beauty

nationality

American

occupation / innovator as

philosopher

university professor

Swarthmore College

Temple University

innovator in the field of

aesthetics

philosophy of art

New Criticism

scientific organization

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

literary critic

journalist

philosophy of language

is a form of order which escapes mechanical patterns and is marked by freedom, diversity, and uniqueness.

Monroe C. Beardsley (1915-1985), one of the most influential aestheticians of the last century, criticizes attempts to render beauty or good art in terms of a happy medium or an average. He maintains that the identification of complexity with disorder fails to explain the fact that complexity is a relevant ground for praise, and that the degree of informative value is not high enough to establish the aesthetic worth of an object. Beardsley agrees that beauty is a form of order, but argues that the beauty formula inspired by information theory leads to absurdities. Aesthetic order, according to Beardsley, escapes mechanical patterns and is marked by freedom, diversity, and uniqueness (1968). Abraham Moles (1920-1992) similarly acknowledges the limitations of information theory. He distinguishes between semantic information and aesthetic information. Semantic information has a universal logic and can be expressed in different languages. Aesthetic information cannot be translated into any other language or system of logic... it refers to particular objects apprehended by particular spectators (1966). ( http://science.jrank.org/pages/8444/Beauty-Ugliness-Definitions-Beauty.html#ixzz3uPPKLjgq )

Monroe C. BeardsleyThinkers

Monroe C. Beardsley