Beautiful Things and
Meinong’s Object Theory: Aesthetic Properties in
Front of Us?
Bruno Langlet
(Penultimate version - Final published in V.Raspa (ed), The Aesthetics of the Graz School, Meinong Studies IV, Ontos Verlag, 2010)
Summary
There is no complete
theory of aesthetics in Meinong’s works, but more or less sparse remarks about
the way Object Theory is to deal with so-called aesthetic properties. The
apprehension and status of such properties mark anew meinongian problems about
properties as abstracted from things, and as objects. Their status in object
theory is to be clarified as they involve notions of internal and external
dependence. Such notions are operative in Meinong’s work since the
psychological period, and they are linked with concepts of objects, higher order
objects and objectives, which appear here to be also problematic regarding
aesthetical objects. The late meinongian feeling-based theory aims to ground
directedness toward aesthetic properties, and to preserve their occurrence in
complex entities and their particular realistic status.
1.
Introduction:
Meinong’s views, troubling features?
From a
contemporary point of view and at first sight, Meinong’s perspective on aesthetical
problems can look like a confusing attempt to articulate various features that
we would see as impossible to conceal. Features like strong realism,
feeling-expressivism, response-dependent access to properties seem to refer to
views we are used to distinguishing clearly. In Meinong’s view, aesthetical
properties appear to involve a very realistic commitment although his view is
feeling-based. Meinong argues that emotions or aesthetic feelings present
aesthetic properties as their proper objects, and as a consequence of such a
presentation, these properties should really be conceived as being there and
belonging to real things and artistic productions. Aesthetic feelings are here
linked with aesthetic properties and give access to them, but they do not
produce them. This feeling-based theory, which seems to articulate a strong
realism with a response-dependent theory, is also a cognitive theory
understanding emotions as a kind of quasi-knowledge. At the same time, beauty
is not properly perceived, but is a special kind of object graspable only via emotions. The feeling does not
contain the aesthetic and real property as represented, but shows some
directedness toward it, and involves, according to Meinong, the realism of
properties aimed at.
We may find that these
features could hardly be sustained together. For example, in an expressivistic
theory, feelings are the conditions for attributing aesthetic properties to
things. But this is usually conceived in such a way that a cognitive and
realistic account seems difficult to endorse. On one hand, so-called properties
seem to have to be identified with projections of feelings on objects. They
can’t be taken as a proof of the acknowledgement of the real being of these
properties. On the other hand, if aesthetic properties are not some projections
of feelings, how are we to think them as being really there, and only
accessible through emotions? Emotions should reveal their presence, but what
kind of process is involved in such a cognitive relation, and in this
intercourse, how emotions can happen to be a path for knowledge about aesthetic
properties?
In another manner, how
can we think aesthetic properties are really here and make our feelings happen?
Aren’t we committed to the claim that the feelings must represent the
properties in some way? But it seems difficult to understand how a feeling can
represent a property as it is in a thing, assuming that it could be in a thing.
If feelings are caused by properties but are not representing them, then it
seems difficult to talk about knowledge. It could be knowledge that something
aesthetical is here, without exactly knowing what is there. But how do we know
that what is there is really aesthetical in kind? How can we distinguish such a
view from a doctrine arguing that ordinary features cause the feeling of
beauty, feeling in virtue of which we attribute beauty to the thing and its
ordinary features, but where aesthetical properties are nothing else than hypostatizations
of these feelings? We come back to an anti-realistic response-dependent theory.
Thus we might have to
assume that the theory of objects operates a combination of some incompatible
aspects of these views, and that, as a consequence, this theory should
retrospectively be seen as a kind of irrationalized syncretism. But it is of
course wiser to doubt that and to assume that the theory of objects does offer
something else regarding aesthetical problems. Because Meinong seems to have
elaborated his view with knowledge of ideas parented to those exposed above. As
a matter of facts, Meinong refuses that aesthetical properties are feelings
hypostasized and wrongly attributed to objects. He refuses also that we are
intellectually grasping beauty. But he maintains a realistic position and he argues
that emotions are the way to apprehend truly aesthetical properties, and that,
thanks to this process, we happen to be quasi-justified in attributing such
properties to a thing. We have to understand what this means inside the object
theory.
2.
Marking the difficulty.
What is here at
stake is not meaningful only in the scope of the Theory of objects. In one
hand, it shows a difficulty belonging to every conception of aesthetics. It is
classical to recognize that aesthetic properties are not usual properties,
assuming that they are properties at all. But they seem to exist in one way or
another, and moreover, as we experience beauty or ugliness, we seem to be
compelled to see them in some precise things and not in others.
How does Meinong deal
with classical problems of aesthetics, and what is the theory of objects
accounting for in such matters[1]? The question aims to aesthetical problems as
they are treated through the theory of objects. For example, in his Selbstdarstellung, Meinong says that
like red, beauty is an attribute of things. We can’t suppose that old illusions
about the objectivity of beauty are trapping this view. Meinong’s goal here is
to show that talks about beauty are never talks about the very causes that make
us attribute beauty to objects. Indeed we do not talk about the cause of
attribution of red to a rose when we are talking of the color of the flower,
even if we know that causes are involved. And surely Meinong does not mean – in
his mature work – that beauty is here as the red is, just because of that
insight about our attitude about causes. He wants to explain our way of dealing
with aesthetic properties, and this way is a realistic one. In order to
understand this realistic commitment, we must question the true meaning
received by this assertion in the theory of objects.
