Within the tradition that agrees paintings such as Banksy's "Girl with Balloon" has aesthetic value as works of art, then Banksy's "Girl with Balloon" has aesthetic value as a work of art.

Within the tradition that agrees paintings such as Derain's "Drying the sales" have aesthetic value as works of art, then Derain's "Drying the Sails" has aesthetic value as a work of art. — RussellA

Sure, but my point was that, within each respective tradition, non-relative aesthetic judgments can be, and are, made. The reason you've heard of Banksy and not "Jimmy Wannabe" (I'm making him up, since no one's heard of him!) is because there is widespread agreement within this tradition that Banksy is better. If it was "relativism all the way down," the relativist art critic would compare Banksy and Jimmy and say, "Whatever. There's no aesthetic distinction to be made." But we know that's not what happens -- and the same for Derain's tradition, of course.

The question is, is there such a thing as aesthetic value over and above each tradition. — RussellA

Yes, that's what I was trying to get to. If someone denies this, would you say they are a relativist about aesthetic value tout court?

Also interesting: Suppose we agree that Derain and Banksy can share a tradition. After all, they're both European painters, very broadly. How could a tradition develop its aesthetic criteria in such a way that D and B can both be given a fair look? I'm not saying this can't be done; the "how" is what interests me.

It's a metaphor. Explaining art is philosophy, — frank

And I think it’s a good one - experiencing art as art is an active participation and a sort of dialogue with the art, where something is planted and something can grow as one continues to experience the art. This metaphor, if more analytically rendered, would be a good part of a methodological critique of art. Can we measure how much does the artwork plant a growing seed? And maybe the seed planting/growing is the interested part, and the “explaining art” measurement aspect is where the disinterest comes in.

So though I might sound like I am agreeing with you by liking your metaphor, we may actually still be disagreeing a bit here? I’m not sure what to make of this:

philosophy, which I think is an activity that stands apart from language games. — frank

I don’t think “gaming” as I understand Witt or others might mean it (that is, the language game is meaningless without a use) is essential to all language, so I could agree with this quote. There is rational activity that stands apart from Wittgensteinian type language games. (There is a language that would survive Witt’s whole system - the one that gives meaning to “throw away the ladder”.)

But I also think, in another sense, all language always plays with the world as opposed to language being made of or part of the world, and as a separate thing from the world, could be called the play or game of knowing/speaking; from this view, there is no spoken activity, ie philosophy, that is apart from language games. In this view, words do a good job of referencing things in themselves or essences (occasionally).

(In other words, I think, Witt saw language as a game with all it’s moving parts internal to itself, and the “world” was more simply certain words inside the game and need not have anything to do with the world - from this view, I disagree with Witt and so could agree with you that philosophy stands apart from language games because philosophy really is about the real world distinct from its language. However, philosophy and language are not themselves walking around the world to be discovered. We must use language to build a philosophy of the world. In this sense language is a gay science (gay recalling the playfulness of gaming) - language is always the game. It’s just that the game is about living in the world even a world in itself, absent language.)

Can we measure how much does the artwork plant a growing seed? — Fire Ologist

The artwork is just sitting there. Whether it becomes part of a living person depends on the person. Adorno's form/content distinction makes sense here. If you look at the average Andy Warhol work, you'll notice that it has the same composition as a religious icon, except what's being held up as sacred is not a saint, but something mundane, that you might throw out with the trash. You can make your own pop-art by just taking the label off a jar and putting it on a shelf, raising up the invisible, seeing the sacred in the tiny. The form in this case is the actual physical screen print. The content is your living experience, unfolding in time.

I disagree with Witt and so could agree with you that philosophy stands apart from language games because philosophy really is about the real world distinct from its language. — Fire Ologist

I think philosophy stands apart from language games because it doesn't emerge from group dynamics per se. The original Sophia myth was about an entity in heaven who simply asked the first question: what's happening? Philosophy breaks a kind of silence by exiting normal life to reflect. Wittgenstein pointed out, I think correctly, that language is going to be all stretched out of frame when it's used in this way, often into the realm of nonsense.

