Albums You Would Consider "Art"

[skeptik]

Necratul, let me first say that I enjoy your arguments and respect your opinion, and I don't want you to view this as an attack in any way

That said, I think you're wrong. "Art" means a lot of things to a lot of people, but many of the posters here have begun using "subjective" as a byword to get them out of tough spots. Here's a few quick things I'd like to point out:

1. "Better" does not mean "X likes them more." I'm not trying to say you have to like Shakespeare more than Crichton, that's what the oft-abused phrase "entitled to your own opinion" means. What better means is greater in excellence or higher in quality or more highly skilled or adept. Sounds qualitative (note the word "quality"), but we can measure both those things, we just have to agree on a criteria. Which brings me to point 2.

2. Unless we adopt a totally arbitrary definition, I can objectively demonstrate that Shakespeare is the better author. According to any reasonable criteria, he is quantitatively a better writer. Here's some suggestions- enduring value? If you look at the readership he's maintained over the centuries, it's clear time is on his side. If the trends continue, millions of people are still going to be reading Shakespeare hundreds of years from now, but they will not be reading Crichton. Contributions to the English language? Shakespeare coined hundreds of phrases that are integral parts of English today. Crichton, to the best of my knowledge, has coined none. Vocabulary? No contest. Influence? Harder to measure, but once you agree on a criteria it will inevitably come down on Shakespeare's side (elements of his works are present in far more books, movies, etc than elements of Crichton's). You come up with a measurable criteria that we can agree upon and the Bard comes out on top.

3. In the grand scheme of things, people's opinions are not equal. Being able to present a valid argument for something requires a degree of education in the subject. No literary expert, writer, or critic, not even Crichton himself, would ever claim that Mike can be placed above Shakespeare. Or, on a more personal level, compare my opinion to trendkill's: I'll bet you'll find I'm more qualified. I don't know how you'd go about deciding that (Formal education, maybe? I have solid 800s in writing and critical reading on the SATs and another 800 on the SAT-II Lit test. Informal criteria, like number of books read, number of works published, or something?)

Basically, to quote some random internet guy, "if you refer to something as objectively better, you have to be able to identify objective standards by which the conclusion is reached. For a standard to be objective, many people would have to be able to apply it and reach the same conclusion."

Also, seriously, everybody needs to go read Macbeth, it may remove your will to fight.

I'll get back to this post later, but this is all actually rather stupid. Unless you can gather consensus from every person in the world (and even then), you won't ever have an actual "objective" criteria for measuring art. It is impossible and will never happen. Everybody that is not stupid knows what "better" means. However, many seemingly intelligent people seem to believe that what they like is in fact "better" than what others like, when in reality there is no possible way to show that what you like is "better" than others. You can only judge one piece over another by your own subjective criteria for judging art. I may value lyrics in art about cunts and AIDS and homophobia very highly, in fact, above all else, and would then consider Anal Cunt to be above all other musical projects, and you cannot fault my criteria as there is nothing objective that can supercede it.

As far as arbitrary definitions, the entire linguistic practice is arbitrary. I didn't read the rest of that section so I guess I'll have to get back to it later.

For your last point, regarding expert opinions, while it is again a (loosely) sufficient means, it is by no means objective, let alone certain. It is still subjective and, in fact, arbitrary. Expert opinions may be valued more than uneducated opinions, but it still does not wield ultimate authority.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand for your quote...go find me a complete objective criteria. Find me an algorithm in which I can plug two different pieces of art and get back the answer as to which is better. If you can't do this, you can't say that one thing is objectively better than the other.

 

[The Ozzman]

Macbeth sucked. Hamlet was better imo

 

[Zephyrus]

Julius Caesar is the best, but that's my subjective bias (to Roman history and the fortunate lack of a love story in that play).

Discussing the assessment of quality is an argument without end, but when discussing what is art, it is always ultimately subjective, especially when comparing two distinct examples.

I highly recommend that everyone who's interested in this subject read Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

 

[skeptik]

Now, to elaborate further:

1. "Better" does not mean "X likes them more." I'm not trying to say you have to like Shakespeare more than Crichton, that's what the oft-abused phrase "entitled to your own opinion" means. What better means is greater in excellence or higher in quality or more highly skilled or adept. Sounds qualitative (note the word "quality"), but we can measure both those things, we just have to agree on a criteria. Which brings me to point 2.

