Aesthetics#Aesthetics and the philosophy of art

The word aesthetic is derived from the Ancient Greek {{wikt-lang|grc|αἰσθητικός}} ({{grc-transl|αἰσθητικός}}, "perceptive, sensitive, pertaining to sensory perception"), which in turn comes from {{wikt-lang|grc|αἰσθάνομαι}} ({{grc-transl|αἰσθάνομαι}}, "I perceive, sense, learn") and is related to {{wikt-lang|grc|αἴσθησις}} ({{grc-transl|αἴσθησις}}, "perception, sensation").{{OEtymD|aesthetic}} Aesthetics in this central sense has been said to start with the series of articles on "The Pleasures of the Imagination", which the journalist Joseph Addison wrote in the early issues of the magazine The Spectator in 1712.

The term aesthetics was appropriated and coined with new meaning by the German philosopher Alexander Baumgarten in his dissertation Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus ({{langx|en|"Philosophical considerations of some matters pertaining the poem"}}) in 1735;{{cite book |last=Guyer |first=Paul |title=Values of Beauty: Historical Essays in Aesthetics |year=2005 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0521606691 |url=https://archive.org/details/valuesofbeautyhi00guye |url-access=registration}} Baumgarten chose "aesthetics" because he wished to emphasize the experience of art as a means of knowing. Baumgarten's definition of aesthetics in the fragment Aesthetica (1750) is occasionally considered the first definition of modern aesthetics.{{cite book |last=Wilson |first=N. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8pXhAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA21 |title=Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece |date=2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1136788000 |page=20}}

The term was introduced into the English language by Thomas Carlyle in his Life of Friedrich Schiller (1825).{{Cite journal |last=Roberts |first=Ruth |date=1991 |title=Carlyle and the Aesthetic Movement |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44945538 |url-status=live |journal=Carlyle Annual |issue=12 |pages=58 |issn=1050-3099 |jstor=44945538 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221020113501/https://www.jstor.org/stable/44945538 |archive-date=20 October 2022 |access-date=3 February 2023}}

{{main|History of aesthetics}}

The history of the philosophy of art as aesthetics covering the visual arts, the literary arts, the musical arts and other artists forms of expression can be dated back at least to Aristotle and the ancient Greeks. Aristotle writing of the literary arts in his Poetics stated that epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, dithyrambic poetry, painting, sculpture, music, and dance are all fundamentally acts of mimesis, each varying in imitation by medium, object, and manner.{{sfn| Halliwell | 2002 | pp=152–159}}{{sfn| Poetics | p= I 1447a}} Aristotle applies the term mimesis both as a property of a work of art and also as the product of the artist's intention{{sfn| Halliwell | 2002 | pp=152–159}} and contends that the audience's realisation of the mimesis is vital to understanding the work itself.{{sfn| Halliwell | 2002 | pp=152–159}}

Aristotle states that mimesis is a natural instinct of humanity that separates humans from animals{{sfn| Halliwell | 2002 | pp=152–159}}{{sfn| Poetics | p= IV}} and that all human artistry "follows the pattern of nature".{{sfn| Halliwell | 2002 | pp=152–159}} Because of this, Aristotle believed that each of the mimetic arts possesses what Stephen Halliwell calls "highly structured procedures for the achievement of their purposes."{{sfn| Halliwell | 2002 | pp=152–59}} For example, music imitates with the media of rhythm and harmony, whereas dance imitates with rhythm alone, and poetry with language.

The forms also differ in their object of imitation. Comedy, for instance, is a dramatic imitation of men worse than average; whereas tragedy imitates men slightly better than average. Lastly, the forms differ in their manner of imitation – through narrative or character, through change or no change, and through drama or no drama.{{sfn| Poetics | p=III}}

File:Paintings Exhibition D.A.R. Alexey Khatskevich Y-Gallery 5.09.2013 22.JPG

Some writers distinguish aesthetics from the philosophy of art, claiming that the former is the study of beauty and taste while the latter is the study of works of art. Slater holds that the "full field" of aesthetics is broad, but in a narrow sense it can be limited to the theory of beauty, excluding the philosophy of art. Aesthetics typically considers questions of beauty as well as of art. It examines topics such as art works, aesthetic experience, and aesthetic judgment.{{Citation |last=Shelley |first=James |title=The Concept of the Aesthetic |date=2017 |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/aesthetic-concept/ |access-date=2018-12-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308102520/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/aesthetic-concept/ |archive-date=8 March 2021 |url-status=live |edition=Winter 2017 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}.

Aesthetic experience refers to the sensory contemplation or appreciation of an object (not necessarily a work of art), while artistic judgment refers to the recognition, appreciation or criticism of art in general or a specific work of art. In the words of one philosopher, "Philosophy of art is about art. Aesthetics is about many things—including art. But it is also about our experience of breathtaking landscapes or the pattern of shadows on the wall opposite your office.Nanay, Bence. (2019) Aesthetics: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. p. 4.

Philosophers of art weigh a culturally contingent conception of art versus one that is purely theoretical. They study the varieties of art in relation to their physical, social, and cultural environments. Aesthetic philosophers sometimes also refer to psychological studies to help understand how people see, hear, imagine, think, learn, and act in relation to the materials and problems of art. Aesthetic psychology studies the creative process and the aesthetic experience.Thomas Munro, "aesthetics", The World Book Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, ed. A. Richard Harmet, et al., (Chicago: Merchandise Mart Plaza, 1986), p. 81.

{{blockquote|Aesthetics is for the artist as ornithology is for the birds.|Barnett Newman[http://www.barnettnewman.org/chronology.php Barnett Newman Foundation, Chronology, 1952] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160408123741/http://www.barnettnewman.org/chronology.php |date=8 April 2016 }} Retrieved 30 August 2010The Abuse of Beauty: Aesthetics and the Concept of Art, By Arthur Coleman Danto, p. 1, Published by Open Court Publishing, 2003, {{ISBN|978-0812695403}}}}

{{see also|Value judgment}}

File:Immanuel Kant - Gemaelde 1.jpg believed that aesthetics arises from a faculty of disinterested judgment.]]

Aesthetics examines affective domain response to an object or phenomenon. Judgements of aesthetic value rely on the ability to discriminate at a sensory level. However, aesthetic judgments usually go beyond sensory discrimination.

For David Hume, delicacy of taste is not merely "the ability to detect all the ingredients in a composition", but also the sensitivity "to pains as well as pleasures, which escape the rest of mankind."David Hume, Essays Moral, Political, Literary, Indianapolis: Literary Fund, 1987. Thus, sensory discrimination is linked to capacity for pleasure.

For Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgment, 1790), "enjoyment" is the result when pleasure arises from sensation, but judging something to be "beautiful" has a third requirement: sensation must give rise to pleasure by engaging reflective contemplation. Judgements of beauty are sensory, emotional and intellectual all at once. Kant observed of a man "if he says that 'Canary wine is pleasant,' he is quite content if someone else corrects his expression and remind him that he ought to say instead: 'It is pleasant to me,'" because "every one has his own [sense of] taste". The case of "beauty" is different from mere "pleasantness" because "if he gives out anything as beautiful, he supposes in others the same satisfaction—he judges not merely for himself, but for every one, and speaks of beauty as if it were a property of things."{{Cite book |last=Kant |first=Immanuel |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/48433/48433-h/48433-h.htm |title=Critique of Judgement |date=1790 |publisher=Macmillan and Company |isbn=9781508892281 |edition=2nd |location=London, England |publication-date=1914 |pages=57–58 |translator-last=Bernard |translator-first=J. H. |chapter=§ 7. Comparison of the Beautiful with the Pleasant and the Good by means of the above characteristic}}

Viewer interpretations of beauty may on occasion be observed to possess two concepts of value: aesthetics and taste. Aesthetics is the philosophical notion of beauty. Taste is a result of an education process and awareness of elite cultural values learned through exposure to mass culture. Bourdieu examined how the elite in society define the aesthetic values like taste and how varying levels of exposure to these values can result in variations by class, cultural background, and education.Bourdieu, Pierre (1984). Distinction. Routledge. {{ISBN|0674212770}} According to Kant, beauty is subjective and universal; thus certain things are beautiful to everyone.{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetic-judgment/|title=Aesthetic Judgment|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|last = Zangwill|first = Nick|encyclopedia = The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |date = 26 August 2014|editor-last = Zalta|editor-first = Edward N.}} In the opinion of Władysław Tatarkiewicz, there are six conditions for the presentation of art: beauty, form, representation, reproduction of reality, artistic expression and innovation. However, one may not be able to pin down these qualities in a work of art.{{cite book|first = Władysław|last = Tatarkiewicz|title = A History of Six Ideas: an essay in aesthetics |date = 1980|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=eD4qAQAAMAAJ|publisher=PWN/Polish Scientific Publishers|isbn = 978-8301008246}}

The question of whether there are facts about aesthetic judgments belongs to the branch of metaphilosophy known as meta-aesthetics.{{Cite book|url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199747108.001.0001/acref-9780199747108-e-498;jsessionid=1B3F479F4180E26B79F508102F8C0D97|title=Encyclopedia of Aesthetics|first=Louise|last=Hanson|date=21 August 2014|publisher=Oxford University Press|via=www.oxfordreference.com|doi=10.1093/acref/9780199747108.001.0001|isbn=978-0-19-974710-8 }}

File:Double-alaskan-rainbow.jpgs often have aesthetic appeal]]

Aesthetic judgment is closely tied to disgust.{{Citation needed|date=June 2023|reason=I don't think a section on aesthetic judgment should start with "disgust," it needs a good citation and justification to stay in this current position on the page.}} Responses like disgust show that sensory detection is linked in instinctual ways to facial expressions including physiological responses like the gag reflex. Disgust is triggered largely by dissonance; as Darwin pointed out, seeing a stripe of soup in a man's beard is disgusting even though neither soup nor beards are themselves disgusting. Aesthetic judgments may be linked to emotions or, like emotions, partially embodied in physical reactions. For example, the awe inspired by a sublime landscape might physically manifest with an increased heart-rate or pupil dilation.

As seen, emotions are conformed to 'cultural' reactions, therefore aesthetics is always characterized by 'regional responses', as Francis Grose was the first to affirm in his Rules for Drawing Caricaturas: With an Essay on Comic Painting (1788), published in W. Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty, Bagster, London s.d. (1791? [1753]), pp. 1–24. Francis Grose can therefore be claimed to be the first critical 'aesthetic regionalist' in proclaiming the anti-universality of aesthetics in contrast to the perilous and always resurgent dictatorship of beauty.{{cite book|first = Yvonne|last = Bezrucka|title = The Invention of Northern Aesthetics in 18th-Century English Literature|date = 2017|url = https://www.cambridgescholars.com/the-invention-of-northern-aesthetics-in-18th-century-english-literature|access-date = 4 September 2019|archive-date = 4 September 2019|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190904163147/https://www.cambridgescholars.com/the-invention-of-northern-aesthetics-in-18th-century-english-literature|url-status = live}} 'Aesthetic Regionalism' can thus be seen as a political statement and stance which vies against any universal notion of beauty to safeguard the counter-tradition of aesthetics related to what has been considered and dubbed un-beautiful just because one's culture does not contemplate it, e.g. Edmund Burke's sublime, what is usually defined as 'primitive' art, or un-harmonious, non-cathartic art, camp art, which 'beauty' posits and creates, dichotomously, as its opposite, without even the need of formal statements, but which will be 'perceived' as ugly.{{cite journal|first = Yvonne|last = Bezrucka|title = The Well Beloved: Thomas Hardy's Manifesto of 'Regional Aesthetics' |journal = Victorian Literature and Culture|volume = 36|pages = 227–245|date = 2008|doi = 10.1017/S1060150308080133|s2cid = 170093813}}

Likewise, aesthetic judgments may be culturally conditioned to some extent. Victorians in Britain often saw African sculpture as ugly, but just a few decades later, Edwardian audiences saw the same sculptures as beautiful. Evaluations of beauty may well be linked to desirability, perhaps even to sexual desirability. Thus, judgments of aesthetic value can become linked to judgments of economic, political, or moral value.Holm, Ivar (2006). Ideas and Beliefs in Architecture and Industrial design: How attitudes, orientations, and underlying assumptions shape the built environment. Oslo School of Architecture and Design. {{ISBN|8254701741}}. In a current context, a Lamborghini might be judged to be beautiful partly because it is desirable as a status symbol, or it may be judged to be repulsive partly because it signifies over-consumption and offends political or moral values.{{cite book|editor-last = Korsmeyer |editor-first = Carolyn |title =Aesthetics: The Big Questions|date = 1998|publisher =Wiley-Blackwell |isbn = 978-0631205944}}

The context of its presentation also affects the perception of artwork; artworks presented in a classical museum context are liked more and rated more interesting than when presented in a sterile laboratory context. While specific results depend heavily on the style of the presented artwork, overall, the effect of context proved to be more important for the perception of artwork than the effect of genuineness (whether the artwork was being presented as original or as a facsimile/copy).{{cite journal |author1=Grüner |first=Susanne |author2=Specker |first2=Eva |author3=Leder |first3=Helmut |name-list-style=amp |year=2019 |title=Effects of Context and Genuineness in the Experience of Art |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330414719 |url-status=live |journal=Empirical Studies of the Arts |volume=37 |issue=2 |pages=138–152 |doi=10.1177/0276237418822896 |s2cid=150115587 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200124215151/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330414719 |archive-date=24 January 2020 |access-date=5 December 2019}}

