In a discussion about whether art or watches or what have you can be assessed from the standpoint of aesthetics, it certainly seems relevant. I just wanted to be sure you weren't saying subjective opinions are worthless because they can't be measured or that objective reality doesn't actually exist, etc.
I wish someone more conversant in philosophy than me would chime in about this debate. I'm just not getting how, here on a forum where people opine all the livelong day about items that trade for many times their material cost, there can be such resistance to the idea that the value judgments of large numbers of knowledgeable people can tell us something about aesthetic worth.
The idea that Mozart and Rembrandt are random winners of an ongoing popularity contest, and that some years from now a critical mass of people will decide that their works are garbage after all—this seems absurd, but it's apparent that not everyone agrees. Fashions change, opinions change, yes, but these truisms are irrelevant and don't refute the argument that aesthetics have intrinsic worth that can be debated meaningfully.
I did an A level in Philosophy and Theology, so I am happy to have a go. The above discussion between Archer and Tony, is not new, and even has its own branch of Philosophy called "Aesthetics". It broadly deals with the nature of Beauty and Taste.
There is an excellent write up in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Subjectivity vs Objectivity of beauty, and goes into more depth, than I could hope to (
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/beauty/#ObjSub) It is well worth a read, but I know that not everyone wants to read large amounts of (even abridged) Philosophy, so I will do my best here to surmise. It is worth reading this excerpt in particular however:
If beauty is entirely subjective—that is, if anything that anyone holds to be or experiences as beautiful is beautiful —then it seems that the word has no meaning, or that we are not communicating anything when we call something beautiful except perhaps an approving personal attitude. In addition, though different persons can of course differ in particular judgments, it is also obvious that our judgments coincide to a remarkable extent: it would be odd or perverse for any person to deny that a perfect rose or a dramatic sunset was beautiful. And it is possible actually to disagree and argue about whether something is beautiful, or to try to show someone that something is beautiful, or learn from someone else why it is.
On the other hand, it seems senseless to say that beauty has no connection to subjective response or that it is entirely objective. That would seem to entail, for example, that a world with no perceivers could be beautiful or ugly, or perhaps that beauty could be detected by scientific instruments. Even if it could be, beauty would seem to be connected to subjective response, and though we may argue about whether something is beautiful, the idea that one's experiences of beauty might be disqualified as simply inaccurate or false might arouse puzzlement as well as hostility. We often regard other people's taste, even when it differs from our own, as provisionally entitled to some respect, as we may not, for example, in cases of moral, political, or factual opinions. All plausible accounts of beauty connect it to a pleasurable or profound or loving response, even if they do not locate beauty purely in the eye of the beholder.
Like with most philosophy, the discussion started with Plato (in Symposium), it was carried on by Aristotle, Kant and Hegel, and then again in 20th Century Philosophy. The above four philosophers have probably had the biggest part in shaping Aesthetic thought, although there are countless papers on the subject. Philosophers can be generally partitioned into Subjectivists and Objectivistists.
Plato believed that there was a world of "forms", which was revealed in this world. Plato saw the physical world as a decaying copy of a perfect and changeless original. The beauty of a flower, or a sunset, is an imperfect copy of Beauty Itself. He believed that there was an objective standard of beauty, which we catch glimpses of in the things around us.
Artistottle was also an objectivist, and wrote on Aesthetics in his work Metaphysics. Unlike Plato believed that beauty resided in order and symmetry, how a maths proof might be beautiful perhaps, or a face might be symmetrical. Both believed that there was an objective standard of beauty.
Discussion continued throughout the medieval period and until the 20th century. The German Philosopher Emanuel Kant wrote the Critique of Taste, which started the "modern" philosophy on the subject, when I studied it I was told it was hugely important; I did not understand it. I find Kant's writings incredibly tedious but essentially he thought that beauty was found between the objective beauty and the subjective response to the beauty, he called this "Subjective Universality".
Hegel's theories of Aesthetics are also very important in the field. He said :"
Now when truth in this its external existence is present to consciousness immediately, and with the concept remains immediately in unity with its external appearance, the Idea is not only true but beautiful. Beauty is determined as the sensible shining of the Idea". This was an argument for Objective beauty. I did not study much Hegel, and don't pretend to understand this quote.
The modern take on the matter is that there is both a subjective beauty, a personal response, and an objective beauty. I think both Archer and Tony agree that there is a subjective response to beauty, I might find my cat with one eye beautiful, but I don't think he embodies objective beauty.
I think what Archer is trying to get at with his questioning is the following: If we assert that there is an Objective standard of beauty, how do we define it?
I think Hume in particular would respond to this that there is no need to define it. His argument for this is that there are pieces of art with objectively more artistic value than another, this therefore points to an objective ideal of beauty. To argue otherwise would be as to argue that a "mole-hill to be as high as Tenerife, or a pond as extensive as the ocean", as he puts it.
