Kant, quasi-realism, and the autonomy of aesthetic judgement

European Journal of Philosophy 9 (2):166–189 (2001)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Aesthetic judgements are autonomous, as many other judgements are not: for the latter, but not the former, it is sometimes justifiable to change one's mind simply because several others share a different opinion. Why is this? One answer is that claims about beauty are not assertions at all, but expressions of aesthetic response. However, to cover more than just some of the explananda, this expressivism needs combining with some analogue of cognitive command, i.e. the idea that disagreements over beuaty can occur, and when they do it is a priori that one side has infringed the norms governing aesthetic discourse. This combination can be achieved by reading Kant’s aesthetic theory in expressivist terms. The resulting view is a form of quasi-realism about beauty. The position has its merits, but cannot ultimately explain the phenomena which motivate it. This conclusion generalises to quasi-realism about other matters.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Beauty and testimony.Robert Hopkins - 2000 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 47:209-236.
The autonomy of aesthetic judgement.Andrew McGonigal - 2006 - British Journal of Aesthetics 46 (4):331-348.
Aesthetic essays.Malcolm Budd - 2008 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Quasi-realism, negation and the Frege-Geach problem.Nicholas Unwin - 1999 - Philosophical Quarterly 49 (196):337-352.
A new look at Kant's view of aesthetic testimony.Keren Gorodeisky - 2010 - British Journal of Aesthetics 50 (1):53-70.
Quasi-realism's problem of autonomous effects.Sergio Tenenbaum - 2003 - Philosophical Quarterly 53 (212):392–409.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
294 (#62,226)

6 months
21 (#100,438)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Robert Hopkins
New York University

Citations of this work

Autonomy and Aesthetic Engagement.C. Thi Nguyen - 2019 - Mind 129 (516):1127-1156.
The authority of pleasure.Keren Gorodeisky - 2021 - Noûs 55 (1):199-220.
On Liking Aesthetic Value.Keren Gorodeisky - 2019 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 102 (2):261-280.
Art as a Shelter from Science.C. Thi Nguyen - 2023 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 97 (1):172-201.
Higher-Order Evidence.Daniel Whiting - 2021 - Analysis 80 (4):789-807.

View all 38 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references