The Concept of the Aesthetic
Introduced into the philosophical lexicon during the Eighteenth Century, the term ‘aesthetic’ has come to designate, among other things, a kind of object, a kind of judgment, a kind of attitude, a kind of experience, and a kind of value. For the most part, aesthetic theories have divided over questions particular to one or another of these designations: whether artworks are necessarily aesthetic objects; how to square the allegedly perceptual basis of aesthetic judgments with the fact that we give reasons in support of them; how best to capture the elusive contrast between an aesthetic attitude and a practical one; whether to define aesthetic experience according to its phenomenological or representational content; how best to understand the relation between aesthetic value and aesthetic experience. But questions of more general nature have lately arisen, and these have tended to have a skeptical cast: whether any use of ‘aesthetic’ may be explicated without appeal to some other; whether agreement respecting any use is sufficient to ground meaningful theoretical agreement or disagreement; whether the term ultimately answers to any legitimate philosophical purpose that justifies its inclusion in the lexicon. The skepticism expressed by such general questions did not begin to take hold until the later part of the 20th century, and this fact prompts the question whether (a) the concept of the aesthetic is inherently problematic and it is only recently that we have managed to see that it is, or (b) the concept is fine and it is only recently that we have become muddled enough to imagine otherwise. Adjudicating between these possibilities requires a vantage from which to take in both early and late theorizing on aesthetic matters.
Read the rest here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetic-concept/
The AI
The aesthetic refers to how things are experienced and appear, not to what they are, whether they are true, or whether they are morally good.
Core points:
The aesthetic concerns perception, feeling, and form, not knowledge (truth) or ethics (good and evil). It includes experiences such as beauty, ugliness, harmony, tension, and the sublime.
The object itself is secondary. What matters is the subject’s experience—how something presents itself to the senses and imagination. This is why an ordinary object can be aesthetic, and a work of art can fail to be.
Since Kant, the aesthetic is often understood as disinterested experience: appreciation without practical purpose, utility, or moral judgment. You attend to how something appears, not to what you can do with it.
Historically, the concept shifts:
- Plato treated aesthetics as subordinate to truth and morality and was suspicious of art
- Kant argued that the aesthetic is an autonomous domain, distinct from knowledge and ethics.
- Nietzsche saw the aesthetic as a fundamental way of affirming and enduring life.
- Modern and contemporary art show that the aesthetic need not be beautiful; it can involve disturbance, emptiness, or alienation.
In short:
The aesthetic is not a property of objects but a mode of experience. It does not tell us what is true or good, but how the world is given to us in experience.
Wikipedia
Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that studies beauty, taste, and related phenomena. In a broad sense, it includes the philosophy of art, which examines the nature of art, artistic creativity, the meanings of artworks, and audience appreciation.
Aesthetic properties are features that influence the appeal of objects. They include aesthetic values, which express positive or negative qualities, like the contrast between beauty and ugliness. Philosophers debate whether aesthetic properties have objective existence or depend on the subjective experiences of observers. According to a common view, aesthetic experiences are associated with disinterested pleasure detached from practical concerns. Taste is a subjective sensitivity to aesthetic qualities, and differences in taste can lead to disagreements about aesthetic judgments.
Artworks are artifacts or performances typically created by humans, encompassing diverse forms such as painting, music, dance, architecture, and literature. Some definitions focus on their intrinsic aesthetic qualities; others understand art as a socially constructed category. Art interpretation and criticism seek to identify the meanings of artworks. Discussions focus on elements such as what an artwork represents, which emotions it expresses, and what the author’s underlying intent was.
Many fields investigate aesthetic phenomena, examining their roles in ethics, religion, and everyday life, as well as the psychological processes involved in aesthetic experiences. Comparative aesthetics analyzes the similarities and differences between traditions such as Western, Indian, Chinese, Islamic, and African aesthetics. Aesthetic thought has its roots in antiquity but only emerged as a distinct field of inquiry in the 18th century when philosophers systematically engaged with the subject.
Read the rest here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics
Nochrisis 