Aesthetic judgments can often be very fine-grained and internally contradictory. Likewise aesthetic judgments seem often to be at least partly intellectual and interpretative. What a thing means or symbolizes is often what is being judged. Modern aestheticians have asserted that will and desire were almost dormant in aesthetic experience, yet preference and choice have seemed important aesthetics to some 20th-century thinkers. The point is already made by Hume, but see Mary Mothersill, "Beauty and the Critic's Judgment", in The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics, 2004. Thus aesthetic judgments might be seen to be based on the senses, emotions, intellectual opinions, will, desires, culture, preferences, values, subconscious behaviour, conscious decision, training, instinct, sociological institutions, or some complex combination of these, depending on exactly which theory is employed.{{citation needed|date=February 2024}}

A third major topic in the study of aesthetic judgments is how they are unified across art forms. For instance, the source of a painting's beauty has a different character to that of beautiful music, suggesting their aesthetics differ in kind.Consider Clement Greenberg's arguments in "On Modernist Painting" (1961), reprinted in Aesthetics: A Reader in Philosophy of Arts. The distinct inability of language to express aesthetic judgment and the role of social construction further cloud this issue.

The philosopher Denis Dutton identified six universal signatures in human aesthetics:Denis Dutton, Aesthetic Universals, summarized by Steven Pinker in The Blank Slate.

1. Expertise or virtuosity. Humans cultivate, recognize, and admire technical artistic skills.
2. Nonutilitarian pleasure. People enjoy art for art's sake, and do not demand that it keep them warm or put food on the table.
3. Style. Artistic objects and performances satisfy rules of composition that place them in a recognizable style.
4. Criticism. People make a point of judging, appreciating, and interpreting works of art.
5. Imitation. With a few important exceptions like abstract painting, works of art simulate experiences of the world.
6. Special focus. Art is set aside from ordinary life and made a dramatic focus of experience.

Artists such as Thomas Hirschhorn have indicated that there are too many exceptions to Dutton's categories. For example, Hirschhorn's installations deliberately eschew technical virtuosity. People can appreciate a Renaissance Madonna for aesthetic reasons, but such objects often had (and sometimes still have) specific devotional functions. "Rules of composition" that might be read into Duchamp's Fountain or John Cage's 4′33″ do not locate the works in a recognizable style (or certainly not a style recognizable at the time of the works' realization). Moreover, some of Dutton's categories seem too broad: a physicist might entertain hypothetical worlds in his/her imagination in the course of formulating a theory. Another problem is that Dutton's categories seek to universalize traditional European notions of aesthetics and art forgetting that, as André Malraux and others have pointed out, there have been large numbers of cultures in which such ideas (including the idea "art" itself) were non-existent.Derek Allan, Art and the Human Adventure: André Malraux's Theory of Art. (Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rodopi. 2009).

Aesthetic ethics refers to the idea that human conduct and behaviour ought to be governed by that which is beautiful and attractive. John Dewey{{ cite book |last1= Dewey|first1= John |date=1932 |chapter=Ethics|author2= James Tufts|author-link= John Dewey | title= The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882–1953 |editor= Jo-Ann Boydston |place=Carbonsdale |publisher= Southern Illinois University Press|page= 275}} has pointed out that the unity of aesthetics and ethics is in fact reflected in our understanding of behaviour being "fair"—the word having a double meaning of attractive and morally acceptable. More recently, James Page{{multiref2|[http://www.infoagepub.com/products/content/p478d75b79b1ea.php Peace Education – Exploring Ethical and Philosophical Foundations] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081229231453/http://www.infoagepub.com/products/content/p478d75b79b1ea.php |date=29 December 2008 }} infoagepub.com|{{cite book|url=http://eprints.qut.edu.au/12263/|title=Peace Education : Exploring Ethical and Philosophical Foundations|first= James S.|last=Page|year=2017|via=eprints.qut.edu.au|publisher=Information Age Pub. |access-date=22 October 2017|isbn=978-1593118891|archive-date=4 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181104065329/http://eprints.qut.edu.au/12263/|url-status=live}}

}} has suggested that aesthetic ethics might be taken to form a philosophical rationale for peace education.

{{main|Beauty}}

Beauty is one of the main subjects of aesthetics, together with art and taste.{{cite web |title=Aesthetics |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/aesthetics |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |access-date=9 February 2021 |language=en |archive-date=28 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220228161617/https://www.britannica.com/topic/aesthetics |url-status=live }} Many of its definitions include the idea that an object is beautiful if perceiving it is accompanied by aesthetic pleasure. Among the examples of beautiful objects are landscapes, sunsets, humans and works of art. Beauty is a positive aesthetic value that contrasts with ugliness as its negative counterpart.{{cite web |title=Beauty and Ugliness |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/beauty-and-ugliness |website=www.encyclopedia.com |access-date=9 February 2021 |archive-date=24 December 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211224063952/https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/beauty-and-ugliness |url-status=live }}

