PROCEEDINGS
OF THE TOMSK POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE
OF THE ORDER OF THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION AND THE ORDER OF THE RED BANNER OF LABOR
named after S. M. KIROV

Volume 256                                                                                                                                                                                             1972

THE SPECIFICITY OF AESTHETIC NEED

L. S. SYSOEVA

(Presented by the scientific seminar of the Department of Philosophy)

A person’s social being begins with the production of the means necessary for the satisfaction of needs. “People,” wrote Marx, “in fact began by appropriating the objects of the external world for themselves as means for satisfying their own needs.”¹ In turn, human needs themselves appear as a reflection of the necessary relations with the material world that ensure social being. Consequently, needs act as a “driving belt” in the mechanism of human activity in all spheres of life. An inalienable element of this life activity, beginning with the Neoanthrope of the Upper Paleolithic, is aesthetic activity. Clarifying the motives of this activity leads to an analysis of the specificity of the aesthetic need, which compels a person to admire or feel indignation, to weep or to laugh, while perceiving various aspects of human life as well as works of art.

It would be absurd to claim the role of Columbus in the very posing of the problem. It has already been posed by science, and appeals to it can be found in the literature in discussions of many questions.

First, in connection with the study of the problem of needs in general and the classification of spiritual needs in particular, an attempt is made to define aesthetic need.²

Second, some authors come to the study of aesthetic need, including the need for art, by analyzing the essence of emotions and the emotional nature of art.³

Third, the question of the specificity of the social need that gave rise to man’s artistic activity arises in the study

¹ K. Marx and F. Engels. Works, vol. 19, p. 378.
² See: D. I. Kiknadze. Needs, Behavior, Education. Moscow, 1968. A. G. Kovalev. Psychology of Personality. Moscow, 1970. S. M. Kovalev. On Man, His Education and Self-Education. Moscow, 1970. Yu. V. Sharov. Questions of the psychology of spiritual needs. — In: Problems of the Formation of the Spiritual Needs of the Personality. Novosibirsk, 1970.
³ See: P. V. Simonov. What Is an Emotion? Moscow, 1966. P. V. Simonov. The Theory of Reflection and the Psychophysiology of Emotions. Moscow, 1970. S. Kh. Rappoport. Art and Emotions. Moscow, 1968.

social laws governing the emergence and functioning of art.^4

An appeal to aesthetic need, and attempts to define it, are found in works devoted to various problems of aesthetic reflection and perception.^5 There are initial attempts to single out this question as an independent problem of aesthetic science, with the fully justified task of defining the very category of “aesthetic need.”^6 Needs in all their diversity arouse scholarly interest in connection with the theory of values discussed in contemporary literature. The dialectic of need and value also requires consideration in the aesthetic aspect.^7 Considerable space is given to aesthetic needs in the comprehensive study of the tendencies in the development of bourgeois and socialist culture. This includes concrete sociological studies of the state of aesthetic tastes, interests, and needs, the necessity of which is dictated by the practice of educating aesthetic consciousness. The system of aesthetic education must be constructed in a differentiated way, in accordance with the characteristics and social roles of social groups. In the aesthetic plane (mainly empirical research into tastes and interests), contemporary literature presents such a social group as workers, and, moreover, young workers. This is especially true of works written on the basis of material from industrial enterprises of the Urals. However, in contemporary society the role and significance of such a specific social group as the student body is increasing. This is caused by the conditions of the contemporary scientific and technological revolution. The transformation of science into a direct force of society, the high level of technical equipment, and the universal intellectualization of labor focus attention on the personality of the future specialist and increase interest in the social characteristics of higher education. The educational and preparatory functions of the higher educational institution therefore must not be limited to the training of a specialist. The education of the personality of the specialist, called upon to play one of the most important roles in social progress, becomes an essential element of the functions of the higher educational institution. The introduction of the personality to higher humanistic ideals is carried out through a system of developed aesthetic needs, which also form aesthetic tastes. A high level of aesthetic needs not only does not diminish the student’s cognitive interests; on the contrary, it helps to clarify genuinely human values. All this makes the task of studying aesthetic needs in the aspect of higher education (including by means of concrete sociological research) an urgent task of our time. Some scholars have already begun to carry out this work, studying the artistic needs of students of individual higher educational institutions.^8 However, aesthetic and artistic need—

^4 See, for example, A. F. Eremeev, The Origin of Art. Moscow, 1970. A. Natev, Art and Society. Moscow, 1966, and others.

^5 See, for example, A. S. Molchanova, On Taste, on Color... Moscow, 1966. B. Runin, The Eternal Search. Moscow, 1964.

