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British Journa l of Aesthetics, Vol. jg, No. 4, Oc tober iggg

TH E AESTHETIC ATTITUDE

Gary Kemp

ITis

now well over thirty years since George Dickie's 'The Myth of the Aesthetic

Attitude'.

1

The paper continues to appear regularly in aesthetics anthologies and

course reading lists, but the issue has largely receded from view.

2

This might be

because significantly many aestheticians have accepted that Dickie's criticisms

reveal the no tion of the aesthetic attitude to be empty, a my th. I thin k they do not,

and suggest that their failure can be attributed to Dickie's having attempted to

evaluate the notion of an aesthetic attitude in isolation, in detachment from the

more general sorts of theoretical commitments that historically have provided its

most cogent motivation.

I

I shall first conc entrate o n what I am sure is the mo st plausible twe ntiet h-c entu ry

version of the aesthetic attitude theory discussed by Dickie, that due to Stolnitz.

3

This is the theory that when we are aesthetically engaged with a work of art, for

example, this fact is not to be explained in terms of the special nature of the

qualities perceived, but in terms of a special attitude which we take up, the

aesthetic attitud e. Ou r n orm al attitude is pragmatic, driven by practical interest or

purpose; it thereby tends to select only those features of the object relevant to the

interest or purpose. Thus Schopenhauer speaks of relational and non-relational

perception: relational perception is that which is directed by a concern with

causal relationships between the object and something else (this is what Kant

means by saying that in aesthetic experience we care nothing for the 'real

existence' of the object). Because of

this,

normal, interest-driven attention tends

to be engaged only long enough to identify the interesting feature; it does not

dwell upon things, or contemplate them. It is restless. It notes the relevant facts

1

George Dickie,

American Philosophical Quarterly,

vol. I (1964), pp. 54-64.

2

Th ere is a good book on the subject, 77ie

AestheticAttitude,

by David Fenner (Hu ma nities Press,

1996);

for discussion of Dickie, see pp. 98-110. Fenner is reviewed by Nick McAdoo in this

journal, vol. 37, no. 4 (October 1097). In the past three years, however, no article whose principal

concern is the aesthetic attitude appears in either the

JournalofAestheticsand Art Criticism

or the

British

Journal

o fAesthetics. This contrasts with the recent plethora of articles on aesthetic properties.

3

J. Stolnitz,

Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art C riticism

(Boston, MA: Houg hto n Mifflin, i960),

pp.

32-42-

British Society of Aesth etics 1999 392

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GARY KE MP 393

and moves on. Whereas in the picture gallery, at least sometimes, we stand

arrested, transfixed: we gaze upon the object without our attention being motiv-

ated or directed by any identifiable practical concern. T hu s, according to S tolnitz,

the aesthetic attitude is the attitudeofdisinterested attention ttention to the object

which is not driven by an interestwhich is also 'sympathetic', and 'for its own

sake alone'.

Dickie focuses on the disinterestedness requirement; I shall follow him in

ignoring the requirement that the attention be 'sympathetic', but I shall return

briefly to the idea that aesthetic attention is attention to the object 'for its own

sake'. Dickie's objection to this version of the theory is simple, and, if cogent,

devastating. To give content to 'disinterestedness', according to Dickie, you have

to contrast disinterested attention with interested attention. But when you try to

describe cases of that, what you describe is not 'interested' attention to the object

but, instead, attention to something else; but this is inattention to the object, lack

of attention,

distraction.

Thus the owner of the playhouse, if he is pleased by the

play only because he is thinking of the profits that the excellence of the play

will bring him,

is

ju st failing to attend fully to th e play. So it is not the case th at

instead of giving the play his disinterested attention, he gives it another, interested

kind of attention. But if disinterested attention cannot be distinguished from

undistracted attention, then since there is nothing peculiarly aesthetic about the

latter, there is no peculiarly aesthetic attitude. We can certainly attend un-

distractedly to sumo matches, conversations, or kisses without being tempted to

describe the experience as peculiarly aesthetic.

