1
Category Independent Aesthetic Experience: The Case of Wine
1. Introduction
In his much discussed article “Categories of Art” Kendall Walton
argues that there are aesthetic features of artworks that cannot
be found in the immediately perceptible properties of the artwork
alone. Walton attempts to show that the tradition in which a work
is made, its societal context, and the intentions of the artist
all contribute to how a work is properly experienced; knowledge
of these contextual features is what allows one to properly
experience the aesthetic properties of a work. The aim of this
paper is to consider an extension of Walton’s view of aesthetic
properties of artworks to the experience of the aesthetic
properties of wine. Such an extension reveals certain problems in
the thesis that a work’s correct or true aesthetic properties are
only appreciable given appropriate categorization. Although wine
may not be an art object, this extension is quite natural, for
wine quality is an aesthetic topic that is treated critically in
a fashion similar to the treatment of art. There are wine experts
and wine critics, people who claim not to understand wine, and
2
those who claim to enjoy it both at a surface and deeper level.
There is even some famous disagreement about wine quality amongst
critics.1 Further, some philosophers have already happily
extended Walton’s view of art-categories to argue that the taste
of a wine is a property of that wine which depends on wine
knowledge for its proper appreciation.2
The possibility of category-free aesthetic experience shall
be argued for by considering the epiphany type encounter of the
novice who first tastes a great wine as described by Barry C.
Smith. The aim of the argument advanced is to show that Walton’s
view is unable to accommodate the possibility that there are some
1Notes:
1. Several authors cite a famous dispute between Jancis Robinson and Robert Parker concerning a 2003 Chateau Pavie. See http://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/winenews0422.html(accessed January 2012).
2 For example, See Barry C. Smith’s “The Objectivity ofTastes and Tasting”, in Barry C. Smith (ed.), Questions of Taste:the philosophy of wine. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)pp. 41-77; Jonathan Cohen, “Wine-Tasting Blind andOtherwise: Blindness as Perceptual Limitation”, manuscriptof a paper presented at Workshop on Wine Expertise,University of London in Paris, Paris, 13 October 2011; CainTodd, The Philosophy of Wine: A Case of Truth, Beauty and Intoxication(Montreal: Queen’s University Press, 2011); especially Ch.4. See also Steve Charter’s “On the Evaluation of Wine’sQuality”, in Barry C. Smith, pp. 157-181.
3
immediate and appropriate ways to apprehend the aesthetic
properties of at least some kinds of work despite the fact that
one may lack category knowledge concerning that work. The sudden
appreciation of a great wine by the novice that Smith discusses
seems to take place independently of category knowledge.
“Independently of category knowledge” here means independently of
having some wine-specific knowledge such as: What I am drinking
now is a Sauvignon Blanc, which typically has such and such taste
properties, x amount of acidity, etc. It is likely the case that
all knowledge is categorical, and it is not the aim of this
argument to deny that someone needs to know that they are
drinking wine instead of cola to have Smith’s epiphany
experience. It will instead be argued that the way Walton
conceives of art categorization and the way his view is typically
applied to wine is difficult to square with a certain sort of
aesthetic experience epitomized by Smith’s example; that is, it
is possible that one may apprehend the aesthetic properties of an
art object without having specialized knowledge of the object of
appreciation.
4
2. Walton’s View
Walton articulates a powerful criticism of the tradition within
philosophy of art that views aesthetic properties as residing
in/supervening on the perceptible properties of the work alone.3
According to Walton, the art category (for example, painting) in
which a work falls affects what aesthetic properties a work has.
He holds that a work’s aesthetic properties are not only
dependent on the perceptual properties of the work, but also on
what category the work is perceived in.4 To put this point
another way, the categories do not just affect what aesthetic
properties we see works as having or take them to have, the
categories affect the aesthetic properties that are there to be
found in the work itself: “at least in some cases, it is correct
to perceive a work in certain categories and incorrect to perceive
it in others; that is, our judgments when we perceive them in the
former are likely to be true…” and “[the relevant historical
3 For a classic presentation of this view, see Frank Sibley’s“Aesthetic Concepts”, The Philosophical Review, 68 (1959) pp.421-450. See also Nick Zangwill’s “In Defense of ModerateAesthetic Formalism”, The Philosophical Quarterly, 50 (2000) pp.476-493.
