What is Aesthetics?
MA, English Literature (University College London)
Date Published: 02.04.2024,
Last Updated: 05.04.2024
Share this article
Introducing aesthetics
Aesthetics is a wide area of philosophy which primarily deals with questions of beauty, taste, and art. What does it mean to call something “beautiful”? What, exactly, is going on when we admire a “beautiful” sunset or painting, and why do tastes differ so radically? In Introducing Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art, Darren Hudson Hick sheds light on the origins of “aesthetics” as a term, and the central (but not exclusive) role of beauty in aesthetic discussions:
The term itself was not coined until the eighteenth century, when it was used by the German philosopher Alexander Baumgarten to describe perception and judgment by means of the senses, as opposed to the intellect. Traditionally, however, talk of aesthetics is couched in terms of beauty, and such talk has a much longer history in philosophy. In contemporary discussion, a great many terms are likewise treated as aesthetic ones – elegance, gracefulness, sublimity and certainly the opposite of beauty, ugliness – however, beauty tends to be regarded as the central concept upon which these others depend. (2022)
Darren Hudson Hick
The term itself was not coined until the eighteenth century, when it was used by the German philosopher Alexander Baumgarten to describe perception and judgment by means of the senses, as opposed to the intellect. Traditionally, however, talk of aesthetics is couched in terms of beauty, and such talk has a much longer history in philosophy. In contemporary discussion, a great many terms are likewise treated as aesthetic ones – elegance, gracefulness, sublimity and certainly the opposite of beauty, ugliness – however, beauty tends to be regarded as the central concept upon which these others depend. (2022)
As art is a significant source of aesthetic experience, it is no surprise that the philosophy of art is closely intertwined with aesthetics. Aesthetics engages with such questions as “What is art, what does it do, and why does it exist?”
In Art as Therapy, Alain de Botton and John Armstrong reflect on art’s power to console us with visions of touching beauty:
If the world was a kinder place, perhaps we would be less impressed by, and in need of, pretty works of art. One of the strangest features of experiencing art is its power, occasionally, to move us to tears; not when presented with a harrowing or terrifying image, but with a work of particular grace and loveliness that can be, for a moment, heartbreaking. What is happening to us at these special times of intense responsiveness to beauty? (2016)
Although the philosophy of art is a significant strand of aesthetic study, it is always worth stressing that aesthetics is actually wider in its scope — encompassing, in theory, the full range of human experience. As Hick argues,
Certainly, we judge artworks using aesthetic terms, and there seems no greater compliment for a work of art than to judge it beautiful. Yet, we also find beauty in nature, in the human form and perhaps in everyday items, and these too concern aestheticians. (2022)
Our enjoyment of an enthralling movie, for example, is clearly an aesthetic experience, but we can also aesthetically appreciate the environment of the movie theater itself — we may be struck by the strangely haunting combination of its quiet foyer, outdated decor, and echoing music. This wider sense of aesthetics, which looks beyond art to consider our response to natural as well as built environments, is often referred to as “environmental aesthetics.” (For more on this, see Martin Drenthen and Jozef Keulartz's Environmental Aesthetics, 2014.)
It is clear to see, then, that aesthetics is a wide philosophical field. In the following guide, we will explore some of the highlights in the history of aesthetics, and touch upon some of the most common aesthetic questions that philosophers still grapple with today.
A brief history of aesthetics
In theory, humans have engaged in an aesthetic appreciation of the world around them from the very beginning. It is generally agreed, however, that aesthetics did not emerge as a formalized area of philosophical inquiry until the eighteenth century. As Paul Oskar Kristeller explains in Aesthetics: A Comprehensive Anthology,
the very term Aesthetics was coined at that time, and, at least in the opinion of some historians, the subject matter itself, the philosophy of art, was invented in that comparatively recent period and can be applied to earlier phases of Western thought only with reservations. It is also generally agreed that such dominating concepts of modern aesthetics as taste and sentiment, genius, originality and creative imagination did not assume their definite modern meaning before the eighteenth century. (“Introduction,” Chapter 1, 2020)
Edited by Steven M. Cahn, Stephanie Ross, and Sandra L. Shapshay
the very term Aesthetics was coined at that time, and, at least in the opinion of some historians, the subject matter itself, the philosophy of art, was invented in that comparatively recent period and can be applied to earlier phases of Western thought only with reservations. It is also generally agreed that such dominating concepts of modern aesthetics as taste and sentiment, genius, originality and creative imagination did not assume their definite modern meaning before the eighteenth century. (“Introduction,” Chapter 1, 2020)
As is so often the case in philosophy, however, classical thinkers have still exerted a great influence on the later philosophical developments that would follow — as we will now explore.
