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Beauty, the social network1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Dominic McIver Lopes
Dominic McIver Lopes*
Affiliation:
UBC Philosophy, Vancouver, Canada
*
E-mail: dom.lopes@ubc.ca
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Abstract

Aesthetic values give agents reasons to perform not only acts of contemplation, but also acts like editing, collecting, and conserving. Moreover, aesthetic agents rarely operate solo: they conduct their business as integral members of networks of other aesthetic agents. The consensus theory of aesthetic value, namely that an item’s aesthetic value is its power to evoke a finally valuable experience in a suitable spectator, can explain neither the range of acts performed by aesthetic agents nor the social contexts in which they operate. This paper proposes a new theory of aesthetic value specifically to explain facts about the sociality of aesthetic agents.

Keywords

Aestheticbeautynormativityvaluesocial
Type
Distinguished Lecture
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , 2017 , pp. 437 - 453
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2017

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Footnotes

1

A version of this paper was presented as the Canadian Journal of Philosophy Distinguished Lecture at the 2016 Canadian Philosophical Association. The support of the John Solomon Guggenheim Foundation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada is gratefully acknowledged.

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