Editing Aesthetics (section)

===Aesthetic judgment===
{{see also|Value judgment}}
[[File:Immanuel Kant - Gemaelde 1.jpg|thumb|upright=.8|alt=Oil painting of Immanuel Kant|[[Immanuel Kant]] believed that aesthetics arises from a faculty of disinterested judgment.]]
Aesthetics examines [[Bloom's taxonomy#Affective domain (emotion-based)|affective domain]] response to an object or phenomenon. Judgements of aesthetic value rely on the ability to discriminate at a sensory level. However, '''aesthetic judgments''' usually go beyond sensory discrimination.

For [[David Hume]], delicacy of taste is not merely "the ability to detect all the ingredients in a composition", but also the sensitivity "to pains as well as pleasures, which escape the rest of mankind."<ref>David Hume, ''Essays Moral, Political, Literary'', Indianapolis: Literary Fund, 1987.</ref> Thus, sensory discrimination is linked to capacity for [[pleasure]].

For [[Immanuel Kant]] (''[[Critique of Judgment]]'', 1790), "enjoyment" is the result when pleasure arises from sensation, but [[The Critique of Judgment|judging something]] to be "beautiful" has a third requirement: sensation must give rise to pleasure by engaging reflective contemplation. Judgements of beauty are sensory, emotional and intellectual all at once. Kant observed of a man "if he says that '[[Canary Islands|Canary]] wine is pleasant,' he is quite content if someone else corrects his expression and remind him that he ought to say instead: 'It is pleasant ''to me'','" because "every one has his own &#91;[[sense]] of&#93; [[taste]]". The case of "beauty" is different from mere "pleasantness" because "if he gives out anything as beautiful, he supposes in others the same satisfaction—he judges not merely for himself, but for every one, and speaks of beauty as if it were a property of things."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kant |first=Immanuel |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/48433/48433-h/48433-h.htm |title=Critique of Judgement |date=1790 |publisher=Macmillan and Company |isbn=9781508892281 |edition=2nd |location=London, England |publication-date=1914 |pages=57–58 |translator-last=Bernard |translator-first=J. H. |chapter=§ 7. Comparison of the Beautiful with the Pleasant and the Good by means of the above characteristic}}</ref>

Viewer interpretations of beauty may on occasion be observed to possess two concepts of value: aesthetics and taste. Aesthetics is the philosophical notion of beauty. Taste is a result of an education process and awareness of elite cultural values learned through exposure to [[mass culture]]. Bourdieu examined how the elite in society define the aesthetic values like taste and how varying levels of exposure to these values can result in variations by class, cultural background, and education.<ref>Bourdieu, Pierre (1984). ''Distinction''. Routledge. {{ISBN|0674212770}}</ref> According to Kant, beauty is subjective and universal; thus certain things are beautiful to everyone.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetic-judgment/|title=Aesthetic Judgment|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|last = Zangwill|first = Nick|encyclopedia = The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |date = 26 August 2014|editor-last = Zalta|editor-first = Edward N.}}</ref> In the opinion of [[Władysław Tatarkiewicz]], there are six conditions for the presentation of art: beauty, form, representation, reproduction of reality, artistic expression and innovation. However, one may not be able to pin down these qualities in a work of art.<ref>{{cite book|first = Władysław|last = Tatarkiewicz|title = A History of Six Ideas: an essay in aesthetics |date = 1980|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=eD4qAQAAMAAJ|publisher=PWN/Polish Scientific Publishers|isbn = 978-8301008246}}</ref>

The question of whether there are [[fact]]s about aesthetic judgments belongs to the branch of [[metaphilosophy]] known as '''meta-aesthetics'''.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199747108.001.0001/acref-9780199747108-e-498;jsessionid=1B3F479F4180E26B79F508102F8C0D97|title=Encyclopedia of Aesthetics|first=Louise|last=Hanson|date=21 August 2014|publisher=Oxford University Press|via=www.oxfordreference.com|doi=10.1093/acref/9780199747108.001.0001|isbn=978-0-19-974710-8 }}</ref>

====Factors involved in aesthetic judgment====
[[File:Double-alaskan-rainbow.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Rainbow]]s often have aesthetic appeal]]

Aesthetic judgment is closely tied to [[disgust]].{{Citation needed|date=June 2023|reason=I don't think a section on aesthetic judgment should start with "disgust," it needs a good citation and justification to stay in this current position on the page.}} Responses like disgust show that sensory detection is linked in instinctual ways to [[facial expression]]s including physiological responses like the [[gag reflex]]. Disgust is triggered largely by [[cognitive dissonance|dissonance]]; as Darwin pointed out, seeing a stripe of soup in a man's beard is disgusting even though neither soup nor beards are themselves disgusting. Aesthetic judgments may be linked to emotions or, like emotions, partially embodied in physical reactions. For example, the [[awe]] inspired by a [[Sublime (philosophy)|sublime]] landscape might physically manifest with an increased heart-rate or pupil dilation.

