Rob van Gerwen

Aesthetic Argument and Tertiary Qualities

Notes

[1] I.e., in more specifically Kantian terms: aesthetic judgement expresses a subjective, pleasant, awareness of a free play play of the cognitive faculties with regard to the esteemed object, of which we nevertheless claim that it be valid for everyone suitably equipped.

[2] More elaboration than can be provided here, is needed to fully grasp this reference, but I think Kant has come a long way to understanding this. Cf. Gerwen (1995).

[3] I am using the examples put forward by Frank Sibley in his seminal paper "Aesthetic Concepts". Sibley (1963); Sibley (1959). I do not take it as my task to distinguish between literal and metaphorical uses of language, nor to explain or defend such a distinction. Clarification on this count does not seem to touch upon the problem at issue.

[4] Albeit for historical rather than conceptual reasons.

[5] I - implicitly - follow the Kantian specifications of just what this entails.

[6] There are deep ethical aspects to this process, but this is not the place and time to go into this.

[7] I derive this example from Gaut (1994), who used it to argue for the necessarily metaphorical character of critical language.

[8] Cf. Wollheim (1980).

[9] That is in: Locke (1690, Book II, Chapter VIII Some further considerations concerning our Simple Ideas of Sensation).

[10] Locke, o.c., Chapter III Of Simple Ideas of Sense, 1.

[11] Locke, o.c., Chapter V Of Simple Ideas of Divers Senses.

[12] Locke, o.c., Chapter VIII, 10.

[13] Cf. Hacker (1987) for an extended critique of this and other arguments for and against the distinction between primary and secondary qualities.

[14] In this I adhere to the experimental realism defended by Hacking (1983)

[15] Cf. Johnston (1989); Pettit (1991); Lewis (1989).

[16] It is no insignificant matter what direction of fit this translation is supposed to obey.

[17] Such as in ethics and technology, and in science in general. Cf.Lorand (1994) for an elaboration of this argument. (That I cannot agree with her overall claim should become evident from my arguments.)

[18] I am aware that not all secondary qualities admit of sampling, as for example smells and tastes do not. But to go into that at this place would be too far removed from my argument. (A comparison with these secondary qualities would make my argument even more convincing).

[19] Cf. McDowell (1985).

[20] Scruton (1983) also thinks that the imagination is the supplementary mental faculty necessary for the discernment of tertiary qualities, but he fails to distinguish between the two kinds proposed here. According to Scruton a `face' already presupposes the imaginative recognition of tertiary qualities, whereas I take this to be an instance of instrumental imagination, not of the empathic variant needed for tertiary qualities. By the way, the existence of people possessing instrumental imagination in abundance but totally lacking empathic imagination forms an extra argument for the distinction I propose: psychopaths know very well how to track down and kill people without being seen by `the law', but they fail totally to empathize with their victims.

[21] Empathy automatically introduces ethical universalizability in that imagining oneself to be happy with certain events taking place automatically induces one to pursue such events for oneself as much as for others. It is empathic imagination that forms the basis of conscience, and should prove essential for morals. I may argue for this position in a future publication. Apparently it is empathic imagination that is lacking from psychopaths, they seem to have enough of the instrumental variety (evidently, they succeed in escaping, in killing, et cetera).

[22] What Ingarden has called the metaphysical qualities of life.

[23] Cf. Wollheim (1980).

[24] Cf. Wollheim (1993) for an account of this demand in terms of psychological projection.

[25] Wiggins (1987).

[26] Cf. Wiggins, o.c., for a more worked-out account of such appropriateness.

[27] What Kant argues for in terms of a common sense.

[28] And it is this imaginative sharing which explains the aformentioned analyticity of aesthetic properties' valuableness, instead of the other way around. My thesis diverts from Eddy Zemach (1993), who suggests we understand aesthetic properties as existing of primary and secondary properties filtered through a set of desires. I propose a more basic approach in terms of the imaginative associations lying at the basis of each and every desire. Whether a tertiary quality involves a desire is, again, an open question. That is, it is subject to moral or psychological considerations whether we do or do not like to experience whatever experiential dimension is introduced (imaginatively) in the object or event one is confronted with, so that the questions whether we do or do not desire the experiential outcome to this judgement is even further removed from the constitution of the tertiary qualities involved.

[29] That is, I think that we should be imaginativist subjectivists - albeit in a slightly qualified way - regarding the epistemological questions about the ontology of moral values Evidently, I cannot argue for this view at this place.

[30] I have developed this idea as a Kantian view in the third chapter of my dissertation.