Aesthetic Value

I argue that artworks are of public value because aesthetic experience of them contributes to the development of our aestheticjudgement. I use two accounts of aesthetic judgement to explore how it might do so and how the private ownership of artworks could affect the development of our aesthetic judgement.

Recent attention to the relationship between aesthetic value and cognitive value has focused on whether the latter can affect the former. In this article, I approach the issue from the opposite direction. I investigate whether the aesthetic value of a work can influence its cognitive value. More narrowly, I consider whether a work's aesthetic value ever contributes to or detracts from its philosophical value, which I take to include the truth of its claims, the strength of its arguments, and its (...) internal consistency. I argue that aesthetic value does have such an impact, at least sometimes and to some degree. The aesthetic merits of some works help to preserve their consistency, and the aesthetic defects of other works render them self-contradictory. (shrink)

Some have argued that the possibility of faultless disagreement gives relativist semantic theories an important explanatory advantage over their absolutist and contextualist rivals. Here I combat this argument, focusing on the specific case of aesthetic discourse. My argument has two stages. First, I argue that while relativists may be able to account for the possibility of faultless aesthetic disagreement, they nevertheless face difficulty in accounting for the intuitive limits of faultless disagreement. Second, I develop a new non-relativist theory which can (...) account for the full range of data regarding faultless disagreement. This view—‘Humean Absolutism’—integrates two of Hume’s central principles from Of the Standard of Taste into a truth-conditional framework, resulting in a non-bivalent theory of aesthetic truth. I argue that Humean Absolutism can underwrite the possibility of faultless disagreement whilst retaining reasonable limits around the phenomenon. I close by relating this positive account of faultless disagreement to broader issues concerning the cognitive role of truth-value gaps. -/- *NB - this is an unpublished paper and is no longer in progress.*. (shrink)

Currently, advanced art education is in the process of developing research programs throughout Europe. Therefore, it seems to us urgent to explore what the term research actually means in the topical practice of art. After all, research as such is often understood as a method stemming from the alpha, beta or gamma sciences directed towards knowledge production and the development of a certain scientific domain. How is artistic research connected with those types of scientific research, taking into account that the (...) artistic domain so far has tended to continually exceed the parameters of knowledge management?One could claim that the artistic field comprises the hermeneutic question of the humanities, the experimental method of the sciences, and the societal commitment of the social sciences. Will that knowledge influence the domain, the methodology, and the outcome of artistic research? Another major topic concerns not only the specificity of the object of knowledge of artistic research but above all whether and how artistic research and its institutional programs will influence topical visual art, its artworks and its exhibitions.These complex problematics with their various points of view and management models are mapped out through the contributions of theorists, curators, and institutions, from Belgium, France, Great-Britain, Italy, The Netherlands, Finland, Germany, and Sweden. May these contributions be a constructive impetus for a versatile debate which may influence the future role of advanced art institutions and the position of artistic research in the next decade. (shrink)

This paper affirms the proposition, denied by albert hofstadter ("journal of philosophy", volume 59, 1962), that the study of the meaning and ground of value judgments is a proper branch of aesthetics. hofstadter objects that the use of 'aesthetic value' involves a "category mistake"; however, this objection is based on an apparent failure to understand a derivative or instrumental definition. hofstadter's own position is also criticized. it is argued (a) that his theory of aesthetic validity, while commendable in some respects, (...) is too abstract and too general; and (b) that beauty is not a necessary condition of aesthetic value, a proposition strongly objected to by hofstadter. (staff). (shrink)

The Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature I advance a view of the aesthetic value of nature that Glenn Parsons seeks to contest. Here I attempt to show three things. The first is that his critique of my view of the aesthetic value of a natural thing is malfounded. The second is that his proposed alternative, which is intended to vindicate the claim to objectivity of certain judgements of the aesthetic value of a natural thing, is unconvincing. And the third is that, (...) contrary to what he maintains, I am not committed to the alternative he proposes through an apparent tension in my position, for there is no such tension. (shrink)

Noël Carroll’s (“Moderate Moralism”) conceptual framework includes four positions: radical autonomism, moderate autonomism, moderate moralism, and radical moralism. Alessandro Giovanelli (“The Ethical Criticism of Art: A New Mapping of the Territory”) argues that the radical positions, as Carroll defines them, have no modern day adherents. Therefore, the framework should be adapted such that we can see interestingly new distinctions. On Giovanelli’s new framework Carroll’s account is a moderate autonomist view. In this paper I adopt Giovanelli’s framework and raise a different (...) objection to Carroll’s account. I argue that Carroll’s account possesses a branching structure, since on this account moral and aesthetic criticism are not linearly related. Because of this structure, Carroll’s theory faces a dilemma: it’s either self-undermining or consistent with moderate autonomism, even in his own framework. Drawing on Kendall Walton’s (“Categories of Art”) notion of categories of art, I provide an account that is both non-branching and moderate moralist in Giovanelli’s framework. It’s non-branching because moral criticism bears a linear causal relation to aesthetic criticism. (shrink)

Sometimes there are conflicts about what we ought to do according to differing evaluative dimensions, like morality and self-interest. After sketching an interpretation of "ought" claims of all sorts, it is argued that there is no overriding evaluation that authoritatively resolves the conflicts. It is further argued that this is not altogether disappointing.