Early aesthetics
Ancient philosophers laid some of the most important foundation blocks for what would later become the vast cathedral of aesthetics.
Plato, for example, was troubled by poetry’s power to stir the emotions, and so in his Republic (c. 380–360 BCE) he argued in favor of its strict censorship. Plato also regarded poetry as nothing more than a lowly imitation of our reality — which he already viewed as an imitation of the greater realm of Forms. For Plato, then, poetry was an imitation of an imitation. Likewise, Plato regarded the beauty we see in the world as a lesser form of the absolute Form of beauty. Despite Plato’s low opinion of the arts, his ideas on imitation (or mimesis) would have a big impact on later aesthetic thought.
Aristotle, on the other hand, was more positive about the power of art — and his contributions to aesthetics have been highly influential. In Metaphysics (c. 350 BCE), Aristotle identified what he saw as the specific characteristics of beauty: order, symmetry, and definiteness. In Poetics (c. 330 BCE), he systematized the characteristics of poetry and explored its qualities in detail. As Kristeller explains,
Aristotle […] dedicated a whole treatise to the theory of poetry and deals with it in a thoroughly systematic and constructive fashion. The Poetics not only contains a great number of specific ideas which exercised a lasting influence upon later criticism; it also established a permanent place for the theory of poetry in the philosophical encyclopaedia of knowledge. (2020)
Aristotle particularly praised poetry’s ability to elicit catharsis — which he regarded as the beneficial purging of emotions. Even today, this mechanism is often raised in discussions of art and its emotional impact (in Philosophy and Theatre [2013], for example, Tom Stern assesses catharsis in relation to the theatregoing experience).
Together with Plato and Aristotle, a range of other thinkers and philosophers from classical antiquity also pondered questions of beauty and art, including Xenophon and Plotinus. The degree to which this ancient engagement should be identified with the history of aesthetics is debated, however. As Kristeller argues,
classical antiquity left no systems or elaborate concepts of an aesthetic nature, but merely a number of scattered notions and suggestions that exercised a lasting influence down to modern times but had to be carefully selected, taken out of their context, rearranged, reemphasized and reinterpreted or misinterpreted before they could be utilized as building materials for aesthetic systems. (2020)
The story of aesthetics in the medieval and early modern periods is similar to its story in classical antiquity: that of a diffuse and varied development which had not yet coalesced into an identifiable area of study. Influential figures such as Thomas Aquinas built upon Aristotle’s existing aesthetic principles, but Kristeller argues that there was still no “grouping together of the visual arts with poetry and music into the system of the fine arts with which we are familiar”:
The period of the Renaissance brought about many important changes in the social and cultural position of the various arts and thus prepared the ground for the later development of aesthetic theory. But, contrary to a widespread opinion, the Renaissance did not formulate a system of the fine arts or a comprehensive theory of aesthetics. (2020)
The aesthetics of modernity
Aesthetics, as we know it today, has been overwhelmingly shaped by developments that have taken place in modernity — roughly understood as the period between 1650 and 1950. The work of Enlightenment thinkers was particularly influential in this — for the first time, aesthetics was established as its own area of study.
As we have already touched upon above, the German philosopher Baumgarten is thought to have been the first to coin the term “aesthetics,” but the degree of his influence is debated. David E. Cooper argues,
Baumgarten understood by the term [aesthetics] the science of sensory knowledge in general and it had no particular reference to the examination of taste, beauty and other concepts that we now think of as aesthetic ones. (Aesthetics, 2019)
David E. Cooper
Baumgarten understood by the term [aesthetics] the science of sensory knowledge in general and it had no particular reference to the examination of taste, beauty and other concepts that we now think of as aesthetic ones. (Aesthetics, 2019)
Kristeller agrees, arguing that it is philosopher Charles Batteux, in particular, who took the “decisive step toward a system of the fine arts” with “his famous and influential treatise, Les beaux arts réduits à un même principe (1746)”:
It is true that many elements of his system were derived from previous authors, but at the same time it should not be overlooked that he was the first to set forth a clearcut system of the fine arts in a treatise devoted exclusively to this subject. […] Batteux codified the modern system of the fine arts almost in its final form, whereas all previous authors had merely prepared it. (Kristeller, 2020)
Edmund Burke is notable, in this period, for his classification of sublime and beautiful aesthetic experiences, in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757). In the eighteenth century, numerous other thinkers explored, classified, and debated aesthetic sensibility in all its variety — with some of the most influential being Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Arguably the most influential of all, however, is Kant.
