Aesthetic Judgment Research Articles

The Poets of Our Lives

This article proposes a role for aesthetic judgment in our practical thought. The role is related to those moments when practical reason seems to give out, when it fails to yield a judgment about what to do in the face of a choice we cannot avoid. I argue that these impasses require agents to create, but that not any creativity will do. For we cannot regard a response to one of these problems as arbitrary or capricious if we want to act on it. We must instead regard that response as justified by the problem itself. I suggest that this combination of creativity and normativity is characteristic of aesthetic judgment and this makes it a promising candidate for making these very difficult choices.

On Arendt’s Reading of Kant’s Third Critique

Arendt’s reading of Kant’s aesthetics as political theory has proven contentious, as exegesis regarding the Critique of the Power of Judgment and still more as description of the concerns and norms of political action. Although Arendt’s politicisation of aesthetics is more fraught than she at times admits (but less reckless than some of her critics maintain while also more anarchic than some of her defenders acknowledge), I argue her insight into the republican promise of the model of non–conformist sociability that Kant discerns among aesthetic judges is worth securing. Arendt appeals to Kant’s sensus communis, pure aesthetic judgement, impure aesthetic judgement and works of art in order to make sense of a mode of political sociability that avoids both atomisation and uniformity. For Arendt, the various ways political history and philosophy have conceived political bodies have been less adroit at preserving the openness of the political than Kant’s aesthetic community.

Does Artificial Intelligence have the Possibility of Taking Over Designers' Jobs in the Future?

Technological advances in tools such as artificial intelligence have made it easier for architects, planners, interior designers and urban designers to visualize their designs easily and save time. Today, AI (Artificial Intelligence) is integrated into many different professions, and the design sector is no exception. Also, new design technologies, for example, OpenAI, ChatGPT, Dall-E 2, and Mid Journey, quickly dissolve the lines between what humans do at work and what machines and algorithms do. Despite the fact that design is a highly creative discipline that calls for a special blend of technical expertise, aesthetic judgment, and user empathy, AI systems are currently unable to fully recreate these skills. They only provide output in accordance with system input. They are unable to independently innovate new things. And indeed, we discovered that AI fundamentally alters the practice of design. Traditional problem-solving tasks performed by designers are increasingly computerized into unrestricted volume and speed learning loops. This situation raises the question of whether artificial intelligence will replace the job of designers in the future. This essay would attempt to give an explanation of two factors, first, how AI technology would mitigate designers’ duties, and second, the reasons why it would not be able to replace designers and architects in the near future. The article seeks to do a discourse, summarizing the studies on the effects of AI on the professional activity of designers and projecting where future designers will stand in their respective fields. Furthermore, this paper discusses the implications of artificial intelligence on the profession of designers, such as job displacement, job redefinition, and changes in the skill set required to be successful in the profession. Finally, the outcome of the essay is to understand the revolutionary impact of AI tools in design sectors in the future.

Research on the Theoretical Connotation and Practical Path of Aesthetics of Daily Human Life in the Background of Internet

Abstract As the living standard of the people in China has changed drastically, the aesthetic quality of daily life has been increasing day by day, and people’s desire for a better life is also increasing. This paper proposes a color harmony model based on hue statistical features, using maximum likelihood estimation to extract the main hue region and extract related features from the corresponding region. Based on the inconsistencies in feature dimensions, a model is created to evaluate color harmony using Gaussian mixture training and is employed for image aesthetics evaluation. Finally, regression is employed to analyze the factors that influence life aesthetics evaluation, and the model is tested and analyzed using linear diagnosis and residual analysis. The results show that the influence index affecting the evaluation of daily life aesthetics is judgment beauty, and its influence coefficient is 4.4323. The product of image entropy and image gradient is used as the connotation of judging the aesthetics of daily human life, which is consistent with the evaluation of human aesthetic judgment. The theoretical connotations of life aesthetics are clarified and enhanced in this paper, and it develops its thinking to construct the reality of the good life.

Education for sustainable clothing consumerism?

