Aesthetic relativism is the philosophical view that the judgement of beauty Beauty is a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning, or satisfaction.[citation needed] Beauty is studied as part of aesthetics, sociology, social psychology, and culture. An "ideal beauty" is an entity which is admired, or possesses features widely attributed is relative Relativism is the idea that some elements or aspects of experience or culture are relative to, i.e., dependent on, other elements or aspects to individuals, cultures, time periods and contexts, and that there are no universal criteria of beauty. For example, statuettes like the Venus of Willendorf The Venus of Willendorf, also known as the Woman of Willendorf, is 11 cm high statuette of a female figure estimated to have been made between 22,000 B.C. and 21,000 B.C.. It was discovered in 1908 by archaeologist Josef Szombathy at a paleolithic site near Willendorf, a village in Lower Austria near the city of Krems. It is carved from an oolitic or the women in the paintings of Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens (Dutch pronunciation: ['rybəs]; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an extravagant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. He is well-known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of would have been considered ideal forms of beauty when painted, but today may be regarded as fat, while contemporary standards of beauty (such as those that feature on the covers of contemporary fashion magazines) may have been considered less than ideal in Rubens's time.
Aesthetic relativism is a variety of the philosophy known generally as relativism Relativism is the idea that some elements or aspects of experience or culture are relative to, i.e., dependent on, other elements or aspects, which casts doubt on the possibility of direct epistemic access to the "external world", and which therefore reject the positive claim that statements made about the external world can be known to be objectively true Truth can have a variety of meanings, from the state of being the case, being in accord with a particular fact or reality, being in accord with the body of real things, events, actuality, or fidelity to an original or to a standard, truth "behind" everything, the ontological truth. In archaic usage it could be fidelity, constancy or. Other varieties of relativism include cognitive relativism (the general claim that all truth and knowledge is relative) and Ethical Relativism Descriptive relativism is the observation that different cultures have different moral standards. Descriptive relativists do not necessarily affirm or deny the existence of a single correct normative appraisal, given the same set of circumstances. Likewise, they do not necessarily make any meta-ethical commitments to the semantics, ontology, or (the claim that moral judgments are relative). Aesthetic and Ethical relativism are sub-categories of Cognitive Relativism. Philosophers who have been influential in relativist thinking include:
- David Hume David Hume was a Scottish philosopher and historian, regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment. Hume is often grouped with John Locke, George Berkeley, and a handful of others as a British Empiricist, particularly his "radical scepticism" as set out in A Treatise of Human Nature Hume wrote A Treatise of Human Nature in France at the age of twenty-six. Although many scholars today consider the Treatise to be Hume's most important work and one of the most important books in the history of philosophy, the public in Britain did not at first agree. Hume himself described the public reaction to the publication of the Treatise
- Thomas Kuhn Thomas Samuel Kuhn was an American intellectual who wrote extensively on the history of science and developed several important notions in the sociology and philosophy of science, with regards to the history and philosophy of science The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. In addition to these central problems for science as a whole, many philosophers of science consider these problems as they apply to particular sciences . Some philosophers of science also use contemporary results in science to draw, and particularly his work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions The Structure of Scientific Revolutions , by Thomas Kuhn, is an analysis of the history of science. Its publication was a landmark event in the sociology of scientific knowledge, and popularized the terms paradigm and paradigm shift
- Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (German pronunciation: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈniːtsʃə]; in English UK: /ˈniːtʃə/, US: /ˈniːtʃi/) was a 19th-century German philosopher and classical philologist. He wrote critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science, using a distinctive style and displaying a, in moral philosophy and epistemology Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge. It addresses the questions:
- Richard Rorty Richard McKay Rorty was an American philosopher. He had a long and diverse academic career, including positions as Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton, Kenan Professor of Humanities at the University of Virginia, and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University. His complex intellectual background gave him a comprehensive and, on the contingency of language
Philosophers who have made influential objectivist accounts include
- Plato Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science. Plato was originally a, and in particular his Theory of the Forms A theory of substantial forms asserts that there are things called forms , and that they are what organize matter and make it intelligible. Substantial forms are the source of order, unity, and identity of objects
- Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was an 18th-century German philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg. Kant was the last influential philosopher of modern Europe in the classic sequence of the theory of knowledge during the Enlightenment beginning with thinkers John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume, who argued that the judgment of beauty, despite the standards of which being unique to individuals, is a universally practiced function of the mind.
- Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and political activist. He is an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chomsky is well known in the academic and scientific community as one of the fathers of modern linguistics, and a major figure of, whose "nativist" theory of linguistics argues for a universal grammar (i.e., that language is not as contingent as relativists have argued that it is).
The question whether or not such agreement pre-exists social conditioning is an ongoing one, and mirrors the broader nature versus nurture The nature versus nurture debates concern the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities versus personal experiences ("nurture", i.e. empiricism or behaviorism) in determining or causing individual differences in physical and behavioral traits debate within the social sciences, and within science Science is, in its broadest sense, any systematic knowledge that is capable of resulting in a correct prediction or reliable outcome. In this sense, science may refer to a highly skilled technique, technology, or practice and philosophy Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. It is distinguished from other ways of addressing fundamental questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument. The word "philosophy" comes from the in general. (For example, an infbecause these are believed to be the optimal conditions for the reproduction of the species: the well-being of the ormed and educated public might have been informed and educated in different ways, and their tastes might then have been quite divergent.) The extent to which taste Taste as an aesthetic, sociological, economic and anthropological concept refers to a cultural patterns of choice and preference. While taste is often understood as a biological concept, it can also be reasonably studied as a social or cultural phenomenon. Taste is about drawing distinctions between things such as styles, manners, consumer goods might be explained in fundamentally sociological as distinct from aesthetic terms, is a matter of ongoing debate.
On the relationship between aesthetics Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste. More broadly, scholars in the field define aesthetics as "critical, sexual attraction and reproduction Reproduction is the biological process by which new "offspring" individual organisms are produced from their "parents". Reproduction is a fundamental feature of all known life; each individual organism exists as the result of reproduction. The known methods of reproduction are broadly grouped into two main types: sexual and see Arthur Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the fundamental question of whether reason alone can unlock answers about the world "On the Metaphysics of the Love of the Sexes". For Schopenhauer, the criteria for sexual attraction are (in women from the perspective of men) beauty ,health At the time of the creation of the World Health Organization , in 1948, health was defined as being "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity"; and (in men from the perspective of women) status, strength and wealth. This is potential offspring is always the key concern, although one or both of the partners may be quite unconscious of this.
See also
References
- Thomas Kuhn Thomas Samuel Kuhn was an American intellectual who wrote extensively on the history of science and developed several important notions in the sociology and philosophy of science, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions The Structure of Scientific Revolutions , by Thomas Kuhn, is an analysis of the history of science. Its publication was a landmark event in the sociology of scientific knowledge, and popularized the terms paradigm and paradigm shift
- Richard Rorty Richard McKay Rorty was an American philosopher. He had a long and diverse academic career, including positions as Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton, Kenan Professor of Humanities at the University of Virginia, and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University. His complex intellectual background gave him a comprehensive and, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity , is a book by American philosopher Richard Rorty, based on two sets of lectures he gave at University College, London, and at Trinity College, Cambridge.
- Arthur Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the fundamental question of whether reason alone can unlock answers about the world "On the Metaphysics of the Love of the Sexes", in The World as Will and Representation The World as Will and Representation is the central work of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. It was published in December 1818 ("Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung")
Categories: Aesthetics Categories: Branches of philosophy | Arts | Perception | Design | Axiology | Relativism
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Buffalo Rising (blog)
I don't want to argue for total relativism or, worse, solipsism but, let's face it, "you like vanilla, I like chocolate" is not too far from what I mean, ...
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