Beyond Internalism / Externalism Dispute on Aesthetic Experience: A Return to Kant

Abstract

This paper consists of four parts. In the first part, I mention different ways in which one can view our aesthetic experience, and I elaborate upon a distinction that seems to be the most fruitful one, namely Shelley’s classification of the main views as internalist and externalist.41 In the past few decades, the externalist view has seemingly prevailed, and this was brought upon in part by Dickie’s criticism of Beardsley’s internalist position. However, one cannot fully grasp the argumentative significance and potential of aesthetic experience without including both elements. In the rest of the paper, I aim to show how, starting from Kant, we can go beyond the dispute between internalists and externalists. In the second part of the paper, I discuss internal elements of Kant’s conception of aesthetic experience and, at the same time, his argument for the universal validity of judgments of taste. In the third part, I put an emphasis on the key external component of his views – namely, the notion of the formal purposiveness, which pertains to the object we judge to be beautiful. In the fourth part of the paper, I discuss two main interpretations of Kant’s argument and his conception of aesthetic experience – Paul Guyer’s and Hannah Ginsborg’s. Neither interpretation takes into account the external aspects of aesthetic experience. This, as I claim, makes such conceptions vulnerable to the ‘everything is beautiful’ objection.