Jonathan,
To be fair, I think Ms Hsieh was talking of the *sound* of a voice in "once someone
opens their mouth…"- not the content of that person’s intellect.
That may be, but it wouldn’t affect my argument. Allowing the judgment of the sound of a person’s voice to affect one’s judgment of their appearance is still quite an admission confused thinking.
J
The ultimate, objective standard of value is man’s life. Every kind of particular value judgment–from beauty and love to stylized cartoons and rock arrangements–is measured relative to his standard. But because man does not measure such relationships to his life with a protractor or ruler does not make the measurement subjective.
Within limited ranges, which are established by the requirements of man’s life, personal preferences are possible and optional.
By “personal preferences,” do you actually mean “subjective preferences”? In a discussion on objectivity versus subjectivity, why do you switch to using the word “personal” rather than “subjective”? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m get the impression that you detest the idea of subjective judgments, and that perhaps you’re using the word “personal” instead because it makes it sound as if you’re not admitting to fact that your judgments of beauty are subjective. Is that correct? If so, I’m sorry, but I’m not willing to sacrifice intellectual clarity to satisfy someone else’s emotional biases. We’re talking about subjectivity here, not “personal and optional.”
That ranges are possible, and rational men can differ as to the ranges of certain values such as beauty, does not make unlimited, subjective judgments of beauty valid or justifiable.
Actually, as I said earlier, what Rand said about music is true of judgments of beauty. Roughly taking her words, and editing them to replace “music” with “beauty”:
In experiencing beauty, a man cannot tell clearly, neither to himself nor to others—and therefore, cannot prove—which aspects of his experience are inherent in the object and which are contributed by his own consciousness. He experiences it as an indivisible whole, he feels as if the magnificent exaltation were there in the object—and he is helplessly bewildered when he discovers that some men do experience it and some do not. In regard to the nature of beauty, mankind is still on the perceptual level of awareness.
The formulation of a common vocabulary of beauty would require: a translation of the beautiful experience, the inner experience, into conceptual terms; an explanation of why certain arrangements of form, color and proportion strike us a certain way; a definition of the axioms of beauty perception, from which the appropriate esthetic principles could be derived, which would serve as a base for the objective validation of esthetic judgments.
Until a conceptual vocabulary is discovered and defined, no objectively valid criterion of esthetic judgment is possible in the field of beauty, and we must treat tastes and preference of beauty as a subjective matter.
No one, therefore, can claim the objective superiority of his choices over the choices of others. Where no objective proof is available, it’s every man for himself—and only for himself.
Your statement above, Old Toad, is therefore incorrect. You have no grounds on which to assert that others’ judgments of beauty are outside of some limited range of validity, just as there is no valid basis for Hsieh to assert that others’ judgments of beauty are “really wrong.”
J
Well, I’m going to have to wade in and offer my two copper pieces.
I consider art to be both objective and subjective in context. Art is obviously very subjective in that the form it can take for the user is completely individualized for that person. Not only do different kinds of art inspire different people, but the variations within a style can do so as well.
It is objective however in that the art does need to objectively add value to the user. The brilliance of Objectivism is that it shows that art is noble and provides real value to a person, and like any value it does need to be objective. In this case an objective determination of art’s value is, as always, based on the context of man’s life. That which adds value to it is good and that which does not is bad. Art is very subjective to the individual which gives man a wide range in interpreting this value for his own good but still it needs to objectively add value to his life.
I’m going to use music as my example since I am a huge music fan, thus I’m only qualified to speak on that form. There are many, many styles of music. This platform of music offers any listener a literal smorgasbord of options: Classical, jazz, country, pop, rock, punk, metal, reggae, etc. The style of art is subjective to the individual since art itself is a recreation of reality and presented to the user through the artists chosen medium. The user can easily get a sense of joy and triumph from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Count Basie’s Blues in Hoss Flat, or Rainbow’s Stargazer. However the art does need to add value to you. The end user of those songs can say they gain value from it, that it does add objectively to their life.
In contrast I remember seeing a modern classical demonstration by a quartet (well modern in 86) and they performed something akin to “neo-modern classical” (I think) and what they did is each choose a random point in the music sheets to start playing. They literally started at a different point! Evidently that was the point, the piece is written and handed out and each musician just picks a random part to start. It was three minutes of random noises and spoken parts that made absolutely no sense. It was total garbage and I would call it nihilistic since there was no attempt to portray any value at all and truth be told destroy the concept of composition (something music has to have). Objectively speaking, there is no way that could add value to someone outside of a painful learning experience of how important composition is.
