Modernism
- Kant's influence on aesthetics was to study the emotional sense to beauty. Artists are the closest to the beauty form of real objects. All of us 'normal' people can only see the shadows of the beautiful, perfect forms.
- The most powerful aesthetic response is to music according to Nietzsche etc. Materialists believe that our reaction to music is our neurons responding, however, Nietzsche believed music to be a tool that can be used to overcome 'the will'.
- Nietzsche concerned himself more with art than with beauty and Wagner was one of his greatest influences.
- Schopenhauer and Nietzsche's ideas of 'the will' are very similar. They both agreed that every human is a function of power which must be embraced.
- Similarly both men stated that the two ways to successfully escape misery is:
- Intoxication
- Dreaming
- Schopenhauer was strictly Kantian but the main difference between the two philosophers is that Schopenhauer believed that is only one noumena in the world which is the universe. We have the 'will to survive'.
- Human happiness is created by controlling 'the will'. This can be done through intoxication and music can be used as a tool to overcome desire as well as 'the will'.
Aesthetics
- According to Plato and Aristotle believed that happiness is supreme good. Kant challenged this because he believed that duty was the supreme ethical motive.
- Bentham believed that the greatest happiness principle was pleasure. Aristotle made distinctions between pleasure and pain as he refused to link happiness with the pleasure of the senses.
- Bentham promoted the Utilitarian motto: 'Greatest amount of good (happiness) for the greatest number of people'. This motto was open to criticism since people argued how you measure happiness or the greatest number of people? Also is it just people that should be considered to be happy? Recent Utilitarians have included animals.
- Kierkegaard observed aesthetics as ethical rather than an aesthetic category. An aesthetic person searches for immediate pleasure whether this is from a natural source or an artistic source.
- He believed that there are three modes of life:
- Religious
- Ethical
- The aesthetic
- Life is the progress through these modes of life onto the most important mode, the religious mode.
No comments:
Post a Comment