Aesthetic Properties as Powers



Simoniti, V ORCID: 0000-0001-5832-9587
(2018) Aesthetic Properties as Powers. European Journal of Philosophy, 25 (4). pp. 1434-1453.

[img] Text
Aesthetic_Properties_as_Powers.pdf - Author Accepted Manuscript

Download (408kB)

Abstract

© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Realist positions about aesthetic properties are few and far between, though sometimes developed by analogy to realism about secondary properties such as colours. By contrast, I advance a novel realist position about aesthetic properties, which is based on a disanalogy between aesthetic properties and colours. Whereas colours are usually perceived as relatively steady features of external objects, aesthetic properties are perceived as unsteady properties: as powers that objects have to cause a certain experience in the observer. Following on from this observation, I develop a realist account of aesthetic properties as causally efficient powers. Beauty is not merely in the mind of the observer; it is a power of an object to bring about a certain effect, as much instantiated in the object as its fragility or poisonousness. To show how such a view can be made ontologically respectable, I draw on recent ‘dispositionalist’ accounts of powers in philosophical metaphysics. I then offer two arguments in favour of this view. First, the view matches the phenomenology of aesthetic judgement. Second, the view offers an explanation of how it is that critics can demand agreement with their aesthetic judgements.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: publicationstatus: published
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 14 Sep 2018 09:25
Last Modified: 19 Jan 2023 01:17
DOI: 10.1111/ejop.12224
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3026251