The Engagement Account of Aesthetic Value

We behave oddly in our aesthetic lives. In other parts of our lives, we use some very powerful resources to form our judgments and beliefs. We trust experts. We trust doctors to tell us what medicine to take. And we make inferences. We look at a finite set of data points, and use them to make genera...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of aesthetics and art criticism 2023-05, Vol.81 (1), p.91-93
Main Author: Nguyen, C Thi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aesthetics
Individualism
Values
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Summary:We behave oddly in our aesthetic lives. In other parts of our lives, we use some very powerful resources to form our judgments and beliefs. We trust experts. We trust doctors to tell us what medicine to take. And we make inferences. We look at a finite set of data points, and use them to make generalizations about the world.But we seem to avoid these methods in aesthetic life. First, we often avoid trusting experts. Sure, experts can fill in the historical background, point out features for us to notice, and show us new interpretive options. But we do not trust art experts outright; we do not simply adopt their judgments wholesale. I am willing to trust my life to my doctor, to act on their say-so and take these drugs, even if I have no real understanding of how they work. But something would seem very odd about simply adopting the aesthetic judgments of an expert about jazz, even if I was pretty much a jazz novice. In aesthetic life, we supposed to think for ourselves—even if we are mere novices.
ISSN:0021-8529
1540-6245
DOI:10.1093/jaac/kpac067