As I wrote yesterday, my second line of argument in taking to task this notion of Landscape Appreciation  is more theoretical. Pepita Haezrahi (the author of The Contemplative Activity, one of the best books in the “What To Read” list) writes:

   “Every theoretical enquiry is based and indeed must presuppose three initial assumptions. It must presuppose that it enquiries into something. It must presuppose that what it enquiries into has certain distinct and circumscribed meaning of its own. And it must presuppose that this meaning, though not necessarily defined in exact terms can be described and can be communicated.”

    Pepita (what a nice name!) was writing about something else, but suppose we use her three assumptions to examine criticaly Landscape Appreciation considered as a theoretical enquiry.

    The ‘something’ of the first asumption relates to “certain particular states in our iner life” that we designate by certain statements and of similar statements made by other people that, we believe, designate states of mind similar to our own. (the last sentence is important, if not, I’d be talking to myself, a bad habit of mine).This is not a very strict requirement and many things, even including if you want Landscape Appreciation, may pass the test.

  But, regarding the second clause things get more espinosas (thorny?). Which is the “distinct and circumscribed meaning” of Landscape Appreciation?  (I myself have not ever seen it but if someone here could come up with one or two, I will eat my hatt.) Not easy on two counts: ‘Appreciation’ is a pretty bogus term and only gains certain exactness when applied to works of Arte;  ‘Landscape’ on the other hand has distinct meanings, but there are so many of them around, that again we reach bugosity. When you put both words together they become foggy. Just the other day I read a piece called “Appreciating her Mental Landscape” which turned to be a piece about the thoughts of some lady that wrote a book. See what I mean? Inside thick fogs anything goes.

  Finaly, the third clause: suppose someone writes “ while riding on a camel I appreciated the landscape around me” Problem here is not so much that, (unless you are a beduin) riding a camel, I asure you, is not compatible with enjoying landscapes,  problem is  in the “description and communication”. How do you describe/comunicate the landscape you were experiencing?  The people receiving your message have never been there; as we all know, even fotos won’t help much and, on top, how would you describe this ‘appreciation’ you asumed you were performing? You cannot get away by saying that this was "a personal subjective experience that cannot be described and comunicated"; to accept that is to accept that this Landscape Appreciation of yours has no principles, rules and/nor delimited area of aplication.

    Here, the advocatus diaboli says, I’ll rest my case for the time being.