National Art Education Association

Review
Reviewed Work(s): The Structure of Aesthetics by F. E. Sparshott
Review by: T. F. Saunders
Source: Studies in Art Education, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Spring, 1964), pp. 75-77
Published by: National Art Education Association
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1319755
Accessed: 16-04-2020 08:00 UTC

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REVIEW OF THE STRUCTURE OF AESTHETICS

T. F. Saunders/University of Arizona

The Structure of Aesthetics, F. E. Sparshott. Toronto: University of Toronto

Press, 1963. 471 pp. $7.50

Aesthetic experience is a manifestation, a record

and celebration of the life of a civilization, a means
of promoting its development, and is also the ulti-
mate judgment upon the quality of a civilization.
Dewey

Aesthetics will be counted one of the main philo-

sophical disciplines whenever those aspects of hu-
manity with which it deals assume a central impor-
tance in the concept of humanity itself.
Sparshott

The purpose of this volume is "to help the reader to understand any
aesthetic theory with which he may find himself confronted."
Professor Sparshott establishes himself methodologically when he sees
not only the necessity of a scheme for articulating "this notoriously tangled
subject," but also proposes a higher level competence for integrating this
scheme with other subject matter discourses and approaches. This latter
demand is only too rarely considered and, if proposed, is usually left at
the unarticulated stage.
This philosophic emphasis should assist the reader in uncovering those
presuppositions and assumptions which, when not recognized, permit some
strange conclusions to emerge as aesthetic judgment.
Adequate judgments about the arts have not crowded the scene in
aesthetic theory. Traditionally this has only been unfortunate. But we are
in a period of great concern for aesthetic matters, an aesthetic frontier
which is refashioning many practices in our society. The growth of the
humanities as the fallout of the science explosion, the search for a common
language to compensate for our digital construction of foreign policy, and
the "threat of leisure" all contribute to the need for a clear, provocative,
and authoritative presentation of the "aesthetic question." Professor Spar-
shott's book is such a work.
He presents a wide variety of contending theories of aesthetics and
challenges these conceptions in such delightfully subtle terms as to intrigu
the reader to await his next analysis. Even the style of the footnotes is
refreshing and often humorous. For example, in one footnote where a
painter by the name of Wang Hsia is spoken of as an example of auto-

THE STRUCTURE OF AESTHETICS 75

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76

matism because he paints with his hair, Sparshott quips, "This is not so
much automatism as painting with an unusually large brush."
From a methodological point of view, probably the most significant
emphasis in this book is the careful differentiation of levels of meaning
as the arts, the theories about the arts (criteria of adequacy for judgment
about the objects of art experience), and the theories about the theories of
art (a search for criteria with which to articulate and evaluate the alterna-
tive theories of art experience). This last concern leads the author to
deal with the language problem as it is treated by various pragmatic
authors and is only curious in its omission of Charles Sanders Peirce as a
contributing agent.
Professor Sparshott demonstrates his excellent insight in his concern
for rigor where he details the errors which can emerge from assuming that
a description of any kind can be removed from the value arena. He says,
for example, "The very arrangement of topics and relative scale of treat-
ment must be determined by what I think important and valuable."
Again we find a strange and often neglected distinction in the author's
concern for the distinguishability of discourses and the conclusions which
can emerge from them. In order to preserve any semblance of order, any
subject must employ a uniform and consistently developed set of categories
in which the concepts of the field can be explored. As Sparshott says, "the
sociology of art remains sociology, and the psychology of art remains
psychology."
One last overarching problem with which this book deals is no stranger
to the field of philosophic discourse. The problem of the relationship
between aesthetics and ethics as overlapping, dichotomies fused, or as
pseudo problems.
Professor Sparshott designates the historicity of the issue and leads
us down a path strewn by fallen combinations of aesthetics and ethics.
However, he does not commit himself to a position comparable to his
definitive statements on other questions. Rather than attempt to extrapolate
from this book and infer a solution which would seem compatible with
other positions, we can note one rather respectable alternative with which
our author would be likely to be sympathetic.

Were art an acknowledged power in human association and not treated as

the pleasuring of an idle moment or as a means of ostentatious display, and
were morals understood to be identical with every aspect of value that is
shared in experience, the "problem" of the relation of art and morals would
not exist.

This quote from John Dewey's Art as Experience could easily be

instrumental to the consideration of moral judgments as qualitative
problem-solving where the qualitative judgments in the arts are elevated to
respectability by establishing the symbolic character of qualities. Such a
model has been developed by N. Champlin and F. Villemain of Wayne
State University and Toledo University respectively.

STUDIES IN ART EDUCATION

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 77

While we can forgive Professor Sparshott for not entertaining this

recent development in aesthetic extension due to the paucity of available
material, we cannot forgive direct contradictions. He says,
One cannot describe a work of art without showing what one thinks im-
portant in it. Thus even a description presupposes a system of evaluation,
and such a system when articulated and defended is an aesthetic theory.
Then in another place, he states,
The most obvious way of classifying art without committing oneself to value
judgments is to enumerate and classify the arts-all the different trades,
media, and so on, in which aesthetic effects are deliberately produced.
This criticism is somewhat presumptuous in that Professor Sparshott
has warned us early in his book that he may violate some of the principles
he cherishes due to a selective neglect for purposes of expediency. But no
reviewer can let his author off scot free.
In summary, this is an extraordinary book which should encourage
wide adoption. Its concern is of such wide scope, to which no review could
do justice without loss of depth, that it should be applicable to a wide
variety of courses at several levels ranging from lay enthusiasts to graduate
seminars. It is rigorous enough to satisfy the most exacting and with wide
references to lead the uninitiated through the maze. Sparshott's style is
clear, lucid, and often ironic. Two such comments bear reporting:
But etymology is not a safe guide to reality; nor are the daily papers.
And when he refers to a comment on Freudian theory that it is valuable
because it applies mutatis mutandis to beauty, Sparshott gets off,
By mutating enough mutanda you can make anything apply to anything.
Whatever the resolution in the problems of aesthetics, the author
is perfectly correct when he insists that it is not the answers which render
the area's significance. It is enough that responsible men take the concept
seriously and enter on an inquiry concerning these matters.
Professor Sparshott must be complimented on his efforts in this volume.
We can only hope that those who would omit aesthetics from responsible
inquiry would take notes.
. .. so that the philosophy of art may come to serve as a starting point
for epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics.
Sparshott

Art-the mode of activity that is charged with meaning capable of imme-

diately enjoyed possession-is the complete culmination of nature, and
. . . 'science' is properly a handmaiden that conducts natural events to
this happy issue.
Dewey

THE STRUCTURE OF AESTHETICS

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