An investigation of the process of evaluation

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the process of evaluation with a view to finding out what we do when we evaluate and how we justify our judgements. Being a relatively untouched field, I am hampered by the fact that I cannot assume any of the ground work, and so many of the issues which arise cannot be dealt with in quite as mach detail as I would like; in the main I will be concerned to show that evaluation is, above all, a reasonable process. The two areas in which judgements are most commonly made are in the fields of aesthetics and morals, but there are as well a whole host of types of evaluations which are related to a more general field - to functional issues particularly. I propose to deal with deal three areas in an effort to make it quite clear what is being done when one evaluates; only then are we in a position to discuss the philosophical issues that arise. For this reason I have been forced to spend a lot of time examining the structure of a work of art and how one should go about analysing it critically. In studies on evaluation a lot of confusion arises because people are not very clear exactly what all the different kinds of critical remarks are saying, and this is something I have been anxious to avoid. I think it is worth the risk of monotony. Throughout the early parts of the work I shall be using many terms whose precise philosophical import is not clear, however it may be assumed that until I specify otherwise, I shall be using them in an ordinary, unsophisticated way. This will apply particularly to the second section of Part two