II

But Dickie's contention that the notion of interested attention collapses into that

of distraction or partial attention is surely mistaken. This is clearest where the

object atten ded to is a work of art. It seems straightforward that the re can be cases

of ull

attention to a w ork of art wh ich is not the sort of attention exercised in

aesthetic experience. There is a distinction to be drawn amongst cases of full

undistracted attention to the work of art that is too evident simply to be denied,

which must therefore be accommodated or reconstructed in some way or other.

4

For example, a music student might listen closely to a piece in order to identify

key modulations or rhythmic groupings. This is not a case of distraction,not a case

ofnotatten ding to the m usic. Yet it is not an aesthetic attitude either, as the s trug -

gling music student will attest (we murder to dissect). It would be a diversion

from the potential aesthetic experience but not diversion from the music.

Now in fact Dickie does consider examples ofthiskind. What he says is this:

Cf. Fenner,AestheticAttitude,p. 104.


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394 THE AESTHETIC AT TITU DE

Note that what initially appears to be a perceptual distinctionlistening in a certain

wayturns out to be a motivational distinctionlistening for or with a certain

purpose. . . . There is only one way to listento (to attend to) m usic, although the

listening may be more or less attentive and there may be a variety of motives,

inte ntio ns, and reasons for doin g so and a variety of ways of being distracted from the

Th at i s , perh aps the attention is the same, but the purpose differs. But what exact ly

does Dickie infer f rom this? He does not say explici t ly what conclusion we are

immedia te ly to draw. He thinks more genera l ly tha t the aes the t ic a t t i tude i s a

'myth ' , tha t there i s no such thing. But the present point s imply does not suppor t

tha t conc lus ion .

Fi r s t , a pre l iminary quibble : tha t there i s only 'one way ' to l i s ten to the music

is a su bs tan tiv e psy cho logic al claim , and su bs tan tive ly false as far as I can see. If

wh at is be in g l is tened to is descr ibe d sim ply as ' th e mu sic ' , th en th ere are cer-

ta inly di f fe rent ways of l i s tening to i t. L is tening for mo du la t ion s as o ppo sed no t

only to l i s tening more genera l ly for enjoyment but as opposed to l i s tening for

chang es of m et r e or rhyth m is a case in poin t . A no the r mig ht be searching a

Jac kso n Po llock for faces, i f we wan t exam ples ou tsid e m us ic. I t is hard to agree

that in these cases one can properly be descr ibed as being distractedf rom the m usic

or pic ture .

T h e cruc ia l poin t , howev er , is tha t the di f fe rence in purpo se or mot iv a t ion to

w hi ch D ick ie a l lud es is a ll t ha t t he ae s the t i c a t t i t ud e theor i s t r equ i r e s . T h e

aes the t ic a t t i tude the ory need no t be , and I th in k sh ou ld n ot be , cou che d in te rm s

of pe r cep t ion , a s D ick ie a s sum es (S to ln i t z ' s f o rm ula t io n , qu o te d by Dick ie ,

ad mi ts of be ing read that way, bu t it cer tainly doe s not de m an d i t ) . T ha t i t is the

'a t t i tude ' tha t possesses the dis t inguishing fea ture of be ing dis inte res ted does not

imply that the perception is i tself what possesses that feature.

6

I t might not even

make sense to speak of percept ions quapercep t ions as in te res ted or dis inte res ted.

Insofar as perceptions are interested or disinterested, i t is probably more plausible

to say that they are so only in virtue of

the

purposeswh ich g u ide the pe r cep t ion . I n

any case the main c la im of the theory can wi thout evident loss be put by saying

that a t tent ion is aesthet ic precisely when i t is not pragmatical ly

motivated.

T h a t

there are clear cases of close, pragmatical ly motivated at tent ion does nothing to

show tha t there i s no such thing as c lose a t tent ion which i s not so mot iva ted. I f

tha t is h o w the aes the t ic a t t i tude theo ry is def ined , th en Dic kie ' s poin t do es

On this point see also Dickie's exchange with Elmer Duncan in the letters section of

theJournal of

Aesthetics

and Art Criticism,vol. XXIII, no . 4 (1965), pp. 517-518, and Dickie's Aesthetics: An

Introduction

(India napo lis: Bobbs-M errill 1971), pp.48-61.

