Frances, I am inclined to agree with the essence of your post. Boris Shoshensky
-- "Frances Kelly" <[email protected]> wrote: 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. ____________________________________________________________ Criminal Lawyers - Click here. http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2241/fc/BLSrjpYbd6vfcZhaWrauMCK5ZjbTWU q6XfdViRNDAEYKXHS111q7dKaj4Eg/
