Definition of aesthetics Aesthetics

/ɛsθɛˈtɪks/ - [esthetiks] - aes•thet•ics

We found 5 definitions of aesthetics from 5 different sources.

Word comparison

aesthetics - /iːsθˈɛtɪks/

esthetics - /ɛsθɛˈtɪks/

Noun Singular: aesthetic
aesthetics - (art) the branch of philosophy dealing with beauty and taste (emphasizing the evaluative criteria that are applied to art); "traditional aesthetics assumed the existence of universal and timeless criteria of artistic value"
		esthetics
		philosophy any personal belief about how to live or how to deal with a situation; "self-indulgence was his only philosophy"; "my father's philosophy of child-rearing was to let mother do it"
		artistic creation, artistic production, art the creation of beautiful or significant things; "art does not need to be innovative to be good"; "I was never any good at art"; "he said that architecture is the art of wasting space beautifully"

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Aesthetics is a branch of Philosophy. It is the Philosophy of Art and Beauty. Together with ethics it is part of axiology which is the philosophy of what people like.

Aesthetic philosophers ask what people like to look at, hear, feel, smell or taste, and why they like these things. Aesthetic philosophers also ask if art has any value. For example they may ask if some art that nobody likes and that nobody wants is art at all, or if it is something else.

One theory in Aesthetics is called subjectivism. Subjectivism says that something is beautiful to me if I say it is beautiful. Subjectivism also says that something is art for me if I say it is art. Many Aesthetic philosophers do not like subjectivism. They say that art and beauty are to do with an object, not with the person who sees, hears, feels, tastes or smells that object.

Plato, Aristotle and Immanuel Kant are some important philosophers of aesthetics.