Aesthetic Realism

Abstract

This paper is a brief exploration of the face and implications of the fact that we do not, on pain of a kind of misuse of language, pass on evaluative judgments of others in our own voice, but always insist on oratio recta or oratio obliqua. This is deemed to be some sort of support for the fact- value dichotomy in that factual information that we do not doubt is normally happily passed on in our own voice. But even aesthetic judgment we trust we pass on not in our own voice. A possible explanation is that aesthetic response is of the nature of the awareness of aspects rather than of objective properties. The thought no doubt traces back to Kant, who spoke of the importance of seeing for yourself.