humanities.philosophy.objectivism

On Apr 10, 7:34 am, "Robert J. Kolker"
wrote:

> David Schwartz wrote:

> > If you add 3 to 7, you get 10 but if you add 3 to 9, you get 12. Is
> > the result of adding three to a number therefore a matter of opinion?
> > Of course when you do two completely different things you will get
> > completely different results.

> Everyone who knows the meaning of the numbers will agree with the
> results.

They will agree that if you add 3 to 9 you get 12. But they will not
agree that if you add three to their height you get 12.

> The fact that there is disagreement about what is beautiful and
> what is not shows that the matter of beauty is a matter of opinion.

So people disagree over what is beautiful *to* *me*? There is no
disagreement. "That painting is beautiful to X" does not disagree with
"That painting is not beautiful to Y". The only 'disagreement' would
be of two people disagreed over whether a painting was beautiful to a
particular person, but they could just as well disagree over that
person's *height*.

These disagreements just show what we all agree to -- beauty is not
intrinsic.

> Aesthetics, like ethics has no grounding in physical law. Therefore it
> need not be taken seriously since it is based on the arbitrary and
> conventional.

At one time, when we said the sky was blue, all we meant was that it
looked blue to us. We now have a much better understanding of color,
but the lack of such an understanding does not justify saying that
color is arbitrary or conventional.

Is the sky blue because nothing special about the light it emits makes
it blue other than that, by convention, we call such light "blue" mean
that colors are based on the arbitrary and conventional?

DS