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Beauty

Could aesthetics be considered an aspect of intuition? Or is the philosophical definition of intuition more specific? (I'm basing this on Herbert Spencer out of context, so you know ("Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect").) Thank you.
Accepted:
July 30, 2007

Comments

Oliver Leaman
August 3, 2007 (changed August 3, 2007) Permalink

There certainly does seem to be something subjective and based on feelings in our response to questions of beauty etc. but whether this is ultimately what determines our judgments seems dubious to me. If it were then argument and persuasion in aesthetics would be very limited, but it is not. One can quite easily have one's mind changed on the aesthetic qualities of something, and that is not a result of a sudden change in feeling, but in reason changing our feelings. So I think Spencer's comment here is implausible.

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