^6 See: E. S. Akopdzhanian, On the Nature of Aesthetic Need. Abstract of a Candidate’s dissertation. Moscow, 1969. A. P. Belik, Aesthetics and Modernity. Moscow, 1967. K. M. Mamadbekov, Aesthetic Need and Enjoyment. Abstract of a Candidate’s dissertation. Moscow, 1965.

^7 See: O. G. Drobnitsky, The World of Animated Objects. Moscow, 1967. Collection: The Problem of Value in Philosophy. Moscow, 1966. V. P. Tugarinov, The Theory of Values in Marxism. Leningrad, 1968.

^8 A. N. Semashko, The Artistic Needs of Students: Ways and Means of Their Formation. Abstract of a Candidate’s dissertation. Voronezh, 1970.

categories whose content overlaps but does not coincide completely. The difficult but noble lot of aesthetic science is to provide an analysis of the content of these categories from positions that already make possible an empirical approach to the problem in the aspect of various social groups, including such a specific one as the student body. The study of the subject of artistic—and, in a broader sense, aesthetic—need is impossible without a scientific definition of the very concept of “aesthetic need.” Relying on the experience of analysis of this question available in contemporary literature, we shall try to present an essential definition of aesthetic need.

“The specific definition of aesthetic need consists in defining it as a need for the beautiful in all the manifold variety of the latter’s manifestations”¹—such is the definition given by E. S. Akopdzhanyan. This understanding of aesthetic need almost completely coincides with N. P. Belik’s definition: “Aesthetic need is expressed in a person’s conscious striving toward the beautiful, toward beauty, toward the perception and creation of beautiful objects”².

In order to show that such an approach to the essence of aesthetic need is very widespread, let us refer to one more definition, where this need is likewise presented as “a striving toward beauty and toward creativity according to the laws of beauty”³. Such an approach to the specificity of aesthetic need is not a profound approach, and the definition of aesthetic need as a need for the beautiful does not even meet the requirements of a formal definition. Indeed, in this definition one unknown—the “aesthetic”—is defined through another unknown—the “beautiful.” Moreover, let us say directly that the beautiful cannot be defined without turning to the essence of the aesthetic. And since the beautiful itself is defined through the aesthetic, it follows that the definition has been given incorrectly. For persuasiveness one may refer to the numerous works of Soviet aestheticians in connection with the still-unabated discussion of the problem of the aesthetic, in the solution of which they seek the key to the mystery of the beautiful (see the works of V. Vanslov, N. Dmitrieva, L. N. Stolovich, V. S. Kornienko, L. A. Zelenov, A. S. Molchanova, and many others).

Secondly, by reducing aesthetic need to a need for the beautiful, we extremely narrow the scope of the aesthetic. To place outside the bounds of aesthetic need compassion for the tragic phenomena of reality, ridicule, the rejection of acts unworthy of a human being—means impoverishing the manifestation of human aspirations. It is no accident that such a one-sided definition leads E. S. Akopdzhanyan to erroneous views: “...the aesthetic categories of the comic and the tragic, the sublime and the ugly, and others analogous to them, become aesthetically significant only when refracted in art. For in real reality itself these phenomena have rather an ethical, moral meaning”⁴. In refutation of this thought we shall cite only one argument from K. Marx: the old regime, “having outlived its tragedy among them (the peoples.—L. S.), plays its comedy in the person of the German upstart from the other world”⁵, which clearly

proves that the very history of peoples in different epochs can turn into tragedy or comedy in the life of these peoples.

Third, one of the main shortcomings of defining aesthetic need as a need for the beautiful and for creativity according to the laws of beauty is that the beautiful itself, beauty, has no unambiguous definition. Depending on which conception the author adheres to—the conception of the “naturalists,” the “socialists,” or the “axiologists” (we have taken the liberty of giving this name to the clearly emerging third conception)—the beautiful is defined in substantially different ways.