Better obviously does not mean "X likes them more." Nobody ever even implicitly imply this. In fact, it is so intuitively obvious that the way in which better is meant to be understand in this scenario is not agent-relative that it probably didn't need to be pointed out. Now, your definition of better, namely "greater in excellence or higher in quality or more highly skilled or adept," if we assume that it is agreed upon as a suitable (certainly not fully adequate) definition of "better", suffers some major problems. First, you cannot establish an objective criteria to measure it. Even complete agreement of a criteria by everyone in the world still does not amount to objectivity. So your criteria will still be agent-relative. Secondly, even if you are able to establish a universally agreed upon "objective" criteria, the judgment of these criteria will still be beholden to the determination and discretion of the critic with his own subjective bias. Finally, you use fantastic buzz words of qualitative measurement such as "greater," "excellence," "higher", "quality", "skilled," and "adept." However, how do you propose to determine what these words mean within the working confines of your definition of "better"? What makes one thing "greater" or "higher" than another? What constitutes excellence or quality, what skills are relevant? Many questions need to be answered, and they can't be answered objectively.

2. Unless we adopt a totally arbitrary definition, I can objectively demonstrate that Shakespeare is the better author. According to any reasonable criteria, he is quantitatively a better writer. Here's some suggestions- enduring value? If you look at the readership he's maintained over the centuries, it's clear time is on his side. If the trends continue, millions of people are still going to be reading Shakespeare hundreds of years from now, but they will not be reading Crichton. Contributions to the English language? Shakespeare coined hundreds of phrases that are integral parts of English today. Crichton, to the best of my knowledge, has coined none. Vocabulary? No contest. Influence? Harder to measure, but once you agree on a criteria it will inevitably come down on Shakespeare's side (elements of his works are present in far more books, movies, etc than elements of Crichton's). You come up with a measurable criteria that we can agree upon and the Bard comes out on top.

As I mentioned in my previous post, you are never going to escape the dilemma of arbitrary definitions because all definitions are inherently arbitrary. They may be practical (some moreso than others), but they are still essentially arbitrary.

As for your assertive claim that you can show that Shakespeare is a better writer by "any reasonable criteria", you are going to define what exactly makes a criteria one that possesses reason, and how it possesses it. You're also going to need to show what about reason in that criteria purports in all circumstances that one thing is better than another. If any reasonable criteria should be able to tell us that, than finding a single reasonable criteria that points toward Crichton being a better writer than Shakespeare would negate that statement fairly sufficiently, demonstrating that reason does not have a stranglehold on qualitative authority.

Now on to your suggestions for measurements: many of them are incumbent upon the observer to account for the discrepancies between the current age of literature and past ages. If you can't reconcile the differences, then it is unfair to compare a Renaissance writer to a contemporary one. The times were very different for reasons that I shouldn't even need to point out, such as availability of publication, literacy level of the populous, contemporary speech and vocabulary patterns and standards, etc. It seems likely that a popular writer among few popular writers will have a more enduring legacy than a popular writer among hundreds, if not thousands. The true trump of this enduring legacy argument, however, is this; popularity is not causationally relevant to quality. As a fan of Heavy Metal, this should be patently obvious. Britney Spears will have a more enduring legacy than The Lord Weird Slough Feg. Does this single criteria make Britney Spears the better musician? The fact of the matter is that the most brilliant piece of music ever written could very well have never been heard, and it would still possess the same superiority and greatness, so enduring legacy is thoroughly irrelevant to the matter. Contributions to the English language: is it honestly fair to compare the two? Is it incumbent upon a writer to contribute to the language as a whole in order to be a great writer? How is this at all relevant? Again, the time periods are more relevant to this difference than the quality of the writer. Vocabulary again is dependent upon the time period. People who writer in a Shakespearean manner today are often viewed as pompous assholes. Shakespeare's vocabulary was dependent upon his circumstances, not his immense writing abilities. Similar arguments can be made for virtually any measurement as arbitrary as the ones that you suggested.

