Emily Brady, Chapter 6 of Aesthetics and the Natural Environment

The Integrated Aesthetic II: Imagination, Emotion and Knowledge


 

1.       HOW IMPORTANT IS IMAGINATION TO AES APP OF ENVIRONMENT?

 

2.       Imagination not a necessary condition of aes exp (contrary to Kant’s view)

          a.       Aes objects may not evoke imagination and we may simply rely on perception

3.       Imagination in aes of experience of nature can

          a.       Open up aes horizon and deepens the aes response

          b.       Help us reach beyond stereotyped modes of env. appreciation

          c.       Come afresh to familiar environments and locate undiscovered qualities

          d.       Help overcome aes boredom

          e.       Imagination encourages a more intimate engagement with nature

4.       Imagination is an important part of Brady’s integrated aes

 

5.       WHAT IS IMAGINATION?

 

6.       A distinctive mental power not just used in aesthetics, but in many other contexts

          a.       Imagination not just bringing to mind mental pictures

          b.       Not just creating fantastic scenarios as in make-believe and daydreams

          c.       Imagination used when

                    i.        Entertain possibilities, being inventive, solving problems in science and in moral and artistic situations

                    ii.       Reach beyond given to bring elements of experience together in novel ways

                              (1)     Bring to mind a person/thing absent from perception

                    iii.      Attempt to identify with another person’s feelings

                              (1)     So important in ethics

          d.       EXAMPLES

                    i.        Imaginatively transform ourselves into trees swaying in wind

                    ii.       Imagine a better alternative to a harmful practice

                    iii.      Envisage life on a planet w/o atmosphere as on earth

 

7.       Imagination can be serious or trivial

          a.       Serious uses

                    i.        Artistic creativity

                    ii.       Technical invention

                    iii.      Imaginative leaps underlying scientific discovery

                    iv.      Put onself in another’s situation to better determine what to do

          b.       Trivial uses

                    i.        Imagining oneself on desert island instead of in the office grading papers

 

8.       For appropriate uses of imagination need to

          a.       Realize imagination not free to do whatever it pleases

          b.       Realize imagination does not just involve fantasy

          c.       Distinguish relevant/irrelevant imaginings

                    i.        See below

 

9.       Relation imagination and belief/knowledge/rationality

          a.       Imagination reaches beyond beliefs and knowledge, but is not unrelated to them

          b.       Imagination depends on beliefs about the world

                    i.        Putting oneself in someone else’s shoes begins with beliefs about the person’s situation

                    ii.       Imagination is contrasted with what is the case, so when we imagine a pink elephant we entertain the belief that p while also having the believe that not p

                    iii.      Having a false bel (accepting it as true) is not same as entertaining false belief through imagination

          c.       Brady agrees with Scruton that imagination is a rational activity

          d.       At the extreme, imagination loses contact with beliefs

                    i.        Obsessive fans believe that a rock star is singing about them

          e.       Delusions can result, but are rare

                    i.        When reading a novel or seeing a film have aes distance; imagination allows us to engage fictional events but don’t believe they are real

 

10.     Brady opposes negative view of imagination as

          a.       Unruly, irrational power that creates fictions and misleading representations of reality rather than truth

          b.       Reduces to fancy, fantasy, daydreams

          c.       Something that must be kept in check by reason

          d.       But Brady does keep it in check and does talk about it as a rational capacity

 

11.     MODES OF IMAGINATION: METAPHORICAL, EXPLORATORY, PROJECTIVE, AMPLIATIVE, REVELATORY

 

12.     METAPHORICAL IMAGINATION

          a.       Aes object fused with some image that is not of that object

13.     Shiprock is a free-form gothic cathedral

          b.       Work with qualities of one thing and compare it with another to illustrate resemblances

          c.       Not arbitrary: They do resemble one another

                    i.        Jagged forms are reminiscent of pointy parts of towers of Gothic cathedrals

                    ii.       Sheer scale of Shiprock is like the scale of a great cathedral dwarfing surrounding buildings

          d.       Imaginative description draws attention to perceptual qualities of object (pick out pointedness more clearly)

          e.       Direct appreciations, and by offering images of other things for comparison, refine and enrich our apprehension of aes qualities (massiveness)

 

14.     EXPLORATORY IM

          a.       Closely tied to perception

          b.       Imagination brings meaning to bear on perceptual qualities and this helps to discover aes qualities