Different intuitions commonly associated with beauty and its nature are in conflict with each other, which poses certain difficulties for understanding it.{{cite book |last1=Honderich |first1=Ted |title=The Oxford Companion to Philosophy |date=2005 |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/HONTOC-2 |chapter=Aesthetic judgment |access-date=26 May 2021 |archive-date=29 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210129082636/https://philpapers.org/rec/HONTOC-2 |url-status=live }}{{cite book |last1=De Clercq |first1=Rafael |title=The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics |publisher=Routledge |date=2013 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/GAUTRC-4 |chapter=Beauty |access-date=26 May 2021 |archive-date=13 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220113095319/https://philpapers.org/rec/GAUTRC-4 |url-status=live }} On the one hand, beauty is ascribed to things as an objective, public feature. On the other hand, it seems to depend on the subjective, emotional response of the observer. It is said, for example, that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder".{{cite web |author=Martin |first=Gary |year=2007 |title=Beauty is in the eye of the beholder |url=http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/59100.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071130023507/http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/59100.html |archive-date=November 30, 2007 |access-date=December 4, 2007 |publisher=The Phrase Finder}}{{cite web |last1=Sartwell |first1=Crispin |title=Beauty |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/beauty/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |date=2017 |access-date=26 May 2021 |archive-date=26 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220226100643/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/beauty/ |url-status=live }} It may be possible to reconcile these intuitions by affirming that it depends both on the objective features of the beautiful thing and the subjective response of the observer. One way to achieve this is to hold that an object is beautiful if it has the power to bring about certain aesthetic experiences in the perceiving subject. This is often combined with the view that the subject needs to have the ability to correctly perceive and judge beauty, sometimes referred to as "sense of taste".{{cite book |last1=Zangwill |first1=Nick |editor1-first=Jerrold |editor1-last=Levinson |title=Oxford Handbook to Aesthetics |date=2003 |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279456.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199279456-e-18 |chapter=Beauty |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279456.003.0018 |access-date=26 May 2021 |archive-date=11 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220111214528/https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279456.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199279456-e-18 |url-status=live }} Various conceptions of how to define and understand beauty have been suggested. Classical conceptions emphasize the objective side of beauty by defining it in terms of the relation between the beautiful object as a whole and its parts: the parts should stand in the right proportion to each other and thus compose an integrated harmonious whole. Hedonist conceptions, on the other hand, focus more on the subjective side by drawing a necessary connection between pleasure and beauty, e.g. that for an object to be beautiful is for it to cause disinterested pleasure.{{cite journal |last1=Gorodeisky |first1=Keren |title=On Liking Aesthetic Value |journal=Philosophy and Phenomenological Research |date=2019 |volume=102 |issue=2 |pages=261–280 |doi=10.1111/phpr.12641 |s2cid=204522523 |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/phpr.12641 |language=en |issn=1933-1592 |access-date=26 May 2021 |archive-date=8 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211008033125/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/phpr.12641 |url-status=live }} Other conceptions include defining beautiful objects in terms of their value, of a loving attitude towards them or of their function.{{cite book |last1=Craig |first1=Edward |title=Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy |date=1996 |publisher=Routledge |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/BEAREO |chapter=Beauty |access-date=26 May 2021 |archive-date=16 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210116111145/https://philpapers.org/rec/BEAREO |url-status=live }}

During the first half of the twentieth century, a significant shift to general aesthetic theory took place which attempted to apply aesthetic theory between various forms of art, including the literary arts and the visual arts, to each other. This resulted in the rise of the New Criticism school and debate concerning the intentional fallacy. At issue was the question of whether the aesthetic intentions of the artist in creating the work of art, whatever its specific form, should be associated with the criticism and evaluation of the final product of the work of art, or, if the work of art should be evaluated on its own merits independent of the intentions of the artist.{{citation needed|date=February 2024}}

In 1946, William K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley published a classic and controversial New Critical essay entitled "The Intentional Fallacy", in which they argued strongly against the relevance of an author's intention, or "intended meaning" in the analysis of a literary work. For Wimsatt and Beardsley, the words on the page were all that mattered; importation of meanings from outside the text was considered irrelevant, and potentially distracting.{{citation needed|date=February 2024}}

In another essay, "The Affective Fallacy," which served as a kind of sister essay to "The Intentional Fallacy", Wimsatt and Beardsley also discounted the reader's personal/emotional reaction to a literary work as a valid means of analyzing a text. This fallacy would later be repudiated by theorists from the reader-response school of literary theory. One of the leading theorists from this school, Stanley Fish, was himself trained by New Critics. Fish criticizes Wimsatt and Beardsley in his essay "Literature in the Reader" (1970).Leitch, Vincent B., et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001.

As summarized by Berys Gaut and Livingston in their essay "The Creation of Art": "Structuralist and post-structuralists theorists and critics were sharply critical of many aspects of New Criticism, beginning with the emphasis on aesthetic appreciation and the so-called autonomy of art, but they reiterated the attack on biographical criticisms' assumption that the artist's activities and experience were a privileged critical topic."{{cite book|last1=Gaut|first1=Berys|last2= Livingston|first2 = Paisley|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=7r27dci51FcC&pg=PA3 |title =The Creation of Art| page = 3|publisher = Cambridge University Press|date =2003|isbn =978-0521812344}} These authors contend that: "Anti-intentionalists, such as formalists, hold that the intentions involved in the making of art are irrelevant or peripheral to correctly interpreting art. So details of the act of creating a work, though possibly of interest in themselves, have no bearing on the correct interpretation of the work."Gaut and Livingston, p. 6.

Gaut and Livingston define the intentionalists as distinct from formalists stating that: "Intentionalists, unlike formalists, hold that reference to intentions is essential in fixing the correct interpretation of works." They quote Richard Wollheim as stating that, "The task of criticism is the reconstruction of the creative process, where the creative process must in turn be thought of as something not stopping short of, but terminating on, the work of art itself."

A large number of derivative forms of aesthetics have developed as contemporary and transitory forms of inquiry associated with the field of aesthetics which include the post-modern, psychoanalytic, scientific, and mathematical among others.{{citation needed|date=February 2024}}

Early-twentieth-century artists, poets and composers challenged existing notions of beauty, broadening the scope of art and aesthetics. In 1941, Eli Siegel, American philosopher and poet, founded Aesthetic Realism, the philosophy that reality itself is aesthetic, and that "The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites."{{Cite journal|last=Green |first=Edward |title=Donald Francis Tovey, Aesthetic Realism and the Need for a Philosophic Musicology |journal=International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=227–248 |year= 2005 |jstor=30032170}}{{Cite journal|last=Siegel |first= Eli |title=Is Beauty the Making One of Opposites? |journal= The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism |volume= 14 |issue= 2 |pages= 282–283 |year= 1955 |jstor=425879}}

Various attempts have been made to define Post-Modern Aesthetics. The challenge to the assumption that beauty was central to art and aesthetics, thought to be original, is actually continuous with older aesthetic theory; Aristotle was the first in the Western tradition to classify "beauty" into types as in his theory of drama, and Kant made a distinction between beauty and the sublime. What was new was a refusal to credit the higher status of certain types, where the taxonomy implied a preference for tragedy and the sublime to comedy and the Rococo.

