Is there such a thing as objective quality in books or is it all subjective? Is Twilight a better book than Moby Dick because more people like it?
Who determines good taste and how?
>>8158530
The objective quality is not in the books but exists in the community of readers.
>>8158530
McDonald's is the best restaurant.
>>8158543
that sounds like the opposite of objective quality
All subjective. Good taste is determined by some kind of phenomenon that exists in suspension between members of society. Read up on postmodern philosophy. Or, if you prefer to continue to trick yourself into thinking quality is objective, study aesthetics.
>>8158546
Depends on your understanding of 'objective', really.
>>8158530
Something can be objectively good on a subjective scale, which is arguably subjective. But if you have logic reasons to determine this subjective scale, then it seems objective to me.
>>8158530
You can definitely debate whether something's well written, complex, and has masterful use of literary techniques. However, enjoyment and emotional resonance is very much subjective.
>>8158555
who determines what is well written, complex, and has masterful use of literary techniques? Isn't that somewhat subjective?
>>8158549
So you would say no work of literature is better than any other in any concrete.
>>8158573
Not in any objective way, no
>>8158530
>Who determines good taste and how?
Basement dwellers who patronise anonymous image boards, so they can pretend they are superior to people with healthy social lives and a sex life.
>>8158600
take the redpill sheeple, we don't need women they're inferior and mere holes. If I just have my anime and vidya then i don't need love, because love does not exist, because all women are worthless whores who cannot truly love, and who only want Chad dick and know no loyalty
take the redpill. we're better off without them
>>8158600
I've jerked off to this picture.
There is a level of objectivity, in the sense that if everyone had read everything, they would agree on an approximate ranking (i.e. certain books being the best, but no necessarily ranking of individual books). This can be seen through the fact that people that read a large amount and a variety of books agree to a certain extent on an approximate ranking. So if you think, for example, that Portrait of the Artist is worse than The Bell Jar, you are objectively wrong.
>>8158561
It can, but sometimes it's just obviously objective that War & Peace is better than the story I wrote in first grade English class about a snowman that farts.
>>8158554
ok Sam Harris
Clearly nobody has heard of intersubjecivity in this thread. It is the answer to the silly objective/subjective debate
>>8158600
Damn straight.
There are objective criteria for rating how good a book is and the same goes for any art medium. A few examples of what determines whether a novel is great or not: Does the book utilize the medium in an exceptional way (prose, structure etc.)? Does the work bring to light universal truths in a way that is unique and original? Are there things expressed in the work which are genuine and valuable?
People determine whether a work has value or not over the course of time: bad books will be forgotten, good ones remembered.
>>8158716
>exceptional
>universal
>truths
>unique
>original
>things
>genuine
>valuable
Don't make me fucking say it.
How is the new SMT, OP?
>subscribing to the subject/object dichotomy
we are not separate from reality, we are of it. all of our concepts are equally valid and all axioms are arbitrarily interchangeable. it's like the polar opposite of nihilism, panilism?
