A Philosophical Happy Hour inquiring after the nature, perception, and intelligible of beauty and the beautiful.
“What is beauty?” If you have spent any time of your life at all around centers of philosophical inquiry, or persons who enjoy questions of deep and abiding human significance, no doubt you have heard this asked. Quite probably, you even heard some answers: cliches, such as being “in the eye of the beholder”, or (much worse) that cannot be defined but only known when seen; that it “comes from within”; that it fades, is only skin deep, and so on. Perhaps someone give an abstract answer—say, that it consists in integrity, proportion, and clarity. A good answer, that: but what does it really mean?
How do we experience beauty? Is it only physical, or can it be intellectual, too? Can something purely intellectual be beautiful? (Could we even experience such a thing?)
Natural and Artificial Beauty
When we think of “beauty”, we might think of great works of art: architecture, painting, music, cinematography, or any work which combines a multitude of presentational forms (like a movie or play). We might also think of natural phenomena: sunsets, northern lights, the Swiss Alps, the proportions of a well-made and well-maintained human body.
What do these share in common? Are our experiences of them the same, or do they differ significantly? Certain artifacts may be beautiful… but also terrible, in another regard. A well-made blade, for instance, may have great proportions and adornments, but be intended and used for massacre or even human sacrifice. So too the phenomena of nature, with perhaps less ambivalence: a volcanic eruption is terrifying to witness near one’s home, no doubt, but has a certain awe-inspiring and even at times beautiful appearance—from a safe distance.
The Perception of Beauty
The contrast between the natural and the artificial—and the contexts in which they are observed—raises another question: namely, concerning the role of perception in beauty. That is: is beauty to be found in the object observed, only, or does it rely somehow upon the one perceiving it? It may not be in the eye of the beholder; but does beauty truly exist without someone to behold it?
Join us in conversation this Wednesday (3 June 2026, from 5:45-7:15+ pm ET) as we explore these and similar questions:
- Why do people disagree over which particular things are beautiful?
- Do people disagree over the nature of beauty? How/in what terms?
- What are the roles of sensation, perception, and intellectual understanding in discovering and constituting the beautiful?
- Does beauty refer strictly to the apprehended qualities of something, or does it extend also to actions and their results?
- Does art and its study form part of the human person’s education or formation?
- Does pleasure have an integral role in the beautiful?
- Can something lack integrity, proportion, and clarity, and still be beautiful?
- Will beauty “save the world”? Why/not?
- How would you define beauty or the beautiful?
philosophical happy hour
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Come join us for drinks (adult or otherwise) and a meaningful conversation. Open to the public! Held every Wednesday from 5:45–7:15pm ET.
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