Despite the obvious theoretical superiority of their opponents (the “socialists” and the “axiologists”), the “naturalists” do not give up, although the commander of the front, V. S. Kornienko, is plainly dissatisfied with the conduct of the flanks (P. L. Ivanov, A. P. Belik, G. Pospelov). P. L. Ivanov firmly holds naturalist positions, although—and this is what V. S. Kornienko is very dissatisfied with—he does not develop them, thereby revealing to the enemy their already poorly fortified rear. Here is what he writes in his latest work: “When we define a beautiful object as that which arouses in us a feeling of admiration and joy, fills us with inner activity and the will to live and struggle, we mean to say by this that in the world there exist, independently of man and mankind, such objects and phenomena which, by their material structure, are bearers of aesthetic qualities capable of evoking a feeling of the beautiful”^14 (emphasis mine.—L. S.). Evidently, P. L. Ivanov hopes that it will be difficult to reproach him for metaphysics, since he does not limit man’s aesthetic needs to the cognition of objects and phenomena which, by their material structure, are bearers of aesthetic qualities, but goes further: “The first form of aesthetic properties, or, in other words, the aesthetic that is given to us in nature, ceases to satisfy man, and he develops the need to supplement or transform it, to create something new possessing those aesthetic properties which nature, by its mechanical (?—L. S.), objective processes, could not create. Wildflowers are not to be compared with hothouse roses, and how can the nightingale compare with Alyabiev’s romance The Nightingale, or the sound of a bird’s voice with Glinka’s The Lark.”^15 And when P. L. Ivanov and other “hothouse” aestheticians do not like wildflowers, and also, evidently, may not like natural forests, seas, and lakes, which nature created “by its mechanical processes,” then, depending on their aesthetic needs, they may “lay out a park, plant a forest, plow up virgin land, create new seas and lakes, etc.,”^16 rather than confining themselves to a single aspiration toward beauty which “has not straightened a single bump, either here or abroad.”^17 These positions of the “naturalists” were smashed with a great preponderance of forces by N. Dmitrieva, B. Astakhov, V. S. Kornienko, I. Zotov, and others.^18 Why, then, does V. S. Kornienko again enter the field of battle with the old arguments? Although, perhaps, they

^14 P. L. Ivanov. On the Essence of Beauty. Moscow, 1967, p. 25.
^15 P. L. Ivanov. On the Nature of Beauty. Communism and the Individual.—Scientific Notes of the Leningrad Herzen State Pedagogical Institute, vol. 285, 1966, p. 160.
^16 Ibid., p. 165.
^17 Ibid., p. 171.
^18 See: F. D. Kondratenko. “The Aesthetic as Relation.”—In: The Aesthetic. Moscow, 1964. M. S. Kagan.—Voprosy literatury, 1966, No. 8. L. Batkin.—Voprosы literatury, 1967, No. 8, et al.

seem new to him, since now he calls aesthetic properties “inessential properties” and, secondly, “discovers” the laws of existence of these “inessential properties,” “at the same time adding to this one more paradoxical discovery: ‘Beauty is the seemingness of an object’”⁶.

And indeed, if we acquaint ourselves with those laws of beauty that V. S. Kornienko once again “discovers,” we involuntarily assent to this consideration. The first law is harmony, the second law is proportionality and rhythm, and the third law is the law of measure. It is unclear only why these objective connections of the material world have become aesthetic laws, and also the content of man’s aesthetic needs. These laws, says V. S. Kornienko, “are manifested in the activity of society, expressing its aesthetic needs”⁷. Thus, then, the natural scientists’ conceptions of beauty have not changed, and the needs for “creation according to the laws of beauty” are reduced to needs for harmony, rhythm, proportionality, and measure, which constitute “the totality of the natural material properties of objects or processes, and in society ... express the richness of man’s spiritual life”⁸. And such laws are proposed with the pretension of substantiating their universality. Here are the arguments: “If the laws of beauty were a generalization of the essential properties of reality, they could not be universal laws. But since these laws express inessential properties, they are manifested in the most diverse domains of reality”⁹. The most unpleasant thing is that the primitivism of this conception may turn into a justification of the geometric variant of abstract art of Malevich, Mondrian, Van Doesburg, and others, since at the basis of their “squares and circles” lie precisely proportion, symmetry, harmony of color, and so forth, while the expression of human interests is absent.

The “social theorists” V. Vanslov, L. N. Stolovich, Yu. Borev, and others, in their striving not to be caught in subjectivism, at first likewise proceeded from the positions of objective aesthetic properties or qualities of reality, but ones that already have a completely different content. V. V. Vanslov leads us to the thought that “those phenomena in which, at a given level of the historical development of society, man’s dominion over the material world surrounding him is manifested, those phenomena in which, through the properties of things and phenomena, the affirmation of the human essence is expressed, appear for man not only as useful but also as beautiful”¹⁰. All the advocates of the social content of the aesthetic and of beauty do not exclude the beautiful from nature, but prove its “secondary” character, its objective existence only within the system of social relations, as a result of which the entire natural world is “humanized” and therefore objectively becomes the bearer of aesthetic properties. Symmetry, proportionality, rhythm, and measure become signs of the beauty of the material world because they appear as the expression of regularities assimilated by man, and “the fact of this assimilation is the real being of the human essence”¹¹.

In the process of the development and argumentation of this theory, which proved highly viable, the beautiful, from the level of objective properties representing “an alloy of the natural and the social,” lawfully passed over to the level of an objective relation. Social content now turned out to be not the literal filler of a natural material form, but something objectively correlated, in the process of human practice, with the concrete material measure of the object.

