Edmund Burke
On
a superficial view we may seem to differ very widely from each other in our
reasonings, and no less in our pleasures; but, notwithstanding this difference,
which I think to be rather apparent than real, it is probable that the standard
both of reason and taste is the same in all human creatures.
[A Philosophical Inquiry In to the
Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, Edmund Burke]
With
Edmund Burke there is a shift from an ontological, mimetic and objective
approach to literature to an epistemological, pragmatic and subjective
approach. Ontology means in Greek ‘the study of
being’. Ontology concerns itself with determining the essence of
things whether that essence being natural or supernatural. Mimetic
theories are those that are concerned with the relationship between the poem
and the universe. Mimetic theories are ontological in their approach
because they are interested in what the poem is. For them poem is an
imitation. Aristotle’s goal to define precisely the proper nature
and essence of a well constructed plot makes it an ontological concern.
The
Platonic-Aristotelian debate over mimesis is really a debate over the ontological
status of a work of art. They both are asking ‘what’s a
poem’. According to Aristotle a poem possesses its own substance and
integrity’. For, Plato poem is just a shadow. The debate
is again over the ontological status of a poem. Although the neo-classical
theory is partly pragmatic because it is concerned with the response of the
audience, it still works within a philosophical framework that is essentially
ontological; the theorists are still trying to figure out what a poem is.
The
rules of decorum laid down by Horace, Dryden and Pope are less concerned with
audience’ response than with what a poem should. Even Longinus who
does define the sublime partly in terms of its effect, is actually concerned
with the actual, physical, metaphorical and linguistic qualities of a sublime
poem. Neo-classical theorists are interested in audience response
but the audience’s response functions as only one criterion of what makes a
work of art great. They are still more interested in thethingness of
a poem. When contrast ontology with epistemology (study of
knowing). Epistemology is concerned not with the thingness of
things but with how we know and proceed with that thingness.
Pragmatic
theories in their purest form are epistemological because we are interested in
how the audience knows, receives and perceives what they are looking
at. Epistemological theorists seek to explore not just whether or not a
poem pleases. They want more than that. They want to
study the mental processes by which that pleasure is perceived and known.
For
the true epistemological pragmatist beauty does not so much define a quality
that inheres in a given poem or painting. As it describes a certain
kind of mental response that are created within the mind of the person who experiences
that poem otr painting. Being only interested in the painting is
ontological, whereas the interest in the mental response to that painting is
epistemological. For an epistemologist beauty does not reside in the
painting but beauty is in the very way one percieves that
painting. Beauty resides in the mind.
At
the core of all epistemology and any theory that is epistemological we have got
to make a distinction between subject and object. In Burke and
German philosophy a subject is a conscious self that percieves. An
object is an unconscious thing that doesnot percieve but is rather
percieved. When epistemologists define their response to art as
purely subjective what they mean is that the experience of art has nothing to do
with the poetic object but exists wholly in the mind of the
subject. This philososophicsl use ofb the word ‘subjective’
shouldn’t be confused with its modern use to signify a person’s relativistic
belief. Philosophically speaking if we speak of an aesthetic
response we mean an epistemological, pragmatic and subjective
response. Aestheticians want to set up standards for these
subjective responses.
Burke’s
Enquiry
In
his work, A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the
Sublime and Beautiful, Burke lays the groud work for understanding how
we percieve both art and greater world around us. For Burke the
ground work and means of all perception is the senses. Burke can be
called an empiricist- knowledge comes through senses or experience. He
believes that all of us have equal access to sense perception. The
senses are the great originals of all our ideas. Therefore it is
possible to arrive at a universal principle of judgement, -eventhough judgement
is subjective- because it all happens via the senses and we all have access to
the senses. Therefore we can set down universal standards of
judgement. Universal-subjective seems to be a paradox but Burke
believes that fixed laws are possible in aesthetics, literary criticism and the
like.
From
universal sense experience to universal principle of taste
According to Burke all people percieves external
objects in the same way. We all recognise that sugar issweet and
tobacco is bitter. We find more natural pleasure in sweet that in
the bitter. Habits can make you prefer tobacco to
sugar. But habits can never abolish our knowledge that tobacco is
not sweet and sugar is not bitter. The senses are the
base. The power of imagination and judgement are based on
senses. Senses are at the botttom, radiating out of senses are imagination
and judgement. Imagination is also called sensibility.