As seen, emotions are conformed to 'cultural' reactions, therefore aesthetics is always characterized by 'regional responses', as Francis Grose was the first to affirm in his ''Rules for Drawing Caricaturas: With an Essay on Comic Painting'' (1788), published in W. Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty, Bagster, London s.d. (1791? [1753]), pp.&nbsp;1–24. Francis Grose can therefore be claimed to be the first critical 'aesthetic regionalist' in proclaiming the anti-universality of aesthetics in contrast to the perilous and always resurgent dictatorship of beauty.<ref>{{cite book|first = Yvonne|last = Bezrucka|title = The Invention of Northern Aesthetics in 18th-Century English Literature|date = 2017|url = https://www.cambridgescholars.com/the-invention-of-northern-aesthetics-in-18th-century-english-literature|access-date = 4 September 2019|archive-date = 4 September 2019|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190904163147/https://www.cambridgescholars.com/the-invention-of-northern-aesthetics-in-18th-century-english-literature|url-status = live}}</ref> 'Aesthetic Regionalism' can thus be seen as a political statement and stance which vies against any universal notion of beauty to safeguard the counter-tradition of aesthetics related to what has been considered and dubbed un-beautiful just because one's culture does not contemplate it, e.g. Edmund Burke's sublime, what is usually defined as 'primitive' art, or un-harmonious, non-cathartic art, camp art, which 'beauty' posits and creates, dichotomously, as its opposite, without even the need of formal statements, but which will be 'perceived' as ugly.<ref>{{cite journal|first = Yvonne|last = Bezrucka|title = The Well Beloved: Thomas Hardy's Manifesto of 'Regional Aesthetics' |journal = Victorian Literature and Culture|volume = 36|pages = 227–245|date = 2008|doi = 10.1017/S1060150308080133|s2cid = 170093813}}</ref>

Likewise, aesthetic judgments may be culturally conditioned to some extent. [[Victorian era|Victorians]] in Britain often saw [[African sculpture]] as ugly, but just a few decades later, [[Edwardian era|Edwardian]] audiences saw the same sculptures as beautiful. Evaluations of beauty may well be linked to desirability, perhaps even to [[Human sexuality|sexual]] desirability. Thus, judgments of [[Architectural design values|aesthetic value]] can become linked to judgments of economic, political, or [[morality|moral]] value.<ref>Holm, Ivar (2006). ''Ideas and Beliefs in Architecture and [[Industrial design]]: How attitudes, orientations, and underlying assumptions shape the built environment''. Oslo School of Architecture and Design. {{ISBN|8254701741}}.</ref> In a current context, a [[Lamborghini]] might be judged to be beautiful partly because it is desirable as a status symbol, or it may be judged to be repulsive partly because it signifies over-consumption and offends political or moral values.<ref>{{cite book|editor-last = Korsmeyer |editor-first = Carolyn |title =Aesthetics: The Big Questions|date = 1998|publisher =Wiley-Blackwell |isbn = 978-0631205944}}</ref>

The context of its presentation also affects the perception of artwork; artworks presented in a classical museum context are liked more and rated more interesting than when presented in a sterile laboratory context. While specific results depend heavily on the style of the presented artwork, overall, the effect of context proved to be more important for the perception of artwork than the effect of genuineness (whether the artwork was being presented as original or as a facsimile/copy).<ref>{{cite journal |author1=Grüner |first=Susanne |author2=Specker |first2=Eva |author3=Leder |first3=Helmut |name-list-style=amp |year=2019 |title=Effects of Context and Genuineness in the Experience of Art |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330414719 |url-status=live |journal=Empirical Studies of the Arts |volume=37 |issue=2 |pages=138–152 |doi=10.1177/0276237418822896 |s2cid=150115587 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200124215151/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330414719 |archive-date=24 January 2020 |access-date=5 December 2019}}</ref>

Aesthetic judgments can often be very fine-grained and internally contradictory. Likewise aesthetic judgments seem often to be at least partly intellectual and interpretative. What a thing means or symbolizes is often what is being judged. Modern aestheticians have asserted that [[free will|will]] and [[Desire (emotion)|desire]] were almost dormant in aesthetic experience, yet [[preference]] and [[choice]] have seemed important aesthetics to some 20th-century thinkers. The point is already made by [[David Hume|Hume]], but see Mary Mothersill, "Beauty and the Critic's Judgment", in ''The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics'', 2004. Thus aesthetic judgments might be seen to be based on the senses, emotions, intellectual opinions, will, desires, culture, preferences, values, subconscious behaviour, conscious decision, training, instinct, sociological institutions, or some complex combination of these, depending on exactly which theory is employed.{{citation needed|date=February 2024}}

A third major topic in the study of aesthetic judgments is how they are unified across art forms. For instance, the source of a painting's beauty has a different character to that of beautiful music, suggesting their aesthetics differ in kind.<ref>Consider Clement Greenberg's arguments in "On Modernist Painting" (1961), reprinted in Aesthetics: A Reader in Philosophy of Arts.</ref> The distinct inability of language to express aesthetic judgment and the role of [[Social constructionism|social construction]] further cloud this issue.