Aestheticians and Aesthetes...
Permit me to stick my nose in from the lurking wings at this
stage of the issue. It may be useful to consider what pragmatism
holds with regard to the general objects called "value" and
"good" as being separate and different states of stuff, including
the likes of art. My understanding of the pragmatist stance in
regard to value is that value comes before any goodness of an
object, because an object has value merely to the extent that it
satisfies some need of a signer or user of the object. This
suggests for example that well cooked meat in the form of a juicy
sirloin steak has no value as food to a medically required
vegetarian, or that criminal murder does has value if it
satisfies the need of a person or murderer in some situation of
interest to them. The value of an object is thus independent of
the good of an object for pragmatists, because under pragmatism
value is a critical sign and an aspect of semiotics. The good of
an object on the other hand for pragmatists, and the good object
must have some value first to be good, is determined or limited
by what "ought" to be, rather than by what was or is or will be
or even by what must be, because under pragmatism any good is of
a sign system and indeed is what epistemic methodology is all
about, whether the normative method of getting knowledge is of
aesthetics or ethics or logics. In other words, the semiotic
value is preparatory to and comes before the methodic good, which
methodic good must presuppose some semiotic value. Additionally,
the good question of good value to ask is whether art as a global
class is an object that can be predicated on existence;
regardless of such a typical norm as art being determined either
objectively as a sheer fact in the world or subjectively as a
mere notion in the mind. It seems to me that this pragmatist take
on value and goodness and existence is idealist, but
optimistically realist nonetheless, and may be the best theory
available so far for addressing such issues in art and other
acts, given the current state of knowledge evident about such
stuff. The narrower issue of whether all objects deemed as art
are intrinsically good, or if there can be objects of art that
are found bad yet still remain as art, is likely another worthy
issue to debate. The broader issue of the greatest or highest
good of all as the "summum bonum" for man, or the "summum ars"
for art and the "summum jus" for law, can perhaps be set aside
for now. My understanding or opinion on these issues is of course
tentative and open to correction, so thanks in advance for any
suggestions.
