Instead the pleasure arises simply because the form of the object is delightful and could and should be enjoyed by anyone. Kant makes a sharp distinction between responding positively in this manner and responding positively for moral or scientific reasons. Although several theorists have disagreed with Kant's argument, most theorists agree that aesthetic experiences are identified as such at least partly because of an emotional involvement of the experiencer. One feels good (or bad) when one responds aesthetically to a beautiful sunset or elegant poem (or to a messy waste dump or plodding verse).
But it is more than just a feeling of pleasure (or pain) that characterizes aesthetic experiences, according to many theorists. John Dewey (1958), for example, argues that aesthetic experiences are the most complete, the richest, and the highest experiences possible. One is actively engaged and conscious of the world's effect on one but at the same time appreciative of one's possibilities for acting on the world. One senses an organization, coherence, and satisfaction as well as an integration of the past, present, and future that ordinary nonaesthetic experiences lack.
More recently, Nelson Goodman (1976) has warned that too much emphasis on the pleasurable aspects of aesthetic experiences deprives them of much of their importance.
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