Excellence in the eye of the beholder?

Speranza

There is a new film coming out, "The eye of a storm", with lovely Charlotte Rampling. "The eye" is a good idiomatic trigger.

"the eye of the beholder" was this Irishwoman's idea of beauty:

"Beauty," she claimed, "is in the idea of the beholder."

Neale (referred to by R. B. Jones, vis-a-vis Ling. & Phil) is right that "Causal theory of perception" was edited by Grice. He (Grice) found that it would be too repetitive (if 'too' applies here) to have the WHOLE thing which so much overlaps with the spirit (if not the letter -- don't you hate this legalistic cliche?) of "Logic and Conversation"

Consider:

Warnock (to Grice, at Collections): Smith has beautiful handriting.

(Grice uses "Jones", oddly).

Grice infers that Warnock does not find Smith's _philosophy_ beautiful enough.

Neale:

"the example concerning Professor U’s evaluation of Mr X. By uttering the sentence “Mr X has excellent handwriting and is always very punctual,” U..."

I would love to play on variations on this. Call me iconoclast.

Jones's handwriting is excellent.
Jones's handriting is beautiful.

"He has excellent handwriting".
"He has beautiful handwriting."

I would think that Grice, quoting Kantotle, of course, would say that 'excellent' is value-oriented in a transcendental way, in a way that 'beautiful' is not.

"Mona Lisa, a beautiful painting."

"Mona Lisa, an excellent painting."

Of course there will be art colleges that aim at "excellence" rather than beauty, but that's another animal.

In any case, this was back in the day, when tutors still had access to things like 'handwriting' at all!

----- Or something!