Beauty should therefore be compared to truth and goodness, one member of a trio of ultimate values which justify our rational inclinations. To answer that query, Scruton first notes the appeal of beauty as in possession of its own standard goes back to Plato and Plotinus and later became incorporated into Christian theological thinking:Īccording to this idea beauty is an ultimate value-something that we pursue for its own sake, and the pursuit of which no further reason need be given. In a slim, small volume that spans natural, artistic, everyday and human beauty, Scruton zeroes in on the question of whether beauty can ever be judged with a standard that comes from anything other than our own personal preference. The English philosopher Roger Scruton dissents and takes on this laissez-faire approach-essentially a democratizing dumbed-down approach-in his new book, Beauty. So the possibility of objectively beautiful art is dismissed much in the same manner as is any notion of objective morality. But maternal exceptions aside, the reality is that plenty of moderns offer the excuse of beauty as relative because the notion that a painting, picture or sculpture could be objectively assessed is thought a hangover of some past age, usually religious. After all, a hideous child may indeed be beautiful in the eyes of his mother though likely not to anyone else. Or they may be academics engaged in the familiar, boring project of deconstructing and subjecting every last bit of beauty to the philosophical equivalent of petri dish analysis. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” we are told by fellow citizens who may, when they offer that familiar cliché, be justifying a preference for mud wrestling over Monet. In memorian, I am re-posting my C2C Journal review of one of his books, Beauty. The British philosopher Roger Scruton died two weeks ago on January 12th, 2020 at the age of 76.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |