Essays on Eighteenth-Century Scottish Aesthetics

FAIN: FEL-281344-22

Rachel E. Zuckert
Northwestern University (Evanston, IL 60208-0001)

Research and writing of an essay collection on 18th-century Scottish Enlightenment philosophers and their vision of aesthetics.

In the proposed book project, under advance contract from Edinburgh University Press, I aim to broaden discussion of Scottish Enlightenment aesthetics beyond the common focus on questions about the standard of taste, by attending to now-neglected, but historically influential texts, bringing out their manifold substantive and methodological innovations. Topics to be treated include: transformative theories of beauty and sublimity (proposed by Thomas Reid, and Alexander Gerard, respectively); Archibald Alison’s suggestion of ‘the historical’ as an aesthetic quality; Adam Smith’s reinterpretation of artistic imitation; and Lord Kames’ dissolution of the paradox of tragedy. The book will also treat the role of aesthetics within three larger Scottish Enlightenment projects: (philosophical understanding of) natural and social scientific investigation; formulation of deism and the defusion of religious enthusiasm; and politically emancipatory and socially stabilizing education.

Associated Products

“Adam Smith on Aesthetic Imagination and Scientific Inquiry,” (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: “Adam Smith on Aesthetic Imagination and Scientific Inquiry,”
Title: “Adam Smith on Aesthetic Imagination and Scientific Inquiry,”
Author: Rachel Zuckert
Author: Rachel Zuckert
Abstract: In two posthumously published essays, ‘History of Astronomy’ and ‘Of the Nature of that Imitation which takes place in what are called The Imitative Arts’, Adam Smith suggests provocatively that philosophy is an ‘art of imagination’ and that we take the same ‘very high intellectual pleasure’ in appreciating systematic scientific theories and in listening to musical ‘systems’, i.e., complex works of non-programmatic instrumental music. In this paper, I reconstruct the view of imagination, as the cognitive faculty primarily responsible for perception and appreciation of such ‘systems’, that undergirds these claims, and argue that it is to be understood as aiming at ideal ends – in the first instance, at beauty or an order among variety (systematicity. Smith thus offers a distinctive view of aesthetic imagination, as neither freely playing nor imitative (two common views of imagination both in his time and ours) but rather as aiming at, and progressively realizing non-rational norms of order (again, at least in the first instance, an ideal of beauty).
Abstract: In two posthumously published essays, ‘History of Astronomy’ and ‘Of the Nature of that Imitation which takes place in what are called The Imitative Arts’, Adam Smith suggests provocatively that philosophy is an ‘art of imagination’ and that we take the same ‘very high intellectual pleasure’ in appreciating systematic scientific theories and in listening to musical ‘systems’, i.e., complex works of non-programmatic instrumental music. In this paper, I reconstruct the view of imagination, as the cognitive faculty primarily responsible for perception and appreciation of such ‘systems’, that undergirds these claims, and argue that it is to be understood as aiming at ideal ends – in the first instance, at beauty or an order among variety (systematicity. Smith thus offers a distinctive view of aesthetic imagination, as neither freely playing nor imitative (two common views of imagination both in his time and ours) but rather as aiming at, and progressively realizing non-rational norms of order (again, at least in the first instance, an ideal of beauty).
Date: 09/08/22
Date: 09/08/22

Prizes

Richard Wollheim lecture
Date: 1/6/2022
Organization: American Society for Aesthetics
Abstract: The Richard Wollheim Lecture is jointly sponsored with the British Society of Aesthetics. The ASA nominates a lecturer to speak at the BSA annual conference in even years and the BSA nominates a lecturer to speak at the ASA annual meeting in odd years.

Beauty, Imitation, and Sympathy: Aesthetics and its Moral Significance in Eighteenth-Century British Thought (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: Beauty, Imitation, and Sympathy: Aesthetics and its Moral Significance in Eighteenth-Century British Thought
Author: Rachel Zuckert
Abstract: Eighteenth-century Britain saw an explosion of interest in aesthetics: many thinkers leapt to investigate beauty and sublimity, imitation and emotion in art, artistic creativity (genius), and so forth. One prompt for this interest was the cynical account of human nature, morals and politics promoted by Thomas Hobbes and Bernard de Mandeville: crudely put, that human beings are solely motivated by self-interest, or pride, and that morals and politics are merely hypocrisy and modes of social control aimed to redirect self-promoting human impulses. Many thinkers argued in response that human attractions to beauty and art were powerful counterexamples to such a portrayal of human nature, showing that human beings can love objects and others for their own sakes, and in a way that calls them to social harmony, perhaps through eliciting and educating sympathetic responsiveness. Apart from discussing arguments concerning how human creation and response to art can be significant for understanding human nature and morality, we will also discuss questions such as: does appreciation of art and beauty require education, or contribute to moral and political education, or both? Does art or beauty promote (or not) social or political community, or revolution? Does representational art (“imitation”) arouse sympathetic emotion or understanding of diverse others (and if so, how)? How is taste (for beauty or art) influenced by wealth or social class?
Year: 2023
Audience: Undergraduate

