The Beautiful

This chapter links the value we take in beauty with our practical drive for knowledge. The contemporary ‘processing fluency’ account of aesthetic pleasure is examined and rejected. Instead, it is claimed that beautiful objects appear to be perfectly fitting together, which stimulates a rewarding sense that knowledge of the object is highly accessible. The nature of ugliness is then considered. On the face of it, ugliness presents a significant problem for Aestheticism, for how can everything be aesthetically valuable if some of it is ugly? As an initial response, the notion of ‘difficult beauty’ is appealed to.