4 Kendall Walton, “Categories of Art”, The Philosophical Review, 79(1970) pp. 334-367; 338.
5
facts] help to determine what aesthetic properties that a work
has…”5
A work’s aesthetic properties and its proper judgment by the
critic depend on which of its perceptible properties are
standard, variable, and contra-standard to the category in which
the work is perceived. It would be wrong to judge a marble bust
as an unfaithful likeness on the grounds that the individual
portrayed was not marble-colored. It is a standard feature of
marble busts to be marble-colored. It is a standard feature of
busts in general to be made of a material that is not flesh
colored, and as such we typically do not even notice such
features. The fact that marble does not look like human flesh is
not seen as a flaw in the likeness of the person represented in
the bust. A standard feature of a category is a feature in virtue
of which the work belongs to that category: “that is, just in
case the lack of that feature would disqualify, or tend to
disqualify, a work from that category.”6 Variable features of a
category are those features which have no effect on a work’s
5 Ibid., pp. 356 and 364, respectively. The emphasis isWalton’s.
6 Ibid., 339.
6
categorization; the subject of a bust is variable for the
category of busts and the colors used in a painting are variable
to the category of paintings. Finally, a feature that is contra-
standard for a category is one which tends to disqualify the work
from a category it might otherwise be found in; Walton suggests,
for example, that an object that moves sporadically might not
count as a statue since movement is contra-standard for statues.
Given the way that categorization affects appreciation on
Walton’s view, it is important that we view a work in its correct
category or categories. Further, it seems fair to infer that the
categories in which a work falls affects the work’s aesthetic
properties.7 We should see the aesthetic properties of a work as
being determined by two factors: the perceptual properties of the
work, such as the brush strokes in a painting or its color, and
the category in which a work falls. Walton holds that when we
perceive a work in the correct category our judgments are also
likely to be correct, so there appears to be little doubt that he
also holds that the category in which a work falls affects what
7 See Brian Laetz’s “Kendall Walton’s ‘Categories of Art’: ACritical Commentary”, British Journal of Aesthetics, 50 (2010) pp.287-306.
7
aesthetic properties are there to be found in the work,
regardless of what a viewer may perceive.
In summary, Walton is essentially saying the following about
art and its categories: there is a right way to view a work, and
if you view a work in the wrong way, you simply will not
appreciate what is going on in it; and to appreciate what is
going on, you must know something about the category (categories)
in which the work falls.
3. The Case of Wine
Wine is typically viewed as an object about which a great deal of
knowledge is required for its proper enjoyment, and the expert
may even be able to determine the age of the wine or its
appellation simply by taste. Smith claims that the experienced
taster, that is, one who is familiar with the wine categories,
will derive more from the wine drinking experience than the
novice. Yet in speaking about wine he also says:
We instantly recognize when something is worthy ofreflection, when it is great. So we should not think ofthe immediate experience as just the novice’s domain,in contrast with the reflective judgment of experts…Asevery wine lover knows, there was a time when they were
8
unaware of the power, depth and beauty that some winespossess. Then came the epiphany. Most wine lovers willremember it: the first time they encountered a rare andastonishing wine. Until that moment they had simplydrunk wine, noticing some to be more pleasing thanothers.8
It is hard to see how a Walton-style view can account for the
aesthetic experience of the epiphany as Smith describes it. It is
not as if Smith’s novice drinker had never had wine before his
epiphany; he had had and enjoyed wine. But he had never had a
great wine. Therefore he was unfamiliar with what qualities make
a great wine great. Yet, when experiencing a great wine for the
first time, he realized its greatness by appreciating its
aesthetic properties. But how did the novice drinker know how to
appreciate its qualities? If a wine’s qualities are in relation
to its proper categorization, there should be no way for the
novice to appreciate a great wine; such epiphanies should simply
not be possible.
