Aesthetic Expertise - An Exploration and Defense

About the book

Skilleås discusses the foundations of aesthetic trust via the concept of calibration, thereby developing an outline of social aesthetics using the concept of embedded expertise.

Skilleås distinguishes between practitioners—those who create and perform aesthetically engaging works—and advisors, who educate, enlighten, and make recommendations. Considering the latter roles, Aesthetic Expertise: An Exploration and Defense argues that aesthetics ought to move away from a paradigm centered on critics and reviewers and the idea of a standard of taste, and over to an approach anchored in instruction and the triangulation between instructor, artwork, and learner. This educational interaction is pivotal since not only does it foster a shared language but it tightly links critical reasoning with aesthetic appreciation, guided by perceptual guidance and training. In doing so, it clarifies how meaningful consensus and dissent in aesthetic discourse are possible, underpinning our discussions and critiques of artistic works and ther interpretations.
 

Reviews

“In this timely, concise and cogently argued book, Ole Martin Skilleås shows how the devaluation of aesthetic expertise results in a significant reduction in the richness and value of our aesthetic and artistic lives. With a judicious combination of empirical and philosophical methods, and drawing widely on Kant and Hume as well as the contemporary literature in philosophical aesthetics, Aesthetic Expertise shows how the acquisition of knowledge and fine-grained aesthetic sensibilities attunes our perception and activates our minds and bodies, leading to a greater awareness and receptivity to the beauty of art and of the world around us. Using examples from music and the arts, but also wine, Skilleås constructs an elegant series of arguments which show how the benefits of trusting to experts are both profound and amply supported by the evidence. The result is a satisfying and accessible book, the lightly-worn wisdom of which reminds us that the old adage – “in vino veritas” – remains true in more ways that one.”

— Guy Dammann, Uppsala University
 

“For Skilleås , aesthetic expertise is held and transmitted collectively; aesthetic deference and testimony are part and parcel of aesthetic education and practice. Aesthetically satisfying lives are embedded in social communities. There is much to argue about here, but Skilleås is alive to potential objections and engages with them undogmatically. He draws on his own ‘moonlighting’ as a serious student and appreciator of wine to take the issues beyond the traditional haunts of art. Skilleås gives a lucid, bracing defense of the centrality and legitimacy of aesthetic expertise. This book is a lively affirmation of aesthetic expertise as robust, shared, and valued.”

— Eileen John, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Warwick
 

“Skilleås is someone who writes about aesthetics without feeling the need to be ‘precious’. For him aesthetic judgement is an expertise not a gift. That makes it useful as well as understandable. Bringing together the idea of the aesthetic and the analysis of expertise is a great project.”

— Harry Collins, Cardiff Unversity