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Talk To The Animals: A Short Comment On Wolfgang Welsch's "Animal Aesthetics", Stefán Snaevarr

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

I voice some concern about Wolfgang Welsch's defense of the theory that animals can feel aesthetic pleasure. My first concern is epistemological: it is hard to see how we can find out whether they actually feel such pleasures. My second concern is conceptual: aesthetic pleasures have intentional objects and are woven into fallible judgments. It is hard to see that animals have such objects and can perform such judgments.