The sociological critique of philosophical aesthetics

The aim of the text is to reconstruct and critically consider, on the basis of the findings of sociologists of culture (above all Pierre Bourdieu), the fundamental objections to philosophical aesthetics - aesthetic historicism and aesthetic scepticism. Aesthetic historicism confronts philosophical aesthetics at the methodological level by questioning the possibility of defining the concept of the aesthetic independently of a historically-conditioned aesthetic theory, or rather of normative decisions to be treated as a relevant part of aesthetic experience. Aesthetic scepticism calls into doubt the traditional conception of the autonomy of aesthetic values and of the objectivity of aesthetic evaluation. This position is elaborated in the text by reference to the example of the sociological critique of the opinions of the analytical aesthetician Frank Sibley on the logico-semantic status of aesthetic concepts. The concluding part of the text discusses the consequences that follow from the sociological critique for aesthetic axiology and for art criticism.