In this paper, I present a cognitive account of aesthetic character of landscape. I develop this in response to Emily Brady, who coined the term to refer to the aesthetic individuality of a landscape, which she argues we ought to conserve. She presents a non-cognitive understanding of aesthetic character, which I argue is flawed on the grounds that it does in fact rely on the perceiver calling on particular knowledge to grasp aesthetic character, fails to explain cases in which aesthetic character is determined by nonperceptual properties and finally does not make a principled distinction between properties that are relevant to aesthetic character and that are not. I argue that a cognitive understanding of aesthetic character does not fail on these accounts. First, it allows us to rely on knowledge to make salient properties relevant to aesthetic character, both for ourselves and reach agreement with others on what a particular landscape’s aesthetic character is like. Second, it accounts for those cases in which aesthetic character is determined by nonperceptual properties, as we access them by knowing about them. Finally, I demonstrate how this cognitive account of aesthetic character works much better in the practical context of landscape conservation.

In recent decades the canon of environmental aesthetics has expanded beyond its primary concern of understanding what is beautiful in the fine arts to the appreciation of natural and cultural landscapes. Corresponding with society's growing interest in conservation, environmental aesthetics has emerged as relevant to many conservation discussions. The preservation and interpretation of cultural landscapes is complicated by resources that are in a constant state of change. Traditional cultural landscape preservation practices have had mixed results. A focus on interpretation rather than preservation is generally considered a strategy for improving cultural landscape practices. Applying theories developed in the field of environmental aesthetics to cultural landscapes may lead to principles helpful to their preservation and interpretation. In this study, an environmental aesthetic framework is developed and applied to the Canoa Ranch, a historic property south of Tucson, Arizona, to evaluate the potential of using environmental aesthetics in appreciation of cultural landscapes.

Within the environmental aesthetics literature, there is a noticeable schism between two general approaches to understanding the aesthetic value of nature: the ambient approach and the narrative approach. Ambient thinkers focus on the character of aesthetic appreciation of nature, the way in which one is embedded in multi-sensory environment. These ambient theorists emphasize the importance of those aesthetic experiences that are difficult to articulate. Narrative thinkers argue that aesthetic appreciation of nature is enhanced and enriched by narratives that are relevant to the natural object or environment encountered. Certain narratives – usually those based on scientific knowledge – encourage a depth of appreciation that is inaccessible to those unfamiliar with the narratives. In this dissertation, I attempt to articulate an account of environmental aesthetic experience that does justice to both of these approaches by drawing on the resources of philosophical hermeneutics, and especially on the aesthetic theory of Hans-Georg Gadamer. The most important aspects of Gadamer's work for environmental aesthetics are his phenomenology of play, his revival of practical philosophy, and his emphasis on the interpretive character of all understanding. His discussion of play fleshes out the core of ambient accounts, his focus on interpretation explains the insights of narrative accounts, and the two accounts are tied together by his attention to practice.

The aim of this dissertation is focusing on environmental aesthetics of Arnold Berleant. Firstly we concentrated on his theoretical aesthetics opinions and then we passed to use them on field of environmental aesthetics. To draw a comparison we used writings of another American aesthetician, Allen Carlson. In sphere of Berleant's theoretical aesthetics opinions it is not possible to omit concepts of aesthetical experience, value and social factor. These points are important ideas of aesthetics of engagement, which we would like to present. As useful for environmental aesthetics we also see Berleant evaluation of negative and positive aesthetics values. In case of Allen Carlson we use several models in the field of theoretical aesthetics. The author assessments the functionality of these models for environmental aesthetics. The last point of this dissertation is focusing on a certain type of environment, to architecture and "Disney World", respective. In this field we wanted to demonstrate how the Berleant works with certain type of environment. Allen Carlson chooses as certain type of environment American farms. He concentrates on point how these farms have changed during one century. KEYWORDS: Arnold Berleant, Allen Carlson, environmental aesthetics, aesthetics value, aesthetics experience

