# A Sensible Experientialism?  ## Metadata - Author: [[James Grant]] - Full Title: A Sensible Experientialism? - Category: #articles - Summary: insert summary - My notes: - Document Tags: [[favorite]] - Summary: The author discusses how the artistic merit of a work is linked to the value of the experience it provides. He argues that while some aspects of a work may confer artistic merit, they do not always determine the final value of the experience. Ultimately, the value of a work's artistic features contributes to the experience's final value, but not all of the experience's value results from the work's artistic merit. - URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/phpr.12903 - Source File: Sensible Experientialism by James Grant.pdf ## LLM Chats ## NotebookLM ## LLM Audio ## Highlights > Here I argue that all of these objections fail. I develop a new form of experientialism that is immune to them. It also has an independent rationale. It incorporates an account of the value of art appreciation that is plausible in its own right. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j81xxsq9r1ene43j53an47my)) > For something to have final value is for it to be good in itself to some extent, or an end in itself.[1](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/phpr.12903#phpr12903-note-0001_note_0) Experientialism can be about artistic merit, aesthetic value, or both ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j81xywkb5gmqbnqgywdf5e8x)) > Experientialism in aesthetics is the view that the artistic merit or aesthetic value of something is determined by the final value of certain experiences of it. These experiences are usually specified as experiences of it with understanding and appreciation. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j7wyk4tr6cq87dtzwj225w0r)) > Suppose the experientialist endorses the first option. Then experientialism says both that the experience has the value it has because it is of the work, and that the work has the value it has because of the experience. This leads to circularity. The natural explanation of why being of the work gives the experience value is that the work has value. But then experientialism must say both that the value of the work derives from the value of the experience, and that the value of the experience derives from the value of the work. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j7wyq0aasz1pbveyts28yzh5)) > There is no apparent reason why an experience that something other than the work, such as a drug, is disposed to bring about could not have the same value-conferring feature. That experience would have the same value as the experience of the work. But then experientialism implies that the drug would have the same value as the work. That is absurd. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j7wyr2z4h6252xzbvm7c3h71)) > On this view, being the intentional object of an experience is a necessary condition of having aesthetic value or artistic merit determined by the value of that experience. This requirement is suggested by the very definition of experientialism, according to which the artistic merit or aesthetic value of something is determined by the final value of certain experiences *of it*. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j81yb8pfjryj8e49h6a88hsd)) > Experientialists should not say that whatever is disposed to bring about an experience has aesthetic value or artistic merit determined by the value of that experience. They should say that something has aesthetic value or artistic merit determined by the value of an experience only if it is the intentional object of that experience. When you hallucinate, the drug is not the intentional object of your experience. What you hallucinate is. So if anything has aesthetic value or artistic merit determined by the value of the experience, it is not the drug. It is the object in your hallucination. And it is not absurd to say that you could have a drug-induced hallucination of an object with the same aesthetic value or artistic merit as *Starry Night*. You could, after all, hallucinate *Starry Night* itself. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j7wysx6vxjvfs5zv41j7a9r8)) - Note: this seems important > Experientialists can impose other necessary conditions of having aesthetic value or artistic merit.[7](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/phpr.12903#phpr12903-note-0007_note_6) But they needn't say that being disposed to bring about an experience is a sufficient condition of having artistic merit or aesthetic value determined by the value of that experience. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j81yp9vptrmtjz55a7ahmc26)) > It is plausible that the appreciative experience of the work has final value because the work has final value. At least, if the work has final value at all, the experience's value can be explained by this. Being an experience of an artwork with understanding and appreciation of it for features that give the work final value (such as beauty, imaginativeness, and expressiveness) gives the experience final value because these features give the work final value. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j81ysshj7m313ed0pznfsd0h)) > Seeing your children happy and healthy, and appreciating this rather than being too busy to be moved by it, is a finally valuable experience if anything is ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j81ytn0mf5jf1bbrs65fve5x)) > It is true that experientialists should not say simply that the experience has final value because the experience is dizzying and disturbing. Rather, they should say the experience has final value because it is an experience of a work with understanding and appreciation of it for features that give it final value, such as its moral eloquence. Being such an experience is a feature of the experience, not a feature of the work, though the features for which the work is appreciated are features of the work. So we have not abandoned experientialism in giving this explanation. That the experience is appreciative of the work for features that give it final value is a perfectly intelligible explanation of why the experience has final value. It attributes a feature whose *tout court* attribution to the experience implies that the experience has value.[12](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/phpr.12903#phpr12903-note-0012_note_11) ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j81zc8psmk211kwc1zpqt3x3)) > Sometimes, people take “appreciate” just to mean “enjoy.” This is not how I am using it. Appreciation is normative. It is what is sometimes called “proper appreciation.” It involves (at least) responding to the work in ways it merits and for appropriate reasons. So not all enjoyment is appreciative, because not all works that are enjoyed merit enjoyment, or are enjoyed for the right reasons. Moreover, not all appreciation is enjoyment. Properly appreciating a work that merits shock involves being shocked by it. Finally, not all appreciative experiences are valuable. Being bored by features that merit boredom, and give the work no value, is not an experience with final value.[13](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/phpr.12903#phpr12903-note-0013_note_12) ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j82jhvf4nyrqmppb148qmz4j)) > Appreciative experientialism expresses a simple idea: artistic merit derives from the value of appreciating final value. Appreciating the finally valuable is finally valuable, whether the thing appreciated is art, your child playing, a scientific achievement, or a kind person. The theory avoids objections by sharply distinguishing some from all. Not all of the work's value derives from the experience's final value. Only its artistic merit does. Not all of the experience's final value determines the work's artistic merit. Only the final value it has in virtue of being appreciative of final value does. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j81zpgdzmvzvnrv7z6mnwxv2)) > The objection makes a mistake that should be familiar by now. It treats experientialism as if it must say that *the total value* that the original's artistic merits give it derives from the value of the experience. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j820b7eb71h4d6a8e5w0gyk7)) > Some might be drawn to experientialism because they think the value of anything non-mental, like art, derives from the value of something mental, like an experience. Many philosophers, especially hedonists, have held this view. Since experientialism is often presented as a kind of hedonism, you might think this must be the motivation for it. If, like me, you see no appeal in this psychologizing picture of the valuable, you might regard experientialism as a non-starter. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j820p8nf58cv20bjktnsgr9q)) > The thought is simply this: art is made to be experienced. Paintings are made to be looked at. Music is composed to be listened to. Plays are produced to be watched. Literature is written to be read. And so on. And if paintings, for instance, are made to be looked at, good paintings will be good because looking at them is a good experience. Quite generally, what things of a certain kind are made for tells you what makes them good of their kind. That knives are made to cut with tells you what makes something a good knife. That cars are made to be driven tells you what makes something a good car. And for something to be good art (good poetry, a good painting, good theatre, etc.) is for it to be good of its kind. Therefore, art's artistic merit—its goodness of its kind—must derive from the value of the experience it affords. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j820rbwpabqqkyda78yx5a2v)) > It leaves unanswered the charge that someone who grants that art is made to be experienced, but denies that anything about the experience determines artistic merit, is like someone who grants that knives are made to cut, but denies that anything about how a knife cuts determines how good a knife it is. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j82s1705yg73bk4bn46smbwv))