Carolyn Korsmeyer, “Savoring Disgust: The Foul and the Fair in Aesthetics” (Oxford UP, 2011)
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What is the central problem of “disgust” in aesthetic theory?
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Hello and welcome to New Books in Philosophy, the podcast channel in the New Books Network that features interviews with philosophers about their new ideas as expressed in their newly published books. I'm Carrie Figdor, and I'm co host of the channel along with Robert Talise. Today's podcast features a book about disgusting art. That is art that deliberately aims to cause disgust. Aesthetic judgments regarding the value or not of artworks have historically been tied to the notion of beauty. What is valuable in art is what is in some sense beautiful. But much great art is not beautiful or even pleasurable to experience. In fact, it may specifically aim to cause responses that are anything but feelings of pleasure or experiences of beauty.
A really good horror movie is one that frightens us out of our wits and And a really good murder mystery is one that is publ puzzling to the very end. Tragedies are supposed to make us feel pity and sorrow. And when they don't, they are aesthetic failures. So there are plenty of works of art and genres of art that succeed only when they cause non pleasurable responses. The aesthetic value of these kinds of art raises a couple of philosophical puzzles. One is the paradox of fiction. How is it that things that we know are not real can cause emotional responses as if they were real? Why do we experience the adrenaline rush and the racing pulse of fear? When we know very well that Hannibal Lecter is just a character on the screen.
One famous response to this puzzle is the claim that we don't really feel fear at all. Just something that is like real fear in some ways. Of course, this sort of answer presupposes a definition of real fear. You don't get to say that our response to a horror film isn't real fear unless you have a theory of fear, or even better, of the emotions quite generally. And a second puzzle is the paradox of aversion. How can a vr an aversive experience be aesthetically valuable? How can something that repels also be aesthetically attractive? These paradoxes arise in spades when it comes to the emotion of disgust. Disgust is characterized by nausea, queasiness, and a general feeling of discomfort, of well, disgusting.
Crawling maggots are disgusting, rotting flesh is disgusting. Eating of human flesh is disgusting. Moreover, the physiological responses we have to disgusting things are automatic, like our fear responses. So the paradoxes of fiction and aversion are acute when it comes to art that aims to cause disgust and By using disgusting images, and it's mostly images rather than tastes or smells, I think. as a means to a kind of aesthetic experience. An experience that might be called appropriately enough aesthetic disgust.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the central problem of “disgust” in aesthetic theory?
0:00–9:04
2
How does the paradox of fiction explain why we feel fear or disgust for unreal art?
9:04–17:21
3
What is the nature of disgust as an emotion and how does it differ from other basic emotions?
17:21–26:40
4
How can disgust be transformed into an aesthetically valuable response rather than simple rejection?
26:40–34:28
5
Why does the book devote an entire chapter to the aesthetics of disgusting food?
34:28–42:36
6
What is the “sublate” and how does it relate to the traditional sublime?
42:36–50:12
7
How do aesthetic disgust and beauty intersect—or oppose—each other in art?
50:12–58:43
8
Which works of art best illustrate the concept of aesthetic disgust?
58:43–1:02:39
Speakers
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