James Shelley (Auburn University): What makes aesthetic value aesthetic?
What makes aesthetic value aesthetic? What makes aesthetic value value? Call the first question the aesthetic question and the second the value 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 current theories of aesthetic value tend not to be unified, I argue that we have reason to prefer one that is. Then I argue that any adequate answer to the aesthetic question will be an answer to the value question. Finally, I develop an answer to the aesthetic question which, I argue, is adequate.
Aesthetics Seminar Convenors: Catharine Abell and James Grant