The question is, is there such a thing as aesthetic value over and above each tradition.
— RussellA

Yes, that's what I was trying to get to. If someone denies this, would you say they are a relativist about aesthetic value tout court? — J

Some people think classical music is the most beautiful kind of music. Some think baroque music is the most beautiful kind of classical music. Some people think Vivaldi wrote the most beautiful Baroque music, while others think it was Bach. There is no standard by which the judge these things.

There is no standard by which the judge these things. — Patterner

Sure there is. Let's say that a composer which is lively is a composer which is good. We'll have some identifying criteria for what we mean by "lively", and thereby come to judge a composer as good.

One way to think on this with your examples -- perhaps there's a way of understanding why someone would say "Vivaldi wrote the most beautiful Baroque music" and why someone would say "Bach wrote the most beautiful Baroque music". I may have a preference for one or the other, but there's an attitude I can adopt to both in seeing why they're the ones we are considering in the first place: they're both good! And what is this goodness? Why these people, and not the butchers of the same time period?

Notice you've not invoked a standard. You've used the word 'good' but fail to define it. It actually seems as if you accept that you cannot?

Because any standard will do as far as I'm concerned. I did use "lively" as a possible standard for concluding a composer is "good", but there's surely more to it than that for a person who is seriously pursuing the aesthetics of music, or even for a person who's seriously invested in how we judge music, like a musician or composer. I expect their conversations to be much more rich and complicated than my toy example of a standard.

Is this an institutional argument like Danto?
I'm not trying to crap on your admittedly semi-glib notions. I'm trying to understand how we could have a standard, rather than an amorphous, temporal agreement about what's good without naming it... So, the standard would just be the actual reactions, in aggregate, of listeners.

That said, I see all the problems with this when it comes to modern music and how it's sold.

I'll try and give more detail, then.

There's at least two ways I can think of making a standard. One is some formal prescription which holds for all practitioners of some craft. So something like the 7 principles of art.

The other is ostensively -- to use Shakespeare as the standard of greatness in English poetry, for instance.

What makes it a standard is intersubjective agreement. Insofar that you and I agree that such and such holds for all practitioners -- in this case, judgers of visual art and poetry, respective to the examples of standards -- we'll be bound by the standard.

It's just a temporal agreement, but in order for a standard to function we'd both have to understand and agree to it.

Also, interesting thought with respect to standards in art -- the standards are sort of the "starting place" for what counts as "good art". Sometimes, though, breaking the standards is what produces the best art.

Yes, some of these ideas were things I had in mind - particularly your final thought.

It's just a temporal agreement, but in order for a standard to function we'd both have to understand and agree to it. — Moliere

Ok, so a formalizing of what I had i suggested. Interesting. That seems an institutional type argument. I'm unsure where the agreements would lie otherwise..

Why these people, and not the butchers of the same time period? — Moliere

This is key, I think. Trying to compare the relative beauty of Bach and Vivaldi may not get us very far, since "beauty" is notoriously hard to pin down. But my local classical station has an unfortunate penchant for playing all the latest "early-music discoveries" and I promise you, I can explain why both Bach and Vivaldi were better composers! Within this tradition, to be sure.

I expect their conversations to be much more rich and complicated than my toy example of a standard. — Moliere

Indeed, the more you know about a given musical heritage, the better you can make aesthetic discriminations within that practice. And in doing so, you can name the criteria that count.

Is this an institutional argument like Danto? — AmadeusD

That's a good question. I don't know what @Moliere would reply, but I would call it more an appeal to expertise and scholarship. That doesn't always overlap with the "institution"!

I'm trying to understand how we could have a standard, rather than an amorphous, temporal agreement about what's good without naming it... So, the standard would just be the actual reactions, in aggregate, of listeners.

That said, I see all the problems with this when it comes to modern music and how it's sold. — AmadeusD

I'd be interested to hear more about this.

Well, the standard would be sales, currently. We are pressed to think the 'best' music is the music that the most people enjoy. If we set aside the issue of like, Pink Floyd being available to many, many, many more people than Billie Eilish (in the sense that several generations have lived with PF and only about half of one has lived with Eilish) we see that this is not a standard to do with good it has only to do with preference (sales/charts I mean). That says to me that 'good' and 'I prefer' come apart in some sense - the modern charts giving us a pretty stark insight into this.

