5 ms·

I had the opposite conversation with my father. I claimed "there's no accounting for taste" and my father said "that's not true, you can claim Shakespeare isn't

by slibhb 5y ago

I had the opposite conversation with my father. I claimed "there's no accounting for taste" and my father said "that's not true, you can claim Shakespeare isn't good but you're wrong". For judgements of taste, no one is better than Kant. I recommend this essay: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetic-judgment/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetic-judgment/ In Kantian aesthetics, judgements of taste are subjective (because they differ between people) but are normative in that they claim universal validity (when we judge art to be good, we will all others to agree). Kant calls this "subjective universality". This explains why people disagree about art and why we can argue about it. It bothers us when people disagree with our judgements of taste. When we claim it doesn't bother us ("there's no accounting for taste"), we're either lying or not making judgements of taste. Compare this to judgements about flavor (which Kant calls judgments of the agreeable). We don't argue about whether vanilla is better than chocolate or, if we do, we consider the argument trivial and subjective with no right answer. This is not the case when we argue about art. The heart of the matter is whether beauty is objective or if it is merely relative to something. PG's essay argues that it is relative to being human, Kant similarly argues that it is relative to being a rational being (a somewhat broader category). This contrasts with the common argument that beauty is relative to some socio-cultural standard.

msla 5y ago
> I claimed "there's no accounting for taste" and my father said "that's not true, you can claim Shakespeare isn't good but you're wrong". So Tolstoy was wrong? https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/lear/english/e_ltf https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/lear/english/e_ltf > Tolstoy begins by saying that throughout life Shakespeare has aroused in him ‘an irresistible repulsion and tedium’. Conscious that the opinion of the civilized world is against him, he has made one attempt after another on Shakespeare's works, reading and re-reading them in Russian, English and German; but ‘I invariably underwent the same feelings; repulsion, weariness and bewilderment’.
- karaterobot 5y ago
  There's no accounting for taste.
- abecedarius 5y ago
  He's the authority on his own response. And it may be true that Shakespeare is overrated. It's possible he could persuade me that Shakespeare is not good. (E.g. I've read Plato in translation and think his giant reputation is a blot on society's collective judgement.) Tough to argue, though. People still respond to Shakespeare and not only because they're supposed to.
- fijiaarone 5y ago
  Tolstoy is free to try and top Shakespeare. To his credit, he tried his best, and did better than most, but didn't come close.
  - watwut 5y ago
    To the extend you can compare such massively different works, Tolstoy is better.
cgrealy 5y ago
>my father said "that's not true, you can claim Shakespeare isn't good but you're wrong". Could not disagree more. Your father can claim Shakespeare is good, but that doesn't make him right. I think Shakespeare is good, but that's a subjective opinion and holds no more weight than someone who thinks Dan Brown is a better writer /shudder.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Given that Dan Brown is alive and that Shakespeare is well and truly dead I'm pretty sure that Dan Brown is the better writer.
- slibhb 5y ago
  The essay I linked has a good response to what you wrote: > It is true that some people sometimes express the view that no judgments of taste are really better than others. They say, “There is no right and wrong about matters of taste”. Others will express the same thought by saying that beauty is “relative” to individual judgment or preference, or that it is “socially relative”. Such relativism is part of the intellectual air in in certain parts of the humanities. In particular, many intellectuals have expressed dislike of the idea that judgments of taste really have any normative claim, as if that would be uncouth or oppressive. However, if we are describing our thought as it is, not how it ought to be, then there is no getting away from the fact that normativity is a necessary condition of judgments of taste or beauty. If you actually believed what you wrote, you wouldn't have included a "/shudder" at the end. In fact, you believe that Shakespeare is better than Dan Brown to the point that disagreement makes you uncomfortable. That's a judgement of taste. How you ground that belief (if at all) is a separate question.
  - cgrealy 5y ago
    > If you actually believed what you wrote, you wouldn't have included a "/shudder" at the end. In fact, you believe that Shakespeare is better than Dan Brown to the point that disagreement makes you uncomfortable. That's a judgement of taste. Yes, but it's subjective. The idea that Dan Brown could be considered a better writer than Shakespeare is horrifying to me. The idea that people would put pineapple on a pizza is sacreligious to me. That someone actually likes Nickelbacks music is borderline offensive to me. Unless you can objectively quantify why x is better than y, that is subjective. > there is no getting away from the fact that normativity is a necessary condition of judgments of taste or beauty. Even if you could agree to an evaluative standard for art, you still cannot objectively measure it. Just because a majority of people agree on something, does not make it so.
GoblinSlayer 5y ago
Disagreement is a property of values, not a property of universalism. Kant just assumes universalism, but assumption is not an argument. Some people have a strong opinion on pineapple pizza. I have a strong opinion that wine and tobacco have bad taste.

