The Nature of Aesthetic Experiences

Philosophy Compass, 2006

What possesses aesthetic value? According to a broad view, it can be found almost anywhere. According to a narrower view, it is found primarily in art and is applied to other items by courtesy of sharing some of the properties that make artworks aesthetically valuable. In this paper I will defend the broad view in answering the question: how should we characterize aesthetic value and other aesthetic concepts? I will also criticize some alternative answers.

A reply to Alexander Nehamas's critique of my theory of aesthetic experience, this paper defends the crucial role of pleasure in the value of aesthetic experience and the necessity of such experience for a robust sense of aesthetic value. These points are made by noting the different varieties of pleasure, their multiple connections with critical interpretation and more immediate forms of understanding, and the difficulty of conceiving aesthetic value apart from actual or possible experience.

The primary aim of this work is to formulate an intensional definition of aesthetic experience. Its secondary aims are (i) to show how this definition might be used for empirical research and (ii) to better understand other terms that are qualified by ‘aesthetic’ (chiefly, ‘aesthetic properties’ and ‘aesthetic value’).

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2013

2013

Analytic aesthetics has been dominated for more than fifty years by the problem of definition of art, but all the work done in this direction seems to have come to a dead-end. A mere classificatory definition of the work of art is impossible, given that, in a purely classificatory sense, any object produced by human hands can be considered a work of art and any further differentiation would reintroduce an evaluation. On the other hand, continental aesthetics, traditionally fragmented into different trends, seems to have found a relative wholeness by proposing itself as a general theory of sense and sensibility. But this position is open to radical criticism, too. It is possible to demonstrate that, despite the etymology, not all sensations are ‘aesthetic’, and that the inverse is also true, that is, not all aesthetic experiences are sensory or perceptual experiences. Both analytic aesthetics and recent trends in continental aesthetics underestimate the fact that in order to decide i...

Psychological Reports, 2004

Aesthetic Science: Connecting …, 2012

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2019

According to tradition, aesthetic value is non-contingently connected to a certain feeling of liking or pleasure. Is that true? Two answers are on offer in the field of aesthetics today: 1. The Hedonist answers: Yes, aesthetic value is non-contingently connected to pleasure insofar as this value is constituted and explained by the power of its possessors to please (under standard conditions). 2. The Non-Affectivist answers: No. At best, pleasure is contingently related to aesthetic value. The aim of this paper is to point to a blind spot in the dialectic between these two standard positions by defending a third neglected answer to the question above, the answer of the Value-Meriting-Pleasure [VMP] advocate. According to this answer, a certain kind of (cognitive and responsive) pleasure is connected to aesthetic value non-contingently, but also non-hedonically. VMP is the view that objects of aesthetic value are non-contingently related to pleasure insofar as they merit a certain kind of pleasure. But, pace the hedonist, those objects are valuable (those that are to be engaged with etc.) neither on account of their capacity to give pleasure nor on account of the hedonic value of the attitude they merit.

Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2006

This essay considers the powerful influence of dualistic thinking in aesthetics and the capacity of aesthetics to transcend and heal that division. I locate the origins of this influence in a distinctively Western cultural tradition that begins in classical Greek philosophy, especially in Plato, is carried forward in early modern philosophy and aesthetics by Kant, and has continued in various forms to the present day. This kind of thinking presumes that aesthetic value must have an objective status and tries to locate this value in a separate object. It further claims that aesthetic satisfaction can only be subjective. I argue, on the contrary, that we must develop an understanding of aesthetic value in relation to appreciative experience and the contexts in which such experience occurs. These occasions exhibit a unified, holistic character that can be characterized by the concept of aesthetic engagement. Replacing the dualism inherent in the Kantian theory of aesthetic disinterestedness, aesthetic engagement offers an alternative account of appreciation that has implications for a broader and more inclusive understanding of the aesthetic.