A Paradigm for Landscape Aesthetics

Abstract

This article resolves the conflict between biological and cultural explanations of aesthetic behavior that is evident in the landscape aesthetics literature. In resolving that conflict, the article combines biological, cultural, and personal bases for aesthetics in a comprehensive paradigm for research in landscape aesthetics. This paradigm is based on Vygotsky's developmental approach to understanding the human mind and human behavior. Vygotsky's method leads to the identification of three fundamental processes of development: phylogenesis (biological evolution), sociogenesis (cultural history), and ontogenesis (individual development). These correspond to three modes of existence-the Umwelt, the Mitwelt, and the Eigenwe/t-Adentified phenomenologically by the existential analysts. These in turn correspond to three modes of aesthetic experience: biological, cultural, and personal. The interrelations of the three modes of aesthetic experience are discussed, with particular emphasis on the biological and cultural modes. It is concluded that each mode has distinct qualities that justify its separate inclusion within the paradigm. Finally, the three modes are characterized as sets of aesthetic constraints and opportunities, labeled laws, rules, and strategies, respectively. Important research directions in landscape aesthetics involve identification and explanation of these constraints and opportunities. The tripartite paradigm promises to be useful in helping to pose important research questions as well as in avoiding conceptual errors in the design of experiments in landscape aesthetics.