This thought found a very fruitful embodiment in A. S. Molchanova. The aesthetic is presented by her as the relation between the measure of the object and the measure of man. The beautiful is understood by her as harmony, “the correspondence, coincidence of the measures of man and the measures of objects. An object is the more beautiful the more fully the measure of man, the measure of the object opposed to him, is revealed in it, and the more complete the coincidence between them.”^25 These valuable searches for the specificity of the aesthetic are continued by L. A. Zelenov, who indicates that the specificity of the aesthetic object consists in the fact that it itself must be understood “as the relation of reality to the measure of the human species, to the integral human being.”^26 The measure of man is understood here as a concrete-historical totality of the basic biosocial characteristics of the human being. The understanding of the beautiful as an objectively forming relation consistently led aestheticians to a value theory of the aesthetic and to the definition of beauty as value.

In his new studies L. N. Stolovich adopts this position, concluding that the category of the beautiful “arose not simply for the purpose of ascertaining the existence of certain properties and aspects of reality, but for characterizing their significance in human life, their value for man and society.”^27 Scientific analysis of the problem of the aesthetic from the standpoint of Marxist axiology, as the solid experience of research has already shown, is highly fruitful (see the works of V. P. Tugarinov, M. S. Kagan, A. G. Kharchev, A. F. Eremeev, S. Anisimov, Yu. Borev). It allows one to conclude that the aesthetic, including the beautiful, must be sought not in the objective natural and social properties of an object, but in the significance that they acquire for man in the process of his social practice, since only practice places objects and phenomena in a real value relation to man. In the process of practical interaction, man clarifies the world not only in its pure objectivity, but also in its human meaning, i.e., its significance for human life-activity. “And it is precisely the moment of the significance of one phenomenon for another”^28 that the category of value discloses. Thus, having traced the evolution of views on the problem of the beautiful and having found pacification in the value conception of beauty, we could calmly return to aesthetic need as the need for the beautiful, but... this “but” compels us once again to turn to the problem of aesthetic need, since value itself is determined not arbitrarily, but in accordance with such parameters of the practically acting human being as needs and interests in all their diversity. “Depending on the kind of need of the subject, one may speak of material, productive, sociopolitical, etc., value

^25 A. S. Molchanova, cited work, p. 120.
^26 L. A. Zelenov, The Process of Aesthetic Reflection. Moscow, 1969, p. 28.
^27 The Problem of Value in Philosophy. Moscow, 1966, p. 79.
^28 V. A. Vasilenko, “Value and Value Relations,” in The Problem of Value in Philosophy. Moscow, 1966, p. 42.

of the object.”¹² Analyzing the varieties of values—material, socio-political, and spiritual—distinguished by Prof. V. P. Tugarinov (Theory of Values in Marxism, p. 23), it has rightly been observed that, “first, material and spiritual values are found at all levels of human life: physical, social, and spiritual; and, second, “one and the same object may simultaneously constitute a value in different respects. Therefore values must be distinguished not according to their belonging to the world of things, social phenomena, or elements of consciousness, but according to which need (physical, social, spiritual) they predominantly satisfy.”¹³ Thus, the logic of the argument, as well as references to authoritative studies on the problem of values, allow us to conclude that value consists in the significance of an object for a subject, determined not only by the features of the object but also by the objectively formed needs of the subject. Applying this to our aspect of the question, one may say with complete certainty that the beautiful as a value is conditioned by the specific need of the practice of social being, the essence of which must be disclosed in the process of scientific analysis. It is no accident, therefore, that the search for the specificity of aesthetic need is not limited to “defining it as a need for the beautiful.” In contemporary aesthetics another conception is clearly traceable, whose authors connect aesthetic need with the enjoyment and expression of aesthetic feeling. “Aesthetic need is a complex of certain inner demands of consciousness toward various qualitative features of objects and phenomena capable of arousing a feeling of pleasure, joy, admiration, pride, and other aesthetic experiences,”¹⁴—such is the definition given by K. M. Mamadbekov (emphasis mine.—L. S.).