Croce suggested that "expression" is central in the way that beauty was once thought to be central. George Dickie suggested that the sociological institutions of the art world were the glue binding art and sensibility into unities.{{cite encyclopedia |title=The Aesthetic Attitude|url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/aesth-at/|last = King|first = Alexandra|encyclopedia = Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy}} Marshall McLuhan suggested that art always functions as a "counter-environment" designed to make visible what is usually invisible about a society.{{cite book|last1=Grosswiler|first1=Paul|title=Transforming McLuhan: Cultural, Critical, and Postmodern Perspectives|date=2010|publisher=Peter Lang Publishing|isbn=978-1433110672|page=13|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I19crS0qJ78C&q=mcluhan+on+art+as+counter-environment&pg=PA13|access-date=10 March 2015}} Theodor Adorno felt that aesthetics could not proceed without confronting the role of the culture industry in the commodification of art and aesthetic experience. Hal Foster attempted to portray the reaction against beauty and Modernist art in The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture. Arthur Danto has described this reaction as "kalliphobia" (after the Greek word for beauty, κάλλος kallos).{{cite journal | year = 2004 | title = Kalliphobia in Contemporary Art | journal = Art Journal | volume = 63 | issue = 2| pages = 24–35 | doi = 10.2307/4134518 | last1 = Danto | first1 = Arthur C.| jstor = 4134518 }} André Malraux explains that the notion of beauty was connected to a particular conception of art that arose with the Renaissance and was still dominant in the eighteenth century (but was supplanted later). The discipline of aesthetics, which originated in the eighteenth century, mistook this transient state of affairs for a revelation of the permanent nature of art.Derek Allan, Art and the Human Adventure, André Malraux's Theory of Art (Amsterdam: Netherlands Rodopi, 2009). Brian Massumi suggests to reconsider beauty following the aesthetical thought in the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari.Massumi, Brian (ed.), A Shock to Thought. Expression after Deleuze and Guattari. London, England & New York, New York: Routeledge, 2002. {{ISBN|0415238048}}. Walter Benjamin echoed Malraux in believing aesthetics was a comparatively recent invention, a view proven wrong in the late 1970s, when Abraham Moles and Frieder Nake analyzed links between beauty, information processing, and information theory. Denis Dutton in "The Art Instinct" also proposed that an aesthetic sense was a vital evolutionary factor.

Jean-François Lyotard re-invokes the Kantian distinction between taste and the sublime. Sublime painting, unlike kitsch realism, "... will enable us to see only by making it impossible to see; it will please only by causing pain."Lyotard, Jean-Françoise, What is Postmodernism?, in The Postmodern Condition, Minnesota and Manchester, 1984.Lyotard, Jean-Françoise, "Scriptures: Diffracted Traces", in Theory, Culture and Society, Volume 21, Number 1, 2004.

Sigmund Freud inaugurated aesthetical thinking in Psychoanalysis mainly via the "Uncanny" as aesthetical affect.Freud, Sigmund, "The Uncanny" (1919). Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Work of Sigmund Freud, 17: 234–236. London, England: The Hogarth Press. Following Freud and Merleau-Ponty,Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1964), The Visible and the Invisible. Northwestern University Press. {{ISBN|0810104571}}. Jacques Lacan theorized aesthetics in terms of sublimation and the Thing.Lacan, Jacques, "The Ethics of Psychoanalysis" (The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book VII), New York, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1992.

The relation of Marxist aesthetics to post-modern aesthetics is still a contentious area of debate.

The field of experimental aesthetics was founded by Gustav Theodor Fechner in the 19th century. Experimental aesthetics in these times had been characterized by a subject-based, inductive approach. The analysis of individual experience and behaviour based on experimental methods is a central part of experimental aesthetics. In particular, the perception of works of art,Kobbert, M. (1986), Kunstpsychologie ("Psychology of art"), Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, Germany. music, sound,{{Cite book |last1=Cunningham |first1=Stuart |title=Proceedings of the 18th International Audio Mostly Conference |last2=McGregor |first2=Iain |last3=Weinel |first3=Jonathan |last4=Darby |first4=John |last5=Stockman |first5=Tony |date=2023-10-11 |publisher=Association for Computing Machinery |isbn=979-8-4007-0818-3 |series=AM '23 |location=New York, New York, USA |pages=109–115 |chapter=Towards a Framework of Aesthetics in Sonic Interaction |doi=10.1145/3616195.3616219 |chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.1145/3616195.3616219}} or modern items such as websitesThielsch, M. T. (2008), Ästhetik von Websites. Wahrnehmung von Ästhetik und deren Beziehung zu Inhalt, Usability und Persönlichkeitsmerkmalen. ("The aesthetics of websites. Perception of aesthetics and its relation to content, usability, and personality traits."), MV Wissenschaft, Münster, Germany. or other IT productsHassenzahl, M. (2008), Aesthetics in interactive products: Correlates and consequences of beauty. In H.N.J. Schifferstein & P. Hekkert (Eds.): Product Experience. (pp. 287–302). Elsevier, Amsterdam is studied. Experimental aesthetics is strongly oriented towards the natural sciences. Modern approaches mostly come from the fields of cognitive psychology (aesthetic cognitivism) or neuroscience (neuroaesthetics{{cite journal |last1=Martindale |first1=C. |year=2007 |title=Recent trends in the psychological study of aesthetics, creativity, and the arts |journal=Empirical Studies of the Arts |volume=25 |issue=2 |pages=121–141 |doi=10.2190/b637-1041-2635-16nn |s2cid=143506308}}).

Mathematical considerations, such as symmetry and complexity, are used for analysis in theoretical aesthetics. This is different from the aesthetic considerations of applied aesthetics used in the study of mathematical beauty. Aesthetic considerations such as symmetry and simplicity are used in areas of philosophy, such as ethics and theoretical physics and cosmology to define truth, outside of empirical considerations. Beauty and Truth have been argued to be nearly synonymous,Ian Stewart. Why Beauty Is Truth: The History of Symmetry, 2008. as reflected in the statement "Beauty is truth, truth beauty" in the poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats, or by the Hindu motto "Satyam Shivam Sundaram" (Satya (Truth) is Shiva (God), and Shiva is Sundaram (Beautiful)). The fact that judgments of beauty and judgments of truth both are influenced by processing fluency, which is the ease with which information can be processed, has been presented as an explanation for why beauty is sometimes equated with truth.{{cite journal |last1=Reber |first1=R. |last2=Schwarz |first2=Norbert |author-link2=Norbert Schwarz |last3=Winkielman |first3=P. |year=2004 |title=Processing fluency and aesthetic pleasure: Is beauty in the perceiver's processing experience? |journal=Personality and Social Psychology Review |volume=8 |issue=4 |pages=364–382 |doi=10.1207/s15327957pspr0804_3 |pmid=15582859 |s2cid=1868463 |hdl-access=free |hdl=1956/594}} Recent research found that people use beauty as an indication for truth in mathematical pattern tasks.{{cite journal |last1=Reber |first1=R. |last2=Brun |first2=M. |last3=Mitterndorfer |first3=K. |year=2008 |title=The use of heuristics in intuitive mathematical judgment |journal=Psychonomic Bulletin & Review |volume=15 |issue=6 |pages=1174–1178 |doi=10.3758/pbr.15.6.1174 |pmid=19001586 |s2cid=5297500 |hdl-access=free |hdl=1956/2734}} However, scientists including the mathematician David Orrell{{Cite book |last=Orrell |first=David |title=Truth or Beauty: Science and the Quest for Order |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-0300186611 |location=New Haven, Connecticut}} and physicist Marcelo Gleiser{{Cite book |last=Gleiser|first=Marcelo |title=A Tear at the Edge of Creation: A Radical New Vision for Life in an Imperfect Universe |publisher=Free Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-1439108321}} have argued that the emphasis on aesthetic criteria such as symmetry is equally capable of leading scientists astray.