Another is the obvious daylight between critic and audience scores for films (generally).

This all to say that things like marketing (propaganda), access, appearance, in-group considerations and many other things contribute to what seems like an objective standard of "This many people enjoy this artist".

On Danto -- yes! That's a sort of "beginning" for my thinking on the categorical question of art. But my exposure to that idea is from George Dickie, and not reading Danto -- though Dickie nods to Danto approvingly.

I think I'd say, using that notion, there's more than one artworld by which things are included or judged by. Popular music is an artworld unto itself where sales are a dominant metric of worth. Not usually for "the best" stuff, but it's an undeniable standard in the sense that it's sought after approvingly.

But then there's this notion of having a refined taste which is practiced by exposure towards the finer objects of aesthetic appreciation that seems to make sense to me. And, given our post modern world, it's fairly easy to see how there could be different sorts of tastes that apply different sorts of standards of inclusion and evaluation -- i.e. different artworlds.

There is no standard by which the judge these things.
— Patterner

Sure there is. Let's say that a composer which is lively is a composer which is good. We'll have some identifying criteria for what we mean by "lively", and thereby come to judge a composer as good. — Moliere

The criteria of "lively" is not objective. Some don't like lively. It doesn't seem right that somber music lovers would never get anything they love on the list of "good music".

One way to think on this with your examples -- perhaps there's a way of understanding why someone would say "Vivaldi wrote the most beautiful Baroque music" and why someone would say "Bach wrote the most beautiful Baroque music". I may have a preference for one or the other, — Moliere

Your preference is all it is. I can understand that you like music with certain characteristics, and possibly predict which compositions you will like. But that's not the same as saying those compositional are "good," or that I like them.

but there's an attitude I can adopt to both in seeing why they're the ones we are considering in the first place: they're both good! And what is this goodness? Why these people, and not the butchers of the same time period? — Moliere

I'm a baroque fan in general, and Bach in particular. Vivaldi was one of his influences, so we can compare them easily enough.

Your preference is all it is. I can understand that you like music with certain characteristics, and possibly predict which compositions you will like. But that's not the same as saying those compositional are "good," or that I like them.


but there's an attitude I can adopt to both in seeing why they're the ones we are considering in the first place: they're both good! And what is this goodness? Why these people, and not the butchers of the same time period?
— Moliere
I'm a baroque fan in general, and Bach in particular. Vivaldi was one of his influences, so we can compare them easily enough. — Patterner

I think this is right. It's also worth noting that preferences change. I disliked Mozart and Beethoven when younger (I was a Mahler and Bruckner guy). Found the music ugly and cumbersome. Now I like some Mozart and most Beethoven. We change and the art changes with us.

On Danto -- yes! That's a sort of "beginning" for my thinking on the categorical question of art. — Moliere

You probably know that Danto, in addition to promulgating his theories about the artworld, offered a frankly Hegelian picture of what art is. It involves a move which is philosophical -- a process by which art comes to understand itself, to eliminate all the things that art is not. He showed, I think convincingly, that we can no longer equate art with any physical substrate, any thing which art must be in order to qualify. Art is a way of seeing; we declare what is art, we don't discover it. The "we" here is the subject of much debate, naturally.

(This applies to all the arts, not just visual arts, so substitute "way of hearing" for music.)

Art is a way of seeing; we declare what is art, we don't discover it. — J

The same is brought up in discussions of math and the laws of physics. Difficult to know sometimes. But this is definitely true of art.

everybody remember this scene from Dead Poets Society?
https://youtu.be/tpeLSMKNFO4

You probably know that Danto, in addition to promulgating his theories about the artworld, offered a frankly Hegelian picture of what art is. — J

Actually, nope! I know precious little of him, and it's third-hand hearsay through George Dickie, basically. Ad it's not like I read everything of his, he just had some really cool ideas that I found useful in thinking through art.