We shall not now touch upon the author’s natural-scientific position, which is plainly visible through the phrase “qualitative features of objects and phenomena,” but shall instead pay attention to the quality of the definition itself, in which need is connected with the satisfaction of aesthetic feeling. Yu. V. Sharov joins this view. In his classification table of spiritual needs he devotes a rather long column to the formulation and exposition of the content of the need under consideration. Aesthetic need is presented by him as “the need to take pleasure in the beautiful.” True, this column ends with the already familiar definition of aesthetic need. “In the final analysis, all modifications of aesthetic need are expressed in the synthetic need to live and work according to the laws of beauty.”¹⁵ And finally, for the sake of completing the conception, one may cite one more definition. “Aesthetic need has developed historically as a definite kind of relation to phenomena of nature, to the products of human labor, and to relations among people. This relation is expressed in a state of active impulse directed toward the satisfaction of aesthetic feeling.”¹⁶ Behind the outward dissimilarity of the formulations, one may definitely ascertain the common element that unites them:

the aesthetic need is called a need for pleasure and is intended to satisfy people’s aesthetic feelings. This conception may be called a hedonistic conception, since the source of the aesthetic need is the aesthetic emotion of pleasure. The authors of the indicated conception themselves formulate the interrelation of aesthetic need and aesthetic feeling in precisely this way. “Aesthetic feeling gave rise to the aesthetic need,”^34 V. F. Ryabov does not doubt; the very same idea—that “on the basis of aesthetic feeling the aesthetic need appears”—is presented in L. G. Yuldashev’s book Aesthetic Feeling and the Work of Art.^35 Apparently, in order to clarify the scientific value of the theoretical propositions of the conception under consideration, one should turn to studies of the interrelation between emotion and need.^36 The fact of the interrelation of emotions and needs is beyond doubt and has been most clearly proved by the experimental studies of Prof. P. V. Simonov. But what is this connection? We are interested chiefly in the results of these studies, and therefore we shall turn at once to the definition: “Emotion is the brain’s reflection of the strength of a need and of its satisfaction at a given moment.”^37 Emotion does not arise if the organism lacks a need. Without going into the details of the mechanism by which emotions operate, it is important for us here to present the scientifically established fact that need is primary in relation to emotion and, moreover, under necessary conditions is the source of the organism’s emotional behavior, and “represents a compensatory mechanism that fills the deficit of information necessary for attaining the goal (satisfying the need).”^38 Of course, the nervous apparatus of emotions plays an enormous role in the formation and development of an individual’s needs. We shall certainly consider this fact when identifying the mechanism by which necessity is transformed into a subject’s need. The latter requires special consideration. Here we have it in mind, but do not investigate it. However, the arguments already set forth are now sufficient, in considering the “need—emotion” connection, to say with adequate grounds that human needs are the factor determining the specificity of emotions, and not vice versa. “Emotion cannot exist without need”;^39 consequently, in determining the specificity of any emotion, including the aesthetic one, it is necessary first of all to take into account the factor of the presence of the corresponding need.

Thus, in the genesis of the aesthetic relation, it is not aesthetic feeling that gives rise to the aesthetic need, but the reverse. And we were, we hope, not unfounded in expressing this thought. We do not ignore the stimulating character of emotion in the system “need—action—satisfaction of need”; on the contrary, we shall note its universal character in the action of satisfying a need, and especially in the satisfaction of the aesthetic one. Higher social feelings themselves are capable of becoming a human need; however, in this case the derivative character of aesthetic emotion is not lost. As rightly—

^34 V. F. Ryabov. The cited work, p. 18.
^35 L. G. Yuldashev. Aesthetic Feeling and the Work of Art. Moscow, 1969, p. 51 and elsewhere.
^36 In the present case we shall use the concepts “emotion” and “feeling” as identical, since “we judge a person’s feeling by those emotional reactions that he displays.” L. G. Kovalev. Psychology of Personality. Moscow, 1970, p. 149.
^37 P. V. Simonov. The Theory of Reflection and the Psychophysiology of Emotions. Moscow, 1970, p. 46.
^38 P. V. Simonov. What Is Emotion? Moscow, 1966, p. 36.
^39 Ibid., p. 70.

S. Kh. Rappoport aptly writes: “arising on the basis of certain needs, they (emotions.—L. S.) themselves are capable of becoming such”¹⁷.

Thus, if one reduces the specificity of aesthetic need to the need to enjoy the beautiful and to the satisfaction of aesthetic feeling, it is impossible to give an essential definition of aesthetic need. With this approach, the real causes of its emergence remain in the shadows, as do the real connections between aesthetic need and aesthetic emotion. In this case the need in question is reduced to the hedonistic need for pleasure, while pleasure as the result and motive force of satisfying aesthetic need is taken as the content of the latter. Therefore the search for the specificity of this social need is necessary, and it is being conducted in various directions. One of the traditional directions (quite heterogeneous in terms of qualitative analysis) is the gnoseological direction. Its genealogy goes deep into the centuries of materialist aesthetics, and for the time being we shall not touch the solid capital of our predecessors. Let us turn directly to those contemporaries who in one way or another make use of this capital. Here priority belongs to A. I. Burov¹⁸, who elicited the greatest number of responses to the point of view he set forth. The well-known Bulgarian aesthetician A. Natev called this point of view gnoseological. The essence of the gnoseological view comes down to the proposition that art is cognition, but cognition of a special object of reality. As such an object there appears “the social human being in the living unity of the social and the personal.” Interpreting this opinion in the aspect of our study, one may say that the principal need that brought art to life is the need for knowledge. Art arises from the need to provide knowledge of that side of reality where another form of social consciousness—science—is incompetent. The logic of the gnoseological conception leads, as A. Natev correctly notes, “to a peculiar paradox—to the effort to discover the difference between science and art after first identifying their most important goals.”¹⁹ There are indeed differences between science and art, but clarification of their specificity should not be carried out by means of a gnoseological division of the spheres of cognition of reality between science and art. Following the gnoseological conception of the division of science and art, it is impossible to determine the specific object of art, since “what is cognized by the artist in reality also falls within the cognitive competence of science.”²⁰

This specificity must be sought in accordance with the features of that social need whose consequence is the functioning of art. As A. Natev writes quite justly, the question of the object of art “is derivative from the question of the purpose of art.”²¹ The author of the concept being criticized himself fully agreed with his opponents that the specificity of art is not conditioned by society’s cognitive needs. Now he writes that, “without denying the cognitive function of art, one must at the same time categorically object to the very approach to it by analogy with scientific cognition.”²²

A. I. Burov did not succeed in drawing gnoseological boundaries between science and art, but his search for the aesthetic essence of art gave impetus to a new direction, which significantly expanded art’s reflective possibilities and linked it with other, non-cognitive needs of society. It is all the more vexing to encounter in contemporary literature primitively vulgar echoes of the gnoseological conception, where art and aesthetic needs are connected in the most mechanical fashion. Although V. S. Kornienko, whom we have already mentioned, does put forward the fruitful idea that “in order to understand the specificity of art, it is necessary to clarify which social needs gave rise to art and conditioned its specific features,” he himself does not take a single step in this direction. Instead, he offers an “eclectic stew” of the lowest sort, consisting of cognition of “inessential properties,” “integral systems,” “contingencies,” and other assorted items, and is still able to think that such cognition “can spiritually enrich man and society”²³.

An even cruder account of the aesthetic tasks of art—one that reaches the point of paradox—and, consequently, of the needs that gave rise to these tasks, is found in the pages of P. S. Trofimov’s book. His attempts to link art with cognitive needs, to put it mildly, lead to flat naturalism. Lest we be accused of attaching labels, let us quote some of the author’s statements. For some reason, after retelling in his own words M. Gorky’s “Song of the Stormy Petrel,” P. S. Trofimov then explains: “We have deliberately set out a small part of Gorky’s revolutionary song in prose, in a deliberately dry manner, in order to show that at its basis lies an ordinary natural phenomenon with its ordinary participants—birds: the stormy petrel, seagulls, loons, and also penguins.”²⁴ A little further on we read: “The images of man in these statues (the works of the sculptor Verrocchio) are to a considerable degree supplemented by the images of horses, which, by their taming force, their proud and mighty bearing, and also by the beauty and grandeur of their movement, enrich the images of the horsemen.”²⁵ And, lest the impression arise that these are accidental absurdities, let us cite at least one more example, proving that we are dealing with a conception: “In the Soviet country the still life has received greater development. It reflects the richest diversity of fauna and flora, the climatic and geographical features of the various republics that make up the Soviet Union.”²⁶ Such sciences as geography and biology perform this task considerably better, while artists’ paintings are not geographical or zoological atlases. And after all this P. S. Trofimov tries to assure us that “painting, sculpture, literature, and music are faced with the task of satisfying, chiefly, spiritual needs. These are the needs for aesthetic enjoyment, education, and so on.”²⁷

There would be no need to engage in criticism of such theories if they did not hinder the search for truth and did not introduce confusion—sometimes merely terminological, but one that substantially obscures the meaning. This applies to the works of P. V. Simonov, in which an attempt is made to define aesthetic need. Groping for the correct paths of investigation—

he sometimes falls into contradiction, paying tribute to the traditional conception of art as cognition. “We believe,” he writes, “that the needs which called art and science into being are related. But, probably, they nevertheless differ from one another: the ways and means of satisfying them are too different. And yet the need served by art is a need for cognition.”^51 Even having defined the need that gave rise to art as the need for cognition of “the generalized essence of phenomena” and “cognition of what is due, desirable, perfect,”^52 he cannot explain so substantial a difference between science and art. Only scientific cognition is capable of presenting to us “the generalized essence of phenomena,” and only a scientific forecast, based on cognition of necessity, makes it possible to determine what is due, desirable, and perfect.

