Aesthetics and Philosophy in American Colleges

Author(s): Thomas Munro

Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism , Mar., 1946, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Mar.,
1946), pp. 180-187
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics

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 180 THOMAS MUNRO

theoretical ballast to keep her in the air. But in 1917, Igor Stravinsky, in exile,
with instinctive social insight, wrote, in spite of his disclaimer that nothing
matters save 'la mttiere sonore," a "Triumphal March of the Devil," in his
Story of a Soldier. The balloon of progress lay on the fields of Flanders, com-
pletely deflated.
With the demise of the idea of progress as a belief in automatic, universal
betterment, millions of people have come to regard progress as impossible and
unattainable in this age of insane destruction. The belief in the possibility of
progress must not be allowed to disappear. If it does, the history of music
and of everything worth while is finished.

AESTHETICS AND PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICAN COLLEGES

THOMAS MUNRO

Like all other sciences, aesthetics was hatched in the parent nest of philosop
It has hesitated long on the edge of the nest, before flying out to set up one
own. Its elder brother, psychology (formerly known as "mental philoso
went through the same pangs of separation a few decades ago. Psycholo
grown mightily since, and has brought back many a choice morsel of kno
to its elderly parents. Aesthetics as a formal, academic subject still feels
at home under the sheltering wing of philosophy.
Since the eighteenth century, it has held a somewhat uncertain place
member of the philosophical family. Its position is not unlike that of a la
unexpected arrival, a rather unsought and accidental infant, come to bles
old age of a couple whose other children have long since grown up. The in
awkward attempts to walk and do things for itself are entertaining but
embarrassing, among its well-poised older brothers. It often talks too m
and uses big words which it does not understand. When the family
noses, in planning a picnic or assigning tasks to be done, its existence is
times forgotten.
Aesthetics is sometimes listed among the recognized branches of philos
sometimes not. The student can read a long list of recent histories of phil
and surveys of contemporary problems, without discovering that aesth
exists, or that any great philosophers have been concerned about ar
troductions to philosophy" are worth noticing these days, as the nearest appr
to comprehensive philosophical systems. Our philosophers have appa
given up writing new systems of their own, but they do occasionally p
these brief epitomes for the young. Friedrich Paulsen's Introduction to
losophy,' still used since William James endorsed it in 1895, does not m
aesthetics among the branches of philosophy-logic, ethics, epistemology
metaphysics. Neither art nor aesthetics is mentioned in its Index.
I Tr. by F. Thilly. Holt, N. Y., 1895. First ed., Berlin, 1892.

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 AESTHETICS AND PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICAN COLLEGES 181

textbooks containing no aesthetics (or less than one tenth of one percent) are
Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy,2 R. B. Perry's Present Philosophi-
cal Tendencies,3 Vergilius Ferm's First Adventures in Philosophy,4 Howard Sel-
sam's What is Philosophy (A Marxist Introduction) ,' and W. A. Sinclair's Introduc-
tion to Philosophy.6
On the other hand, several older introductions to philosophy had chapters on
aesthetics, or aesthetic value, or "the beautiful"-for example, those by G. T
Ladd (1890) and W. T. Marvin (1912). R. W. Sellars7 includes aesthetics
("a reflection upon the nature of beauty whether in art or in nature") along with
ethics in axiology (theory of values) as one of the main divisions of philosophy.
G. T. W. Patrick's Introduction to Philosophy8 has an unusually long chapter
on "Aesthetic Values," with sections on objects of beauty, the science
of aesthetics, art periods in history, the art impulse, the fine arts, art and m
art and social morale, the play motive, the imagination, theories of the beautiful,
empathy, the psychology of aesthetic experience, music, and beauty as ideal
value. Recent introductions by D. R. Major,9 Durant Drake,'0 G. W. Cunning-
ham,"1 and C. B. Garnett"2 have sections on aesthetics or on beauty.
Philosophy in American Education, the vigorous new book by a commission of
the American Philosophical Association,"3 omits aesthetics from its list of "the
basic courses in philosophy" (history of philosophy, ethics, logic, and meta-
physics). But it does emphasize art as one of the "specific extraphilosophical
subject matters" which should be analyzed by philosophy. "Philosophy,"
it says, "can fit into such programs of mutual aid between related humanities
in three principal ways: (a) through the analytical disciplines of aesthetics
and philosophical linguistics; (b) by contributions to the history of ideas; (c)
in its interpretation and criticism of the moral and speculative ideals expressed
in literature and the arts."'14
Histories of philosophy in English often pay little attention to aesthetics or
the philosophy of art, passing quickly over important works on the subject by
leading philosophers. In Bertrand Russell's new History of Western Philosophy,'5
"aesthetics" receives three brief index references; "art" none. Hegel's monu-