In his Critique of Judgement (1790), Kant did the most to “establish the now familiar use” of what we understand to be aesthetics:
For in this immensely influential work, what Kant called aesthetic judgements were judgements of taste that registered, above all, the appreciation of beauty. (Cooper, 2019)
Kant proposed that our aesthetic judgment of beauty is linked to pleasure and imagination. As Hick explains,
Kant argues that, unlike judging a rose as a rose or a horse as a horse, which rely on concepts of those things, pure aesthetic judgements are not based on determinate concepts, but rather on feelings of pleasure and displeasure. The pleasure that arises in aesthetic judgement comes, Kant says, from the free play of the imagination. (2022)
Along with beauty, Kant also identified other aesthetic judgments: the agreeable, the good, and the sublime — that strangely transcendental feeling of incomprehension, awe, pity, and fear, in which the human mind grapples with something much larger than itself.
Kant’s influence on aesthetics has been indelible:
since Kant aesthetics has occupied a permanent place among the major philosophical disciplines, and the core of the system of the fine arts fixed in the eighteenth century has been generally accepted as a matter of course by most later writers on the subject […]. (Kristeller, 2020)
Edited by Steven M. Cahn, Stephanie Ross, and Sandra L. Shapshay
since Kant aesthetics has occupied a permanent place among the major philosophical disciplines, and the core of the system of the fine arts fixed in the eighteenth century has been generally accepted as a matter of course by most later writers on the subject […]. (Kristeller, 2020)
Christopher Janaway and Sandra Shapshay argue that, since Kant, “aesthetics entered one of its most fertile periods,” and that
A useful framework for understanding the main trends in the modern period is to categorize the theories as valuing art and aesthetic experience predominantly in one of three ways: (1) for the free-play of the intellectual faculties afforded by aesthetic engagement; (2) for the cognitive value of aesthetic engagement; and (3) for the value of experiencing emotion. (“Introduction,” Chapter 17, in Aesthetics: A Comprehensive Anthology, 2020)
Of the many philosophers who have pondered questions of aesthetics after Kant, Hegel is regarded as one of the most significant. In Hegel’s view,
[art] is a sensuous embodiment of fundamental thoughts or perspectives on the universe and our place in it. Art, for Hegel, is intimately tied, from the very beginning, with the rest of human thought, particularly philosophy and religion. (David Goldblatt, Lee B. Brown and Stephanie Patridge, Aesthetics: A Reader in philosophy of the Arts, 2017)
Edited by David Goldblatt, Lee B. Brown, and Stephanie Patridge
[art] is a sensuous embodiment of fundamental thoughts or perspectives on the universe and our place in it. Art, for Hegel, is intimately tied, from the very beginning, with the rest of human thought, particularly philosophy and religion. (David Goldblatt, Lee B. Brown and Stephanie Patridge, Aesthetics: A Reader in philosophy of the Arts, 2017)
In other words, as Janaway and Shapshay outline, Hegel believed that art “allows humans to attain self-understanding as freely self-determining conscious beings” (2020). Janaway and Shapshay argue that Hegel’s idea of beauty in art is “conceived neither in terms of mere form nor principally in terms of its giving pleasure: rather it is ‘sensuous appearance of the idea,’ a manifestation of truth through some experienceable medium” (2020). Moreover, Hegel provided a “systematic account” of art in its various forms, as well as a “unified history of the development of the arts” across “a wide range of epochs and cultures” — a thorough, historical approach which has continued to be influential to this day (Janaway and Shapshay, 2020).
Aesthetic questions
As aesthetics is such a vast and varied philosophical field, the questions it engages with can feel limitless in their variety. Just some of these well-trodden questions include:
- What is beauty? Is taste objective, or subjective? Does beauty only lie in the eye of the beholder, or does it have a more universal basis?
