Process and Aesthetics: An Outline of Whiteheadian Aesthetics and Beyond

Abstract

Although Whitehead did not write any book or essay focussing directly on aesthetics, his thoughts on the role of aesthetic experience and art are dispersed throughout his entire oeuvre. While there have been a few attempts to abstract the philosopher's theory of aesthetics, for example Donald Sherburne's A Whiteheadian Aesthetic: Some Implications of Whitehead's Metaphysical Speculation (1961), Steve Odin's Tragic Beauty in Whitehead and Japanese Aesthetics (2009), or Steven Shaviro's more recent book Without Criteria: Kant, Whitehead, Deleuze, and Aesthetics (2016), and some attempts to elaborate creatively on Whitehead's thought on aesthetics (as in Susanne Langer, Charles Hartshorne), the authors of Process and Aesthetics: An Outline of Whiteheadian Aesthetics and Beyond choose to approach the issue from a different angle. As a starting point to reconstruct Whiteheadian aesthetics, they explore his notion of aesthetic experience. Apart from this concept, they also examine his ideas on rhythm, creativity, novelty, beauty, contrast, and harmony, which are essential not only in Whitehead's philosophical system but also in the thought of Henri Bergson and John Dewey, discussed alongside Whitehead. Whereas these three philosophers used different terms, their thoughts on aesthetic experience of reality and art overlap to a large extent. In line with Whitehead's ideas that “the Teleology of the Universe is directed to the production of beauty” (AI 265) and that our experience of reality is always primarily aesthetic since beauty is realized in each actual occasion (AI 252), the authors of the book argue that “in Whitehead's system, aesthetic experience or the experience of beauty become an ontological and ontologically creative principle” (66). Moreover, as the analyses in the book develop, this Whiteheadian interconnection of ontology and aesthetics also embraces ethics, which is justified by the philosopher's view that “the moral order is merely certain aspects of aesthetic order” (RM 91).The first chapter, “Whitehead's Aesthetic Philosophy and Implicit Aesthetics,” introduces Whitehead's philosophical system, the method of descriptive generalization, and the aim of such a concise system of thought that is bound to “discover new features of reality that are hidden in the background of conscious perception and to point out the connections between these newly formulated features” (14). The authors emphasize that, in this respect, the goals of art and philosophy converge because both disciplines force us to pay attention to our emotional response to the perception of both reality and art. It is pointed out that many passages in Whitehead's works are implicitly aesthetic and that the philosopher makes use of metaphorical language and draws examples from art. The authors also introduce Whitehead's notion of aesthetic experience, which should be understood in a nonartistic and broad sense since it “permeates all life, and art is only its most visible manifestation” (27). This idea foreshadows the thematic scope of the book, which similarly deals with issues far beyond aesthetics.The second chapter, “Whitehead and Dewey on the Aesthetic Experience and Art: Parallels and Differences,” offers a comparison between Whitehead's and Dewey's philosophical systems and ideas on aesthetics, arguing that both philosophers rejected the sharp dualism of art versus reality and promoted philosophy as close to everyday experience as possible. The authors also provide an extensive analysis of differences and disagreements between the philosophers’ ideas, for example Whitehead's criticism of Dewey's philosophical system that lacks adventurousness and orientation toward the future. However, the focal point of the chapter is the concept of rhythm, defined as “fusion of sameness and novelty” (49), which represents an underlying principle beneath everyday reality. The authors highlight the fact that, already in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge, Whitehead points out that, not only are events and objects rhythmic, but also life in general. This is related to Dewey's search for rhythm in nature and our experience, which serves as a bridge between him and Whitehead and provides the ground for the analysis of aesthetic experience as a manifestation of rhythm, for example, during the interaction between the subject and the object. In addition, the authors develop a discussion of Whitehead's and Dewey's possible stance on contextualization and isolationism in art, claiming that both advocated neither of these approaches to art and emphasized the necessity of continuity between fine arts and our ordinary experience of reality. Furthermore, the two philosophers promoted the cultivation of appreciation of art, which allows us to reveal vivid values in the physical environment that have been, at least since the Industrial Revolution, considered “mechanical,” utilitarian, and dissociated from any kind of value and beauty.The third