Imagine that you are looking from a high room through a closed window at a beautiful mountain landscape on a summer evening, with the last light of day, while outside in the distance a thunderstorm is brewing. You see forests, ice, picturesque little villages and homes, and the subsequent twilight, the tip of the sunset. Shortly thereafter, you will notice the gathering of black clouds. It’s getting darker and darker, and the sun is disappearing. Suddenly there is an endless series of thunderbolts, lightning flashes, and then a heavy rain falls. Sirens could be heard from the valley. Blue light flashes. You are safe and warm behind your window. What do you think of such a situation?
When we perceive the world around us with our senses and the mental capacities that support and direct our senses, we can judge all or at least a great deal of what we perceive. Of course, the judgments we make can be about absolute usefulness, or about the greater or lesser suitability of something to accomplish a particular task. You might look out the window at the different paths around a hilltop and think that the best way to get to the bakery in the nearby village the next morning is to take the left path by bike.
But there are also provisions that deal with more than utilitarianism. For example, it’s very likely that you don’t judge a beautiful rolling countryside only by how good it is for farming or what obstacles it poses to traffic. You might also find it beautiful. The philosophical discipline that deals with the beautiful and the ugly and everything related to it is aesthetics. Therefore, we are talking here about an aesthetic judgment.
But what happens now when a thunderstorm breaks out, when you hear thunder, lightning, torrential rain and emergency vehicles? It can be nice to have goose bumps in your spine, leaving you impressed and shocked in a certain way. But you probably don’t like a thunderstorm, and above all you don’t like the damage it causes. How would we classify your thoughts about a thunderstorm?
“Alcohol buff. Troublemaker. Introvert. Student. Social media lover. Web ninja. Bacon fan. Reader.”
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