It involves a move which is philosophical -- a process by which art comes to understand itself, to eliminate all the things that art is not. He showed, I think convincingly, that we can no longer equate art with any physical substrate, any thing which art must be in order to qualify. Art is a way of seeing; we declare what is art, we don't discover it. The "we" here is the subject of much debate, naturally. — J

I agree that we declare what is art, in a sense -- though the "we" is pretty dang communal from my perspective, involving audiences, critics, artists, historians, and even casual appreciators of some art.

(This applies to all the arts, not just visual arts, so substitute "way of hearing" for music.)

I should hope so!


I'm not sure I understand the showing you describe, though: That we can no longer equate art with any physical substrate, any thing which art must be in order to qualify. The latter part makes sense to me, it's the "any physical substrate" that has me wondering what that means, or if it's not that special and just a turn of phrase.

...what I want to focus on is the aesthetic judgment of the philosophy itself. — Moliere

There needs to be some general discussion of aesthetics, and how it fits with ethics and other explanations. Here's a case for your consideration - my usual spiel, of course.

Aesthetics and ethics involve a direction of fit such that we change the world to match how we want things to be. This should be read as the reverse of what we do when talking about how things are, when we change the words we use to match how things are.

So an aesthetic opinion. will amount to a choice we make in our actions. Vanilla over chocolate. The preference is individual - we do not expect others to agree, and are happy for her to have chocolate rather than vanilla.

Ethics differs from this in that we do expect others to comply. Not kicking puppies is not just a preference - not just my choice, but a choice I expect others to make, too.

Given this framing, we can address the place of aesthetics in philosophy,

Some bits of philosophy are about how things are. On these, we should expect some general agreement. Other bits of philosophy may be how we chose things to be. And we might variously expect that others will agree, an ethics of philosophy; or we might simply be expressing our own preference: an aesthetics of philosophy.

There's a start.

Does the aesthetic transcend reason? — Moliere

You make the case that the problem of epistemology, what we know and how we know it, derives from reason rather than any aesthetic.

But then I wouldn't think that these ways are exactly ways of aesthetic judgment -- rather they are dealing with the usual problems of knowledge.

You make the case that reason is not essential to doing philosophy, as philosophy is an action, and we generally don't reason about our activities.

We generally don't reason about our actions in a deductive manner, and doing philosophy is an activity.

You make the case that philosophical argument does involve aesthetic thought, in the use of adjectives such as elegant, the rational and the clear

Such as the elegant, the rational, the clear, and other such adjectives often applied to philosophical arguments and thoughts.

But is it the case that in epistemology, what we know and how we know it is wholly founded on reason and the aesthetic plays no part?

For example, we observe that the sun has risen in the east for the past 100 days and we make the logical deduction that this is because the sun rises in the east. That the sun rises in the east becomes part of our knowledge, and we know this because of our observations.

But what accounts for the leap from the particular, that the sun has risen in the east for the past 100 days, to the general, that the sun rises in the east. What has accounted from particular observations to general knowledge.

It cannot just be reason, as there is no reason why a limited number of observations should of necessity give a general rule.

And yet the idea that the sun rises in the east is a general rule, a law of nature, is so elegant, rational and clear that we easily accept it as part of our knowledge

But these terms elegant, rational and clear are aesthetic terms, in that there is no logic that can prove that something is elegant rather than inelegant, rational rather than irrational or clear rather than unclear..

Such as the elegant, the rational, the clear, and other such adjectives often applied to philosophical arguments and thoughts.

Even our reasoned deductions are based on aesthetic preferences.

Sure, but my point was that, within each respective tradition, non-relative aesthetic judgments can be, and are, made. — J

Yes, within the aesthetic tradition that Banksy is a great artist, then the non-relative judgment may be made that Banksy is a great artist.

But within the aesthetic tradition that Banksy is not a great artist, then the non-relative judgment may be made that Banksy is not a great artist.
===============================================================================

How could a tradition develop its aesthetic criteria in such a way that D and B can both be given a fair look? I'm not saying this can't be done; the "how" is what interests me. — J

The problem is, who within a tradition actually decides what "aesthetic " means?

