AESTHETIC JUDGEMENTS AND CRITICAL REASONS
AESTHETIC JUDGEMENTS AND CRITICAL REASONS

Summary/Abstract: Unless we equate genuine aesthetic judgements with statements about what we find pleasant or unpleasant, the question of objectivity arises as a demand for some kind of justification. If we assert that Mozartʼs Don Giovanni, Ward no.6 by Chekhov, Bergmanʼs The Seventh Seal, Cezanneʼs Bathers, etc. are brilliant (or mediocre) artworks, we are expected to give relevant reasons for our assertion. Even though it does not have to be formulated in the sophisticated language of art criticism or artistic theory, if asked, one must be capable to give some reason which truly supports a corresponding aesthetic judgement. If we did not make that hypothesis, we would not be able to discern real aesthetic judgements from mere opinions concerning artworks. Moreover, this is an assumption that we implicitly make when we say that aesthetic judgements have a claim to objectivity or at least, in Kantian terms, to subjective generality. Nothing similar is true of statements such as: “The odour of the conifers is very pleasant”, or “Cinnamon has excellent flavor”, which imply that their utterer merely likes conifers or cinnamon.

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