Hopkins, Robert (2000) Beauty and Testimony. In: Philosophy, the Good, the True and the Beautiful. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements (47). Cambridge University Press , pp. 209-236. ISBN 9780521785112
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Abstract
I ask whether, and how far, it is possible legitimately to acquire the belief that a given item is beautiful on the basis of someone's testimony that it is. This is an issue that concerned Kant. Kant held that testimony could never be a legitimate source of such judgements, and clearly took his account of aesthetic judgement to explain this fact. I argue that Kant's theory does not, in fact, provide the materials for a satisfactory explanation. Was Kant at least right about the explanadum? While broadly sympathetic to his views on that, I also suggest ways in which they need qualifying. I consider alternative explanations of why testimony should, in general, not be a legitimate source of aesthetic judgement, especially those rooted in anti-realism about the aesthetic. I find these two no more obviously correct, at least in their current state of development.
| Item Type: | Book Section |
|---|---|
| Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > Department of Philosophy (Sheffield) |
| Depositing User: | Prof. Robert Hopkins |
| Date Deposited: | 27 Jan 2010 18:25 |
| Last Modified: | 08 Feb 2013 16:59 |
| Status: | Published |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
| Related URLs: | |
| URI: | http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/10320 |
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