Some ideas are seemingly inexponible. For example,

Classical music is the best genre of music.

What does this mean? Perhaps we could say

The genre of classical music exists as the cornerstone of all modern music. Furthermore, it is void of debauchery and vanity, features which are common in other genres. Finally, classical music’s ability to convey emotions and stories without the use of lyrics appeals to the common aesthetic of compression, thus qualifying it as art to a higher degree than its counterparts. As a result of ancestral debt, laudability, and artistry, classical music is the best genre of music.

Let us suppose all of the reasons adduced (though contestable) are true. Does the last statement follow?

Beyond the need to prove that the “goodness” of every other genre is lower than that of classical music, the proposition can only be true if “best” is well-defined.

But it is not. The features which determine whether some thing is copacetic are not constant among humanity. Presumably, the things that are “best” are consistently or categorically preferrable to others of the same category, and because what is preferred is determined by interests which live in the subconscious, for an objective, or shared reality, to exist for what is “best,” every characteristic relevant to its determination must be shared by those in question. The proposition given by the classical elitist concerns the “best” genre of music for all humans, necessitating a common sentiment of what is “best,” a feat no doubt impossible.

This is the nature of the sentiment. We often make axiological claims concerning objects as if they are objectively true, even though there is subjective material in the meaning of the terms.

To educe this more limpidly, pleasure is very commonly highly determinative of what is most preferrable. The classical elitist may be inclined to the position he has averred after hearing Chopin’s Op. 64 No. 2, or perhaps Brahms’ Op. 35 No. 1. But if another finds no pleasure in these, he cannot find them most preferrable and therefore not “best.” This implies an impossibility of shared truth among what is “best.”

Sentiments are ubiquitous in human discourse. We are lucky in some cases, such as Morality and Laudability, where they appear to have some objective truth in the sense that they must be results of precepts common to all, but the Subconscious source of sentiments can very often be à priori.

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