Defining Beauty

We use the word “beauty” without thinking about what it really means. We use the word almost instinctively to describe qualities of objects, of people, of situations. Typically there is little need to justify the choice of the word, as it is one that we all can seem to agree on in one way or another.

We also have little problem accepting that others can find beauty in things that we cannot. We might be bewildered at the types of objects and things that some people consider to be beautiful, but we also have grown to appreciate that “beauty, at times, must be in the eye of the beholder.” There could be something about the object that they perceive that we don’t, or it could be that they’ve had experiences in their life which make them able to recognize the beauty within an object which we cannot. Perhaps, there is nothing in the object which is beautiful at all, and beauty is nothing more than a neurological experience which takes place only inside of our heads.