So I’d say art is objective since it does add value, it emotionally engages someone by tying them to reality in a deep manner that does legitimately add value. It is very subjective however and is likely one of the most personal expressions of individuality since it does allow art to speak to someone deep down based on very unique values and preferences. A person has a wide range to look to find value but it does still need to add value. We can disagree between Beethoven and Rainbow but can agree with the values we discern from them. Six people blowing hard randomly for three minutes does not add value and can objectively shown to be destructive since it is impossible for values to be built out of it. It is objectively not art.
Speaking of truth in advertising, esthetics is not my strong point from a philosophy stand point. The fact I’m basically introspecting on the one form of art I’m really familiar with is not lost on me and I admit I could be talking out my ass on this one; but hey, all knowledge starts with what you know and you proceed with due honesty from there. Opinions on this are welcome.
J,
Ayn Rand did explain that, “until a conceptual vocabulary is discovered and defined, no objectively valid criteria of esthetic judgement is possible in the field of music. …” (Original emphasis.)
Quite a bit more can be said about beauty, however, including its relation to age, health, and physical proportions, among other things, for which we do have at least some conceptual vocabulary.
Philosohically, there is a crucial difference between objectivity and subjectivity. That a concept may need to be discovered and defined does not take it out of the philosphically objective–it merely makes it personal until then.
OT
In contrast I remember seeing a modern classical demonstration by a quartet (well modern in 86) and they performed something akin to “neo-modern classical” (I think) and what they did is each choose a random point in the music sheets to start playing. They literally started at a different point! Evidently that was the point, the piece is written and handed out and each musician just picks a random part to start. It was three minutes of random noises and spoken parts that made absolutely no sense. It was total garbage and I would call it nihilistic since there was no attempt to portray any value at all and truth be told destroy the concept of composition (something music has to have). Objectively speaking, there is no way that could add value to someone outside of a painful learning experience of how important composition is.
Why doesn’t the point about the importance of composition count as objective value gained from such a work? It’s my understanding that a lot of modern and postmodern art seeks just that type of value. It is introspective; the artist’s goal is to delve into the issue of which features of art are necessary and which are not. Call it meta-art if you want, but isn’t there value in exploring the issue of music without composition? If all the music I hear around me is made from certain fundamental elements, I might (not being a musician) never stop to think about why those elements are there, what purpose they serve. A work of music that causes me to do so might just have enhanced my life. I’m confused because you later say the following:
"Six people blowing hard randomly for three minutes does not add value and can objectively shown to be destructive since it is impossible for values to be built out of it. It is objectively not art. "
And yet, you yourself identify a value that could result from hearing such music without composition.
Ayn Rand did explain that, “until a conceptual vocabulary is discovered and defined, no objectively valid criteria of esthetic judgement is possible in the field of music. …” (Original emphasis.)
Quite a bit more can be said about beauty, however, including its relation to age, health, and physical proportions,among other things, for which we do have at least some conceptual vocabulary.
Philosohically, there is a crucial difference between objectivity and subjectivity. That a concept may need to be discovered and defined does not take it out of the philosphically objective–it merely makes it personal until then.
No. It doesn’t make it “personal.” Rand said that until a conceptual vocabulary is discovered, judgments must be treated as a subjective matter. She did not say “personal” but “subjective.” And I agree with her. When a person “cannot tell clearly, neither to himself nor to others – and, therefore, cannot prove – which aspects of his experience are inherent” in the object and which are “contributed by his own consciousness,” the experience is, by definition, subjective.
Objectivity in judgment is the act of volitionally applying objective standards of judgment by means of logic and reason. When you have not identified and applied such standards, your judgments cannot, now or in the future, be called “objective.” Even if someone in the future were to discover an objective standard for judging beauty, any of your current judgments of beauty (prior to the discovery of the objective standard) would not become objective retroactively even if they turned out to coincide with judgments of beauty based on the objective standard, because you did not arrive at them via an objective standard using logic and reason. Your current subjective judgments of beauty, if shown to coincide with future objective judgments of beauty, would only be like the wild guesses that a toddler might make when he knows nothing about math but nevertheless once in a while guesses the right answer when asked the sum of one number and another.
As for your comment that “a concept may need to be discovered and defined,” I’ve already addressed that in saying:
My position is that the classification of judgments as objective versus subjective doesn’t allow any leeway based on predictions of the future. You either have and are capable of clearly idenfifying an objective standard of judgment, or you don’t. There’s no “someday we’ll discover a standard” allowed, because the same assertion could be made about any and every other class of subjective judgments, thus granting the status of objectivity to subjectivity, and rendering both terms meaningless.
If we allow your method of calling subjective judgments “personal” rather than “subjective,” then you have no grounds on which to call others’ subjective judgments “subjective” – they can simply assert, as you do, that some day in the future their subjective judgments will be discovered to have an objective basis. They can assert that, say, socialism is the best economic system, despite not being able to identify an objective standard which supports their opinion, and that someday an objective standard will be discovered which does support their opinion.
