Aesthetics

PHILOSOPHY
Philosophy” comes from Greek words meaning “love of wisdom.” Philosophy
uses the tools of logic and reason to analyze the ways in which humans experience
the world. It teaches critical thinking, close reading, clear writing, and logical
analysis; it uses these to understand the language we use to describe the world, and
our place within it. Other than that, Philosophy is the study of the fundamental nature
of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic
discipline. Philosophy is a study of fundamental problems such as a those connected
with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind and language. Philosophy is a way
of thinking about the world, the universe, and society. It works by asking very basic
questions about the nature of human thought, the nature of the universe, and the
connections between them. Philosophy has been called the mother of all sciences
(disciplines), because historically, it gave birth to the different sciences. The founding
of Western philosophy began with Thales of Miletus on 624 BCE to 546 BCE.

Western philosophy is the philosophical tradition of the Western world and

dates to Pre-Socratic thinkers who were active in Ancient Greece in the 6th century
BCE such as Thales and Pythagoras who practiced a "love of wisdom". Socrates
was a very influential philosopher, who insisted that he possessed no wisdom but
was a pursuer of wisdom. Western philosophy can be divided into three eras:
Ancient (Greco-Roman), Medieval philosophy (Christian European), and Modern
philosophy. The Ancient era was dominated by Greek philosophical schools which
arose out of the various pupils of Socrates, such as Plato, who founded the Platonic
Academy and his student Aristotle, founding the Peripatetic school, who were both
extremely influential in Western tradition. Socrates (469/470-399 BCE) was a Greek
philosopher and known as one of the most important philosophers in history. He is
considered as the father of western philosophy. Plato was his most famous student
who also taught Aristotle who were he people that made great impact of influence in
the fields of Philosophy. Western philosophy can be divided into six branches that
have assumed various importance over time. The Epistemology, Logic, Metaphysics,
Ethics, Aesthetics, Political Philosophy. Epistemology the branch of philosophy
concerned with the nature and scope (including limitations) of knowledge. Logic is
the study of reasoning. Metaphysics is concerned with explaining the fundamental
nature of being and the world. Political Philosophy is the study of concepts such as
liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority:
what they are, why (or even if) they are needed, what makes a government
legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it should
take and why, what the law is, and what duties citizens owe to a legitimate
government, if any, and when it may be legitimately overthrown, if ever. Ethics also
known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address
questions about morality; that is, about concepts like good and bad, right and wrong,
justice, virtue, etc.

Aesthetics also is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of art,
beauty and taste and with the creation or appreciation of beauty: a particular theory
or conception of beauty or art: a particular taste for or approach to what is pleasing
to the senses and especially sight. And also defined as the study of subjective and
sensori-emotional values, or sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste.
Aesthetics studies how artists imagine, create and perform works of art; how people
use, enjoy, and criticize art; and what happens in their minds when they look at
paintings, listen to music, or read poetry, and understand what they see and hear. It
also studies how they feel about art, why they like some works and not others, and
how art can affect their moods, beliefs, and attitude toward life.

The three aesthetic theories of art criticism are most commonly referred to as
Imitationalism, Formalism, and Emotionalism. Some critics think that the most
important thing about a work of art is the realistic presentation of subject matter.
Aesthetic principles that characterize art movements comprise a range of artistic
elements such as shape, color, texture, line, and use of space, to convey values,
capture emotion, create unity within an art piece, and communicate meaning. There
are 4 important categories, which can make or break the aesthetics of our designs.
Vision the most dominant sense in majority of people is our sight. We can’t stop
ourselves to look at what we find beautiful. It is as if the light that reflects from the
beautiful design acts as a magnet for our eyes. Hearing our ears are capable of
perceiving a whole another level of aesthetic design. This is the power of sound
aesthetics, Touch material aesthetics are especially important for physical products.
Sometimes people make there buying decisions only based on the material
aesthetics. Powerful stuff are these material aesthetics. Taste and Smell; Taste and
Smell are sense that help us experience aesthetics even more deeply. Especially in
food industry and different environment designs, these senses play an important role
in experiencing aesthetics.

There are three approaches to aesthetics first the study of the

aesthetic concepts, or, more specifically, the analysis of the “language of criticism,”
in which particular judgments are singled out and their logic and justification
displayed. In his famous treatise On the Sublime and Beautiful (1757), Edmund
Burke attempted to draw a distinction between two aesthetic concepts and, by
studying the qualities that they denoted, to analyze the separate human attitudes
that are directed toward them. Burke’s distinction between the sublime and the
beautiful was extremely influential, reflecting as it did the prevailing style of
contemporary criticism. In more recent times, philosophers have tended to
concentrate on the concepts of modern literary theory—namely, those such as
representation, expression, form, style, and sentimentality. The study invariably has
a dual purpose: to show how (if at all) these descriptions might be justified and to
show what is distinctive in the human experiences that are expressed in them.
Second a philosophical study of certain states of mind—responses, attitudes,
emotions—that are held to be involved in aesthetic experience. Thus, in the seminal
work of modern aesthetics Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790; The Critique of
Judgment), Immanuel Kant located the distinctive features of the aesthetic in the
faculty of “judgment,” whereby we take up a certain stance toward objects,
separating them from our scientific interests and our practical concerns. The key to
the aesthetic realm lies therefore in a certain “disinterested” attitude, which we may
assume toward any object and which can be expressed in many contrasting ways.
And lastly the philosophical study of the aesthetic object. This approach reflects the
view that the problems of aesthetics exist primarily because the world contains a
special class of objects toward which we react selectively and which we describe in
aesthetic terms. The usual class singled out as prime aesthetic objects is
that comprising works of art. All other aesthetic objects (landscapes, faces, objets
trouvés, and the like) tend to be included in this class only because, and to the
extent that, they can be seen as art (or so it is claimed).