We like to call certain things graceful, sad, harmonious, beautiful or elegant. The question that immediately arises for the philosopher is how such assertions are to be understood. For the aesthetic realist, predicates such as " delicate ", " sentimental ", or " majestic " refer to aesthetic properties of a specific type. These distinctive properties are said to play the role of " verifiers " of our aesthetic judgments, whose normativity they would thus guarantee. Aesthetic anti-realists are opposed to such an analysis. For them, aesthetic predicates in no way denote qualities with which objects are objectively endowed. Rather, they reflect the sensitivities or attitudes of appreciators, or the effect that certain things have on us.
This theoretical dispute, as old as aesthetics itself, has been the subject of renewed discussion in the philosophy of art in the 20th and 21st centuries (Sibley, Beardsley, Scruton, Levinson, Walton, Pouivet, Zemach, Zangwill). But it is still all too rarely addressed for its own sake in metaphysics. Yet any theory of aesthetic properties is ipso facto bound up with a metaphysics of properties. There is therefore every reason to believe that recent metaphysical debates on properties will open up new perspectives on this question.
The aim of this colloquium will be to shed light on these contemporary discussions around aesthetic properties, by crossing aesthetics and metaphysics. We will address questions such as : Are there aesthetic properties ? How can they be distinguished from other types of property ? Are there different kinds of aesthetic properties ? How can we think about the dependence of aesthetic properties on the physical properties of objects ? Can we account for aesthetic properties within a naturalistic framework ? Are aesthetic properties necessarily perceived ? What metaphysics of properties should underlie a theory of aesthetic properties ? Are aesthetic properties to be understood as dispositions ? Can aesthetic properties be made acceptable to a nominalist ? Does aesthetic anti-realism condemn us to subjectivism or relativism ? Does aesthetic realism survive the phenomenon of aesthetic disagreement ? Is it necessary to recognize the existence of aesthetic properties in order to account for aesthetic normativity ?
These and other questions will be explored in this international colloquium, featuring contributions from specialists in the philosophy of art and metaphysics.