Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature - Graduate Course PL565 (2002)

PL 565: Seminar: Environmental Philosophy: Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature

3 credits. Thursdays, 7-9.50 p.m. Eddy. Instructor: Rolston Reference 286934

Course Description:

What are suitable skills and criteria for appropriate aesthetic appreciation of nature. How is the aesthetic appreciation of nature similar to and different from appreciation of art objects? Are natural landscapes always beautiful or are some landscapes ugly? How does wildlife art and wildlands art help one to appreciate nature aesthetically? Is there a correct aesthetic appreciation of nature? Is aesthetic appreciation of nature culture-based? What is the role of scientific understanding in aesthetic appreciation?

What is the role of the sublime? The role of the non-visual perceptions (sound, smell, touch) in the aesthetic appreciation of nature. What are criteria for the appreciation of rural landscapes? Is restored nature as beautiful as pristine nature? Tradeoffs between aesthetic preservation and utilitarian consumption of natural resources. To what extent is aesthetic value in nature a justification for an environmental ethics and for biological conservation?

Course materials. On reserve in the library and in the graduate office. In the graduate office, borrow these briefly and make your own copies. Please take care with these materials; others will need them. The readings are on CSU Library Electronic Reserve, and to obtain them here you have to have a computer and read each one on-line, or download each one (Adobe PDF) file and print it. For this you will have to be registered for the class and to use your CSU ID number; this is required to meet copyright restrictions. http://lib.colostate.edu/access/reserve

There will be a brief reading quiz at the first of each class, scored cumulatively across the semester.

Class outline:

Aug. 29. First class.

Sept. 5. Unit I. Nature, Art, Landscapes

Christopher Fitter, "Landscape from the Ancients to the Seventeenth Century," Volume 3, pages 86-93 in Michael Kelley, ed., Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Holmes Rolston, III, "Landscape from Eighteenth Century to the Present." Volume 3, pages 93-99 in Michael Kelley, ed., Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Ronald W. Hepburn, "Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature," in Harold Osborne, ed., Aesthetics in the Modern World (New York: Weybright and Talley, 1968), pp. 49-65.

Ronald Hepburn, "Trivial and Serious in Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature," in Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell, eds., Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 65-80.

Sept. 12. Unit II. Valued Landscapes & the Sublime

David Lowenthal, "Finding Valued Landscapes," Progress in Human Geography (London) 2 (no. 3, 1978):373-417.

Marjorie Hope Nicolson, "Aesthetics of the Infinite," Chapter 7 in Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory: The Development of the Aesthetics of the Infinite (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1959).

Sept. 19. Unit III. Reading Landscapes, the Rockies

Dr. Rolston in Scotland, Genetics and Ethics Conference. Dr. Cafaro to lead class.

May Theilgaard Watts, "Tundra Hailstorm," in Watts, Reading the Landscape of America (New York: Macmillan, 1975), pp. 250-265.

May Theilgaard Watts, "In Pursuit of Tolerance, Wind, Shade, and Salt in Massachusetts," in Watts, op. cit., pp. 21-37.

J. A. Walter, "You'll Love the Rockies," Landscape 17 (no. 3, 1983):43-47.

J. Baird Callicott, "Leopold's Land Aesthetic" from In Defense of the Land Ethic (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989).

Sept. 26. Unit IV. Forests, Prairies, and Swamps

Holmes Rolston, III, "Aesthetic Experience in Forests," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 52(no. 2, spring 1998):157-166.

Neil Evernden, "Beauty and Nothingness: Prairie as Failed Resource," Landscape 27(no. 3, 1983):1-8.

Holmes Rolston, III, "Aesthetics in the Swamps," Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 43 (no, 4, 2000):584-597.

Oct 3. Unit V. Carlson

Allen Carlson, "Appreciation and the Natural Environment," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 37(1979):267-275.

Allen Carlson, "Formal Qualities in the Natural Environment," Journal of Aesthetic Education 13(1979):99-114.

Allen Carlson, "Nature, Aesthetic Judgment, and Objectivity," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 40 (no. 1, 1981):15-27.

Oct. 10. Unit VI. Science, Religion, Beauty

Holmes Rolston, III, "Does Aesthetic Appreciation of Landscapes Need to be Science-Based?" British Journal of Aesthetics 35(1995):374-386.

Noël Carroll, "On Being Moved by Nature: Between Religion and Natural History," in in Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell, eds., Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pages 244-266.

Ronald Hepburn, "Nature Humanised: Nature Respected," Environmental Values 7(1998):267-279.

Take-home midterm distributed.