The use of anthropomorphic animal characters is pervasive in animation, but there has been little examination of how and why these are created, and how a viewing audience understands them. This Practice-based PhD examines how a re-defining of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic representation might bring a new impetus to the use of animal imagery within contemporary animation practice. An initial stage of research was to define the term anthropomorphism both as a visual language within animation practice and in the wider contexts of scientific and philosophical discourse. Social and psychological aspects are discussed, recognising this form of hybrid representation throughout the development of human culture. Links with Human Animal Studies disciplines raised the question of relating anthropomorphism to negative aspects of anthropocentrism and this led to a second stage of the research that explores ways of working with anthropomorphism that do not promote an anthropocentric bias. This is firstly achieved through the devising of a new theoretical approach to character analysis that is based on the recognition of perceptual aesthetic and sensual animal qualities in human-led , animal-led and design-led anthropomorphic characters, rather than a reliance on conceptual symbolic referencing of human experiences, goals, and narratives. Moving into the practice and influence from historical animation work provides impetus for a move away from character and narrative based work. Experimental animation techniques are used to create rhythms and patterns of abstracted animal and human imagery. This new work is based on contemporary ecological ideas that discuss relationships between humans and animals as interconnected species, thus providing a second way of lessening of anthropocentric bias in the subject matter. Having a starting point of aesthetic and sensual responses to actual experiences with animals is an important factor and live action film is re-animated to create digitally manipulated rhythms of colour, texture, movement and sound. The practical research outcomes are animation samples that evidence the coming together of experimental digital techniques and contemporary ecological subject matter. An action research model was devised for the research to enable the integration of theory and practice, and reflection on theory and practice to have an important influence on the practical outcomes. The approach taken was dependent on experience as a creative practitioner and as a teacher helping others to develop a sustainable creative practice, in allowing an open and intuitive discovery of ideas from both theoretical and practical explorations to create a flow through the research. The combination of theoretical and practical research undertaken provides an impetus towards the creation of future animation work using an anthropomorphic visual language redefined as zooanthropomorphic animation . The submission includes outcomes of a written thesis and links to practical animation work.

An ecological paradigm shift from the "balance of nature" to the "flux of nature" will change the way we aesthetically appreciate nature if we adopt scientific cognitivism-the view that aesthetic appreciation of nature must be informed by scientific knowledge. Aesthetic judgments are subjective, though we talk about aesthetic qualities as if they were objectively inherent in objects, events, or environments. Aesthetic judgments regarding nature are correct insofar as they are part of a community consensus regarding the currently dominant scientific paradigm. Ecological science is grounded in metaphors: nature is a divine order, a machine, an organism, a community, or a cybernetic system. These metaphors stimulate and guide scientific practice, but do not exist independent of a conceptual framework. They are at most useful fictions in terms of how they reflect the values underlying a paradigm. Contemporary ecology is a science driven more by aesthetic than metaphysical considerations. I review concepts in the history of nature aesthetics such as the picturesque, the sublime, disinterestedness, and formalism. I propose an analogy: just as knowledge of art history and theory should inform aesthetic appreciation of art, knowledge of natural history and ecological theory should inform aesthetic appreciation of nature. The "framing problem," is the problem that natural environments are not discrete objects, so knowing what to focus on in an environment is difficult. The "fusion problem" is the problem of how to fuse the sensory aspect of aesthetic appreciation with highly theoretical scientific knowledge. I resolve these two problems by defending a normative version of the theory-laden observation thesis. Positive aesthetics is the view that insofar as nature is untouched by humans, it is always beautiful and never ugly. I defend an amended and updated version of positive aesthetics that is consistent with the central elements of contemporary ecology, and emphasize the heuristic, exegetical, and pedagogical roles aesthetic qualities play in ecological science.

