Aesthetic values are the values of beauty — harmony, proportion, sublimity. Their transcendental foundation is the pulchrum as one of the seven classical transcendentals (cf. Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, q. 1). They stand alongside the vital, intellectual, and moral values as a distinct level of objective values (Seifert 2014).
In contrast to merely subjective judgments of taste, aesthetic values are realistically objective qualities of being that merit an adequate value-response (admiration, delight, wonder). The beauty of nature, of a work of art, or of a person is not constituted in the perceiving subjects, but grounded in the beings themselves.
The aesthetic experience of value directs the person beyond herself toward the transcendent source of beauty. It is therefore more than a psychological stimulus: it is a path of knowledge into the realm of the value of being.
Ontological classification:
- Superordinate concept: Objective Value
- Subordinate concept: Beauty
- Transcendental foundation: pulchrum
- Disjoint with: Vital Value, Intellectual Value, Moral Value
Chapter assignment: Chapter 4: What Is Human Personhood? (German)
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- Hildebrand, D. v.: Ethik (1953/1973), in: Gesammelte Werke, vol. II. Habbel, Regensburg.
- Seifert, J. (2014): Ontological Categories, Anuario Filosófico 47(2), pp. 353–354.
See also: