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What is an aesthetic concept?

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Abstract

Aesthetic concepts and conceptions are structured mental representations partly composed of phenomenal concepts. I defend this claim by appealing to contemporary accounts of concepts and to the current literature on phenomenal concepts. In addition, I discuss the relationship between aesthetic concepts and aesthetic understanding — an epistemic state at the centre of much work in contemporary epistemology.

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Notes

  1. In this essay, by ‘conscious’ or ‘consciousness’, I mean primarily ‘phenomenally conscious’ or ‘phenomenal consciousness’, respectively.

  2. I will employ the convention of referring to concepts by using low capital letters.

  3. Levinson (2005: 11–2) claims that Sibley’s work is the starting point of contemporary work on aesthetic properties (not concepts), as does Stecker (2010: chapter 4). Another popular line of inquiry in the contemporary debate is focused on aesthetic terms, see Marques (2016) for a recent account.

  4. Beardsley (1982), Matthen (2017), Nanay (2016).

  5. See Laurence & Margolis (1999, 2013) for recent surveys of the contemporary literature on the nature of concepts.

  6. Some recent works on the notion of understanding include Kvanvig (2003), Pritchard (2009, 2010), Sliwa (2015) and Hills (2016). See Hannon (2021) for a recent overview.

  7. One influential account of phenomenal concepts is proposed in many of Brian Loar’s papers: Loar (1997/2017, 2003). See also Balog (1999, 2009, 2012), Papineau (2002, 2007), Tye (2003), Levin (2007) and Diaz-Leon (2016). Michael Tye recanted his 2003 account in Tye (2009).

  8. See Sterelny (1990), Ryder (2009) and Von Eckardt (2012) for introductions to the notion of a mental representation and to the representational theory of mind, which I will assume in this paper.

  9. The idea that concepts are mental representations plays a central role in contemporary cognitive science (Carey 2009; Fodor 1998). Peacocke (1992) defends the view that concepts are Fregean senses, abstract entities that can be combined in the form of propositional contents expressed by thoughts.

  10. See Fodor & Phylyshyn (1988). Johnson (2004) offers compelling reasons to believe that the debate suffers of a serious problem because the same concept of systematicity is at best unclear.

  11. My understanding of conception derives from Bengson (2015, 2018).

  12. I am not claiming that a conception and its properties are the mere sum of its concepts and their properties, as other factors (e.g., relational properties) may determine the properties of the conception (e.g., the coherence of the concepts involved).

  13. See Bermudez (2003) and Camp (2009) for discussion.

  14. There are other accounts of the nature of phenomenal concepts, for example, David Papineau’s Quotational model — see Papineau (2002, 2007: 116–9) for further discussion. However, for reasons of space, I will not discuss them in this paper.

  15. Some have argued that phenomenal concepts do not exist because the Experience Condition clashes with other plausible conditions or views (Tye 2009). I do not find these arguments convincing, and I will assume that the replies already offered by others are successful in deflecting such criticisms (e.g., Veillet 2012 and Diaz-Leon 2016).

  16. On aesthetic understanding, see also Hills (2018, 2022). One of the differences between my account and Hills’ is that mine deploys the notions of aesthetic concept and conception. On the relationship between understanding and grasping, see Elgin (2017) and Baumberger and Brun (2017). In this paper, I will take the notion of grasping as primitive. Grasping reveals itself in cases in which we grasp an explanation in a way that satisfies relationships of coherence among the various elements of such an explanation (Riggs 2003: 217).

  17. Similar ideas — ideas about the explanatory role of the relationship between aesthetic and non-aesthetic properties for ascriptions of aesthetic value — have been discussed by many aestheticians and philosophers of art; for example, Sibley (1965, 1974) Beardsley (1974), Levinson (2005) and Zangwill (2001, 2007), Sauchelli (2022).

  18. See Heathwood (2007) and Aydede (2018) for recent general discussions on pleasure, and Levinson (1992) and Matthen (2017) for aesthetic pleasure.

  19. One attempt to define a formal property is offered by Nick Zangwill: ‘I shall stipulate that the word “narrow” includes both sensory properties, nonrelational physical properties, and also any dispositions to provoke responses that might be thought to be partly constitutive of aesthetic properties. The word “broad” covers anything else. So, we can blandly say: Formal properties are entirely determined by narrow nonaesthetic properties, whereas nonformal aesthetic properties are partly determined by broad nonaesthetic properties’ (Zangwill 2001: 57). See also Budd (1995: 52), Wollheim (2001) and Nanay (2016) for discussion and alternative proposals.

  20. See De Clercq (2008: 902–4) for discussion on the connection between response-dependence and aesthetic properties.

  21. See Jackson (1982) and Loar (1997) for two seminal papers on the thought experiment in question.

  22. Unity is here intended as a form of sensed congruity among the elements of a design, that is, a property that the elements of the design have when they appear as having a non-random connection.

  23. Thanks to an anonymous referee for raising this point.

  24. See Carey (2009) for an account of the origin and development of concepts.

  25. See Stecker (2012) for a recent defence of the distinction between aesthetic and artistic value.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Lingnan University, Tuen Mun, Hong Kong

    Andrea Sauchelli

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Sauchelli, A. What is an aesthetic concept?. AJPH 1, 35 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44204-022-00037-z

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