WebPhil

Moderns 

History

We are looking for standards for social websites. And these websites most often employ standards for their content too. Particularly if the site lets users help provide and review and advertise content.

The ancient world view is that there were standards for things, in the Platonic heavens or embedded in things themselves. Things sought to become like the ideal. For Aristotle to move through the potentialities to the actualities of what a thing could be. Everything in the world had its purpose and place and goal.

The modern world abandoned this ancient and medieval world view and saw a divide between what exists in the world and what we bring to the world. Between primary and secondary qualities of things. Secondary qualities include values--beauty, goodness, usefulness.

Teachings

Hume: Value is subjective, but intersubjectively determined, what we like. But not just anybody, those unimpaired, with discernment, and with taste--an appreciation for what has long been appreciated

Today: what the masses like, what professionals like, what our peers like--those who like much of what we like

Kant: Non-aesthetic values are standards of goodness and usefulness we would will to be accepted by everyone. Aesthetic values are standards and judgements we enjoy coming up with--the free play of the imagination.

Standards

The site could show the likes of the masses, the experts with experience, and peers who like similarly

And master critics who enjoy coming up with broad universal standards and those who enjoy applying those standards to concrete cases--those picking the right words to characterize and describe it.

And it could help people move along the path toward becoming master critics.

It could actually highlight the responses of people who enjoy coming up with just the right words to describe things and to articulate standards.  This probably isn't found by just asking people what comments were most helpful. How is it found? We might look for what is most edifying--but that is a word that most people might not understand. Most insightful?