Aesthetics of Care: Practice in Everyday Life

Extract

Much of Yuriko Saito’s work is dedicated to the idea that the world is richer than it might first appear. Where the philosophical study of aesthetics, and ordinary people’s aesthetic attention, is (too) often focused on fine art, she urges us to take seriously the aesthetic dimensions of everyday experiences—of nature, packaging, wind farms, even an empty sky. To read her work is to read an invitation to see more of the world as worthy of a kind of aesthetic engagement than you might have thought; and to accept that invitation is, insofar as she is right, to live a more aesthetically enriched life.

In Aesthetics of Care, Saito is up to something similar. Another site of aesthetic value and experience are our interpersonal relations—of caring for and being cared for by others. Perhaps more surprisingly, Saito sees the world of aesthetics as laden with ethical significance. Artifacts—fine art and everyday—are vehicles of care. Most surprisingly, she thinks a life well lived is one that enters into aesthetic–ethical relations with things, one that that cares for and is cared for by them. Saito sees benches, bowls, socks, and public transit stops as artifacts with which we can form caring relationships that meaningfully enrich our lives both ethically and aesthetically. These are provocative claims, and Saito is refreshingly honest in declaring she is more interested in exploring them than arguing for them (9); she paints a philosophical picture, filled with colorful and varied examples that make the book a joy to read. Some might find this frustrating, but the book is best read, like much of her work, as an invitation to see the world anew. It would not convince a skeptic, but for my own part, I find the invitation well worth accepting.