aesthetic evaluation (was: RE: (OT) Music

I have not inserted an OT in the new subject line, because
aesthetic evaluation of conlangs/artlangs was an issue that
Jesse vigorously raised a while back.

John Cowan:
> Dirk Elzinga scripsit:
>
> > I've listened to a lot of Xenakis in the past, and I confess that he
> > doesn't do much for me. Perhaps I'm not experienced enough in his
> > idiom, or maybe his music is just crap. I'm not willing to make that
> > judgement, though. I'm glad to hear that his music does reach someone!
>
> I will argue, indeed, that value judgements like this are not and cannot be
> founded in anything objective: they reflect only the history of taste, or
> at best the subjective judgments of practitioners in the field about what
> is useful/interesting and what is not.  True criticism begins in what we
> call "uncritical", but rightly should be called pre-critical, appreciation;
> its end product is not value judgement, but comprehensive understanding.
I wholeheartedly agree that what you say tends very much to be true in
practise, but as a statement of principle it is too easy. Just as we
elect (from whatever ontological domain they originate from) moral/ethical
principles that discriminate between what is morally Good and Bad, so we
may elect aesthetic principles that discriminate between what is
aesthetically Good and Bad. It is true that different people may
elect different and incompatible principles (moral or aesthetic), but
it does not follow from this that we must accept that any one principle
is of equal validity to every other principle. You might respond that
though having the status of principles they are nevertheless subjective,
not objective, but if so I will contend that to our thought what
matters is not such objectivity but rather the property of being
founded on justifiable principles.

--And.

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