15.     Tree bark/old man example

          a.       See deep clefts in thick ridges of bark of tree

          b.       Images of mountains and valleys come to mind

          c.       Think of age of the tree given thickness of the ridges

          d.       Image comes to mind of a seasoned old man with deep wrinkles from age

          e.       Response is aes judgment of tree as stalwart

          f.       Respect it as I might a wise old sage

          g.       Interpretation of locust tree tied to its nonaes qualities–texture of bark–and associations spawned by perceptual qualities

 

16.     PROJECTIVE IM

          a.       What is actually perceived is added to, replaced with, or overlaid by a projected image

17.     Deliberate seeing as, intentionally, not mistakenly see something as another thing

          a.       Projecting geometric patterns onto stars to unify them

                    i.        But does this “manipulate aes object for own pleasure-seeking ends”

18.     Projecting ourselves into natural object:

          a.       Alpine flower example: In appreciating alpine flower might imagine what it is like to live under such harsh conditions and this allows one to appreciate the remarkable strength hidden so beautifully in the delicate flower

19.     Results in a more intimate aes experience and helps us explore nature’s ways and its otherness

20.     Other examples:

          a.       Imagination used to help decide which way we walk in the woods

          b.       Imagination used to ascend a craggy peak one could not really climb

 

21.     AMPLIATIVE IM

          a.       Involves the inventive power of imagination, amplifies the perceptual given, and thus reaches beyond mere projection of images onto objects

          b.       Imagination in its most deep and active role

22.     Sea pebble example:

          a.       In contemplating smoothness of a sea peddle, visualize the relentless surging of ocean as it shaped pebble into worn form

          b.       Imagine how it looked before became so smooth, and this contributes to my wonder and delight in the object.

                    i.        This involves thought and at least common sense (and perhaps naturalists) sci knowledge

23.     White mussel shell on gravel bar in Maine (Andrew Wyeth) is thrilling when think of (imagine) the gull that brought it there, the rain & sun that bleached it there

          a.       Again naturalists knowledge is invoked

24.     Imagining the cold icy feeling of glaciers that carved out the valley’s form helps us appreciate its shape

          a.       This involves naturalists knowledge;

25.     Imagination helps us appreciate the temporal qualities of natural objects/environments by allowing us to contrast its present appearance with past or future ones

 

26.     REVELATORY IMAGINATION

          a.       Where ampliative imagination leads to disclosure of an new meanings, understandings, and revelations; new ways of seeing

                    i.        Original language: “discovery of aesthetic truths and knowledge”

27.     Example glaciers reveal earth’s power:

          a.       By imaginatively contemplating how the glaciers carved this valley, this reveals the tremendous power of the earth

          b.       A new understanding emerges via distinctively aes exp

28.     Not gained via “intellectual endeavor”

          a.       Not sought out;

          b.       Part of aes experience and revelation does not disclose an “extra-aes truth

          c.       Idea, belief, or value is “crystallized” by aes exp

          d.       Would it matter if I imagined how a river carved this U-shaped valley (a false scientific belief)?

29.     Innocence in lamb example (how imagination can reveal aes truths)

          a.       Quick glance at lamb reveals little except its sweetness

          b.       Fuller perception and imagination “brings about a stronger grasp of the nature of innocence”

          c.       Contemplating the fresh whiteness of lamb and its small fragile stature evokes images of purity and naivete

          d.       Dwelling aes and imaginatively on such natural things may achieve new ways of seeing

30.     Imaginative revelations need not be pleasant and positive

          a.       Can reveal horror and suffering of humanity and nature

          b.       Witnessing human evil, natural disasters, or cats stalking and killing birds–can strike imagination in ways that spread meaning more deeply

          c.       Make these experience more demanding and difficult to undergo.