J
The way “personal” was used suggests to me what OT was saying is that just because people don’t have a way to make objective judgments (rendering the judgements in effect subjective) doesn’t mean there is no objective judgment method to be discovered. No one in this thread has ever claimed otherwise, and I don’t even think Hsieh did either, other than try to get started on identifying a standard to use. I see no reason, though, to accept your claim that “someday we’ll discover a standard is [not allowed]”. Reality and everything in it can be defined and understood objectively. Everything has an identity, any valid concept anyway. You seem to be saying “we don’t know if there is even an objective standard”, but that’s equivalent to say “we don’t know if everything that exists has an identity”. If you’re only saying beauty is an emotion like anger or joy, then what you say makes sense - you can’t say there is “objectively true” anger. You can explain the cause, but that’s a question about psychology.
I take beauty as a measurement right now, so I don’t think it’s an emotion. As such, it can be objectively defined. Beauty, being a positive judgment, indicates a positive value judgment. If you’re judging a Kandinsky painting, a person’s body, or a sunset as beautiful, it is a value judgment. I’d call this judgment of meaning. This is different than judging if a painting is good art in the sense good or bad there is just about fulfilling successfully a definition of art (in Rand’s case, epistemological need of concretizing abstractions). I call this a judgment of technique and craftsmanship. For a positive value judgment, though, that’s inextricably tied to your life in some capacity, in a similar same way you judge a coffee ice cream with chocolate chips is great. Meaning in art is deeper than that though, because it has a lot more to do with how a certain art piece presents to you a view or sense of life about existence. Certain viewpoints are more beneficial to life than others, more obvious examples being the Bible versus The Illiad. I’m not going to claim that I know the proper standards in all of art. I’d have to study more than I have. (aside: I was reading Understanding Objectivism yesterday, and that distinction was used to clarify why Rand said that right now, she sees no way to objectively judge the *meaning* of music as could be done with literature).
At the least, beauty involves judging the essential aesthetic fundamentals of what you’re judging, and its relationship with your life (i.e. the positive value judgment). When judging human beauty, I’d say health is a consideration, because that produces an appearance, but to be clear, I’m only saying it is a necessary yet insufficient criterion for beauty judgment. For me, use of reason is even bigger to consider, which is what you’d use for clothing, hair style, body modification, etc. I wrote about this in another thread I wrote up a while ago. Again, if beauty is just an emotional reaction, my above reasoning is void.
I see no reason, though, to accept your claim that “someday we’ll discover a standard is [not allowed]”. Reality and everything in it can be defined and understood objectively.
The reason that I reject claims of what will happen in the future is that people cannot predict the future. Objectivism agrees with me on this. Objectivism does not believe in ESP and that sort of thing.
And more precisely what I mean is that one cannot validly assert that his current judgments of beauty are objective but “personal,” rather than subjective, based on the claim that someday someone will discover an objective standard by which to judge beauty. As I explained in my last post, according to Objectivim, objectivity is a specific process which involves volitionally choosing to employ a clearly identified standard of measurement via the use of logic and reason. If one’s judgments have not followed that specific process, then one’s judgments cannot be deemed to have been objective, regardless of whether they might end up to be accidentally right in the future.
Also, since a future in which objective standards of beauty has not yet arrived, any current person’s expectations that his or her current judgements of beauty will necessarily be validated by the yet-to-be-discovered objective standards is invalid. No one gets to assume that any future discoveries of objective standards would vindicate his own judgments of what is beautiful and what is not. Those who are most certain of their current judgments might turn out to be the ones who are “really wrong.”
Everything has an identity, any valid concept anyway.
Yes, everything has an identity, and the identity of the concept of judgments of beauty could be that it is, and always will be, subjective. Its identity is that is it is a subjective type of judgment.
You seem to be saying “we don’t know if there is even an objective standard”, but that’s equivalent to say “we don’t know if everything that exists has an identity”.
No, it’s not equivalent to saying that. Some types of judgments are subjective. That’s their identity. One can objectively define a type of judgment as being subjective by its nature. Understand?
If you’re only saying beauty is an emotion like anger or joy, then what you say makes sense - you can’t say there is “objectively true” anger. You can explain the cause, but that’s a question about psychology.
Im NOT saying that beauty is an emotion. I’m saying that it is a type of judgment in which the person doing the judging “cannot tell clearly, neither to himself nor to others – and, therefore, cannot prove – which aspects of his experience are inherent” in the object and which are “contributed by his own consciousness.” That which is contributed by his consciousness need not be emotional in nature.
I take beauty as a measurement right now, so I don’t think it’s an emotion.
Until you identify an objective standard of measurement, then any “measurement” of beauty that you make is a subjective measurement.
As such, it can be objectively defined.
