この論文では、美的経験をノエティックなものとして理解することを擁護する。ノエティックな経験とは、探索的な思考プロセスの一種であるといえる。そのような探索的思考のプロセスは、世界や対象についての知識を獲得することを直接的に目指しているわけではないが、しばしば世界や対象のよりよい理解[understanding]や認識的把握をもたらす。このような立場に従うならば、美的価値は、私たちに知覚的・想像的・感情的能力などの、これまでの美学理論で中心的位置を占めてきた能力を行使させるだけでなく、意味理解・問題解決・理論形成などの能力を行使させる。だとすれば、知的な【＝非知覚的な】美や知的な美的価値は、美的経験理論の周縁ではなくむしろ中心に位置すべきものとなる。
This paper defends a ‘noetic’ conception of aesthetic experience whereby such experience is best conceived as a kind of explorative thought process. Although not directly aimed at acquiring knowledge, this process often leads to an enhanced understanding or improved epistemic grasp of the object of appreciation itself and the world. On this conception, aesthetic value acts as an invitation to engage in a series of contemplative and reflective processes during which we rely not only on the perceptual, imaginative, and affective abilities which have occupied such a central role in aesthetic theory, but also on our capacities for sense-making, problem-solving and theory-building. Cases of intelligible beauty or aesthetic value should thus lie at the heart of accounts of aesthetic experience.
Aesthetic experience is a kind of thought. More specifically, it is a kind of explorative thought process which engages us in a set of contemplations, observations, and considerations which, although not directly aimed at acquiring knowledge, often lead to an enhanced understanding or improved epistemic grasp both of the object of appreciation itself and of the wider context in which it is lodged. On this conception, aesthetic value acts as an invitation to engage in a series of contemplative and reflective processes during which we rely not only on the perceptual, imaginative, and affective abilities which have occupied such a central role in aesthetic theory but also on our capacities for sense-making, problem-solving and theory-building. Aesthetic experience can, then, be understood as a way of rendering intelligible possible avenues of thought through the rich and complex interplay of all these abilities and skills. I shall refer to this as the noetic conception of aesthetic experience in virtue of its emphasis on what may broadly be referred to as the intellect (as opposed to the sensory).
That the intellect, or the noetic, should play little or no part in our philosophical accounts of aesthetic experience is a modern assumption which has cost us dearly. Making room for the aesthetic value of pursuits such as philosophy, natural science, or mathematics, but also moral character and action, literature, and much modern art, has been at the very least difficult on the standard conception of aesthetic experience. For this conception rests on two main tenets with an explicit focus towards the sensory, namely that aesthetic experience must be (1) grounded in first-hand sensory perception1 and (2) characterized by pleasure (related to that perception).2 Several philosophical and historical reasons underpin this approach. Most important, perhaps, is the compelling ambition to demarcate the aesthetic from contiguous kinds of experience, value, and judgment in order to secure its autonomy (both conceptually and disciplinarily). Famously, Kant wastes no time in the Critique of the Power of Judgement driving precisely this project, dedicating the very first section of the ‘Analytic of the Beautiful’ to distinguishing the aesthetic from the cognitive. According to Kant, “[t]o grasp a regular, purposive structure with one’s faculty of cognition… is something entirely different from being conscious of this representation with the sensation of satisfaction. Here, the representation is related entirely to the subject, indeed to its feeling of life, under the name of the feeling of pleasure or displeasure, which grounds an entirely special faculty…that contributes nothing to cognition” (Kant 1790/2000, §1, 5:204–4). In many respects, this demonstrative move can be seen to point to how, according to Kant, his rationalist predecessors are mistaken in stipulating that judgments of beauty are judgments of a kind of perfection—an account which, according to him, diminishes both the element of freedom in aesthetic experience and the autonomy of the judgment of beauty by reducing aesthetic judgment to a kind of cognitive judgment.3
A central feature of the noetic conception of aesthetic experience is thus a call for a revised analysis, or a reconfiguration, of the relation between aesthetic and cognitive value with a view to restoring the epistemic credentials of aesthetic experience itself (Schellekens, unpublished manuscript). Rather than seeking to isolate the former from the latter, it hails the advantages of somewhat more porous conceptual boundaries: the aesthetic need not be excised of all cognitive components to retain its distinct character. In fact, a strong argument can be made for the claim that aesthetic experiences devoid of such components run the equally great—if not greater—risk of collapsing into the merely sensory, a move which would spell the end of much of the contemplative subtlety and breadth which marks many aesthetic experiences. If we instead conceive of aesthetic experience primarily as a kind of explorative thought process, capable of creating and motivating new epistemic possibilities, the intellectual component can usefully be bolstered by its sensory counterpart.
