Sorry about that - and thanks for pointing it out (I've corrected it now).

Best,

Alistair

Yikes! I've only just seen I've been invited to climb into the ring against Ron Dough. Have you seen the size of the 'Carnoustie Crusher', Ollie! You must be kidding. Despite the kind provision of a very fetching pair of turquoise silk shorts, I think I will decline, discretion being the better part of valorisation, and all that.

But since it's a horrible wet day outside, maybe just one very quick round of the parlour game "It all depends on what you mean by...."?


I'd be happy with that (particularly as "more analogous to" can cover quite a large tract of territory ). The only thing I would want to add is that IMHO they are beliefs about something. They are not just individual reports of personal preference. They are (unlike mere personal preferences) the sort of things people can give reasons for, can have substantive debates about, can misapprehend or be mistaken about. 


Happy with that too , but only in the sense that it must be so. There isn't anywhere else where we apprehend music so that's where (broadly speaking, perhaps add in a bit of cerebral cortex) it would be. But that doesn't in itself imply anything one way or the other on the question of the objectivity or subjectivity of the judgements.

That cow over there is indeed in the eye of this cow-beholder but there's not much we can deduce from that fact alone about the objectivity or otherwise of cows. That's where our apprehensions of cows would be, whether cows were objectively and externally real or the result of congenital cow-delusions on my part. Something 'being in the eye", "in the ear", or "getting up the nostrils" of the beholder is the starting point, not the finishing point, of those arguments. Quite happy with "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" ('Beauty' is the name of the cow by the way). It's the unwarranted conclusions that people go on to draw from that where I think they go wrong.

I couldn't have those shorts anyway could I?   

I can see I'm going to have to if not don the red pair myself at least have a cheer from the corner in question, though. In saying in the nicest possible way: yes, but George, that's certainly an elegant formulation of the problem but we're not actually talking about a cow. We can point at a cow, measure it, take pictures of it, squeeze bits of it to supply ourselves with nourishment, etc. If the phrase were only the literal truth of it being in the eye (or sensory apprehension mechanism) of whoever then there wouldn't really be much point in saying it, would there?

I do suspect that what I understand the implied full version of the phrase to be, viz., '...not necessarily extant anywhere else other than in the eye of the beholder, however many of those beholders might agree that it's actually out there somewhere' is indeed a step too far for you, George?

Well, doesn't the line of reasoning you are presenting (but not endorsing) also require a particular idea of what is the 'subjective'? If the subject, the beholder, is 'decentred', and not seen simply as the source of all meaning, but instead at least in part as the product of other, relatively objective factors (including such things as biology), then are their decisions on beauty necessarily so 'subjective'? There may be physical properties of sound, sight, employments of time, etc., which tend to produce certain types of reactions in human beings because of how they are physically constituted, and which they may find beautiful or otherwise. Whilst there will always be some people who interpret such things in very unusual ways, can one not still say that the reasons for thinking some things are more beautiful than others in this manner have a degree of objectivity about them?

At what point would they part?

I wasn't saying anything George! I've just been watching in admiration for the last couple of days.

' Judgeth Ye not, lest Ye be judged ' (Judges, chapter Judge, verse Judge).

Right. 9:45 pm. Saturday night. Thats it. I'm away down the local for five or six pints and three or four games of fives and threes.