UNIBEN MADE

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THE INTER-SUBJECTIVITY OF THE CONCEPT OF BEAUTY

                     

1.0.PREAMBLE:

The concept of beauty has constituted one of the principal disturbing issues in the history of Aesthetics. And because there has never been a consensus on the definition of the term, the concept of ‘beauty’ has consequently generated controversies among thinkers. For instance, Pythagoras argued that numbers, proportion and patterns constitute beauty.[1] Plato’s Formism ended up in metaphysical objectivism. For him, ‘Beauty’ resides in the world of Forms, and what we conceive as beautiful are only copies of the ideal Beauty. Moreover, according to Aristotle, beauty is nothing but goodness. Besides, David Hume maintained that beauty lies in our individual perception. As a result of these, it is worthy to note that the peculiar quality called ‘beautiful’ is not the same at all times and for all persons. Nevertheless, the fundamental questions remain: What is beauty? What is the nature of beauty? How can we identify someone who is beautiful? In other words, what makes somebody or a work of art beautiful? Is beauty objective or subjective? If I say that beauty lies in how I conceive of it, from where then did I know that it is beautiful? If I say that beauty is objective, how then do I explain the diversity in the conception of beauty? Following from the above, a philosophical investigation into the concept of beauty will solely occupy the interest of this work.