This paper sheds light on how aesthetic judgments govern actions in education for design literacy and sustainability behaviours. Educational material is examined by asking: (1) What meanings regarding becoming a sustainable consumer are made available to students in the educational material? (2) How are these narratives communicated to change students’ behaviours? The material in question consists of 17 design projects intended to be used in the Swedish school subject, Educational Sloyd. Using a practical epistemological analysis, two ways of becoming a sustainable consumer are identified: to have fun and to feel clever. The paper also shows how social marketing is used as a strategy in communicating how to change student behaviours. In the discussion, we turn to design literacy research to discuss the results from an educational perspective.

„Lipsa de metodă” metodică și „eclectismul” bine administrat

Critic and literary historian of indisputable importance in shaping the overall picture of the evolutions recorded in the Romanian literary realm in the last six decades, Eugen Simion did not have (as well as, moreover, most of his colleagues in the critical magistracy belonging to the same generation of creation) a specific, unique or preferred critical „method”, rigid, firm and easy to detect and define. This apparent lack of method is actually the result of mastery in methodological synthesis and the effect of an inspired positive eclecticism. The critic has happily combined or joined together methods and perspectives, with admirable results, he has constantly shown concern to identify and choose, for each particular case of the development of his critical approach — that is, for each critical text, for each work or group of works or section of a larger work etc. — , the formula of criticism, the angle of approach, the perspective and the methodological panoply, that is, in a word, the most suitable „method”. He practiced an aesthetic assessment criticism, using in an opportune manner the tools offered by the scientific approach, he followed the historical-literary foundation of the aesthetic judgment, but also the clarification of some theoretical aspects, especially regarding the author-work relationship or the relationship between biography and the literary text, he revalued and reinvented, productively, the biographism, he did not avoid the appeal to the advantages of erudition and documentation, the use of the “weapons” of typology, the recourse to social-historical contextualization, the recourse to aspects related to narratology, etc. The carousel of angles and means of approach, their diversity and complementarity, happily compete for the meaningful outline of „total” critical approaches, of an impressive methodological synthesis, giving the feeling of completeness. The text of the communication tries to give an account of the way in which these procedures of the critic manifested themselves at the level of some of his books.

The Ottoman Dracula. Kazıklı voyvoda and the Construction of the Rebel and Evil in the Ottoman Empire

The crafting of such narratives involves sophisticated literary strategies and techniques that can sometimes overshadow the historical content, or even sacrifice it for stylistic effect. It was common for copyists to alter their sources, not merely reproducing but editing and interpreting them according to their literary preferences or aesthetic judgment. This tendency becomes more pronounced in later authors and compilers, who take the historical fabric and the dramatic structure of their sources, yet rework them into a form reflecting their personal style. Often, they might even modify the text’s substance by rearranging, omitting, or adding specific scenes or details.
 These issues have led many Romanian historians to give little credit to the Ottoman chronicles. For methodologies prioritising positivism or factual history, these sources are deemed less reliable than Byzantine or Western European ones. However, modern historiographical approaches, employing refined methodologies, can effectively utilise Ottoman chronicles. We must acknowledge that historical sources are not universally applicable for all types of historiographical discourse and cannot answer every question. Often, the nature of our sources dictates the kind of history that can be written with their support. 
 This paper attempts to pave the way for an alternative method and perspective of interpretation. The portrayal of political and military figures in official Ottoman writings can reveal insights into political thought, ideology, and propaganda. In our case, these narratives precisely illustrate how the Sultan justified his campaign against Vlad the Impaler. Such information cannot be provided by European chronicles, for instance. 
 Moreover, Ottoman chronicles provide insights into diplomatic relations and the exchange of ideas. On another level, concerning mental and social history, they reflect the expectations, fears, prejudices, or ideals of their audience. The authors of these texts did not create their works in isolation from contemporary political or cultural environment. Thus, they are voices of their era, encapsulating and mirroring its expectations. Their writing was crafted for consumption and success. Without this recognition, they risked obscurity, much like the poet Maʿali, who lamented in his dedication to the Sultan within his versed chronicle literarily about his “starvation”.

