2 Truth
Scruton argues that after the Enlightenment, there was a movement to make art a rival to religion because art had a different type of status than science. Science was a threat to religion. Science was able to offer alternative explanations to the teachings of religion. For example, the theory of evolution was favored by the educated over the creation stories of Genesis. This so-called debunking of religion influenced some people to consider art as a different way than science to find truth. Scruton asserts, “But art seemed to represent a different way of looking at the world from science, one which preserved the mystery of things and didn’t undo the mystery. Since the mystery was so important, why not look to art as a source of meaning?”
Kant thinks the judging of anything as beautiful is aesthetic, a judgment of taste. Kant writes: “The judgment of taste, therefore, is not a cognitive judgment, and so is not logical, but is aesthetic--whose determining ground cannot be other than subjective.” What does Kant mean when he says that the judgment of taste is not cognitive? What does he mean when he says that the judgment of taste is subjective? Is he saying that a judgment of taste is relative? Scruton states, “The status of beauty as an ultimate value is questionable, in the way that the status of truth and goodness are not.” He goes on to say, however, even truth and goodness is questioned as an absolute value today.
Although Kant states that aesthetic judgment is “rooted in subjective experience,” does this mean there is no objectivity to aesthetic judgment? Kant does not seem to draw that conclusion. Kant states, “Taste is the faculty of estimating an object or a mode of representation by means of a delight or aversion apart from any interest. The object of such a delight is called Beautiful.” Kant, however, states that this judgment of taste “must be coupled with it a claim to subjective universality.” Kant is saying that a judgment of taste or aesthetic judgment is determined subjectively, but has universal validity. Kant seems to be saying that an aesthetic judgment is both subjective and objective. In addition, it has ultimate value. Kant is saying that an aesthetic judgment is a way to acquire knowledge in a non-cognitive way.
What can one learn from art? Does art communicate truth? Is the truth provided by art a truth that cannot be discovered any other way? There are different kinds of art: abstract and representational art. Representational art will include novels, plays, films, and poetry. These different types of art do not give us literal truth about the world, but another kind of truth. These truths are accessed through the imagination. Scruton writes, “Our favorite works of art seem to guide us to the truth of the human condition.” One might say, science speaks about the general, but the novelist speaks about the individual. Fiction is not offering information to be consumed, but worlds of the imagination to experience.
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