In the first two posts on The Nature of Beauty (Part
1, Part
2) I argued for the possibility that beauty at its core is an objective property of an object. That is, unless very carefully qualified, statements like 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' do not explain our deepest and most obvious intuitions about art and beauty. So if beauty is an objective property, why is it so intrinsically connected to our subjective experiences?
There is another model that might be instructive in how to see this relationship more clearly. In seminary when you walk into a course on biblical interpretation, they will teach you different variations of a model that incorporates both the subjective and objective components of biblical interpretation (e.g. Grasping God's Word by Duvall and Hays). Naturally, the bible is supposed to speak personally to us in a subjective way. It is supposed to change our lives and draw us closer to God in a very personal way. But you will also be taught that before you get to that point, you need to understand the meaning the author originally intended to convey. In other words, the text itself has its own meaning outside of your experience, which relates to the background and context of the author himself. It is a meaning we have to discover -sometimes with lengthy research. There is an objective and subjective component here continuously intersecting together.
So in this case, the same scripture can rightfully be applied in multiple ways and impact people subjectively in very different ways. But that doesn't mean the objective meaning of the scripture has been pushed out. In fact, it is the objective meaning itself found in a given scripture that rightfully grounds any variety of appropriate subjective applications.
I want to purpose that a similar model can explain the objective-subjective relationship in art and beauty. There are foundational objective properties within objects and pieces of art themselves, one of which could be the quality of beauty. But there is also a second level, where we step into the experience of its beauty subjectively. Like proper biblical interpretation, the subjective component is always explanatorily grounded in the objective qualities that stand underneath it. Notice, my subjective experience does not create its beauty (contra subjectivism) in this model. My subjective experience discovers its beauty. My subjective experience can either see the true features of the object for what they are (like its beauty), or not see those features for whatever reason.
So, if a bird sings a beautiful song in the forest, and there is no one there to hear it, is it still beautiful? Yes, in the same way if the bible lies on a table unread and unexperienced, it still remains a beautiful story of redemption! However our subjective experience of beauty might be correlated to the quality of beauty itself, the best explanation for how they relate will ground the existence of beauty outside of the individual experiences of it. And I wonder if the objective-subjective relationship found for example in standard biblical interpretation models could be a helpful model for beginning to think about how this relationship might work in understanding the nature of beauty.
There is another model that might be instructive in how to see this relationship more clearly. In seminary when you walk into a course on biblical interpretation, they will teach you different variations of a model that incorporates both the subjective and objective components of biblical interpretation (e.g. Grasping God's Word by Duvall and Hays). Naturally, the bible is supposed to speak personally to us in a subjective way. It is supposed to change our lives and draw us closer to God in a very personal way. But you will also be taught that before you get to that point, you need to understand the meaning the author originally intended to convey. In other words, the text itself has its own meaning outside of your experience, which relates to the background and context of the author himself. It is a meaning we have to discover -sometimes with lengthy research. There is an objective and subjective component here continuously intersecting together.
So in this case, the same scripture can rightfully be applied in multiple ways and impact people subjectively in very different ways. But that doesn't mean the objective meaning of the scripture has been pushed out. In fact, it is the objective meaning itself found in a given scripture that rightfully grounds any variety of appropriate subjective applications.
I want to purpose that a similar model can explain the objective-subjective relationship in art and beauty. There are foundational objective properties within objects and pieces of art themselves, one of which could be the quality of beauty. But there is also a second level, where we step into the experience of its beauty subjectively. Like proper biblical interpretation, the subjective component is always explanatorily grounded in the objective qualities that stand underneath it. Notice, my subjective experience does not create its beauty (contra subjectivism) in this model. My subjective experience discovers its beauty. My subjective experience can either see the true features of the object for what they are (like its beauty), or not see those features for whatever reason.
So, if a bird sings a beautiful song in the forest, and there is no one there to hear it, is it still beautiful? Yes, in the same way if the bible lies on a table unread and unexperienced, it still remains a beautiful story of redemption! However our subjective experience of beauty might be correlated to the quality of beauty itself, the best explanation for how they relate will ground the existence of beauty outside of the individual experiences of it. And I wonder if the objective-subjective relationship found for example in standard biblical interpretation models could be a helpful model for beginning to think about how this relationship might work in understanding the nature of beauty.