He's accomplished as well, but wasn't when started out. Neither were the Beatles. Leonard Cohen is right, it is like pinning a medal on Mount Everest.

Seems irrelevant. I haven't said that something that works as a song thereby necessarily cannot work as poetry. I have said that I don't think Dylan's lyrics, which work great in conjunction with his music, in his songs, work very well as stand-alone poetry.

I'm not sure how you think saying the same thing a different way gives it more justification. If Kant is making an imperative out of an opinion as yuour use of 'should' suggests he is doubly mistaken. — Barry Etheridge

I don't think that saying it again gives it more justification: I think it was already amply justified. I just thought that saying it again might allow you to understand what I was saying better.

I'll say it again, without significantly changing its meaning, to dispel your worries about the use of "should".

Kant is saying that if you understand yourself to be merely expressing your opinion about or response to a work of art or nature in the form of "I like it" and nothing more than that, then would be mistaken to take yourself to be expressing an aesthetic judgement at all.

He's accomplished as well, but wasn't when started out. Neither were the Beatles. Leonard Cohen is right, it is like pinning a medal on Mount Everest. — wuliheron

Which I read as saying that something of Everest's stature hardly needs a medal to bolster it. The medal pales in comparison--it's more of an honor for the medal than the recipient.

Which is basically a version of a "no true Scotsman" or "true metal/false metal" argument. One is saying that one is going to refuse to call a different take on what Fs are "x." It's not a "true x" because it doesn't have the features one personally requires to call it an "x." — Terrapin Station

This is incorrect, it just a matter of clearing up category errors. If you say "I Iike Bob Dylan's music" that is not the same as to say "Bob Dylan' music is great" because a mere declaration of liking something simply does not constitute an aesthetic judgement.

The problem seems to be that people think that if an aesthetic judgement is to be something more than merely subjective in the sense of "I like" or "I do not like" then it must somehow be objectively true. I think this is a mistake due to dualistic, objectivist thinking. The truths of aesthetic judgement are the truths of the spirit, the truths of life; and thus they go beyond the merely subjective ambit of opinion; but that does not mean they can be objectified, or determined as objective truths.

Dylan's greatness in his genre of one is more than merely a subjective opinion, just as the stature of Everest is; I agree with that. What I don't agree with is that he should receive an award for poetry or literature or that a special category should be constructed simply to justify giving him the award. The thing is that Dylan has literally no competition within the definition that Wayfarer dug up earlier, because he is the only one who seems to consciously see himself as continuing and building upon the legacy of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Hank Williams ("the great American song tradition") :

The only text I can find of the actual award citation is 'for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition'. — Wayfarer

At least there are many other mountains that are near the stature of Everest.

And I still don't agree that he created significant poetic expressions, but rather just great songs, within that specific genre.

If there were a Nobel category for music, then I think it would be fine to award the prize to Bob Dylan. Or now, if a special category has been created, then they should continue it, and award the Nobel Prize to other musicians, for their contributions to culture, as well.

But he has been awarded for Literature. and that just aint right!

This is incorrect, it just a matter of clearing up category errors. If you say "I Iike Bob Dylan's music" that is not the same as to say "Bob Dylan' music is great" because a mere declaration of liking something simply does not constitute an aesthetic judgement. — John

If only it weren't incorrect that what I said was incorrect.

Some of us disagree that "Bob Dylan's music is great" doesn't amount to--"functionally" or noumenally amount to that is--either "I like/endorse/prefer Bob Dylan's music" ("Yay Bob Dylan") or "I like/endorse/prefer such and such which I believe is related to Bob Dylan's music in a particular way" ("Yay x where x has something to do with, or is an upshot of, or is related to, etc. Bob Dylan's music").

The claim that it's a category error, that "a mere declaration does not constitute . . ." IS the "no true Scotsman," " false metal" part. One is simply saying--again, functionally, not necessarily literally--that one is going to refuse to consider "Yay Bob Dylan" and "Yay x," per se, to be aesthetic judgments.

The truths of aesthetic judgement are the truths of the spirit, the truths of life; and thus they go beyond the merely subjective ambit of opinion; — John

Which of course is dubious to those of us who believe that "spirit" is nonsense, basically, and re "truths of life," we'd need to clarify just what it is we're talking about in ontological terms.

