Are There Any Valid Criticisms? (aka Kalessin's Rant)

[Firefoot]

*Firefoot sticks her nose into this fascinating discussion, hoping that her thoughts are relevant.*

To quote my old sig:

"The best and most beautiful things in life cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt in the heart."

It think this pretty well sums up why things like good art, beauty, and the like are hard to define: they are intangible feelings, individual to each person. Because people have different opinions on what is good, or true, or beautiful, their definitions of these things will also be different.

If there is something that one person thinks to be beautiful, but everyone else in the world thinks it is not, does it make the thing any less beautiful to that one person? If that is what the one person truly thinks, then no, it doesn't. So is it beautiful or not? Most people would say no, but as long as the one person thinks so, that thing must hold some element of beauty.

Can goodness, beauty, and truth be defined, then? Individually, I would say yes. I can take my set of morals, values, and opinions and put them together to get my opinion of these things. But universally? Except in the most general sense, I don't think so. The human race is too vast and different for that. I think that most people would agree with Mark12_30's statement that good art reveals truth. But I don't think that the statement can be taken any futher than that, because each person's perception of truth is different.