Aesthetics is that branch of philosophy defining beauty and the beautiful, how it can be recognized, ascertained, judged. In the West the term was first used in 1750 to describe a science of sensuous knowledge. Its goal was beauty, in contrast with logic, whose goal was truth. Based upon dichotomies (beauty/truth, aesthetics/ logic) the definition was elaborated into a multifaceted concept assuming that opposites and alternates lead to an aesthetic result. The conjectures and conclusions were those of eighteenth-century Europe but are still common today. There are, however, different criteria at different times in different culture. Many in Asia, for example, do not subscribe to general dichotomies in expressing thought. … Continue reading Donald Richie