Assessment and Recommendation in Aesthetics

According to Kant, the central debate of Aesthetic Theory is whether or not there is any disputing taste. Another way to formulate the issue is: whether Aesthetic Judgement has an objective criterion, in which case taste is disputable, or, is only an expression of subjective preference, in which case it is not disputable. While theories have typically been reductionist, and favored one side or the other, Kant, via a disambiguation in the articulation of the seemingly antithetical positions, discovers common ground as a third alternative. Still, this solution, like the other approaches, only perpetuates a conflation that is the source of the debate. They share the assumption that its two sides are rival accounts of one and the same process, Aesthetic Judgement, when they are, rather, different accounts of two distinct processes, Assessment and Recommendation, which are occasionally interrelated. An Assessment of an Artwork determines to what extent it possesses certain properties, e. g. Creativity, Vitality, Beauty, etc., and, is, hence, objective. In contrast, an assertion as to whether or not an Individual might enjoy an Artwork is a Recommendation, and is based, at least in part, on the contingent, and, therefore, subjective circumstances of that person. Often Assessment will serve as part of the grounds for a Recommendation, but it can never sufficiently account for as fundamental a subjective factor in an Aesthetic context as whether or not one has previously experienced a work before. Even Kant cannot universalize the element of the unexpected, that can be such a crucial, and yet subjective, aspect of any Aesthetic experience. So, there are neither objective grounds for compelling a Recommendation, nor is an Assessment, e. g. that one Artwork is more Creative than another, a merely subjective opinion. In other words, recognition of the distinction between Assessment and Recommendation, in the analysis of Aesthetic Judgement, eliminates one of the chronic debates in Aesthetic Theory.