Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Class notes on aesthetic properties

(Originally written March 6, 2007 in Book 16)

Class Notes

Frank Sibley

Aesthetic features of a piece of art are not reducible to non-aesthetic features.

Thesis - Aesthetic concepts do not logically depend on non-aesthetic features.

Aesthetic features can only be perceived by those who have aesthetic sensibilities. The non-aesthetic features of any thing are perceivable by all perceiving beings.

Taste or sensitivity to aesthetic features is a rarer quality of humanity.

Arguments:
1. The impossibility of universal rules
2. The rule-applying is non-Aesthetic

Kendall Walton

Aesthetic properties do depend on non-aesthetic facts, especially historical considerations.

3 properties an art work may have:
1) Standard property
2) Non-standard property (variable property)
3) contra-standard property

Standard property - any feature that is essential to that piece's specific genre

Variable property - non-essential features to that piece's genre.

Contra-standard property - a feature that tends to disqualify a piece from a genre

Additive property - one that is the result of simply adding different parts together/

Emergent property - Something that emerges at a microlevel in which does not exist at a microlevel

Non-aesthetic considerations
1. Number of standard features
2. Maximum aesthetic appeal
3. Artist's intentions
4. Well-established category

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