Justifying Aesthetic Judgments

Aesthetic judgments as an outcome for education†

“…Its instrument, language, is as precious as any other, whether it be paint, stones, or tones. 1 It is a mistake to assume that because the development of a critical vocabulary is emphasized that performance and production of art works is relegated to a secondary role in aesthetic education. On the contrary, 1 the ability to make aesthetic decisions is essential to the process of producing or performing an art work.…”

Talk about Art

“…The answer rests in the way language interacts with experience. As many writers have stressed (e.g., Ecker, 1967;Goodman, 1968, p. 262;Ziff, 1964), language adopts a sort of pointing function, which guides our senses to recognize things not apprehended before. Thus with the Oldenburg, "a couple embracing" in itself carries little information, but it leads the eye to look and find; then the pattern surfaces in all its particular anatomy of part and contour.…”

3: Aesthetic Inquiry

“…Consider the following linguistic evidence: one expert declares, "x is a better painting than y for reasons a, b, and c; but I prefer y" Since there is no obvious contradiction in this declaration, it leads the reader to believe that the relative goodness of the works in question has nothing to do with unqualified preference. Since one can like a given painting for any reason, the problem is to determine the aesthetic relevance of the reasons offered in support of preferences (Ecker, 1967). These reasons should not be equated with "causes."…”

“…Rather, one judges each work of art individually in order to determine relative goodness (Ecker, 1967). This distinction between individual and comparative judgments becomes masked in the notion of a "preferential judgment"; and this same distinction may turn out, in further inquiry, to constitute one of the necessary conditions for measuring the changes in aesthetic responses, either by the researcher, in his subjects; or by teachers, in their students; or by the student, in his own progress towards fuller aesthetic knowledgeability.…”