1. Bolzano and the German Rationalists

Bolzano produced his works on aesthetics during a time when cognitivism was fashionable, though it was not the rationalist form that was in vogue. A cognitivist turn in German philosophical aesthetics, following the heyday of romanticism, marked the first half of the nineteenth century (see Guyer Reference Guyer2014). The Kantian influence was clearly visible in the cognitivist works of F.W.J. von Schelling, Arthur Schopenhauer, and G.W.F. Hegel. However, by replacing the idea of free play—which was constitutive of the aesthetic experience for Kant—with a cognitive response that lacked an emotional component, and by reintroducing truth back into the aesthetic experience, these nineteenth-century philosophers produced new types of aesthetic cognitivism. In the 1840s, cognitivism remained the default position, and Hegelianism dominated the German aesthetic scene, mainly through the works of Friedrich Theodor Vischer, Karl Rosenkranz, and Hermann Rudolf Lotze. It was during these years that Bolzano composed his works on aesthetics. His output included three essays: one on the sublime (which was lost); another on the concept of the beautiful, written around 1842 and published in 1843; and a third on the fine arts, written between 1843 and 1847 and published posthumously in 1849 (see Rusnock and Šebestı́k Reference Rusnock and Šebestík2019: 548).Footnote ² In his last years, Bolzano continued to work on aesthetics, leaving behind fragments from two essays—“Arten des Schönen” [Kinds of beauty] and “Verschiedene in die Aesthetik gehörige Begriffe, welche sie auch noch mit andren Wissenschaften gemein hat” [Various concepts that belong to aesthetics and are held in common with other sciences] (see Bolzano [Reference Bolzano, Berg, Morscher and Schenkel2021] for these articles and Livingston [Reference Livingston2023] for a recent review). In Bolzano’s work, we see a defense of aesthetic cognitivism, but the version that he defends is quite different than what is found in German Idealism.

One main identifying marker of aesthetic cognitivism is the belief that aesthetic experience is actual cognition. However, aesthetic cognitivism comes in many flavors, each with its own additional commitments. Bolzano’s cognitivism has a German rationalist flavor to it and is reminiscent of the accounts of earlier German rationalists like Christian Wolff and notably Johann Christoph Gottsched. As a result, Bolzano’s approach may appear constrained, rigid, or even archaic, a perception rooted in criticisms by figures like Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Benedetto Croce, and R. G. Collingwood, as well as the Sturm und Drang movement, all of whom challenged the rigidity and rule-guided appreciation often associated with these earlier rationalist accounts (see Beiser Reference Beiser2009: 12-23). It is important to clarify that I do not endorse this bias against German rationalist aesthetics. In fact, scholars like Frederick C. Beiser (Reference Beiser2009) in Diotima’s Children and Stefanie Buchenau (Reference Buchenau2013) in The Founding of Aesthetics in the German Enlightenment have significantly advanced the rehabilitation and appreciation of these theories. Nonetheless, the unwarranted stereotype persists, and it is crucial to assert that it should not be applied to Bolzano, despite impressions that he might be reverting to a form of cognitivism akin to that of the earlier German rationalists. Before dismissing this impression, we should examine the basis for it. There are various factors that contribute to the view that Bolzano adopted the type of cognitivism seen in the works of Wolff and Gottsched. Some of these features may seem less substantial; for example, just as Wolff lists cutting wood and agriculture as arts, Bolzano has an expansive list of arts that includes not only practices commonly associated with fine arts, such as painting, sculpture, and music, but also, e.g., hunting, gymnastics, and horsemanship (see Wolff, Reference Wolff and Blackwell1963 Preliminary Discourse, §39, 22; §71, 38; Reference Wolff2001[1725]; Reference Wolff1995[1755]; Bolzano, CFA, §32, 121). Other aspects of Bolzano’s account go deeper than mere surface parallels to German rationalist aesthetics, raising questions about his originality.

