Anyone who thinks about beauty should turn to the philosopher Immanuel Kant, in particular, his Critique of Practical Reason. According to Kant, beauty is not an objective property of things, but how certain things appear to us. But not everything we like is beautiful.
Kant believed "pleasure" should be "disinterested": if we like roses because they are a gift from a loved one, or find someone's appearance attractive because we want them to, then interest is involved. Beauty is a "purpose without purpose": beauty does not fulfill an external purpose, but forms a coherent and harmonious whole that cannot be added or removed.
When designating something as "beautiful," Kant argues, it claims general validity. We pretend that beauty is an objective property of everything and argue about aesthetic issues.
But can aesthetic judgments be justified at all? Kant and many philosophers after him thought so. However, not by concluding aesthetic principles, but through concrete references and comparisons: Isn't that looking at the picture hanging too low? Looks like it's about to fall. Through such comparisons, show the interlocutor a new perspective and let him see objects as we see them for ourselves. As a rule, he would then be able to understand the judgment. But not always. His tastes are known to be different. Or are there things that everyone likes?
Almost everyone likes a youthful and symmetrical body, a savanna-like landscape, broad shoulders and prominent lower jaw in men, and a waist-to-hip ratio in women that is less than 0.75. According to evolutionary psychologists, these aesthetic preferences are innate and a product of evolution. Take the savanna landscape: Our ancestors survived, according to evolutionary psychology, because they found beautiful landscapes suitable for survival, which offered protection, water, food, and hunting opportunities - just like the savanna. And why find symmetrical and attractive young people?
From a biological point of view, asymmetry is an indicator of disease and a deficit of biological fitness. And old age prevents procreation. So if you think old or asymmetrical bodies are beautiful, your genes will die more easily: Either you don't have offspring or are less suited for survival. People are always trying to trace the laws of beauty. Symmetry is a top favorite for a long time. Then there is variety, complexity, and intensity, then the laws of Gestalt and more recently the "Ten Commandments of Beauty" by Indian neurologist Vilayanur Ramachandran.
Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran is a neuroscientist known for his work in behavioral neurology and psychophysics. Vilayanur Ramachandran scientifically investigated the laws of human taste and claimed that ten factors underlie our tastes. Aesthetic preferences are based on: exaggeration (with intense color or caricature), a grouping of objects, contrast, isolation, (solving puzzles when interpreting images), symmetry, perspective, repetition, balance, and metaphor. In addition to these decals, there are of course individual preferences: some prefer ornament, others prefer simple.
Contrary to these theories, sociology rightly emphasizes that in terms of taste, the differences between people are far greater than their similarities. Taste is a product of upbringing and habit. Just remember hairstyles from the 80s. Moreover, according to the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, taste always has a social function: classical music lovers join certain groups and distinguish themselves from others.
Some philosophers and design theorists have tried to solve the mystery of beauty differently. They assume our ideals of life are reflected in our aesthetic preferences. Whether it's a novel, a picture, a piece of music, a film, a building, a car, or a leather jacket - the following always applies: what we like is like someone we like. The novels are versatile, the pictures are passionate, the music is melancholic, the films are immersive, the buildings are simple, the cars are serious and the leather jackets embody power.
According to this theory, liking an object if it embodies the character traits and states of mind that are valued in people. The philosopher Alain de Botton was a proponent of this view, but Plato and GWF Hegel agree with it. The aesthetic is a symbol of an alluring lifestyle - the condensation of life as we want it to be. Or as it is said: "Beauty is the promise of happiness".
It is impossible to find an a priori [general logic] relationship between a feeling of pleasure or displeasure as a result and any idea, sensation, or concept as a cause. This relationship will be a causal relationship which, among the objects of experience, can only be recognized posteriorly [empirical facts] through experience.
True, Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Practical Reason specifically modified respect, which does not want to agree with the pleasure or displeasure of empirical objects, is derived a priori from general moral concepts.
There it can cross the boundaries of experience and give rise to causality based on a very reasonable subject quality, namely the causality of freedom. But even there we don't guide the feeling but only the volitional determination of the moral idea as the cause.
The state of mind of a will determined by something itself is a feeling of pleasure and therefore does not follow as a result of this feeling. This will only be accepted if the moral concept of goodness precedes the determination of the will through law. Then one will in vain derive pleasure which will be attributed to the concept of it as mere knowledge.
It is also associated with pleasure in aesthetic judgment. Only it is purely contemplative without generating interest in the object, whereas it is practical in moral judgment.
Consciousness in the idea of purely formal utility in the play of the cognitive powers of the subject through which an object is rendered is pleasure itself. This awareness contains determinants of the subject's activity about the stimulation of the power of knowledge. It, therefore, contains inner causality, purpose given knowledge in general. However, it is not limited to specialized knowledge and is therefore only a form of subjective usefulness of an idea in aesthetic judgment.
These pleasures are by no means practical, either like the pleasures of the pathological basis of comfort or the intellectual basis of the imagined good. But there must be causality itself, i.e. causality without intention, the conditions for the presentation and use of accepted cognitive powers. And abides in beautiful contemplation because this contemplation strengthens and reproduces itself. While not the same, it is analogous to lingering in which the stimulus in the passive mind repeatedly evokes attention in the object's imagination.
