Associate Professor, Department of English, York University, Toronto. Author of Austen's Oughts: Judgment after Locke and Shaftesbury (2010). Currently at work on an intellectual history of the dream of the golden age from Homer and Hesiod through to Freud and Lacan.
I argue in this essay that Smith models the impartiality that characterizes the hypothetical spec... more I argue in this essay that Smith models the impartiality that characterizes the hypothetical spectator on the distance and disinterest made available in a specifically aesthetic kind of judgement. What is of interest is the particular model of aesthetic judgment Smith develops in the pursuit of his moral thought, as well as the larger context of the eighteenth-century turn to aesthetic judgments as the model for moral — disinterested and objective — stances. I refer to Kant's description of judgments of taste in the CJ to tease out some of the implications of Smith's use of a model of aesthetic judgment to arrive at moral sentiments.
Nobody makes better use of the aesthetic analogy than David Hume in his Enquiry Concerning the Pr... more Nobody makes better use of the aesthetic analogy than David Hume in his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). Hume argues that the pleasure we feel in the beautiful is analogous to, and continuous with, our pleasure in virtue, a pleasure that clearly demonstrates the “sentiment of humanity,” our common moral feeling. There is only one problem: many of Hume’s examples of natural moral feeling draw not from the aesthetics of the beautiful, but from an aesthetics of the sublime, the incongruousness of which goes completely unremarked in both versions of the essay, that in the Treatise and the more elaborate version of the second Enquiry.
In Mansfield Park (1814), Austen explores the detachment, distance, and
impartiality implied in t... more In Mansfield Park (1814), Austen explores the detachment, distance, and impartiality implied in third-person narrative stances. Yet Austen’s heroine, Fanny Price, occupies the role, not of impartial spectator, but of picturesque tourist. The late-century theory of the picturesque organizes an art of seeing that precludes a disinterested and objective view; instead, it absorbs spectators into the scene, actively involving them in the construction of highly imaginative and entirely illusory—entirely interested— views and prospects. The theory of the picturesque interrogates the eighteenth-century tradition of an aesthetic distance, the space, ideally, created by a work of art to allow for disinterested and impartial reflection on the part of a spectator. It emphasizes instead illusion and absorption, and so stages a major challenge to the idea of, or possibilities for, disinterestedness.
It is one thing to take up a much-loved novel and sink into it again, finding all the old familia... more It is one thing to take up a much-loved novel and sink into it again, finding all the old familiar faces and visiting again the old familiar places. It is another thing entirely to reread Pride and Prejudice in the company of Patricia Meyer Spacks. In Spacks's hands, the 1813 first edition is glossed, word by word, line by line, through notes that remove it from the shadow cast by one's own pride and prejudice, and set again in the light.
James Noggle . The Temporality of Taste in Eighteenth-Century British Writing. (Oxford: Oxford Un... more James Noggle . The Temporality of Taste in Eighteenth-Century British Writing. (Oxford: Oxford Univ., 2012).
Book review/compte rendu: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, An Annotated Edition, ed. Patricia Me... more Book review/compte rendu: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, An Annotated Edition, ed. Patricia Meyer Spacks
At long last, a full-length study of Clarissa Harlowe's self-imposed, and somewhat unchristi... more At long last, a full-length study of Clarissa Harlowe's self-imposed, and somewhat unchristian, bread-and-water regime. Given the lack of critical scholarship on the complex question of Clarissa's suicidal fast, it is a little disappointing that Donnalee Frega's book is not so much about Samuel Richardson's Clarissa as it is concerned with the dynamics of" hunger as language." According to Frega," Much of my analysis of Clarissa draws on current profiles of disordered eating habits and on contemporary medical and psychological ...
I argue in this essay that Smith models the impartiality that characterizes the hypothetical spec... more I argue in this essay that Smith models the impartiality that characterizes the hypothetical spectator on the distance and disinterest made available in a specifically aesthetic kind of judgement. What is of interest is the particular model of aesthetic judgment Smith develops in the pursuit of his moral thought, as well as the larger context of the eighteenth-century turn to aesthetic judgments as the model for moral — disinterested and objective — stances. I refer to Kant's description of judgments of taste in the CJ to tease out some of the implications of Smith's use of a model of aesthetic judgment to arrive at moral sentiments.
