[Keneldil the Polka-dot]

I think there is an important but subtle distinction to be made here. You can on the one hand say that the aggregate opinion constitutes a nearly objective standard of art, and then impose that standard on individual subjectivity. In that case your original individual subjectivity more or less disappears, surviving only insofar as it affects the aggregate opinion.

That is a very good point. I was struggling with that idea while writing my last post and couldn’t come up with a succinct way to say it. Thanks. Is it the death of subjectivity then? Hmm...perhaps so, but only a death so far as a “nearly” objective standard can kill it. Kind of a vicious circle: aggregate subjective opinion = quasi-objective opinion which in turn affects the individual subjective opinions, thereby abolishing pure subjectivity. My theory is starting to sound like sophistry, not sound reasoning.

The aggregate opinion is constantly changing. That doesn’t seem to lend itself to objectivity. In the Victorian era, portly women were considered the standard of beautiful for women. Obviously that is no longer the standard for beauty today.

So what do you get when you add a bunch of subjective opinions together then? Just an aggregate subjective opinion? Now we are back to no objectivity in art. Too bad you don’t want to argue for objectivity, might help clear this up some. I stated the individual personality disappears in the aggregate opinion. I can’t come up with anything wrong with that. If the individual personality disappears, doesn’t subjectivity disappear also, and leave objectivity of a sort?

Anyway, to other issues:

In the first case, you essentially have an objective standard of art, and it makes sense to say that Michelangelo's opinion is better than the truck driver's (because it is closer to the aggregate opinion); but you must also acknowledge that one work can be better than another

Better in terms of the group. As I have said, I think this semi objective thing operates only on the group level (which in turn operates on the individual...aaahh my head [img]smilies/mad.gif[/img] ). At the individual level you are always going to find those who do not conform, and you cannot tell them that their opinion is not just as valid as anyone else’s, or any group’s for that matter. Kinda seems to make the whole thing moot doesn't it?

Now we're talking about meta-subjectivity! It's interesting (and correct) that you call your judgement of the two opinions subjective. So you might value Michelangelo's opinion more, but does that make it better or only better to you? Of course, on the meta-level, we have all the same questions we have on the base level: is there an aggregate opinion regarding Michelangelo's opinion? If so, does the popularity of his opinion make it better (in a manner analogous to the popularity of a work of art making it better)? Etc.

Meta-subjectivity...fabulous. The problems are consistent at each level. So to simplify perhaps we can do away with opinions, opinions on opinions, and go back to considering only art itself? As if that makes it any easier. The solution (if there is one) should lend itself to all levels.

Your realize, I hope, that this criterion necessarily leads to the conclusion that, say, Britney Spears is better than Mozart. I personally find that conclusion to be quite unacceptable.

That made me laugh out loud. Right there is enough to throw this whole thing in the trash. Way back when I fomented this mass of verbiage I said I didn’t like where it was going. There is something wrong with my premise.

There is an assumption made by the statement “individual personality disappears becoming an objective consensus.” It assumes that there will in fact be some kind of consensus. That must be false. If it were possible to poll all of humanity no doubt opinions would be scattered, presenting no majority. You could probably identify trends based on social, cultural, regional, etc. factors. Perhaps within those subsets some kind of group objectivity exists.

. If I make any statement of fact, it seems to me that that is equivelant to my stating that I think that fact is true

Thinking something is true and having it actually be true are two different things. Stating an opinion that is thought to be true is not the same as stating a fact. I guess my point in that section of my last post boiled down to this : how can someone say that a writer who has entertained (entertainment being the purpose of fiction) thousands of people is bad? A person could say “I don’t like his stuff,” and be fine. I’m saying a person cannot say “He is a bad writer,” and be making a legitimate, factual statement. There is proof to the contrary. There truly is a difference between saying “I THINK Author X is a bad writer,” and “Author X is a bad writer.” The difference is in putting forth the one as an opinion, and attempting to put forth the other as fact. When you say “2+2 = 4” you don’t say “I think 2+2=4.” Maybe I need to be slapped with the semantics stick here.

Well, I don't think that art is inherent in the universe.

This is a whole different can of worms. In order to accept my rudimentary idea (I haven’t thought much about it in order to flesh it out) you’d need to accept that the universe has a Creator. Without having that much common ground it would be impossible to convince each other of anything.

I think that humans are similar enough that what is aesthetically pleasing to one, once all interfering factors are removed, will be aesthetically pleasing to another.

Maybe that is what I have been trying to say all along. That idea would fit with my “inherent in the universe/ imbued by a Creator” idea.

There is no reason why popularity in and of itself confers any of these mistifying epithets upon a work of art.

How does it not? I am forced to quote myself again:

I wish this were true. I fear you give human beings more credit for being free thinkers than we deserve. Advertising works precisely because what you are saying is false. What is popularly seen as beautiful does indeed come to define beauty. Popularity provides the concept of beauty that gets asserted

But the fact that we do not know something does not mean that it does not exist.

I went beyond simply not knowing. I said if the standard was impossible for us to discern then for all practical intents and purposes it does not exist. When I said “impossible to discern” I meant literally impossible. Not merely beyond our reach at the present time, as in Kalessin’s examples to the contrary.

I don't think so. If they really had "a different God" that would mean that two Gods exist. What they have is a different opinion about God.

Who’s to say two God’s don’t exist? No…I’m kidding, I’m not trying to start that argument up here. Within the framework of two people discussing that issue, there would need to be common ground to start from. If the Bible is accepted as that common ground, then the issue is concluded and is not a subjective point. If the Bible is not accepted, then basically the two people are talking about two separate concepts of God and are therefore arguing apples and oranges. My point in that part of my post was that Kalessin’s examples to the contrary were not truly subjective ones and therefore could not be used in comparison with the issue of art.

Can popularity really change the nature of beauty, or does it merely change what people believe beauty to be? Still, I take your point that popularity can be taken to constitute a conception of aesthetics.

What is beauty if not the conception of aesthetics? I reiterate my example way back at the beginning of this post of the Victorian standard for a beautiful woman.