Trust in Aesthetic Testimony

Trust in Aesthetic Testimony Trust in Aesthetic Testimony Rebecca Wallbank Dissertation presented at Uppsala University to be publicly examined in Wednesday, 9 June 2021 at 14:00 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The examination will be conducted in English. Faculty examiner: Professor Derek Matravers. Abstract Wallbank, R. 2021. Trust in Aesthetic Testimony. 218 pp. Uppsala: Department of Philosophy, Uppsala University. ISBN 978-91-506-2877-7. This thesis has two main aims. The first is to examine the kinds of circumstances in which we form new aesthetic beleifs in light of deference to aesthetic testimony. The second aim is to examine some of the implications of forming aesthetic beliefs through deference to aesthetic testimony. I develop an analysis of the problems associated with the idea of aesthetic testimony in relation to the notion of trust. I argue that there is a failure to adequately acknowledge the nature, role and value of the trust we place in the testimonies of others in the current debate. This thesis proposes a revisionary accout of such trust and shall outline the implications relevant to our aesthetic practices. The idea that we might rely on testimony for the purposes of forming our aesthetic beliefs has historically been met with widespread resistance in philosophy. Nevertheless, there is an increasingly influential response which is emerging in aesthetics. This response holds that aesthetic testimony does not, in fact, operate altogether differently to standard non-aesthetic testimony with regards to aesthetic belief formation, and there is nothing epistemically untoward about deference to aesthetic testimony which follows from the nature of aesthetic beliefs. This increasingly common view goes a long way towards defending the epistemic status of appealing to aesthetic testimony. Nevertheless, it also generates new obstacles and problems for deference to aesthetic testimony in other respects. In particular, it holds that deference is not conducive, or not particularly conducive to the optimal kinds of aesthetic engagement under considerations which bear on aesthetic value. The increasingly common response advances claims in which the positive epistemic implications of deference are typically taken for granted whilst the positive aesthetic implications are downplayed. I shall show, by contrast, that we cannot take positive epistemic implications of deference for granted - although positive epistemic implications can be found, whilst some significant positive aesthetic implications which have hitherto been overlooked should be recognised. Keywords: Trust, aesthetic testimony, aesthetic belief Rebecca Wallbank, Department of Philosophy, Aesthetics, Box 627, Uppsala University, SE-75126 Uppsala, Sweden. © Rebecca Wallbank 2021 ISBN 978-91-506-2877-7 urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-440401 (http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-440401) Acknowledgements I feel extremely lucky. I am surrounded by the most amazing people, to whom I owe so much. I would like to start by thanking my supervisors, Elisabeth Schellekens Dammann and Andrew Reisner, who have provided invaluable philosophical guidance, inspiration, and unwavering support. Your encouragement means the world to me, and I cannot express my gratitude enough for all you have done. I am also very grateful to Thi Nguyen, Nick Wiltsher, and Jon Robson, for reading early drafts of this thesis and for providing me with insightful comments, which helped shape the final product. Particular thanks is owed to Fabrice Teroni and Julien Deonna and all the philosophers at Thumos at Université de Genève. I had a wonderful research stay, and I learnt so much. I thank Andy Hamilton, as well, for helpful lock- down discussions and for encouraging me to pursue a PhD. And I want to express my immense gratitude to Guy Dammann, who has gone above and beyond to help proof read this text. I have had the good fortune to speak at many interesting conferences. I would particularly like to thank the participants at the ASA Annual Conference 2020, especially Madeleine Ransom for her excellent commentary on the paper I presented and Keren Gorodeisky for her valuable further correspondence. My mum and dad, and my sister Nel have always been at the other end of the phone at any time, night or day, and I am so grateful to them. I give my sincerest thanks to Michael Walton, Maria Keki, and Simon Craven for providing art inspiration. And, of course, I would like to give my thanks to my lovely friends, whom I owe a great deal for preserving my sanity: Karl Bergman, Anna Folland, Nils Franzén , Irene Martínez Marín , Carl Montan, Jeremy Page, Henrik Rydhén, Olle Risberg, Sebastían Reyes Molina, Maarten Steenhagen, and Nick Wiltsher. Special thanks is due to Kate Adair and Thea Crawshaw for their trips out to Sweden and to Steph Jones and Leo Kim Sonia. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the generous financial support that I have re- ceived from the Erik and Gurli Hultengrens Stiftelsen, the Helge Ax:son Johnsson Stiftelsen, the Selggren Stiftelsen, the Jonas Samzelli Memorial Fund and the Selma Anderson Stiftelsen. Contents Introduction ................................................................................................... 11 0.1 Interactions with testimony ........................................................ 12 0.2 Concerns about Aesthetic Testimony ......................................... 16 0.3 Motivations and Methodologies ................................................. 19 0.3.1 (i): Where do our intuitions align? ........................................ 21 0.3.2 (ii): Should we use intuition pumps? ..................................... 22 0.3.3 (iii): Do we need intuition pumps? ........................................ 23 0.3.4 (iv): Have our intuitions been reliably tested? ...................... 24 0.4 The Nature of Testimony ........................................................... 26 0.4.1 The Narrow View .................................................................. 26 0.4.2 The Broad View .................................................................... 28 0.4.3 The Moderate View ............................................................... 29 0.5 Introductory Summary ............................................................... 32 1 Chapter One: Aesthetic Testimony ..................................................... 33 1.1 Concerns from Epistemic Futility .............................................. 35 1.2 What is Acquaintance? ............................................................... 40 1.2.1 Acquaintance as Perception? ................................................. 40 1.2.2 Acquaintance as First-hand perception? ................................ 44 1.2.3 Modifications to the Acquaintance Principle ........................ 47 1.3 Should we endorse the Acquaintance Principle? ....................... 50 1.4 Common Commitments ............................................................. 55 2 Chapter Two: Insufficient Evidence .................................................... 59 2.1 Problems for Evidentially-orientated Approaches ..................... 60 2.1.1 Non-reductionism .................................................................. 61 2.1.2 Reductionism ......................................................................... 63 2.2 The Problems in Aesthetics ........................................................ 67 2.2.1 Clarifications of Problems ..................................................... 69 2.3 The Nature of Expertise ............................................................. 71 2.3.1 The nature of Aesthetic Expertise ......................................... 73 2.3.2 Sensible Subjectivism ............................................................ 74 2.3.3 Hume’s Ideal Critic ............................................................... 76 2.4 Inferentialism and Non-Inferentialism ....................................... 78 2.4.1 Deductive Aesthetic Inferences ............................................. 79 2.4.2 Inductive Aesthetic Inferences .............................................. 81 2.4.3 Repercussions on our Aesthetic Practice ............................... 83 2.5 Consequences ............................................................................. 85 2.5.1 Consequences for Expert Identification ................................ 86 2.5.2 Echo Chambers ...................................................................... 87 3 Chapter Three: The Nature of Trust .................................................... 91 3.1 The Basics of Trust .................................................................... 91 3.2 The Key Features that need to be explained. ............................. 94 3.3 Affective Portrayals of Trust and the accommodation of our Three Key Features .................................................................................. 98 3.3.1 (i) An understanding as to what the phenomenology of this affective response is. ................................................................... 102 3.3.2 (ii) An understanding of the things that generate trust ........ 105 3.3.3 (iii) A clearer story as to what it motivates or causes. ......... 108 3.3.4 (iv). We need to be able to either reject the plausibility of alternative explanations, or offer additional reasons as to why the affective explanation works ............................................................... 114 3.4 Non-Evidential Trust in Aesthetics .......................................... 122

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