Contingencies of Value: Alternative Perspectives for Critical Theory
Smith is here concerned with the basis for aesthetic value and evaluation. Surveying both traditional and contemporary treatments, she concludes that aesthetic values are radically contingent; all attempts to establish an objective ground for evaluative hierarchies beg the question. (In reaching this conclusion, she fails to place the aesthetic works of figures such as Hume and Kant into their larger ethical contexts.) In place of objective values, Smith posits an "economic" model of verbal and aesthetic transactions, grounding evaluations in the contingent needs and interests of the recipient. In this, she is closer to Aristotelian axiology than she realizes. Nevertheless, her book is one of the few to address the problem of value and evaluation directly. T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong State Coll., Savannah, Ga.Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.