The Nature of Beauty -- Short Response

Beauty exists as a phenomenon in the interactive space between an object an observer, but not incidentally. Rather, beauty is a property assigned to objects as the result of culturally-dependent (culturally dependent not merely describe broad categories but sub-cultures as well) schema which is then individuated by external context and mediated by individual taste. An example would help elucidate this.

When I happen across a particularly noteworthy building – meaning one that catches my eye and draws my attention to it – say, in this case, the American Standard Radiator building, I posit that it is beautiful. However, this claim is not something indicative of the building itself, so much as it is truly like any other building and further, is merely a building currently serving as a hotel a particular function which occurs only incidentally as much as it could be serving any other function, which I would be hard-pressed to say gave it any quality of beauty by this particular virtue. However, there is still something to its façade which I describe as beautiful. This is because I hold a culturally-dependent understanding of what is beautiful and what is not, and within that understanding I have individuated myself with a sense of taste which may or may not be unique to me but certainly is not, and need not, be upheld by the entire rest of those members of my cultural set(s). To be clear, I do not mean to say that there is some intersubjective arbiter of the fine details of beauty, but, rather, there is a developmental element which inures us with a conventional sense of what is beautiful and what is not within our own cultural context – which is why art from other cultural contexts can seem so foreign. I speak not merely of Eastern and Western art but divisions in subcultures which additionally have this effect, though perhaps seemingly more subdued. Additionally, this is why we can speak of redefining beauty or claim to find beauty in otherwise non-beautiful objects. When I see the American Standard Radiator Building, I see a building which conforms to a conventional sense of beauty in my Western cultural domain, but my individuated taste see it as not merely this and not merely a building designed in the art deco style, but in addition to all of these, the object, the building, appeals to my taste – I believe it to be a beautiful instantiation of these elements.

This assignment of the property of beauty to this extent seems real to me. However, I must additionally acknowledge that its negation will seem equally real to someone who would assert it – most understandably someone could argue that the building is so excessive as to not be capable of being beautiful. I could argue that they are mistaken, but there is an extent to which we will talk past one another. This is because the nature of beauty is a relativistic one curbed by intersubjective appreciation of objectively defined elements (though often subjectively appreciated) which constitute a culturally-dependent schema under which I operate.