ON THE ASYMMETRY BETWEEN POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE AESTHETIC JUDGEMENTS: A RESPONSE TO DADEJÍK AND KUBALÍK

In an earlier article published in this journal, I was concerned with the question of whether aesthetic value judgements about works of art can be justified with reference to their non-aesthetic features.1 In this context, I thus couldn’t but draw on Frank Sibley’s well-known thesis asserting that ‘there are no non-aesthetic features which serve in any circumstances as logically sufficient conditions for applying aesthetic terms’, because ‘aesthetic or taste concepts are not in this respect condition governed at all’.2 Now, if this thesis is true, then aesthetic judgements cannot be justified, at least not with reference to the work’s non-aesthetic features, because justification or explanation presupposes a generalization (rules or conditions) and this is just what Sibley’s thesis precludes.3 Naturally, the thesis was met with adverse reactions from philosophers who were committed to theories of art evaluation with objectivist leanings. Among them, I have chosen Eddy Zemach as the most vehement critic of Sibley’s thesis because he marshalled most arguments to show that Sibley is wrong. I have argued that although most of Zemach’s criticism misses the point, the scope of Sibley’s thesis has to be restricted to positive aesthetic judgements, if counter-examples are to be avoided. In other words, although I believe that Sibley’s thesis is valid for positive aesthetic judgements it does not hold for descriptive aesthetic concepts just as it does not apply to negative evaluative aesthetic concepts, which are governed by conditions or rules.4 In their ‘Critical Note’, which was published in the last issue of this journal, Ondřej Dadejík and Štěpán Kubalík argue that I am wrong on both counts.5 On the Asymmetry Between Positive and Negative Aesthetic Judgements: A Response to Dadejík and Kubalík

I shall follow Dadejík and Kubalík in dealing with each of the two issues separately, yet before doing so, I would like to pause at their declaration of intent at the very outset of their article, since it is already here that something goes astray. They write: ' Unfortunately, this strange complaint cannot be ignored as an isolated blunder.
For not only does it reappear, 8 but it also seems to form the backbone of most of Dadejík and Kubalík's argumentation, which nearly always boils down to the claim that I am wrong because Sibley has written that aesthetic concepts are not governed by conditions. As one reads on, it becomes apparent that my critics blame me for not accepting that the term 'aesthetic concepts' just means 'concepts that are not governed by conditions' , which they (mistakenly) take as Sibley's criterion for distinguishing between aesthetic and non-aesthetic concepts and for them is an indubitable article of faith.

I. DESCRIPTIVE AESTHETIC CONCEPTS
As to the question of descriptive aesthetic concepts, I have sided with Eddy Zemach that it is possible to state non-aesthetic conditions for concepts like 'dynamic' , 'dramatic' , 'moving' , or 'tragic' , which appear on Sibley's list of typical examples of aesthetic concepts. I gave an example of a non-aesthetic description of Clarence Brown's film version of Anna Karenina, which was, in my opinion, sufficient to warrant 'the conclusion that the film is dynamic, dramatic, moving, and tragic' . 9 My critics picked the term 'tragic' , and argued that in this case 'tragic' was not used in the aesthetic sense, because it just denoted the genre of tragedy (which for them is not an aesthetic concept), and that in its aesthetic use it would have to be 'a negative aesthetic concept' which expresses 'what a bad work of cinema this movie was' . 10 Leaving aside the question of the plausibility of this claim, or the question of how they would account for 'dynamic' , 'dramatic' , and 'moving' , and whether Sibley really put 'tragic' on his list because he considered 6 Ibid.,207. 7 This includes also Dadejík and Kubalík's own interpretation, even though I don't think it is reasonable. 8 For example, my critics claim that 'Sibley's thesis does not apply to negative evaluative aesthetic judgements' is rejected because 'this view fails to comport with […] Sibley's account of the aesthetic ' . Ibid.,209. it an example of a negative aesthetic verdict, let me point out that in Dadejík and Kubalík's 'Critical Note' one can discern two distinct claims: (1) that my conclusion that descriptive aesthetic concepts are governed by rules happens to be wrong because on closer analysis it turns out that their use is not aesthetic, and (2) that it must be wrong since aesthetic concepts cannot possibly be governed by rules because of the meaning of the term 'aesthetic concepts' .