Perhaps a defender of the application of a Walton-style view
to wine would want to claim that such category-free epiphanies 8 Smith, op. cit., p. 52; See also Kent Bach’s “Knowledge,
Wine and Taste: What good is Knowledge (in enjoying Wine)?”in Barry C. Smith (ed.), Questions of Taste: the philosophy of wine(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) pp. 21-40.
9
are not really possible. Such a person might argue that true
appreciation of wine does depend on its categorization. This is
just what Jonathan Cohen suggests in his essay “Wine-Tasting,
Blind and Otherwise: Blindness as a Perceptual Limitation.”9
There he argues that blind-tasting does not achieve its stated
goal—that of unbiased tasting, and further that “blind-tasting
positively prevents us from perceiving things that we should want
to perceive in tasting wine.”10 Cohen argues that in tasting a
wine without any knowledge of its background, such as varietal,
vintage, and appellation, the taster will be unable to direct his
attention to certain features of a wine. When one is aware that
one is about to taste a Chablis, for instance, one can direct his
attention to the delicate characteristics of a Chablis as a
Chablis. Cain Todd makes a similar claim in The Philosophy of Wine: A
Case of Truth, Beauty, and Intoxication. There he states wine knowledge
will “govern the way in which we taste wine, the expectations and
attention we will bring to our appreciation and perception,” and
that “This requires experience and practice, and the possession 9 Manuscript of a paper presented at Workshop on Wine
Expertise, University of London in Paris, Paris, 13 October2011; I thank Cohen for his correspondence on this issue.
10 Ibid., 15
10
of this background knowledge is just what marks the expert from
the non-expert.”11 For Cohen, and presumably Todd would agree,
when one tastes a wine ignorant of this information, one’s
attention is drawn to those features “that are most easily
discriminable by us—for example, depth of color, intensity,
oakiness, sweetness, density.”12 As a result, when tasting wine
blindly or simply without adequate background knowledge, we will
actually neglect what may be a wine’s most rewarding taste-
features.
Cohen explicitly ties his defense of sighted wine tasting to
Walton’s categories. Both he and Todd maintain that proper
aesthetic appreciation depends on evaluating a wine within its
proper category.13 Cohen returns to the example of Chablis on
several occasions. If we taste a Chablis mixed in with typical
Chardonnays during a blind-tasting, with the bare information
that we are tasting wines made from the Chardonnay grape, the
Chablis is likely to come across as weak. Yet, Cohen notes,
Chablis has a noticeably different flavor profile than that of
11 Todd, op. cit., pp. 108-109.12 Cohen, op. cit., p. 17.13 Todd, op. cit., p. 110.
11
most Chardonnays, and without proper background knowledge we will
fail to appreciate the more delicate flavor profile of a typical
Chablis, and therefore not properly appreciate it.14 One might
sum up both Cohen’s and Todd’s point in the following manner:
some flavor-notes are standard for certain varietals, and as a
result we should know what kind of wine we are tasting and look
for those notes in tasting a wine.15
It is worth noting that the position of Cohen and Todd may
actually be stronger than that of Walton, at least when it comes
to the application to wine. Where Walton says “at least in some
cases, it is correct to perceive a work in certain categories and
incorrect to perceive it in others,”16 the position of Todd and
Cohen appears to be that without wine-specific category knowledge
the novice will inevitably be drawn to some features of a wine
and neglect others. Note above that Cohen says that blind-tasting
“positively prevents us from perceiving things that we should
want to perceive in tasting wine” and Cohen states that
14 Todd makes an almost identical point; see op. cit., pp. 110-111.
15 Cohen, op. cit., pp. 19-20; Todd, op. cit., pp. 110-111.16 Op. cit., .356.
12
appreciation and perception “requires experience and practice.”