The distinctions Bolzano employs to describe the aesthetic experience of beauty appear to have been imported from the Leibniz-Wolffian tradition. All early German Enlightenment thinkers, without exception, accepted the Leibniz-Wolffian explanation of sensory perception as consisting of clear, but confused representations. According to the German rationalists, even though aesthetic judgments are cognitive and objective, they are based on confused (though clear) representations. Bolzano seems to concur with the German rationalists in that he does not believe that we can have clear and distinct cognitions of the beautiful (CB, §5, 46, passim). He claims that in experiencing beauty “our ability to think by means of obscure representations is exercised” (CB, §10, 58). On the surface, the descriptions of aesthetic experience by the German rationalists and Bolzano seem comparable, and indeed, some scholars have recognized this similarity. For instance, Achim Vesper argues that the terms Bolzano uses, such as clear (klar), distinct (deutlich), indistinct (undeutlich), obscure (dunkel), and confused (verworren), are all borrowed from the Leibniz-Wolffian tradition (Reference Vesper2012: 56-57). Nevertheless, the resemblance between German rationalism and Bolzano’s view is deceptive. Despite the apparent terminological continuity, their portrayals of aesthetic experience differ. This distinction emerges because, even though Bolzano employs the same terminology, he gives these terms meanings that diverge from their meanings in the German rationalist tradition. This departure has already been noted in the scholarship. Paisley Livingston (Reference Livingston2014: 276-281) provides a detailed analysis of how Bolzano revised Leibniz-Wolffian terminology in his own way. Since a detailed analysis is present in Livingston’s “Bolzano on Beauty,” a brief explication of the terminological differences between the rationalist account of the experience of beauty and Bolzano’s should be sufficient.

In Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas, Leibniz distinguishes between different kinds of knowledge: “Knowledge is either obscure or clear; clear knowledge is either confused or distinct” (Reference Leibniz and Loemker1969 [1684]: 291). Knowledge is obscure when it does not suffice for recognizing the thing represented. Having clear knowledge of a thing enables us to re-identify the thing represented. For instance, if you have clear knowledge of daffodils then you will be able to identify them. If you have obscure knowledge of them, you might have difficulty distinguishing them from, let’s say, lilies. If, in recognizing the daffodil, you can enumerate all the marks that suffice to recognize it, such as its trumpet-shaped center and its white and yellow color, then this ability indicates that your knowledge of daffodils is not only clear but also distinct. However, if you cannot enumerate these marks, then your knowledge is clear but confused. Leibniz classifies our knowledge of sensible qualities, such as colors, odors, and flavors, as clear and confused knowledge. Aesthetic judgments, for the rationalists, are grounded in this kind of knowledge. Aesthetic pleasure consists in the perception of perfection, and beauty is defined as observable perfection, characterized by an agreement in variety (see Wolff Reference Wolff1736, Ontologia, §503, 229, Wolff Reference Wolff1751, German Metaphysics, §152, 79, and Wolff Reference Wolff1738, Psychologia empirica, §544, 420 for Wolff’s articulation of these claims as they were broadly adopted by other rationalists; also see Beiser [Reference Beiser2009] for his presentation of these core ideas of German rationalist aesthetics). In the scholarship, it is not uncommon to equate perfection with unity-in-variety or sameness-in-diversity—a move that is understandable given Wolff’s definitions in his Ontologia. There, he describes perfection as “agreement in variety, or the agreement, in one thing, of several things differing from each other,” and further defines agreement as “the tendency to reach something that is the same” (Wolff Reference Wolff1736, Ontologia, §503, 229).Footnote ³

For Bolzano, clarity and obscurity of ideas depend on whether these ideas are accompanied by second-order reflective thought. In his Theory of Science, he states that “an idea is clear if we represent it to ourselves by way of an intuition. It will be called obscure whenever this is not the case” (WL, §280). Bolzano has a very specific and technical definition of intuition (Anschauungen) in his works. Although he adopts the term from Kant, Bolzano’s definition of intuition significantly diverges from Kant’s (for a comparison of Bolzano’s and Kant’s views on intuition, refer to Rosenkoetter Reference Rosenkoetter2012, Lapointe Reference Lapointe2014, and Livingston Reference Livingston2015). In Bolzano’s framework, ‘intuition’ refers to an introspective, simple, and singular idea that represents the particular event causing it (see Livingston Reference Livingston2015: 210 and Lapointe Reference Lapointe2014: 101). For instance, when we are presented with a daffodil, we form the idea of yellow, pleasant fragrance, etc. In the same way, when we think about an idea ‘yellow’ that we have in mind and are aware of the idea ‘yellow,’ just like we are aware of the yellowness of the daffodil in front of us, then the idea of yellow is clear. If we cannot form a simple idea of the idea ‘yellow,’ then it is obscure. Despite our lack of self-awareness or metacognition of these ideas, obscure ideas can still be used for object recognition, as we can still recognize objects without conscious effort, contrary to the assumption of the Leibniz-Wolffian tradition.

