The Research Seminar Series in Philosophy invites you to a seminar with Per Algander, "Conscientious aesthetic appreciation".
Abstract:
Thi Nguyen has recently argued that aesthetic judgments aim at correctness but that having the correct judgment isn’t the “point” of aesthetic judgments. The point, rather, is aesthetic engagement. Aesthetic engagement is a partly creative process involving an agent’s cognitive abilities and is subject to two norms: autonomy and acquaintance. According to acquaintance, one ought to only to make aesthetic judgments of works which one is acquainted with. According to autonomy, one ought to rely on one’s own abilities when forming an aesthetic judgment rather than relying on testimony. In this talk I will argue that if Nguyen is right then correct aesthetic appreciation is epistemically deficient. On Nguyen’s view, correct appreciation requires an agent to ignore relevant evidence which is incompatible with a plausible requirement on epistemic conscientiousness. I suggest an alternative view which is compatible with Nguyen’s cognitivist and objectivist approach to aesthetic judgments but which does not imply that good aesthetic appreciation is epistemically deficient.
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