The novice wine drinker essentially is tasting blindly precisely
because she lacks experience and practice, and so it seems on the
Cohen/Todd view a wine novice should be positively prevented from
experiencing a fine wine’s aesthetic properties: experience is
necessary for appreciation.
It appears at times that Smith holds a similarly strong
position to Cohen and Todd. Smith similarly maintains that
knowledge is part of enjoying a wine and that it enables one to
properly enjoy it. He states “The analytical taster and the
novice taster are doing something quite different… [The
analytical taster] guides his attention towards certain aspects
of his experience, selecting some for particular scrutiny.”17 He
goes on to say:
We are seeking out particular types of experience, andthis requires knowledge and training. Not everythingabout the taste of a wine is surrendered at first, oris accessible without a skillful search. A great bottlewill not yield everything all at once, or to justanyone.18
17 Smith, op. cit., p. 49.18 Ibid., 50
13
Given the similarity of his position to that of Cohen and Todd,
as well as his use of the word “requires”, it seems he too should
deny the possibility of the epiphany experience. Thus there
appears to be a tension in Smith’s view of wine appreciation: on
the one hand he holds that the novice wine drinker may enjoy and
appreciate a great wine, while on the other he holds that some
knowledge is required for what he calls particular types of
experience. This naturally raises the question of how the
epiphany experience is possible for the novice at all.
Smith distinguishes between what he calls recognition of
quality and tasting analytically.19 Presumably the novice is
capable of the former, but not the latter. It may be true that in
making a considered comparison between two wines the novice would
be found lacking. However, Smith must at least admit that when
the novice does recognize quality, she is surely experiencing the
aesthetic properties found in the wine. Smith states, “The
tasting impressions on which a considered assessment of a wine
are based are first sought out and highlighted by selective
attention. We need to prepare ourselves to be receptive to
19 I owe this point to an anonymous referee.
14
certain kinds of experiences. We need to know what we are looking
for.”20 The novice who experiences the epiphany, however, does
not know what to look for, yet she experiences the properties
nonetheless—for how else could she have the epiphany? Depending
on what Smith means by the phrase considered assessment, a novice
may not be capable of this. But it is difficult to square
acknowledging the so-called epiphany with talk of proper
preparation to experience the aesthetic qualities of a wine. It
does not seem plausible that the epiphany depends on a special
preparation, nor that the epiphany would be possible without
experiencing the kinds of experiences that a great wine has to
offer. Further, how can we experientially separate the
appreciation of quality and the appreciation of the aesthetic
properties within a wine? If one senses that something is of a
high quality, surely that judgment is based on the appreciation
of its aesthetic properties. In order for an epiphany experience
to be possible, there must be a zone of reliable appreciation
that does not depend on familiarity with categories.
20 Ibid.
15
Perhaps the casual-wine drinker pre-epiphany does have
general wine tasting categories from her experience with mediocre
wine. She has categories concerning color, mouth-feel, etc, so
the epiphany is not really a category-free proper aesthetic
experience. 21 Perhaps this is all that is required for one to
have the epiphany—the epiphany takes place within those
categories. So some knowledge really is required to properly
appreciate any wine at all, just not the sort of specialized
knowledge that comes from classes on wine tasting.
We should not be persuaded by this line of thought. The
concept of epiphany has to do with transcending one’s typical
experiences. Smith’s epiphany is something along the lines of:
What I was drinking before was not really even wine; this is
amazing! An epiphany is an emergence from the allegorical cave of
taste experience. So, great wine may have aesthetic properties
that are simply not to be found in ordinary wine. Therefore we
should not believe one’s everyday wine drinking categories can
lay the category groundwork for the epiphany. The epiphany is an
epiphany because it shatters the groundwork.
21 Cohen made this point via email correspondence.
16
Further, and more importantly, this response suggests that
all wine drinking counts as aesthetic experience. We should
certainly not deny that all wine has a taste, but does all wine
merit aesthetic appreciation? In other words: does all wine admit
of the sustained appreciation that a great wine admits of? If
not, it is hard to believe that all wine is then experienced
within the same aesthetic categories. So, then, the ordinary wine
drinker, although having drank plenty of wine, has not
experienced wine as aesthetic experience in the requisite sense.
