Metaphysics of Meinongian aesthetic value

pp. 329-351

in: Dale Jacquette, Alexius Meinong, the shepherd of non-being, Berlin, Springer, 2015

Abstract

A Meinongian metaphysics makes aesthetic value a matter of subjective feeling rather than an objective property of an aesthetically appreciated object. An intended object is intentionally related to the aesthetically appreciated object. The advantages of a Meinongian subjectivistic aesthetic value theory are explained and defended on multiple grounds, especially against the objection that objectivizing beauty and other values in the sense of regarding aesthetic value as an objective property of aesthetic objects is a more natural way to understand the semantics of our talk about aesthetic value and the metaphysics of aesthetic judgment than subjectivizing value as a property of an experiencer's aesthetic feelings. The problem of how physically indistinguishable artworks could rationally have different aesthetic value, suggested by Danto's gallery of physically indistinguishable red squares, is considered, and a Meinongian interpretation is maintained as the best solution to understanding the relation of value to an artwork's objective properties, in association with an art appreciator's subjective feelings about the artwork's objective properties.