What Aesthetic Judgements Are About

One can view Languages of Art as an elaborate attempt at sorting out the aesthetic difference between a forgery and its original. However, it remains to be seen to what extent Goodman indeed explains what aesthetic difference is, and what distinguishes aesthetic from more normal perceptive properties. He does explain why there can be no fakes in certain species of classical music as there are in painting. He explains how the notationality of musical scores, by providing us with the means to univocally determine the identity of a musical work, has emancipated the musical work of art from the dangers of forgery. There is no pictorial analogue to this identificatory efficacy. The difference between these two art forms comes down to this: the relation between an original and its copies (performances of music, and, respectively, fakes of pictures) is semantic in the case of notated music, and strictly causal with depiction. (…)
1996. “What Aesthetic Judgements are About.” Chapter 2 of Art and Experience, Volume XIV of Quaestiones Infinitae, 41–56. Utrecht: Dept. Philosophy.

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