Oct. 17. Take-home midterm due for discussion in class

Oct. 24. Unit VII. Beauty, Participation, Disinterest, Ethics

Sven Arntzen, "Natural Beauty, Ethics and Conceptions of Nature," Filosofski vestnik (Institute of Philosophy, Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Ljublana, Slovenia) 20(no. 2, 1999):291-301.

Holmes Rolston, III, "From Beauty to Duty: Aesthetics of Nature and Environmental Ethics," in Arnold Berleant, ed., Environment and the Arts: Perspectives on Environmental Aesthetics (Aldershot, Hampshire and Burlington, VT: UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2002), pages 127-141.

Emily Brady, "Don't Eat the Daisies: Disinterestedness and the Situated Aesthetic," Environmental Values 7(1998):97-114.

Oct. 31. Unit VIII. Berleant

Arnold Berleant, Chapter 1, "Environment as a Challenge to Aesthetics," (pp. 1-13)

Chapter 2, "The Aesthetic Sense of Environment," (pp. 14-24)

Chapter 3, "Descriptive Aesthetics," (pp. 25-39) Chapter 9, "Environmental Criticism," (pp. 126-144)

Chapter 10, "Environment as Aesthetic Paradigm," (pp. 145-159)

From The Aesthetics of Environment (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992).

Nov. 7. Unit IX. Tuan, The Senses

Yi-Fu Tuan, Chapter 3, "Pleasures of the Proximate Senses," (pp. 35-51, 55-62) (aesthetic experience of taste, touch, smell, kinesthesia)

Chapter 4, "Voices, Sounds, and Heavenly Music," (pp. 70-79) (aesthetic experience of sound)

Chapter 5, "Visual Delight and Splendor," (pp. 96-118) (aesthetic experience of sight)

From Passing Strange and Wonderful (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1993)

Dr. Rolston in Grand Rapids, MI., Genetics and Ethics Seminar

Nov. 14. Unit X. Positive Aesthetics, Wildlife, Agriculture

Allen Carlson, "Nature and Positive Aesthetics," Environmental Ethics 6(1984):5-34.

Holmes Rolston, III, "Beauty and the Beast: Aesthetic Experience of Wildlife," in Daniel J. Decker and Gary R. Goff, eds., Valuing Wildlife: Economic and Social Perspectives (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987), pp. 187-196.

Nov. 21. Unit XI. The Japanese and Nature

Yuriko Saito, "The Japanese Appreciation of Nature," British Journal of Aesthetics 23 (no. 3, 1985):239-251.

Yuriko Saito, "Is There a Correct Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature?," Journal of Aesthetic Education 18(1984):35-46.

Christopher Ives, "Nature Wild and Stylized: Gary Snyder and the Japanese Love and Destruction of Shizen (Nature)," typescript, Christopher Ives, Department of Religion, University of Puget Sound.

Nov. 28. Thanksgiving break

Dec. 5. Unit XII. Evolution and Aesthetics, Biophilia

Gordon H. Orians and Judith H. Heerwagen, "Evolved Responses to Landscapes," in Jerome H. Barkow, Leda cosmides and John Tooby, eds., The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pages 555-579.

Judith H. Heerwagen and Gordon H. Orians, "Humans, Habitats, and Aesthetics," in Stephen R. Kellert and Edward O. Wilson, eds., The Biophilia Hypothesis (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1993), pages 138-172.

Roger S. Ulrich, "Biophilia, Biophobia, and Natural Landscapes," in Stephen R. Kellert and Edward O. Wilson, eds., The Biophilia Hypothesis (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1993), 73-137.

Take home final distributed.

Dec. 12. Unit XIII. Rolston

Holmes Rolston, III, "Lake Solitude," in Philosophy Gone Wild (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1986), pp. 223-232. Originally in Main Currents in Modern Thought 31 (no. 4, 1975):121-126.

Holmes Rolston, III, "Meditation at the Precambrian Contact," in Philosophy Gone Wild, pp. 233-240. Originally published as, "Hewn and Cleft from this Rock," Main Currents in Modern Thought 27 (no. 3, 1971):79-83.

Holmes Rolston, III, "The Pasqueflower," in Philosophy Gone Wild, pp. 256- 261. Originally published in Natural History 88 (no. 4, 1979):6-16.

Dec. 19. Last class, exam week.

Take home final discussed.

Course grading:

Reading quiz 20%

Take-home midterm 30%

Take-home final 30%

Class participation 20%

Professor Rolston's office: Eddy 241

Office Hours: Tuesdays, Thursdays 5.00-6.00 p.m.

Phones: 491-5328, office

491-6315, philosophy office, with answering machine.

After hours, leave word at this number.

484-5883, home