On Disagreement in Aesthetics

In Wittgenstein's Lectures on Aesthetics there is a discussion of the idea that there might be a science of aesthetics that would tell us what things are beautiful. Wittgenstein is reported to have commented that this idea is ‘almost too ridiculous for words’, adding, ‘I suppose it ought to include also what sort of coffee tastes well’ (L&C, II: 1– 2). It is a commonplace that it is pointless to try to resolve matters of taste by an appeal to commonly accepted standards. I suppose the reason most of us would give for this is that people's taste, whether in coffee or in works of art, simply varies too much. In other contexts, however, mere variation of opinion does not stop us trying to settle our differences: if engineers disagree on the correct dimensions of a bridge, they do not throw up their arms in despair but work even harder at arriving at a consensus. Again, pervasive and persistent disagreement in politics does not preclude debate, rather the opposite. In government procedures are introduced for reaching, if not agreement, at least decisions. So the conventional argument for the futility of looking for a method for resolving matters of taste does not get to the point.

Those engineers have to get the bridge built, and it will be tested in practice. They probably feel responsible, or will be made responsible, for the end result. Also, they expect that calculations and measurements will eventually settle their disagreement if they keep at it (provided the requirements are specific enough); the expectation that this is so, we might say, belongs to our picture of the world. In government, on the other hand, there are rules for reaching a decision which are external to the matter at hand: the issue is resolved by majority vote or is left in the hands of the appropriate authority. Evidently, our response to disagreement varies from one type of case to the other, depending on the significance of our agreeing or failing to agree, on the place of agreement and disagreement in a context of life, rather than simply on the extent or frequency of agreement or its opposite.