Although the argument presented here is fundamentally allied to aesthetic cognitivism, I shall begin by analyzing and outlining reasons to be skeptical of two cognitivist models of the relation between aesthetic and cognitive value. Examining a specific example from art will allow me to spell out the main features and principal advantages of a noetic conception of aesthetic experience, which is presented also as an alternative model of explanation of the relation between aesthetic experience and understanding.4 My main goal in this discussion is to set up the case for a kind of reversal of the way we tend to envisage the relation between instances of sensible and non-sensible (or intelligible) aesthetic value and experience, the former being central or paradigmatic and the latter merely peripheral. Although this might set me on a collision course with some aspects of the approach broadly known as ‘everyday aesthetics’, I shall suggest that at least some aspects of a specific version of that kind of philosophical account could be reconciled with a noetic conception of aesthetic experience.
Generally speaking, aesthetic cognitivism is the view that engaging with objects of aesthetic appreciation, mainly artworks, can lead to knowledge and understanding.5 The arguments put forward in defense of this claim also tend to have it that the cognitive value these objects can be said to yield are part and parcel of the general value of the artwork. Much has been written about whether art can give us knowledge and understanding (what Berys Gaut calls the ‘epistemic question’ [Gaut 2003]) and if so of what kind. Also, the co-related ‘aesthetic question’ has prompted work on the question of whether, if art does indeed have the capacity to give knowledge, this ability succeeds in enhancing its value as art.6
But how is knowledge or understanding supposed to come about when we engage with a painting or a novel, say; what is the distinct role played by aesthetic value in gaining understanding in art? Prima facie, one might think that there are two broad options.7 On the one hand, one can conceive of aesthetic value and cognitive value independently of one another, as simply co-existing in the object of appreciation without significant interaction. Let us call this the autonomy model. On this line, I can gain knowledge from my encounter with an artwork even if the object’s aesthetic value does not play an active role in that learning process, for example, I can gain knowledge of the Chinese practice of foot-binding by reading Jung Chang’s novel Wild Swans, or of eighteenth-century European social hierarchies by listening to Mozart’s Don Giovanni.8
Although our discussion of this approach will be brief, three quick observations deserve mention. First, it seems likely that most knowledge acquired on this line will be propositional by nature (knowledge of specific historical practices or public proceedings, for example) since one is held to acquire knowledge in much the same way that one might pick up information by reading a newspaper article or watching a televised documentary. While this is not necessarily problematic in and of itself, it may impose certain limitations on the kinds of understanding we can gain by engaging with art.9 Second, and relatedly, this model seems particularly vulnerable to a charge often raised by non-cognitivists, namely that even though it may not be impossible to gain some such knowledge from engaging with art, we are just as—if not more—likely to acquire that knowledge through other means.10 Art, then, offers us nothing unique in this respect. Third, since the two kinds of value do not cooperate or interact in meaningful ways, it is not clear why this account would qualify as a form of aesthetic cognitivism, or anything other than an instance of an object offering us some information, the gaining awareness of which qualifies as knowledge or understanding.11 In short, running the aesthetic and cognitive values separately from one another fails to capture not just the unique way in which art can lead to insight and understanding or indeed the variety of kinds of knowledge it can offer but also the main point of referring to cognitivism in art as ‘aesthetic’ in the first place.12
Another, perhaps more intuitive way of framing the idea that there is an important connection between aesthetic experience and knowledge or understanding (in so far as the former can lead to the latter) relies on an explanatory structure whereby it is the experience of the object’s aesthetic value which facilitates or expedites the contiguous cognitive experience or epistemic gain.13 Let us call this the enabler model. Here the assumption is that it is only by undergoing our experience of the object’s aesthetic value that we, eventually, access or ascertain that object’s cognitive value. Typically, accounts emphasizing the way artworks can give us knowledge of how to do certain things or act in certain circumstances are relevant here. On this enabler model, aesthetic value serves as the key capable of ‘unlocking’ the knowledge an artwork can yield,14 in so far as engaging with an object’s aesthetic value primes or prepares us psychologically for knowledge by activating our emotional sensibilities,15 imaginative skills,16 increasing our perceptual receptiveness,17 and more.
