Beauty is often described as the aesthetic appreciation of beautiful objects which makes those objects aesthetically pleasing to perceive. These objects may include sunsets, landscapes, humans, and creative works of art. Beauty, along with art and fashion, is the most important theme of aesthetics, among the major branches of applied philosophy. The word beauty is derived from the Greek word ‘akolas’ meaning beauty or the ideal. The etymology of the word is also related to the term aglaon which means admiration or lovely.
Modern aesthetics generally refers to the study of how beauty is perceived in the world around us. It attempts to reveal the patterns that make up the values and beliefs of a society, and how these values influence the choices of individuals to create the most appealing and appropriate environments for themselves and others. It is used in business, in politics, in education, and in a variety of other settings. The discipline is considered very broad and is currently undergoing significant changes. This paper seeks to provide an introduction to modern aesthetics and the philosophy of beauty.
Modern aesthetics is a philosophical study of beauty that seeks to discover how we can best make use of beauty in the world around us. In order to fully appreciate beauty in the world, it is necessary to be conversant with all of its aspects, including the definition of beauty itself, its definition according to different disciplines, and its effects on human action and emotion. For this reason, aesthetics has long been a central concern of Philosophy of Beauty. Philosophy of Beauty seeks to provide knowledge of how beauty relates to reality, to both men and women, and to the entire human experience. Aesthetic Philosophy attempts to bridge the many different theories concerning beauty across the disciplines of psychology, art, sociology, linguistics, history, literature, and film.
The history of Western philosophy reveals a history of attempts to explain beauty and its effects on the human experience from the earliest times up to the present day. In the history of aesthetics, there have been many different definitions, many attempts at methodology, and many different ways of testing the quality of beauty. Philosophy of beauty therefore consists of numerous attempts at defining beautiful things and of explaining why they are beautiful. Modern aesthetics scholars argue over whether beauty is rational or irrational, subjective or objective, and natural or artificial.
The difficulty of answering these questions lies in the question of what actually is beauty. Philosophers have struggled for decades to describe and define beauty, often coming to very different conclusions. Some have pointed to objects as being beautiful on the basis of their own physical features, their attractiveness to the eye, or the lack of imperfections in them, while others have pointed to certain attributes of objects as being true beauty, and others as being false beauty. Deflations of beauty run deep among the subjectivists, who view beauty as having no external, physical components. Instead, beauty is a subjective quality that only comes into being according to a set of standards, which are arbitrary and thus subject to change with experience and circumstances.
Other philosophers have argued that beauty is something that only people have and can be defined in terms of what they would like it to be. They would say that there is something beautiful in being fat, ugly, or thin, but if you want to look like that then you might as well put on some fattening fat-lotion and eat it on the couch. This view is more metaphysical than realistic, as it would seem that there is nothing truly beautiful about being fat or thin, or anything else for that matter, because our bodies are designed to fit into and utilize the materials our planet is made out of. On the other hand, if you want to be a certain height, or have certain bodily features, then this too may become the definition of beauty, regardless of whether it fits or not. It is possible that everyone has a different idea of beauty, however, and the only way that you can find out is to ask those that you love, and by looking at their faces as they look at you, and comparing these appearances to your own, you will see whether there is a consensus on some universal standards for what is or isn’t beautiful.