Assuming that this can
take us to the heart of aesthetical problems, maybe the form they receive in
the theory of objects can furnish advantages. We could notice aspects of the difficulties
we weren’t aware of. We could find an interesting solution or frame for a
future solution, assuming that the problem shows all its facets in such a view.
The theory of object is neither a psychological theory nor an ontological one
(in the classical sense). It is a theory exemplifying these two features. It is
a theory treating our ontological and psychological involvements about the way
we interact with different kinds of things. It is inseparable from a theory of
intentionality, and may be we could see it like metaphysics of intentionality.
The status of things, as they are under focus and as they behave in a
particular way according to this, is what is at stake about the use of “object”
(Gegenstand).
Among objects, Meinong
distinguishes between objectum (Objeckt)
and objective (Objektiv). Objecta
are entities defined by their properties and by the way we apprehend them,
namely by simple presentation. A property can be an object, like the red, as
separated from its bearer, and as an idea’s intentional correlate. An object
can also exhibit various properties, like the oval triangle does. The oval
triangle cannot exist because it is constituted by properties that we can’t
attribute at the same time to an existing or subsisting object. But it is nevertheless
an object since we have the intelligence of its properties, and as we can say
that it has such properties that he couldn’t exist as exemplifying both of them
at the same time. As we see, an object is not a thing, and according to its
modes of being, an object stands to its properties in different ways.
Objectives (Objektive)
are usually conceived as propositional objects, or states of affairs-like.
Objectives can be positive (like when we considerer the fact that the book has a rectangular form) or negative
(like when one judges that it is not allowed to smoke in here). If the psychological
act is a judgment, then there is conviction. If the act is an assumption, then
we do not have this conviction. Objectives are the ontological correlate of
such acts, and describe the relationship between things we are dealing with as
objects when we are judging or assuming relations between their properties.
That makes a complex object, that is, an objective where relations appear
clearly. It is not clear if such objects are propositions or states of affairs.
May be these categorizations don’t exactly fit for them. As we can see, objecta and objectives involve a
specific directedness, and as presentations give access to objecta, judgments and assumptions are modulations of this
directedness regarding propositional objects. What about emotions? What kind of
directedness and correlates do they involve when they point to aesthetic
properties?
The true understanding
of Meinong’s positions supposes nuances and inquiry on this. Indeed, emotions
can be seen as furnishing a mode of directedness toward aesthetic properties.
According to Meinong, and thanks to aesthetic feelings, we are able to grasp
these properties by a kind of intuition-like process. The directedness constituted
from such a basis contains an involvement to see beauty as a real beauty of a
something. The quest for explanation of this involvement is our subject.
This supposes to
understand the characteristic directedness here taking place. In such a view,
emotions are showing a kind of intentionality or directedness, but they lack
the transparency of our ordinary representations, exemplified for instance
through the clear apprehension of an object via
an idea. Concerning emotions we seem to have to talk of directedness without
clear representation. But this does not necessarily mean without a kind of
knowledge. We would be able to see this relation as a kind of knowledge
relation, if we can understand it as a presentation involving a justified
believing in the presence of aesthetical features. So, if we can understand
what governs such directedness and the implications of its occurrence, we shall
be able to understand a part of the realistic and (quasi) cognitivistic account
of the Meinong’s position.
Another part of the
difficulty is to understand how to justify the attribution of properties on the
basis of emotions, namely through states of mind supposed to testify to the
aesthetical nature of these properties and
their belonging to something. In this perspective, we must show that occurrences
of emotions testify to aesthetical properties as their object. The solution
proposed by Meinong goes this way. Apparently, such a solution rests on the
subtleties of his theory of objects. But in Meinong’s view and through the way
he understands the role of emotions, their cognitive dispositions and the
realism of aesthetical properties, we have an exemplification of the fact that
objects behave in such a manner that they reveal strong and objective
properties, constraining us to represent them in one way and not in another
one. This should be seen as a criterion of reality. This may happen in the
aesthetical domain, with some reserves well stated by Meinong. So if his view
can explain that aesthetic emotions must arise in a precise context of
intercourse with objects, then we have our link between emotions and
aesthetical objects.
This implies taking
clearly into account the peculiar status of aesthetic properties, their nature
being nevertheless controversial in Object Theory. For example, Witasek and
Meinong disagree about the objects (in a large sense) of aesthetic feelings.
Our aim is to examine the Meinong’s position, where we find a refusal of objecta as adequate targets of our aesthetic
emotions, and at the same time, the acknowledgment that objectives-like entities are fitting. This debate is a large one
and cannot fully be examined here. But there are some key notions to find out
some useful and critical entrances in the Meinong’s view. One of them is the
status of abstracted properties, conceived alongside with the operative
concepts of internal and external dependence. Such concepts happen to be under
Meinong’s attention since his early writings, and the problem of the status of
aesthetical properties involves them anew in the late writings.
3.
Internal
and external dependence. From abstracted contents to aesthetic higher order
objects.
The status of an
aesthetic property is immediately problematic in the theory of object as this
property is inseparable from other properties conceived as its basis. This
relationship of inseparability appears to be a dependence feature, and we will
talk here of a dependence relation. Such a relation occurs in a way that has
motivated a supervenience theory of beauty, outside of meinongian views. Base
properties make up an aesthetic property that is strictly linked to them, in a
mysterious way, and this last property can neither be reduced to its basic
properties nor thought about without them. In its own terms, the theory of
objects is facing the same kind of problem. We might think that this theory is
very well prepared to deal with this, simply because this is the theory where
higher order objects were conceived. But things are not so easy.
In the object theory apparatus, some features are under
focus. One of them relates to considerations where aesthetic properties are
taken as objects, in a large sense. Object theory is dedicated to the
understanding of the nature of things as they are given to us, in a complicated
way exemplifying both phenomenological and dialectical sides of our thinking.
These sides are strongly interconnected. Meinong’s position involves a relation
between thinking and acting subjects and their objects. In a concrete world, to
refer cognitively to a thing involves picking out something of this thing, in
such a way that the something is presented and known to belong to the thing.
Such an act implies the very notion of object: for as an abstracted property is
targeted, the object becomes the ontological correlate of this intentional
relation. The object theory can be seen as an exploration of the active
ontological presuppositions necessary to explain such acts and what is given
through them. For our intercourse with things around is always conducted on
abstractive ways, since we cannot apprehend our surroundings in all their
respects. As far as this concerns considerations about the repeatable status of
properties, one can see here a motive for the occurrence of incomplete objects
in the object theory equipment.
As a matter of facts,
the very notion of abstraction is present in Meinong’s works since his
psychological researches and his writings on Hume. For example, Meinong was
interested on the status of mind’s acts correlates – objects, or during the
psychological period, contents, – in order (among other interests) to find out
to what extent we have to suppose real complexity in a given object to explain
that we can mentally separate properties from it[2]. One can see that aesthetic properties are
troubling from this point of view. Are they abstracted? We do consider them as
distinct from other properties. This is necessary in order to identify them as
aesthetical. But as we can see, this distinction is problematic: what is really
under focus here? Could they be abstracted from their basis without vanishing?
The problem is that they are showing strange features.
In his psychological
writings about the theory of mental analysis of given contents[3], Meinong identifies two kind of properties
understood as very different in two respects. The difference is first
determined by the presuppositions regarding our ability to apprehend them in an
abstractive way. Second, these presuppositions relate directly to dependence
upon other contents. Statements concerning internal and external dependencies
do appear here. An externally dependent content makes sense insofar as its
cognitive content is well determined and need no other content, although in
reality, to be exemplified, the represented property supposes other properties.
The abstractive thought about this content can be cognitively complete without
these other properties. For example, red exhibit an external dependence upon
extension. Of course there is no color without extension. But nothing about
extension is necessary to the content of the idea of a color. On the contrary,
an internally dependent content cannot be apprehended without other contents.
We need to have them in order to have the content. This is a limitation for
abstractive procedures. For example, we cannot have a melody without
representations of the tones, nor, according to Meinong’s example, can we have
a shape without representation of spatial locations. We have there founded
contents, the ancestors of founded objects and of higher order objects. This
leads to a qualification of the foundation of internal dependence: such
foundation appears always to be constituted by a plurality[4].
This distinction
between a kind of internal dependence and an external one goes through
Meinong’s work, even after the introduction of the Object theory. In the text
on higher order objects, Meinong states again this distinction, and focuses his
attention on objects that are exemplifying the internal dependence[5]. The characteristic of higher order objects is
that the superius cannot be isolated
from its inferiora without vanishing.
Otherwise, it could only be represented in a very abstract sense and is
embedding the meaning of a difference without precise different objects. Of
course, we can talk of difference or similarity without thinking about inferiora. But we cannot think to a
precise difference between things without representing these latter.
These dependence
features appear to be correlated with difficulties relative to aesthetic
properties: cause thinking of beauty, we will find that such a property behaves
according to internal dependence. But our way of attributing beauty seems to
show that a monadic base is assumed, and not a pluralistic one[6]. So troubles begin here with this
characterization of aesthetic objects. Could they be simple objecta? Here stands the motive of the
disagreement between Meinong and Witasek. Before focusing on some reasons
expressed from both sides, how to understand the apprehension of beauty as objectum? There are various senses to
put it.
If aesthetical properties
could be apprehended as objecta, they
should have been picked out without the properties they supervene on, as one
would say. We should be able to access this beauty without needing ordinary
things upon which beauty is dependent. We can talk about beauty, but can we
represent beauty as such without a determinate something being beautiful? This is impossible. Otherwise, we would be able to
think of beauty as an object, and having a presentation of an absolutely undetermined
something beautiful. We can apprehend
a something blue, but we can’t
apprehend a something beautiful,
ugly, sublime, or elegant in this full abstractive way. So according to our
experience of beauty, such a property behaves apparently like something
standing in an internal dependence relation (in Meinong’s sense) with a basis.
In order to access some beauty, this basis must also be experienced. Red can be
an object, but beautiful cannot be.
As beauty is linked
with internal dependence, we may think of it as a higher order object. From
this point of view, beauty is a superius.
But we attribute beauty to a single thing. That’s one of the reasons explaining
the Witasek’s attempts to conceive the objects of our aesthetic feelings as objecta, and not as objectives. As we
talk about the beauty of a melody, we attribute beauty to the melody itself,
not to the complex tones founding the melody. From the point of view of the
object theory apparatus, we have a higher order object manifesting rightly an
internal dependence, but which appears to be founded on a monadic base – the
melody as a whole.
If we add to this the
fact that aesthetics objects cannot be apprehended through a productive
process, then troubles seem to go further in the object theory. Because this
process is a necessary one in order to apprehend important objects. Real or
ideal relations or complexions cannot become graspable objects without such
process. If it were so, we would be hearing an aggregation of tones and no
melody, we would be considering two or more things, but no difference or
similarity between them, and as a consequence, no connected complex would be
available to our thinking. So this process seems to be essential to the
apprehension of higher order objects.
