Peter Kivy and Future Challenges for Aesthetics

In De Gustibus, Peter Kivy raises the important and somewhat neglected issue of why we argue against the aesthetic views of those who disagree with us. He thinks this phenomenon is evidence for the objectivity of aesthetic value judgments and also of our need and tendency toward community with others, but it can be said that such arguments may separate people from one another, rather than help create community. Kivy also says that the/my idea that aesthetic value predicates are dispositional with respect to aesthetic opinions can help support the objectivity of aesthetic value judgments, but I suggest a new way one might try to argue for such objectivity : namely, via the application of Saul Kripke’s ideas about reference fixing to terms like beautiful. This has not been attempted previously but has a good deal of promise and plausibility as an approach to and in favor of aesthetic value objectivity.