chapter, “Whitehead and Bergson: Immediacy, Harmony, Rhythm, and Innovation,” elaborates on Whitehead's definition of aesthetic experience as “contrast under identity” (PNK 195–200) and argues that the same wording may be applied to the definition of a work of art. The latter is created through a process of harmonization of contrasts, or, in other terms, a repetitive rhythm of already established pattern into which novelty is introduced. Even beauty may be characterized as a harmony of contrasts, which implies that the terms aesthetic experience, rhythm, harmony, and beauty are very closely associated because they spring from various configurations of the same and the novel. The authors suggest that Whitehead's “paradoxical” (107) definition of rhythm is perfected and made concrete by Bergson, for whom a work of art represents a rhythmic arrangement that “takes possession of the viewer's consciousness and will” (109) and thus establishes an affective connection between the observer and the work of art. Moreover, like Whitehead, Bergson argues that reality, including microscopic molecules, is of rhythmic nature, and the authors shift this idea to the macroscopic scale of cultural history, arguing that “the rhythmic arrangement of a particular work corresponds to the rhythmic arrangement of the products of a particular civilization or culture” (117). For instance, the authors refer to Whitehead's theory of the decline of Hellenistic culture caused by the repetition of the same rhythmic pattern where the combinations of new contrasts were exhausted. Alarmingly, these rhythms of stagnation and transcendence into novelty seem to repeat, as suggested by Whitehead in relation to the monotonous nineteenth century's “industrial” pattern, which makes the reader reflect on our civilization that might nowadays find itself at the same point of aesthetic exhaustion or inertia.The fourth chapter, “Aesthetic Experience Reconsidered from a Process Perspective,” first deals with the role and function of various processes of abstraction in aesthetic experience. The authors emphasize that Whitehead's abstraction is not characterized by its result, but must be conceived as a process that enables the perceiver to feel complex values manifested not only in artworks but in the surrounding world. However, while this process is temporal and transitory, the resulting value is atemporal and permanent and may be involved in any other consequent process of experience. Moreover, it is suggested that aesthetic experience may be likened to the process of the grouping of an event or a society, which also evokes rhythm. The conclusion of the book states that Whitehead's approach to aesthetics and aesthetic experience rejects classical “static” aesthetic theories and anticipates contemporary neuroaesthetics, cognitive sciences, or reception aesthetics, as it emphasizes “events, becoming, process, synthesis of the heterogeneous” (166) and creativity.Apart from a few exceptions, Whiteheadian and process-oriented aesthetics have been overshadowed by other aspects of Whitehead's complex philosophical system. Therefore, Process and Aesthetics is a timely venture that places Whitehead's ideas on aesthetics and the importance of aesthetic experience at the very core of the philosopher's cosmology. The book does not represent a mere introduction to the topic, but it serves as a valuable guidebook throughout Whitehead's, Dewey's, and Bergson's ideas on aesthetics in its broad sense, which may be elaborated in specialized fields such as environmental ethics, literary analysis, musicology, pedagogy, and many others. It would also be interesting to explore the ideas mentioned in the book in relation to a specific artistic movement, for example Post-Impressionism, which also emphasized the emotional response to a work of art springing from the revelation of internal relations. Furthermore, it is very intriguing to see how the three philosophers, who have been, despite many differences, pigeonholed as process philosophers agree on the most fundamental aesthetic and ontological principles such as rhythm, harmony, experience of value in reality, or repetition of patterns of sameness and novelty. The main merit of the book is the authors’ decision to respect Whitehead's refusal to strictly distinguish between Art in the sense of fine arts and art in its broad sense as the appreciation of beauty in nature and the awareness of the presence of aesthetic feeling or stimuli in all constituents of reality. In this respect, the book is very topical as it emphasizes the necessity to reappreciate beauty and value of everyday experience that is nowadays, as in Whitehead's time, considered very different and distanced from the experience of works of arts exhibited in art galleries. Borrowing the words from the authors, the book reminds us that “we have forgotten the indispensable aesthetic—and also artistic—foundation of our practical, everyday experiences” (91) and that works of art are essential tools that refine our sense of aesthetic appreciation of the ordinary.