What Makes Aesthetic Value Value?
Wednesday 26 February 2020, 16:00-18:00
Senate House, Room 246
What makes aesthetic value value? What makes aesthetic value aesthetic? Call the first question the value question and the second the aesthetic question. Call a theory of aesthetic value that answers both questions complete and a complete theory that answers one question in answering the other unified. Although almost no current theory of aesthetic value is unified, I argue that we have reason to prefer one that is. Then I offer a unified theory by, first, stating the constraints an answer to the value question would have to meet if it is also to be an answer to the aesthetic question, and, second, providing an answer to the value question that meets those constraints.