Response to Katie Russell's post at 4:01am on 9/16/11

You raised good points on the integration of axiological and ontological impacts on aesthetics. Aesthetics, in my opinion, are important because they distinguish the value of art. If you think the "starving artists" are poor now, just imagine if any picture you took or any paintbrush-to-canvas creation could be considered museum-worthy works of art. I, being a musician, would be traumatized if any chord progression or combination of notes could be put on an album. You see, aesthetics, although subjective, work through us to value art and keep it dignified. There is no sense in seeking "higher powers" to help us make these distinctions, as some early philosophers believed. No, instead we must use our own senses to separate the good from the bad to keep the art world a more appreciable, respectable place. Raccoon feces, the example we cited in class, is not considered by most, if any, to be truly artistic in nature. Therefore, its aesthetic value is low and negligible. However, if aesthetics weren't in place or held little importance, then the museums would be filled with raccoon feces and other ambiguous displays. Aesthetics, then, serves as a judgmental tool to define art, and a tool to declare the value of art. This, in my opinion, is the importance of aesthetics.

Perhaps a suitable question to pose after this is; are aesthetics truly subjective, as I believe, or are they objective, such as in the example of being determined by a higher power for the masses? Remember to support answers with proof as I have.

Response to Jacob Wheeler's post at 8:45pm on 9/11/11

Aesthetics, as I would argue, belongs specifically under the branch of axiology. All of the branches of philosophy, as we have learned, are very interdisciplinary and build upon the others. Therefore, assuming that aesthetics possibly lies under just a single branch of philosophy is preposterous. Putting the interdisciplinary connections aside, I would argue that aesthetics is primarily axiological. Axiological claims are what I like to call "claims of morality" or ethics. Ethical claims involve distinguishing right and wrong, or in this case "in" and "out", and to fortify any such claim, you need support; proof is the crux or any axiological claim or research paper alike. Proof, in itself, comes in many forms, most of which are epistemological or ontological. For instance, if you were to say "Murder is wrong" (axiological in nature because it is declaring the moral value of a situation), you would need to support that claim with proof, such as "murder causes other humans to die" (an epistemological or ontological claim depending on how you view the source of the statement and its application). Delving further, I believe that aesthetics is a subjective area of philosophy, regardless of late philosophers’' views. Beauty and its appreciation are subjective things because they are perceived personally on an individual basis. If you've ever taken a trip to Mass MoCA, you'd most likely find art many others consider beautiful that you could scoff at. However, considering beauty and appreciation, an individual must assess each piece of art to determine its value to them. Judgment is an axiological action because it separates and values some things from others. Although aesthetic claims must be backed up using proof from other philosophical areas, aesthetics is, in its bare form, a game of judgment to me. This is why I declare that aesthetics is a branch off of axiology.

I pose a particularly difficult question that has come up in class since it is strongly related to the above argument; what is your personal limit to beauty? Where does the line between an admirable, aesthetic work and a homely canvas covered in paint fall?  Is this a clean-cut line, or are there debatable works that fall into the middle ground? (for these answers, try to keep the art reference to visual works)