File:Mandel zoom 00 mandelbrot set.jpg with continuously colored environment]]

Computational approaches to aesthetics emerged amid efforts to use computer science methods "to predict, convey, and evoke emotional response to a piece of art.{{Cite book|title=Progress in Image Analysis and Processing, ICIAP 2013: Naples, Italy, September 9–13, 2013, Proceedings|last=Petrosino|first=Alfredo |date=2013|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-3642411830|location=Heidelberg|pages=21}} In this field, aesthetics is not considered to be dependent on taste but is a matter of cognition, and, consequently, learning.{{Cite book|title=Quantifying Aesthetics of Visual Design Applied to Automatic Design |last=Jahanian|first=Ali|date=2016|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-3319314853 |location=Cham|pages=11–12}} In 1928, the mathematician George David Birkhoff created an aesthetic measure $M\; =\; O/C$ as the ratio of order to complexity.{{cite journal |last1=Akiba|first1=Fuminori |title=Preface: Natural Computing and Computational Aesthetics |journal=Natural Computing and Beyond|volume=6|date=2013 |pages=117–118|doi=10.1007/978-4-431-54394-7_10|series=Proceedings in Information and Communications Technology |isbn=978-4431543930|doi-access=free}}

In the 1960s and 1970s, Max Bense, Abraham Moles and Frieder Nake were among the first to analyze links between aesthetics, information processing, and information theory.{{Cite book |last=Bense |first=Max |title=Einführung in die informationstheoretische Ästhetik. Grundlegung und Anwendung in der Texttheorie. |publisher=Rohwolt |year=1969}}A. Moles: Théorie de l'information et perception esthétique, Paris, Denoël, 1973 (Information Theory and aesthetical perception).F. Nake (1974). Ästhetik als Informationsverarbeitung. (Aesthetics as information processing). Grundlagen und Anwendungen der Informatik im Bereich ästhetischer Produktion und Kritik. Springer, 1974, {{ISBN|978-3211812167}}. Max Bense, for example, built on Birkhoff's aesthetic measure and proposed a similar information theoretic measure $M\_\backslash ddot\{a\}=R/H$, where $R$ is the redundancy and $H$ the entropy, which assigns higher value to simpler artworks.

In the 1990s, Jürgen Schmidhuber described an algorithmic theory of beauty. This theory takes the subjectivity of the observer into account and postulates that among several observations classified as comparable by a given subjective observer, the most aesthetically pleasing is the one that is encoded by the shortest description, following the direction of previous approaches.{{cite journal |last=Schmidhuber |first=Jürgen |author-link=Jürgen Schmidhuber |date=22 October 1997 |title=Low-Complexity Art |journal=Leonardo |volume=30 |issue=2 |pages=97–103 |doi=10.2307/1576418 |jstor=1576418 |pmid=22845826 |s2cid=18741604}}{{cite web |title=Theory of Beauty – Facial Attractiveness – Low-Complexity Art |url=http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/beauty.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140606191859/http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/beauty.html |archive-date=6 June 2014 |access-date=22 October 2017 |website=www.idsia.ch}} Schmidhuber's theory explicitly distinguishes between that which is beautiful and that which is interesting, stating that interestingness corresponds to the first derivative of subjectively perceived beauty. He supposes that every observer continually tries to improve the predictability and compressibility of their observations by identifying regularities like repetition, symmetry, and fractal self-similarity.{{cite conference |last=Schmidhuber |first=Jürgen |author-link=Jürgen Schmidhuber |date=1991 |title=Curious model-building control systems |conference=International Joint Conference on Neural Networks |location=Singapore |publisher=IEEE press |volume=2 |pages=1458–1463 |doi=10.1109/IJCNN.1991.170605}}Jürgen Schmidhuber. Papers on artificial curiosity since 1990: http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/interest.html, {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080918211559/http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/interest.html|date=18 September 2008}}.{{cite journal |last1=Schmidhuber |first1=Jürgen |author-link=Jürgen Schmidhuber |year=2006 |title=Developmental robotics, optimal artificial curiosity, creativity, music, and the fine arts |journal=Connection Science |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=173–187 |doi=10.1080/09540090600768658 |s2cid=2923356 |doi-access=free}}{{cite web |date=2018-01-03 |title=Schmidhuber's theory of beauty and curiosity in a German TV show |url=http://www.br-online.de/bayerisches-fernsehen/faszination-wissen/schoenheit--aesthetik-wahrnehmung-ID1212005092828.xml |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080603221058/http://www.br-online.de/bayerisches-fernsehen/faszination-wissen/schoenheit--aesthetik-wahrnehmung-ID1212005092828.xml |archive-date=3 June 2008 |publisher=Br-online.de |language=de}}

