The goal of the lecture is to introduce Aesthetics as a theory of art critics. Seen in this way, the subject matter of Aesthetics is to be an analysis of art ctritics statements. Key concepts are presented: aesthetic judgment or art critics judgment, and supervenience. The subject matter of Aesthetics is – keeping with tradition – judgment about beauty, above all. A structured concept of beauty is presented. A boundary between nonaesthetic and aesthetic properties is said to be as an essential one – mutual dependence of both is shortly mentioned. Theories of Hume, Beardsley a Sibley are seen as basic ones for such kind of theorizing.
Until recently, a privileged criterion of (not merely) fine art's value had been similarity. The quality of an image was considered to be in direct proportion to the truth-similarity, namely a kind of iconic relationship between representing and represented. Goodman rejected such exclusivity of similarity in art. The goal of art is to offer a specific kind of knowledge - as science does - by means of its own symbolization or representation. Goodman's theory is anti-essentialistic because art is to symbolize at random. Symbols are to be arbitrary, hence another essential concept of Goodman's theory, conventionalism. Within his theory, the fruitfulness of similarity and realism as relevant evaluating concepts is denied.
The paper begins with a brief introduction to Goodman's aesthetic position. Arguments defending similarity and realism are put forth and commented on in the second part. In the third section, Goodman's concept of representation is found to be coarse-grained and a defeinition enabling the encompassment of intuitively acceptable cases of representation based on both similarity / connection, and representation based on convention is proposed.