Qualitative Research on the Semantics of Aesthetic Judgments

The project is based on the methodological necessity of collaboration between philosophical and sociological aesthetics, not only in the empirical study of aesthetic evaluation but also in addressing questions of aesthetic axiology. The primary objective is a two-phase qualitative study of aesthetic evaluation and the justification of aesthetic judgments in relation to selected artistic and non-artistic forms (film and selected consumer goods), drawing on Werner Strube’s pragmalinguistic typology of aesthetic judgment. The research results will be used to (a) verify and revise the initial theory of aesthetic value; (b) provide a detailed, empirically grounded description of diverse aesthetic language games (i.e., various modes of aesthetic judgment and argumentation) and to analyze their structural similarities and differences; (c) examine the ways in which normativity is formed in aesthetic judgment; and (d) analyze the dependence of aesthetic judgment and argumentation on the relevant cultural context (i.e., the classification of the assessed object, its symbolic value, and cultural tradition).

Outputs

Pavel Zahrádka, Evaluating Food and Beverage Experience: Paradoxes of the Normativity. Eidos: A Journal for Philosophy of Culture 3/4 (2020): 99–112.