POPCO Reading Guide Theodore Gracyk’s “The Mississippi River In the Land of 10,000 Lakes”
Last updated 4/3/23
Reading Guide: Theodore Gracyk’s “The Mississippi River In the Land of 10,000 Lakes”
https://aestheticsforbirds.com/2022/04/06/the-mississippi-river-in-the-land-of-10000-lakes/
Table of Contents
Summaries, Reading Advice, and Questions For Thought
The Mississippi headwater (paragraphs 1-3)
Two points about aesthetic experience (paragraphs 4-6)
Mark Twain’s Mississippi (paragraphs 7-10)
The main philosophical question (paragraph 11)
Against pursuing positive aesthetic experiences only (paragraph 12)
Allen Carlson’s more-knowledge-is-better view (paragraphs 13-14)
Emily Brady and the role of imagination (paragraphs 15-18)
Theodore Gracyk is a professor at the Minnesota State University Moorhead. His research focuses on aesthetics and the philosophy of art, with particular focus on the philosophy of music. Here are some of the fascinating-sounding titles of books he has written:
Aesthetics for Birds is a blog that has been around since 2013 to bring the work of philosophers of art and aesthetics to a general audience.
Summary: Gracyk describes visits to the Mississippi River headwaters at Lake Itasca, writing that “one visits Itasca only because its pleasant but uninspiring spillover stream is the Mississippi.” This description is intended to get us thinking about how knowledge affects aesthetic judgements.
Questions for thought:
Summary: Gracyk’s “first point” draws out differences between art and nature as sources of aesthetic experiences. Whereas art is bounded in time and/or space, natural things lack such sharp boundaries and can easily be too large for human senses to easily take in. His “second point” builds on the first. Since our experience of natural things is often “woefully partial, selective, and incomplete,” they must be supplemented with information and knowledge.
Questions for thought:
Summary: The quoted paragraphs from Mark Twain are intended to be the reverse case of the one in paragraphs 1-3. Twain illustrates how more knowledge and cognitive framing can reduce an aesthetic experience.
Questions for thought:
Summary: In Gracyk’s words, “Is there a right way and a wrong way to respond aesthetically to nature and things in nature?” Specifically he has in mind whether there is a right or wrong related to knowledge. In this paragraph, Gracyk helpful separates this question from some that are more empirical psychological questions.
Advice: This paragraph is the hardest one in the essay to understand. You may need to read it a few times.
Summary: You could imagine someone answering the question above (“Is there a right way and a wrong way to respond aesthetically to nature and things in nature?”) by saying, “The right way is whatever leads to a positive aesthetic experience. If more knowledge would produce better experiences, you should get more knowledge. If knowledge would diminish the experiences, avoid knowledge.” Gracyk thinks this is a ridiculous response. As the Mark Twain case makes clear, the right thing to do as a safe river pilot is to get the information, even though this diminishes the aesthetic experience. As the “burger example” makes clear, there is good reason for people to know the downsides of cheap meat, even if this diminishes the experience of eating a fast food burger.
Questions for thought:
Summary: Allen Carlson believes that we must have a grip on the basic scientific facts to have a justified aesthetic response. Aesthetic responses are better when they are better informed by scientific fact. This can mean that the better aesthetic response is the less positive one: for example, Twain’s less positive but better informed response would be the preferable/better response according to Carlson.
Questions for thought:
Summary: Theorists like Emily Brady point out that a change in aesthetic response like Twain’s depends on imagination as well as knowledge: aesthetic appreciation of nature involves imagination, emotions, and knowledge. Since this is the case, aesthetic judgments should not be evaluated on knowledge alone, as Carlson does. (paragraphs 15-16) Gracyk offers a thought experiment intended to show that Brady is wrong: Gracyk could induce an aesthetic response in his guests by taking them to a closer lake and (by lying to them) helping them imagine they are visiting the Mississippi headwaters. However, the aesthetic response would clearly be unjustified, so knowledge cannot be replaced by imagination.
Questions for thought: