On being moved by nature:

1. On being moved by nature: • between religion and natural history • Noël Carroll Taylor Edmund February 13, 2011 PHIL 450 Prof. Hettinger

2. Introduction • Focuses much of his writing on Allen Carlson • Establishes Carlson’s view about the appreciation of nature • Explains Carlson’s framework for his viewpoints • Proposes his concerns with Carlson’s models • Illustrates his preliminary arguments

3. Science By Elimination • Carroll explains and presents his problems with each of Carlson’s models for appreciating nature. • Object Paradigm • Landscape or Scenery Model • Environmental Paradigm • Carroll deciphers and raises questions against Carlson’s arguments.

4. The Object Paradigm • Guides our attention to certain aspects of nature • Frames on nature are either insensitive or inoperable • Missing the whole landscape picture with frames • Missing the experience of being “amidst” Nature

5. The Landscape or Scenery Model • Nature as a landscape painting • Fine art as a precedent • Still missing the actual beauty in nature

6. Environmental Paradigm • Nature as Nature • Natural expanses • Includes all natural forces • This guides us to the “appropriate foci” of aesthetic significance • Knowledge about science, natural history, and common sense

7. Science by Elimination Conclusion • Wants to make a connection between the guidance to natural appreciation and the guidance to art appreciation. • Rejects both, the object paradigm and the scenery paradigm • So if not this, or this, then it only leaves science so that must be the answer.

8. Carroll On Science by Elimination • Thinks both theories can co-exist • Appreciation does not require knowledge • Involves our sense experience • The Arousal Model, operative cognitions, and rooted in the commonsense knowledge

9. The Claims of Objectivist Epistemology • Some aesthetic judgements of nature are objective • Explanation of the Categories of Art theory • Not helpful when it comes to nature • Appropriate or Inappropriate emotions • If all things are equal.... • “Wrong Class Comparison” • Depth of an Aesthetic Appreciation

10. Carroll on Objectivist Epistemology • Appreciation without accurate knowledge • Emotionally moved by things relative to ourselves • Being moved by nature satisfies Carlson’s epistemological challenge • What makes responses shallow or deep is not clear • Equally as important as scientific appreciation and natural history

11. Order Appreciation • Design Appreciation • Order Appreciation • Design Appreciation doesn’t work for nature appreciation • Religious sentiment

12. Carroll on Order Appreciation • Not design or order appreciation, not guided by art history or natural history • Requisites for natural appreciation? • Still closing off types of appreciation • Appreciation because of survival instinct? • Should not be viewed as a religious response

13. Summary • Carlson closes off different kinds of appreciation according to Carroll • Carroll believes we can be emotionally moved by nature • Appreciation does not require knowledge or correct information • This form should co-exsist with Carlson’s

14. Questions for Discussion • What would he say about everyday appreciations of nature? • Are we drawn in to focus on things we lack? • Do we grow to appreciate things once we are not surrounded by them? (i.e. the feeling of coming home)

15. Works Cited • Kemal, Salim, and Ivan Gaskell. Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts. Cambridge [England: Cambridge UP, 1993. Print.