Maybe we can think
that we are able to apprehend aesthetic objects without this process, and as a
matter of facts, this is the case in Meinong’s view. Emotions do the job. But
something important must be noticed here. Indeed, the relationship between
internal dependence, plurality, and productive process plays another role in
the apprehension of higher order objects. As a matter of facts, such elements
are conditions for the directedness toward the object. Relations or objects of
higher order are built on a complex of inferiora.
For example, a melody is such an object and is built on series of notes. Could
we be directed toward the melody without supposing the tones and without the
production of the melody thanks to the plurality of tones? Of course not. They
are conditions for the directedness toward the melody.
According
to Meinong[7],
without productive process, and inferiora or psychological
presuppositional contents, we cannot apprehend a precise relation and cannot be
directed toward it, because such directedness requires an activity. Then we
loose directedness toward higher order objects. This could seem obvious. But
more importantly, this is a technical justification of the important notion of
directedness, which is a key one in the object theory. Picking out, thanks to
this process and its material, the similarity between two members of a family,
we are presented with this particular
similarity, which stands in front of us by virtue of the conditioned directedness involved in the process.
The absence of productive process in emotional access to aesthetic objects
highlights the problem about the grounding of feelings directedness. What is at
stake here is also the problem of the directedness to a precise beauty – and
beauty is always a precise and particular occurrence. Under this respect, the
relationship between inferiora and
the productive process is again a matter of importance. Concerning higher order
objects, individuation seems to occur thanks to inferiora, which make the individuality of the Superius. For example, talking about the melody, Meinong argues
that inferiora are what make a melody
this melody, and not another one[8]. The relationship between inferiora and productive process happen to be conditions for the
presentation of the melody as this
melody, and to be directed toward it. One can see that if we do not have the
process in the case of beauty, we could have difficulty to apprehend particular
beauties – which is of course embarrassing. The superius
is a particular. Sometimes a superius,
according to its functional characteristics, can be found related to various
groups of inferiora. This is the case
for the object difference, for example. But as produced on the basis of precise
inferiora, we apprehend this difference, the particular one
standing between objects understood as different thanks to this process[9]. So the productive process is grounding the
apprehension of particular higher
order objects.
Reversely, the
possibility of attributing such beauty or ugliness to things is also at stake.
Both productive process and inferiora
enable us to direct ourselves to the higher object strictly linked to these
very inferiora. If we cannot apprehend the superius, we can’t know that the superius is the superius of these inferiora.
If we access to a superius without
this productive process, how are we to link it to its inferiora? How can we understand that emotions direct us to
aesthetic properties and enable us to see them as belonging to a precise basic
thing? This is a difficulty we have to state. From an ordinary higher order
object, it is obvious to see that the superius
is linked to particular inferiora.
Because facing an object like difference,
we cannot but link it to its inferiora.
And obviously, by doing so we involve the knowledge that this relational
property of difference qualifies objects or properties, from which such a
difference has been emerging as an individuated object. So, the producing process can function as a basis in order to link
properties to their owners, as higher order objects are linked to their inferiora. This link-feature is decisive
in aesthetic matters, because for now, just inferiora
appear to be the grounding for the directedness of emotions. Next to the
problem of establishing the nature of aesthetical directedness, we find the
correlated problem of the basis involved with the attribution of aesthetic
properties to things.
So we need to find out how directedness is
fulfilled in the case of aesthetical objects, in order to give access to their
status (higher order objects) and to their individuality. Again, we need to
know how the theory can deal with the apparently monadic base of such object.
And what does emotional access involve about the real status of aesthetic
properties? Aesthetic higher order objects can’t be treated as objects whose inferiora are on a part with productive
process to constitute directedness. But surely aesthetic higher order objects
do have inferiora, as we have seen,
because aesthetic properties cannot be there without them. The question takes
us back to the connexion between these inferiora
and the particular directedness induced via
emotions. This is linked with the status of aesthetical objects, as they are
objects of aesthetic feelings. Meinong doesn’t think that they are objecta. They are more like objectives.
Are objectives welcome to explain our directedness problem? Let’s see.
4.
Problems with Objectives.
We find
ourselves in front of beauty, without production process. Can we hypothesize
that as we are facing beauty as a higher order object, we do apprehend an
objective that makes us know that this thing is beautiful? How are we to
understand this relationship with objectives in aesthetical matters? Thanks to
an objective of so-being, the higher order object (beauty) may be given to us
as a founded property, where we could have our special features exemplified and
justified. We may access to beauty as separated and as linked to the object (for example, the melody) constituting
its foundation. This could enable us to have an object with an internal
dependence (in the Meinongian sense) upon a monadic base. Meinong claims that
objectives are in some cases higher order objects with a monadic basis: for
instance, objectives where we judge the being of something taken as a single
thing[10]. Thus we could have higher order objects with
a monadic base, assuming that they are apprehended through objectives.
