pt. 1. Dependence. Ch. 1. The Beautiful, the Dainty, and the Dumpy. Ch. 2. The Concept of the Aesthetic. Ch. 3. Aesthetic Supervenience Defended -- pt. 2. Formalism. Ch. 4. Feasible Aesthetic Formalism. Ch. 5. In Defense of Moderate Aesthetic Formalism. Ch. 6. Defusing Anti-Formalist Arguments. Ch. 7. Formal Natural Beauty. Ch. 8. Aesthetic/Sensory Dependence -- pt. 3. Realism. Ch. 9. Hume, Taste, and Teleology. Ch. 10. Metaphor and Realism in Aesthetics. Ch. 11. Skin-Deep or in the Eye of the Beholder? Ch. 12. Differences.
Summary
"In chapters ranging from "The Beautiful, the Dainty, and the Dumpy" to "Skin-Deep or in the Eye of the Beholder?" Nick Zangwill investigates the nature of beauty as we conceive it, and as it is in itself. The notion of beauty is currently attracting increased interest, particularly in philosophical aesthetics and in discussions of our experiences and judgments about art. In The Metaphysics of Beauty, Zangwill argues that it is essential to beauty that it depends on the ordinary features of things. He uses this principle to defend the notion of the aesthetic, to call for a version of aesthetic formalism, and to reconsider the reality of beauty."--Jacket
