The Distance of the Exotic: Bullough’s Idea of Psychical Distance from the Perspective of Levinas’s Concept of the Aesthetic
Abstract
In this paper, I analyse Edward Bullough's standard concept of psychical distance as a general aesthetic principle from the perspective of Emmanuel Levinas's philosophy of the aesthetic. First of all, I point to the peculiarities of Bullough's own description of psychical distance.
He emphasizes that distanced content, that is, the content of aesthetic phenomena, comes upon us as a "revelation," which is neither subjective nor objective, neither individual nor general, neither personal nor indifferent. Distanced content is thus outside the correlation, which forms experience as emerging from subjective intention to an object.
Further, I point out that Levinas describes such a revelation of the "outside" as "exoticism" of the aesthetic event. This exoticism means extracting a thing from the realm of objects, which is the world, and suspending the relationship between the thing and the subject.
I, however, also highlight Bullough's statements that with a distanced attitude, we interpret affections as characteristics of phenomena that have a "postulating" character. Such a view is, surprisingly, compatible with Levinas's idea of the essential aesthetic category of rhythm.
My intention is thus to demonstrate that Bullough sensitively circumscribed the fundamental features of the aesthetic, which are recorded by Levinas.