PHIL 001 Lecture 30: Phil 1 (Introduction to Philosophy) - Lec 30

• School: College of The Sequoias
• Department: Philosophy (PHIL)
• Course: PHIL 001
• Professor: cline

Document Summary

Santayana understands aesthetics to be the study of the perception of values. Human consciousness and emotion furnishes any and all value in the world. Without our desires and emotions, our passions and longings, the world would utterly lack the worth we find in it. Our reason or rationality is a crafty and powerful instrument that serves us in finding ways to satisfy such impulses, desires, yearnings and so on. While historical information and factual information might remotely add to one"s appreciation of the beauty found in an artwork or the beauty in nature, such information is by no means necessary in one"s experience of a thing"s beauty. All one needs to experience beauty is one"s senses (for perception) and, of course, one"s desire which creates the value to be perceived. Also, while we find correctness and accuracy in representation pleasurable, its pleasure is connected to our delight in truth, which is also shared by our scientific pursuits.