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Originally Posted by Spear Dane  Quote:
Originally Posted by weinhold J, this is an important topic. I'm glad you brought it up. Here are a few suggestions off the top of my head that might serve as aesthetic principles:
1) Symmetry
2) Simultaneous existence of Likeness and Difference
3) Inclusion of Complex and Simple design qualities
4) Harmonizing the Universal and the Particular | I agree with you that entities having the above are indeed beautiful. But if I can push further: why those characteristics? | Jacob, I don't have an absolute answer for you, but I find that often most people agree about beauty. Recognition of beauty thus seems to be an innate human sensibility that can be refined through education. Nearly everybody can distinguish between bad poetry and great poetry, for instance. But what is the difference between good and bad, or between good and great? These are often fine lines, and I doubt if we will discover some sort of theoretical objective rubric to help us make distinctions. Instead, I think that one's aesthetic sensibility is partly innate and partly developed through experience with particular works of art.
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Paul Weinhold, Colleyville Presbyterian Church
Currently Reading: Critical Theory Since Plato, Poetry by John Donne, Solon of Athens, and Wallace Stevens
1 Corinthians 8:2-3 "If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God."
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