The Concept of Beauty Essay - Philip Pettit on Beauty

The Concept of Beauty Essay - Philip Pettit on BeautyI had the pleasure of being the recipient of Philip Pettit's article, 'On the Concept of Beauty,' which is the first part of his two-part analysis of beauty, in the second part of the same article, he analyzes Hegel's account of the concept of beauty in the Phenomenology of Spirit. This article is a follow-up to the first part of this same essay, however, rather than examining the different components of beauty that Pettit argues for, this article is going to take a look at the ways that I disagree with the logic of the argument.I also write in favor of a 'poetic turn' in aesthetics, a sense of heroism or a pearl-clutching feeling, an inner 'or'aah' reaction to beauty. I think this is a misunderstanding of beauty as a subjective notion. It can be objective, like a jewel, but if it is a subjective one, it is subjective because it is expressed.In his essay, Pettit argues that beauty must be a conscious, intended action by the observe r to express something about his or her self. It is not arbitrary; it has to do with a feeling of relation to one's own nature, one's own spirit.There is an image that I have always liked from a recent edition of 'The Art of War,' by Sun Tzu, the famous work by Sun Tzu, 'The Art of War,' and a quote from the work 'The Prince,' written by the famous German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 'All warfare is based on deception.' The actual quote from Goethe is, 'Whoever knows how to lie well will win.' The point here is that one does not truly think, when one is being deceived, because that is the thing that they are doing.A beauty that is the result of a beauty that was given to you by your imagination, when you were quite young and not you in particular, is a pearl-clutching feeling of joy. That is the objective sense of beauty, but then that is not necessarily the most important sense of beauty because there are other things that can be perceived that are more subjective.Kant wrote in his Critique of Practical Reason that beauty is 'the pleasure of the intellect'. While that is the highest object, there are other things that can be perceived that are of higher value than aesthetic pleasure. When a person knows that something is beautiful, and the value is more than the sensory pleasure, but not the pleasure of the intellect, they are saying, that is beautiful.One's own feeling of beauty or the pearl-clutching feeling that is created by someone else's beauty can be subjective, but so can the value of some object of beauty. One may also think that beauty is subjective but it is objective when it comes to artistic value. When one says, this is beautiful, it does not mean that it has to be this way, but it is beautiful because it is this way.Pettit points out that there is a difference between 'the pearl-clutching feeling of delight' and the 'purer feelings of satisfaction and gratitude' that can be experienced by knowing that one is beautiful. He argues that we s hould honor this objective level of beauty, rather than valuing it based on the subjective sense of beauty.