1.To try to explain how and why aesthetics is understood, as a philosophical endeavor should first start with what I think and feel through my learning experiences what is art. Art for me is what is pure about the art form and what makes it beautiful. Beauty in art is what enhances individual senses to makes us feel all our senses are united as one. When these traits come together you are in presence of a work of art in my mind and the definition of aesthetics in art.
I feel that the reason aesthetics is understood as a philosophical endeavor is because we as a society need to put a label on or problems to help develop a strategy that will help conquer these problems. So to start a branch in philosophy directed towards the arts, or anything that is meant to capture beauty or criticism should be arranged in a system of criticism. Criticism, which in particular judgments are singled out and their logic and justification displayed, is why it is and will continue to be an endeavor. I feel an artist role in society is to portray a objective and subjective view about his work before and after his work is completed to give a fair assessment to the public of how he sees the world.
2. If you look up the definition of aesthetics it will probably say to some extent, the particular idea of what is beautiful or artistic. The problem with this is the word beautiful can mean different things to two different people. So an individual determines the value of the word. This is why there is so much variation in our assessments of the value of works of art. Subjective and objective theories of aesthetic are a way of separating different approaches. An objective theory claims that aesthetic value is in the property of the artwork itself. The fact that we do reach agreement on the value of so many works suggests that somehow there is an objective basis for our judgments. The subjective theory claims that aesthetic value is simply a matter of the psychological effect on or the attitude of the observer, and these vary considerably from observer to observer. If aesthetic value is subjective, why do we so often try to persuade friends of the value of a work of art that we believe they have overlooked.
3. Plat’s rationalism is the conviction that the truth and the real world are disclosed through the use of the mind alone. In Plato’s opinion of art he say that art is here to increase the world of untrue experiences by creating images of images and illusions of illusions. He continues to say that if the world of direct sense experience is untrue and unreal in some sense, the world created by art is even more so and that by increasing human deception about reality and by appealing to emotions and feelings, therefore, art in whatever form should have no part in an ideal human community. Now if Plato is so concerned with reality and the metaphysics of the world why doesn’t he appreciate art that is produced unconsciously in our minds through direct sense experience and is created into a physical art form? Are we as artist not trying to take the unreal and trying to make real?
Are we not trying to create the world around us through the dreams and illusions we cant not deny we have, but to try to give reason and cause for them? Is this what philosophers have been doing since the beginning of written language in trying to give reason for things? If Plato understood that no on perceives an apple in the same way. Why doesn’t he perceive that an art form has reason in other peoples mind that he might not be able to relate to? My point is simple and that is Plato is one man with an opinion in a world of many men with opinions. What makes his opinion have meaning to himself is his ability to manipulate language to convey a reason for his opinion? I value his opinion to the highest degree but do not agree with it. Art is art because in my mind I say it is.
