The horse is beautiful, the harp is beautiful and the soup pot is beautiful.

But Plato said that these are just beautiful phenomena and did not touch the essence of beauty. Plato also found beauty difficult to explain, and finally had to sigh: beauty is difficult.

So "what is beauty" is called Plato's question and becomes an eternal aesthetic question.

Since then, the discussion about the essence of beauty has never stopped.

Plato: Beauty is the principle.

Aristotle: Beauty is form.

Hegel: Beauty is the perceptual manifestation of ideas.

Heidegger: Beauty exists, but it is unspeakable.

Some people think that beauty is objective, while others think that beauty is subjective.

The essence of beauty has been inconclusive since ancient times, but this does not seem to hinder our usual aesthetic evaluation of things. "What beautiful flowers!" "This dish is delicious!" "Beauty!" The word "beauty" can be said to be one of the adjectives most used in our language activities.

So what do we judge beauty on and how do we define the boundary of beauty?

Judging from the composition of Chinese characters, "beauty"-"sheep is great beauty", and Xu Shen's Shuo Wen Jie Zi is interpreted as "beauty, sweetness and obedience to sheep". In the six livestock owners to eat also. Beauty is consistent with goodness. Modern Chinese explains that big and fat sheep are considered beautiful, that is, the feeling of food is beautiful.

There is also a saying about beauty, "People and sheep are beautiful." This is why the word "beauty" comes from the materials of primitive art and totem dance. Kang Yin (a linguist) pointed out that the original meaning of "beauty" is to wear a sheep's crown or sheep-shaped decoration on one's fingers and dance for the success of hunting. This shows that "beauty" is related to primitive witchcraft etiquette activities and has certain social significance. People get success and pleasure, and sometimes they dance in front of everyone and say to themselves: beauty, this is so beautiful.

The two explanations of "sheep is beautiful" and "sheep is beautiful" show that: on the one hand, "beauty" is directly related to people's perceptual needs, enjoyment and senses; On the other hand, "beauty" is associated with social activities, that is, people's group activities. These two explanations of the origin of the word "beauty" show that the existence of beauty cannot be separated from people and real things.

As for the understanding of beauty, I agree with Lv Ying, a famous contemporary aesthetician in China, that is, beauty is subjective and "beauty is people's social consciousness".

Everyone knows beauty, but they have different views on it. The same thing, some people will feel beautiful, some people will feel beautiful; Even the same person, his view of beauty will change in his life. He thought it was beautiful, but later he didn't. It was not beautiful at first, but it was beautiful later. Therefore, beauty is a reflection of things in human subjectivity and an idea. Lv Ying believes that "beauty is a concept of human beings. Any concept of spiritual life is formed on the basis of real life, a product of society and a social concept. "

It can be seen that beauty is virtual and is experienced by feeling. But this kind of virtuality lies in concrete entities.

Regarding the essence of beauty, I agree with Wittgenstein that beauty is a family similarity. That is, beauty has no fixed essence and no fixed extension, and its composition is similar to some extent, but it can never be explained. For example, Pythagoras' "Beauty is harmony" and Socrates' "Beauty is useful" both illustrate some characteristics of beauty, but they are far from enough.

I thought of the title of my thesis again: What is beauty?

It seems that the more we discuss, the harder it is to know what beauty is.

Beauty is the quietness of "moonlight in the pine forest, crystal stone in the stream", the excitement of "the branches of red apricots are full of spring", the sadness of "the shadow on the back of the wall, the rustling of dark rain against the window" and the magnificence of "how the water of the Yellow River goes out of the sky, enters the ocean and never returns". Or the sweetness of cake, the fragrance of wine, the hearty spring and the cool autumn wind. ...

Perhaps these are only a small part of the family similarity of beauty, but they also give us a touching, refreshing and calm state of mind. Maybe this feeling is the true meaning of beauty.

Is this all right? No, sue me.