2Holt, N. Y., n. d.
3 Longmans Green, N. Y., 1919.
4 Scribner's, N. Y., 1936.
6 International Publishers, N. Y., 1939.
6 Oxford, London, 1944.
7The Principles and Problems of Philosophy. Macmillan, N. Y., 1926.
8Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1924, 1935.
9 Doubleday Doran, N. Y., 1933.
10 Invitation to Philosophy. Houghton Mifflin, 1933.
"1 Problems of Philosophy. Holt, 1935.
12 Quest for Wisdom. Crofts, N. Y., 1942. (Thanks for several of these titles to Jared
S. Moore, professor of philosophy at Western Reserve, who has taught aesthetics there for
many years.)
13 B. Blanshard, C. J. Ducasse, and others. Harper, N. Y., 1945.
14 P. 236.
15 Simon and Schuster, N. Y., 1945. Cf. histories of philosophy by Thilly, Rogers, W. T.
Marvin, and others.

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 182 THOMAS MUNRO

mental Aesthetik (translated as The Philosophy of Fine Art, in four volumes)

is not mentioned in the account of that philosopher; neither are the works of
Santayana and Dewey on aesthetics.
What recognition is paid to aesthetics by philosophy departments in our lead-
ing universities? This would make an interesting survey, but perhaps it would
be fairer to wait until normal conditions return. A casual glance through the
catalogues indicates a good deal of difference in this respect. The Harvard
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, in its Official Register of February 1, 1945,
lists aesthetics among the topics in systematic philosophy on which a candidate
for the Ph.D. may work. The list comprises eleven subdivisions of the field,
and is thus notably longer than most traditional lists of the "branches" of philos-
ophy. It includes metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, logic,
philosophy of mathematics, ethics, philosophy of history, aesthetics, social philos-
ophy, and political philosophy. However, the Harvard philosophy department
announces no regular course on aesthetics during 1945-46; the nearest approach
seems to be a half-year course by R. B. Perry on "General Theory of Value, with
Special Reference to Aesthetic, Moral, Political and Religious Values."'6 The
Yale philosophy department omits aesthetics entirely from its list of "disciplines"
in philosophy, from which the candidate for a Ph.D. may choose.'7 These are
metaphysics, ethics, and philosophy of religion.
The California, Princeton, and Columbia departments of philosophy stand
out for their comparatively strong emphasis on aesthetics. At the University
of California in Berkeley, the chairman of the art department is a philosopher,
Stephen C. Pepper, who is Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetics. This
arrangement gives an unusually close tie between the two departments, and
many students work in both. Courses in aesthetics are given by Pepper and by
Edward Strong, while Jacob Loewenberg teaches one on the philosophy of
literature.'8 Princeton indicates philosophy of art as one of its graduate sub-
jects, and T. M. Greene has been giving a course on it. Plan I, for undergradu-
ates, is a chance to combine philosophy with art and literature-a good grouping.
This plan heads the list of possible combinations, the others linking philosophy
with social studies, natural science, religion, or American civilization.' At
Columbia, Irwin Edman has a graduate and an undergraduate course on the
philosophy of art, and a graduate seminar and graduate research course on the
philosophy of art and criticism. Helen H. Parkhurst presents in Barnard a well-
developed series of courses on aesthetics, and an excellent plan for linking them
with other relevant subjects. Aesthetics is listed here as one of the four major
subdivisions of philosophy, in connection with which the student is advised to
take certain courses in music, fine arts, psychology, anthropology, and the
literatures. Her own courses are on general aesthetics, the aesthetics of poetry
and prose, and the history of aesthetic theory. From the catalogue descriptions,

16 Announcement of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Mar. 31, 1945.

17 Bulletin of the Graduate School, 1944-45.
18 General Catalogue, Fall and Spring, 1945-46.
19 Undergraduate Catalogue, 1944-45. Cf. Bowers, D. F., and Greene, T. M., "Graduate
Work in Philosophy." Journal of Higher Education, vol. XVI, no. 4, April, 1945, p. 179.