Dylan's greatness in his genre of one is more than merely a subjective opinion, just as the stature of Everest is; I agree with that. — John

The greatness of anything is never "more than" merely a subjective opinion. ("More than" is in quotation marks because there's always a connotation from "your side" of this debate that there's something inadequate or inferior etc. with subjectivity. As if it's not good enough for something to be subjective.)

The stature of Everest isn't "more than" merely a subjective opinion, either, if by "stature" we're referring to any sort of value judgment.

Rigor yes. One doesn't get the feeling that Morrison spent long hours getting his lyrics just right as you get with Dylan.

Your comments about the subjectivity of aesthetic evaluation go only so far. Obviously Dylan is better than me and I'm better than a 5 year old. While it certainly has a subjective component, there are clearly some objective agreed upon criteria, else the category itself would make no sense. If we can declare certain BBQ and certain beers superior and even the best, surely I can meaningfully say Dylan is superior to Morrison.

Whereas old hippies have assured me that Jimi Hendrix was an incarnation of the god of music. What prize do you get for that?

I made it clear that your use of should made Kant doubly mistaken. Now you've removed it it simply returns it to being singly mistaken.

A blue plaque on your London home!

Wonderful.

Your comments about the subjectivity of aesthetic evaluation go only so far. — Hanover

Well, they go as far as making value judgments goes.

Obviously Dylan is better than me and I'm better than a 5 year old. — Hanover

Aka mistaking strong emotions, strongly held judgments and/or popular sentiments for objectivity. A common mistake, unfortunately, but a mistake nonetheless.

While it certainly has a subjective component, there are clearly some objective agreed upon criteria — Hanover

There are no objective criteria. "Objective" doesn't refer to agreement. That confusion occurs because people take agreement to be an upshot of something being objective. And saying that agreement gives weight to something being true or correct is an argumentum ad populum.

If we can declare certain BBQ and certain beers superior and even the best, surely I can meaningfully say Dylan is superior to Morrison. — Hanover

Of course you can declare anything to be superior or the best, but there's nothing objective about those judgements.

We are all climbing the same mountain with many paths to choose from, our feet shape the path as the way shapes our feet while, when you don't know where you are going, you just might get there making 90% of this game half mental. :)

To say that you like something is not an aesthetic judgement, it is a statement about your feelings. To say that something is beautiful or great or a work of genius is to (implicitly at least) claim that it is so, and that it is not merely your arbitrary opinion that it is so simply because you happen to like it.

This is as plain as day to me, but if you can't see it then I don't believe any further argument will help.

The greatness of anything is never objectively determinable and that is what leads you to think mistakenly that it is merely a matter of subjective opinion. Can it be merely a matter of subjective opinion that Shakespeare's works are much greater literary works than Mills and Boon?

Such things are truths of the human spirit, as I said before, and truths of the human spirit are not determinable, but are self-evident to those with the education, the subtlety and the will to see them.

The stature of Everest isn't "more than" merely a subjective opinion, either, if by "stature" we're referring to any sort of value judgment. — Terrapin Station

The size of Everest (it's stature or status as the tallest mountain) is not merely a matter of subjective opinion.

Can it be merely a matter of subjective opinion that Shakespeare's works are much greater literary works than Mills and Boon? — John

Yes. Of course that would be a subjective assessment. It would even be a subjective assessment that Shakespeare's works are greater than your five-year-old's stories.

Such things are truths of the human spirit,

Is "the human spirit" something independent of individual humans in your view? If so, where does it exist?

The size of Everest (it's stature or status as the tallest mountain) is not merely a matter of subjective opinion.

Sure, we agree on that. It's just that that isn't any sort of value judgment.

To say that you like something is not an aesthetic judgement, it is a statement about your feelings. — John

Which is what aesthetic judgments are--statements about one's feelings/preferences.

After all, surely you are not saying that "Shakespeare's works are better than Mills & Boon" is not a statement of your feelings/preferences (that is, you do feel that Shakespeare is better/you do prefer Shakespeare), and surely you're not saying that it's not the feelings/preferences of many other people, especially people that you consider to be well-educated with respect to literature. It's just that you're saying that it's something additional to that, something that all those people's feelings/preferences can match or can fail to match as the case may be. But the claim that it's something additional to the feelings/preferences of the people who have that opinion requires some evidence beyond the fact that people strongly feel that way, beyond the fact that a lot of people, even a vast majority, feel that way, and beyond the fact that people believe that it's not just the feelings/preferences of people.

