A year ago, I had the joy of reading Aesthetics in a redwood forest in the hills near Santa Cruz. It was a great way to pass the time as my wife was on a photo walk with a group of fellow photographers. As I was reading, an old concept hit me in a new way. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was because I was reading in such a sublime location, or maybe because my current work requires that I think about aesthetics in a more theological way. Either way, as I read, I was really struck.

Immanuel Kant developed the concept of disinterested contemplation as necessary for beauty. In fact, this concept tends to be the most prevalent when thinking about the “high arts” though I would argue that it is, at least in part, applicable to any art form. The phrase “disinterested” often confuses people who are not familiar with the concept. Why would someone want to contemplate what doesn’t interest them? But this is not what it means. Essentially, it means that the contemplator is contemplating the object itself not what he/she can get out of an object. It has also been conceived as a higher interest. In other words, disinterested contemplation is a contemplation that is not interested in what can be gotten out of an object, in terms of tangible benefit, but interested in contemplating the object for the very sake of the object....