According to Burke imagination or sensibility takes
the raw material offered it by sense perception and then recombines that
material in a new way. Although the imagination can be quite
inventive it cannot produce anything new. It can only vary what is
given it by the senses. So whatever affects our imagination
powerfully, whatever brings us pleasure or pain must have similar effect on all
men. Though it is a huge assumption it is central to Bruke and the
epistemological aesthetic project. If so we all should take pleasure
and pain in the same things. Therefore though we perceive things
separately somehow we all perceive them the same.
Both
imagination and judgment are based on senses. Imagination is linked
primarily to immediate perceptions and has about it an almost child like
quality. Imagination is direct, intuitive and child
like. Judgment is a higher critical faculty that is closely linked
to reason. Judgment is gained through an increasing understanding
brought about by a long close study of the object of
sensation. Still the judgment rest in the senses and therefore
judgment also share common nature. Based on judgment and imagination
there is ‘taste’ or ‘aesthetic taste’. Since taste is based on
imagination and judgment which are based on the senses taste too must be common
to all men. But there are exceptions according to
Burke. If our imagination or judgment is bad or deficient it will
affect our taste. For Burke there are some people whose natures are
blunt and cold. These people are deficient in imagination or
sensibility. Sometimes these people have weakened their imaginative
facilities through hedonism or avarice. If our imagination is
blunted we will end up suffering from a lack of taste. That
is to be distinguished from people that are deficient in
judgment. If one is deficient in judgment one will have bad
taste. Lack of taste or no taste is the result of deficiency in
imagination.
Taste
according to Burke differs from person to person not in kind but in
degree. The principles of taste operate the same in all men, but the
end result may not be the same. Some men due to a keener sensibility
(imagination) or greater knowledge and discernment have a fuller or more
refined sense of taste. Burke is at the same time democratic and
highly elitist.
Imagination
tends toward synthesis whereas judgment tends toward analysis. Imagination
brings things together; it discovers and even creates unity in the midst of
differences. Judgment is more analytical. It discerns subtle
distinction in what appears to be uniform. Although burke asserts
that sensibility is essential to taste Burke finally gives preferences to
judgment as the true foundation of taste.
The
sublime and the beautiful
Burke
defines the sublime and the beautiful in totally epistemological
terms. For Burke beautiful and sublimity are not qualities of the
object rather they are faculties of perception that can be
categorised. The sublime and the beautiful is something that happens
in the observer, not in the painting or the poem. Burke defines
sublime as that which inspires in us feeling of terror (1992,
p340). Sublimity is defined by the impact that has on us by the way
we percieve it subjectively and epistemologically. Dark, gloomy and
massive objects invoking us an overwhelming feeling of power and
infinity. Terror produces within us a mental, emotional response
that Burke calls astonishment. The sublime has this effect on us. In
that moment everything is suspended and our mind is totally filled by an object
or thought. For Burke, the sublime is not only
experienced through our eye and our ear it is also experienced through the
senses of taste, smell and touch. There are such things as sublime
sounds or sublime taste. We can percieve the sublime through all the
fiv of our senses.
Indeed
such sublimity is a mental experience, it manifests itself in our body by
causing our hands to clench and our musceles to construct. To be
sublime there cannot be actual terror; if we were really in danger that is not
the sublime but that is just terror. On the other hand the beautiful is
that which inspires in us sentiments of tenderness and affection. So
whereas the sublime is more masculine and is closely allied to pain the
beautiful is more feminineand is linked to pleasure and love. Beauty
like sublimity can be percieved by all the senses.
The
cause of a wrong taste is a defect of judgment. And this may arise from a
natural weakness of understanding; (in whatever the strength of that faculty
may consist), or, which is much more commonly the case, it may arise from a
want of a proper and well-directed exercise, which a:lone can make it strong
and ready. Besides, that ignorance, inattention, prejudice, rashness, levity,
obstinacy, in short, all those passions, and all those vices, which pervert the
judgment in other matters, prejudice it no less in this its more refined and
elegant province. These causes produce different opinions upon everything which
is an object of the understanding, without inducing us to suppose that there
are no settled principles of reason.
[A Philosophical Inquiry In to the
Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, Edmund Burke]
No comments:
Post a Comment