Abstract
Edward Bullough's concept of psychical distance, that Bullough introduced in his seminal essay published already in 1912, belongs among the most criticised theories throughout the whole tradition of analytic aesthetics. Perhaps the most infuential was the attack by George Dickie, who wrote a whole series of papers on this topic questioning the very existence of a special attitude that could be called "psychical" or "aesthetic distance".
Debates in environmental aesthetics present another significant source of criticism of this concept (e.g. Arnold Berleant).
An engaged experience that natural beauty requires from us seems to be in conflict with a distanced attitude. One also does not find much sympathy for the concept of psychical distance among authors contributing to debates concerning aesthetics of the so-called lower senses (e.g.
Karolyn Korsmeyer). In the present paper I examine the most common pattern of criticism of Bullough's conception and try to vindicate his theory.
I claim that the main source of misunderstanding is to be found in interpretation of what terms the relation of psychical distance is supposed to hold between. This should also shed some light on the explanatory power that the concept exhibits towards questions surrounding the role of pretense in aesthetic experience.I confront Bullough's views of what aesthetic experience (appreciation of works of arts at the first place) consists in with Kendall Walton's conception of mimesis as make-believe.
Walton's seminal work Mimesis as Make-Believe (1990) belongs among key texts that introduce the notion of pretense into aesthetic discourse. I argue that Walton's conception share many crucial observations of our experience with works of art with Bullough's.
However, Walton's theory suffers of few shortcomings. I try to show that Bullough's concept of psychical distance, properly understod, could save some of Walton's most valuable insights and, at the same time, solve some of the problems that the idea of mimesis as a game of make-believe and related concept of pretense generated.