Kelly Barry-The Intersubjective Relationship

On January 18, we returned to Van de Leeuw in order to discuss the intersubjective relationship. First we had to decide that an objective standpoint was. In it, the emotions are detached and are completely outside of the relationship. The question of value is set aside and fact takes its place. Next we discussed the subjective standpoint, in which we discover how a person relates to another and how hey have an experience. Finally, we reached the intersubjective relationship, which occurs when we want to share experiences with others. Our personal experiences, then, allow us to make a connection with someone else. The question then became "How do we have an intersubjective relationship with art?" In the words of Martin Buber, we experience objects, but encounter subjects. However, there does not seem to be a clear line between encounter and experience. We continued this discussion through January 25, and expanded the thought to include the idea of C. S. Lewis that, art helps us experience and encounter beauty and draw us closer. Yet not everyone agrees with what Lewis presents, including Plato, who proposed the opposite: that art draws us away from reality. The simile of the line depicts how people and things are related. At one end lie images, which are the least real. At the other, the Forms, which are the most real things. Art, Plato says, is an imitation of an appearance and that we should not be in participation with it.