Eduard Hanslick. (1854/1885)
Vom Musikalisch-Schönen.
Translated in 1891 by Gustav Cohen as:
The Beautiful in Music.
Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1957.
Hanslick opens his book as follows:
Some further quotations from Chapter 1:
Hanslick is commonly regarded as advocating
an intellectualized form of aesthetic pleasure.
Hanslick does not deny that listeners may be emotionally
moved by listening to music, but he regards such feelings
as a by-product of the music's beauty.
Good music is beautiful, and in apprehending this beauty
the listener may well be deeply moved.
Hanslick regards the purpose of aesthetic beauty to
to be the gratification of the listener.
("the beautiful exists for the gratification of an observer")
Yet Hanslick argues that beauty is independent
of human emotion.
("The beautiful is and remains beautiful though it arouse no
emotion whatever".)
Moreover, beauty is not just independent of an observer's emotional state,
beauty is altogether independent of the observer.
This view contrasts notably with the views of sages throughout
the eons who have argued that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
This viewpoint is best illustrated, not by considering differences
of opinion among people, but by contrasting the views of humans
with other animals.
Does a robin not take delight in eating a raw worm?
Does the heart of a panda not jump for joy when spying
a bamboo forest?
Does a fly not regard dung with relish?
Most writers have argued that each animal has its own
criteria for what constitutes "beauty".
In what sense can we imagine a musical work being "beautiful"
without understanding that it is a human notion of "beauty"
that grounds this characterization?
Hanslick would answer this question by saying that it
is not human emotions which tell us what is beautiful,
but human imagination -- "the organ of pure contemplation".
Indeed, since Hanslick regards beauty as independent
of humans, it follows that Hanslick's notion of
the imagination is transcendental,
and does not rely on the existence of human beings
per se.
It is tempting to view Hanslick
as an early cognitivist:
Chapter 1: Aesthetics as Founded on Feelings
"The course hitherto pursued in musical aesthetics has
nearly always been hampered by the false assumption that
the object was not so much to inquire into what is
beautiful in music as to describe the feelings which
music awakens."
(p.7)
"Such systems of aesthetics are not only unphilosophical,
but they assume an almost sentimental character when applied
to the most ethereal of all arts;
and though no doubt pleasing to a certain class of enthusiasts,
they afford but little enlightenment to a thoughtful student who,
in order to learn something about the real nature of music, will,
above all, remain deaf to the fitful promptings of passion and not,
as most manuals on music direct, turn to the emotions as a source
of knowledge."
(p.7)
"On the one hand it is said that the aim and object of music is
to excite emotions, i.e., pleasurable emotions;
on the other hand, the emotions are said to be the subject
matter which musical works are intended to illustrate.
Both propositions are alike in this, that one is as false
as the other."
(p.9)
"If the contemplation of something beautiful arouses
pleasurable feelings, this effect is distinct from the
beautiful as such.
I may, indeed, place a beautiful object before an observer
with the avowed purpose of giving him pleasure,
but this purpose in no way affects the beauty of the object.
The beautiful is and remains beautiful though it arouse no
emotion whatever, and though there be no one to look at it.
In other words, although the beautiful exists for the
gratification of an observer, it is independent of him."
(pp.9-10)
"An art aims, above all, at producing something beautiful
which affects not our feelings but the organ of pure
contemplation, our imagination."
(p.11)
"Grant that the true organ with which the beautiful
is apprehended is the imagination, and it follows
that all arts are likely to affect the feelings indirectly."
(p.12)
"So long as we refuse to include lottery tickets among
the symphonies, or medical bulletins among the overtures,
we must refrain from treating the emotions as an aesthetic
monopoly of music in general or a certain piece of music
in particular."
(p.15)
Notes on Hanslick
However, it is important to understand that the "appraisal"
component is an imaginative and transcendental phenomenon
that occurs independent of the corporeal existence of
human bodies or brains.
Neverthless, Hanslick's views have been highly influential in the area of musical aesthetics, and, in particular, among cognitivists like Peter Kivy.