The Sense of Beauty
by
by
Harvard’s Nutty Professor
There is much to agree with in George Santayana’s The Sense of Beauty. But almost all of that is trivial. It is with substantive issues that disagreement reigns. His sense of beauty is just that, a sense, which is personal, innate, and inexpressible in language. Terry Eagleton would undoubtedly classify Santayana as the epitome of the 19th century bourgeoise aesthete, whose primary concern is the defence of middle-class values against the increasingly powerful attacks of socialism.
Santayana begins innocuously enough. ‘The philosophy of beauty” he says, “is a theory of values.”Values for him are perceptual judgments which are “instinctive and immediate.” He then arrives at an interim conclusion which begins to tip his ideological hand: “... we may therefore say that aesthetics is concerned with the perception of values.” Watch the man’s hands as they never leave the sleeves of his academic gown. He is very precise in his use of the word perception.
He then implies that perception depends primarily on two things - first some interest in the matter or object at hand which turns simple perception into an appreciation; and second, preference, by which he means an emotion which in his view is not only irrational in its source but also not subject to any rational explication or review. Preference for him is, as it is for the classical liberal economists, the ultimate datum of the aesthetic.
Preference for Santayana is not just private, it is secret. Its immediate instinctiveness may be felt but not controlled: “Values spring from the immediate and inexplicable reaction of vital impulse, and from the irrational part of our nature. The rational part is by its essence relative; it leads us from data to conclusions, or from parts to wholes; it never furnishes the data with which it works.”
There is no way, Santayana implies, for such fundamental data to reach the level of conscious choice. According to Santayana, they cannot even reach the level of language: “Verbal judgments are often useful instruments of thought, but it is not by them that worth can ultimately be determined.” What he means by this breath-taking assertion is not entirely clear. Is it that language is inadequate to convey feelings fully? Is it that we lie to others, possibly even to ourselves, about what we find important? Or is it that we just can’t attend to what we desire other than just desiring it?
All the above would be questionable assertions. But Santayana apparently favours the last, which is the most absurd of the lot. For him, aesthetic judgment is not even accessible to the intellect. “Aesthetic and moral judgments are accordingly to be classed together in contrast to judgments intellectual; they are both judgments of value, while intellectual judgments are judgments of fact. If the latter have any value, it is only derivative, and ourwhole intellectual life has its only justification in its connexion with our pleasures and pains.” Thus, like conscience, aesthetics exists in a sovereign sphere that society in general has no call messing about with.
Santayana helpfully summarises his position, making the ideological programme very clear: “Beauty, as we have seen, is a value; it cannot be conceived as an independent existence which affects our senses and which we consequently perceive. It exists in perception, and cannot exist otherwise. A beauty not perceived is a pleasure not felt, and a contradiction.” A less cumbersome expression of the same point would be simply ‘I know what I like only when I see it.’
In other words, aesthetics is off limits to not just social research but also to all considerations of social policy or even to friendly discussion. It is a forbidden topic in sensible middle-class company. The only thing that prevents one from calling this conclusion utterly ridiculous is that it was made by an eminent professor of Harvard College. Even the best minds can be silly on occasion. I feel compelled to agree with Santayana’s contemporary at Harvard, Josiah Royce: “George Santayana easily surpasses all philosophers in the charm with which he says things which are patently false.”
There is much to agree with in George Santayana’s The Sense of Beauty. But almost all of that is trivial. It is with substantive issues that disagreement reigns. His sense of beauty is just that, a sense, which is personal, innate, and inexpressible in language. Terry Eagleton would undoubtedly classify Santayana as the epitome of the 19th century bourgeoise aesthete, whose primary concern is the defence of middle-class values against the increasingly powerful attacks of socialism.
Santayana begins innocuously enough. ‘The philosophy of beauty” he says, “is a theory of values.”Values for him are perceptual judgments which are “instinctive and immediate.” He then arrives at an interim conclusion which begins to tip his ideological hand: “... we may therefore say that aesthetics is concerned with the perception of values.” Watch the man’s hands as they never leave the sleeves of his academic gown. He is very precise in his use of the word perception.
He then implies that perception depends primarily on two things - first some interest in the matter or object at hand which turns simple perception into an appreciation; and second, preference, by which he means an emotion which in his view is not only irrational in its source but also not subject to any rational explication or review. Preference for him is, as it is for the classical liberal economists, the ultimate datum of the aesthetic.
Preference for Santayana is not just private, it is secret. Its immediate instinctiveness may be felt but not controlled: “Values spring from the immediate and inexplicable reaction of vital impulse, and from the irrational part of our nature. The rational part is by its essence relative; it leads us from data to conclusions, or from parts to wholes; it never furnishes the data with which it works.”
There is no way, Santayana implies, for such fundamental data to reach the level of conscious choice. According to Santayana, they cannot even reach the level of language: “Verbal judgments are often useful instruments of thought, but it is not by them that worth can ultimately be determined.” What he means by this breath-taking assertion is not entirely clear. Is it that language is inadequate to convey feelings fully? Is it that we lie to others, possibly even to ourselves, about what we find important? Or is it that we just can’t attend to what we desire other than just desiring it?
All the above would be questionable assertions. But Santayana apparently favours the last, which is the most absurd of the lot. For him, aesthetic judgment is not even accessible to the intellect. “Aesthetic and moral judgments are accordingly to be classed together in contrast to judgments intellectual; they are both judgments of value, while intellectual judgments are judgments of fact. If the latter have any value, it is only derivative, and ourwhole intellectual life has its only justification in its connexion with our pleasures and pains.” Thus, like conscience, aesthetics exists in a sovereign sphere that society in general has no call messing about with.
Santayana helpfully summarises his position, making the ideological programme very clear: “Beauty, as we have seen, is a value; it cannot be conceived as an independent existence which affects our senses and which we consequently perceive. It exists in perception, and cannot exist otherwise. A beauty not perceived is a pleasure not felt, and a contradiction.” A less cumbersome expression of the same point would be simply ‘I know what I like only when I see it.’
In other words, aesthetics is off limits to not just social research but also to all considerations of social policy or even to friendly discussion. It is a forbidden topic in sensible middle-class company. The only thing that prevents one from calling this conclusion utterly ridiculous is that it was made by an eminent professor of Harvard College. Even the best minds can be silly on occasion. I feel compelled to agree with Santayana’s contemporary at Harvard, Josiah Royce: “George Santayana easily surpasses all philosophers in the charm with which he says things which are patently false.”
posted by The Mind of BlackOxford @ January 15, 2018
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