If we consider beauty
and its monadic base, haven’t we two constituents for our objective, assuming
that beauty is here above and over the ordinary thing? If this is right, an
objective of so-being is par excellence
the way to apprehend a property in its relation to a substrate. This looks like
a solution to go one step beyond the problem of our aesthetic higher order
objects. They are still higher order objects, and so objective does. But
aesthetic higher order objects could be apprehended as objective-like entities,
which means that they should involve a kind of judgment or assumption-like
activities instead of the productive process. In such a view, for a beauty
property to be presented is to be apprehended through an objective-like entity,
where the property relation to a substrate is judged or assumed. We have our
directedness, and a very precise relationship takes place. But this is
theoretical. These features must be precisely accounted for, and the role of
emotions must also be spelt out. Could objectives offer this kind of solution
for our aesthetical problem?
One difficulty is that objectives imply relations between
objects, that is, between some properties of the objects. Going back to what
have been stated above about abstracted properties, one can see that objectives
suppose such properties. As “propositional objects” or as states of
affairs-like entities, they involve for example two properties standing in a particular
relationship. Using some meinongian words, they involve incomplete objects. If
I judge that some discs are on the table, I assert something through a
relationship between spatial properties of such things. The color and size of
the discs do not matter in such a judgment. So we have an objective
corresponding to a special focusing. States of affairs as apprehended – i.e. objectives – are always made
accessible through a directedness involving a selection between properties.
This is the condition for state of affairs to be judged as obtaining, because a
state of affairs obtains and is known to obtain only if precise relations
between precise properties are judged to obtain. They must be under precise
focus. So, an abstractive way of presenting these features is involved here,
and this is what is required by any apprehension of objectives. An objective is
always constituted by precise relationship between properties of objects,
implicitly or not. This elaborated abstractive way of presentation of
connexions between properties becomes immediately problematic as we turn to
aesthetics. Could a thing and any aesthetic property constitute an aesthetic
objective? For sure, this would be a solution to the aesthetic higher order
object problem.
But as one can see,
this cannot work. Objectives are constituted by available properties. An
objective can contain funny relations between properties: we can assume that
dragons have carbon fiber wings. Maybe this is not a factual objective. But the
connected complex – here object of assumption – involves available properties.
“Available” points here to objects capable of being presented. These objects
are accessible through a basis of determined given properties. No matter if
some of them are imaginative and other serious. Such objects can be seen as
clear properties able to be linked and connected, because their characteristics
enable us to do so. This does not mean that we have to obtain a factual
objective. Yet we have an objective. In Über
Annahmen, Meinong argues that objects may be apprehended thanks to objectives.
But these objects must be already given determinations, or clear properties. In
a similar way, these determinations can be implicitly at stake when we are
considering existing objects from the concrete world, thanks to objectives of
so-being. Again, such objectives need to pick out already given and determined
properties, selected among the sum of available properties as objects[11].
The apprehension of a
single object of the world, apparently given by a classical presentation, may
involve at a deeper level objectives of so-being. This is interesting for our
problem, as it is the core of Meinong’s opposition to Witasek. May be we are
not directed toward aesthetic objecta, but
our attitude about aesthetic properties happen to be involving objectives of so-being,
as the condition for the apprehension of such properties. The problem is that
beauty is not exactly a pre-given determined property that could be available
like being red, having some wings or being constituted by carbon fibers. And
beauty cannot be an absolutely undetermined something just being beautiful.
Beauty cannot be the only determination of a pure something abstractly
considered. We need a determined
something which could be said to be beautiful, in order to give some sense to
an aesthetical qualification. This is necessary in order to get beauty as a
constituent of the objective; otherwise beauty is just a word. But if we need a
determination upon which beauty supervenes, we are begging the question. Cause
this is exactly what objectives have been supposed account for! So we come back
to the same problem, and the trouble remains about the status of beauty as a
property.
Beauty seems to behave
like a Sosein when apprehended thanks
to a basis. But beauty is not available as a classical Sosein like other determinations that are able to enter into an
objective. Beauty being apprehended through objectives cannot be understood
according to this classical way. Are objectives more a problem than a solution?
Let’s turn to a historical part of the Meinong-Witasek debate in order to find
our way.
Witasek refuses that
objectives do really matter for aesthetics. He finds that our way of
attributing beauty to things is revealing that aesthetic feelings refer to objecta[12]. This is the core of Meinong’s disagreement
with him[13]. The problem with objectives, according to
Witasek, is that it is possible to transfer an objective involved in an
aesthetic case to another case, and to loose the aesthetical features. For
example, we cannot translate poems into prose without loosing the aesthetical
features. According to Witasek, we still have the same objective in both cases,
expressed and apprehended in different ways. So aesthetic features cannot be
essentially linked with objectives. So we must assume that aesthetics feelings
refer to objecta, like this poem or
that other one. Witasek thinks that we have different classes of objects of
aesthetic feelings, but all of them are objecta.
So beauty is apprehended as an object, which seems adequate regarding the way
we attribute beauty, namely to objecta like
this color or shape, this melody, etc., and disregarding the role of the complexity
grounding the very objectum.
Meinong’s response to
this point shows that Witasek is missing something about the links between
objectives and these objecta to which
beauty is attributed. In Über Annahmen,
he argues indeed that such material must of course be taken into account, and
that objectives are nevertheless involved[14]. Meinong thinks that instead of believing that
aesthetic feelings are like presentations of Objecta, we must come to the understanding that implicit objectives
are involved in our apprehension of aesthetic features. The very fact of our
relation with objectives of so-being involves a more complicated relationship
between objecta and aesthetic
determinations[15]. Aesthetic feelings are supposed here to be
directed toward implicit objectives of so-being. Meinong states here that
aesthetic features are occurring in objectives and have property determination
features. Of course, we still have our difficulty about the nature of
properties aimed at in objectives.
