Dear Chuck
there is no real need to talk of primary and secondar aesthetic response - well, at least, no more need than in the case of any and all sensory experiences.
Pleasure and pain and the dumb numbness of ice all confirm the existence of the person experiencing the sensation. The affective fallacy here in the case of designed/arted objects is that there is not only my experience but some connection with the author/maker of the object - or the other major fallacy, the intentional fallacy.
There is a sticky part in the subjectivity (confirmation of a self) - people are happy with being confirmed even if they are not happy with all aspects of the experience. It is in this sense that people are PROUD of their responses to art/objects as if their experience belongs to them and hence confirms their individuality as well as their subjectivity as well as their existence.
Wow - why would I want to inspect an experience that does so much for me - especially if inspection makes me see that I am mostly not myself, mostly not an individual and mostly not in my experiences.
Keith Russell
OZ newcastle
|