The late philosopher Roger Scruton wrote a helpful short book on beauty and gives us 6 statements (platitudes) to help us understand what beauty actually is:
Roger Scruton’s 6 Platitudes on Beauty
1. Beauty pleases us.
2. One thing can be more beautiful than another.
3. Beauty is always a reason for attending to the thing that possesses it.
4. Beauty is the subject-matter of a judgement: the judgement of taste.
5. The judgement of taste is about the beautiful object, not about the subject’s state of mind. In describing an object as beautiful, I am describing it, not me.
6. Nevertheless, there are no second-hand judgements of beauty. There is no way that you can argue me into a judgement that I have not made for myself, nor can I become an expert in beauty, simply by studying what others have said about beautiful objects, and without experiencing and judging for myself.