In Über emotionale Präsentation, we have a
change of focus. Meinong recognizes that objectives are not perfectly adequate,
but he didn’t turn back to objecta.
He focuses on the involvements of our apprehension of beauty, and wants to put
a light on the presuppositional objects of beauty experience, with their link
with emotions, and with the objective-like entity involved in such a complex
way of apprehension. His position can be seen as a solution for the problem
stated above. Presuppositional objects cannot give us access to a higher order
object in a classical manner, since no productive process can occur. Objectives
seemed to be able to offer another way in order to explain that beauty
properties are given to us. Since apprehension of objectives supposes something
is seen as thus-and-thus, the presuppositional objects could be one part of an
objective, and the apprehension of beauty property being the other part. But as
we have seen, this is begging the question, since aesthetic properties are supposed
to be given in an objective, and we are here saying that we already need them
to constitute the objective. We have then to understand how aesthetic feelings
can reveal aesthetic properties as higher order objects apprehended through an
objective-like entity.
As Meinong remarks, we
can see in our experience of beauty that features occur in such a way that we
can see strong similarities with some features of objectives. Objectives show
an opposition between the positive and the negative, as we noticed above, and
imply conviction, supposing that they are judged
objectives. Can emotions show features like this and make us think that they
authorize access to beauty as a higher order object, by targeting an
objective-like entity and no objectum?
Contrary to “ordinary” access to higher order objects, aesthetic properties
involve a duality similar with the objective’s duality between positive and
negative, namely the duality between beauty and ugliness. Given a basis apprehended
as a presupposition, it happens to be that we are directed either to beauty or
to ugliness. This cannot happen with ordinary access to higher order object:
given two things, idea of difference is produced if we consider different
features, and idea of similarity is produced if we consider similar features.
Given some precise tones, we are directed to one melody and not to another one,
as we have seen above. But given a melody, we can emotionally be directed
toward beauty or toward ugliness, toward sublimity or awfulness. May be this is
precisely enabled by the absence of productive process. Of course, we can
refine and talk of more precise aesthetic features. But the duality seems to be
inherent to such objects according to Meinong. So the occurrence of one of this
side of aesthetical appreciation can make us think that aesthetical features,
taken as higher order objects, show a behavior, as objects, which justify their
belonging to the class of objective-like entities. Objecta do not behave this way. There is no such duality with the
presentation of an objectum.
So our emotions are
directed toward properties that are part of a complex with objective-like
features. Moreover, as it is well known, aesthetic feelings are also value
feelings. As they occur, they show a quality enabling the owner of the emotion
to believe in the emotion’s object. This is classical feature of emotions, as
their occurrences involve a kind of believing in the being of what is presented
through them[16]. Shall we say that this involves the being of
the object in a strict sense? Actually, this is only involving the being of the
property under focus, as possessed by something else, and the real possession
of a property by something is different from the existence of this something.
We can find beauty in imaginative objects. We do not attribute existence to
what is imagined. But we do attribute beauty to such imagined objects. Beauty
is believed to belong to the imagined object. This is similar with logical
properties of things that do not exist. They have these logical properties. So
the emotional occurrence and its directedness toward a property, by virtue of
the believing involved in such feeling, presents itself as the analogon of the conviction that we can
find in our intercourse with objectives. We are not here concerned with
objective of being, but with something nearer to objectives of so-being.
Emotion is directed to something being thus-and-thus, and emotion involves a
believing in the reality of the so-being – but not necessarily a believing in
the existence of the thing which is so and so. But the reality of the relation
between the so-being and its substrate (may be this one is imaginative) is an
involvement. As Meinong puts it, a beautiful imagined chord is, may be, less
impressive than the real one, but it is still beautiful.
Two consequences in
such a view: first, emotions imply a believing about the so-being of a
something, and show a conviction-like feature parented with what defines an interplay
with an objective. Second, emotion acts like a criterion of reality, simply
because of its occurrence. So if we combine this feature with the so-being
feature and with the believing involved in, we have a quasi-justified
directedness toward the real presence of a beauty property of something
determined. These complicated processes imply also the acknowledgment of an
aesthetic value, and to be characterized, the peculiar objective-like we are
dealing with is to receive the name of Dignitative.
These aspects fit with
the internal dependence of aesthetical objects, because they occur by virtue of
the being given of intellectual presuppositional objects. These objects are
foundations and substrate for aesthetical features: the complex process
described above involves a feature that is analogous with the role of the
productive process linked with classical higher order objects. The latter
productive process was fine to ground the directedness of presentations and the
intrinsic link between inferiora and superius. The former relationship,
although taking place in a different way, shows the same virtue and is again
grounded on presuppositional objects. The feature here taken into account is
phenomenological. Indeed, Meinong argues that if A is the presuppositional object
of a value-feeling p which presents the proper object P, then the simultaneous
givenness or the together being-given (Zusammengegebensein)
of the objects A and P gives reason to presume that A has P[17].
From this point of
view, attributions of aesthetic properties seem to be true or justified
attributions. As we can see, the togetherness of the access to presuppositional
objects (represented) and to aesthetical features (emotionally presented) is
the phenomenological criterion for such attributions. But dialectical
considerations are also grounding this proposition. Such considerations, as
stated above, aim to show that emotional presentation and its directedness are
grounded on the multiples features involved by a deep consideration of the peculiarity
of the intercourse between a subject and objects presenting aesthetical
features. These objects, as they are to be conceived as higher order objects,
involve the claim that a presuppositional objectum
is necessary to understand our relationship with them. This is the consequence
of the important internal dependence relation that cannot be avoided.
