Aesthetics
From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Aesthetics is a branch of Philosophy. It is the Philosophy of Art and Beauty. Together with ethics it is part of axiology which is the philosophy of what people like.
Aesthetic philosophers ask what people like to look at, hear, feel, smell or taste, and why they like these things. Aesthetic philosophers also ask if art has any value. For example they may ask if some art that nobody likes and that nobody wants is art at all, or if it is something else.
One theory in Aesthetics is called subjectivism. Subjectivism says that something is beautiful to me if I say it is beautiful. Subjectivism also says that something is art for me if I say it is art. Many Aesthetic philosophers do not like subjectivism. They say that art and beauty are to do with an object, not with the person who sees, hears, feels, tastes or smells that object.
Plato, Aristotle and Immanuel Kant are some important philosophers of aesthetics.