Therefore, it would be safe to conclude that the ordinary wine
drinker will not be adequately prepared to appreciate a great
wine. If great wine has aesthetic properties that are simply not
to be found in ordinary wine, ordinary wine drinkers would not
become familiar with those properties. In Steve Charter’s study
of wine drinkers he found that certain dimensions, such as
complexity, tended to mark out great wines and that even good
wines lacked this taste dimension.22 Additionally, Todd
explicitly states that table wines do not offer the same kinds of
satisfaction that a great wine is able to offer.23 If the
17
aesthetic experience of a great wine is different in kind from
that of table wine, it seems plausible that great wines fall in
different kinds of categories than that of ordinary wine and as
such ordinary wine simply cannot familiarize a drinker with those
categories. If a great Bordeaux offers different kinds of
experiences than that of a mediocre Bordeaux, it does not seem
possible that they could be appreciated within all the same
categories, for they offer categorically different experiences.
This is significant because surely Walton would want to deny
that all paintings can afford the viewer a significant aesthetic
experience and that looking at any painting whatsoever
familiarizes one with all the aesthetic categories in which
paintings are appreciated. For instance, it is likely that Walton
would want to deny that by looking at a child’s painting of a
house a person is as a result prepared to appreciate
impressionism and that both are appreciated within all the same
categories. If we should want to deny that any painting can
familiarize a person with the categories by which fine paintings
22 Charters, op. cit., p. 168.23 See Todd, op. cit., pp. 114-115.
18
are appreciated, then we should want to do the same for wine.
Further, in both the case of visual art and wine, one needs no
category knowledge to know if the work is bad; and it is unclear
how drinking all the bad wine in the world prepares one for the
proper experience of a great wine.
Kent Bach essentially agrees with this argument on two
counts. First, he believes that mediocre wine is not in the same
category as great wine; nonetheless he believes that there is no
special knowledge required to appreciate a great wine:
Like a great work of art, a great wine has more tonotice and more worth noticing than a run-of-the-millwine… and noticing them and enjoying them is all thatis required for appreciating the wine. It reallydoesn’t go deeper than that.24
Bach argues that there may be pleasure derived from knowing a
great deal about wine, that is, from being a wine connoisseur,
but that this is a cognitive pleasure and that it does not stem
from any of the properties within the wine itself. For Bach, the
aesthetic pleasures and qualities of a wine are open to any
person with normally functioning faculties who drinks it.
24 Bach, op. cit., pp. 33-4.
19
Intuitively the aesthetic qualities of a wine are in the
wine to be tasted, whatever our knowledge about wine. Does it
matter if a flavor-note is standard to a varietal for someone to
enjoy a wine and taste that note? Smith’s position that knowledge
is required for proper appreciation is somewhat odd given that he
also holds that a wine has an objective taste; he holds that
tastes “are properties a wine has, and tasting [ ] is an
experience a subject has.” 25 Given his position that wine has
objective taste properties, it should strike him as plausible
that certain flavor-notes are present in a wine and there to be
tasted regardless of categorization. A taste property may in fact
go un-noticed, but that the taste-property is there to be noticed
in no way depends on prior category knowledge; if the tastes of a
wine are objective properties of the wine, it does not seem that
wine category knowledge should be required to taste the notes
within the wine. Bach supposes that the tasting-notes on a bottle
may simply verbalize what a taster was already experiencing, but
was unable to put into words for himself—the verbalization merely
reinforces the experience.26 25 Smith, op. cit., p. 44.26 Bach, op. cit., p. 37
20
If membership in a category were determinable solely in
virtue of the art object’s perceptible qualities, then it may
make sense to say that the novice wine drinker may happen to
experience a great wine’s full flavor profile, or that the
epiphany-experience itself makes new categories available to the
novice wine-taster through which he experiences the wine.27 If
aesthetic categories (and hence the aesthetic qualities) are
there to be perceived in this way then we are able to account for
Smith’s observation that “A recognition of quality does appear to
precede a detailed understanding of what is going on in the
wine.”28 But then it seems as if the categories are nothing more
than a way of organizing aesthetic properties that are
perceptible independently of category knowledge. It is not
plausible that aesthetic experience makes us aware of new
categories when the categories themselves make the experience
possible. The only way to make sense of the categories on such an
interpretation is to understand them as simply calling our
attention to aesthetic properties and in no way undergirding
them; but this is no longer Walton’s view: he holds that
“examining a work with the senses can by itself reveal neither
21
how it is correct to perceive it, nor how to perceive that
way.”29 So, if aesthetic appreciation really does depend on the
categories in some kind of dependence relation, then prior
knowledge—knowledge of vintages, varietals, and terroir—is
required to properly appreciate a wine and Smith’s epiphany
really is impossible.
