ABSTRACT
Accounts of artistic value that make essential use of the concept of aesthetic
experience or some related ‘‘aesthetic state of mind’’ have a long and controversial history and have for some time been out of favor among philo-
sophers of art. For one thing, the concept of aesthetic experience has been
notoriously difficult to pin down. George Dickie famously debunked various
versions of the notion and engaged in a lengthy debate with Monroe Beardsley
about the concept of aesthetic experience invoked by Beardsley in his experi-
ential theory of artistic value.1 More recently Noel Carroll2 has assumed
Dickie’s role as the scourge of aesthetic experience.3