- Is natural beauty more valuable than human-made beauty? Is there a difference between the two? Where do you draw the line?
- What exactly is art? Is intentionality necessary, on the part of the artist or the audience, or can anything be art?
- Art is powerful, so should we assess — and even police — its moral content to ensure that its influence is positive rather than negative?
Underlying many of these questions is the foundational question: what does it all mean? Does aesthetic experience have deep value, or is it a surface-level pleasure or amusement? Does art matter? What is its purpose and function? Philosophers, writers, artists, and thinkers of all kinds have proposed many answers to these questions over the years, with just a few of these summarized as follows:
- Art acts as a receptacle of human experience, emotion, and ideas; providing a continually valuable source of knowledge, inspiration, consolation, and entertainment.
- Art reveals universal truths about the human condition.
- Art can be a powerful instigator of change in the world.
- Art (particularly with its sublime aspects) is analogous to a religious or spiritual experience which gives us the apparent sense of something greater beyond ourselves — a role which has taken on even more importance in an increasingly secularized age.
- Art is a potent tool that expands our powers of imagination, empathy, and compassion (as Percy Bysshe Shelley famously argues in A Defence of Poetry, 1821).
In Art as Therapy (2016), de Botton and John Armstrong touch upon many of the points above as they explore the function and purpose of art in depth. In particular, they focus on art’s role as a “therapeutic medium that can help guide, exhort and console its viewers, enabling them to become better versions of themselves,” arguing that art “can put us in touch with concentrated doses of our missing dispositions, and thereby restore a measure of equilibrium to our listing inner selves” (2016). Assessing the state of art criticism, de Botton and Armstrong issue the following rallying cry:
Scholars should study how to make the spirit of the works they admire more connected to the psychological frailties of their audiences. They should analyse how art could help with a broken heart, set the sorrows of the individual into perspective, help us find consolation in nature, educate our sensitivity to the needs of others, keep the right ideals of a successful life at the front of our minds and help us to understand ourselves. In this light, scholars would approach the Sistine ceiling as they should approach all works of art, with the humane question, ‘What lessons are you trying to teach us that will help us with our lives?’ (2016)
Aesthetics in practice
Imagine you are visiting a gallery of modern art, and you come across an abstract painting which features seemingly random colorful shapes. As you engage with this painting, you are having an aesthetic experience. Do you find it beautiful, ugly, or are you indifferent towards it? Does it awaken any emotions in you, if any? Your mind may engage in a few further aesthetic questions: what is the artist depicting here? What was their intention? Do you need to know their intention at all, or is it enough for the painting to have meaning in your own experience of it? Is your individual interpretation of the painting’s meaning just as valid as anyone else’s — including that of the artist themselves?
Aestheticians would have lively disagreements over all of these questions and more. Questions of aesthetic judgment and meaning are arguably subjective, and not a fine science. What will be beautiful and meaningful for one person may not be for another — although there are aestheticians who argue that there actually is such a thing as objective beauty.
As another example, let’s take a look at a piece of art which is powerfully emotional (at least for many). With a trigger warning for euthanasia, and a spoiler alert for those who have not seen this before, here is the scene from HBO’s The Last of Us (Druckmann and Mazin, 2023–) in which Bill and Frank share their final day together:
There are several different aesthetic factors which combine to make this scene so affecting. The subtle performances by Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett; the sublimely devastating music (Max Richter’s “On the Nature of Daylight”); the writing, direction, and pacing of the scene; the images of beautiful, autumnal decay — together, they create a powerfully emotional aesthetic experience in which we are likely to feel intense sympathy for Bill and Frank. But our emotions, here, are not limited to these fictional characters.
In reality, we are likely to be emotionally and mentally engaging with the universal reality of suffering and loss, and perhaps mourning our own loved ones. Art is often praised for its ability to render the universal through the specific, and this scene is just one touching example of how powerfully this can be achieved. As for the value of such aesthetic portrayals of suffering and grief, we may be experiencing something not too far away from Aristotle’s idea of catharsis here. After experiencing these negative emotions for ourselves, we may feel a degree of mental and emotional relief afterwards. By engaging in such a powerfully affecting rendition of the human experience, we may not feel so alone with our own thoughts and feelings.