Fluency, prediction and motivation: how processing dynamics, expectations and epistemic goals shape aesthetic judgements.

What psychological mechanisms underlie aesthetic judgements? An influential account known as the Hedonic Marking of Fluency, later developed into a Processing Fluency Theory of Aesthetic Pleasure, posits that ease of processing elicits positive feelings and thus enhances stimulus evaluations. However, the theory faces empirical and conceptual challenges. In this paper, we extend it by integrating insights from predictive processing frameworks (PPF) and the epistemic motivation model (EMM). We propose four extensions. First, fluency of a stimulus depends on perceivers' expectations-their internal model of the world. Second, perceivers also form expectations about fluency itself and thus can experience surprising fluency. These expectations can come from the individual's history, their current task and their environment. Third, perceivers can value fluency but also disfluency, reflecting their non-directional epistemic goals. Fourth, perceivers also have directional epistemic goals, preferring specific conclusions or belief content. Consequently, affective reactions depend on whether the stimulus satisfies those goals. These directional epistemic goals may override concerns about fluency or change the value of fluency associated with specific content. We review supporting evidence and introduce novel predictions. By integrating insights from PPF and EMM, our framework can better capture established fluency effects and highlights their limitations and extensions. This article is part of the theme issue 'Art, aesthetics and predictive processing: theoretical and empirical perspectives'.

Modelling individual aesthetic judgements over time.

Listening to music, watching a sunset-many sensory experiences are valuable to us, to a degree that differs significantly between individuals, and within an individual over time. We have theorized (Brielmann & Dayan 2022 Psychol. Rev. 129, 1319-1337 (doi:10.1037/rev0000337))) that these idiosyncratic values derive from the task of using experiences to tune the sensory-cognitive system to current and likely future input. We tested the theory using participants' (n = 59) ratings of a set of dog images (n = 55) created using the NeuralCrossbreed morphing algorithm. A full realization of our model that uses feature representations extracted from image-recognizing deep neural nets (e.g. VGG-16) is able to capture liking judgements on a trial-by-trial basis (median r = 0.65), outperforming predictions based on population averages (median r = 0.01). Furthermore, the model's learning component allows it to explain image sequence dependent rating changes, capturing on average 17% more variance in the ratings for the true trial order than for simulated random trial orders. This validation of our theory is the first step towards a comprehensive treatment of individual differences in evaluation. This article is part of the theme issue 'Art, aesthetics and predictive processing: theoretical and empirical perspectives'.

Living Freedom: The Heautonomy of the Judgement of Taste

Abstract Different from the autonomy of understanding in cognition and the autonomy of practical reason in praxis, the heautonomy in the judgement of taste is reflexive. The reflexivity consists not only in the fact that the power of judgement legislates to its own usage but also, and more importantly, it legislates to itself through its own operative process. This normativity, based on the self-referential structure of pure aesthetic judgement and the a priori principle of subjective, internal purposiveness, can be regarded as a self-discovering and self-flourishing principle that organically grows out of the aesthetic experience and, at the same time, regulates its growth in return. In this scenario, aesthetic freedom can be identified as a third kind of freedom different from Kant’s transcendental freedom and practical freedom – a flexible and living freedom with spontaneous legislation, but not bound by any determinate laws.

Assessment of the possibility of imitating experts' aesthetic judgments about the impact of knots on the attractiveness of furniture fronts made of pine wood

Our research aims to reconstruct expert preferences regarding the visual attractiveness of furniture fronts made of pine wood using machine learning algorithms. A numerical experiment was performed using five machine learning algorithms of various paradigms. To find the answer to the question of what determines the expert's decision, we determined the importance of variables for some machine learning models. For random forest and classification trees, it involves the overall reduction in node impurities resulting from variable splitting, while for neural networks it uses the Garson algorithm. Based on the numerical experiments we can conclude that the best results of expert decision reconstruction are provided by a neural network model. The expert's decision is better reconstructed for more beautiful images. The decision for nice images is made based on the best 4 or 5 variables, while for ugly images many more features are important. Prettier images and those for which the expert's decision is better reconstructed have fewer knots.