We’re not talking about objectively defining beauty, but of establishing objective standards by which to measure and evaluate beauty. Do you understand the difference between a definition of a phenomenon and a standard by which to measure the phenomenon?
The following is an objective definition of beauty: “Beauty is a subjective judgment relating to the appearance of an entity, and includes…”
Look at it this way. The concept “subjectivity” can be objectively defined, but that doesn’t mean that subjectivity is objective. The same is true of the concept “beauty.” See what I’m saying?
Beauty, being a positive judgment, indicates a positive value judgment.
Sure, and certain value judgments can be subjective. Just because one has a positive value judgment of something doesn’t make the judgment objective.
J
This is actually what Ayn Rand explained,
At present, our understanding of music is confined to the gathering of material, i.e., to the level of descriptive observations. Until it is brought to the stage of conceptualization, we have to treat musical tastes or preferences as a subjective matter—not in the metaphysical, but in the epistemological sense; i.e., not in the sense that these preferences are, in fact, causeless and arbitrary, but in the sense that we do not know their cause. No one, therefore, can claim the objective superiority of his choices over the choices of others. Where no objective proof is available, it’s every man for himself—and only for himself.
–Ayn Rand, The Romantic Manifesto, Art and Cognition
Throughout her writings, Ayn Rand was always careful to be clear in her use of the word “subjective”, as she is in the above explanation.
I prefer the word “personal” to “subjective” because it is less likely to be confused with subjectivism.
J, I don’t understand your discussion of the “predicting the future.” All values, including of beauty and good music, are metaphysically tied to reality–in the present–even if the conceptual relationship to reality is yet to be discovered. In your discussion, it appears that you are treating beauty and music as metaphysically subjective–at least in the present because we cannot predict the future. Metaphyics does not depend on future discoveries, but rather, the other way around.
Finally, beauty, for example, woman’s beauty, is different than music in that several standards (epistemological relationships to reality), which can be grouped and summed, have been identified, as discussed on this thread. Most people can peg a man or woman as about a “6” or a “9” on a 10 point scale, for example, within a point or two. (Also bearing in mind Ayn Rand’s discussion of socially objective values, and the relationship of that to philosophically objective.) Even in regard to music, most of us can objectively agree (both metaphysically and epistemolically) to limits, for example, that utterly random sounds, white noise, etc. is not music at all, let alone good music.
This is actually what Ayn Rand explained,
In the above, Rand makes the mistake of equating the subjective with the “causeless and arbitrary.” The subjective is not necessarily causeless and arbitrary. It can be, but is not always so.
Elsewhere in her writings on music, Rand gave a much better definition of subjectivity, which I 've been quoting on this thread. It is when a person “cannot tell clearly, neither to himself nor to others – and, therefore, cannot prove – which aspects of his experience are inherent” in the object and which are “contributed by his own consciousness.”
That which is contributed to a judgment by one’s consciousness, including subconsciously, is not necessarily “causeless and arbitrary.”
Rand’s notion of “objectivity” was that it is the process of volitionally adhering to reality by following rules of logic and reason.
One is not necessarily being “causeless and arbitrary” when not following the rules of logic and reason. For example, looking at an object and letting one’s mind drift and associating the object with one’s past experiences, and then allowing one’s imagination and creativity to invent fictional rearrangements of similar but more exciting experiences, is not to follow the rules of logic and reason, but it is also not causeless and arbitrary. It’s just benign subjectivity – or what you subjectively prefer to call “personal.”
Perhaps she was confusing the concept “subjective” with the concept of philosophies of “Subjectivism.” To say that a judgment is subjective is not to say the person making the judgment has adopted a philosophy of Subjectivism (“that reality is not a firm absolute, but a fluid, plastic, indeterminate realm which can be altered, in whole or in part, by the consciousness of the perceiver”). When people say that judgments of beauty are subjective, they are saying that they recognize that their own consciousnesses are contributing to the judgment, not that their consciousness alter reality.
Throughout her writings, Ayn Rand was always careful to be clear in her use of the word “subjective”, as she is in the above explanation.
And I agree with her that musical tastes must be treated as a subjective matter.
I disagree with her opinion that current judgments which are not based on a clearly identified objective standard are not subjective “in the metaphysical sense.” As I’ve explained a couple of times now in my most recent posts, Rand’s notion of objective judgment is the process of volitionally adhering to reality by following logic and reason using a clearly identified objective standard. Current judgments of music, and of beauty, do not follow that process, and therefore they will never qualify as being objective, even if a current judgment turns out to be accidentally right in a future time when an objective standard exists.
I prefer the word “personal” to “subjective” because it is less likely to be confused with subjectivism.
I prefer “subjective,” because it is accurate. If there’s confusion to be avoided, I would say that it is in mistakenly equating subjectivity with the “causeless and arbitrary.”