Questions of aesthetics are central to our experience of the whole world around us — including art, nature, and everything in between. Due to the subjectivity of aesthetic taste and the mysteriously compelling nature of the aesthetic experience, aesthetics is an exciting field of philosophy that continues to have real relevance for our lives.
Further reading on Perlego
Aesthetics is a vast topic which we have barely scratched the surface of in this introductory guide. To explore aesthetics in more depth, you can explore the aesthetics in philosophy section of Perlego’s library, which includes some of the highlighted titles below:
- The Aesthetics of Atmospheres (2016) by Gernot Böhme Taylor & Francis. Available at:
- The Aesthetics of Everyday Life (2005) edited by Andrew Light and Jonathan M. Smith
- European Aesthetics (2013) by Robert Wicks
- Political Aesthetics (2015) edited by Arundhati Virmani
- Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art (2018) edited by Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen
- The Aesthetics of Virtual Reality (2021) by Grant Tavinor
What is aesthetics in simple terms?
What is the difference between aesthetics and the philosophy of art?
What is an example of an aesthetic theory?
What are the best books on aesthetics?
Bibliography
Aristotle (2012) The Metaphysics. Barnes & Noble. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/3716000/the-metaphysics-barnes-noble-digital-library-pdf
Aristotle (2012) Poetics. Dover Publications. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1444548/poetics-pdf
Burke, E. (2019) A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Columbia University Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1359220/a-philosophical-enquiry-into-the-origin-of-our-ideas-of-the-sublime-and-beautiful-pdf
Cahn, S., Ross, S. and Shapshay, S. (eds.) (2020) Aesthetics: A Comprehensive Anthology. 2nd edn. Wiley. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1485132/aesthetics-a-comprehensive-anthology-pdf
Cooper, D. E. (ed.) (2019) Aesthetics. 2nd edn. Wiley. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/991201/aesthetics-the-classic-readings-pdf
de Botton, A. and Armstrong, J. (2016) Art as Therapy. Phaidon Press Limited.
Drenthen, M. and Keulartz, J. (eds.) (2014) Environmental Aesthetics. Fordham University Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/535751/environmental-aesthetics-crossing-divides-and-breaking-ground-pdf
Goldblatt, D., Brown, L. B. and Patridge, S. (eds.) (2017) Aesthetics. 4th edn. Taylor and Francis. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/2193132/aesthetics-a-reader-in-philosophy-of-the-arts-pdf
Hegel, G. W. F. (2017) The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 1 (of 4). Perlego. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1717570/the-philosophy-of-fine-art-volume-1-of-4-hegels-aesthetik-pdf
Hick, D. H. (2022) Introducing Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. 3rd edn. Bloomsbury Publishing. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/3739577/introducing-aesthetics-and-the-philosophy-of-art-a-casedriven-approach-pdf
Janaway, C. and Shapshay, S. (2020) “Introduction", Chapter 17, in Cahn, S., Ross, S. and Shapshay, S. (eds.) (2020) Aesthetics: A Comprehensive Anthology. 2nd edn. Wiley. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1485132/aesthetics-a-comprehensive-anthology-pdf
Kant, I. (2017) Critique of Judgement. Delphi Classics. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1655068/critique-of-judgement-by-immanuel-kant-delphi-classics-illustrated-pdf
Kristeller, P. O. (2020) “Introduction," Chapter 1, in Cahn, S., Ross, S. and Shapshay, S. (eds.) (2020) Aesthetics: A Comprehensive Anthology. 2nd edn. Wiley. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1485132/aesthetics-a-comprehensive-anthology-pdf
Plato (2016) Republic. Simon & Schuster. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/778449/republic-pdf
Rancière, J. (2013) The Politics of Aesthetics. Bloomsbury Publishing. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/817272/the-politics-of-aesthetics-pdf
Shelley, P. B. (2011) A Defence of Poetry. Barnes & Noble. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/3714177/a-defence-of-poetry-barnes-noble-digital-library-pdf
Stern, T. (2013) Philosophy and Theatre. Taylor & Francis. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1545129/philosophy-and-theatre-an-introduction-pdf
Filmography
The Last of Us (2023–) Created by Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin. HBO.
MA, English Literature (University College London)
Andy Cain has an MA in English Literature from University College London, and a BA in English and Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, University of London. His particular research interests include science fiction, fantasy, and the philosophy of art. For his MA dissertation, he explored the presence of the sublime in Shakespeare’s plays.