Beauty is a quality of an object, work of art or person that makes it pleasing to the senses or mind. It is usually compared to its opposite, ugliness. The study of beauty is called aesthetics, and it’s a major field in philosophy. Beauty is often subjective, but there are ways to objectively judge something as beautiful or not.
The classical conception of beauty treats it as an arrangement of integral parts into a coherent whole, characterized by proportion, harmony and symmetry. It’s a primordial Western notion that permeates neo-classical architecture, sculpture, painting, music and literature, as well as the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. This concept of beauty is sometimes expressed in mathematical ratios, such as the ‘golden section’, which is found in the classical pedagogical treatise ‘The Canon of Proportion’ by Polykleitos (fifth/fourth century BCE).
A number of modern philosophers have developed more adamantly subjective lines of thought on the nature of beauty. Schopenhauer, Hanslick, Bullough and Croce all take this approach to the subject. They all hold that judgments of beauty are responses to the pleasures that a given object, work of art or person produces in one’s psyche. This ‘objectified pleasure’ is then attributed to the object itself, as though it were a person capable of having’subjective states’.
This’subjective’ conception of beauty is also implicit in the old phrase “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” In this view, a person’s judgment of what is beautiful depends on their own emotional responses to an object or work of art. These emotions are then used to form a value judgment of beauty. This is a highly subjective view of beauty, but one that is popular in many cultures.
Another common way of understanding the nature of beauty is to consider it as a property that can be attributed to things that are natural or not. This is called naturalist or realist philosophy of beauty. In this view, if A and B disagree about whether painting X is beautiful it’s because they are using the word ‘beautiful’ in different ways. It’s possible to defend this view by showing that the disagreement is not due to some other factor, such as the fact that A and B are arguing about a different painting Y, or that they have differing esthetic preferences.
People with disabilities, who may not meet society’s standards of physical beauty, can still experience the joy of being beautiful. Their inner beauty is shown when they are able to interact with others, help those in need or even just show kindness to themselves. It is this beauty that should be celebrated, not the outward appearance. This is why advertising campaigns have started to shift away from focusing on physical beauty and toward a more inclusive perspective. Hopefully this will continue to grow as we move into the future. The more we understand that true beauty is on the inside, the better we will all be able to enjoy life and be our most authentic selves.