Wittgenstein and Aesthetic Responses

What is it about?

Wittgenstein asserts that aesthetic responses are not causal. They name the objects or targets of feelings rather than their causes, and are not open to experimental revision. One cannot break the object down into distinct components and match particular parts to the response. Changing a work of art produces an entirely new object and a new response; changing so much as a word in a text changes its meaning and effect. But many critics do respond to expressive, affective or connotative aspects of particular words (and contemplate ‘merely’ stylistic changes), and our response to artworks can change even without the work changing, such as when we learn who the author is, or that a painting is a forgery. Critics can identify the targets of their aesthetic responses, which makes their responses causal hypotheses, although these are valid only for the particular critic and the particular occasion, and do not rest on any causal aesthetic norms.

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