- Author
- James Shelley (Auburn University), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Published
- First published 11 September 2009; substantive revision 24 August 2026
- Kind
- Peer-edited philosophy encyclopedia entry
- Original
- plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetic-concept/
- Subject
- Art movements and theory
- Themes
- Taste and judgment, How forms evolve
What it is
James Shelley wrote this entry for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It surveys what 'aesthetic' means across five uses: object, judgment, attitude, experience and value.
What it says
- The modern concept descends from 18th-century taste, built on two theses: immediacy and disinterest.
- Kant turned disinterest into a contrast between moral and aesthetic judgment.
- The entry says Danto's case ended the heyday of artistic formalism.
- Dickie argues that a different purpose need not mean different attention. The entry accepts this point.
- Dickie says Beardsley confuses features of objects with features of experience.
- Hedonism is the prevailing answer on value, but recent critics dispute it.
- New theories either reduce aesthetic value to another value or treat it as basic.
What evidence it gives
The entry argues from close readings of texts by Hume, Kant, Sibley, Dickie and Beardsley. It uses thought experiments, such as Danto's look-alike objects. It also uses a historical case of Athenians fining a playwright. It offers no empirical data.
Interests and limits
The entry is one philosopher's critical survey, not a neutral summary. It judges some positions as weaker. It disputes Danto's step from the limits of form to the limits of the aesthetic. Shelley is listed among authors sympathetic to the Socratic solution. It covers Anglophone debate and gives other traditions little space. The main text was read in full but the bibliography was skipped.
Connections
These links are this wiki's own reading, not claims the sources make.
- Developing Taste. Kowalski calls taste a trained instinct, and also asks you to explain why things work. Shelley traces the older thesis that aesthetic judgment is immediate. So software's talk about taste inherits a problem. Can an instinct stay immediate once it must give reasons?
- The Resonant Computing Manifesto. The manifesto borrows Alexander's quality without a name and calls it resonance. Shelley's entry traces how hard such value has been to define. New theories either reduce it to something else or treat it as basic. The manifesto's five principles seem to take the first route.