The 1966 exchange between Dickie and Virgil Aldrich on this issue is frustrating because it is

framed entirely in terms of perception. See Aldrich, 'Back to Aesthetic Experience',

Journal

of

Aesthetics and

Art Criticism,vo l. XXTV, no . 3 (1966), pp. 365-371 and Dick ie, reply to Aldrich , Journal

of

Aesthetics and

Art Criticism,vol. XXV, no. 1 (1967), pp.89-91.


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GARY KEM P 395

nothing to undermine it. With things put that way, it does not matter if Dickie is

right to say that the interested/disinterested distinction cannot be purely a per-

ceptual distinction. To be sure, the notion of the aesthetic attitude is meant to'

characterize a kind of experience, but not all experiential distinctions are pure

perceptual distinctions.

Alternatively, Dickie might say that the music student's attention, since it

focuses so narrowly upon one aspect of the music, necessarily excludes other

aspects or prope rties which may be essential to an und erstan ding or aesthetic app-

reciation of the p iece. As it might be put, the studen t gives his whole a ttention to

the music, but not to the whole of the music. This may ultimately be the correct

way to put it, but it would not establish Dickie's conclusion: Dickie's claim was

that the notion of disinterested attention, when we think it through, collapses

into that of full or undistracted attention. And weh veju st seen tha t that claim is

not true. All that Dickie can claim is that the notion of an aesthetic attitude

collapses into the notion of undistracted attention to all but only the aesthetically

relevant properties of the work (or perhaps: to as many of these as one can take

in).

7

Bu t this is now a substantive assertion conce rning the nature of the aesthetic

attitude; it is no longer the narrowly logical point Dickie thought he could make

against the very idea of an aesthetic attitude . Th e p oint is no longer tha t, ju st by

reflecting on the concepts attention and interested, we can see that the notion of

an aesthetic attitude is empty. The point now is that the attitude has been mis-

defined.

But in fact the case is worse than that, and here is where the inadequacy of

Dickie's criticism becomes more theoretically important. For it would be

que stion-be gging at rather a deep level to assume this alternative definition of the

aesthetic attitude to be preferable. For the point now rests upon the assumption

that we can replace the notion of a peculiarly aesthetic attitude with the notion of

attention toaestheticproperties. It is certainly true that ifwe can have the notion of

aesthetic property, then the importance and interest of the notion of the aesthetic

attitude is significantly curtailed, if it does not lapse altogether (this will depend

crucially on how the notion of an aesthetic property is explained).

8

But it is

precisely the most basic commitment of the aesthetic attitude approach

especially understood as deriving from Kantto avoid the notion of an aesthetic

property. Kant held that beauty is precisely not a concept, not a property, not

som eth ing in terms of which objects can be literally described. Th e p roper task of

In his reply to Aldrich (see preceding note) Dickie acknowledges this, but takes the point as

showing that if we have the notion of an aesthetic property, then there is no need to posit an

aesthetic attitude.

Fenner

/{esthetic

Altitude,pp. 104-105) aptly denies the cogency of such a move on the g roun ds that

no demarcation of the class of aesthetic properties is possible that does not refer essentially to

experiences

of

tho se prope rties. I suspect, howev er, that an attitude -theo rist at least one inspired

by Kan to ught really to deny that the notion of an aesthetic property makes sense.

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396 THE AESTHETIC ATTITUDE

a philosophy

of

beauty rather

is to

attend

to the

special features

of

aesthetic

experience

or

judgement .

9

The

basis

of

that judgement

is

subjective, which

is

precisely

to say

that aesthetic predicates

do not

express genuine concepts,

do not

pick

out

objective properties

or

features

of

reality. Disinterestedness,

of

course,

was meant

not

only

to

explain

the

rationality

of

subjective presumptions

of

universality,

but

also

to

help explain

the

peculiar value

of

aesthetic experience.

The later tradition, especially beginning with Schopenhauer

but

prefigured

in

Kant's account of aesthetic ideas, takes

the

point beyo nd beauty, seeking to gen er-

alize

it to all

aesthetic experience, hence

to

aesthetic predicates generally.