To clarify the point, take the following example (broadly along the lines of the so-called ‘seduction strategy’ (Gaut 2007, 191–96)). When we immerse ourselves in the aesthetic value of Nabokov’s Lolita, we become absorbed by its beautiful prose and elegant phrasing. We enjoy its dynamic language, its affectionate and humoristic descriptions. As we become more engrossed, and take more pleasure in the stylistic tours de force of the novel, we begin to let our moral and philosophical guards down. Our attention is dominated by the work’s numerous aesthetic qualities and the delight we take in them. Gradually, we begin to experience a certain degree of empathy with the protagonist and as this empathy sets in, the moral boundaries between him and us become less clear-cut. At some point, we find ourselves alarmingly comfortable with the proposed narrative, as if we had temporarily suspended what we ourselves believe and stand for outside the remit or world of the artwork. As a result, we begin to reflect on the depth of our own moral commitments, the ease with which such commitments can shift imperceptibly, the levels of self-deception we might be at risk of, and so on. The aesthetic has, then, participated in the cognitive work principally in a preparatory capacity, by subjecting us to an experience which eventually prompts or induces understanding and insight in the ‘afterlife’ of the work (Gaut 2007, 142; Kivy 1997).
Clearly, the enabler model can take different forms, and not all versions will be vulnerable to the same set of criticisms.18 Nonetheless, at its core, we tend to find three features. First, adherence to an empirical conception whereby the aesthetic value is identified with the value of our direct first-hand sense-perceptual experience where such experience is delimited by the parameters set by the standard conception. This means that the cognitive experience in which our understanding or insight can be said to be realized, is preceded by an aesthetic experience conceived primarily as a sense-perceptual engagement with the artwork’s aesthetic qualities. Second, an emphasis on affect or pleasure. For it is at least often (if not always) due to the emotional elements of the aesthetic experience we undergo, and the manner in which they are said to influence our psychological receptivity to knowledge, that the latter becomes possible. Third, the enabler model takes aesthetic value to serve a fundamentally instrumental role in relation to cognitive experience; aesthetic value has a contributory function in artistic experience in so far as once access to the object’s cognitive value is secured, the epistemic task of its aesthetic value has been completed.
Of course, there is no need to deny that some cases of learning from art may well operate on roughly these lines. Our aesthetic and epistemic psychologies are complicated, and understanding can generally occur under all sorts of circumstances. But even a brief examination of the enabler model sketched in these general terms draws out some reasons to be concerned about the proposed picture of the relation between aesthetic value and cognitive value in art.
On the one hand, one might want to take issue with the underlying assumption that having an aesthetic experience involves, if not necessarily then at least paradigmatically, being ‘disarmed’ in such ways that some ulterior experience—namely, the gaining of knowledge or insight—thereby becomes available to us. This seems problematic not least since it relies on the outmoded idea that aesthetic experience is fundamentally passive, something we are simply subjected to, lying beyond the remit of our will or rational control.19 Also, it seems to overlook the fact that just as aesthetic experience can be emotionally charged, charming, alluring, or moving, it can also be dispassionate, impartial, probing, or disinterested.