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This study analyzes visual artifacts from three case studies, Hetch Hetchy Valley, Echo Park, and Glen Canyon, in order to contribute to scholarship devoted to environmental visual rhetoric. Through these studies, I address connections between aesthetics and environmental ethics and challenge scholarship that argues mainstream preservationist perspectives have adhered to an anthropocentric ideological paradigm. Grounding my argument in philosopher Arnold Berleant's notion of participatory aesthetics and deploying social semiotics and media analysis methodologies, I propose that two particular aesthetic grammars have been at use in mainstream environmental rhetorics, that which I call the wilderness sublime and the wilderness interactive. Present in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and well documented in existing scholarship, the aesthetic of the wilderness sublime has operated through strict dichotomies between nature and culture that promote reductive views of human relationships with nature. Conversely, I argue that the aesthetic of the wilderness interactive, discoverable in artifacts from the mid-20th century to today, has worked to resist these dichotomies through the use of participatory elements that feature humans and nature in what Berleant calls a "relationship of mutual influence," falling within a more ecocentric ideological view. Through my analysis, I extend Berleant's theoretical application from photography to websites to argue that web-based rhetorics contain distinct potential for the realization of participatory features. In particular, I focus on the aesthetic, technological, social, archival, subjective, and epistemological dimensions proposed by Melinda Turnley to discuss dialogic features of websites that can work to engage diverse stakeholders. Through my findings, I offer a visual analysis heuristic that can be used to discover participatory aesthetics within visual artifacts and resist dualistic views of the environment. Likewise, I present a user analysis heuristic that can help identify targeted stakeholders and recognize participatory aesthetics within websites. Ultimately, this study answers the call of environmental aesthetics to address the realization of perceptual norms that offer more ethical conceptions of human relationships with nature, and it extends this focus into the digital environment to discuss the ability of web design and aesthetics to promote generative stakeholder dialogue in environmental protection and restoration.

This thesis formulates a conceptual framework to account for the rural architectural traditions. The proposal is presented by referring to &Uuml / r&uuml / nl&uuml / , a Mediterranean highland settlement in Southwestern Turkey. The thesis&#039 / basic assumption is the environmental coherence of the traditional rural culture. Environmental aesthetics provides the conceptual basis through which architectural elements of the environmental coherence are investigated. Environmental aesthetics enhances the inclusive conceptions of &quot / environment&quot / as an integral whole merging nature with culture and &quot / aesthetics&quot / as an integrated realm of perceptual engagement with environment. The integrative perspectives of environmental aesthetics unify the phenomenological approach with the concepts of &quot / tectonic syntax&quot / and &quot / pattern language,&quot / which have been raised by previous studies of the traditional built environment. This integral conceptual framework is used to derive the conceptual tools. Environmental coherence between the various scale levels of the rural settlement ranging from architectural detail to settlement pattern defines &quot / aesthetics of continuity.&quot / The conceptual tools, which are the &quot / tectonic joint,&quot / the organic interface and the environmental armature, serve as the successive scale levels on which the architectural elements of the &quot / aesthetics of continuity&quot / are analyzed. This framework is applied to &Uuml / r&uuml / nl&uuml / for identifying the spatial articulations of environment as multileveled patterns illustrating culture-specific solutions to contextual problems. Hence, the patterns are reconsidered as the aspects of architectural enculturation. The thesis&#039 / proposal for an environmental representation of the settlement concretizes the patterns of integration between the rural architectural tradition and environment and explains the aesthetics of continuity between nature and culture. The intended contribution of the case study is a new theoretical approach generally applicable to the rural settlements.

In this paper I argue that aesthetic appreciation of nature should be reflective and based on respect for nature. I believe first-hand experience is crucial and that nature can be aesthetically experienced freely in a multi-sensory way. Aesthetic experience will bring attention to features of the environment which the subject needs to reflect on and make sense of. My main argument is how Yuriko Saito’s metaphorical notion of “lending your ears to nature’s own story” and “recognize its reality as apart from your own” can manifest the moral obligation of reflecting on what is given in experience. Some implications of this notion will be looked at. First, the perplexity that nature has its own reality and story apart from us while nature is also what encompasses our own life and grounds the experience of judging it. Contemplation on this issue may bring with it a strong sense of self- and environmental awareness that potentially can result in a sublime response. Second, to lend your ears to a story of a landscape leads to considerations about authenticity and true wilderness. I argue that one can think of wildness and authenticity to acquire a better understanding and one should not see those terms as a basis for value judgments. I will then take a closer look at the links between the moral considerations and the aesthetic experience itself. To preserve the autonomy of taste I separate the perceptive and reflective parts of aesthetic experience, saying that although both levels can inform one another, knowledge or moral considerations don’t necessarily determine aesthetic judgment. Departing from other cognitivists, I don’t think the wild is per definition beautiful, it is even sometimes difficult to aesthetically appreciate at all. In the last chapter I consider the significance of the sublime affect in establishing aesthetic relationships with more diverse environments.