J, I don’t understand your discussion of the “predicting the future.” All values, including of beauty and good music, are metaphysically tied to reality–in the present–even if the conceptual relationship to reality is yet to be discovered.
What do you mean by “tied to reality”?
It doesn’t logically follow that anything which is valued must have a yet-to-be-discovered conceptual relationship to reality which makes the valuer’s judgments rational and objective. You’re overlooking the fact that one can make subjective value judgments, and one can be mistaken in his judgments, even when he believes that he is right.
All subjective tastes, judgments and opinions are “tied to reality” in one way or another, including mistaken values. All judgments refer to some aspect of reality in some way.
I don’t know if you’re grasping what I wrote in my last post, but you don’t seem to be considering the likelihood that, if an objective standard of beauty were to be discovered in the future, many of your current tastes would turn out to be “really wrong.” What then? How are you going to react if you discover that you’ve been valuing the wrong things, and perhaps unknowingly allowing, say, pop culture or faulty theories of art to influence your judgments of beauty? Will you then reprogram your own tastes so as to comply with the objective standard? Will you train yourself to conform to the standard?
In your discussion, it appears that you are treating beauty and music as metaphysically subjective–at least in the present because we cannot predict the future. Metaphyics does not depend on future discoveries, but rather, the other way around.
So, now you’re asserting that metaphysics itself demands that judgments of beauty absolutely must be objective? The very nature of metaphysics is involved, and it’s not even possible that judgments of beauty have always been subjective, and always will be? It’s metaphysically not possible that you’ve been making subjective judgments of beauty all along?
The concept of beauty has existed for thousands of years, and no one has yet identified an objective standard by which to evaluate it. Doesn’t that suggest to you that the concept of beauty has always referred to a subjective experience?
Finally, beauty, for example, woman’s beauty, is different than music in that several standards (epistemological relationships to reality), which can be grouped and summed, have been identified, as discussed on this thread. Most people can peg a man or woman as about a “6” or a “9” on a 10 point scale, for example, within a point or two.
Please explain how you scientifically controlled for, and factored out, cultural influence in the above statement. For the sake of argument, I’ll accept your unsupported statement about what “most people” can do, but even in accepting it, why should I take your statement as proof that judgments of beauty are objective, versus taking it as proof that judgments of beauty are both subjective and heavily influenced by the rest of society’s subjective opinions – that “most people” are subjective and lemmings?
J
Im NOT saying that beauty is an emotion. I’m saying that it is a type of judgment in which the person doing the judging “cannot tell clearly, neither to himself nor to others – and, therefore, cannot prove – which aspects of his experience are inherent” in the object and which are “contributed by his own consciousness.” That which is contributed by his consciousness need not be emotional in nature.
What I mean is I don’t know if you are saying beauty by nature is always a subjective judgment, and the onus of proof is on everyone else to prove there are objective standards of beauty. Can you give me an example of a non-aesthetic field where the possibility of objectivity must be proven? Even a theory about black holes (and if they exist) can be empirically proven true someday, even if most of the theorizing is with math right now. My premise is that even if judgments of beauty (and conversely, ugliness) are subjective right now, given enough time, standards will be discovered like every other scientific or rationally evaluated judgment. See below for more clarification on my thoughts.
No, it’s not equivalent to saying that. Some types of judgments are subjective. That’s their identity. One can objectively define a type of judgment as being subjective by its nature. Understand?
I was speaking metaphysically. Judgments are epistemological, so I don’t disagree that absent a proven objective standard, a judgment is subjective. The only thing I’m posing is if beauty is a measurement like what is the symmetry used in a painting, or if it is something like reacting with anger towards a painting. You don’t write up a list of reasons to conclude that the painting “is” angry, you just feel it without any rational decision-making; you can then judge that the painting makes you angry, but that doesn’t mean the painting is objectively angry. With the latter position, there is an objective cause, but that isn’t to say what you feel is itself objective or a means of cognition. I take the former position of measurement, while you take the latter position as far as I can tell.
There is more to respond to in your posts, but it’s this that I want to focus on.
What I mean is I don’t know if you are saying beauty by nature is always a subjective judgment, and the onus of proof is on everyone else to prove there are objective standards of beauty. Can you give me an example of a non-aesthetic field where the possibility of objectivity must be proven? Even a theory about black holes (and if they exist) can be empirically proven true someday, even if most of the theorizing is with math right now. My premise is that even if judgments of beauty (and conversely, ugliness) are subjective right now, given enough time, standards will be discovered like every other scientific or rationally evaluated judgment. See below for more clarification on my thoughts.
