Aesthetic relativism
Aesthetic relativism is the idea that views of beauty are relative to differences in perception and consideration, and intrinsically, have no absolute truth or validity.
Context
Aesthetic relativism might be regarded as a sub-set of an overall philosophical relativism, which denies any absolute standards of truth or morality as well as of aesthetic judgement.Aesthetic relativism is a variety of the philosophy known generally as relativism, which casts doubt on the possibility of direct epistemic access to the "external world", and which therefore rejects the positive claim that statements made about the external world can be known to be objectively true. Other varieties of relativism include cognitive relativism and ethical relativism. Aesthetic and ethical relativism are sub-categories of cognitive relativism.
Categories
Aesthetic relativism takes two major forms: aesthetic subjectivism and aesthetic perspectivism.Adherents
Philosophers who have been influential in relativist thinking include David Hume, particularly his "radical scepticism" as set out in A Treatise of Human Nature; Thomas Kuhn, with regard to the history and philosophy of science, and particularly his work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; Friedrich Nietzsche, in moral philosophy and epistemology; and Richard Rorty, on the contingency of language.Philosophers who have given influential objectivist accounts include Plato, and in particular his Theory of the Forms; Immanuel Kant, who argued that the judgement of beauty, despite being subjective, is a universally practiced function of the mind; Noam Chomsky, whose "nativist" theory of linguistics argues for a universal grammar.
The most prominent philosophical opponent of aesthetic relativism was Immanuel Kant, who argued that the judgement of beauty, while subjective, is universal.