“The expressiveness of everything accordingly increases with the intelligence of the observer.”
- Source
- The Sense of Beauty
- Date
- 1896
Meaning of “The expressiveness of everything accordingly increases with the…”
Santayana argues that expression depends partly on what an observer can associate with an object, so richer knowledge and imagination can reveal more possible meanings without guaranteeing that every interpretation is equally justified.
Where does it come from?
The Sense of Beauty (1896), Part IV, §48, ‘Expression defined,’ Project Gutenberg #26842. §48 begins on printed page 192 and §49 begins on page 198; the retained sentence occurs late in §48 after Santayana argues that expression depends on associations and on what the observer’s imagination can supply. No narrower printed page is asserted without an independently verified page break. This remains historical aesthetic/philosophical psychology, not modern intelligence testing, neuroscience or evidence that more intelligent observers always make objectively better interpretations.
