The Presumption of Optimism

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter begins with a discussion of the pessimist who maintains that it is not necessary for them to support their view by appeal to argument, since it is the natural default position with respect to aesthetic testimony. It argues that this view is mistaken and that there should, on the contrary, be a presumption of optimism. The chapter surveys, and rejects, some candidate motivations for taking pessimism to be the default view. In particular, it focuses on attempts to motivate pessimism by appeal to the claim that, in contrast to other areas where testimony is uncontroversially acceptable, we typically don’t form aesthetic judgements on the basis of testimony. It is then argued that this claim is mistaken and that we frequently do form aesthetic judgements in this way. The chapter then goes on to motivate a presumption in favour of optimism by appeal both to this descriptive fact and to the difficulties which the pessimist encounters in taking the role of testimony in aesthetics to be so markedly different from the role of testimony in (most) other domains. Finally, it argues that there is not only reason to accept a presumption in favour of optimism but also good grounds for endorsing constitutive version of optimism (according to which the optimistic view of aesthetic testimony is entailed by the very nature of aesthetic judgement).