Abstract

ORLANDO, Eleonora. Aesthetic Assessment, Evaluation and Disagreement. Bol. estét. [online]. 2021, n.57, pp.1-10. ISSN 2408-4417.  http://dx.doi.org/10.36446/be.2021.57.268.

The aim of this paper is to propose that thick aesthetic predicates, such as ‘shocking’, ‘sombre’ and ‘balanced’, can be considered to be assessment-sensitive, in the sense in which predicates of personal taste have been thought to be, and hence be analysed within the framework of truth relativism. The main reason offered in support of this thesis is that their use requires the application of an aesthetic standard. Moreover, a distinction between experiential and theoretical aesthetic predicates is introduced: the former involve standards that are constituted by contingent and random psychological states and, hence, characteristic of idiosyncratic aesthetic perspectives, whereas the latter rely on the adoption of stable ones, determined by canonical aesthetic perspectives. This distinction is used to account for differences between one another: experiential predicates feature in faultless disagreements, as is the case with predicates of personal taste, while this is not the case with theoretical ones.

Keywords : Thick aesthetic predicate; Assessment-sensitivity; Truth relativism; Aesthetic perspective; Faultless disagreement.