Are Aesthetic Terms Ungovernable?

Abstract

In the preceding chapter I discussed a distinction between terms the correct application of which it seemed appropriate to ascribe to some special aesthetic sensitivity and terms the application of which seemed to require only the normal five bodily senses and a normally endowed mental capacity. I called the former “taste-terms,” and the latter “non-taste-terms,” and I shall continue to do so, though it must be borne in mind that in so doing I will be using a coined word. I shall mean by a taste-term a term the correct application of which requires a special ability to, as Sibley puts it, notice or see or tell that things have certain qualities. And, as I have tried to show, “taste” does not ordinarily mean that at all. But no harm will be done so long as my use of “taste” is not confused with the ordinary use; so long as no conclusions are drawn which are said to follow from the concept (or concepts) of taste embodied in ordinary language.