Do you think that it must be possible that, in addition to judgments of beauty, all other currently subjective types of judgment might have an objective standard that will be discovered in the future? For example, do you think that it is possible that there might be an objective standard for determining if Chinese food tastes better or worse than French food, and that some people are just “really wrong” in believing what they currently believe about which tastes better? Do you think that there might be an objective standard by which to evaluate people’s judgments of which perfumes smell the best?
Objective judgments are universally true, where subjective judgments are true only relative to the person doing the judging. What looks beautiful through your eyes, tastes good in your mouth, or smells good to your nose doesn’t necessarily look, taste or smell good to me or to others. These types of judgments are, by their nature, subject-relative: they are subjective.
Why does that disturb you?
In my last post, I asked Old Toad what he plans on doing if an objective standard of beauty were to be discovered and his current tastes turned out to be “really wrong.” I’ll ask the same of you. If objective standards of judgment are discovered for judging beauty, deliciousness and aromatics, and, when those standards are applied, if many of your tastes turn out to be “really wrong,” would you then train yourself to deny your own subjective judgments and make yourself value what the objective standards reveal is right?
I was speaking metaphysically. Judgments are epistemological, so I don’t disagree that absent a proven objective standard, a judgment is subjective. The only thing I’m posing is if beauty is a measurement like what is the symmetry used in a painting, or if it is something like reacting with anger towards a painting. You don’t write up a list of reasons to conclude that the painting “is” angry, you just feel it without any rational decision-making; you can then judge that the painting makes you angry, but that doesn’t mean the painting is objectively angry. With the latter position, there is an objective cause, but that isn’t to say what you feel is itself objective or a means of cognition. I take the former position of measurement, while you take the latter position as far as I can tell.
What is your current standard of “measurement” in judging beauty? You don’t have an objective standard, so it must be a subjective one. Is it not the pleasure that you experience when looking at something, just as the pleasure that you experience in food which tastes good to you is the standard by which you “measure” how good food tastes? In effect, aren’t you confusing the fact that you’re merely rating your own pleasure experiences in trying to claim that you’re measuring something in the object. You’re apparently looking for some characteristic that all objects that you think are beautiful have in common, in the belief that that common element must be what you’re “measuring,” when you’re actually only “measuring” your own pleasure, no?
If not, then what specifically has been your standard of “measuring” beauty during your life up until now? In the absence of the elusive objective standard whose future discovery is hoped for, how is it that you consider yourself to be measuring something when measurement, by definition, requires a standard?
J
If I could judge beauty in a vacuum, as if it existed in and of itself.
Oh look. That is a beautiful apple. It almost looks too good to eat.
Or look. That is a beautiful circle.
Part of the standard comes from the what that is being evaluated as being beautiful. Even so, within the categories, there is room for preferences within proportions, or favor bias of color etc. As the what becomes more abstract, the identification of the criteria to evaluate it by becomes equally more complicated. Art, for instance, is going to resonate by your own sense of life engaged with the artist’s stylization of what they consider important.
To attempt a concrete personal example, when I was younger, I enjoyed Stephen King novels. I didn’t really know why, I just enjoyed reading them. I stopped reading them in the 90’s. Part of it was due to the new series of books he wrote at the time just did not appeal to me. Later, I was able to put my finger on part of the why.
What I enjoyed in his earlier works was the interlacing of towns and characters through some of his novels. Cujo, Christine and probably some others I don’t recall at the moment would make appearances in his other works. I liked the “integration” he did within his novels. At the same time, I began to get a sense of his malevolent universe premise that lends to his popularity in the horror genre.
In this way, discovering what you like or dislike about a particular work can provide insight to your own mental processes. In discovering what others like or dislike about particular works can provide insight about others.
In this regard, there isn’t one first level abstraction to be isolated that can serve as the basis of beauty cart blanche. Nor does the standard based on what is being evaluated mean that the conclusions are going to be as objectively determinable as 7 is the sum of 3 plus 4, or justice was or was not served in a particular case. Chocolate or vanilla. Red, blue or green. Personal preference reigns in these inconsequential choices. The nihilist, the materialist, the idealist, those seeking objective criteria are going to implicitly or explicitly have some criteria by which they evaluate the beauty of any particular object. The objectivity of that criteria is going to depend on selecting the standard appropriate to what is being judged.
Do you think that it must be possible that, in addition to judgments of beauty, all other currently subjective types of judgment might have an objective standard that will be discovered in the future?
No, subjective judgments by nature cannot have an objective standard. I understand a subjective judgment to be something like an emotion where it’s only a reaction to a presented value or disvalue. If a painting makes you sad, then it just happens to make you sad. Perhaps the painting is conveying a negative viewpoint that life is hopeless, and that viewpoint makes you sad, but “negative viewpoint” isn’t a process of objectively judging the painting to be a sad one. I think taste in terms of your first reaction falls under subjective judgment, because it’s not formed through a rational judgment. I said this earlier, and I take this to be your position. This does not disturb me, I just think beauty is *not* a subjective judgment by nature.