31.     Can imagination (when functioning appropriately) reveal negative aesthetic value in nature?

          a.       That much of nature is violent and ugly (perhaps, predation)

          b.       See a opossum that seems lethargic and imagine the thousands of parasitic worms that infest its body?

          c.       Result is that we disrespect wild nature or certain dimensions of it

          d.       Perhaps this runs afoul of Brady’s requirement that aesthetic appreciation of nature be respectful nature? (P. 129)

 

32.     BRADY’S RESPONSES TO WORRIES THAT IMAGINATION IS SUBJECTIVE/ARBITRARY/UNRULY/TRIVIAL

33.     Objection stated:

          a.       Imagination likely to cause incorrect/inappropriate responses by trivializing

          b.       Imagination leads to an experience that is too unpredictable, arbitrary and prone to fantasy to guide appropriate aes appreciation of nature

          c.       Imagination involves subjective flights of fancy will leave aes object and its qualities behind

34.     Brady’s provides criteria to help distinguish appropriate from inappropriate uses of imagination

35.     Such discriminations aren’t easy or clear cut,

          a.       But practice can lead to skill of keeping imaginings on track

          b.       Defense of imagination must be largely on a case-by-case basis

 

36.     IMAGINING WELL (versus imagining poorly)

          a.       Brady thinks imagination can be used well (a virtue) or poorly (a vice)

          b.       Like keen and slack perception (only former enables discovery of aes value in dull landscape), so too imagination can be used effectively or ineffectively

          c.       Imagining well involves using imagination skillfully, rationally, and appropriately according to context

          d.       Involves knowing when to clip the wings of imagination

          e.       Identifies ways to keep imagination on track to prevent trivializing responses

 

37.     Aesthetic object should guided imagination

          a.       Effective imagination is exercised according to demands of aes object

          b.       Objects’ qualities evoke, direct and guide our imaginings

                    i.        Don’t just look at a mountain and think of a pink elephant (fantasy, not directed by the object)

                    ii.       E.g., deep ridges in tree bark with belief that the tree is old suggest old man with wrinkles on face

          c.       Object directed while also shaped to some degree by particularity of appreciator (168)

                    i.        Can the subjects interests ever override the demands of the object?

 

38.     Imagination needs to respect the aesthetic object

          a.       Imagination should follow “a rule of decorum” (161) and not belittle the aes object

          b.       And should value the object for its own sake

          c.       Imagination must relate to aes object in ways that enhance app (168)

          d.       Ought to harness imagination’s powers in ways that bring out nature’s value

          e.       So imagination is only appro if it helps us reach a judgment of positive aes value for the aes qualities?!!!!

                    i.        Good for the thesis of positive aesthetics,

                    ii.       But seems like cheating: Can only use a faculty if it indicates/guides you to positive aesthetic value

 

39.     Need to distinguish relevant and irrelevant imaginings

40.     Beach Head cliff example

          a.       Awe struck by dramatic sheer drop to sea of English high cliff

          b.       Feeling heightened by knowledge that this is a favorite suicide spot

                    i.        Notice this is knowledge, but cultural knowledge related to natural object rather than scientific knowledge

          c.       Imagining feeling of jumping off cliff and fear of someone standing there accentuates the sublimity of the place and is a virtuous imagining

          d.       Irrelevant to aes appreciation of cliff if one imagined

                    i.        The gruesome fallen body at bottom and thespecific wounds cliff face might have inflicted

                    ii.       Here imaginings become distanced from qualities of the cliff

                    iii.      So too if one imagined financial difficulties that might serve as motive to jump

41.     Seeing river as a bookmark example (Fudge)

          a.       No relationship here between perceptual qualities that lets one image illuminate the other

          b.       Rivers are never straight like sides of bookmark and usually rippled from wind and current

          c.       Well, they both are linear, long, and skinny

 

42.     Rejects trivial or trivializing or sentimentalizing imaginings

          a.       Imagination that involves shallow, naive, trivializing, sentimental responses that impoverish rather than enrich app

43.     E.g., Imaging lamb dressed up in baby clothes might underline aes truth of innocence, but it is sentimental and shallow and fails to direct appreciation appropriately

          a.       Does this rule out imagining that Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes were formed by the hoofs of Paul Bunyon’s Blue Ox Babe?

 

44.     Rejects Hepburn’s serious/trivial way of assessing imaginings because playful (non-serious) ones can be just as good as serious ones

          a.       Mountain as a giants head or a sublime solid granite rock

                    i.        Equally legitimate aes responses.

                    ii.       Boy who sees a hill as a giant’s head

                    iii.      Sees a huge looming hill shaped like a head with a bumpy part that suggests a nose, so imagines a giant’s head

                    iv.      Brings attention to great scale of the hill and its distinctive shape

                    v.       More playful than geologists response to the rock type and sees the aes qualities of solid, bulk, and sublimity

 