When it comes to the beautiful, our response is not a direct response to a quality in the object (CB, §10). Bolzano states that we derive pleasure from the contemplation of beauty and that the content of our contemplation is not a single thought. “Mere intuitions,” he says, “are insufficient for conceptualizing beautiful objects” (CB, §7, 50-51). Contemplating the beauty of a daffodil cannot be similar to forming singular ideas like “it is yellow” or “it has a pleasant fragrance.” Bolzano rejects the claim that beauty can be reduced to a single idea, because that would entail that even animals and children, by virtue of their capacity to form singular ideas, are capable of experiencing beauty.Footnote ⁴ What is the content of our contemplation then? When we encounter a beautiful object and apprehend some of its qualities, we proceed to look for a concept to apply to it, just as we do in regular cognition (CB, §14, 64). This process occurs without too much difficulty and does not necessitate distinct thought—specifically, there is no need to acquire knowledge about the content of the object, its parts, or how they are combined (CB, §14, 64; WL, §281). Once we find the concept, then we can use it to aid us when guessing other qualities of the object that we were not able to apprehend in the first place. Take, for instance, Aesop’s fable “The Tortoise and the Hare.” Assuming that you are reading it for the first time, you see the development of a story in which a hare boasts about his speed and challenges a tortoise to a race. From this setup, you form the concept of a fable, which has the purpose of delivering a lesson. Then, this concept helps you to guess who these characters are meant to symbolize, what the moral lesson is, and so on. As you read the part of the story where the hare takes a nap mid-race, you guess the end of story, namely, that despite the hare’s confidence and initial lead, the tortoise ultimately wins the race by steadily plodding along while the hare takes his nap; and, as you finish reading the story, you realize that you have guessed it right. But what gives us pleasure is not merely apprehending some of the qualities of “The Tortoise and the Hare” and guessing other ones. We also experience a “mental pleasure, arising from our discovery of a rule from which we are able to derive all the qualities to be apprehended in the beautiful object” (CB, §15, 66). Our attention shifts from the object to our own cognitive powers. By successfully guessing the qualities of a beautiful object, we have demonstrated the proficiency of our cognitive powers—our powers of intuition, memory, imagination, understanding, judgment, and reason (CB, §7, 51). This demonstration delights us. For example, our imagination exhibits its proficiency by representing additional qualities of the object beyond what was initially observed, and our judgment and reason display their skill in choosing the most suitable features offered by the imagination, rather than having to rely on chance (CB, §7, 51-52). But we can have only an obscure awareness of the proficiency of our cognitive powers. Bolzano speaks of this proficiency as something we can only feel: “we cannot be distinctly conscious of it, cannot represent it, and therefore cannot make a judgment about it” (CB, §10, 59). Due to this lack of direct access, we project this pleasure onto the object and speak of beauty as if it is a property of the object (CB, §10, 59).

This description of aesthetic experience reveals that Bolzano did not adopt the German rationalist view, which reduces beauty to perfection. German rationalists argue that beauty can be distilled to perfection and link perfection to unity-in-variety and sameness-in-diversity. Bolzano does speak of the perfection of artworks, asserting that perfection should be their ultimate goal, and that the more perfect they are, the more enjoyment they bring (CFA, §4, 86-87, §38, 128-129, §39, 130). However, he does not equate beauty with perfection (for a parallel observation, see Livingston Reference Livingston2016: 335). In one instance, Bolzano states that all properties of an object, whether directly apprehended or guessed, are related to each other “in a way essential to the composition of the object as a whole” (CFA, §19, 73). Yet it would be a leap to interpret this as a direct allusion to harmony between parts, since in his essays Bolzano refrains from utilizing terms such as “unity-in-variety” or “sameness-in-diversity”—which German rationalists commonly employ—to characterize the content of our perceptual experience of beauty.

