Beauty. Objectivism and subjectivism History of western philosophy Eurocentrism and beauty

Romantic period

In the Romantic period, Edmund Burke postulated a difference between beauty in its classical meaning and the sublime.^[57] The concept of the sublime, as explicated by Burke and Kant, suggested viewing Gothic art and architecture, though not in accordance with the classical standard of beauty, as sublime.^[58]

20th century and after

The 20th century saw an increasing rejection of beauty by artists and philosophers alike, culminating in postmodernism's anti-aesthetics.^[59] This is despite beauty being a central concern of one of postmodernism's main influences, Friedrich Nietzsche, who argued that the Will to Power was the Will to Beauty.^[60]

In the aftermath of postmodernism's rejection of beauty, thinkers have returned to beauty as an important value. American analytic philosopher Guy Sircello proposed his New Theory of Beauty as an effort to reaffirm the status of beauty as an important philosophical concept.^[61][62] He rejected the subjectivism of Kant and sought to identify the properties inherent in an object that make it beautiful. He called qualities such as vividness, boldness, and subtlety "properties of qualitative degree" (PQDs) and stated that a PQD makes an object beautiful if it is not—and does not create the appearance of—"a property of deficiency, lack, or defect"; and if the PQD is strongly present in the object.^[63]

Elaine Scarry argues that beauty is related to justice.^[64]

Beauty is also studied by psychologists and neuroscientists in the field of experimental aesthetics and neuroesthetics respectively. Psychological theories see beauty as a form of pleasure.^[65][66] Correlational findings support the view that more beautiful objects are also more pleasing.^[67][68][69] Some studies suggest that higher experienced beauty is associated with activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex.^[70][71] This approach of localizing the processing of beauty in one brain region has received criticism within the field.^[72]

Philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco wrote On Beauty: A History of a Western Idea (2004)^[73] and On Ugliness (2007).^[74] The narrator of his novel The Name of the Rose follows Aquinas in declaring: "three things concur in creating beauty: first of all integrity or perfection, and for this reason, we consider ugly all incomplete things; then proper proportion or consonance; and finally clarity and light", before going on to say "the sight of the beautiful implies peace".^[75][76]