly understood and the essence of an object as such.[8]
References
- One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Absolutism". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 76.
- O. Young, James (May 2009). "Relativism, Standards and Aesthetic Judgements". International Journal of Philosophical Studies. 17 (2): 221–31. doi:10.1080/09672550902794439.
- Baker, Carl; Robson, Jon (29 September 2015). "An Absolutist Theory of Faultless Disagreement in Aesthetics". Pacific Philosophical Quarterly. 98 (3): 429–48. doi:10.1111/papq.12102.
- M. Armstrong, David (1993). "A World of States of Affairs". Philosophical Perspectives. 7 (Language and Logic): 429–40. doi:10.2307/22141330.
- Daly, Chris (June 2000). "Properties as Truthmakers". Logique et Analyse. 43 (169–70): 95–107.
- Sartwell, Crispin, "Beauty", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2022/entries/beauty/.
- Pappas, Nickolas, "Plato's Aesthetics", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/plato-aesthetics/.
- Curd, Patricia (1998). The legacy of Parmenides: Eleatic monism and later Pre-Socratic thought. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. p. 39. ISBN 978-1930972155.