2. Liberal Rule-Following

Despite the divergences between the views of Bolzano and the German rationalists, it is hard to shake the feeling that Bolzano adopted at least a few of the more rigid and old-fashioned ideas of rationalism. The reason for this feeling is simple: Bolzano endorsed rule-guided appreciation and creation. He makes his commitments clear at the beginning of his essay on fine arts, where he lists some of the main aims of aesthetics. At the top of the list, we have two main aims: 1) providing “guidance for how we should enjoy every instance of beauty that we encounter, not only in art, but also in nature” and 2) “teaching artists how they should produce art” (CFA, §1, 83). While all German rationalists argued for rule-guided appreciation, it was only Gottsched who argued that artists follow rules in creating artworks. On the issue of rule-guided appreciation, Gottsched is explicit. He claims good taste involves correctly judging from the senses, or based on clear but confused knowledge, whether something is beautiful or ugly (1973[1742], 174-5). The accuracy of these judgments, Gottsched argues, depends on their adherence to established rules and norms tailored to perfect various art forms, such as music, paintings, and poems (176). Regarding aesthetic creation, particularly in poetry, Gottsched claims that the poet must be equipped with the same rules (176).Footnote ⁵ He reasons that since art imitates nature, and nature is orderly and governed by rules, art must similarly be rule-governed (183; see also Beiser Reference Beiser2009: 96, and Guyer Reference Guyer2014: 314-15). Gottsched’s approach to aesthetic creation in Critische Dichtkunst faced significant criticism. As noted by Braitmaier and Beiser, one of Gottsched’s contemporaries, J. E. Schlegel commented that “Gottsched wants us to write poems just like a Hausfrau makes a pudding” (Braitmaier 1972, 107; Beiser Reference Beiser2009, Reference Beiser90).Footnote ⁶ This type of critique likely persuaded other German rationalists to move away from the concept of rule-guided creation while still maintaining rule-guided appreciation. For example, Mendelssohn describes the rules of beauty as something “the artist’s genius feels and the critic reduces to rational inferences,” emphasizing a more intuitive engagement with artistic rules on the part of the artist (1997 [1757], 169). Later thinkers like Mendelssohn and Lessing have been praised for recognizing that artists need to enjoy certain types of freedoms when they create art (see Mendelsohn Reference Mendelssohn and Dahlstrom1997 [1757], Lessing Reference Lessing and Bernstein2002 [1766]). It is probable that the distinction between early and late rationalists, and the praise given to the latter, is partly due to Kant’s rejection of rules (See especially §33-34 of the Critique of the Power of Judgment (Reference Kant, Guyer, Guyer and Matthews2000 [1790]). Setting aside these points, I believe that although Bolzano discusses rule-following, his account is not as rigid as one might initially think. He does not suggest that following the rules equates an artist’s work to that of a ‘Hausfrau’ mechanically following a pudding recipe. I will demonstrate one key feature of Bolzano’s aesthetic theory that sets him apart from the early rationalists like Gottsched—liberal rule-following. The subsequent subsections will analyze Bolzano’s views on rule-following, first with respect to aesthetic appreciation and then with regard to artistic creation.

3. Bolzano’s Contextual Autonomism

The appeal of Bolzano’s aesthetic cognitivism goes beyond its departure from the cognitivist approaches of his predecessors or contemporaries. In this section, I will demonstrate how his nuanced exploration of the interplay between aesthetic values and other forms of value offers a refreshing alternative to contemporary accounts of aesthetic cognitivism. I will term his distinctive cognitivist stance “contextual autonomism” to distinguish it from present-day viewpoints.

While contemporary cognitivist theories may vary in their specifics, a cognitivist perspective is generally characterized by a commitment to two primary claims: (1) artworks embody cognitive values, and (2) these cognitive values contribute to their aesthetic worth (see Gaut Reference Gaut and Kieran2006). There is substantial debate regarding the knowledge artworks can provide, including debates on whether the knowledge they offer is nontrivial, whether artworks can legitimately ground this knowledge, and whether artworks serve as exclusive founts of knowledge that are unattainable through other means (see Gibson [2008] for a summary of these debates). Some anti-cognitivists reject both (1) and (2) above (e.g., Stolnitz Reference Stolnitz1992, Diffey Reference Diffey1995). Other anti-cognitivists accept (1), often referred to as “the epistemic claim,” but reject (2), often referred to as “the aesthetic claim” (e.g., Lamarque and Olson Reference Lamarque and Olsen1994). Though it may seem anachronistic, I find these distinctions useful for categorizing Bolzano’s views as they help to illuminate nuances that might otherwise remain obscured. Bolzano accepts the epistemic claim but qualifies the aesthetic claim. This partial endorsement of the aesthetic claim positions him outside the anti-cognitivist camp.

