Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book demonstrates how considering questions about taste that arise within neighbouring disciplines can spur new lines of research which would otherwise remain invisible. It examines the physiological trajectory that is involved in tasting something that one has consumed. The book explores the nature of aesthetic taste itself. It investigates a puzzle that arises in light of what extant empirical research has taught us about ordinary subjects’ attitudes towards aesthetic issues. The book focuses on metaphysical questions underlying ongoing discussions in aesthetics, philosophy of language, and linguistics. It examines disagreement, and specifically taste disagreement, from a metaphysical perspective. The book addresses the question of how perspectival content is grammatically encoded, and a widespread assumption in the linguistic literature on taste: that judgements of taste are evaluative.