Response-dependence and aesthetic realism: Zangwill and Pettit

Abstract

In this paper I discuss the application of the response-dependence thesis in aesthetics. When we apply this thesis in aesthetics, we arrive at the view that aesthetic properties are in some way, epistemologically or ontologically, dependent on the response of an observer. Even though all defenders of the response-dependence thesis adopt the same formula, they interpret it in different, even mutually incompatible ways. We can see how such contrasting readings can be widely divergent when we compare two well-known aesthetic papers which adhere to the response-dependence thesis: the Philip Pettit?s paper on the possibility of aesthetic realism, and the Nick Zangwill?s paper on the ontological status of beauty. After I critically examin and compare the views argued in these papers, I will try to answer a more general question of whether a response-dependence thesis, in its original form, can help us better understand the ontological and the epistemological status of aesthetic qualities.