. To say that something is beautiful or great or a work of genius is to (implicitly at least) claim that it is so, — John

In the opinion of cognitivists. That is, in the opinion of people who believe that aesthetic judgments (can) have truth values. Of course they're going to interpret aesthetic judgments that way. But cognitivists are mistaken.

that it is not merely your arbitrary opinion that it is so simply because you happen to like it. — John

No one is saying either of those things:

We're not saying that anyone's opinions are arbitrary with a connotation of randomness or whim.

And we're not saying that one's opinions make anything so (make anything true) aside from making it true that the opinion is the person in question's opinion.

The size of Everest (it's stature or status as the tallest mountain) is not merely a matter of subjective opinion. — John

Well, actually ... its status as the tallest mountain is disputable as there is at least one challenger in the form of Mauna Kea so there is a subjective judgement involved. There is no doubt that the peak of Everest is the highest piece of land in the world but that's a different criterion.

To say that something is beautiful or great or a work of genius is to (implicitly at least) claim that it is so — John

To claim that it is so, yes. But claiming something to be true doesn't make it so!

it is not merely your arbitrary opinion that it is so simply because you happen to like it. — John

But that is exactly what it is. Of course that opinion may be informed by cultural and social factors. It may be entirely learned or even coerced (by peer pressure for example) but none of that makes it any less arbitrary. Any examination of the history of art or music makes that obvious. It explains why pure landscape painting is virtually unknown until the 19th Century in Europe but had been the foremost artistic expression in China for centuries. It explains why Van Gogh 'sold' only one painting in his lifetime and compositions by Bartok and Beethoven were described as the most painful experiences of their critic's lives. Shakespeare was widely considered a hack for at least a century after his death. And Philistines are now considered one of the most culturally advanced civilisations of their time!

There simply is no 'ugly' thing that nobody claims beautiful nor 'beautiful' that someone does not claim repellent. The aesthetic status of any object or experience is a relative not an absolute truth. When I say "Isn't that beautiful?" it is wholly an expression of opinion that is neither right nor wrong except for me and me alone. While it may be considered to be a correct or incorrect judgement by a cultural elite or society at large there is no absolute standard by which it is measured (something which the commissioners of art in all its forms would do well to remember). It cannot be tested in the way that mathematics is.

If only someone could climb Mauna Kea from its base.

But yeah, what terms like "tallest" refer to is of course subjective.

To claim that it is so, yes. But claiming something to be true doesn't make it so! — Barry Etheridge

Of course, the thing about claims is we believe they must be true or false. The understanding of the nature of aesthetic judgements falls into seeing them as subjective on account of the fact that aesthetic claims cannot be objectively demonstrated. But as I have said the truth or falsity of aesthetic judgements is not subjective or objective truth or falsity; it is spiritual truth or falsity; and spiritual truth or falsity cannot be demonstrated, but can only be seen.

The reason I say that mere subjective like or dislike of something cannot be an aesthetic judgement is because a judgement must be capable of being right or wrong; and purely subjective 'judgements' cannot be right or wrong; they just are what they are; propositional statements about what I like or dislike. and hence they cannot be rightly be thought to be judgements at all.

What are you even referring to with "spiritual"?

You know, "spirit", "atman", and "chi" all come from the root meaning "breath".

I don't know if he's comfortable with you speaking for him, but so then he means a "breath truth"??

There are no objective criteria. "Objective" doesn't refer to agreement. That confusion occurs because people take agreement to be an upshot of something being objective. And saying that agreement gives weight to something being true or correct is an argumentum ad populum. — Terrapin Station

No, you've just offered an impossible definition of objective, which implies a view from nowhere, where there is no viewpoint of the observer. Unless you're willing to dispense with the entire enterprise of offering awards for literature because at some point the award will represent only the viewpoints of somebody (whoever that may be), then you've got to accept at some level that one artist is better than the other.

If you believe that a 3 year old's babble is as artistic as Dylan's, I do think there is adequate basis for saying that you are wrong. If not, then why not award the 3 year old?

If you know then there's no need to tell you, and if you don' t then there's no point.

Wos is right; it is that which gives life. That"s what we award great artists for (or should) their gifts of life.

Descartes knew that form was distinct from content, and that the overwhelming vast majority fallacies were informal, as logic is easy, but people don't know what words mean. He might mean something different, and perfectly coherent, but if his intention is to link the word to its literal meaning, then that's what it is.