Since about 2005, computer scientists have attempted to develop automated methods to infer aesthetic quality of images.{{cite conference |first1=R. |last1=Datta |first2=D. |last2=Joshi |first3=J. |last3=Li |first4=J. |last4=Wang |title=Computer Vision – ECCV 2006 |chapter=Studying aesthetics in photographic images using a computational approach |series=Lecture Notes in Computer Science |book-title=Europ. Conf. on Computer Vision |year=2006 |volume=3953 |pages=288–301 |publisher=Springer |citeseerx=10.1.1.81.5178 |doi=10.1007/11744078_23 |isbn=978-3540338369 }}{{cite conference |last1=Wong |first1=L.-K. |last2=Low |first2=K.-L. |year=2009 |title=Saliency-enhanced image aesthetic classification |conference=International Conference on Image Processing |publisher=IEEE |doi=10.1109/ICIP.2009.5413825 |book-title=International Conference on Image Processing}}{{cite conference |first1=Y. |last1=Wu |first2=C.|last2=Bauckhage |first3=C. |last3=Thurau |title=2010 20th International Conference on Pattern Recognition |chapter=The good, the bad, and the ugly: predicting aesthetic image labels |book-title=Int. Conf. on Pattern Recognition |year=2010 |pages=1586–1589 |publisher=IEEE |doi=10.1109/ICPR.2010.392|isbn=978-1424475421 }}{{cite book| author1=Faria, J.|author2=Bagley, S.|author3=Rueger, S.|author4=Breckon, T.P.| chapter=Challenges of Finding Aesthetically Pleasing Images| title=Proc. International Workshop on Image and Audio Analysis for Multimedia Interactive Services| year=2013| publisher=IEEE| chapter-url=http://www.durham.ac.uk/toby.breckon/publications/papers/faria13aesthetics.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.durham.ac.uk/toby.breckon/publications/papers/faria13aesthetics.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live| access-date=19 June 2013}} Typically, these approaches follow a machine learning approach, where large numbers of manually rated photographs are used to "teach" a computer about what visual properties are of relevance to aesthetic quality. A study by Y. Li and C. J. Hu employed Birkhoff's measurement in their statistical learning approach where order and complexity of an image determined aesthetic value.{{Cite book |last1=Chio |first1=Cecilia Di |title=Applications of Evolutionary Computation: EvoApplications 2010: EvoCOMNET, EvoENVIRONMENT, EvoFIN, EvoMUSART, and EvoTRANSLOG, Istanbul, Turkey, April 7–9, 2010, Proceedings |last2=Brabazon |first2=Anthony |last3=Ebner |first3=Marc |last4=Farooq |first4=Muddassar |last5=Fink |first5=Andreas |last6=Grahl |first6=Jörn |last7=Greenfield |first7=Gary |last8=Machado |first8=Penousal |last9=O'Neill |first9=Michael |date=2010 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-3642122415 |location=Berlin, Germany |pages=302}} The image complexity was computed using information theory while the order was determined using fractal compression. There is also the case of the Acquine engine, developed at Penn State University, that rates natural photographs uploaded by users.{{cite web |url=http://acquine.alipr.com |title=Aesthetic Quality Inference Engine – Instant Impersonal Assessment of Photos |publisher=Penn State University |access-date=21 June 2009| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090509101935/http://acquine.alipr.com/| archive-date= 9 May 2009 | url-status= live}}

There have also been relatively successful attempts with regard to chess{{explain|date=October 2018}} and music.Manaris, B., Roos, P., Penousal, M., Krehbiel, D., Pellicoro, L. and Romero, J.; A Corpus-Based Hybrid Approach to Music Analysis and Composition; Proceedings of 22nd Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-07); Vancouver, British Columbia; pp. 839–845. 2007. Computational approaches have also been attempted in film making as demonstrated by a software model developed by Chitra Dorai and a group of researchers at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center.{{Cite book|title=Interactive Video: Algorithms and Technologies|last=Hammoud|first=Riad|date=2007|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|isbn=978-3540332145|location=Berlin|pages=162}} The tool predicted aesthetics based on the values of narrative elements. A relation between Max Bense's mathematical formulation of aesthetics in terms of "redundancy" and "complexity" and theories of musical anticipation was offered using the notion of Information Rate.Dubnov, S.; Musical Information Dynamics as Models of Auditory Anticipation; in Machine Audition: Principles, Algorithms and Systems, Ed. W. Weng, IGI Global publication, 2010.

{{main|Evolutionary aesthetics}}

Evolutionary aesthetics refers to evolutionary psychology theories in which the basic aesthetic preferences of Homo sapiens are argued to have evolved in order to enhance survival and reproductive success.{{cite book|last1=Shimura|first1=Arthur P.|last2=Palmer|first2=Stephen E.|title=Aesthetic Science: Connecting Minds, Brains, and Experience|year=2012|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=279}} One example being that humans are argued to find beautiful and prefer landscapes which were good habitats in the ancestral environment. Another example is that body symmetry and proportion are important aspects of physical attractiveness which may be due to this indicating good health during body growth. Evolutionary explanations for aesthetical preferences are important parts of evolutionary musicology, Darwinian literary studies, and the study of the evolution of emotion.

{{Main|Applied aesthetics}}

As well as being applied to art, aesthetics can also be applied to cultural objects, such as crosses or tools. For example, aesthetic coupling between art-objects and medical topics was made by speakers working for the US Information Agency. Art slides were linked to slides of pharmacological data, which improved attention and retention by simultaneous activation of intuitive right brain with rational left.{{cite journal |author=Giannini |first=A. J. |date=December 1993 |title=Tangential symbols: using visual symbolization to teach pharmacological principles of drug addiction to international audiences |journal=Journal of Clinical Pharmacology |volume=33 |issue=12 |pages=1139–1146 |doi=10.1002/j.1552-4604.1993.tb03913.x |pmid=7510314 |s2cid=32304779}} It can also be used in topics as diverse as cartography, mathematics, gastronomy, fashion and website design.{{cite journal |last1=Kent |first1=Alexander |title=Maps, Materiality and Tactile Aesthetics |journal=The Cartographic Journal |date=2019 |volume=56 |issue=1 |pages=1–3 |doi=10.1080/00087041.2019.1601932|doi-access=free |bibcode=2019CartJ..56....1K }}{{cite journal |last1=Kent |first1=Alexander |title=Aesthetics: A Lost Cause in Cartographic Theory? |journal=The Cartographic Journal |date=2005 |volume=42 |issue=2 |pages=182–188 |doi=10.1179/000870405X61487|bibcode=2005CartJ..42..182K |s2cid=129910488 }}{{cite journal |last1=Moshagen |first1=M. |last2=Thielsch |first2=M. T. |year=2010 |title=Facets of visual aesthetics |url=https://madoc.bib.uni-mannheim.de/30632/ |url-status=live |journal=International Journal of Human-Computer Studies |volume=68 |issue=10 |pages=689–709 |doi=10.1016/j.ijhcs.2010.05.006 |s2cid=205266500 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200725000810/https://madoc.bib.uni-mannheim.de/30632/ |archive-date=25 July 2020 |access-date=2 June 2020}}{{cite book |url=http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/visual_aesthetics.html |title=Visual Aesthetics |publisher=Interaction-design.org |access-date=31 July 2012 |archive-date=12 August 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120812070109/http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/visual_aesthetics.html |url-status=live }}{{cite journal | last1 = Lavie | first1 = T. | last2 = Tractinsky | first2 = N. | year = 2004 | title = Assessing dimensions of perceived visual aesthetics of web sites | journal = International Journal of Human-Computer Studies | volume = 60 | issue = 3| pages = 269–298 | doi = 10.1016/j.ijhcs.2003.09.002 | s2cid = 205265682 }}

Guy Sircello has pioneered efforts in analytic philosophy to develop a rigorous theory of aesthetics, focusing on the concepts of beauty,Guy Sircello, A New Theory of Beauty. Princeton Essays on the Arts, 1. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1975. loveGuy Sircello, Love and Beauty. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989. and sublimity.Guy Sircello, "How Is a Theory of the Sublime Possible?" The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Autumn, 1993), pp. 541–550. In contrast to romantic theorists, Sircello argued for the objectivity of beauty and formulated a theory of love on that basis.

