II. MODES OF PERCEPTION AND RESPONSE
The last section of this article, dealing with man's
inner disposition
towards beauty, with the faculties that
perceive beauty, and with the
effect of beauty, is re-
lated to the preceding
section. Some of the points
discussed before will be touched upon again;
they will
be placed, however, into a different context. We limit
ourselves, as previously, to the fundamental positions.
1. Metaphysical Foundation.
The most famous and
influential account of the apprehension of beauty
is
in Plato's Symposium and Phaedrus. The primary
theme of the former work is love, and
beauty is dis-
cussed in this perspective.
Plato describes the way in
which the love of beauty is kindled and how it
develops
in a sequence of steps. He seems to think that to
proceed in
a sequence is essential. At the beginning
is the admiration of beauty in a
human body; one
advances to the love of inward beauty, from there to
the contemplation of the beautiful as it appears in
observances, laws, and
knowledge, and thence to the
study of the beautiful itself, “so
that in the end he
comes to know the very essence of beauty”
(
Sympo-
sium
211), which is absolute, always the same, and of
which the multitude
of beautiful things partakes. In his
Phaedrus Plato speaks of the “kind of madness
which
is imputed to him, who, when he sees the beauty of
the earth is
transported with the recollection of the
true beauty,” which he
saw once, before passing into
the form of a human being (249-50). This
reminiscence
is the reason for our yearning after beauty and explains
the awe and reverence we feel in the perception of
beauty. Love seeks
beauty, and beauty in turn inspires
love, so that love becomes creative of
beauty.
The ideas of a right process and of an ascent in our
knowledge of love
(Plato uses the image of the ladder
which we climb, leaving the lower rung
beneath us),
of a state of rapture and frenzy accompanying the
intellectual vision of the highest beauty, and of the
essential creativity
of the love of beauty have formed
a powerful tradition; we find the themes
again and
again, either singly or together, either in their original
form
or modified, in later theories of beauty. In the
eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries the renewal and
transformation of Plato's ideas in Shaftesbury's
thought
is of fundamental importance.
For Shaftesbury the conditio sine qua non of
our
response to beauty is that our perception be disinter-
ested, i.e., unselfish and without bias. Our
knowledge
of the beautiful is contingent—as in
Plato—on the
ascent from sensuous to intellectual perception;
the
process is stated, however, in different terms and is
connected,
in sharp contrast to Plato, with art.
The artist who wishes to bring perfection into his
work must have
“the idea of perfection to give him
aim.” He must be above the world “and fix his eye
upon that consummate grace, that beauty of Nature,
and that perfection of
numbers [harmony] which the
rest of mankind, feeling only by the effect
whilst igno-
rant of the cause, term the
je ne sçay quoy, the un-
intelligible...” (Advice to an Author, in
Charac-
teristics
..., I, 214).
In The Moralists the steps of ascent are defined;
from
the admiration of beautiful objects we rise to the in-
sight that it is art, the beautifying, which is
beautiful;
from the love of beautiful bodies we pass to the recog-
nition that their beauty is founded not
in the body qua
body, but in a forming power (or inward form), in
action and intelligence, i.e., in the mind. Ultimately,
we understand that
the mind, in turn, is fashioned by
the principle which is the very source
and fountain
of all beauty (ibid., II, 132-33).
Among the kinds of beauty formed by man are also
his sentiments,
resolutions, principles, and actions.
Beauty, in turn, provokes and
furthers our social and
sympathetic emotions, quickening a pulsation of
bal-
anced, harmonious feelings.
Shaftesbury's emphasis on beauty as a creative force
in man, an emphasis
which is even stronger than in
Plato, the strong bond which he establishes
between
our feeling for beauty and the forming of the person-
ality of the
“virtuoso,” the fact that he relates the
principles
of order, harmony, and proportion on which
beauty is founded to the
principles of the new mathe-
matical
sciences, as well as the link between these ideas
and the “high
strains” (II, 129) of creative enthusiasm,
make Shaftesbury's
conception of our apprehension of
beauty and the effect of beauty on our
life a unique
and highly influential combination of the ancient and
the modern.
The idea of the harmonizing effect of beauty has
been developed further by
several thinkers and linked
with the inner state achieved in the
contemplation of
Being: the restlessness and uneasiness of our
inquiring,
searching mind, the strain and intricacy of discursive
thinking, our volitions and desires, all are resolved and
come
to rest when we behold beauty. In its contem-
plation our faculties are attuned in free and harmonious
interplay; we find fulfillment in self-forgetfulness and
abandon.
2. Immediate Perception.
The frequent occurrence
of the idea that beauty is perceived immediately can
be attributed probably to the common
observation that
both the effect of and the response to natural beauty
are direct and are not based on the recognition of
prolonged application
and preparation, or of achieve-
ment and
action as is the case with virtues and abilities.
To some extent this
observation holds true even for
the response to beauty in art. In aesthetic
speculation
immediacy is, however, interpreted and justified in a
variety of ways.
According to empirical theory the eye and ear per-
ceive beauty as soon as the object or color, shape, and
sound
are presented to them. The theory varies, how-
ever, as to whether beauty is placed into the object
itself or is
considered to be the result of our sense
perception. There is further
divergence in the expla-
nation of the
process leading to the result. We find
the empirical conception
occasionally even in meta-
physical
theories of beauty; the perception is then
considered to apply to simple
natural beauty (a faint
shadow of true beauty) and to be the first
unreflected
step in our knowledge of beauty. The immediate per-
ception may be also an intuition ascribed
to a special
sense or faculty, or to direct (not analytical or discur-
sive) knowledge.
The direct response to beauty is accounted for also
in terms of inner
causation, as in the rousing of subcon-
scious, latent, deep-seated forces or emotions, whcih
cannot be
analyzed. The argument of immediacy,
moreover, is used polemically against
theories that
beauty is no primary datum, but is the result of sec-
ondary factors, such as utility, education,
habit, or
custom.
3. The Process of Knowledge.
Opposed to the argu-
ment of immediate
apprehension is the theory that the
notion of beauty is the result of a
cognitive process,
in which quantity, quality, modality, and relation
have
to be determined by comparison, by determination of
size and
distance, and by the use of judgment. The
factors involved in the process
vary according to the
conception of beauty. The faculty of judgment is
pre-
dominant when norms, rules, and
conformity form the
basis. Most of those who maintain the argument of
rational knowledge, posit a basic, direct response of
pleasure and emotion,
which precedes, stimulates, and
accompanies the forming of knowledge.
There exists finally the opinion that owing to pro-
longed exercise of our aesthetic faculties and appli-
cation as well as cultivation of
talent, the cognitive
process escapes notice, and we or others believe our
apprehension of beauty to be immediate.