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 AESTHETICS AND PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICAN COLLEGES 183

it would seem that they bring in a generous amount of content from the arts
and psychology, with comparative analysis of forms in different media. This is
far ahead of the general level of development at the present time.
Persistent disagreement on the status of aesthetics in philosophy has not pre-
vented numerous American philosophers from writing books about it. William
Knight's Philosophy of the Beautifut has a chapter on "The Philosophy of Amer-
ica," which reviews a surprising list of aestheticians from 1815 on-now mostly
forgotten, alas! -down to Gayley and a youthful John Dewey in 1887. Since
then, substantial writings on aesthetics have appeared under the names of
Santayana, Whitehead, Dewey, Parker, Prall, Ducasse, Chandler, Pepper,
Gilbert, Flaccus, George Boas, Parkhurst, Edman, Kallen, T. M. Greene, Morris,
Nahm, and others, in the philosophy departments of Harvard, Columbia, Prince-
ton, Brown, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, California, Duke, Johns Hopkins,
Bryn Mawr, Northwestern, and the New School for Social Research. This list is
far from complete; it omits several able writers, especially some who have recently
begun their work in this country. But it is long and honorable enough to make
one wonder why the subject of aesthetics itself is still so often treated as an orphan
stepchild in American philosophy departments. If someone happens to be
around who wants to teach it, well and good; if not, the lack is apparently not
considered very serious. Few philosophy departments are inclined to develop
aesthetics, as at Barnard, into a diversified program of detailed courses. One or
two half-year courses of a highly abstract nature, on beauty and aesthetic value,
are usually considered ample. Few departments assign more than one instructor
to the field.
For this slow development, many reasons can be given, including a lack of
demand on the part of students. But would there not be more demand if aes-
thetics were differently taught? One stumbling-block has been the traditionally
narrow conception of aesthetics as restricted to the abstract study of beauty and
aesthetic value. When this is all aesthetics deals with, it can never attract
many students to pursue it very far.
Some philosophers in this country and in Germany have gone to great pains
to exclude from aesthetics a number of subjects which, everyone concedes, are
closely related to it. Unfortunately, these hair-splitting distinctions are still
being made, to the continued bewilderment of students and the public. Thus
Helmut Kuhn, writing on "Philosophy of Art" in the new Encyclopedia of the
Arts,20 begins, "In order to determine the purpose of a philosophy of art, we
must distinguish it from aesthetics. . . Aesthetics, the philosophical analysis of
beauty, may be distinguished from the study, philosophical or otherwise, of art
as a form of human productivity ... This dualistic notion sprang from a desire to
emancipate the luxuriant growth of the modern study of art in its various aspects
(sociological, anthropological, psychological, and so forth) from the tutelage of a
conservative and classicistic aesthetics. It is reflected by the double-barrelled
title of the most important periodical in the field, the Zeitschrift fur Asthetik und
Aligemeine Kunstwissenschaft, founded by Max Dessoir in 1906." A little

20 Ed. by D. D. Runes and H. G. Schrickel. Philosophical Library, N. Y., 1946.

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 184 THOMAS MTNRO

inconsistently, Dr. Kuhn later concedes to aesthetics "the traditional privilege

of covering the whole area of both beauty and art." He marks off "within
aesthetics a sector more specifically devoted (I) to the problems of art as a type
of human productivity, (II) to the study of the relations between the multiple
arts, and (III) to the location of art within human life." He ends by labelling
"this triple branch of aesthetics 'philosophy of art.' "
Dewitt H. Parker, writing on "Aesthetics" in the same Encyclopedia, begins
with what sounds like a roomy definition: "The purpose of aesthetics is to dis-
cover the generic characteristics of fine or beautiful art, and to determine the
relation of art to other phases of culture, such as science, industry, morality,
philosophy, and religion." Not content with this welcoming gesture, he begins
at once to exclude this and that. "Aesthetics is sharply distinguished from the
history of art, which is concerned, not with the essence of art, but with the
filiation and development of styles and schools. Sometimes the scope of aes-
thetics is broadened to include the beautiful in nature and human life, but when
this is done, it tends to lose definiteness of content. . ." It appears, too, that
neither the psychology of art nor art criticism is really a part of aesthetics; they
are "two disciplines closely related to aesthetics in content and history."
All this meticulous specification as to what is really aesthetics, and what is not,
sounds like a discussion of who should and who should not belong to some
exclusive club. It recalls the ancient, pre-evolutionary conception of the
branches of human learning, which divided the universe into a lot of neatly
fenced-off compartments, with "no trespassing" signs on each. It recalls
the arbitrary attitude of early theorists toward the arts themselves-that each
art had certain limits, which it must not cross over into the "province" of some
other art. Such theorizing would be a harmless indoor pastime if it did not
operate to hamper the growth of a major field of knowledge, and of students'
experience therein, by setting up a mass of fussy little regulations on what should
or should not be included in courses on aesthetics. The more sensible aestheti-
cians, including Professors Kuhn and Parker, usually ignore these distinctions in
practice, and do not hesitate to talk about art under the heading of aesthetics.
Says Brand Blanshard, "we must learn to think straight about what art is trying
to do, which is the business of aesthetics."' But others seem to take the
narrow concept of aesthetics as an excuse for neglecting the subject-matter of the
arts. "It is up to the particular arts to teach this subject-matter," they imply.
"Let the fine arts, music, and literature departments cover it. Let the psycholo-
gists cover the psychology of art." Of course, the psychologists usually don't
have time for it either, and of course no one of the particular art departments can
undertake to cover the whole field of art in a comprehensive way. It is in many
ways a philosophical task, as Dr. Kuhn implies in calling it "philosophy of
art."
If the philosophy departments will do the job under that name, and define
"philosophy of art" broadly enough, well and good. Most American writers
now treat "aesthetics" and "philosophy of art" as coextensive. If people can

