42. What is the philosophy of beauty called?
From Quiz Beauty and Ugliness
Answer:
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy which studies the nature and the perception of beauty, especially in the fine arts. The most significant thinkers have explored the theme of beauty, and analysed the focal question of aesthetics: what qualities make something or someone "beautiful"? Their approaches are basically founded on two categories: the objective and the subjective. In the former, beauty is inherent to the "object" and has universal validity; in the latter, beauty is "in the eyes of the beholder", i.e. it is a purely personal experience.
Aristotle and Plato saw beauty as an objective expression of symmetry and order, whereas 18th century philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant and David Hume, proposed new aesthetic theories, introducing the elements of subjectivity, pleasure and taste.
If in the distant past aesthetics was mostly a philosophical subject, the last two centuries have also seen many artists and critics contribute their views on the topic.