3. In the grand scheme of things, people's opinions are not equal. Being able to present a valid argument for something requires a degree of education in the subject. No literary expert, writer, or critic, not even Crichton himself, would ever claim that Mike can be placed above Shakespeare. Or, on a more personal level, compare my opinion to trendkill's: I'll bet you'll find I'm more qualified. I don't know how you'd go about deciding that (Formal education, maybe? I have solid 800s in writing and critical reading on the SATs and another 800 on the SAT-II Lit test. Informal criteria, like number of books read, number of works published, or something?)

As for your thesis on "expert opinion," maybe you should further expand your "more qualified" formal education in terms of books read, since this is a widely accounted for topic in the modern era of philosophical writing. Expert opinion is still nevertheless opinion, and experts disagree. Just as the Greek gods do not all agree on what is a pious act, yet are all "experts" of the same sort, so too will experts of any field be likely to disagree on many things, and if expert opinion is in disharmony, it can hardly be claimed to be objective. Sure, you can contest that it is more qualified and even more prudentially accurate, which is all well and good in itself, but it's a far cry from objectivity. Remember that your own "expert opinion" is a result of a cumulative understanding gathered from the subjective eccentricities of scholars prior that have been passed down as the holy grail of knowledge to begin with. You are essentially saying that you are more knowledgeable about the opinions of others.

Basically, to quote some random internet guy, "if you refer to something as objectively better, you have to be able to identify objective standards by which the conclusion is reached. For a standard to be objective, many people would have to be able to apply it and reach the same conclusion."

For a standard to be objective in terms of art, those standards have to be universally agreed upon to be the standards first and foremost, let alone must be able to be so precise and free of agent-relative circumstances that even people of very different backgrounds can do nothing but reach the same conclusion. I defy you to present any criteria that even comes close to resembling this. The first statement is indeed true; in order for something to be deemed objectively better, one must identify objective standards. The problem is the objective standards; they don't exist.

Also, seriously, everybody needs to go read Macbeth, it may remove your will to fight.

I have read nearly all of Shakespeare's plays. Does that make me qualified? Simply thinking "wow, Shakespeare is a way better writer than Crichton" has nothing to do with determining in an objective manner that Shakespeare is a better writer than Crichton.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Fantastic post tbh

 

[Cythraul]

I'll get back to this post later, but this is all actually rather stupid. Unless you can gather consensus from every person in the world (and even then), you won't ever have an actual "objective" criteria for measuring art. It is impossible and will never happen. Everybody that is not stupid knows what "better" means. However, many seemingly intelligent people seem to believe that what they like is in fact "better" than what others like, when in reality there is no possible way to show that what you like is "better" than others. You can only judge one piece over another by your own subjective criteria for judging art. I may value lyrics in art about cunts and AIDS and homophobia very highly, in fact, above all else, and would then consider Anal Cunt to be above all other musical projects, and you cannot fault my criteria as there is nothing objective that can supercede it.

As far as arbitrary definitions, the entire linguistic practice is arbitrary. I didn't read the rest of that section so I guess I'll have to get back to it later.

For your last point, regarding expert opinions, while it is again a (loosely) sufficient means, it is by no means objective, let alone certain. It is still subjective and, in fact, arbitrary. Expert opinions may be valued more than uneducated opinions, but it still does not wield ultimate authority.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand for your quote...go find me a complete objective criteria. Find me an algorithm in which I can plug two different pieces of art and get back the answer as to which is better. If you can't do this, you can't say that one thing is objectively better than the other.

I don't really understand your kind of view. Sure one can decide nonarbitrarily whether one work of art is better than another given that they assume more fundamental ideas which may be "arbitrary" or not epistemically justified.

But the same is the case with all our inquiry. We employ value concepts in our inquiries all the time. They're a part of inquiry. The ultimate, grounding assumptions of our inquiries lack the justification that less fundamental ideas derive from them. Value notions are part of those fundamentals. If you undermine these notions in one domain you undermine them in all domains. So what is one to do? I, for one, choose the view that does minimal damage to my overall worldview.

 

[skeptik]

Can you word that more clearly? I'm not entirely sure what you're saying. I don't think that I was undermining anything aside from the idea of a complete, disinterested objectivity of quality, and I don't see that as a problem.

 

[Cythraul]

Can you word that more clearly? I'm not entirely sure what you're saying. I don't think that I was undermining anything aside from the idea of a complete, disinterested objectivity of quality, and I don't see that as a problem.