Concerning the first claim, I have anticipated this kind of objection. That is why at the very end of my argument leading to the conclusion that 'Zemach is right and Sibley is wrong as far as descriptive aesthetic terms are concerned' , 11 I added the following proviso: 'One could forestall this conclusion by insisting that the aesthetic concepts I have termed "descriptive" are not really aesthetic, that aesthetic concepts require normative import in order to qualify as aesthetic.' 12 I am not going to deliberate here on how reasonable or unreasonable such a position could be, since, as I have indicated, I do not consider it important. 13 As I wrote in the very last sentence on the problem of descriptive aesthetic concepts: 'Be that as it may, my argument […] does not depend on taking a position on this matter. ' 14 I thus could, theoretically speaking, concede this point to my critics. But I am not going to do this, because their ultimate reason for rejecting the claim that aesthetic descriptive concepts could be governed by rules is based on their second claim, that is, on their stipulation that the term 'aesthetic concepts' just means'concepts that are not governed by rules' . Hence, it follows that the expression 'aesthetic concepts that are not governed by rules' would be a contradictio in adjecto, which is a conclusion I cannot accept. This also raises the question of how Dadejík and 17 and it is this interpretation, which I have, as they say, misunderstood and failed to appreciate. 18 They are right that I have not appreciated it, and the reason is that under such an interpretation Sibley's highly interesting, important, and provocative thesis 19 that aesthetic concepts are not governed by conditions would turn into a tautology -namely, the claim that concepts not governed by conditions are not governed by conditions. This has a solid ring of truth, but philosophically it is hardly electrifying.
One should also note that if Dadejík Dadejík and Kubalík,'Some Remarks' ,207,208. 18 Ibid., 206, 208. 19 It is provocative in the sense that if, according to Sibley, aesthetic properties depend on the non-aesthetic ones, then why should describing these non-aesthetic properties be irrelevant for a correct application of aesthetic concepts? 20 For example, Sibley writes: 'I cannot in the compass of this paper discuss the other types of apparent exceptions to my thesis. Cases where a man lacking in sensitivity might learn and follow the rule […] ought to be distinguished from cases where someone who possesses sensitivity might know, from a nonaesthetic description, that an aesthetic term applies. I have stated my thesis as though this later kind never occurs because I had my eye on the logical features of typical aesthetic judgements and have preferred to over-rather than understate my views. ' Sibley,'Aesthetic Concepts' ,433. 21 Ibid. Sibley seems to have softened his position even further, when at the end of his later article, 'Aesthetic and Nonaesthetic' , he concludes that the 'kind of "justification" of aesthetic judgements by means of generalizations could not […] be supplied for all such judgements' (p. 158, emphasis in the original). 22 Dadejík and Kubalík, 'Some Remarks' , 206. 23 Sibley, 'Aesthetic Concepts' , 432, quoted in Dadejík and Kubalík, 'Some Remarks' , 207. 24 Dadejík and Kubalík, 'Some Remarks' , 207. by further examination and analysis of the distinction that somehow eventuates into a criteria for distinguishing aesthetic concepts with the final conclusion that 'aesthetic concepts' mean 'concepts that are not governed by rules' . Leaving aside the difficult question of how one could establish such a conclusion, let me note that Sibley's rejection of defining aesthetic concepts or even characterizing them by the absence of rules relating the two kinds of concepts could hardly be only his starting point in 'Aesthetic Concepts' , since this rejection (including the above passage quoted by Dadejík and Kubalík) comes from his later article 'Aesthetic and Nonaesthetic ' . 25 Before quoting Sibley on all this, let me point out that, if one wants to investigate the relationship between aesthetic and non-aesthetic concepts (and this is what Sibley is about), one just cannot define or even characterize one of these in terms of the others or by any relationship between the two kinds of concepts. The distinction between aesthetic and non-aesthetic has to be either taken as given or it has to be established independently of the relationship between them, for otherwise such an investigation wouldn't make sense. This is just a plain common sense. One just cannot identify aesthetic concepts as concepts not governed by conditions that can be stated in non-aesthetic terms, because then the whole project would be pointless. Sibley was naturally well aware of all this. I believe that he wrote the following passage just to forestall interpretations of his thesis such as the one Dadejík and Kubalík have presented. This is what he says: It should be noticed also that to discuss the relationship between my two sorts of concepts, the two sorts must be identified independently of such relationship. One could not distinguish aesthetic concepts from others by the fact that they lack a certain relationship to those others. I have taken the two types to be adequately indicated by my original examples and by what was said briefly about sensitivity or taste. I have not examined or analysed the distinction further, and since the arguments of this paper take it as given, they cannot be regarded as helping to explain the difference or to say what aesthetic sensitivity consists in. 26 It thus seems that Dadejík  instance, that what happens on the stage during the first three minutes is repeated without any change during the two hours long performance, we can be reasonably sure that the play is boring. 27 And if we are told that some woman's nose is more than six inches long, that her left eye is grey and the right one pink, that her pale cheeks are sprinkled with boils, and her twisted smile reveals three brown teeth, we may conclude that she is ugly. My third example was the concept of 'kitsch' (which can be contrasted with an 'exquisite work of art'), the correct application of which, as I have argued elsewhere, 28 conforms to the three conditions that can be stated in non-aesthetic terms as follows: '1. Kitsch depicts objects or themes that are highly charged with stock emotions; 2. The objects or themes of kitsch are instantly and effortlessly identifiable; and 3. Kitsch does not substantially enrich our associations relating to the depicted objects or themes.' 29 I suspect the reason why Dadejík and Kubalík have not tried to discredit these examples is that one of them happens to be almost identical with Sibley's own counter-example to the unrestricted validity of his thesis. Here it is: 'Perhaps a description like "One eye red and rheumy, the other missing, a wart-covered nose, a twisted mouth, a greenish pallor" may justify in a strong sense ("must be", "cannot but be") the judgments "ugly" or "hideous". ' 30 Sibley is actually closer to my position than Dadejík and Kubalík would allow him to be. For he also writes that 'with certain aesthetic terms, especially negative ones, there may perhaps be some rare genuine exceptions when a description enables us to visualize very 27 In other words, any play that will satisfy the above-mentioned non-aesthetic conditions will be boring. 28 Tomas Kulka, 'Kitsch' , British Journal of Aesthetics 28 (1988): 18-27, andKitsch andArt (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996). 29 Kulka, 'Why Aesthetic Value Judgements' , 21 (quoted from Kitsch and Art, 37-38). Each of the three conditions are considered necessary; jointly they are taken as sufficient. 30 Sibley, 'Aesthetic Concepts' , 433n6. fully, and when what is described belongs to a certain restricted class of things, say human faces or animal forms' .
