Definitions of Key Concepts
- Disinterestedness (Emily Brady's Account)
- Formalism: The only relevant aesthetic or artistic properties are formal ones (e.g., color, shape, harmony, balance) and nothing else is relevant
- Formalism (Stecker): To properly appreciate an artwork (or nature) one should attend to its form rather than content, where form is conceived as something immediately available to the senses (independent of background knowledge)
- Intrinsic value (or valuing): Valuable for its own sake (e.g., pleasure, friendship)
- Instrumental value (or valuing): Valuable as a means to something else (money, going to the dentist)
- Sublime: A kind of awesome, fearful, majestic beauty: Example and another
- Aesthetic Cognitivism: Knowledge/understanding is central to aesthetic appreciation