Beauty
Beauty as opposed to ugliness is an abstract concept that is strongly associated with all aspects of human existence. Using the meaning of this word, is mainly the philosophical discipline of aesthetics. Like any classification, this favorable response concept of values ( evaluation criteria ) and assessment objectives depends, which are also influenced by social conventions. What moral standards the term " beauty " underlie, and how they come about, is also object of investigation of natural and social sciences.
In everyday life as "beautiful " usually refers to something that a particularly pleasant impression leaves: A beautiful body, a beautiful piece of music, a beautiful sequence of movements in dance, but also experiences such as Touched - becoming. A closeness of terms such as harmony and symmetry is noticeable differentiation from sensual overwhelmed or the "only" Pretty lacking something special, is not always easy.
Generally
Psychology and Sociology
Psychology and sociology consider the review " beautiful " depending on psychogenetically or socially constructed values. This fundamental valuation is applied to both feelings of the individual, as well as to the entire human and non - human environment of a person. The assessment therefore has feedback on the psyche, to all areas of human society and to the non- human environment - thus on the formation and change of conventions (see also: changing values ).
On the Sociology of beauty art and literary sociology have contributed much while eg the "beauty of a woman " in Gender Studies is placed rather under suspicion of ideology and the Biosoziologie this often silent.
Philosophy
The wonder of beauty since ancient times belongs to the most important topics of philosophy. Plato employs in his Symposium with how beauty affects on people. In the philosophy of the Middle Ages beauty is considered the " splendor of truth ", a property of thoughts, which depends on its conformity with reality. In modern philosophy, then employs the aesthetics with the question of what beauty is. As the inventor of the name of this philosophical discipline applies Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714-1762), whose Aesthetica (1750 /58) opened up a whole new field of philosophical work. This beauty is no longer defined as a property of objects, but as a judgment of the mind.
Plato
In Plato's dialogue Symposium, the priestess Diotima explains to her interlocutor Socrates, that every man is basically beautiful body more welcoming than ugly. The soul of a man is inclined towards the beautiful. The beauty is interpreted as obstetrics: If a person carries on heavy thoughts, so it helps the Beauty to bring this idea to the birth. Beauty has an appropriate relationship with the Divine and provides for human beings for joy and openness. With the beauty of Plato explains his theory of ideas. First, a man in love with a single beautiful body, then later he realize that beauty is in other bodies. Through the love of the beautiful bodies it exceeds the level of the physical and then preferably the "beauty in the souls ." Beautiful conversations are important to him than physical beauty. Then he will discover and recognize the beauty in " activities, customs and laws " that " everything beautiful related to each other " is. The highest level is then the admiration of the general idea of beauty that is all that is beautiful is based.
Baumgarten
For Baumgarten Beauty is the perfection of sensory cognition. Like his philosophical ancestors Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Christian Wolff, he shared the observation of the human mind into upper and lower assets, in logical and sensory knowledge. While the logical assets were considered as the only means to arrive at certain knowledge, we looked at the sensory knowledge with distrust one hand, it was erroneous, on the other hand they did not offer enough clarity and precision. Baumgarten now argued that one could get the sense of perception to the clear and distinct knowledge only through the intermediate step of "dark". This should now be the subject of the new philosophical theory called aesthetics.
In the ( theoretical ) Baumgarten aesthetics it comes to the perfection of sensory cognition ( perfectio cognitionis sensitivae ). The perfection of this knowledge is the beauty, the ugliness of their imperfection (§ 14). This involves Baumgarten mainly around the " beautiful thinking". Its beauty is defined as the inner coherence of thoughts as well as the coherence of the expression with the subject and with itself
Kant
The most influential philosophical definition of beauty in modern times probably comes from Immanuel Kant The significant work is his Critique of Judgment (1790). Here Kant defined beauty as the object of a specific activity of Judgment: the aesthetic judgment or judgment of taste.
Aesthetic judgments are based, according to Kant on private, subjective feelings of pleasure or aversion, of pleasure or pain. In this respect, one might think, is simply beautiful, what may be acceptable to us personally. However, Kant makes a difference fixed: About the delight You can not argue, because everyone feels anything but pleasant, and will admit. Aesthetic judgments, however, are indeed subjective origin, but they have claim to universality - who judges the beauty of an object, claiming at the same time, to make a judgment, the other would have to agree. Beauty, therefore, has the claim of subjective universality. Unlike on the Pleasant can be about beauty and taste quite reasonable to argue, as each taste judgment presumes other to judge the sensations.
The basis of this argument is the distinction between the good, the agreeable and the beautiful. The good thing is something in which we have a motivated interest - we distinguish whether something good is present or not. Also on pleasure we are interested because the sensation of pleasure for us is desirable (and we avoid the unpleasantness ). The good, the beautiful and the agreeable is based on our subjective sensation of pleasure, of pleasure as opposed to the dismay and displeasure. The verdict on the beautiful but is the only one that does not consider the personal interest in the subject matter ( and should not be taken into account, otherwise it will be distorted ). Therefore, Kant defines beauty in a famous phrase as " disinterested pleasure ".