21 "Education as Philosophy." Swarthmore College Bulletin, vol. XLII, no. 4,7th month
1945. Dr. Blanshard has recently been appointed Professor of Philosophy at Yale.

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 AESTHETICS AND PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICAN COLLEGES 185

agree to call the field "philosophy of art," or "science of art," or "art theory,"
or Kunstwissenschaft, one name will do as well as another. It would not be
hard to coin a better name than "aesthetics," if one could start from scratch.
But "aesthetics" has achieved more general use than any other term, and it is
commonly defined so as to include these closely related fields. So why confuse
the issue by needless distinctions, and a needless multiplicity of labels? The
important thing is to get the job done somehow: to start, in a concerted and
vigorous way, systematic investigation of the arts and related types of human
experience; to develop instruction in American colleges for the sake of all inter-
ested students, and to provide adequate facilities for advanced research.
This is not to say that the distinctions quoted above are false or entirely use-
less. It is important to distinguish between factual and evaluative studies;
between observing works of art and defining general aesthetic categories, etc.
These are different tasks, emphases, and approaches within the subject of
aesthetics, which should be distinguished as well as interrelated. But it is
harmful to erect them at the start into restrictive boundaries for the whole sub-
ject; to fence off a little realm of abstract value-theory, and obstruct free traffic
between it and its neighbors. A precise definition of the limits of aesthetics is
not urgently needed at the present stage. If made at all, it should be made in
terms of more and less. When art criticism becomes sufficiently general and
fundamental, covering a wide range of art and scrutinizing value-standards, it
becomes aesthetics. When art history becomes sufficiently general and funda-
mental, revealing major culture-epochs, styles, trends, and causal relations, it
becomes aesthetics. When psychology discloses main recurrent factors in per-
sonality and social behavior which affect the creation and use of art, it becomes
aesthetics. When semantics deals constructively with aesthetic terms and
meanings, it becomes aesthetics.
There is no distinct subject of aesthetics in the nature of things. There is a
set of diverse phenomena, called "aesthetic" and "artistic," which can as yet be
only roughly marked off. There is a varied group of intellectual approaches to
them, for the purpose of raising and answering as well as possible a numberof
different problems, which seem important to different generations. Aesthetics
as a subject will thrive best by freely admitting many scientific, critical, artistic,
historical, and educational approaches to its counsels; by admitting many dif-
ferent types of data and hypotheses, whether or not they conform to some pre-
established definition of what aesthetics ought to include. In educational
administration, as in organizing college departments, some marking off of fields
is necessary for practical purposes. But it should never be too exact or obstruc-
tive to new approaches, which may seek to cut across the old boundaries.
At the present time aesthetics, or the group of subjects loosely designated by
that name, is growing too large to be adequately taught within the limits of the
ordinary philosophy department, however well-disposed some individual philoso-
phers may be. The philosophical nest is elastic enough to accommodate a sizable
fledgling. But there are limits to the growth of any one branch of philosophy,
especially when a small department is expected to cover the whole traditional
field.

