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The Limits of Aesthetic Empiricism
Type of publication
Peer-reviewed
Publikationsform
Contribution to book (peer-reviewed)
Author
Dorsch Fabian,
Project
The Normative Mind
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Contribution to book (peer-reviewed)
Book
Aesthetics and the Sciences of the Mind
Editor
, Currie Greg
Publisher
Oxford University Press, Oxford
Page(s)
75 - 100
ISBN
978–0–19–966963–9
Title of proceedings
Aesthetics and the Sciences of the Mind
Abstract
In this chapter, I argue against empiricist positions which claim that empirical evidence can be sufficient to defeasibly justify aesthetic judgements, or judgements about the adequacy of aesthetic judgements, or sceptical judgements about someone’s capacity to form adequate aesthetic judgements. First, empirical evidence provides neither inferential, nor non-inferential justification for aesthetic opinions. Second, while empirical evidence may tell us how we do respond aesthetically to artworks, it cannot tell us how we should respond to them. And, third, empirical insights into the irrationality of many of our aesthetic judgements do not warrant the sceptical conclusion that we ought to refrain from forming aesthetic opinions. As a consequence of these limitations to aesthetic empiricism, we should endorse the rationalist position that aesthetic criticism is largely a matter of reasoning and, moreover, a collective undertaking.
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