more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
Beauty is rationally founded; it challenges us to find meaning in its object, to make critical comparisons, and to examine our own lives and emotions in the light of what we find.
Gist of Idea
Beauty is rationally founded, inviting meaning, comparison and self-reflection
Source
Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 9)
Book Ref
Scruton,Roger: 'Beauty: A Very Short Introduction' [OUP 2011], p.163
A Reaction
This is the Kantian tradition, and I'm not finding it very persuasive. It seems to place the value of beauty in what we do with it afterwards, and he seems to make beauty a necessary stepping stone to virtue. I see beauty as more sui generis.
| 18543 | Do aesthetic reasons count as reasons, if they are rejectable without contradiction? [Scruton] |
| 18542 | Defining truth presupposes that there can be a true definition [Scruton] |
| 18546 | The pleasure taken in beauty also aims at understanding and valuing [Scruton] |
| 18544 | Maybe 'beauty' is too loaded, and we should talk of fittingness or harmony [Scruton] |
| 18541 | Beauty (unlike truth and goodness) is questionable as an ultimate value [Scruton] |
| 18548 | Natural beauty reassures us that the world is where we belong [Scruton] |
| 18551 | Croce says art makes inarticulate intuitions conscious; rival views say the audience is the main concern [Scruton] |
| 18550 | Art gives us imaginary worlds which we can view impartially [Scruton] |
| 18553 | Beauty shows us what we should want in order to achieve human fulfilment [Scruton] |
| 18554 | Prostitution is wrong because it hardens the soul, since soul and body are one [Scruton] |
| 18556 | Beauty is rationally founded, inviting meaning, comparison and self-reflection [Scruton] |