45.     Imagination must be disinterestedness

          a.       Imagination that is self-indulgent, indulges in personal fantasy, or instrumentalizes nature is ruled out

46.     Example: Fantasizing about number of sea shells I might collect if waves not so big

                    i.        Violates disinterestedness as instrumental and self-interested

                    ii.       Distracts attention from aes object

          b.       Example: Butterfly movement from one flower to the next makes me think of my old girlfriend who goes from one man to the next

                    i.        This is self-indulgent and you become preoccupied with own personal associations and problems and takes focus away from aesthetic object

 

47.     Warranted imagination must be communicable and shareable

                    i.        Like Carlson’s “culturally embedded” and “generally available”

          b.       Warranted aesthetic responses must be revisable

          c.       If we are to be able to revise our aesthetic responses through critical discourse about aesthetic appreciation of nature, these responses must be communicable

          d.       If our aesthetic judgments are to be communicable, we discard imaginative descriptions that can’t be reasonably shared by others

                    i.        Because too bizarre, idiosyncratic, or highly individualistic

48.     Shiprock sticks up like a blue thumb not shareable

                    i.        Perhaps under certain lighting conditions this might make sense

                    ii.       But so specific of little interest or importance

                    iii.      Highly individualistic

                    iv.      Not easily shareable or assessable to others

49.     Table Mesa as the ultimate aircraft carrier is shareable

                    i.        Metaphor works well by pointing to its flatness and massive bulk and gets us to focus on its aesthetic qualities

 

50.     Robert Fudge’s upside down ice cream cone example

          a.       Claims Brady’s view would have to countenance imagining the mountain as an upside down ice cream cone, or projecting such a cone onto the mountain

          b.       The mountain is snow covered two thirds of the way up with a brown/grey rocky pointed top

          c.       Ice cream is cold as is the snow on the mountain

51.     Brady’s response:

          a.       Connection is too tenuous to be relevant

          b.       Not sufficient resemblance to invoke this imagining

          c.       Doubt this image is shareable

          d.       It is irrelevant, trivial, not shareable and just the result of a whim.

52.     Is it clear Fudge’s example is any different in these respects from Brady’s tree is like an old man?

          a.       Fudge’s example is belittling, and Brady’s is not; but why can’t aes imaginings belittle?

 

53.     How imagination is not just intellectual thought

          a.       Fudge thinks imagination thinks in facts (165)

          b.       Brady thinks this reduces imagination to intellectual thought

          c.       Imagination is not feeding in knowledge into aes exp

          d.       Imagination opens up new aes qualities or deepens our engagement with them

          e.       Imagination is related to thought, but makes a creative break from facts and knowledge given in experience and makes novel connections

          f.       It is a transformative power in relation to given exp

          g.       Imagination engages in entertaining beliefs and propositions, not in ascertaining facts


 

54.     Marcia Eaton thinks that imagination needs to be guided by knowledge of the aes object and its context and claims one should find out as much as possible about these

                  Brady responds that requiring that aes app learn as much as possible to have “correct” app is an unreasonable expectation

                            Knowledge is not necessary, other things can guide imagination

                  But Eaton might say it is necessary for the best sorts of uses of imagination and for the best types of aes app




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63.     BRADY ON EMOTION AND EXPRESSIVE QUALITIES IN NATURE APPRECIATION

          a.       These are the “affective” component of Brady’s integrated aesthetic

64.     Although one can experience emotions and expressive qual at same time there are differences between

          a.       Feeling emotion in response to nature:

                    i.        Ex: Feel exhilarated when taking a morning walk through forest

          b.       Finding expressive qualities in our experience of nature (not feeling any particular emotion)

                    i.        Finding a landscape as bleak and forbidding

 

65.     EMOTIONS AND THE ENV

66.     Emotion is valuable in aes app, but is often caricatured as too subjective and arbitrary

          a.       Need to show how emotion will not lead to wayward or distorting responses

67.     She thinks Carroll’s theory of objective emotion (based on beliefs and imaginings) has explained and justified emotional responses to nature

          a.       So here she does this only for expressive qualities

 

68.     EXPRESSIVE QUALITIES

          a.       Using emotion terms to describe nature

69.     FAILED WAYS OF EXPLAINING HOW ENVS AND ENV. OBJECTS CAN BE EXPRESSIVE

70.     Literal: Nature does not literally have these emotional qualities:

          a.       The loch (A lake; a bay or arm of the sea) and dark images of surrounding hills can’t literally be sombre (dark, gloomy, sad) as it can’t have an emotional state

