ABSTRACT
British and American philosophers of art have accepted Immanuel Kant’s presupposition that the judgement of taste claims universal assent and have combined this with a respect for criticism more in accord with David Hume’s aesthetic theory than that of Kant. Everyone would have to become not a critic but a lover of art. The lover of art exercises thought, imagination and will in an effort to find the work as beautiful as possible. The work is conceived as an object rather like a map, and the spectator as seeking to discern its objective aesthetic qualities, good and bad, in order to arrive at an overall judgement of its merit. Furthermore, the establishment of any such limit must have a bearing upon the kinds of quality and experience which are acceptable as contributing to the aesthetic value of the work. A work may be experienced in a great variety of ways.
