Page 7of 7Berkeley expresses a similar view in his dialogue Alciphron, though he begins with the hedonist conception: “Everyone knows that beauty is what pleases” (Berkeley 1732, 174, see Carritt 1931, 75). But it pleases for reasons of usefulness. Thus, as Xenophon suggests, on this view, things are beautiful only in relation to the uses for which they are intended or to which they are properly applied. The proper proportions of an object depend on what kind of object it is, and again a beautiful ox would make an ugly horse. “The parts, therefore, in true proportions, must be so related, and adjusted to one another, as they may best conspire to the use and operation of the whole” (Berkeley 1732, 174–75, see Carritt 1931, 76). One result of this is that, though beauty remains tied to pleasure, it is not an immediate sensible experience. It essentially requires intellection and practical activity: one has to know the use of a thing, and assess its suitedness to that use.:(excerptedand edited from “Beauty and subjectivity” on Philosophy Talk podcast co-hosted by John Perry) Where does beauty fit in? Is it an objective, mind-independent property of things? We see that some that some philosophers have thought this. Lots of beautiful objects, like mountains and forests and lakes, could exist without minds. But would they be beautiful if there weren’t minds around to gain some enjoyment from observing them?Is beauty like a secondary quality, mind-independent, but inter subjective? That is, if people are in the right conditions, will they agree on what is beautiful and what is not? What would the right conditions be? Not just good lighting, but also,perhaps, a proper upbringing, a well-trained eye, ear, or palate. It seems that there ought to be inter subjective agreement that the pop music of the sixties is better than that of the benighted eighties, for example. However, upon sober reflection, it seems likely that this idea is a biased one due to someone having come of age in the fifties and sixties.So that leaves beauty in athird category, the doubly subjective, not only dependent on minds for its existence, but not even something on which minds can be expected to agree, even in favorable circumstances. The Mona Lisa, Michelangelo’s David, the Chrysler Building—-or Justin Bieber, some people like him, some people don’t.What about the complementary notion of an interplay of both the form and physicality of an object and the subjectivity of the thinkers mind? That beauty is borne from the interaction of the observer and that/who is observed?Given all that w