by slibhb 5y ago

msla 5y ago

> I claimed "there's no accounting for taste" and my father said "that's not true, you can claim Shakespeare isn't good but you're wrong". So Tolstoy was wrong? https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/lear/english/e_ltf https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/lear/english/e_ltf > Tolstoy begins by saying that throughout life Shakespeare has aroused in him ‘an irresistible repulsion and tedium’. Conscious that the opinion of the civilized world is against him, he has made one attempt after another on Shakespeare's works, reading and re-reading them in Russian, English and German; but ‘I invariably underwent the same feelings; repulsion, weariness and bewilderment’.

karaterobot 5y ago
There's no accounting for taste.
abecedarius 5y ago
He's the authority on his own response. And it may be true that Shakespeare is overrated. It's possible he could persuade me that Shakespeare is not good. (E.g. I've read Plato in translation and think his giant reputation is a blot on society's collective judgement.) Tough to argue, though. People still respond to Shakespeare and not only because they're supposed to.
fijiaarone 5y ago
Tolstoy is free to try and top Shakespeare. To his credit, he tried his best, and did better than most, but didn't come close.
- watwut 5y ago
  To the extend you can compare such massively different works, Tolstoy is better.

cgrealy 5y ago

>my father said "that's not true, you can claim Shakespeare isn't good but you're wrong". Could not disagree more. Your father can claim Shakespeare is good, but that doesn't make him right. I think Shakespeare is good, but that's a subjective opinion and holds no more weight than someone who thinks Dan Brown is a better writer /shudder.

jacquesm 5y ago
Given that Dan Brown is alive and that Shakespeare is well and truly dead I'm pretty sure that Dan Brown is the better writer.
slibhb 5y ago
The essay I linked has a good response to what you wrote: > It is true that some people sometimes express the view that no judgments of taste are really better than others. They say, “There is no right and wrong about matters of taste”. Others will express the same thought by saying that beauty is “relative” to individual judgment or preference, or that it is “socially relative”. Such relativism is part of the intellectual air in in certain parts of the humanities. In particular, many intellectuals have expressed dislike of the idea that judgments of taste really have any normative claim, as if that would be uncouth or oppressive. However, if we are describing our thought as it is, not how it ought to be, then there is no getting away from the fact that normativity is a necessary condition of judgments of taste or beauty. If you actually believed what you wrote, you wouldn't have included a "/shudder" at the end. In fact, you believe that Shakespeare is better than Dan Brown to the point that disagreement makes you uncomfortable. That's a judgement of taste. How you ground that belief (if at all) is a separate question.
- cgrealy 5y ago
  > If you actually believed what you wrote, you wouldn't have included a "/shudder" at the end. In fact, you believe that Shakespeare is better than Dan Brown to the point that disagreement makes you uncomfortable. That's a judgement of taste. Yes, but it's subjective. The idea that Dan Brown could be considered a better writer than Shakespeare is horrifying to me. The idea that people would put pineapple on a pizza is sacreligious to me. That someone actually likes Nickelbacks music is borderline offensive to me. Unless you can objectively quantify why x is better than y, that is subjective. > there is no getting away from the fact that normativity is a necessary condition of judgments of taste or beauty. Even if you could agree to an evaluative standard for art, you still cannot objectively measure it. Just because a majority of people agree on something, does not make it so.

GoblinSlayer 5y ago

Disagreement is a property of values, not a property of universalism. Kant just assumes universalism, but assumption is not an argument. Some people have a strong opinion on pineapple pizza. I have a strong opinion that wine and tobacco have bad taste.