Aesthetic Judging as Interface: Getting to Know What You Experience

One of the aims of aesthetics is to understand aesthetic experience, that of our own and that of others. Yet, the underlying question of how we can get information about other people’s aesthetic experiences has not been granted enough attention. This article contributes to bridging this gap. The main
argument is that by resorting to aesthetic judging, we can obtain information about other people’s aesthetic experiences without sharing them. Put differently, this article outlines how aesthetic judging works as an interface. Aesthetic judging allows us to approximate the aesthetic experiences of others. This happens in at least three ways proposed and analyzed here:  “aesthetic participation”, “distanced aesthetic empathy”, and “affective appropriation”.