I'm saying that the evaluative notions that you criticize for being subjective are found in the concepts we employ in every area of inquiry we engage in. You undermine every kind of inquiry by criticizing these notions as subjective.

You can determine if something is better than something else given that you already assume a bunch of propositions about what all these evaluative terms mean and that they're not simply empty notions. It seems to me that you're criticizing the part that's assumed as not being objective. But in every area of inquiry you have to assume such notions before you're able to arbitrate between theories. Justification, reasonableness, rationality, and evidence are all normative/evaluative concepts. I imagine we could apply your sorts of arguments against these concepts too.

As an aside, I should point out that the concepts I mentioned are thick value notions (they have a descriptive and an evaluative component) as opposed to thin value notions (merely evaluative, e.g. good, awesome, dope, bad, etc.). Still, I don't think this makes much difference.

 

[skeptik]

You seem to be inferring from my post that I'm suggesting that there is essentially nothing meaningful that can be said whatsoever in any field. This is not the case; all that I'm saying is that it is silly to say something like "Type O Negative is an objectively high quality band." Objective, of course, in the broadest sense, as I've said earlier. I believe that what I have said is true, that there is no true, universal, disinterested objective reality. That, however, in no way negates or diminishes art criticism or any other field for that matter. We simply work within the confines of our closest approximations that we have. This is the same thing with science. We don't know for certain that anything that we know is true, but as far as our measures can tell, they are as good as true and are useful measurements upon which actions can be based. I never said anywhere that the assumptions that we make are bad or unnecessary, but it is, by degrees, relatively arbitrary. Assumptions are a necessity in nearly all fields, and by this token they possess no truly objective truth, but that is because it simply doesn't exist. I'm not sure how this damages your worldview, especially since it seems intuitively obvious to me that there is no objective truth in such categories as art criticism, but I don't think that it should pose any threat to your worldview.

 

[S<issors]

You can determine if something is better than something else given that you already assume a bunch of propositions about what all these evaluative terms mean and that they're not simply empty notions. It seems to me that you're criticizing the part that's assumed as not being objective. But in every area of inquiry you have to assume such notions before you're able to arbitrate between theories. Justification, reasonableness, rationality, and evidence are all normative/evaluative concepts.

Cyrathul makes the point I reached for much more elegantly.

Seeing as you agree that "we simply work within the confines of our closest approximations that we have" I would argue that the term "Shakespeare is a better writer than Crichton" carries enough interpersonal/intercultural consensus about its meaning and its truth value that I can refer to it as an epistemologically objective (and true) statement. I think that you may be using "objective" in a broader, more metaphysical sense than I am, seeing as you have stated repeatedly that objective truth doesn't exist (whereas it obviously does in the epistemological sense)...

I'll get back to this post later, but this is all actually rather stupid. Unless you can gather consensus from every person in the world (and even then), you won't ever have an actual "objective" criteria for measuring art. It is impossible and will never happen. Everybody that is not stupid knows what "better" means.

...and that would appear to support my impression. Incidentally, that's an amusing illustration of the overarching debate

 

[skeptik]

Cyrathul makes the point I reached for much more elegantly.

Seeing as you agree that "we simply work within the confines of our closest approximations that we have" I would argue that the term "Shakespeare is a better writer than Crichton" carries enough interpersonal/intercultural consensus about its meaning and its truth value that I can refer to it as an epistemologically objective (and true) statement. I think that you may be using "objective" in a broader, more metaphysical sense than I am, seeing as you have stated repeatedly that objective truth doesn't exist (whereas it obviously does in the epistemological sense).

I still don't think that that statement holds any objectively meritable truth. It still reduces to a matter of opinion unless you can determine a universally agreed upon measurement of qualitative writing, and even then there is a degree of superficiality. Universal subjective agreement doesn't automatically equate to objectivity.

There are certain facets of writing, of course, that are relevant to quality, but at the same time, the quality of these facets are in themselves relative to interpretation, so I honestly don't see how the statement can be made with any degree of objective weight to it. You can determine by your own objective measures that one artist is better than another, certainly, for example, Iron Maiden makes better use of harmonic interplay than VON. But is this true in all cases at all times for all people? Do all people value harmonic interplay equally? Do all people value the same facets of this quality? No, of course not. In other words, I strongly disagree with the notion that one can state an evaluative judgment (essentially, opinion-based) concept in any sort of universally objective manner.