In our original description of Walton’s view in section two
we noted that he does not advocate a blanket view: he holds that
for some works certain knowledge is required to properly
appreciate its aesthetic properties. As a last defense of a
Walton-style position on wine appreciation, one might weaken the
strong position of Smith/Cohen/Todd described above and suppose
something like the following: in some cases individuals are able
to experience an art object’s aesthetic properties without the
need for any special category knowledge, perhaps because these
art objects are more accessible or less complex, and that it
these kinds of art objects that allow for the epiphany experience
to occur; however, not all art objects may induce epiphany. So by
27 Cohen also suggested this in email correspondence.28 Smith, op. cit., p. 5529 Walton, op. cit., p. 367
22
parity of reasoning, only some great wines are able to induce an
epiphany, while other great wines may not be properly experienced
without adequate background knowledge.30 I see two problems with
this. First, great wines are supposedly marked by their
complexity. The greatness, the appreciable-ness, if you will,
lies in the multiple flavor-notes to be found in the wine—so an
accessible, non-complex wine would likely not be able to induce
an epiphany. Secondly, one is naturally led to ask what makes one
great wine capable of enabling an epiphany experience while
another great wine is unable to do so; this will likely be a
difficult question to answer.
The advocate of this position may be thinking that in the
case of painting or visual art, certain styles are clearly more
accessible and as a result may be more likely to induce an
epiphany, while other works, say some modern piece that is
attempting a commentary on earlier work, will be much less likely
to induce an aesthetic epiphany. Further they believe the more
accessible works can be differentiated from the less accessible
30 This view was suggested to me by an anonymous reviewer. Ithank that person for the suggestion.
23
ones. Perhaps this is correct for visual art. But we can ask a
further question that Bach poses concerning wine: does knowing
that a visual art piece is attempting a kind of commentary
contribute to its aesthetic qualities or the aesthetic pleasure
that it may give, or does this knowledge lead to a different kind
of appreciation, say an intellectual or cognitive appreciation?
Perhaps these two things cannot be separated in the case of some
art works. At the very least the case of wine epiphanies, and the
epiphany experience in general, does show that for some kinds of
aesthetic appreciation specific category knowledge is not
necessary.
4. Conclusion
The problematic nature of the categories as applied to wine comes
out best when we consider the experience of aesthetic epiphany.
As the example of visual art discussed above indicates, we should
likely be careful generalizing the conclusion beyond the case of
wine. We can at least say the following: if the novice wine
drinker can try a wine and appreciate its aesthetic properties,
24
perhaps someone completely new to the symphony can appreciate the
work of Mozart on her first listening—or at least know that it is
good, even if she does not know why it is. With the experience of
a highly sensual object such as wine at least, there seems to be
a significant arena of aesthetic appreciation that is independent
of art categories.31
31 I would like to thank Jonathan Cohen for his helpfulcorrespondence on this issue. I would also like to thankCarolyn Korsmeyer, David Braun, Patrick Kelly, and PatrickRay, all of whom discussed this issue with me at greatlength.
Top Related