No-one would want the government to specify the meaning of aesthetic. The art critics depend on their livelihood on the art market. The art market is in sway to the big auction houses. The big auction houses depend on their income from the mega-rich. The mega-rich are part of the capitalist system.

I don't see how a tradition can develop an aesthetic criteria that is able to transcend the tradition that developed it.

:up:

This all to say that things like marketing (propaganda), access, appearance, in-group considerations and many other things contribute to what seems like an objective standard of "This many people enjoy this artist". — AmadeusD

OK, I see. I hope not too many philosophers are fooled by the equation of "popular" and "aesthetically valuable." We have to seek objective standards, if there be any, elsewhere.

I'm not sure I understand the showing you describe, though: That we can no longer equate art with any physical substrate, any thing which art must be in order to qualify. The latter part makes sense to me, it's the "any physical substrate" that has me wondering what that means, or if it's not that special and just a turn of phrase. — Moliere

Right, more a turn of phrase (mine, not Danto's). It's meant to suggest the usual circumstances under which someone will point and say, "That can't be art because it isn't made of the right stuff, or made correctly." Danto argues that Duchamp and his ready-mades began the demonstration against this view, and Warhol put it permanently to bed. Conceptual art, too.

This conclusion deeply annoys people who equate art with a craft or skill. And it leaves a serious question -- what is techne, in the arts, if it can't be equated with art itself? I've written about this in various posts, relating to my practice as a musician. I think Danto is right and I'm upset that I can now make music without mastering skills that used to be de rigueur. My "art object" is not "made of the right stuff," according to the old view. It may be indiscernible nonetheless, compared to something that is made of the right stuff, and isn't that enough? But the difference in process, in the act of creating, is damn well discernible to the artist, and I don't like it.

Yes, within the aesthetic tradition that Banksy is a great artist, then the non-relative judgment may be made that Banksy is a great artist.

But within the aesthetic tradition that Banksy is not a great artist, then the non-relative judgment may be made that Banksy is not a great artist. — RussellA

This unfairly makes it sound as if the judgment is just redundant. Let's instead say, "Within the aesthetic tradition that Banksy is a great artist, then the non-relative judgment may be made that Jimmy Wannabe is not a great artist."

In any case, wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the tradition simply names Banksy as an artist working in that tradition, with the "great artist" judgment as a second consideration? I don't think any tradition automatically lays out who must be the best.

Consider Derain's tradition. Do you want to say that to understand that tradition is to understand that Derain is a great artist? Does the tradition also generate rankings of artists both better and worse than Derain? I'm not convinced, though you're getting at something important, which is that a description of a tradition or a practice is incomplete without an explanation of how to make value judgments within that tradition. But that's different, I think.

I'm not convinced, though you're getting at something important, which is that a description of a tradition or a practice is incomplete without an explanation of how to make value judgments within that tradition — J

It may well be the case that it is logically impossible for any tradition or practice to be complete. By their very nature, any tradition or practice must be incomplete.

Consider the statement "Within the tradition of painting, Derain is a great artist and Banksy is a mediocre artist"

This is a value judgement that I know to be true.

But there are no words that can justify this value judgment, as there are no words that can explain the value judgment that a rose is beautiful or a thunderstorm is sublime.

That I cannot describe my subjective experience when seeing a red postbox does not mean I don't have a subjective experience when seeing a red postbox.

In this sense, it is true that such traditions are of necessity incomplete..

As Godel showed, there are some truths within a system that cannot be proved within that system.

In maths, being an axiomatic system, the axioms cannot be proved true.

In language, Wittgenstein argued that language was built on hinge propositions, which cannot be proved true.

In the 1920's, Alfred Tarski argued that the definition of a true sentence cannot be given in the language itself, but can only be given in another language, a metalanguage.

Similarly, within any tradition, value judgements cannot be proven true within that tradition, but only outside that tradition, within a meta-tradition.

Aesthetics and ethics involve a direction of fit such that we change the world to match how we want things to be. This should be read as the reverse of what we do when talking about how things are, when we change the words we use to match how things are.

So an aesthetic opinion. will amount to a choice we make in our actions. Vanilla over chocolate. The preference is individual - we do not expect others to agree, and are happy for her to have chocolate rather than vanilla.