So beauty is a higher
order object involving an objective-like entity, in order to be apprehended,
because a duality is linked with presuppositional objects, and because emotions
show a believing in the reality of the “supervening” properties, as they occur.
This furnishes a first clarification of the directedness’s ontological value:
emotions appear to be the proper link with aesthetic object, because as they
are occurring, they show that some real properties are pressing them to occur.
This real commitment is grounded on the idea that under some circumstances, we
are compelled to directedness toward things that impose themselves. As
aesthetic properties become the proper objects of aesthetic feelings, they show
the pressure of some realistic connexions: those that are expressed in a Sosein objective-like, where such and
such presuppositional objects appear to ground an aesthetic determination which
is there as such, disregarding the real or imaginative existence of these
presuppositional objects. So emotions behave like testifiers of some aesthetic
connexions: the real pressure seems to come from the mysterious way by which
aesthetic properties do belong to ordinary things.
The
specific apparatus of the Theory of objects enables us to see that, as such,
the theory combines and tries always to connect phenomenological facts with
more dialectical moves. The impossibility to have beauty as an abstracted
property is the impossibility to see it as an objectum. But the internal dependence doesn’t give more easiness to
the apprehension of beauty as a higher order object. Apprehension via objectives is also problematic,
since beauty properties are not available as objecta. Apprehension of such things as higher order objects
implies emotions, as these feelings occur in such a way that objective-like
entities are involved, and especially Sosein-objective-likes
entities. Emotions are directed toward such complex without giving the content
of beauty objects. They are directed toward beauty because beauty obtains as
property of presuppositional objects. This obtaining is what attracts emotions
and grounds the directedness of such feelings. It justifies the attribution of
beauty to the objects grounding the directedness in such a process. Thus, with
such a meinongian view, we have a response-dependent theory – if we like to
talk this way – that aims to reveal the obtaining of beauty as part of a
complex. From this point of view, this is a realistic theory about beauty,
insofar as beauty is conceived through the conditions that make it an object.
We do not have a theory about what aesthetic properties are. We just know that
sometimes, they truly are.
Bruno Langlet
Université de Provence (Aix-Marseille I)
brunolanglet (at) orange.fr
Literature
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(2006), “Cry for a Shadow. Emotions
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al., Ontos Verlag, pp. 181-211.
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Alexius (1894), “Beiträge zur Theorie der psychischen Analyse”,
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Alexius (1899), “Über Gegenstände höherer Ordnung und deren
Verhältnis zur inneren Wahrnehmung”, Zeitschrift
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repr. in GA II, pp. 377-471.
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Alexius (1910), Über
Annahmen, 2. umgearbeitete Aufl., Leipzig, Barth; Nachdr. in GA IV, pp. 1-389, 517-535.
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Alexius (1917), Über
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(2006), “Fictional and Aesthetic Objects. Meinong’s Point of View”, in A.
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(2001), “Meinongian aesthetics”, in L. Albertazzi, D. Jacquette & R. Poli
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pp. 203-232.
[1] Fictional
objects are not under particular focus here. I take aesthetic properties in a
basic sense: what is aimed at when we talk of a beautiful chord or an elegant
style, for example. For an account of fictional objects in the meinongian way,
see Raspa (2006), and Barbero (2006).
[2] Cf.
Meinong (1894). See also Meinong (1900).
[3] Cf. Meinong (1894).
[4] “Auch
Farbe ist, weil tatsächlich oder vielleicht selbst notwendig an andere Inhalte,
wie Ort, Ausdehnung usf., geknüpft, nicht kurzweg selbständig; aber man kann
diese Selbständigkeit ganz wohl eine äußerliche nennen im
Vergleich mit jener sozusagen innerlichen Unfertigkeit, welche dem
Relationsgedanken ohne die Relationsglieder anhaftet, indes Rot oder Süß bei
aller Gebundenheit an Begleittatsachen ein sich gleichsam Abgeschlossenes
darstellt. In diesem Sinne rede ich von inner Selbständigkeit der absoluten,
innerer Unselbständigkeit der Relationsinhalte und stelle vor allem Frage, ob
die fundierten Inhalte zu den innerlich selbständigen oder unselbständigen
gehören.
Die
Antwort stellt sich von selbst ein: was sollte man auch unter einer Gestalt
ohne Ortsbestimmungen, was unter einer Melodie ohne Töne denken? Wir können
kurzweg sagen: Alle fundierte Inhalte sind innerlich unselbständig. Es empfiehlt
sich aber, wenn vielleicht auch nur, um Missverständnissen vorzubeugen,
hinzuzufügen: Dasjenige, dem gegenüber sie unselbständig sind, ist jederzeit,
eine Mehrheit; Eine Ortsbestimmung macht niemals eine Gestalt, Ein Ton niemals
eine Melodie aus.” Meinong (1894), pp. 322-323.
