Agora Philosophical Forum

دوستان سلام
نشست سوم از فصل هنر و فلسفه به مبحث زیبایی اختصاص دارد. سخنران این نشست استاد فلسفه دانشگاه تورنتو آقای موهان متن است و سخنرانی و پرسش و پاسخ به زبان انگلیسی برگزار خواهد شد. برای آمادگی بیشتر، این مقاله را بخوانید. موهان در مورد موضوع سخنرانی خود که در واقع برآمده از یکی از مقاله های تحقیقی خود است اینگونه توضیح می دهد

1. Are certain things beautiful in themselves—the Taj Mahal, a morning raga—and others not—a shaitan, a gargoyle? If so, why do we find it so hard to appreciate what other cultures find beautiful?

2, Why is beauty valuable? Is it simply that it gives pleasure, or is there (as Plato and many others thought) something intrinsically valuable about it. Think of a lifeless planet that nobody has or ever will see. Would it be better if it were beautiful?

In my paper, I’ll give a new analysis of pleasure, or enjoyment. I’ll argue that this new analysis captures much, if not all, of what we mean when we talk of appreciating beauty.

Pleasure in my sense is rewarding. It is also learned. That is, when you appreciate an object in a way that gives pleasure (in my sense), you get the reward of enjoyment or pleasure. This leads you to approach other things in this way. For example, imagine reading a poem in a manner that doesn’t take account of the metre of the lines. You might not get pleasure out of this way of reading. But if somebody teaches you to follow the metre, then you get more pleasure and your reading is more rewarding. As a consequence, you will approach future poems in a way that pays attention to metre. And poets will create poems that you can readily approach in this manner.

This creates an interaction between the creators of art and consumers of art. Creators produce things that need to be appreciated in a particular way; they experiment with their audience. They attempt to persuade audiences to appreciate things in this way and thus to enjoy Audiences, in turn, influence creators by taking up certain of their productions and not others. This process is essentially local. It depends on the creation of local markets. The appreciation of beauty occurs within these local markets. That is why beauty is not universal.