Aesthetic Judgment: A Pragmatic View

Abstract: This essay stages a critique of Michael W. Clune’s A Defense of Judgment , raising problems with its theoretical assumptions, interpretive methods, and literary readings. At the same time, the essay offers a counterproposal for a theory of judgment premised on incommensurability, meaning attuned to the contingency of aesthetic values, to the context of their perception, and to their uses for different purposes. The anticapitalism of this pragmatic (and pragmatist) view derives from neither a presumed equality of artworks nor from a hierarchy that ranks them, but rather from a radical embrace of the sociality and incommensurability of art—particularly in the classroom.