Case study- "The Subjectivity of Aesthetic Value", Curt J. Ducasse (p282ff in Hospers, Introductory Readings in Aesthetics)

CURT J.Ducasse

1. a. What does Ducasse mean by 'criticism'?
b. What is a "standard of criticism"?

2. a. What does Ducasse mean by saying an object is "mediately good" (= "instrumentally good")?
b. What does Ducasse mean by saying an object is "immediately good"?

3. a. How does Ducasse define beauty?
b. What does Ducasse mean by 'ugliness'? See 302/1.

4. What does CJD think 'good taste' means?

5. What does Ducasse mean by 'canons of beauty'?

6. What is the ethical worth of a work of art supposed to be, as opposed to its "aesthetic worth"?

7. What is an impulse supposed to be?
Ducasse claims that the truth/falsity of "judgments of mediate or instrumental value" are objective, in a certain sense.

8. In what sense of 'objective' is the truth/falsity of such judgments said to be objective?

9. What does Ducasse think it means to say that some judgment of immediate value is objectively valid?

Ducasse CLAIMS that the following are "[t]he principal standards of criticism that may be used in connection with works of art and aesthetic objects":

(i) The adequacy of the object's expression of the feelings the artist intended to express by creating the object. The measure of this adequacy is the extent to which "the object created does, in contemplation, mirror back [to the artist] the feeling which [the artist] attempted to express" (284/6).

(ii) The adequacy with which the object expresses feelings which the artist is now willing to acknowledge as an aspect or part of himself.

(iii) The capacity of the object to ____ to others the feeling that the artist objectified in it.

(iv) Beauty or ugliness. This standard of criticism is applied "wholly without reference to the question whether [the] object is a product of art or of nature" (284/5).

11. (v) The worth--goodness or badness--of "the _____through which the particular feeling obtained in the contemplation of the object will tend to discharge itself"--in other words, the goodness or badness of the behavior induced by the feelings produced in those who contemplate the object.

12. What is a connoisseur [CON-uh-SOOR], according to Ducasse?

CLAIM: '[t]here is...no such thing as authoritative opinion concerning the beauty of a given object". The truth of this claim is supposed to follow from the definition of beauty.

13. a. T or F: Ducasse denies that there is any such thing as "good taste" or "bad taste".
Briefly justify your answer by reference to the text.
b. T or F: Ducasse denies that there is any "objective test" of the goodness or badness of taste.
CLAIM: "...[J]udgments of aesthetic value, i.e., of beauty and ugliness, which are truly judgments about objects, are not universally and necessarily valid, but on the contrary valid...only for the individuals Briefly justify your answer by reference to the text.
who make them..."

14. In what respect does CJD think judgments of beauty are the same as judgments of the pleasantness of foods, wines, climates, etc.?

15. What does Ducasse say "the ultimate and sole foundation of aesthetic criticism' is?
In 296/2, Ducasse CLAIMs that neither of two things proves that something is beautiful.

16. What are these two things?
Then, in 297/1, he CLAIMs that the "rank", or degree of some beauty is NOT proved either by the rank of the PERCEIVER of the beauty or by the rank of the FACULTY used to perceive the beauty.

17. What, according to D, does make one beauty greater than another?
Ducasse admits that certain "pet canons of beauty" (298/0) are operative in his own mind. But, he says, he finds that he does not regard even these rules with utter seriousness.

18. Why not? What, according to Ducasse, makes him regard even his own "canons of beauty" with a "sense of humor"?
CLAIM: "Taste can be neither proved nor refuted, but only...praised or reviled" (298/0).

19. What does Ducasse mean, in 299/1, when he CLAIMs that "the feeling judges the rule, not the rule the feeling"?

20. What does Ducasse claim is the only difference between "professional" art critics and "lay" art critics?

21. a. T or F:
Ducasse thinks it is WRONG to regard the ethical worth of a work of art as more important than its aesthetic worth, or to regard the aesthetic worth as more important than the ethical worth.
Justify your
b. T or F:
Ducasse thinks it is ARBITRARY to regard the ethical worth of a work of art as more important than its aesthetic worth. Justify your answer by reference to the text.
c. T or F:
Ducasse thinks the ONLY value a work of art can have is aesthetic value. Justify your answer by citing the text.
CLAIM: Contemplation of art can be more effective than contemplation of nature for changing conduct. (See 304/2ff, where this claim is explained).

22. What does CD claim "the necessary and sufficient ground for all [judgments of immediate valued" is?

23. a. T or F: Ducasse claims there is no difference between refined taste and perverted taste, and between
(good) taste and its absence.
b. How is the question, Which is which?--Which tastes are good tastes, and which tastes are not?--normally answered, according to Ducasse?
c. T or F: Ducasse claims that what determines whether somebody's taste is good or not is nothing but
whether or not that taste is shared by a large number or a majority of people.
Justify your answer by citing text.

24. T or F: Ducasse thinks that there are at least SOME respects in which the tastes of all people are the same.

Justify your answer from the text.
Ducasse describes his position on judgments of beauty/ugliness as a "dogmatic-liberalistic" one.
The "liberalistic" part of his position, he says, is the view that no one can refute anyone else's judgments of beauty/ugliness.

25. What is the "dogmatist" part of his position?