Trust in Aesthetic Testimony

Abstract: This thesis has two main aims. The first is to examine the kinds of circumstances in which we form new aesthetic beleifs in light of deference to aesthetic testimony. The second aim is to examine some of the implications of forming aesthetic beliefs through deference to aesthetic testimony. I develop an analysis of the problems associated with the idea of aesthetic testimony in relation to the notion of trust. I argue that there is a failure to adequately acknowledge the nature, role and value of the trust we place in the testimonies of others in the current debate. This thesis proposes a revisionary accout of such trust and shall outline the implications relevant to our aesthetic practices. The idea that we might rely on testimony for the purposes of forming our aesthetic beliefs has historically been met with widespread resistance in philosophy. Nevertheless, there is an increasingly influential response which is emerging in aesthetics. This response holds that aesthetic testimony does not, in fact, operate altogether differently to standard non-aesthetic testimony with regards to aesthetic belief formation, and there is nothing epistemically untoward about deference to aesthetic testimony which follows from the nature of aesthetic beliefs. This increasingly common view goes a long way towards defending the epistemic status of appealing to aesthetic testimony. Nevertheless, it also generates new obstacles and problems for deference to aesthetic testimony in other respects. In particular, it holds that deference is not conducive, or not particularly conducive to the optimal kinds of aesthetic engagement under considerations which bear on aesthetic value. The increasingly common response advances claims in which the positive epistemic implications of deference are typically taken for granted whilst the positive aesthetic implications are downplayed. I shall show, by contrast, that we cannot take positive epistemic implications of deference for granted - although positive epistemic implications can be found, whilst some significant positive aesthetic implications which have hitherto been overlooked should be recognised.