In light of my previous post, I would like to draw attention furthermore to the philosophical notion taste. This time, however, I’d like make note of the similarities between D&G understanding of taste with that of Kant’s own notion of taste.
Personally, my exposure to the notion of taste (in its philosophical context, that is) comes mainly from professor Grady’s class on Aesthetics. When it was all said and done, we focused on the notion of taste for almost half of the semester, considering the different interpretations of taste through likes of Hegel, Kant, and Hume. The question we were most concerned with dealt with how taste determines our judgments of aesthetics value (i.e. what constitutes our calling an object beautiful/desirable). In other words, when we make judgments about beauty (especially in art and nature) are such judgments made from good taste? This also applies to how we properly go about creating beautiful objects through means of fine art (i.e. music, painting, etc…). Whether we are creating beauty or calling an object beautiful we must acknowledge taste as the principle faculty for such. Thus one of our goals in the class was to unpack the notion of taste with hopes of uncovering how it is properly used in the context of beauty and its conceptual importance to aesthetics.
For both Kant and D&G, taste is ultimately what unites our faculties (e.g. reason, imagination, and understanding). While Kant finds the notion of taste important to forming aesthetic judgments, D&G apply taste in a similar manner to the creation of concepts via the “laying out, the inventive, and creating” process that constitutes the “philosophical trinity”. In chapter 3, D&G explain that “philosophical taste” is “the love of the well-made concepts” (77). If we apply this notion of taste furthermore, we see how Kant employs a similar notion of taste in our forming of aesthetic judgments.
Kant insists that we cannot rely upon prior concepts of beauty when describing the “Beautiful” (that is, if we want to make what we call “beautiful” universally understood). Instead, we must understand beauty as that which constantly develops new conceptual features on its own “limitless plane”. Identifying these new conceptual feature demands that we do not appeal to, nor recreate prior concepts of beauty, but requires a highly creative/inventive process that pry’s into the faculty of our imagination. If we neglect to consider this when creating new conceptual features of beauty, then we are acting in bad taste.Hence, we cannot simply recreate what we call “beautiful” from a prior concept of beauty. D&G’s example of Van Gough’s “yellow” on page 78 highlights this feature of taste in an accurate manner consistent with that of Kant’s own understanding.
“Van Gough takes yellow to the limitless only by inventing the man-sunflower and by laying out the plane of infinite little commas. The taste for colors shows at once the respect with which they must be approached, the long wait that must be passed through, but also the limitless creation that makes them exist” (78).
Here, D&G’s example of Van Gough brings to mind the attentive process that one must undergo when building upon existing concepts. This process, which is only possible through means of taste, is manifest in the “well-made concept” that is creates. Thus the principle similarity between Kantian and D&G is how taste essentially allows us to create/develop new concepts.
Overall, I find the notion of taste rather fascinating in its context of philosophy; particularly how it lends to us the capability of making beautiful things. Perhaps this comparison to Kantian taste underscores the salient features of taste when applying the term to the D&G’s “philosophical trinity”.
I have a serious problem with Kant's idea of taste. he expects a person to strip himself of all prior ideas before observing the artwork. At least from what I remember. However if we do this wouldn't we strip away our concept of a sunflower when we look at the painting of a sunflower. An no this isn't a strawman I am setting up just to knock down. We have a concept of what a sunflower should look like. Kant asks people to strip concepts of Beauty away, or concepts of what the thing is. We would constantly be stripping ourselves of the concept in general. So we wouldn't be judging the painting as a picture of a sunflower, we would be judging it as an assortment of colors. We lose the concept of sunflower when Kant asks us to strip ourselves of the prior concepts of beauty, and for many people that is the idea of a perfect flower. If a 4 year old draws a crummy picture of a sunflower I am not wrong for judging it as crap for being a crummy picture of a sunflower. From what i remember of Kant he says we need to strip ourselves completely of everything when observing art.
ReplyDeleteI find it more believable that taste in art comes from experiences that people have. There are studies where people in Asian and in America are shown the same picture, and those people had completely different opinions of what they saw. If we could strip taste of Prior ideas of Beauty there would not be such a rift between people of different cultures. A picture would be considered beautiful universally.That is the problem with Kant. By his definition it would be possible for art to be considered good Universally, and those who do not like that artwork would simply be wrong.