Taste and Judgement
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I take the chronology of aesthetics as a history of attempts to underwrite unsustainable notions of objectivity. The chapter will consider taste and (aesthetic) judgement under eight destinations to which the relation has been directed throughout the history of aesthetics in the West since Plato, though the ends in mind have not always been articulated, and to that degree, have continued to exercise an unhelpful influence, even dominance, over the enquirer. These categories, are: (i) objective enquiry: in which evaluation is presumed to aim at some universal, objective standard (ii) preceptive enquiry, in which it is assumed that the precepts governing an enquiry will be disclosed in the course of that enquiry (iii) anticipatory preceptive enquiry: declaration is made at the outset of the principles of judgement which will govern an enquiry (iv) élitism :the standards of judgement embraced by a select group are considered to be equivalent to good taste (v) consensual enquiry: judgement is thought to be equivalent to what most contemporaries value (vi) contestational enquiry: what counts as fair judgement and good taste is taken to be a matter of egalitarian struggle for influence among competing contemporary interests (vii) legacy good taste is considered to be wholly or partly a consequence of venerable past judgements: taste as heirloom (viii) arbitrariness: judgement is as disseminatory as language itself, and good taste taken to be a more or less arbitrary attribution of value. In the second part of the chapter I consider taste and judgement from a perspective which offers a model of criticism which should not so readily succumb to the illusion of objectivity.