I don’t think beauty is a subjective judgment, though. The argument that “What looks beautiful to your eyes isn’t necessarily beautiful to others” is incomplete, as I can use the same line about morality. Do you have anything more to prove that beauty is a subjective judgment? (
https://embed-ssl.ted.com/talks/richard\_seymour\_how\_beauty\_feels.html
for a talk that I think gives some credit to a “beauty is a subjective judgment” viewpoint)
In practice, since I have no proven standard, it works out in practice that my standards are subjective, though as Rand did even through ethics, it takes a lot of time and induction with lots of mistakes on the way to prove standards. Under my viewpoint, yes, if I turned out to be wrong about beauty, I’d have to change my mind about what is beautiful. As I tried talking about in an earlier thread that you participated in and in this thread, my current reasoning is that judgments of beauty ought to be made in regards to positive value judgments pertaining to the nature of an object’s purpose or nature. I’ll take this further to say what is regarded as beautiful ought to be what allows discrimination between an entity being in line with its nature, and anything else. That’s about all I have, but I’m still thinking about it.
To be clear, my standard isn’t what I like or enjoy. There is music I judge to be beautiful that I don’t like much, and music I judge to be beautiful that I like. There is even music I like that I don’t judge to be beautiful. I think Vladmir Nabokov is a beautiful writer and I like his work, and a lot of that has to do with the purpose of writing overall to concretize abstractions into as brief a span of time as possible. I think some classical music songs are beautiful, but I don’t like classical music as a whole much.
Even so, within the categories, there is room for preferences within proportions, or favor bias of color etc.
I’m glad that you agree with me (or that you at least appear to agree with me) that judgments of proportions, colors, etc., – which are the essence of judgments of beauty – are subjective.
As the what becomes more abstract, the identification of the criteria to evaluate it by becomes equally more complicated. Art, for instance, is going to resonate by your own sense of life engaged with the artist’s stylization of what they consider important.
Another thing which makes the issue more complicated is the fact that different people can be valuing different aspects of the same scene whose beauty (or lack thereof) is being considered.
Here’s what Rand said about judgments of color:
“In regard to a sunset, for instance, or a landscape, you will regard it as beautiful if all the colors complement each other, or go well together, or are dramatic together. And you will call it ugly if it is a bad rainy afternoon, and the sky isn’t exactly pink nor exactly gray, but sort of modern.”
What I notice about the above statement is that there is a lot of room for differing opinions. Certain colors can “complement each other” and also be “dramatic together,” or not. Colors can “clash with each other” and also be “dramatic together”, or not, and, therefore, depending on each individual’s tastes and interepretations, any combination of colors could be judged to be any combination of complementing each other and/or going well together, and/or being dramatic together, and/or not. And therefore different people can come to all sorts of differing intepretations and judgments about what the various parts and whole add up to aesthetically. There are multiple potential perspectives from which to approach any aesthetic judgment of anything.
Btw, Rand’s statement of the ugliness of a “bad rainy afternoon” is not true of everyone. I’ve seen some very beauty pink gray rainy day landscapes.
J
In practice, since I have no proven standard, it works out in practice that my standards are subjective, though as Rand did even through ethics, it takes a lot of time and induction with lots of mistakes on the way to prove standards. Under my viewpoint, yes, if I turned out to be wrong about beauty, I’d have to change my mind about what is beautiful. As I tried talking about in an earlier thread that you participated in and in this thread, my current reasoning is that judgments of beauty ought to be made in regards to positive value judgments pertaining to the nature of an object’s purpose or nature. I’ll take this further to say what is regarded as beautiful ought to be what allows discrimination between an entity being in line with its nature, and anything else. That’s about all I have, but I’m still thinking about it.
The problem that I have with your approach is that you seem to have the goal of objectifiying beauty at all costs, rather than openly investigating the nature of beauty. And you therefore selectively limit the scope of your investigation, or compartmentalize, equivocate and obfuscate (intentionally or not). You don’t define “beauty” and then stick with the definition, but, rather, you keep things vague, and then you continuously confuse ethical judgments with aesthetic ones.
So, before continuing with the “entity being in line with its nature” approach to beauty, may I suggest that you consider answering the questions that I asked of OT in post #16:
And how would your standard of entity qua entity apply to the judgment of beauty of arrangments of inanimate objects? What would it mean to judge the beauty or ugliness of a sunset qua sunset, landscape qua landscape, or a still life of rocks qua rocks? If you were to suggest that I apply the standard of pattern qua pattern to a wallpaper design, how would that get me any closer to objectively determining that the design’s forms, proportions and colors are beautiful versus ugly?