Thus, the existing definitions and conceptions of the specificity of aesthetic need are not essential definitions. It is necessary to begin with the “absolute beginning.” As P. V. Simonov rightly noted, “the origin of the need we are considering must be sought in humanity’s social practice.”^53 It should be added that not only its origin, but also its essence must be sought there, since the logical is the concentrated expression of the historical. As has already been noted, the first historical step of humanity was labor activity, which constitutes the basis of its social experience. Hence arise those qualitative features that distinguish human relations with the surrounding world from the experience of animals. The range of animal actions is programmed by their biological species characteristics. The necessity of preserving life determines the species experience of the animal, which is connected with the satisfaction of biological needs. The activity of the animal is carried out by means of an unconditioned-reflex mechanism, in which the whole preceding species experience is genetically fixed. On the other hand, the animal possesses a conditioned-reflex connection between the organism and the surrounding environment; it reflects the influences of the environment and ensures the process of species-appropriate adaptation. Human labor activity means going beyond the limits of biological experience. The social being of man places him in new necessary relations with nature. Human activity is connected with the necessity of cognizing and transforming the material world, which ensure the disclosure of his essential powers. In order to become an active-motivating state of the human being, new socially necessary relations must find reflection in the subjective sphere of the person, must become his needs. It is precisely with the subjectivization of socially necessary relations that we connect the content of human needs. Man’s relations with the environment changed qualitatively and expanded quantitatively. The internal mechanism for regulating behavior is no longer so much the reflex system as the mechanism of consciousness and human language, since new forms of experience required a new apparatus for its consolidation and transmission. Man becomes the subject of his relations, consciously opposing himself to the world that he is to change. The animal, acting on the basis of physiological regularities, merges with nature and is its organic continuation. “The gnoseological meaning of activity never becomes for it its subjective, personal mean—

^51 P. V. Simonov, What Is Emotion? Moscow, 1966, p. 72.
^52 Ibid., pp. 71, 73.
^53 Ibid., p. 74.

… “evil”²⁸. Social needs as “higher human needs” are not a superstructure over biological needs and instinctive drives²⁹, but a transformation of the new necessary relations of human beings with their environment. Only such a transformation could ensure a certain freedom of choice in human behavior. In the context of human behavior a more complex dialectic is manifested: necessity—need—freedom. We find confirmation of this thought in V. S. Tyukhtin: “In the practical transformation of the external world, in its subordination to the needs and interests of man, lies human freedom, his positive subjectivity or activity taken in its highest expression”³⁰. Thus, only in the process of the practical transformation of the external world do relations arise in the full sense of the word, and the subject of this relation is the human being, who makes nature the object of his conscious and free relation.

In the human being, as the subject of his relation, there appears the possibility of choosing his behavior. The latter is realized not only by knowing the meaning that coincides with the objective properties of objects and phenomena, but also by revealing the sense that becomes the condition of the individual’s personal orientation³¹. The immediate springs of this process of conscious behavior are, correspondingly, differentiated needs, since it is precisely “needs [that] represent the principal source of the vital activity of the personality”³². In accordance with this, one may distinguish needs of two types: the need for cognition of the world as such, in its objective properties independent of human beings, and the need to reveal the human sense of objects and phenomena that gradually enter the orbit of human practice. The necessity of successful orientation, of opposing the formidable and inexorable forces of the external world, and, finally, of selecting and transmitting positive experience imperatively demanded liberation from the syncretism and undifferentiated character of primitive thought. This necessity placed before human beings the most difficult twofold task: “to master the world in which they found themselves, and to become aware of the fact of their own existence in this world”³³. The solution of tasks of the first kind gave rise to cognitive needs and a scientific attitude toward the world. Together with the solution of tasks of the second kind, we enter the domain of aesthetic needs and aesthetic relation. However, this logical statement does not define the essence of aesthetic need, but merely indicates the paths for its further investigation within the system of human social needs. The point is that the significance for the human being (the sense) of the external world is established already at the utilitarian level. Along with the experience of cognition, or, as S. Kh. Rappoport calls it, the experience of facts, in which the objective meaning of objects is established, their utilitarian sense is simultaneously revealed to the human being as well, i.e., their usefulness or uselessness in human life activity.

