Aesthetic Experience

The subjective feature of aesthetics penetrates this concept because of the myriad meanings that arise on account of perceptions of myriad individuals: "Even so non-sensuous a thing as a fact or a possibility appears this way to one person and that way to another" (Langer, 1953, p. 49). Whitehead makes a similar point: "The individual immediacy of an occasion [e.g., experience of an aesthetic object] is the final unity of subjective form, which is the occasion as an absolute reality" (Whitehead, 1965, p. 321). Whitehead suggests a paradox between "sheer individuality" and "essential relativity" that is complicated by the "decisive moment of absolute self-attainment as emotional unity" (Whitehead, 1965, p. 322). The fact that psychology, emotion, and phenomenal experience of the art object are inextricably bound suggests that highly individuated subjective experience is embedded into human consciousness. Accordingly, it would be expected that aesthetic opinions, which

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ments "to modify each other's characters in combination, as words do, by all serving each as a context" (Langer, 1976, p. 228; emphasis in original). Music's logical form imparts a "connotative relationship" between itself and subjective experience (p. 228). Music does not impart specific content, but presence of content may be suggested by music as in no other artistic medium. Langer quotes Wagner's statement that music expresses "just what is unspeakable in verbal language" (Langer, 1976, p. 235). Clark, who remarks that the power and prestige of opera derive from its irrationality, is in fact asserting that it is driven by a conscientiously organized aesthetic: "'What is too silly to be said may be sung'--well, yes; but what is too subtle to be said, or too deeply felt, or too revealing or too mysterious--these things can also be sung and only be sung" (Clark, 1969, p. 243; emphasis added). Langer generalizes from the import of music to the import of art in whole: Artistic expression . . . is broadly the same in all arts as it is in music--the verbally ineffable, yet not inexpressible law of vital experience, the pattern of affective and sentient being. This is the "content" of what we perceive as "beautiful form"; and this fo
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Significantly Langer, Morner Rausch, , langer 1976, Random House, Sons Langer, Row Langer, Company Whitehead, whitehead 1965, langer 1953, musical forms, aesthetic pleasure, musical aesthetics, References Clark, Process Douglas, Philosophers Process, douglas browning ed, emphasis original, experience beauty, langer cites, rausch 1991, browning ed york, process douglas browning, ed york random, aesthetic pleasure akin,
Approximate Word count = 1446
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)