With regard to the epistemic claim, Bolzano contends that artworks realize multiple values other than the aesthetic since they can serve various purposes (CFA, §8, 93). He rejects the idea that artworks are created solely for aesthetic contemplation and possess merely aesthetic value. He draws attention to a distinction made by Wilhelm Traugott Krug between absolutely beautiful arts and relatively beautiful arts. According to Krug (Reference Krug1802), the former serve no purpose other than beauty or the satisfaction of taste, whereas the latter also serve additional functions. Bolzano dismisses both this distinction and the concept of absolutely beautiful arts, contending that all art falls into the category of relatively beautiful arts. He argues that if aesthetic value were the sole consideration, then artists would produce uniform works, resulting in a lack of diversity among artworks. In his words,

Interestingly, he even goes so far as to claim that an artwork whose sole purpose is to provide pleasure in beauty is an aesthetic failure. He says, “[i]magine, for instance, that Horace intended that we be able to perceive in even just one of his Epistles or Odes really no other purpose than that he wanted to offer us something beautiful: must we not then declare it to be a failed work of art?” (CFA, §8, 94).

Regarding the aesthetic claim, Bolzano exercises caution and refrains from issuing the sort of blanket statements that are frequently encountered in contemporary philosophical work on aesthetic cognitivism. Consider, for instance, Berys Gaut’s defense of aesthetic cognitivism. Gaut’s argument linking cognitive merits/defects to aesthetic merits/defects is quite broad, encompassing all artworks. This generality of his argument leads him to bite the bullet and argue that “Milton’s work would have been artistically even better than it is in one respect, had his religious views been correct” (2006: 124). In contrast, Bolzano embraces a more nuanced approach by endorsing autonomism regarding the interplay between aesthetic value and certain types of cognitive value, while supporting interactionism concerning the connection between aesthetic value and other kinds of cognitive value. Here, I am using the terms “autonomism” and “interactionism” in a broader sense than they have been traditionally used in the literature.

In current discussions, these terms are associated with rival positions within the realm of ethical criticism of art. Autonomists argue for the independence of aesthetic value from ethical value. As Nils-Hennes Stear (Reference Stear and Harold2023) explains in his comprehensive overview of autonomist positions, autonomism has been divided into two distinct forms—radical and moderate—since the publication of Noël Carroll’s influential paper “Moderate Moralism” in 1996. Radical autonomists reject what Giovannelli terms the amenability thesis, which posits that artworks can be ethically evaluated because they possess ethical value (refer to Carroll Reference Carroll1996: 224, 231; Giovannelli Reference Giovannelli2013: 336-38; and Stear Reference Stear and Harold2023: 284 for the formulation of the amenability thesis, and see Posner 1997, 1998, 2009 for a defense of radical autonomism). Moderate autonomists, on the other hand, accept the amenability thesis but contest the interaction thesis, which posits that an artwork’s ethical value, if present, partially determines its aesthetic value (see Carroll Reference Carroll1996: 231-32, Clavel-Vazquez Reference Clavel-Vazquez2018: 2, Stear Reference Stear and Harold2023: 284 for the formulation of the interaction thesis, see Anderson and Dean [Reference Anderson and Dean1998] for a defense of moderate autonomism).Footnote ⁷ Interactionists posit either a positive interaction (ethical merits/defects are pro tanto aesthetic merits/defects; e.g., Carroll Reference Carroll1996, Gaut Reference Gaut2007, Giovannelli Reference Giovannelli2013) or a negative interaction (ethical defects can sometimes count as aesthetic merits; e.g., Kieran 2006, Eaton Reference Eaton2012, Stear Reference Stear2022). They maintain that aesthetic value can be enhanced or diminished by ethical considerations, differing from moderate autonomists who accept ethical relevance but deny any aesthetic impact. Here, I am expanding the application of these terms to encompass a wider array of cognitive values beyond just ethical values. Autonomism, as used here, denotes the stance that aesthetic value is independent of, and not determined by, cognitive values in general, including ethical values, which I regard as a subset of cognitive values. For a moderate autonomist, the cognitive values embodied by a work may interact with its aesthetic value, and the aesthetic value may enhance other cognitive values, but only under the condition that these cognitive values do not influence the aesthetic value. Thus, one can be considered an aesthetic autonomist while still being an interactionist in terms of other values. Interactionism, likewise, refers to the position according to which cognitive values, broadly construed, determine aesthetic value. Furthermore, when discussing the amenability and interaction theses from here on, I modify them to apply broadly to cognitive values rather than strictly to ethical values, substituting ‘ethical value’ with ‘cognitive values in general’ except for aesthetic value.