And here we encounter yet another task—to separate the utilitarian meaning of natural nature and of “second nature,” as the result of human activity, from its aesthetic meaning. This task requires consideration of the historical aspect of the emergence of aesthetic need from utilitarian need, something that can also be traced in the ontogenesis of the personality. The theoretical paths of this investigation were laid out by G. V. Plekhanov’s conception: “Man first looks at objects and phenomena from the utilitarian point of view and only subsequently assumes, in his relation to them, the aesthetic point of view.”^60 Although the transition from the utilitarian stage of clarifying the human meaning of “first and second” nature is not considered by us here, the secondary character of aesthetic need already appears obvious to us on the basis of Plekhanov’s conception. The subject of aesthetic need acts not only as a consuming being, but as a representative of the social human species, who looks at the world more broadly, approaching it with the full completeness of the human species-measure (the latter is always filled with concrete-historical content). Only on this basis does an aesthetic relation to the world arise, as the search for “the harmony of man and nature, of man and people, of man and the world as a whole.”^61 It is therefore no accident that aesthetic need appears as the most human of all human needs, an infinite need not limited by the framework of man’s narrowly utilitarian approach to the world.

Aesthetic need is connected with the clarification of a higher meaning of the surrounding world; it is connected with its “humanization,” with the preservation and development in the world of the higher human potentials; it is connected with bringing the world into harmonious unity with man. We agree with P. V. Simonov that, in an aesthetic relation to reality caused by the corresponding need, a person verifies “what exactly delights or repels him, what compels him to admire or to be indignant, what is subject to negation and reconstruction.”^62 Bearing in mind the further prospects for the study of aesthetic need, we propose a substantially different definition from those presented above. Aesthetic need is the need to reflect the human meaning of nature and society by correlating the measure of the object and the measure of man, with the aim of harmonizing the world and man. The formation and development of aesthetic need is a condition for the progressive development of humanity.

^60 G. V. Plekhanov. Selected Philosophical Works. Vol. 5, Sotsekgizdat, p. 354.
^61 P. V. Simonov. What Is Emotion? Moscow, 1966, p. 43.
^62 P. V. Simonov. The Theory of Reflection and the Psychophysiology of Emotions. Moscow, 1970, pp. 115–116.

1. E. S. Akopdzhanyan. Cited work, p. 8. ↩

2. A. P. Belik. Cited work, p. 51. ↩

3. S. M. Kovalev. Cited work, p. 42. ↩

4. E. S. Akopdzhanyan. Cited work, p. 9. ↩

5. K. Marx and F. Engels. Works, vol. 1, p. 418. ↩

6. V. S. Kornienko. On the Laws of Beauty. Kharkov, 1970, p. 68. ↩

7. V. S. Kornienko. The cited work, p. 88. ↩

8. V. S. Kornienko. The cited work, p. 63. ↩

9. Ibid., p. 88. ↩

10. V. Vanslov. The Problem of the Beautiful. Moscow, 1957, p. 44. ↩

11. Ibid. ↩

12. V. A. Vasilenko. Cited work, p. 46. ↩

13. S. Anisimov. Real and Imaginary Values. Moscow, 1970, p. 23. ↩

14. K. M. Mamadbekov. Cited work, p. 5. ↩

15. Yu. V. Sharov. Cited work, p. 55. ↩

16. V. F. Ryabov. The Social Life of Society and Art. Lenizdat, 1970, p. 19. ↩

17. S. Kh. Rappoport. The cited work, p. 119. ↩

18. A. I. Burov. The Aesthetic Essence of Art. Moscow, 1956. ↩

19. A. Natev. Art and Society. Moscow, 1966, p. 49. ↩

20. Ibid., p. 61. ↩

21. Ibid., p. 65. ↩

22. A. I. Burov. Marxist-Leninist Aesthetics as the Theoretical Basis of Aesthetic Education. Abstract of doctoral dissertation. Moscow, 1970, p. 8. ↩

23. V. S. Kornienko. Cited work, pp. 194–207. ↩

24. P. S. Trofimov. Basic Laws of the Historical Development of Art. Moscow, 1970, p. 37. ↩

25. Ibid., p. 40. ↩

26. Ibid., p. 41. ↩

27. P. S. Trofimov. Cited work, p. 46. ↩

28. S. Kh. Rappoport, cited work, p. 58. ↩

29. A. N. Leontiev, Needs, Motives, Consciousness. Motives and Consciousness in Human Behavior. Moscow, 1966, p. 7. ↩

30. V. S. Tyukhtin, On the Nature of the Image. Moscow, 1963, p. 98. ↩

31. The “disintegration” of meaning and sense in human consciousness is discussed in the works of A. N. Leontiev, Problems of the Development of the Psyche. Moscow, 1965; S. Kh. Rappoport, Art and Emotions. Moscow, 1968; M. Markov, Art as Process. Moscow, 1970. ↩

32. V. N. Myasishchev, Scientific Notes of the Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute, vol. 214, issue 11, p. 16. ↩

33. B. Runin, cited work, p. 40. ↩