Adam Smith on Aesthetic Imagination and Scientific Inquiry (Article)
Title: Adam Smith on Aesthetic Imagination and Scientific Inquiry
Author: Rachel Zuckert
Abstract: In two posthumously published essays, ‘History of Astronomy’ and ‘Of the Nature of that Imitation which takes place in what are called The Imitative Arts’, Adam Smith suggests provocatively that philosophy is an ‘art of imagination’ and that we take the same ‘very high intellectual pleasure’ in appreciating systematic scientific theories and in listening to musical ‘systems’, i.e., complex works of non-programmatic instrumental music. In this paper, I reconstruct the view of imagination, as the cognitive faculty primarily responsible for perception and appreciation of such ‘systems’, that undergirds these claims, and argue that it is to be understood as aiming at ideal ends – in the first instance, at beauty or an order among variety (systematicity. Smith thus offers a distinctive view of aesthetic imagination, as neither freely playing nor imitative (two common views of imagination both in his time and ours) but rather as aiming at, and progressively realizing non-rational norms of order (again, at least in the first instance, an ideal of beauty).
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://academic.oup.com/bjaesthetics
Primary URL Description: British Journal of Aesthetics
Access Model: some open access but primarily subscription
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: British Journal of Aesthetics
Publisher: Oxford University Press

Shaftesbury and Hutcheson; Enthusiasm and Humor (Article)
Title: Shaftesbury and Hutcheson; Enthusiasm and Humor
Author: Rachel Zuckert
Abstract: I discuss the famous proposal that enthusiasm is best addressed by humor (not argument, nor political measures), in Shaftesbury’s “Letter on Enthusiasm” (1708) – a suggestion, I argue, that can be developed further by recourse to Francis Hutcheson’s incongruity theory of humor in his 1725-26 “Reflections upon Laughter.” I propose that for Shaftesbury and Hutcheson enthusiasm is primarily to be understood as an aesthetically mistaken state, i.e., a socially infectious emotional responsiveness to something (a conception of God) wrongly taken to have the aesthetic value of grandeur. Humor, another socially contagious form of emotional responsiveness, can correct that mistake, on their analyses: it unmasks “false grandeur” by showing up incongruities among the imaginatively associated ideas that compose the enthusiast’s conceptions of God and world.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: DOI: 10.4324/9781032128207-10
Primary URL Description: Doi for the article
Secondary URL: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781032128207/fanaticism-history-philosophy-paul-katsafanas
Secondary URL Description: Website for the book
Access Model: available in an edited collection for purchase
Format: Other
Publisher: Routledge

Topiary and False Jewels: Adam Smith on Magnificence, Aesthetic Value, and Market Value (Article)
Title: Topiary and False Jewels: Adam Smith on Magnificence, Aesthetic Value, and Market Value
Author: Rachel Zuckert
Abstract: In his essay, “Of the Nature of that Imitation which takes place in what are called The Imitative Arts,” Adam Smith discusses two examples, topiary and false jewels, apparently coming to opposed conclusions: that aesthetic value is, and that it is not, independent of market value. I unpack the reasoning behind these conclusions, arguing that Smith’s position is consistent: he recognizes that aesthetic value can be occluded by market prices, as when one dismisses the beauty of something cheap out of snobbery – or heightened by them, as in the case of the aesthetic value of magnificence. Because aesthetic value can thus be heightened or corrupted by market value on Smith’s analysis, I suggest, speculatively, that for Smith the bad influence of economic considerations in aesthetic matters (faulty snobbery or an economically derived corruption of taste) is identified by reference to moral, not purely aesthetic criteria.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://academic.oup.com/jaac
Primary URL Description: Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism website
Access Model: subscription
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
Publisher: Oxford University Press

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