Defense of Beauty

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses what is wrong with beauty from the position of its subjectivity, purpose and irrelevance to modern culture and the modern experience. The author believes that the thinker must examine the theory of the sublime, to determine to what degree, if any, it can be reconciled and identified with beauty. The author concludes that beautiful and the sublime, in their roles of enlightenment and revival and purpose give the artist and the art-experienced an added ability to resist the alienation of postmodern culture and its dehumanizing effects.

Table of Contents
Introduction
Defining the Problem
What is Wrong with Beauty?
The Sublime Transcendent
Developing the Sublime and Beautiful
Beauty is the Guiding Morality of the Sublime
Conclusions

From the Paper:

"According to Kant, beauty is "a question merely of the form" (Kant 13). It is a matter of composition and form, which insofar as it reveals to the viewer a purposiveness, is beautiful without recompense to banal matters of emotion or even content. "Thus a work of art, or a beautiful natural object, displays a kind of free play of forms, consistent with the presence of a purpose to which we don't have access." (Clowney) If it is possible to reconcile Kant and Locke on this matter, one might say that beauty then is defined by form and composition which due to its purposefulness and harmonic nature, in the absence of personal tastes and social definitions, creates sensual pleasure which evolves into intellectual pleasure. However, both Kant and Locke suggest that judgments of beauty, albeit subjective ones, can additionally be made based on personal interpretation, taste, and will. While Kant sees this as barbaric, Locke views it as an important part of the education of the soul."

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