J
I’m glad that you agree with me (or that you at least appear to agree with me) that judgments of proportions, colors, etc., – which are the essence of judgments of beauty – are subjective.
How is it that these judgments are subjective? Wouldn’t proportion be a fact of the way things are aligned in relation to each that isn’t left up to how it strikes you? By being perceptual in nature, perceiving a color isn’t even a judgment, although you can judge if in fact what you see is the color red. Of course there can be preferences for enjoying red colors, but that’s different than judging that indeed, the concept to refer to the color on the apple that you see is red.
The problem that I have with your approach is that you seem to have the goal of objectifiying beauty at all costs, rather than openly investigating the nature of beauty.
I am investigating the nature of beauty. Part of that includes whether or not beauty is a subjective judgment hardly any different than a preference, or if beauty is something that is a judgment made off of a standard? “Subjective” would leave beauty to be mostly investigated by psychologists, perceptual scientists to see why people react as they do - but no one would be wrong or even right about what is beautiful (which is fine if true). If there is a way to develop objective standards, then that is because the perceptual content of beauty is something you are able to evaluate consciously like evaluating how to bake a cake. How would you propose we figure out just which kind of judgment beauty is? You said beauty is a subjective judgment, so prove it. I may sound vague here because I’m trying to define beauty in the first place. I do not have a definition for beauty right now to offer.
For your last question… see this thread: http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=21007
See post #31. I’ve had more ideas since then, but my reasoning involves form and function. I’d rather see what you have to say to demonstrate that beauty is in fact a subjective judgment.
Wouldn’t proportion be a fact of the way things are aligned in relation to each that isn’t left up to how it strikes you?
No. I agree with what Jennifer said in post #3: “Now, what IS subjective in beauty is things like, what’s your hip-to-bust ratio? Do you have long legs? A strong jawline? Stubby hands? These are personal preferences.”
By being perceptual in nature, perceiving a color isn’t even a judgment, although you can judge if in fact what you see is the color red. Of course there can be preferences for enjoying red colors, but that’s different than judging that indeed, the concept to refer to the color on the apple that you see is red.
You appear to have confused yourself. We’ve been talking about aesthetic judgments. In other words, we’re not talking about merely identifying the fact that an object is red or green, or the fact that a woman has proportionally longer legs than the average woman, or the fact that a man has broader shoulders than the average man. Rather, we’ve been talking about what aesthetic value we judge those facts to have. So, this has never been about the act of correctly identifying that a red apple is indeed red, but about identifying what aesthetic value the apple’s redness has to us.
I am investigating the nature of beauty. Part of that includes whether or not beauty is a subjective judgment hardly any different than a preference, or if beauty is something that is a judgment made off of a standard? “Subjective” would leave beauty to be mostly investigated by psychologists, perceptual scientists to see why people react as they do - but no one would be wrong or even right about what is beautiful (which is fine if true).
I think that you were being the most open and truthful when you wrote:
"To say something is beautiful requires stating in some manner ‘this entity is more pleasing to my eyes than other kinds of this entity.’”
In that sentence, intentionally or not, you correctly identified the nature of beauty – it is an individual’s experience of pleasure through visual stimuli.
If there is a way to develop objective standards, then that is because the perceptual content of beauty is something you are able to evaluate consciously like evaluating how to bake a cake. How would you propose we figure out just which kind of judgment beauty is? You said beauty is a subjective judgment, so prove it. I may sound vague here because I’m trying to define beauty in the first place. I do not have a definition for beauty right now to offer.
Why not go with the standard dictionary definition? Is it because, for some reason, you don’t want the standard definition to be the definition? If so, that’s not the way that philosophy or lexicography works. Your subjective wishes and whims don’t enter into it.
For your last question… see this thread: http://forum.objecti…showtopic=21007
See post #31. I’ve had more ideas since then, but my reasoning involves form and function.
What about when something doesn’t have a function? Please answer the questions that I asked in my last post:
“And how would your standard of entity qua entity apply to the judgment of beauty of arrangments of inanimate objects? What would it mean to judge the beauty or ugliness of a sunset qua sunset, landscape qua landscape, or a still life of rocks qua rocks? If you were to suggest that I apply the standard of pattern qua pattern to a wallpaper design, how would that get me any closer to objectively determining that the design’s forms, proportions and colors are beautiful versus ugly?”
Are you proposing the idea that you’re going to try to measure the beauty of a bouquet of flowers as lesser than that of a bouquet of weeds based on the science which reveals that the weeds’ forms are better suited to their function – that the weeds’ forms make them much more durable and prolific – and therefore more successful – than the flowers? If so, you’re not investigating the concept of beauty, but deviating from it, or even eliminating it. What you should be focused on instead is addressing the actual experience of beauty that you identified in the post that I quoted and linked to, which is your experiencing of pleasure in objects’ appearances.
J