British philosopher and theorist of conceptual art aesthetics, Peter Osborne, makes the point that "'post-conceptual art' aesthetic does not concern a particular type of contemporary art so much as the historical-ontological condition for the production of contemporary art in general ...".Peter Osborne, Anywhere Or Not at All: Philosophy of Contemporary Art, Verso Books, London, England, 2013. pp. 3 & 51. Osborne noted that contemporary art is 'post-conceptual' in a public lecture delivered in 2010.

Gary Tedman has put forward a theory of a subjectless aesthetics derived from Karl Marx's concept of alienation, and Louis Althusser's antihumanism, using elements of Freud's group psychology, defining a concept of the 'aesthetic level of practice'.Tedman, G. (2012), Aesthetics & Alienation, Zero Books.

Gregory Loewen has suggested that the subject is key in the interaction with the aesthetic object. The work of art serves as a vehicle for the projection of the individual's identity into the world of objects, as well as being the irruptive source of much of what is uncanny in modern life. As well, art is used to memorialize individuated biographies in a manner that allows persons to imagine that they are part of something greater than themselves.Gregory Loewen, Aesthetic Subjectivity, 2011, pp. 36–37, 157, 238.

The philosophy of aesthetics as a practice has been criticized by some sociologists and writers of art and society. Raymond Williams, for example, argues that there is no unique and or individual aesthetic object which can be extrapolated from the art world, but rather that there is a continuum of cultural forms and experience of which ordinary speech and experiences may signal as art. By "art" we may frame several artistic "works" or "creations" as so though this reference remains within the institution or special event which creates it and this leaves some works or other possible "art" outside of the frame work, or other interpretations such as other phenomenon which may not be considered as "art".Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 155. {{ISBN|978-0198760610}}.

Pierre Bourdieu disagrees with Kant's idea of the "aesthetic". He argues that Kant's "aesthetic" merely represents an experience that is the product of an elevated class habitus and scholarly leisure as opposed to other possible and equally valid "aesthetic" experiences which lay outside Kant's narrow definition.Pierre Bourdieu, "Postscript", in Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste (London, England: Routledge, 1984), pp. 485–500. {{ISBN|978-0674212770}}; and David Harris, "Leisure and Higher Education", in Tony Blackshaw, ed., Routledge Handbook of Leisure Studies (London, England: Routledge, 2013), p. 403. {{ISBN|978-1136495588}} and books.google.com/books?id=gc2_zubEovgC&pg=PT403.

Timothy Laurie argues that theories of musical aesthetics "framed entirely in terms of appreciation, contemplation or reflection risk idealizing an implausibly unmotivated listener defined solely through musical objects, rather than seeing them as a person for whom complex intentions and motivations produce variable attractions to cultural objects and practices".{{Cite journal |doi=10.5130/csr.v20i2.4149 | title= Music Genre as Method| year= 2014| last1= Laurie| first1= Timothy| journal= Cultural Studies Review| volume= 20| issue= 2| doi-access= free}}

{{further|Outline of aesthetics}}

{{columns-list|colwidth=22em|

• {{Portal inline|size=tiny|Philosophy}}
• Aestheticism
• Aesthetics of science
• Art and Theosophy
• Art periods
• Esthesic and poietic
• Everyday Aesthetics
• Japanese aesthetics
• Medieval aesthetics
• Mise en scène
• Theological aesthetics
• Theory of art

}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite web |url=http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.html |publisher=The Internet Classics Archive |title=Poetics |last=Aristotle |website=classics.mit.edu |access-date=30 January 2019 |ref=CITEREFPoetics }}
• {{cite book |last1=Halliwell |first1=Stephen |chapter=Inside and Outside the Work of Art |title=The Aesthetics of Mimesis: Ancient Texts and Modern Problems |date=2002 |pages=152–159 |author-link=Stephen Halliwell (academic) |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-09258-4 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R8wctGFg12MC&q=Aristotle+mimesis}}

{{Library resources box

|by=no

|onlinebooks=no

|others=no

|about=yes

|label=Aesthetics }}

{{Refbegin}}

• {{InPho|taxonomy|2247}}
• {{PhilPapers|category|aesthetics}}
• {{IEP|aestheti}}
• [http://www.iep.utm.edu/aes-cont/ Aesthetics in Continental Philosophy] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170101001546/http://www.iep.utm.edu/aes-cont/ |date=1 January 2017 }} article in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• [http://www.iep.utm.edu/m-aesthe/ Medieval Theories of Aesthetics] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140718005123/http://www.iep.utm.edu/m-aesthe/ |date=18 July 2014 }} article in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• {{cite IEP |url-id=value-of-art |title=The Value of Art}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110127123626/http://revues.mshparisnord.org/appareil/index.php?id=61 Revue online Appareil]
• [http://www.ditext.com/anka/beardsley/post.html Postscript 1980 – Some Old Problems in New Perspectives] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090628235323/http://www.ditext.com/anka/beardsley/post.html |date=28 June 2009 }}
• [http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9219/art.htm Aesthetics in Art Education: A Look Toward Implementation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091105195016/http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9219/art.htm |date=5 November 2009 }}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20141103070457/http://knowledgeworld.com.bd/what-is-art/ More about Art, culture and Education]
• [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetic-concept The Concept of the Aesthetic] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101204152515/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetic-concept/ |date=4 December 2010 }}
• [https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/overview/aesthetics/v-1 Aesthetics] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190529001741/https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/overview/aesthetics/v-1 |date=29 May 2019 }} entry in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20150321060625/http://www.philosophyarchive.com/index.php?title=Philosophy_of_Aesthetics Philosophy of Aesthetics] entry in the Philosophy Archive
• [http://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Module-1.pdf Washington State Board for Community & Technical Colleges: Introduction to Aesthetics] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121001104419/http://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Module-1.pdf |date=1 October 2012 }}
• [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003k9hf Beauty] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180306185237/http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003k9hf |date=6 March 2018 }}, BBC Radio 4 discussion with Angie Hobbs, Susan James & Julian Baggini (In Our Time, 19 May 2005)

{{Refend}}

{{Aesthetics}}

{{Humanities}}

{{Philosophy topics}}

{{Subject bar

|portal1 = Philosophy|portal2 = Arts

|commons = yes

|commons-search = Category:Aesthetics

|wikt = yes

|wikt-search =

|b = yes

|b-search = Category:Aesthetics

|q = yes

|q-search = Aesthetics

|s = yes

|s-search = Category:Aesthetics

|v = yes

|v-search = Topic:Philosophy of art

}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:Aesthetics

Category:1730s neologisms

Category:Humanities