Nobody makes better use of the aesthetic analogy than David Hume in his Enquiry Concerning the Pr... more Nobody makes better use of the aesthetic analogy than David Hume in his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). Hume argues that the pleasure we feel in the beautiful is analogous to, and continuous with, our pleasure in virtue, a pleasure that clearly demonstrates the “sentiment of humanity,” our common moral feeling. There is only one problem: many of Hume’s examples of natural moral feeling draw not from the aesthetics of the beautiful, but from an aesthetics of the sublime, the incongruousness of which goes completely unremarked in both versions of the essay, that in the Treatise and the more elaborate version of the second Enquiry.
In Mansfield Park (1814), Austen explores the detachment, distance, and
impartiality implied in t... more In Mansfield Park (1814), Austen explores the detachment, distance, and impartiality implied in third-person narrative stances. Yet Austen’s heroine, Fanny Price, occupies the role, not of impartial spectator, but of picturesque tourist. The late-century theory of the picturesque organizes an art of seeing that precludes a disinterested and objective view; instead, it absorbs spectators into the scene, actively involving them in the construction of highly imaginative and entirely illusory—entirely interested— views and prospects. The theory of the picturesque interrogates the eighteenth-century tradition of an aesthetic distance, the space, ideally, created by a work of art to allow for disinterested and impartial reflection on the part of a spectator. It emphasizes instead illusion and absorption, and so stages a major challenge to the idea of, or possibilities for, disinterestedness.
It is one thing to take up a much-loved novel and sink into it again, finding all the old familia... more It is one thing to take up a much-loved novel and sink into it again, finding all the old familiar faces and visiting again the old familiar places. It is another thing entirely to reread Pride and Prejudice in the company of Patricia Meyer Spacks. In Spacks's hands, the 1813 first edition is glossed, word by word, line by line, through notes that remove it from the shadow cast by one's own pride and prejudice, and set again in the light.
James Noggle . The Temporality of Taste in Eighteenth-Century British Writing. (Oxford: Oxford Un... more James Noggle . The Temporality of Taste in Eighteenth-Century British Writing. (Oxford: Oxford Univ., 2012).
Book review/compte rendu: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, An Annotated Edition, ed. Patricia Me... more Book review/compte rendu: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, An Annotated Edition, ed. Patricia Meyer Spacks
At long last, a full-length study of Clarissa Harlowe's self-imposed, and somewhat unchristi... more At long last, a full-length study of Clarissa Harlowe's self-imposed, and somewhat unchristian, bread-and-water regime. Given the lack of critical scholarship on the complex question of Clarissa's suicidal fast, it is a little disappointing that Donnalee Frega's book is not so much about Samuel Richardson's Clarissa as it is concerned with the dynamics of" hunger as language." According to Frega," Much of my analysis of Clarissa draws on current profiles of disordered eating habits and on contemporary medical and psychological ...
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Books by Karen Valihora
Papers by Karen Valihora
impartiality implied in third-person narrative stances. Yet Austen’s heroine, Fanny Price, occupies the role, not of impartial
spectator, but of picturesque tourist. The late-century theory of the picturesque organizes an art of seeing that precludes a disinterested and objective view; instead, it absorbs spectators into the scene, actively involving them in the construction of highly imaginative and entirely illusory—entirely interested—
views and prospects. The theory of the picturesque interrogates the eighteenth-century tradition of an aesthetic distance, the
space, ideally, created by a work of art to allow for disinterested and impartial reflection on the part of a spectator. It emphasizes
instead illusion and absorption, and so stages a major challenge to the idea of, or possibilities for, disinterestedness.
Reviews of Austen's Oughts (Delaware 2010) by Karen Valihora
impartiality implied in third-person narrative stances. Yet Austen’s heroine, Fanny Price, occupies the role, not of impartial
spectator, but of picturesque tourist. The late-century theory of the picturesque organizes an art of seeing that precludes a disinterested and objective view; instead, it absorbs spectators into the scene, actively involving them in the construction of highly imaginative and entirely illusory—entirely interested—
views and prospects. The theory of the picturesque interrogates the eighteenth-century tradition of an aesthetic distance, the
space, ideally, created by a work of art to allow for disinterested and impartial reflection on the part of a spectator. It emphasizes
instead illusion and absorption, and so stages a major challenge to the idea of, or possibilities for, disinterestedness.