The

sense of properly aesthetic description should

be

explained

in

terms

of

the mental

propensities awakened by disinterested attention,

not in

terms

of

features literally

possessed

by the

objects. Aesthetic experience takes explanatory precedence

in

aesthetics

and the

philosophy

of art, not the

objects

of

experience.

If

so, then

it is

no objection

to the

aesthetic attitude theory

to

point

out

that

it

would

be

logically

adequate

to

define

the

attitude

as

generic attention

to

aesthetic properties.

Ill

In this last section

I

want

to

develop

a bit

further this last point co nce rnin g

the

place

of

the aesthetic attitude

in

aesthetics generally.

Dickie's criticism

of

Stolnitz's theory

of the

aesthetic attitude pretty clearly

fails. The

real pro blem with th at theory,

I

think,

is

messier. Take

a

slightly

different kind of

case.

A man attends

his

daughter's first concert performance as

a

solo pianist.

He

listens intently

and is

pleased

as she

negotiates

the

intricate

counterpoint

of

M ozart 's

K.

533.

His

close attention

is

motivated partly

by his

natural aesthetic receptivity

but

also, more efficaciously,

by his

concern

for his

daughter's career. Nothing could help

it

more than that

she

should perform well

tonight.

His

listening

is

interest-driven: there

is a

clear sense

in

which

he

listens

closelybecause

of

practical concern.

But his

attention

is not

thereb y distracted

or

partial,

or

need

not

be.

The

thought

of

his daug hter's career may com e

to

mind

during

the

performance,

but it

does

not

seem

as if it has to, in

order that

his

attention

be

motivated

by

that concern. Th ere

is no

reason

to

say that that kind

of

Nick Zangwill, in 'UnKantian Notions ofDisinterestedness',

British JournalofAesthetics,

vol. 32,

no . i (January 1992), points out that Kant's claim is that aesthetic judgement is based upondis-

interested

pleasure,

notupon a disinterested attitude or experience. Aesthetic experience mightbe

defined simply asthat in which disinterested pleasure takes place,but it is not clear that Kant's

account actually delivers the concept of an aesthetic

attitude,

if byanattitudewemean not atypeof

experience but something likeastance, something whichcan beactivated atwill.I think thatthe

philosophically most important aspect

of the

aesthetic attitude theory

is

independent

of the

volitional question: the philosophically most important question is whether there is a specially

aesthetic typeofexperience,and ifso ,whether itshould beexplained entir ely from the subjective

side, and not in terms of the distinctive sorts of objects or properties apprehended in aesthetic

experience.The cogent substance of the aesthetic attitude theory consistsin itsaffirmative answ ers

to both que stions.Formoreon the volitional question see Fenner(Aesthetic Attitude)andMcAdoo's

review of same (seen. 2above).




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398 THE A E S T H E T IC A T T I T U D E

the idea

can

help with

the

pianist's father.

In

fact

it can

actually take over

for

disinterestedness itself, and do the job better. InArt and Imagination,Roger

Scruton says that

an

interest

in an

object

X for its own

sake

is

a desire togoonhearing, looking at,or insome other way having an experience of X,

where there

is no

reason

for

this desire

in

terms

of

nyother desire

or

appetite that

the experience of X may fulfil, and where the desire arisesout of, andis accompanied

by,thethought of X

1 0

Set aside the concluding thought-requirement, which ismeant toexclude the

gratification of'desires arising out of animal appetite'. Unlike the simpler ideaof

disinterested motivation, Scruton's formulation vindicates the father's attention:

there

is a

reason

for his

desire

to go on

listening,

for the

fact

of

his listening,

but

this

isnot

based upo n

a

desire that

the

experience

of

the performance itself fulfils.

His motivating desire is notitself gratifiedby theexperience.

Now these ways

of

distinguishing

the

student from

the

father

may run

into

other problems individually.As for the first, for example,we do notwant to be

landed

too

peremptorily into

the

staunch formalist claim that

art is

totally

non-conceptual, or that the aesthetic value of literature hasnothing to do with

knowledge.

