Reflective equilibrium, aesthetic appreciation, and aesthetic judgement.

I explore the relevance of reflective equilibrium to aesthetic experience, judgement, and appreciation, framing this project in both descriptive and normative terms. I begin with an exposition of reflective equilibrium, construed as a theory of epistemic justification, and of aesthetic appreciation,...

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Publicado en:Synthese Vol. 205; no. 5; pp. 1 - 28
Autor principal: Smith, Murray
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Springer Nature May2025
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: Reflective equilibrium, aesthetic appreciation, and aesthetic judgement.
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        au: Smith, Murray
        affil: https://ror.org/00xkeyj56 Professor of Philosophy, Art, and Film, University of Kent, Canterbury, United Kingdom
      su:
        Aesthetic experience
        Aesthetics
        Justice
        Art appreciation
        Equilibrium
      sug:
        subj:
          Aesthetic experience
          Aesthetics
          Justice
          Art appreciation
          Equilibrium
      keyword:
        Aesthetic appreciation
        Aesthetic judgement
        Aesthetic value
        Art
        Artistic value
        Embodied cognition
        Emotion
        Film
        Hard cases
        Imagination
        Individual and collective reflective equilibrium
        Music
        Novel
        Reflective afterlife
        Reflective equilibrium
        Song
        Wide and narrow reflective equilibrium
      ab: I explore the relevance of reflective equilibrium to aesthetic experience, judgement, and appreciation, framing this project in both descriptive and normative terms. I begin with an exposition of reflective equilibrium, construed as a theory of epistemic justification, and of aesthetic appreciation, characterised as an activity with an epistemic goal—namely, achieving an optimal understanding of an artwork or aesthetic object. I stress the broad purview of reflective equilibrium, as well as Rawls' arguments on the importance of aesthetic activity in human experience, and thus its place in a theory of justice. These preliminary considerations set up a more detailed exploration of reflective equilibrium in action in the aesthetic domain. I develop the argument with reference to a range of cases, from mainstream filmmaking to twelve-tone composition, considering the place of reflective equilibrium in aesthetic appreciation in both its individual and collective guises, as well as its "wide" and "narrow" forms. I demonstrate how the application of reflective equilibrium in the context of the critical appreciation of art relates to a range of significant issues in aesthetics, via the examination of arguments from Sontag, Sibley, Walton, Carroll, and Gaut (among others). Finally I assess various objections to, and extensions of, the main argument, including the objection that aesthetic appreciation does not aim at understanding, and the proposal that the embodied, emotional dimension of aesthetic experience, which must be accommodated by reflective equilibrium in the context of aesthetics, may shed light on its nature and operation in other domains.
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    language: English
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