It thus seems that here the only difference between Sibley's position and mine is that he claims that such examples are rare and inconsequential while I believe they are frequent and important. While according to Sibley 'such cases are marginal, form a very small minority, and are uncharacteristic or atypical of aesthetic judgments in general' , 31 I think that negative aesthetic judgements are just as frequent (both in art criticism and outside the realm of the arts) as the positive ones, and that 'ugly' is just as a typical example of an aesthetic concept as 'beautiful' is. I also do not suppose that such negative aesthetic judgements depend on the full visualization of the object. On the basis of Sibley's description of a face or my sketch of a theatre play, we know that the face is ugly and the play boring irrespective of how fully we can visualize them. Concerning the boring play, I don't have to visualize anything, and although I can't help visualizing something regarding the ugly face, my conclusion need not be based on any specific mental image. The example of kitsch and a boring theatre play also demonstrates that such judgements are not confined to human faces or animal forms, and the example of kitsch alone shows that it does not apply to a 'restricted class of things' , since 'kitsch' may denote a larger class of objects than the term 'exquisite work of art' .
In any case, I take it that it has been demonstrated that at least some negative aesthetic judgements can be justified, that is, that they are governed by conditions. The question is, how to account for this fact? Why can we formulate non-aesthetic specifications that can serve as sufficient conditions for a correct application of negative aesthetic concepts but not for the positive ones? Why should there be an asymmetry between positive and negative value judgements with respect to their justification? Or, as Dadejík  These examples show that the uniqueness of aesthetic features is not enough for ruling out rules. 38 In other words, from the fact that all aesthetic properties of works of art or objects of aesthetic evaluation (like human faces) are unique, it does not follow that all aesthetic judgements are not governed by rules. The reason is that the true claim that, for example, every ugly face is unique (its ugliness differs from all other ugly faces) is perfectly compatible with another true claim that all 34 They write: 'Why can only positive evaluative aesthetic terms be characterized as not being governed by rules? There has to be a reason for this split. But Kulka says nothing more about this. ' Dadejík and Kubalík,'Some Remarks' ,209. 35 Ibid., 210. 36 Sibley, 'Aesthetic Concepts' , 434-35, quoted in Dadejík and Kubalík, 'Some Remarks' , 210. 37 Kulka, 'Why Aesthetic Value Judgements ' , 15-16. 38 I have to admit that I was not quite clear about this and that it was only thanks to the challenge of Dadejík and Kubalík's 'Some Remarks' that I have fully realized this fact.

Tomáš Kulka
Estetika: The Central European Journal of Aesthetics, LI/VII, 2014, No. 1, 00-00 human faces that satisfy the above-stated non-aesthetic conditions will be ugly (even though each will differ from every other ugly face that satisfies the same conditions). Thus although every face, theatre play, or painting is unique, one can state, as we have seen, sufficient non-aesthetic conditions for ugly faces, boring plays, or kitsch paintings, 39 even though Sibley's thesis holds for beautiful faces, fascinating plays, or exquisite works of art.
Sibley's thesis applies to aesthetic success but not to aesthetic or artistic failures. For Sibley is right that the merits of exquisite works of art may result from the fact that their non-aesthetic properties 'are combined in a particular and unique way; that the aesthetic quality depends upon exactly this individual or unique combination of just these specific colors and shapes' , 40 but, as we have seen, this is not true of artistic failures or aesthetic misfits, where many features may be exchanged with others, without affecting their 'badness' .