Poses the question of whether there are criteria of aesthetic merit. Sibley argues that there are such criteria, in the sense that, if merit-terms are applicable to a thing, it has thereby some aesthetic merit. However, there are at best few criteria of merit in aesthetics, if that means that there are determinable descriptions of properties responsible for a merit-term being applicable, which can serve as criteria or justifications for the application of a merit-term. Sibley further argues that if there is a certain particularity about aesthetic assessment, it concerns the nature of and relation between the neutrally descriptive properties of a thing and its possession of aesthetic merit-qualities.
Keywords: aesthetics, criteria, descriptions, Frank Sibley, merit, particularity, properties