The Very Idea of Seriousness

Datos Bibliográficos

ID21603151
AutoresNat Hansen (0000-0001-5074-1075, University of Reading Edith Morley Building, Whiteknights, Reading U.K., autor de correspondencia), Zed Adams (0000-0003-0820-0106, Department of Philosophy The New School for Social Research 6 East 16th Street, New York NY U.S.A.)
Año2026
Volumen34
Número2
Páginas545-558
Fecha de publicación2026-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEuropean Journal of Philosophy (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0966-8373 • E-ISSN: 1468-0378
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/ejop.70082
OpenAlexW7143503357
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas14

What norms govern aesthetic conversations? In Hansen and Adams (2024), we argue for a norm we call, following Stanley Cavell, “the hope of agreement”, along with a requirement of “seriousness”, the “discipline of accounting for one's judgments”. Nick Riggle criticizes the hope of agreement and the requirement of seriousness and defends a norm of “community” in which aesthetic conversations involve “discretionary valuing” in a “mutually supportive way”. In this essay, we elaborate on the importance of seriousness as a constitutive norm for aesthetic conversations. We argue that conversations can satisfy Riggle's community norm without being aesthetic conversations, and that his rejection of seriousness leads him to miss what is distinctive about aesthetic conversation. A fundamental problem with Riggle's “communitarian” theory of aesthetic value and norms governing aesthetic conversations is that it is in fact much more individualistic than conversations governed by the hope of agreement and seriousness. We propose that the kind of community involved in aesthetic conversations is better understood as a democratic experiment

Aesthetic value · Individualism · Seriousness · Environmental Philosophy and Ethics · Ethics, Aesthetics, and Art · Philosophical Ethics and Theory