Understanding Beauty and Aesthetics

Study Notes

Beauty is a major concept in aesthetics, philosophy's branch dealing with art and taste
Objectives and subjectives have different views on beauty: Objectivists see it as an objective property, while Subjectivists see it as dependent on the observer
Objectivists believe beauty is mind-independent and universal, while Subjectivists see it as dependent on individual preferences
Judgments of beauty are based on feelings and claim universal correctness, leading to the "antinomy of taste"
Immanuel Kant introduced the concept of dependent and free beauty: dependent beauty relies on function or conception, free beauty is absolute
The debate between Objectivism and Subjectivism raises the question of the role of the observer in beauty, with Objectivists suggesting a "lack of taste" to explain disagreements
Objectivists draw on the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, but this account makes disagreements about beauty implausible
To solve the problem of genuine disagreements about beauty, some philosophers propose intersubjective theories, where the validity of judgments depends on a group of judges
Another theory, response-dependence, states that an object is beautiful if it causes pleasure by virtue of its aesthetic properties, but different responses make it challenging to define ideal observers
Ideal observer theories propose that judgments should be based on the responses of experienced judges with a fully developed sense of taste, but disagreements among experts remain a challenge.