Unlike scientific or observational objectivity, such as identifying the size, shape, weight, mass, texture, etc. of an object, where the "redness" "roundness" of an object is more or less indisputable, qualitative judgments are almost always in dispute. Unless you can put in place very narrow boundaries, such as defining the function of a vacuum cleaner as picking up dirt and defining the excellence of a vacuum cleaner as proper performance of its function, thereby being able to determine that the vacuum that picks up more dirt is the "better" vacuum, it's nigh impossible to claim objectivity regarding qualitative claims, and this is most (and primarily) obvious in the area of art. Even in the case of the vacuum cleaner, however, not everyone may agree on the previously laid out definitions. If the same conclusion cannot be reached in all cases at all times, its claim to objectivity is at best superficial. Even if it can make this claim, I do not believe that it must necessarily be objective.

 

[Krilons Resa]

EDIT: Fight to the death about the definition of art, I guess.

LMAO

 

[Pessimism]

Unlike scientific or observational objectivity, such as identifying the size, shape, weight, mass, texture, etc. of an object, where the "redness" "roundness" of an object is more or less indisputable, qualitative judgments are almost always in dispute. Unless you can put in place very narrow boundaries, such as defining the function of a vacuum cleaner as picking up dirt and defining the excellence of a vacuum cleaner as proper performance of its function, thereby being able to determine that the vacuum that picks up more dirt is the "better" vacuum, it's nigh impossible to claim objectivity regarding qualitative claims, and this is most (and primarily) obvious in the area of art. Even in the case of the vacuum cleaner, however, not everyone may agree on the previously laid out definitions. If the same conclusion cannot be reached in all cases at all times, its claim to objectivity is at best superficial. Even if it can make this claim, I do not believe that it must necessarily be objective.

.

If I dot anymore of your posts, it's going to look like I'm sucking your cock on the side of any of the opinionated arguments on this site (lol).

 

[NinjaGeek]

I think the reason that old work is considered better than new work is because older artists have the advantage of being pioneers. Because they did it first they get lots of credit. I'm sure there have been composers who've made more complex or better music than mozart, but because they're just techniques they learned from him, it's not really considered better. New artists are at a bit of a disadvantage because a lot of the proper ways to do things well have already been discovered and attempts to be different and improve upon the knowledge of an artform end up being weird and avant-garde in most cases.

It would be nice if we could just say fine lets just look at the final product not how much struggle the artist put into it. But if say, I remake citizen kane shot for shot like it was in the original and bring in a few slight cinematography improvements that have been developed since then, I think most people would agree that the original was better.

 

[Cythraul]

You seem to be inferring from my post that I'm suggesting that there is essentially nothing meaningful that can be said whatsoever in any field. This is not the case;

I'm not attributing that view to you; I'm pointing out what I see to be a consequence of your view.

all that I'm saying is that it is silly to say something like "Type O Negative is an objectively high quality band." Objective, of course, in the broadest sense, as I've said earlier. I believe that what I have said is true, that there is no true, universal, disinterested objective reality. That, however, in no way negates or diminishes art criticism or any other field for that matter. We simply work within the confines of our closest approximations that we have. This is the same thing with science. We don't know for certain that anything that we know is true, but as far as our measures can tell, they are as good as true and are useful measurements upon which actions can be based. I never said anywhere that the assumptions that we make are bad or unnecessary, but it is, by degrees, relatively arbitrary. Assumptions are a necessity in nearly all fields, and by this token they possess no truly objective truth, but that is because it simply doesn't exist. I'm not sure how this damages your worldview, especially since it seems intuitively obvious to me that there is no objective truth in such categories as art criticism, but I don't think that it should pose any threat to your worldview.