Ethics differs from this in that we do expect others to comply. Not kicking puppies is not just a preference - not just my choice, but a choice I expect others to make, too.

Given this framing, we can address the place of aesthetics in philosophy,

Some bits of philosophy are about how things are. On these, we should expect some general agreement. Other bits of philosophy may be how we chose things to be. And we might variously expect that others will agree, an ethics of philosophy; or we might simply be expressing our own preference: an aesthetics of philosophy.

There's a start. — Banno

I think there's still one thing that needs answered here, still. Even if ice cream is an aesthetic judgment in the manner you propose we would not say that our judgment of ice cream is a philosophical judgment.

The descriptive category still needs something of an answer just to be able to say which of all the possible referents are the relevant ones when speaking an aesthetic opinion in philosophy?

I don't need strict conditions -- I imagine, if there is some statable principle that approximates our past judgments, it will likely involve some vague predicates. So "The sorts of writers one finds being talked about in a history of philosophy" is more than adequate for the categorical question.

But I'm wondering how you'd answer that part of the aesthetic question: Good, bad, indifferent, what is it we are judging when judging a philosophy on aesthetic grounds (as you put it, a preference where I don't hold others to have to share it with me)?

Well, this is a whole other approach. I'd begin by questioning how "painting" constitutes a tradition, but since you wind up with a purely subjective basis for judgment anyway, it doesn't matter. If you "know it to be true," regardless of demonstration or argument, enough said.

If you "know it to be true," regardless of demonstration or argument, enough said. — J

Suppose you are stung by a wasp and say that you feel pain, but I don't believe that you actually feel pain. Is it possible that you can prove to me that you do in fact feel pain?

Are subjective feelings, such as pain, and subjective value judgements, such as beauty, expressible by either demonstration or argument?

Right, more a turn of phrase (mine, not Danto's). It's meant to suggest the usual circumstances under which someone will point and say, "That can't be art because it isn't made of the right stuff, or made correctly." Danto argues that Duchamp and his ready-mades began the demonstration against this view, and Warhol put it permanently to bed. Conceptual art, too. — J

Cool.

Conceptual art is something I don't really understand, but Warhol makes sense enough that I'm understanding. Perhaps the following might be conducive to this way of thinking?

This conclusion deeply annoys people who equate art with a craft or skill. And it leaves a serious question -- what is techne, in the arts, if it can't be equated with art itself? I've written about this in various posts, relating to my practice as a musician. I think Danto is right and I'm upset that I can now make music without mastering skills that used to be de rigueur. My "art object" is not "made of the right stuff," according to the old view. It may be indiscernible nonetheless, compared to something that is made of the right stuff, and isn't that enough? But the difference in process, in the act of creating, is damn well discernible to the artist, and I don't like it.

I might turn to the "What makes a great work of art a great work of art?" for this one -- at some point it's because it was painted by Van Gogh, or whomever, that ended up defining beauty in their own particular way.

Likewise if we say there's more to the art-object than the product, but includes the process as well, you could tie that to the similar sentiment people have with respect to great works of art: At some point it's the particular history of the art-object that's part of the art-object. And just as we think replicas of great works of art aren't the "real deal", and there's no property of the object that differentiates them (let's say it's a very good forgist who uses chemical techniques to replicate the exact places of the atoms in a painting) we still differentiate them on the basis of the art-objects process of production.

Even our reasoned deductions are based on aesthetic preferences. — RussellA

Yes. Or, what I'd rather say, is there's a difference between one's preference and one's aesthetic taste. The latter can be "trained" such that preference becomes something which can be judged from a distance: Rather than saying "I like this" I can say "if you like such and such or this and that then you may find something enjoyable in this other thing"

Think of a sommelier here. Though there's this "subjective" side of preference the trained sommelier can describe a wine from the perspective of anyone who might enjoy that kind of wine.

Broadly speaking I agree that passion is what starts us -- but I imagine it's possible to still end up in a place where we can partake in the giving and hearing of reasons about art, given enough training. And, obviously, I'd like to ply that -- if given enough agreement on the general idea -- with respect to understanding taste in philosophy.