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Savoring Disgust: The Foul and the Fair in Aesthetics

2011; Oxford University Press; Volume: 52; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/aesthj/ayr040

1468-2842

Filippo Contesi,

Law in Society and Culture

Carolyn Korsmeyer's Savoring Disgust is a book that, in spite of its seemingly unsavoury subject matter, deserves to be widely read. Written in an accessible yet richly suggestive prose, it is the first systematic investigation in English-speaking contemporary philosophy of the aesthetic and artistic significance of the emotion of disgust. In the last two or three decades disgust has been studied from various different perspectives; following the initial interest of experimental psychologists, the moral, social, even legal and political relevance of the emotion have been explored. However, with a few notable exceptions, which include some of Korsmeyer's own earlier writings, contemporary aesthetics has paid only cursory attention to disgust. In this new book, Korsmeyer engages in a focused and thorough examination of the role of disgust in aesthetics. Since disgust falls into the category of so-called negative, or unpleasant emotions, the question of its role in aesthetics is naturally framed in terms of a puzzle that has a long philosophical history and is now referred to as ‘the paradox of negative emotions’. According to the paradox, it is puzzling that people should show the interest they do in undergoing the experience of watching the latest splatter film or looking at St Thomas inserting his finger into one of the resurrected Jesus's wounds in Caravaggio's The Incredulity of St Thomas. In both cases a disgusting subject matter is capable of affording an experience that one might have reasons to value and many will seek; this seems puzzling, almost paradoxical, given the unpleasantness typically felt when encountering something disgusting in real life. The paradox of negative emotions is especially prominent in the case of disgust given the specific reservations against the compatibility of disgust and aesthetic pleasure expressed by some of the foremost eighteenth-century aestheticians, including Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Immanuel Kant. Korsmeyer's main aim in the book is to address reservations such as those expressed by eighteenth-century theorists and to make a case for the important place of disgust in art.