Sorte estetica. Sulla (s)fortuna di un concetto

The notion of “aesthetic luck” has not had the same luck – no pun intended – of concepts such as “moral luck” and “epistemic luck.” In the aesthetic field, there is no debate similar to the ones ongoing in moral philosophy and epistemology. Whereas, when poking around in the literature one can bump, often by chance, into some lean hint to the topic, nevertheless we are far from having an open discussion on the subject. Why is that? One of the reasons for this absence could be the sterility, the impracticability or the implausibility of the very notion of aesthetic luck. In this essay, I will explore this issue. I begin by briefly examining the relation between art and luck (§2). Artistic luck is understood mostly in structural analogy with moral luck. Then (§3), I discuss the idea of aesthetic luck as a kind of constitutive luck. Finally (§4), I critically explore three, at first glance promising, cases of aesthetic luck: the aesthetic appreciation of damaged nature, the gratuity of the aesthetic experience, and the justification of aesthetic judgment.