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Single Idea 24174

[filed under theme 21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 4. Beauty ]

Full Idea

Scruton describes beauty in terms of the sense of 'fittingness'. …Another way to put this is that we find things beautiful at the moment we realise that they contain patterns that will allow lots of detail to be reconciled or predicted.

Gist of Idea

Beauty is fittingness, of details uniting within a pattern

Source

Tom Cochrane (The Aesthetic Value of the World [2021], 2.5)

Book Ref

Cochrane,Tom: 'The Aesthetic Value of the World' [OUP 2021], p.42


A Reaction

[Scruton 2009 Ch.4] I don't think this explains my love of some particular turn of phrase in Bach, or some startling metaphor from Shakespeare. Pinning down the essence of beauty looks a doomed project to me. Aesthetics over-emphasises painting.