The application of big data technology in the innovation and effect analysis of art teaching mode in colleges and universities

Abstract In this paper, for the common behaviors of students in classroom teaching, deep learning and the improved student behavior detection algorithm based on YOLOv5s are used to transform the source data into another high-level and high-abstract data expression to realize the detection of students’ behavior in class. Then, taking into account the real conditions of college students and the internal logic of deep learning and classroom teaching, we sort out the target conditions of college students’ deep learning and their brand-new requirements for college classroom teaching and innovate the art teaching mode in colleges and universities. The innovative art teaching mode is applied in the art classroom teaching of W College of Fine Arts, and the teaching effect is analyzed. The results show that the mean values of students’ evaluation in the five core literacy skills of image literacy, art expression, aesthetic judgment, creative practice, and cultural understanding increased by 12.6, 14.95, 17.66, 12.27, and 19.1 points after the innovation compared with those before the innovation. The above data show that the innovation of art teaching mode can enhance students’ motivation to learn and stimulate their creative passion, thus cultivating their creative ability, making students learn to inherit and carry forward the traditional culture of the Chinese nation, and enhancing their cultural self-confidence and national pride.

Stylising agency, identity and solidarities in South African English language classrooms

In a call for papers, the English Academy of Southern Africa (EASA) problematises what we perceive as the challenges of stylising agency, identity and solidarities in South African literature in English and English Language classroom encounters. The academy argues that speaking of literature and literacy in a single breath is to take for granted a linear relationship between literature and literacy. In interrogating ways of reading, this article contends that such proficiency is itself unstable and shifting, subject to different contexts and approaches inasmuch as these diverse ways are contingent upon material and technological changes. Literacy is a contested term: while it denotes the ability to read and write, a more nuanced understanding recognizes its capacity to confer value and influence aesthetic judgment. Already implicit in such an understanding is the mutually reinforcing relation between literature and literacy: the cognitive skillset which enables us to read is constantly being modified by what we read, and by the material forms which our reading takes. The entanglement of literature and literacy is embedded in cultures, compelling us to ask how particular teachers, writers and critical literary approaches shape our reading practices, our ways of seeing. The same entanglement generates questions about social justice, access to education, and material affordances.

Copyright as democracy of aspiration: Rethinking EU law’s approach to a protected “work”

Copyright has become flawed. Technical production hurdles have disappeared, so we live in a creator economy, where anyone can be an author. Legal boundaries become more important and need to be narrowed. But EU copyright law is developing in the opposite direction, encouraged by the ECJ case law. The concept of a “work”, which was supposed to protect valuable art, has become blurred; as well as works of art, copyright now protects digital traces of everyday life. This is not only a problem of legitimacy for copyright law itself, but entails risks for the fundamental rights of third parties since, in the digital age, we communicate more and more via copyright works. To mitigate these risks, the subject matter of copyright protection needs rethinking. Copyright must take its roots seriously: they lie in the literary, scientific, and artistic domain, as described by the Berne Convention.Without making aesthetic judgements, judges must determine whether someone’s work shows“a will to form”.To be accepted as a“work” and to be protected by copyright law, a subject matter does not need to be a masterpiece, but should at least aspire to be a valuable work. Copyright can thus be understood as “democracy of aspiration”. Copyright, intellectual property, concept of work, art, author’s rights, Berne Convention

Aesthetic Judgment, Embodied Rationality, and the Truth of Appearances: An Introduction to Roger Scruton’s Philosophical Anthropology

Aesthetic Judgment, Embodied Rationality, and the Truth of Appearances: An Introduction to Roger Scruton’s Philosophical Anthropology

Comparative aesthetic assessment of machine learning and human judgment for building wall designs

Machine learning models can potentially provide alternative options in the field of architecture as aesthetic judgment tools, owing to their high capacity and data-driven environments. If a machine learning model can produce aesthetic evaluation results similar to those of humans, the process may be highly promising for further applications in architectural decision-making. In this study, we propose a series of interconnected workflows for a rigorous comparison, including data collection, machine learning, parametric designs, robotic fabrication, and human surveys, to test the compatibility between human judgment and machine learning models in the aesthetic assessment of architectural objects on the same design objects. We observed a wide gap between the aesthetic judgments of the two groups. We discuss certain drawbacks and current limitations to improve the vulnerability of the study process and conclude by providing an outlook for the subsequent direction of a similar study.

