When audience members consider aesthetic objects and/or works of art, they typically bring to their consideration a number of perspectives through which the object is considered. These include background beliefs, personal associations, taste preferences, and attitudes and values. Using Alan Goldman's aesthetic value theory as a platform, I…

The author begins by defining a counter-aesthetic element as an element of an aesthetic object which is: unintended in the creation of the object; generally selected out in attention to the object; and, generally, if selected in or attended to, such as to lower the aesthetic quality of the object, or at the very least not to increase the quality…

The "raw data" that aesthetics is meant to explain is the aesthetic experience. People have experiences that they class off from other experiences and label, as a class, the aesthetic ones. Aesthetic experience is basic, and all other things aesthetic--aesthetic properties, aesthetic objects, aesthetic attitudes--are secondary in their importance…

The author writes that the point made in this article is a simple, twofold one. First, if the test of time is a reliable, viable mechanism for assessing the value of works of art, and if the integrity of this test can be maintained even when indexed to a particular person, then it makes sense that this person should want to possess those works…

This essay notes that two trends seem apparent. First, the pursuit of beauty-production as an artistic goal goes down from Post-Impressionism to the present. Second, since the eighteenth century, objective, formalist treatments of artistic merit have given way to subjective accounts. With these subjective accounts comes antirealist sentiment. The…