Does beauty hold intrinsic value?
Is aesthetics something worthwhile for society and/or for single individuals to spend time, energy and money on? Should society spend lets of money on beautiful buildings and decorative sculptures and the like? Should we as individuals pursue beauty in our lives, meaning things like interior design or fashion hold high value?
>"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," – that is all
>Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
Who was right?
>>1288488
yes
>>1288488
I was just thinking the other day that we often use beauty with an undertone of inherent goodness, as if it were synonymous to good, and an antonym to bad.
But it means neither of these things without context, right?
>>1288497
Neuroscientifically beauty IS an inherent good though. Makes us happy.
>>1288499
neat
>>1288501
>I generally follow Danto's 'artworld'
What does this mean?
>>1288500
Truthfully I have no idea what I'm talking about, but it could be true, couldn't it?
I'm just trying to justify hedonism (the god tier philosophy).
>>1288488 (OP)
I generally follow Danto's 'artworld' regarding art since it sounds sensible to me, but I honestly see no continuity and externality (external point of reference) from such institutional view. I'm kinda lost either, last time I contemplated all these things. So, I just gave up.
>>1288506
More or less, art is a socio-historical construct. The place where such interactions, schools, styles, etc., appears is the artworld. It's been so long since I studied it, though.
>>1288488
To be fair, if humans were rational they'd spend all the money money on a space program and immortality.
I mean seriously, what good is spending billions on military or education do us any good if we end up dead anyways
>>1288560
Most obvious bait of this year
>>1288560
funding is not a zero sum game, and research for the military has advanced the space program before.
you think all those sick rockets were built just to carry man into space?
>>1288560
>>1288560
>I mean seriously, what good is spending billions on military or education do us any good if we end up dead anyways
You can have a good time while it lasts. Rationality doesn't mean self-preservation is the bee's knees.
Dunno what you think immortality would amount to. There is still a whole universe out there full of things that want to kill you.
>>1288509
Samefag here.
Anyway, regarding what I said about continuity and externality, here's the problem. While it's easy to denounce an epistemological approach of phenomenology, of objects appearing 'transparent', and subscribing to the view that meaning is always influenced by context and the subject (what the latter half of 20th century philosophical approach were), the danger is to go the extreme end. That is, to admit nothing about an art existing outside humanity. Contemporary philosophy is a combat towards such correlationist 'humanism', even goes as far as coining funny terms like 'inaesthetics', 'inhuman', etc. (Although that Texhnolyze subtitle, 'Inhumane and Beautiful' is pretty damn cool.)
I prefer the more saner term 'external point of reference', although I don't subscribe to any outdated pseudo-Kantian views anymore. After all, what is art if it doesn't convey something extraordinary, something that turns your entire world upside down? I think it's more honest that way, but now I'm pretty confused, like I said.
Yes, the notion of beauty has intrinsic value insofar as we as individuals do indeed pursue it. But I don't think society should subsidize in "beauty" because we could never arrive at a consensus of what it is...eye of the beholder and such.
