The Aesthetic Peculiarity of Multifunctional Artefacts

Author: De Clercq, Rafael

Source: British Journal of Aesthetics, Volume 45, Number 4, October 2005 , pp. 412-425(14)

Publisher: Oxford University Press

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Abstract:

Echoing a distinction made by David Wiggins in his discussion of the relation of identity, this paper investigates whether aesthetic adjectives such as ‘beautiful’ are sortal-relative or merely sortal-dependent. The hypothesis guiding the paper is that aesthetic adjectives, though probably sortal-dependent in general, are sortal-relative only when used to characterize multifunctional artefacts. This means that multifunctional artefacts should be unique in allowing the following situation to occur: for some object x there are sortals K and K prime

such that x is a beautiful K and also a K prime

, but not a beautiful K prime

. Examples of multifunctional artefacts show that this is indeed a possibility. However, that multifunctional artefacts are unique in this respect will be demonstrated by a more principled argument, taking into account the nature of functions on the one hand, and the nature of artefact-classification on the other hand.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1093/aesthj/ayi051

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