[5] “Es
gibt bekanntlich Gegenstände, denen man eine in ihrer Natur gelegene innere Unselbständigkeit
nachsagen kann. Ich meine nicht jene Unselbständigkeit im Auftreten, vermöge
welcher etwa Farbe sich nicht ohne Ausdehnung vorstellen lässt. Auch diese
Unselbständigkeit mag in der Natur von Farbe und Ausdehnung begründet sein:
aber man kann sie immer noch äußerlich nennen gegenüber jener, ich möchte sagen
Unfertigkeit, welche z. B. dem Gegenstand „Verschiedenheit“ anhaftet, wenn man
ihn von dem, was verschieden ist, zu isolieren versucht. Ich kann den
Verschiedenheitsgedanken einfach nicht ausdenken ohne Bezugnahme auf Objekte,
an die er sich gleichsam heftet, indes es mindestens einen ganz guten Sinn
hätte, zu meinen, im Gedanken an Blau oder Gelb liege noch gar nichts von
Räumlichkeit, obwohl es unmöglich sei, Farbe zu denken, ohne Ausdehnung
mitzudenken.” Meinong (1899), p. 386.
[6] Cf.
Meinong (1917), pp. 104 f.
[7] “Eher
dürfte ihr die Relation der Verschiedenheitsvorstellung zu den in Verschiedenheitsrelation
stehenden Gegenständen an die Seite gesetzt werden, ohne die (unbeschadet weitgehender
Variabilität derselben) die Verschiedenheit nicht (außer etwa irgendwie
abstraktiv) erfaßt werden könnte. Aber von einem Gerichtetsein kann man auch
hier immer noch nicht reden, […]”. Meinong (1917), p. 82.
[8] “Sind
die vorgegebenen Gegenstände Töne, so können sie nun aber auch noch als musikalisches
Motiv, also sozusagen als einfachste Melodie „aufgefaßt“ werden und auch
diesmal fehlt die Notwendigkeit nicht, der gemäß diese Töne gerade diese
Melodie ausmachen und keine andere.” Meinong (1899), p. 400.
[9] “[…]
natürlich nicht der Verschiedenheit schlechthin, sondern speziell der Verschiedenheit
zwischen A und B.” Meinong (1899), p. 398.
[11] “Daß
nicht nur Seins- sondern auch Soseinobjektive beim Ergreifen von Gegenständen
eine Rolle spielen, kann demjenigen nicht auffallen, der der Tatsache eingedenk
ist, wie doch eigentlich nicht das Sein, sondern das Sosein das Wesen der
Gegenstände konstituiert. Alles Meinen kann ja wie erwähnt als eine Art Auswahl
betrachtet werden, die aus der unendlichgradig unendlichen Fülle des
Außerseienden auf Grund vorgegebener Bestimmungen getroffen wird. Diese
Bestimmungen sind zuletzt Eigenschaften, also Sosein, und man könnte es eher
bemerkenswert finden, daß ein Ergreifen vermöge bloßen Seins, d. h. ohne explizite
Inanspruchnahme des Sosein möglich ist. Man wird eben vermuten müssen, dass
schon in den Daten bloßen Vorstellens zusammen mit der auf sie gegründeten
Seinsmeinung Soseinobjektive mindestens impliziert sind.” Meinong (1910), p.
275.
[13] For a more
extensive account of theoretical agreements and disagreements between Meinong
and Witasek on aesthetics, see Raspa (2006).
[14] “Wer
gewissen Objektiven ästhetische Dignität zuspricht, meint damit sicher nicht
das Objektiv nach Abzug seines Objektenmaterials, auch nicht das Objektiv in einer
gewissen Beiläufigkeit, der gegenüber es auf Modifikationen hinsichtlich des
Materials innerhalb weiterer Grenzen nicht ankommt. Es kann sehr leicht sein,
dass die ästhetische Bedeutsamkeit sich von solchen Bestimmungen am Material
abhängig erweist, eben denen, auf die sich auch Witasek beruft, – und dass
gleichwohl das Objektiv der eigentliche ästhetische Gegenstand bleibt.” Meinong
(1910), p. 319.
[15] “Es
ist zunächst außer Frage, dass es ästhetische Gefühle genug gibt, die sich etwa
auf eine Farbe, eine Gestalt oder dgl., also auf Objekte (genauer Eigenschaften)
sonach fürs erste auf kein Objektiv richten. Wir haben aber oben in den
Eigenschaftsbestimmungen Implikationen von Soseinsobjektiven erkannt. Könnte
man daraufhin, wenn man solche Implikationen ausdrücklich einbezieht, nicht
vielleicht von allen ästhetischen Gefühlen sagen, dass sie auf Soseinobjektive,
wenn nicht explizite, so doch implizite, gerichtet sind?”. Meinong (1910), p.
320.
[16] “[…]
wer an einen gewissen Voraussetzungsgegenstand ein Gefühl, also
etwa zunächst ein Wertgefühl knüpft, sich darin durchaus im Rechte fühlt, so
daß er ohne weiteres bereit ist, ein entgegengesetztes Verhalten zu
verurteilen.” Meinong (1917), p. 137.
[17] “Dieser
Ausgangspunkt scheint mir einfachst so formuliert werden zu sollen: Ist A der Voraussetzungsgegenstand für ein Wertgefühl p, das den Eigengegenstand P präsentiert, dann
begründet das Zusammengegebensein der Gegenstände A und P eine Vermutung dafür,
dass P dem A zukommt. [...] Hinzu kommt nun aber natürlich das überreiche
Tatsachenmaterial, das in unserem Verhalten zu den ästhetischen Gegenständen
beschlossen ist und wo jeder einzelne Fall des auf eine gegenständliche
Voraussetzung gestellten Gefühles die Vermutungsevidenz für das Urteil
involviert, daß der Eigengegenstand des Gefühles dem Voraussetzungsgegenstande
als Eigenschaft zukomme.” Meinong (1917), pp. 138, 139.
