Meskin on Aesthetic Testimony Kantian view: Testimony provides no basis for making aesthetic judgements. (Aesthetic judgements - attribute aesthetic properties. Aesthetic evaluations a subspecies). Psychological: We don't accept aesthetic testimony to the same extent as normal Epistemological: Aesthetic testimony lacks the epistemic value possessed by other forms of testimony Meskin: the difference lies in relativist/subjectivist strains in the folk conception of beauty and artistic value - as well as general unreliability of testimony. Anti-Realism and Preliminaries Is there simply no such thing as aesthetic knowledge? Theories that propose this are non-cognitivism and error theory. Both would dissolve the problem of aesthetic testimony. Meskin assumes neither position is true, so does not focus on this possibility. Aesthetic relativism is more promising. Art review: art criticism functions to enhance audience appreciation. Art review - assists audiences in piking which works to see. Not an argument for AT ... Reliance on art teviews doesnfft give a reason to think AT provides justified aesthetic beliefs. Instead, what Iffm apt to judge on the basis of a reviewer I respectffs judgement is that itffs like I personally would find the film good/terrible. Iffm justified in making such first-personal judgements, but not aesthetic ones. Kant's Position Testimony cannot justify judgements of taste. Judgement of taste: subjective because based on experienced disinterested pleasure. Judgements claim universality because we automatically insists that others assent to them. We're a priori entitled to assume that the same pleasure would be produced in any rational agent, so in a sense such judgements are objective. Thus, there can not in fact be warranted disagreement - two people's judgements of taste cannot conflict. Testimony thus cannot work, due to this subjective element, which requires experience of pleasure, via direct perception. Most common explanation for problems of testimony adverts to this Kantian requirement of direct perception ... Problems with the Kantian View 1. Aesthetic judgements are not necessarily linked to perceptual experience - aesthetic properties can be ascribed to abstract objects, or scientific proofs, which are not perceived. (Could argue that they involve imagination ... ) 2. Warranted judgements can be made on the basis of photos and prints. The transparency theory of photographic representation: photographs allow us to see the objects, because they preserve counterfactuals which underwrite normal perception. But still don't provide the same first-person information.
3. Memory of an experience as sufficient grounds? So synchronic experience not needed. 4. Why does aesthetic testimony have any epistemic weight (which it does seem to)? 5.Necessary connection between aesthetic judgements and experience does not explain the problem - does not explain why we need first-personal experience. A confusion between experience and appreciation? Meskin on Hopkins Hopkins discusses the reductive, Humean model of testimony, and non-reductive transmission model. Hopkins (allegedly) suggests that the transmission model is inapplicable in the aesthetic domain. He disagree that there can be no disagreement on such matters in which both party is warranted: existence of different sensibilities explains why judgements can be warranted. And explains why transmission doesn't work -