CLLAM seminarium: Nils Franzén, Umeå universitet

A variety of acts and mental states have been claimed to be problematic if they are aesthetic in nature and not based on first-hand experience. It has, for instance, been argued that knowing, or even merely believing, that a movie is good requires that one has seen it oneself. In this talk, I propose that neither knowledge nor belief with aesthetic content requires first-hand experience. However, states like appreciating or disliking (e.g. a movie) do so. I’ll offer a diagnosis of this requirement, according to which it is metaphysical, rather than deontic in nature. The problem is not that one should not appreciate artworks which one hasn’t seen oneself. Rather, it is not possible to do so. I offer an explanation of why this is the case.