11

Andif we were simplyto define the aesthetic attitud easattention to

the object

for its own

sake

as

defined

by

Scruton, then ,

for

example,

the

pleasures

of love-making,atleastin thehappier cases, wo uld seemto count as exemplifying

the aesthetic attitude (though perhaps

it is not

positively

a

mistake that

art and

love should bebrought together insome suchway).

What is not to bemissed,in anycase,is that both linesof thought leadusback

o Kant . Tha t

in

pure aesthetic experience

we are not

concerned

to

apply

determinate conceptsiscentral toKant's analysis of it (thoughit isonly part ofit);

and Scruton's characterization

of the

aesthetic attitude

is

part

of

more general

Kantian theory of aesthetic experience and judgement which involves concepts of

pleasure, imagination,

and

normativity (together with disinterestedness these

reflect much of the substance of Kant's Analytic of the Beautiful) . Whether

Kant's

or

Scruton's exact account

is

ultimately adequate

is not the

immediate

point.

12

What I suggest rather isthat the task for the aesthetic attitude theorist is

10

R.

Scruton,Art

an d

Imagination (London: Routledge, 1974),

p. 148.

Possibly this concerncan beassuagedby distinguishing between knowledge of the subject-matter

of awork and knowledge of thework itself: perhaps a properly aesthetic reader of Paradise

Lost

learns something about the moral universe,butdoesnotreadin orderto learn facts about the work

itself, in the way

that

a

literature student might

in

preparing

for an

exam.

12

Recent treatments of the issue within the framework of Kant's aesthetics include: P. Crowther,

'The Significance ofKant's Pure Aesthetic Judgem ents ', British Journal

of Aesthetics,

vol. 36, no.2

(April 1996); C. Janaway, 'K ant's Aestheticsand the Empty Cognitive Stock',

PhilosophicalQuarterly,

vol. 47, no. 189 (October 1997); N. Zangwill, 'UnKantian Notions of Disinteres tedness ' ;

N .

Zangwill, 'Kanton Pleasurein theAgreeable',_|oum


8/8

GARY KE MP 399

to regiment some version or derivative of Kant's subjective orientation in

aestheticsnot only in order to yield the right answers but also to yield

explanations

with respect to cases; we should want a definition which not only

validates intuitions but one which grants them theoretical substance, shows why

they are justified or imp ortant.

13

As part of this, we need to be told why the

subjective orientation is correct in the first place. As another, we would want to

relieve the worry that there is no necessity in the way that the components of

such a view are woven together. It would be gratifying, for example, if Scruton's

analysis of disinterestednessof 'for its own sake'could show why only

disinterested contemplation can be conceptually free. This would tie together the

two explanations suggested above for why the father's attention is aesthetic but

not the student's. But this sort of thing is likely to be heavy going, and to require

substantial philosophical premises of more general kind. Equally, assuming the

internal cohe rence of such a view, the critic of the aesthetic attitude is unlikely to

m ou nt a coge nt case with ou t discussing those premises, perhaps not with ou t

dispu ting th e K antian subjectivist starting-point in the first place. We should not

assume that we can usefully pursue questions like 'is there an aesthetic attitude?'

except in the context of a suitably rich theoretical atm osp here . Mo re generally, we

should not be surprised if attempts at theory-free philosophical analysis, such as

Dickie's treatment of the aesthetic attitude, should sometimes turn out to be

unfruitful.

Gary Kemp, Department of Philosophy, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK

Email: G.Kemp@ Philosophy.arts.gla.ac.uk.

S. Kemal,Kant s Aesthetic Theory (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992). For a recent historical treatment

of the concept of disinterestedness which includes further references to the issue considered

historically, see A. Berleant, 'Beyond Disinterestedness', British Journal o f Aesthetics, vol. 36, no. 3

(July 1994).

For an excellent discussion of the importance of explanation in aesthetic theory, as opposed to

mere ex tensional adequacy, see Nick Zangwill, 'Gro und rules in the Philosophy of Art',Philosophy,

vol. 70 (1995).




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