Abstract
Nelson Goodman (1906–1998) is one of the leading American philosophers of the twentieth century. His well-known book Languages of Art is considered a major contribution to analytical aesthetics. While his views on particular issues have often been criticized, on the whole, he is considered to be a leading figure in twentieth-century aesthetics. Contrary to such a stance, I intend to argue that Goodman’s overall contribution to aesthetics is not as outstanding and valuable as is often maintained. Rather, I will try to show that his aesthetic views are grounded on a distorted representation of the earlier aesthetic tradition, without which they lose the novelty and originality ascribed to them. Once that representation is corrected, some of Goodman’s proposals turn out to be derivative and redundant. Additionally, where they do actually diverge from the earlier tradition and might stake a claim to originality, they turn out to be simply erroneous and misconceived, and sometimes even logically flawed. To conclude, Goodman’s lofty reputation as an aesthetician certainly requires major revision.
Highlights
Nelson Goodman is considered to be one of the greatest aestheticians of the twentieth century.1 Let us just quote just a few opinions: Nelson Goodman has certainly been one of the most influential figures in contemporary aesthetics.(Giovannelli 2017)Academic Editor: Daniel HerwitzReceived: 27 October 2021Accepted: 9 December 2021Published: 14 December 2021Nelson Goodman [. . .] is a famous figure in the analytic philosophy of art. [. . .]Goodman clearly ranks among the most important philosophers of the twentieth century.(Cohnitz and Rossberg 2014, pp. 1, 2)Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
“pleasure”, invoked as historically grounded categories, but against the conviction “that aesthetic merit must derive from a single property common to all good art” or against the view that the aim of aesthetics is to seek “shared features that qualify objects, attitudes, experiences, and values as aesthetic” (Elgin and Goodman 1987, p. 219), which can only lead to failure and to the empty postulating of such properties
The theoretical system is too dear to Goodman to be modified if it contradicts the facts in an obvious way, as Goodman notes himself. This imperialism of the theory of symbol systems manifests itself in such statements as “Noting, for example, that both computer languages and musical notation are digital, we might test for correlations between the ability to write programs and the ability to write music” (Elgin and Goodman 1987, p. 221)
Summary
Nelson Goodman is considered to be one of the greatest aestheticians of the twentieth century. Let us just quote just a few opinions: Nelson Goodman has certainly been one of the most influential figures in contemporary aesthetics. Perhaps Goodman’s intention may be interpreted as follows: whenever we introduce any category with claims which go too far and overgeneralize, it will soon be undermined in the historical process by the reality of developments in art, and that which was perhaps initially intended as a generalizing description and the identification of crucial features will have to become merely a postulatory dogma Understood in this way, Goodman’s argument would be levelled not against “beauty” or “pleasure”, invoked as historically grounded categories, but against the conviction “that aesthetic merit must derive from a single property common to all good art” or against the view that the aim of aesthetics is to seek “shared features that qualify objects, attitudes, experiences, and values as aesthetic” The technical terms that he uses may be safely understood on the basis of those intuitions, since Goodman’s formal definitions do not offer anything more precise—on the contrary, as essentially erroneous and wide of the mark, they may rather engender notional confusion.
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