2. Phenomenology.
The phenomenologist is con-
cerned with
the characteristics of experience itself,
including its
“intentional objects.” His aim is to remain
wholly
faithful to what is given, without importing
extraneous presuppositions or
illegitimate inferences—
to discriminate and expose the subtle
differences be-
tween closely allied
experiences, and fix their essential
natures. To ask what is the difference
in experience
between beauty and grace or prettiness, for example,
is
a phenomenological question. What distinguishes
contemporary phenomenology
as a particular school
or movement is the systematic formulation of its
pro-
gram (despite many differences among
its practitioners)
and the immense sensitivity and thoroughness with
which inquiries have been carried out.
Phenomenologists (including those sometimes re-
ferred to as existential phenomenologists) have con-
tributed to several branches of aesthetics. Some under-
standing of their methods and results
can be provided
by a brief account of two phenomenological essays,
among the few that deal directly and in detail with
concepts of beauty. The
first is “Der Ursprung des
Kunstwerkes,” by Martin
Heidegger (Holzwege [1950];
trans. by Albert Hofstadter, as “The
Origin of the Work
of Art,” in Hofstadter and Richard Kuhn,
eds., Philos-
ophies of
Art and Beauty, New York [1964]). Seeking
for the essential
“workly” character of the art-work
(in contrast to
the “thingly” character of mere things
and the
“equipmental” character of useful objects),
Heidegger
finds it in “the setting-itself-into-work of the
truth of what
is.” Thus in Van Gogh's picture of
the
peasant shoes (i.e., of certain pieces of equipment), the
being of
the shoes (their “truth”) is
“unconcealed.” In
its capacity to suggest something
of the life of the
peasant—his toil, poverty,
toughness—this painting
“discloses a world”; as a physical object,
exploiting and
exhibiting the qualities of a medium, it “sets
forth the
earth.” The art-work is a field of conflict
between
world, which strives for openness, and earth, which
has a
tendency to withdraw and hide; in this conflict,
the truth of being is laid
open, and this happening is
beauty: “Beauty is one way in which
truth occurs as
unconcealment.”
The second essay is Truth and Art, by Albert Hof-
stadter (New York, 1965). According to
Hofstadter,
beauty, “the central aesthetic
phenomenon,” is “a
union of power and measure, a
dynamic or living
harmony” that is “the appearance of
truth—not of any
truth at random, but of truth of being”—which is the
kind of
truth that “comes about when a being projects
and realizes its
own being.” In certain natural phe-
nomena—the snowflake, the color gold, the form of
the
horse—Hofstadter discerns this self-realization;
e.g.,
“the horse's visual appearance makes it look
like
life-will—energy, vitality, mobility—come to
perfect
realization” (Ch. 7). In the experience of beauty
we
are seized by the “rightness” or
“validity” of the object,
which appears in its
highest form in works of art
(Ch. 8).