Ok, well now you seem to be applying your position to make a more general point which seems to be along the lines of the criticism I was making. I think it should be clear why I'd think such a view is damaging to my worldview. If you're basing your entire inquiry on a set of "arbitrary", undefended assumptions, then there's no way your beliefs have any objectivity aside from a sort of conditional objectivity. How is that not worrying? More to the point of what I was discussing earlier, if it is not possible to rationally maintain belief in the objectivity of a value proposition, then what am I now supposed to think of science which employs such notions (at the very least implicitly)? It's damaging to my worldview because I take science to be one of the pinnacles of objectivity. It's just a bad consequence. I realize it's a really abstract kind of thing to worry about, but it's still worrying to me.

You don't have to take what I'm saying too seriously. I admit that what you've been saying in this thread has some intuitive plausibility to me. I'm just throwing some ideas out there that I think might pose a problem.

 

[S<issors]

Necratual, it seems to me that according to your definition of "objective" versus "subjective" (that is, an absolute and metaphysical definition in which they are in direct oppoisition to each other) there is no room for accomodating objective observations of subjective concepts, like opinions or language. If you are prepared to agree that words have typical and assigned meanings (which it seems you are, since you thought mentioning the meaning of "better" was so unneccesary as to be irrelevant) in the public conciousness, I think that you could view Shakespeare as being on a different level than Crichton for a similar reason: his superiority is a deeply ingrained concept throughout most English-speaking cultures. It may be difficult to "measure" in a specific sense, but it's not particularly difficult to see that the field of scholarly criticism elevates him far above Crichton, according to the "objective" (not in the metaphysical, absolute sense) criteria that they use to make their judgements, and that field is the closest thing we have to a dispassionate system of asthetic measurement. Since critical agreement on this matter is nearly universal, and that sort of universal consensus is really the only thing that has determined things as instrinsic to our culture as the language we speak, I think that it's fair to label Shakespeare the better writer in a state of epistemological objectivity- the same kind of "objectivity" involved in good reporting. Once again, it's clearly not objective in the absolute sense.

 

[skeptik]

I'm not attributing that view to you; I'm pointing out what I see to be a consequence of your view.

I think that you might be seeing a bit more than is there.

Ok, well now you seem to be applying your position to make a more general point which seems to be along the lines of the criticism I was making. I think it should be clear why I'd think such a view is damaging to my worldview. If you're basing your entire inquiry on a set of "arbitrary", undefended assumptions, then there's no way your beliefs have any objectivity aside from a sort of conditional objectivity. How is that not worrying? More to the point of what I was discussing earlier, if it is not possible to rationally maintain belief in the objectivity of a value proposition, then what am I now supposed to think of science which employs such notions (at the very least implicitly)? It's damaging to my worldview because I take science to be one of the pinnacles of objectivity. It's just a bad consequence. I realize it's a really abstract kind of thing to worry about, but it's still worrying to me.

You don't have to take what I'm saying too seriously. I admit that what you've been saying in this thread has some intuitive plausibility to me. I'm just throwing some ideas out there that I think might pose a problem.

Isn't scientific objectivity conditional in itself, dependent upon our current findings being accurate? Going back to the necessary assumptions that you mentioned earlier, Hume said that it is irrational to assume that the sun is going to rise tomorrow, no matter how intuitively obvious and historically likely it is; on the other hand, it is perfectly reasonable to do so, because the likelihood based on what we know is so thoroughly pointing toward the sun rising that it would almost be foolish (or would be foolish) not to plan your day based on the idea that there will be sunlight. What I'm saying is that while human capacity may not have access to the objective truths of the universe, we are in the right to make assumptions based on the closest approximations of those objective truths that we do have access to. Science knows that it can never be absolutely certain that it is right. It's a follower of fallibilism at its core, I feel, but that in no way puts it at a standstill, and should not.

I also don't think that recognizing that one cannot objectively say regarding two pieces of art that one is "better" than the other negates the scientific/observational ability to objectively say that an object is round.