71.     Artist communication: Nature doesn’t have there qualities in way art has them: as communicated by the artist (as nature has no artist)

72.     Causes emotion: Attribution of expressive qualities are ways of saying the thing causes one to feel an emotion

          a.       The loch is sombre (means the lock makes me feel sombre)

          b.       Problems:

                    i.        it may make someone feel content, calm, relaxed and satisfied not sombre

                    ii.       Also we could judge it sombre without actually feeling anything at all

73.     BRADY THINKS THAT RESEMBLANCE AND EMBODIMENT EXPLAIN EXPRESSIVE QUALITIES IN NATURE

74.     Resemblance view of expressive qualities: The object resembles humans (and their behavior) with that emotion

          a.       Examples

          b.       The cheerful brook moves much as a cheerful person might; it babbles, plays, pauses awhile, rushes on, darts has a quick light movement

          c.       The moaning wind sounds like a person moaning or sighing

          d.       Gnarled branches of barren trees are anguished as call to mind the twisted appearance of human suffering

                    i.        Van Gogh’s Sorrow

          e.       Weeping willow is sad looking because recognize in it the posture of someone feeling down

          f.       Furious storm reminds us of the behavior of a furious person

75.     Resemblance goes both ways: Friend is furious because she “storms” around the house

76.     Resemblance account is not dependent on subjective experience of appreciator, but on perception of non-aes qualities and characteristic human behavior

          a.       An objective account of expressive qualities

77.     Resemblance/similarity theories by themselves can’t account for all expressive qualities of nature

          a.       Not all expressive qual in nature simply mirror human emotions

                    i.        Some expressive quality attribution are not traceable to similar emotional expression in behaviors

          b.       For nature might have expressive qualities and cause emotions in us that the human sphere alone can’t produce

          c.       Nature has an otherness, so we should not just look for the expression of human emotions in nature.

                    i.        E.g., wonder and sublimity of nature (expressive qualities) unique and not a function of being similar to human behavior

          d.       Sometimes nature will influence our moods and determine them, so that we reflect nature’s qualities rather than the other way around

          e.       Is this due to similarity or causal effect separate from similarity?

78.     Embodiment account of expressive qualities in nature (an alternative to resemblance account)

                    i.        A view that allows for individual or cultural experience to play a role

          b.       Some expressive qualities are due to associations (e.g., sense of place associations) that might have nothing to do with resemblances between the place and human behavior

          c.       An old disused quarry may appear ugly to some, but to those that worked there and lived off of the quarry, it may express hard work and the hard lives of the community–it has a cultural significance

                    i.        Here it is not the non-aes qualities of land that bring to mind the feelings of pride associated with the quarry

79.     How this association works: Call it the “embodiment account”

          a.       Fusion between objects sensuous surface and associated facts (sci, historical, or whatever)

                    i.        Fierceness of a battle is reflected in disfigured landscape with poor vegetation

          b.       Environments embody history, emotions, memories

          c.       Carlson: for an object to express a quality is more than that the object suggests the quality, but the quality must be associated with object itself; object must embody that which it expresses

                    i.        Expression is not typically due to the unique associations resulting from an individual’s personal history

          d.       The Welsh quarry is expressive of pride: for a community of individuals the landscape is fused with memories and associations of their working lives on that landscape.

 

          e.       Conventional associations can create embodiment: for Japanese Cherry blossoms when falling associated with sorrow because they epitomize the transience of beauty

 


80.     KNOWLEDGE IN THE INTEGRATED AES

          a.       Sci knowledge is no more appropriate to feed into aes app than religious or mythological narratives. 183

          b.       Common sense beliefs are more likely to have a role in aes app (than is sci kn)

          c.       Brady says that common sense knowledge (unlike sci kn) fails to be accompanied by any explanation of why the facts are as alleged

          d.       For Hepburn, the though-content is aes app is dist from cog component as it is a reflective backdrop that fuses with other elements of app

          e.       The thought and knowledge element of Brady’s integrated aes is a reflective component that ranges from thoughts and beliefs in background, to actively fed-in thoughts and beliefs, constituted by a range of knowledges, including common sense, folk and other cultural knowledges, including sci knowledge

81.     Integrated aes involves perception, imagination, emotions and thought