Abstract

Hagberg's working assumption is that "any particular conception of meaning to which one subscribes can shape one's beliefs in related fields of philosophy such as... aesthetics". For Hagberg, it seems that one's linguistic preconceptions always have this "shaping" effect upon one's aesthetic theory. Exploring this relation between aesthetic conception and linguistic preconception, Hagberg attempts a "critical-analytical" examination that begins with what he considers to be the highly influential aesthetic theories of Langer, Collingwood, and Ducasse, and ends with an analysis of the contemporary theories of Danto, Dickie, and Margolis. His general line of argument is that faults in linguistic preconception are invariably correlated with analogous faults in one's aesthetic theory. Hagberg's methodological procedure is threefold. First, he shows how certain aesthetic theories presuppose certain philosophies of language. Second, he subjects the presupposed philosophy of language to criticisms based on Wittgenstein's later philosophy of language. Third, he extrapolates Wittgenstein's criticisms from their context in the philosophy of language and applies them to the aesthetic theories with their corresponding analogous faults.