Necratual, it seems to me that according to your definition of "objective" versus "subjective" (that is, an absolute and metaphysical definition in which they are in direct oppoisition to each other) there is no room for accomodating objective observations of subjective concepts, like opinions or language. If you are prepared to agree that words have typical and assigned meanings (which it seems you are, since you thought mentioning the meaning of "better" was so unneccesary as to be irrelevant) in the public conciousness, I think that you could view Shakespeare as being on a different level than Crichton for a similar reason: his superiority is a deeply ingrained concept throughout most English-speaking cultures. It may be difficult to "measure" in a specific sense, but it's not particularly difficult to see that the field of scholarly criticism elevates him far above Crichton, according to the "objective" (not in the metaphysical, absolute sense) criteria that they use to make their judgements, and that field is the closest thing we have to a dispassionate system of asthetic measurement. Since critical agreement on this matter is nearly universal, and that sort of universal consensus is really the only thing that has determined things as instrinsic to our culture as the language we speak, I think that it's fair to label Shakespeare the better writer in a state of epistemological objectivity- the same kind of "objectivity" involved in good reporting. Once again, it's clearly not objective in the absolute sense.

While I recognize the prudential value of scholarly evaluative judgment in lauding Shakespeare over Crichton, I still don't see how it amounts to any but the most informal of understandings of any objective measure. I think the issue is that you're looking at this as a major problem, when it really isn't. Just because you can't objectively say that one is better than the other doesn't mean that you can't think, and effectively argue persuasively, that one is better than the other in an informal manner. There are a plethora of worthy arguments for the prudential value of placing Shakespeare above nearly all other writers, and I feel that he is rightfully praised as such, and I don't think that certain objectivity negates this value.

 

[naboo]

I'd honestly call all of the albums I own art. At least the ones where I can feel the passion of the artist (I couldn't for the life of me call Korn art).

That being said, there's WAY too many to list.

EDIT: Hmm, didn't realize there was a heated debate going on haha.

 

[Cythraul]

Isn't scientific objectivity conditional in itself, dependent upon our current findings being accurate?

The term 'objectivity' is ambiguous. Going by one use of the term what you're saying is correct. We might say that the results of science are objective if they correctly describe what the world is like. We might also say that the methods and assumptions that guide scientific inquiry are objective if they are free of subjective bias and are truth conducive. If you think that the success of science or the fact that it often correctly describes the world is not mere accident then its methods and assumptions have to be objective in the second sense I described. Still, disregarding the truth of any scientific theories, my worldview includes the belief that the methods and assumptions of science are objective.

Going back to the necessary assumptions that you mentioned earlier, Hume said that it is irrational to assume that the sun is going to rise tomorrow, no matter how intuitively obvious and historically likely it is; on the other hand, it is perfectly reasonable to do so, because the likelihood based on what we know is so thoroughly pointing toward the sun rising that it would almost be foolish (or would be foolish) not to plan your day based on the idea that there will be sunlight.

The Humean problem you just mentioned (the problem of induction) is actually more difficult than your characterization would suggest. It is in fact not reasonable to try to vindicate inductive reasoning by appealing to likeliness since that is circular reasoning.

What I'm saying is that while human capacity may not have access to the objective truths of the universe, we are in the right to make assumptions based on the closest approximations of those objective truths that we do have access to. Science knows that it can never be absolutely certain that it is right. It's a follower of fallibilism at its core, I feel, but that in no way puts it at a standstill, and should not.

I don't think certainty is necessary for objectively justified beliefs. I also wouldn't suggest we stop doing science. I think that would be foolish.

I also don't think that recognizing that one cannot objectively say regarding two pieces of art that one is "better" than the other negates the scientific/observational ability to objectively say that an object is round.

There's a level of science that seems free of the kind of value discourse I was talking about. That level we might call observation. But actually I don't think that level is free of what I'd call normative/value discourse. Assessing an observation and deciding whether it counts as evidence for a theory implicitly involves normative notions, which are importantly connected to value notions. Even then, observation is only one small part of science. Normative/value notions are more apparent in discussions about theories and meta-discussions of science. Still, they're notions that are employed in science.

edit: How the hell did this get so off topic?

 

[skeptik]

I'm not even sure what the hell you're talking about at this point and I think that you're just reading too much into what I'm saying or getting hung up on words that we may be using in different ways (mine being more non-standard because what I'm saying is more just based on my own thought processes rather than an extensive amount of reading on the subject), so I'm just going to say that we probably don't actually disagree, but just misunderstand each other.

And to get this thread on to some kind of topic, I'm going to redefine the thread topic as "albums that are 'artistically' relevant in terms of progression, advancement, sophistication of concept, and other such bullshit". Somebody please feel free to better define what I'm trying to say since I don't have the mental stamina to be doing this right now.