Let’s start with Bolzano’s autonomist claims. Bolzano states that

For instance, think about “Glass Flowers,” Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka’s meticulously crafted glass models that represent plant species. These models, while stunningly beautiful, also fulfill pedagogical functions by serving as tools for educating about plant biology and morphology. Here, Bolzano’s view clearly supports the amenability thesis: the “Glass Flowers” are subject to aesthetic evaluation as well as an assessment based on their pedagogical value. However, he rejects the interaction thesis. According to Bolzano, the pedagogical value and the accuracy of these representations do not inherently augment their aesthetic worth. He contends that

While artworks can serve vital roles in advancing knowledge and understanding across various domains, Bolzano emphasizes that the mere fulfillment of these roles does not necessarily elevate artworks to the realm of aesthetics. There is an interaction between aesthetic value and cognitive value the artworks have in virtue of their contributions to the arts and sciences, but this interaction is one-sided: cognitive value gains from aesthetic value. When something is aesthetically appealing, we are more inclined to engage with the work and more likely to learn from it. However, cognitive value does not necessarily enhance aesthetic value. For instance, the pedagogical function of the “Glass Flowers” does not add to their beauty, but their beauty does engage students of plant biology and morphology more effectively. In these passages from §35 of On the Classification of the Fine Arts, it is evident that Bolzano adopts an aesthetic autonomist standpoint, emphasizing that the intrinsic aesthetic value of art remains distinct from the various cognitive values that an artwork embodies. Yet, his aesthetic autonomism is consistent with his interactionism regarding the one-sided influence of aesthetic value on cognitive values in general. The aesthetic experience enhances cognitive engagement, but the cognitive contributions of artworks do not inherently enhance their aesthetic appeal.

Nonetheless, it would be premature to label Bolzano an uncompromising aesthetic autonomist. His aesthetic autonomist reflections in §35 are followed by observations on artworks that serve moral or religious purposes. In this context, he clarifies that his prior comments on the autonomy of aesthetic value do not hold true. Bolzano acknowledges that “the amount of material that morality and religion—and particularly the Christian religion, indeed, the Catholic-Christian religion—provides for artistic rendering is truly inexhaustible” (CFA, §35, 125). He notes that when literary art aligns with visual art, especially with the intent of illuminating moral or religious ideas, the value of the artworks is indeed elevated through its fulfillment of such functions (CFA, §35, 124-5).

This nuanced stance leans towards interactionism, suggesting that Bolzano’s autonomism is context-dependent. Thus, I term his position “contextual autonomism.” His cognitivist outlook does not imply that any form of knowledge gleaned from artworks enhances their aesthetic value. For instance, the pedagogical value of “Glass Flowers” does not determine their aesthetic value. Instead, Bolzano posits that when artworks convey insights related to morality and religion, their aesthetic value is enriched by their embodiment of these values. This perspective presents a more intricate viewpoint than many conventional cognitivist accounts.

One might argue that Bolzano’s position potentially leans towards a form of ethicism, suggesting that all ethical merits/defects translate into aesthetic merits/defects, and hence, he was not a contextualist after all. While this interpretation has some validity, several factors warrant consideration. First, Bolzano’s interactionist remarks extended beyond moral value; they also concerned religious or spiritual value. This broader scope highlights that he was interested not in the ethical criticism of artworks but in cognitivism in general. So, within that general framework of cognitivism, we can easily consider his remarks to be contextualist. Second, the aesthetic cognitivism advocated by Gaut, firmly anchored in his commitment to the aesthetic claim, places him in a position that extends beyond ethicism. Gaut (Reference Gaut and Kieran2006) does not only endorse ethicism; he defends the idea that all forms of cognitive value inherently enhance aesthetic value. In contrast, Bolzano’s cognitivism takes a different direction. His variable stance on the interplay between aesthetic value and other kinds of cognitive values implies a recognition of the significance of contextual elements in determining the impact of cognitive values on aesthetic value. As such, I interpret Bolzano as presenting the bare bones of a “context-first” approach—one that encourages us to meticulously examine an artwork’s specific purpose and the specific values it embodies in fulfilling this purpose, and to evaluate the interaction between the values it realizes accordingly. I think that this approach resonates with a particularistic position, which asserts that the interaction between cognitive values and aesthetic worth hinges upon the distinct context of each artwork. For instance, a certain cognitive value might contribute to aesthetic value in the context of artwork A but not in the context of artwork B. I also want to acknowledge that this interpretation of Bolzano as a contextualist autonomist provides just one lens through which his theory can be understood.