Talk:Aesthetics

Hi Phlsph7: I'm a bit lost on our disagreement. Virtually any source will include art in the definition of aesthetics. Cambridge Dictionary: "the formal study of the principles of art and beauty". Merriam-Webster: "a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste". American Heritage: "The branch of philosophy that deals with the nature, expression, and perception of beauty, as in the fine arts." Collins has various, but two relevant ones: "the branch of philosophy dealing with art, its creative sources, its forms, and its effects" and "the study of the rules and principles of art". Oxford Learner's Dictionaries: "the branch of philosophy that studies the principles of beauty, especially in art". Wolfdog (talk) 13:15, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Hi Wolfdog, you are right that all these sources support that art is one of the topics of aesthetics. However, none support that the philosophy of art is a subfield of aesthetics, which is the point of the sentence in question. Some philosophers think that aesthetics and philosophy of art overlap but that each has topics that the other one does not have. For a very explicit opinion that they are not identical, see Nanay 2019 p. 4: Aesthetics is not the same as philosophy of art. ... This book is about aesthetics. As a result, it is both broader and narrower in scope than a book about philosophy of art would be. Because of disagreements about the precise definitions, we have to use a careful formulation. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:14, 27 January 2026 (UTC)