Hegel
Hegel treats the subjects beauty and art in his three -volume work on the aesthetics. It defines beauty as " the sensuous appearance of the Idea ". How can beauty be realized primarily in the art that Hegel sees as " the connecting link between the pure idea of the supersensible world, and the immediate, the current sensation ". Thus, the art represents spiritual content (ideas) with objects of our perception ( sensory slip) represents the idea of the angel appears, for example, often as a boy with wings.
Art
Beauty in art is, among other things, a subject of research in art history. This came from the antique to a virtual standstill; since the Renaissance, it plays back.
Johann Joachim Winckelmann developed from 1755, and especially in his 1764 published major work, The History of Ancient Art criteria of an aesthetics of beauty and identifies a classic art style, which he rises to the measure of his judgment. The quest for beauty is central. His attempt at a history of style are the ideals of noble simplicity and quiet grandeur context.
The philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) restricted the term ideal on the art one: The task of art is the sensuous representation of the absolute idea as an ideal.
Since modernity is the category of "beauty" challenged critical for art. The " Beautiful " is no longer the " splendor of truth ", but rather the "Nice -made ", " flattered " (see also idealization (psychology ) ) and therefore " untrue ". The whole concept of " fashion " and " fashions " so he gets particularly with regard to the character of the art " unserious " and " untrue " and therefore " non-artistic ". In extreme cases, into beautiful, decorative plant is referred to as " kitsch " or decorative item. Alternative aesthetics as that of the " sublime ", " ugly ", " Interesting " or " authentic " replace in the art of Modern increasingly the " Beautiful ", from which one can not make any more term and / or wants.
Science
Beauty plays as aesthetic as an object of empirical research a role.
Central is in experimental aesthetics, the analysis of individual experience and behavior based on experimental methods. Here, the perception of works of art, music or modern items such as websites or other IT products is studied in particular. The neuro- aesthetics is a very young discipline that attempts to neuroscience, sense of beauty and art closer together. Neuroesthetics is a part of experimental aesthetics.
The Evolutionary Aesthetics deals with the evolutionary emergence and evolution of aesthetic sensibilities. The evolutionary aesthetics draws on the insights of anthropology, archeology, evolutionary biology and cognitive science.
Even in mathematics beauty plays a role, as many mathematical objects are considered "beautiful". These include fractals, Euler's identity, the golden section, etc.
Ideal of beauty
→ Main article: Beauty Ideal
What is referred to in this everyday sense as "beautiful ", is to a certain extent by changing " beauty ideals " dependent. A more extreme thesis is that nowadays the only reason why most skinny people in the rich societies as well, because an abundance of food is available, while in other circumstances obese people who indicate by their plumpness plumpness, would be described as beautiful. However, this argument fails because of the fact that a slim figure as an ideal in the West is far older than industrialization and general prosperity.
Recent research suggests that sense of beauty has a significant genetic component. The evolutionary explanation for ideals of beauty is that perceived beauty correlates with evolutionarily advantageous properties. It was thus determined in experiments and surveys have shown that in all cultures women are considered a culture-specific ideal waist -to-hip ratio of the test subjects as well, such as in African regions with Food Under Offer an obesity emphasizing large hip and buttock circumference. Symmetry is perceived as beautiful and is also an indicator of health. There are also indications that, as regards the beauty of faces, there is a golden section. Thus, a vertical distance between the eyes and mouth of 36 % of face length and a horizontal distance between the eyes of 46 % of the face width is ideal. These proportions correspond to the average face, which also, like symmetry, signaled health. Some scholars believe is why the concept of beauty as a cultural construct a myth.
Beauty and complexity
Occasionally, trying to grasp the concept of beauty on the concept of complexity, especially theoretically on the basis of Kolmogorov complexity. That there is no uniform approach exists, evidenced by the fact that even objects with high complexity, at other times, such are defined with lower complexity as "beautiful."
A beautiful circle for example, has lower complexity than a beautiful horse. Therefore, it is not necessarily beautiful, and many would say, circles and horses are not comparable. Jürgen Schmidhuber's complexity -based theory of beauty, therefore, sees the subjectively most beautiful pattern of a series of similar pattern as the one with the shortest description in the Musterkodiersprache of the subjective observer. This approach also led him to the concept Hardly Art Complex, Minimal Art of the information age.
Beauty and truth
Beauty is seen in mathematics and other branches of science as an indication of the truth of a theory or a statement. The relationship between beauty ( symmetry) and Assessed truth could be proved experimentally. Psychological research has found that the processing liquid ( engl. processing fluency ) in both beauty and truth judgments are based on what might help explain why the Beauty of a statement is sometimes equated with the truth.