Abstract

When evaluating artworks, people commonly assert that certain artworks are good or bad, powerful or impassive, original or trite. We frequently ascribe properties and qualities to artworks such as graceful, balanced, serene, dynamic, vivid, and tragic as though those properties truly exist within the artwork and can be easily identified by any rational and observant individual. We often deliberate about the value of artworks as though there really was a correct answer. ;Nevertheless, it is widely believed that aesthetic judgments cannot be justified. Because past theories that purported to establish aesthetic evaluation as an objective discipline have generally been unsuccessful, people have assumed that such judgments are merely expressions of our individual tastes or attitudes. Aesthetic evaluations are thought to be similar to moral judgments in this respect. Many argue that moral claims cannot be proven to be objectively true or false. They are simply expressions of our personal attitudes, interests or prejudices. ;Recently, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in what are known as realist positions in moral philosophy. Moral realists argue that moral judgments are not expressions of attitude but are, in fact, rationally based on objective facts. These new, more sophisticated realist theories not only provide solutions to problems previously thought insurmountable but also provide substantial challenges to antirealist or non-objective views. ;One of the most promising of these new theories is called coherentism. Briefly, coherentism is the view that whether and to what extent one is justified in holding a particular moral claim to be true depends on the extent to which it coheres or fails to cohere with a comprehensive system of beliefs both moral and nonmoral. The coherence of the belief in question with other beliefs in the system explains why one is justified in holding the belief to be true. ;In this dissertation, the coherentist theory will be extended to aesthetic evaluation. We will see that a coherentist theory of justification can be equally successful in providing a realist account of aesthetic evaluation, while overcoming the kinds of objections which were once thought insurmountable