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 186 THOMAS MUNRO

One disadvantage of the term "p

subject down to its prescientific
philosophy. The term "philosophy of mind" was similarly inadequate for
scientific psychology. Kunstwissenschaft implies science, rather than philosophy,
of art. Moreover, "philosophy of art" seems to leave out some important
aesthetic phenomena which occur outside the realm of art.
Meanwhile, other college departments are extending in the direction of Kunst-
wissenschaft, especially when the philosophers are indisposed to do so. In almost
every college, someone on the faculty is interested in problems of general art
theory. He may be in the art department, or the English department, or the
psychology department, or the history of religion department, or elsewhere.
In American colleges, the demarcation of subjects is so flexible that one can
expand a course on "art appreciation" or "literary criticism" indefinitely, unless
some colleague protests, by bringing in for "background" and "comparison"
a variety of materials which should nominally be taught by someone else. For
this reason it is hard to discover, from a casual survey of catalogues, just how
much aesthetics is being taught in American colleges. Many a course on the
history of music or the contemporary novel includes more general aesthetics than
its teacher could easily defend on strict theoretical grounds. This is a practical
and very American way to let a subject grow, with freedom for different ap-
proaches, and for growth along the line of least resistance, in the hands of anyone
who seems able and inclined to foster it.
Sometimes the next stage is to group several of the arts together for better
integration, with or without the help of philosophy. Sarah Lawrence College
seems to get along without benefit of professional philosophers, but it groups
the visual arts, music, dance, and theater arts under one heading, "The Arts,"
with several theory courses. Rudolf Arnheim teaches the psychology of art.
Stephens College combines several arts under the title "The Humanities." There
is a department of Aesthetics, Art, and Music under Katharine Gilbert (a philoso-
pher) at Duke, whereas Antioch's department of Art and Aesthetics has been
headed by Stites, primarily a fine arts man. The writer's own courses on
aesthetics at Western Reserve University are given in the art department, in
cooperation with the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Some of the most substantial contributions to aesthetics in this country, as in
Europe, have been made by persons concerned primarily with the visual arts:
for example, Lewis Mumford (a free-lance writer), Coomaraswamy at the Boston
Museum of Fine Arts, Helen Gardner at the Chicago Art Institute, A. P.
McMahon at New York University, and A. Torossian at California. Some
have been made by literary critics such as R. G. Moulton, I. A. Richards, F. C.
Prescott, and Louise Dudley; some by psychologists such as Mflnsterberg,
Langfeld, Witmer, Seashore, Schoen, Ogden, Meier, and Farnsworth; some by
ethnologists such as Franz Boas at Columbia. In these ways and others, aesthet-
ics is being approached "from below," as Fechner advised, but with solid factual
materials from the arts and various sciences. One source of strength in the
American Society for Aesthetics and in this Journal has been the support which
they have received from persons in all these fields.

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 REPLY TO "NOTE ON A HISTORY OF ESTHETICS" 187

In approaching aesthetics from any single artistic or scientific point of view,

there is an obvious limitation. A certain subdivision of the field, a particular
type of phenomenon, is likely to be emphasized to a degree inconsistent with a
balanced, comprehensive view. At the present stage some breadth and balance
can be secured through supplementing philosophical aesthetics with selected
courses in the arts. It is a question how much integration can be achieved
through combining a list of specialized courses in different arts, even with the
aid of philosophy.
As the subject grows, it will eventually be found advisable to set up distinct
departments of aesthetics. Such departments will be separate from philosophy
to the extent that psychology has become separate. Let us hope that they will
continue to deal with their materials in a philosophic way, through searching
criticism of assumptions and methods, along with breadth of synthesis. They
will use many of the old philosophical concepts and hypotheses, along with new
ones of their own. They will not ignore the old problems of beauty and value,
but will approach them with more equipment for intelligent evaluation, in the
shape of new knowledge about the arts and their relation to human nature.
(Some of this new aesthetic insight may supply American philosophy itself with a
much-needed tonic; a fresh approach to its own, non-aesthetic problems. But
that is another question.)
It is pleasant at this stage to dream of a fully developed, independent depart-
ment of aesthetics in a major university, properly staffed and equipped with
materials and modern apparatus for studying and experimenting with all the
arts; close to museums, libraries, concert halls, and theatres; distinct from
specialized departments of philosophy, psychology, literature, music, and visual
arts, but cooperating actively with them. An opportunity exists for some uni-
versity to be the first to build one.

A REPLY TO VAN METER AMES'S "NOTE ON A

HISTORY OF ESTHETICS"

KATHARINE GILBERT AND HELMUT KUHN'

The mind of Mr. Ames, disturbed in various ways by A History of Esthetics,

puts the disturbers of the peace under the obligation of trying to restore the
lost calm and confidence. His "Note" at the same time provides the occasion
for a restatement of the general purpose and scope of the History as the authors
conceived it.
We hoped to trace the growth and fortunes of what in the process of time
defined themselves as the important aesthetic problems, such as that of art to

l Part I is by Katharine Gilbert; Parts II and III are by Helmut Kuhn. The article by
Ames was published in this JOURNAL, Sept. 1945, vol. IV, no. 1.

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