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
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 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
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
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
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
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
Your comments about the subjectivity of aesthetic evaluation go only so far. — Hanover
Obviously Dylan is better than me and I'm better than a 5 year old. — Hanover
While it certainly has a subjective component, there are clearly some objective agreed upon criteria — Hanover
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
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
Can it be merely a matter of subjective opinion that Shakespeare's works are much greater literary works than Mills and Boon? — John
Such things are truths of the human spirit,
The size of Everest (it's stature or status as the tallest mountain) is not merely a matter of subjective opinion.
To say that you like something is not an aesthetic judgement, it is a statement about your feelings. — John
. To say that something is beautiful or great or a work of genius is to (implicitly at least) claim that it is so, — John
that it is not merely your arbitrary opinion that it is so simply because you happen to like it. — John
The size of Everest (it's stature or status as the tallest mountain) is not merely a matter of subjective opinion. — John
To say that something is beautiful or great or a work of genius is to (implicitly at least) claim that it is so — John
it is not merely your arbitrary opinion that it is so simply because you happen to like it. — John
To claim that it is so, yes. But claiming something to be true doesn't make it so! — Barry Etheridge
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.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
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