Martin Gough
It is the more common view that aesthetic value is the sort of value which is applicable to art. Koestler and Lessing assume this, as well as Jenkins. Koestler and Lessing also assume that the aesthetic is constituted by what is perceptual. Koestler's example, used by Jenkins, is where someone, Catherine, believes that they have a print of a Picasso line drawing but then finds out that it is the original, and she "sees it differently", such that it is more valuable than it looked before. Koestler says that even she must admit that it looks the same perceptually and he wants to establish that it is no more aesthetically valuable.
Jenkins is correct in that this drawing is more valuable than it appeared from the position of previous ignorance and that Catherine is not a snob, as charged by Koestler. One line of argument to this defense of Catherine, not adopted by Jenkins, is to say that orginality and authenticity are non-perceptual qualities, but no less qualities, of works of art and contribute to the, as it were, non-perceptual aspect of the aesthetic value. (This sort of approach is endorsed by Arthur Danto, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace, Harvard University Press, 1981.)
There is no philosophical problem about two perceptually exactly similar objects having some different properties. An object can be moved around in space and its location is one of its properties. The two perceptually exactly similar objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time so would have at least one property different. Such a property is not a perceptual property of the thing itself, even if we may have to use our faculties of perception as part of our investigation of the locations of the objects. However, I reject this approach, since it is open to question whether non-perceptual properties can be part of the aesthetic component of an object, if only because of the etymological root of the term "aesthetic" which derives from the Ancient Greek concept of the perceptual.
Jenkins's approach is to incorporate the non-perceptual aspects to works into the framework of our judgements about them. In common with the line of argument considered in the previous paragraph, she rejects the value of the distinction between "internal" and "external" properties, for instance the perceptual aesthetic properties and the non-perceptual facts about the origin of the object in question assumed by Koestler and Lessing. Jenkins (p.8) proposes that the aesthetic properties are, instead, emergent from both categories of property assumed by Koestler and Lessing but that this new category of property is still perceptual. An example given of the aesthetic property is garishness, emerging from the perceptual properties of red and green stripes in a picture, where the garishness is no less a perceived property than each of the colours are.
This account of aesthetic qualities as emergent is sound as far as it goes. But it does not explain the nature of the value judged by Catherine when she learns of the authenticity of her line-drawing. In this case the perceptual qualities are not perceived as different, and this is because they are not, as Koestler is at pains to insist. It does not follow that the internal/external properties distinction is founded but the perceptual/non-peceptual one still stands. Jenkins could adopt the approach that the non- perceptual is a component of the aesthetic but I found that approach question-begging (above). We must agree with Koestler and Lessing in as far as that what is aesthetically valuable is contained in the perceptual appearance of works of art: Catherine's line-drawing should not look any more aesthetically valuable in light of the knowledge about its origin alone; a perceptually exactly similar forgery is just as aesthetically valuable as the original.
There is an alternative solution, which avoids total capitulation to Koestler and Lessing's position. That is to distinguish the aesthetically valuable from the artistically valuable. This would involve adopting a position inspired by Timothy Binkley that the concept of the aesthetic, embodying all matters perceptual, is logically distinct from the concept of art. For instance, a sunset is often viewed as possessing aesthetically pleasing aspects without being treated as an artwork. And, although there are objectors to Pop Art and conceptual "art" as having the status of being "art proper", such genres are regarded as art, whilst not necessarily being regarded as aesthetically pleasing.
It could be objected further that such artworks
are not valuable because they are not aesthetically pleasing. But this
would be too myopic a view of art as a whole, since the importance of some
works lies in other factors, such as innovation in artistic style. Jenkins,
indeed, cites Manet and Cezanne as having been derided for going against
the rules of artistic value assumed by the Renaissance. For my part, this
is not to say that aesthetically valuable perceptual properties never contribute
to what is artistically valuable in particular cases. But they might not
play such a part in others. Either way, an original work can be judged
appropriately as more valuable, than previously thought, in artistic terms
without claiming that it should be viewed as better aesthetically. And
this is why, for example, Catherine, without self-inconsistency, is entitled
to think more highly of her line- drawing.