In the past decade, experimental philosophy---the attempt at making progress on philosophical problems using empirical methods---has thrived in a wide range of domains. However, only in recent years has aesthetics succeeded in drawing the attention of experimental philosophers. The present paper constitutes the first survey of these works and of the nascent field of 'experimental philosophy of aesthetics'. We present both recent experimental works by philosophers on topics such as the ontology of aesthetics, aesthetic epistemology, aesthetic concepts, and imagination, as (...) well as research from other disciplines that not only are relevant to philosophy of aesthetics but also open new avenues of research for experimental philosophy of aesthetics. Overall, we conclude that the birth of an experimental philosophy of aesthetics is good news not only for aesthetics but also for experimental philosophy itself, as it contributes to broaden the scope of experimental philosophy. (shrink)

Sentimentality: this term has had an odd career that converted it from an expression of praise into one of abuse. The obvious suspicion is that the word ‚sentimental‘ has had an entirely different meaning in the 20th and 21st centuries (when it has been deployed for abuse) as compared to the 18th century (when it had been used for praise). Scrutiny shows, however, that this is not the case. Rather the very same aspects of sentimentality that had appeared to, e.g., (...) Sterne as a feat of human imagination, came to be seen from the 19th century onwards as betraying dishonesty. Hence what may look like mere linguistic change implies a substantial philosophical disagreement. Yet mustering the arguments against sentimentality, it turns out that we should be better off with a descriptive account of this attitude. Specimens of sentimentality are not failures vis-à-vis a norm of rationality; whether we like them or not is a matter of taste. (shrink)

In this important article, first published in 1917, the Czech aesthetician, musicologist, and composer Otakar Zich (1879–1934) distinguishes between two kinds of evaluation of a work of art: aesthetic evaluation and artistic evaluation. He bases this differentiation on two possible attitudes that a perceiver may have towards a work of art. The first originates solely in the perceiver’s experience of the work and his or her search for a feeling of pleasure. It reflects only the subjective preferences of the individual; (...) Zich terms the corresponding value ‘relative aesthetic value’. Above the relative value of an emotional effect there is an evaluation of a higher order, which consists in ‘comprehending’ a work of art. It is to this evaluation that artistic value corresponds. According to Zich, however, this objective value is grounded not in the work itself, but in the distinctive ‘personal value’ of the artist. In artistic evaluation, the work of art is therefore evaluated as a manifestation of strong artistic individuality. The first part of the article was published in the previous issue. (shrink)

In this important article, first published in 1917, the Czech aesthetician, musicologist, and composer Otakar Zich (1879--1934) distinguishes between two kinds of evaluation of a work of art: aesthetic evaluation and artistic evaluation. He bases this differentiation on two possible attitudes that a perceiver may have towards a work of art. The first originates solely in the perceiver’s experience of the work and his or her search for a feeling of pleasure. It reflects only the subjective preferences of the individual; (...) Zich terms the corresponding value ‘relative aesthetic value’. Above the relative value of an emotional effect there is an evaluation of a higher order, which consists in ‘comprehending’ a work of art. It is to this evaluation that artistic value corresponds. According to Zich, however, this objective value is grounded not in the work itself, but in the distinctive ‘personal value’ of the artist. In artistic evaluation, the work of art is therefore evaluated as a manifestation of strong artistic individuality. (shrink)

Rethinks the existing definitions of aesthetics and ethics and the relations between them.

At the heart of aesthetics lie fundamental questions about value in art and the objectivity of aesthetic valuation. A theory of aesthetic value must explain how the properties of artworks contribute to the values derived from contemplating and appreciating works of art. When someone passes judgment on a work of art, just what is it that is happening, and how can such judgments be criticized and defended?In this concise survey, intended for advanced undergraduate students of aesthetics, Alan Goldman focuses on (...) the question of aesthetic value, using many practical examples from painting, music, and literature to make his case. Although he treats a wide variety of views, he argues for a nonrealist view of aesthetic value, showing that the personal element can never be factored out of evaluative aesthetic judgments and explaining why this is so. At the same time, he argues for certain common effects of highly esteemed artworks.Along the way Goldman considers such key topics as interpretation, representation, expression, and taste. His text will be a valuable contribution to the teaching of aesthetics as well as to the understanding of these topics on the part of students and scholars in philosophy and the arts. (shrink)

To say that an object is beautiful or ugly is seemingly to refer to a property of the object. But it is also to express a positive or negative response to it, a set of aesthetic values, and to suggest that others ought to respond in the same way. Such judg- ments are descriptive, expressive, and normative or prescriptive at once. These multiple features are captured well by Humean accounts that analyze the judgments as ascribing relational properties. To say that (...) an object is beautiful is to say, in part, that it is such as to elicit a response expressing pleasure in certain observers. The observers in question must not be ignorant, biased, insensitive, or of poor taste, and they must not base their evaluations on aesthetically irrelevant properties of the objects they judge. The reference to the object's "being such . . ." captures the objective side of the relation; refer- ence to the pleasurable response captures the expressive function of these judgments; and the ideal properties of the observers suggest that others ought to judge in the same way. (shrink)