Abstract
I defend extreme formalism about the aesthetics of inorganic nature. I outline the general issue over aesthetic formalism as it manifests itself in the visual arts. The main issue is over whether we need to know about the history of artworks in order to appreciate them aesthetically. I then turn to nature and concede that with organic nature we need to know a thing's biological kinds if we are fully to appreciate it. However, with in organic nature I deny that we need to know the deeper nature of the things we experience. What is important, I argue, are the appearances of those things not their real natures. I consider the beauty of clouds, which depends on an illusion of solidity, and I argue that scientific knowledge does not reveal beauty that is not available to the ignoramous. There is only the beauty of appearances, and it does not matter whether those appearances are accurate or illusory.
Highlights
I defend extreme formalism about the aesthetics of inorganic nature
I outline the general issue over aesthetic formalism as it manifests itself in the visual arts
We can ask: what does the beauty of nature depend on? Or we can ask: what do we need to know in order properly to appreciate the beauty of nature? (By ‘appreciation’ I shall mean aesthetic enjoyment and judgement.) In this paper I focus on the beauty of inorganic nature
Summary
The debate over formalism about the aesthetic appreciation of nature runs parallel to debates over formalism in art criticism and theoretical reflection on the arts. Some anti‐formalists require that we know the ecological roles of inorganic things, which is a matter of their wider causal role with respect to living things.. I am using Ruth Millikan's historical notion of function, which she calls ‘Proper Function’,4 rather than Robert Cummins' notion of systematic capacity function, which involves a set of dispositions that a thing has at a time in virtue of how it is at that time Her notion, unlike his, is historical.5It is not easy to say exactly what the specific history is that generates functions. Unlike his, is historical.5It is not easy to say exactly what the specific history is that generates functions This does not cause great problems for the aesthetics of biological nature.
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