Congratulations to Artur Harris (2021, DPhil in Philosophy) who has been awarded the 2025 Fabian Dorsch ESA Essay Prize for his essay 'Aesthetic properties are not kinds of aesthetic value.' The essay tackles a central question in philosophical aesthetics: how aesthetic properties relate to aesthetic value. In clear and precise prose, Harris presents original arguments against a view that is both popular and intuitively appealing. His work exemplifies the best kind of philosophical writing, drawing readers into rethinking assumptions they may never have questioned.

The prize, awarded to PhD students and early career researchers, includes a €500 stipend. The winning essay will be considered for publication in Estetika: The European Journal of Aesthetics. Artur's essay, invited comments, and author’s replies will be presented in the essay prize panel during the ESA conference in Athens in June 2025.

Artur commented about his essay topic: “Aesthetics is the philosophy of beauty and art. I am interested in questions about beauty: what it is and what kinds of beauty there are. I mostly think about the relationship between beauty and ugliness on the one side and the cluster of properties such as elegance, majesty, garishness, monotony, flamboyance and the like on the other. Many have been tempted to say that elegance, majesty etc. are kinds of beauty while garishness, monotony etc. are kinds of ugliness. It is certainly a natural thing to say. But I don’t think it’s quite right. Philosophers have paid too little attention to what they mean by ‘kind’. Once you pay closer attention to that notion, the claim that elegance is a kind of beauty loses much plausibility. Or so I argue in my paper.”

Established in 2017, the ESA Essay Prize honours the memory of Fabian Dorsch, co-founder and first secretary of the European Society for Aesthetics, and is open to PhD students and early career researchers.