[New Entry by Antonia Peacocke on January 20, 2023.]
A paradigmatic aesthetic experience is a perceptual experience focused on the beauty of an object like a work of art or an aspect of nature. Some philosophers take it that this is the only kind of aesthetic experience, though many more take it that there are other varieties as well. You might, for instance, have an aesthetic experience by witnessing not a beautiful but a sublime storm. You might have an aesthetic experience not by having a perceptual but rather by having an (imagined) emotional experience of the deep suffering of…
Originally appeared on Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Read More
