Beauty and the Aesthetic

Beauty has often been a hotly debated topic in philosophical discussions. What is the nature of beauty? How does it relate to the aesthetics? Does it all simply come down to taste? I would like to put forward the radical proposition that there are, in fact, objective standards of beauty, and that these standards are closely related to our aesthetic understanding.

First, what do I mean by the aesthetic understanding? No, I am not referring to Roger Scruton's book in any way. Rather, I refer to that emotion that we feel when we are presented with something we consider beautiful, that feeling of pleasure at the work, be it a song, a good book, a painting, or a sunset. I hate to use the term aesthetic emotion, but I feel it serves well here, as, unlike Bell, I am not suggesting that only certain "sensitive people" experience this emotion, but rather that it is a human universal, even if we do not have the precise words to describe it. It is a term of convenience to compensate for our language's lack.

What, then, are these standards of beauty? I could hardly dare to venture into such a topic in a mere blog post and with such a feeble mind as my own, though I shall attempt to find a starting point. Beauty is a trait of an object, be it sensory (as in auditory or visual) or mental (such as comes from reading a book), that connects with the viewer in some way. It is at once a universal and deeply personal experience, combining our individual likes and dislikes (inherent character traits) with our life experiences (learned character traits).

This may not, at first glance, seem to be a universal definition, as it does not point to any specific quality in a thing that makes it beautiful. But I believe it is the only FAIR way to account for beauty in a way that does not discount the individual, that allows two different people to see an object, and for one to say it is beautiful, and the other to say it is not (which is, itself, I believe, an incorrect usage. We SAY something IS beautiful, when what we really mean is that something is beautiful TO ME, this is beautiful according to MY perceptions and MY experience.). It is up to the individual, then, to define what these aspects may be. Or, to put it another way... beauty truly IS in the eye of the beholder.

To end with a question: Is it possible for a term, such as beauty, to have a definition that is both universal and subjective, as I have attempted to show?