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The Aesthetics of Organicism
451 variably together. These variations may obtain a pie, a painting, or a view of the be basic not only to actual enjoyments, sunset reflecting in a mountain lake, bewhether ordinary or artistic, but also cause we believe they, and the value-exfoundational in aesthetic judgment and periences which they produce, have a art criticism.
real, not merely apparent, existence. And, 4. Are intrinsic values subjective or ob- until we become habitually critical about jective? For Organicism, they are both. perceptual inferences, we tend to locate Enjoyment is obviously subjective, yet, the values experienced in the objects with a few exceptions, enjoyment involves themselves. It is a strange lover who does what is enjoyed. A taste sensation usually not value his beloved. is not only pleasant but sweet or sour or T he role of ideals, i.e., ideas of valued experienced with some other sensuous objects, or objectives (ends-in-view), not content, familiar or unfamiliar. A desire yet actualized, should not be underestiordinarily is experienced not merely with mated in understanding how intrinsic more or less exuberance but as a desire values are experienced. Although we do for some particular thing, object, or ob- not need to go so far as to reify ideals jective. A feeling of satisfaction normally is as eternal entities, as Platonists have done, experienced as having achieved what was the pragmatic functioning of persisting wanted. Contentment, unless one falls into ideals provides a practical kind of evidence a dreamless sleep, usually retains un- of the apparent reality of what is idealized. anxious traces of awareness of the satis- The experienced recurrence or endurance factions attained, the present context, or of some as if intrinsic value provides imaginative or anticipatory possibilities. pragmatic warrant for believing and beThe shape, content, or significance of having as if such intrinsic value were what is enjoyed appears as objective, i.e., real. Hence, the Organicist view is that, as objects of attention. Normally, enjoy- "When anything appears as, or as if, real, ment is neither merely subjective nor it both appears as real and it appears merely objective but a blend of both or, as real.” 11 Although attention may be rather, an organic flux from which neither focused upon either the apparent aspect subjective nor objective aspects are totally or the as-if-real aspect of experience, both absent.
are regarded as mutually dependent, and 5. Are intrinsic values real or apparent? as constantly available for reflective obThey may be experienced as either, or servation whenever one cares to observe. even both at the same time. Objects valued Organicism, holding that experiences of in dreams and daydreams, when we intrinsic values may be richer when such awaken from them, seem merely apparent, values are intuited as having both apthough while we are dreaming they often parent and realistic aspects, opposes both seem as real as those which appear when those who regard such values as merely we are awake. Most of us are naive real- apparent, or merely real, or as both but ists10 most of the time, with regard to involving some unlikely correspondence intrinsic values as well as to physical between them. things and their qualities, such as shapes 6. The Hedonistic paradox that, aland colors. Although some intrinsic goods though pleasant feeling is the intrinsic and evils appear to have their locus pri- value we seek, we can find it, normally, marily within ourselves, such as a tickling only by seeking some object or activity sensation, a heartburn, a frustrating per- which yields such pleasant feeling as a plexity preventing us from reaching a by-product, becomes generalized, in Ordecision, or a fear persisting after our ganicism, as an intrinsic-value paradox. anxious belief has been demonstrated That is not only pleasant feeling but mistaken, we naturally believe that the also enthusiasm, satisfaction, contentment, objects we value exist independently of our and organic enjoyment usually occur only being aware of them. We exert effort to within some complex context and in such
