Towards a Unified Theory of Beauty

Abstract

The Pythagorean tradition dominates the understanding of beauty up until the end of the eighteenth century. According to this tradition, the experience of beauty is stimulated by certain relations perceived to obtain between an object/construct's elements. As a result, the object of the experience of beauty is indeterminate: it has neither a determinate perceptual analogue (one cannot simply identify beauty as one can a straight line or a particular shape) nor a determinate concept (there are no necessary and sufficient conditions for beauty at the semantic level). By the thirteenth century in the West, the pleasure experienced in beauty is characterised as disinterested. Yet, on the basis that all cultural manifestations of the Pythagorean theory of beauty recognise that judgments of beauty are genuine judgments, we would want to say that judgments of beauty are 'lawful'. In addition, from ancient times, up until after Kant, philosophers of beauty within this tradition recognise two kinds of beauty: a universal, unchanging beauty coexisting with a relative, dynamic beauty. These two kinds of beauty and the tensions discussed above, are reconciled and dissolved respectively, according to the metaphysical/religious commitments of the particular author. As yet, however, these features of beauty have not been reconciled within a physicalist worldview. This is what I set out to do. The aim of this paper, then, is to outline a way of thinking about beauty which resolves these apparent contradictions. An explanatory hypothesis for beauty is developed, which draws upon recent developments in cognitive science. A theory of perception needs to satisfy certain conditions in order to explain the features of beauty in such a way that they are complementary rather than dichotomous. This paper begins by uncovering the nature of these conditions, and considering whether contemporary theories of perception satisfy them. Finally, an outline of a new way of thinking about beauty emerges, whose relevance for understanding contemporary art is then examined. But first, a brief history of beauty is in order.