Comparing Shape Representations for the Aesthetic Judgement of 3D Shape Pairs.

Visual aesthetics of 3D shapes is a fundamental perceptual attribute. In this paper, we explore the question of how different shape representations affect the aesthetic judgments of shape pairs. Specifically, we compare human responses to perceptual aesthetics judgements on 3D shapes in pairs presented in different 3D shape representation such as voxels, points, wireframe, and polygon. In contrast to our own previous work [8] that explores this question for a few shape classes, this paper analyzes a larger number of shape classes. Our key finding is that human aesthetics judgements on relatively low resolution of points or voxels are comparable to polygon meshes, which implies that humans can often make their aesthetics decisions based on relatively coarse representations of the shapes. Our results have implications towards the data collection process of pairwise aesthetics data and the further use of such data in shape aesthetics and 3D modeling problems.

The Hope of Agreement: Against Vibing Accounts of Aesthetic Judgment

Abstract Stanley Cavell’s account of aesthetic judgment has two components. The first is a feeling: the judge has to see, hear, or ‘dig’ something in the object being judged; there has to be an ‘emotion’ that the judge feels and expresses. The second is the ‘discipline of accounting for [the judgment]’, a readiness to argue for one’s aesthetic judgment in the face of disagreement. The discipline of accounting for one’s aesthetic judgments involves what Nick Riggle has called a norm of convergence: the judge aims to get one’s audience to taste, see, or hear what the judge tastes or sees or hears in the object being judged. Because of the unmistakable difficulty in reaching agreement in aesthetic judgment, Riggle has denied that aesthetic judgment requires a convergence norm and has proposed instead that it requires ‘a kind of harmony of individuality’ (which Riggle calls ‘vibing’). We argue that Cavell offers a version of the convergence norm that is distinct from those that Riggle criticizes, namely Kant’s demand for agreement and Andy Egan’s presupposition of similarity in dispositions in ‘non-defective’ aesthetic conversations. Cavell’s version of the convergence norm is ‘the hope of agreement’. One can hope that one’s audience will agree with one’s aesthetic judgments even when one isn’t in a position to demand agreement or to presuppose similarity in the dispositions that would make agreement more likely. Cavell’s distinct convergence norm avoids Riggle’s criticisms and contributes to a richer account of what’s going on when we disagree about aesthetic matters.

Cavendish’s Aesthetic Realism

This paper offers a new interpretation of Margaret Cavendish’s remarks on beauty. According to it, Cavendish takes beauty to be a real, response-independent quality of objects. In this sense, Cavendish is an aesthetic realist. In broad outline, I argue, this position remains constant throughout her writings. While there are passages in Cavendish’s work that might seem to count against this reading—specifically, passages on disagreement in aesthetic judgement, on the power of beauty to elicit the passions, and on our inability to specify the nature of beauty—I show that, when situated against the background of Cavendish’s broader metaphysical views, those passages in fact support the realist interpretation.

My Delicate Taste: Aesthetic Deference Revisited

Pessimists about aesthetic testimony argue that it is inappropriate to rely on other people’s aesthetic judgments in forming our own aesthetic beliefs. Some suggest that such reliance violates an epistemic norm, others that it violates a non-epistemic norm. In making their case, pessimists offer several arguments. They also put forward cases meant to elicit pessimist intuitions. In this paper, I claim that none of the main pessimist arguments succeeds against a plausible version of optimism, that is, the view that reliance on testimony in aesthetic matters is appropriate. However, I suggest also that pessimist intuitions have a certain pull that optimists must account for. My second task is to explain the force of pessimist intuitions by shedding new light on their source.