Cova et al. (2019) have tested people's beliefs on aesthetic disagreement using experiments based on questionnaires. Since the vast majority of people chose answers that are incompatible with aesthetic intersubjectivism, Cova et al. claim that the aesthetics literature is misguided in assuming that ordinary people are intersubjectivists. Contesi et al. (2024) argue that those results are not in contrast with the aesthetics literature, given that folk intersubjectivism is generally understood as an implicit commitment, rather than an explicit belief; (...) its presence, therefore, cannot be inferred from people’s “explicit avowals”. Contesi et al. support their understanding of the literature by citing passages from contemporary philosophers. I argue that these passages fail to demonstrate that folk aesthetic intersubjectivism is regarded as implicit. (shrink)

There are two common reactions to Frege’s claim that some senses and thoughts are private. Privatists accept both private senses and thoughts, while intersubjectivists don’t accept either. Both sides agree on a pair of tacit assumptions: first, that private senses automatically give rise to private thoughts; and second, that private senses and thoughts are the most problematic entities to which Frege’s remarks on privacy give rise. The aim of this paper is to show that both assumptions are mistaken. This will (...) motivate a so far neglected, reconciliatory position between privatism and intersubjectivism according to which all thoughts are public while some senses are private. (shrink)

Within the debate on the epistemology of aesthetic appreciation, it has a long tradition, and is still very common, to endorse the sentimentalist view that our aesthetic evaluations are rationally grounded on, or even constituted by, certain of our emotional responses to the objects concerned. Such a view faces, however, the serious challenge to satisfactorily deal with the seeming possibility of faultless disagreement among emotionally based and epistemically appropriate verdicts. I will argue that the sentimentalist approach to aesthetic epistemology cannot (...) accept and accommodate this possibility without thereby undermining the assumed capacity of emotions to justify corresponding aesthetic evaluations – that is, without undermining the very sentimentalist idea at the core of its account. And I will also try to show that sentimentalists can hope to deny the possibility of faultless disagreement only by giving up the further view that aesthetic assessments are intersubjective – a view which is almost as traditional and widely held in aesthetics as sentimentalism, and which is indeed often enough combined with the latter. My ultimate conclusion is therefore that this popular combination of views should better be avoided: either sentimentalism or intersubjectivism has to make way. (shrink)

RESUMO -/- Este artigo discute duas variedades de interpretação para a teoria moral de Hume. De um lado, ela é representada como uma forma de subjetivismo e, de outro, como uma forma de realismo. Ao final, é proposto que esta filosofia pode ser melhor descrita como uma forma de intersubjetivismo. -/- ABSTRACT -/- This paper discusses two varieties of interpretations of Hume's moral theory. On the one side the attempt to represent Hume's moral theory as a form of the moral (...) subjectivism, on the other, as a form of realism. Finally, propose that Hume's moral philosophy may be rather described as a form of the intersubjectivism. (shrink)

... In Virtue byConsensus Vincent Hope sets out to correct this "serious imbalance in the usual estimation of the relative merit of Hutcheson, Hume and Smith" (p. 3). He argues that "Hume has been given too much prominence and his importance has been exaggerated" (p. 3). Hope is especially concerned to place more emphasis on Smith who, he says, "has received far less attention than he deserves" (p. 3). Hope suggests that his claim to offer something new on the work (...) of these thinkers rests, ultimately, on his "insights into the significance of the impartial spectator and the nature of the person he is meant to represent" (p. 2). In the final chapters of this book Hope sets out to develop "a new theory of virtue" on the basis of his critical analysis and discussion of the ideas of these three thinkers. According to Hope, the "main idea" of Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith "is that morality, and more particularly virtue, depends on a consensus based on the similarity of pleasure and displeasure which people respectively enjoy or suffer in observing how they treat each other. They assume that people's appreciation of virtue rests on shared feelings. Because of this individuals can check their moral judgments against each other: this is the only way in which they can confirm or correct their moral assessments"(p. 2). In relation to this matter, Hope argues that "the view which has prevailed for so long ... that Hutcheson and Hume [and Smith] are non-cognitivists, is wrong" (p. 3). These thinkers, Hope argues,"are neither objectivists nor in the simple sense 'subjectivists"('p. 5). They regard virtue and vice as qualities which are "subjective with respect, not to the individual, but the human species, or society,or the fair-minded"(p. 3). In other words,they advance and defend what Hope describesas "intersubjectivism"(p. 8). According to this account, our shared emotional makeup, and our capacity to take up a disinterested or impartial perspective on actions and characters,makes it possible for us to reason in this sphere and arrive at true moral judgments. Smith, Hope maintains, provides a considerable advance on both Hutcheson and Hume. .... (shrink)

This chapter demonstrates that G.W. Leibniz and Michal Polanyi’s creative work in multiple fields of attention may serve a twenty first century in need of scholars willing to put daring and speculative imaginative inter–disciplinary risks in play. Such a cultural development would activate a general and cross–cultural sensibility that may salvage knowledge work, which is often predicated on property and power, for instead intellectual work that would serve the production of multiple truths that may enliven the world and inspire it.