The Nature of aesthetic Properties and its Role in the new Aesthetic of Taste

Abstract

The current situation of radical pluralism of artistic forms and experiences seems tonegate any possible agreement about aesthetic criteria. This greatly explains the newinterest in the problem of taste, crucial in XVIII century Aesthetics. The problem is seenas the tension between the origin of judgement in the various subjective answers ofparticular individuals who aesthetically appreciate an object, and the demand forinterpersonal normative criteria. Nowadays the debate focuses on the possibilities forrational justification of judgements of taste or aesthetic judgments. In the same way, thecurrent discussion links the question of the norm of taste with the possibility of assertingaesthetic properties in the objects. Here the so called «aesthetic realism», which claimsthat there are existing real properties in the objects and that they can work as truthconditionsfor judgments, is relevant. This paper examines realism critically and arguesagainst its pattern for rational justification of aesthetics judgement which tries to exclude value as part of aesthetic properties. Doing so, realism not only differs from thetraditional way of seeing the problem of taste, but also makes it difficult to help withaesthetic criteria, as seems to be its goal.