Aesthetic Judgments, Evaluative Content, and (Hybrid) Expressivism
Aesthetic statements of the form ‘X is beautiful’ are evaluative; they indicate the speaker’s positive affective attitude regarding X. Why is this so? Is the evaluative content part of the truth conditions, or is it a pragmatic phenomenon (i.e. presupposition, implicature)? First, I argue that seman...
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| Language: | English |
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Michigan Publishing
2024-07-01
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| Series: | Ergo, An Open Access Journal of Philosophy |
| Online Access: | https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/ergo/article/id/6159/ |
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| author | Jochen Briesen |
| author_facet | Jochen Briesen |
| author_sort | Jochen Briesen |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Aesthetic statements of the form ‘X is beautiful’ are evaluative; they indicate the speaker’s positive affective attitude regarding X. Why is this so? Is the evaluative content part of the truth conditions, or is it a pragmatic phenomenon (i.e. presupposition, implicature)? First, I argue that semantic approaches as well as these pragmatic ones cannot satisfactorily explain the evaluativity of aesthetic statements. Second, I offer a positive proposal based on a speech-act theoretical version of hybrid expressivism, which states that, with the literal utterance of ‘X is beautiful’, we perform two illocutionary acts simultaneously, an assertive and an expressive one. I will specify this theory in detail and argue that it can satisfactorily account for the evaluative content of aesthetic statements. I will also discuss the advantages of the theory over other variants of expressivism in meta-aesthetics. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-7f015d908ec446d4aaece19520a6debb |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2330-4014 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-07-01 |
| publisher | Michigan Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Ergo, An Open Access Journal of Philosophy |
| spelling | doaj-art-7f015d908ec446d4aaece19520a6debb2025-08-20T02:43:42ZengMichigan PublishingErgo, An Open Access Journal of Philosophy2330-40142024-07-0111010.3998/ergo.6159Aesthetic Judgments, Evaluative Content, and (Hybrid) ExpressivismJochen Briesen0Philosophy, University of KonstanzAesthetic statements of the form ‘X is beautiful’ are evaluative; they indicate the speaker’s positive affective attitude regarding X. Why is this so? Is the evaluative content part of the truth conditions, or is it a pragmatic phenomenon (i.e. presupposition, implicature)? First, I argue that semantic approaches as well as these pragmatic ones cannot satisfactorily explain the evaluativity of aesthetic statements. Second, I offer a positive proposal based on a speech-act theoretical version of hybrid expressivism, which states that, with the literal utterance of ‘X is beautiful’, we perform two illocutionary acts simultaneously, an assertive and an expressive one. I will specify this theory in detail and argue that it can satisfactorily account for the evaluative content of aesthetic statements. I will also discuss the advantages of the theory over other variants of expressivism in meta-aesthetics.https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/ergo/article/id/6159/ |
| spellingShingle | Jochen Briesen Aesthetic Judgments, Evaluative Content, and (Hybrid) Expressivism Ergo, An Open Access Journal of Philosophy |
| title | Aesthetic Judgments, Evaluative Content, and (Hybrid) Expressivism |
| title_full | Aesthetic Judgments, Evaluative Content, and (Hybrid) Expressivism |
| title_fullStr | Aesthetic Judgments, Evaluative Content, and (Hybrid) Expressivism |
| title_full_unstemmed | Aesthetic Judgments, Evaluative Content, and (Hybrid) Expressivism |
| title_short | Aesthetic Judgments, Evaluative Content, and (Hybrid) Expressivism |
| title_sort | aesthetic judgments evaluative content and hybrid expressivism |
| url | https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/ergo/article/id/6159/ |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT jochenbriesen aestheticjudgmentsevaluativecontentandhybridexpressivism |