In order to experience beauty, we must think, a new study suggests, confirming the 18th-century idea of Immanuel Kant’s about the relationship between beauty and thought.
“The experience of beauty is a form of pleasure,” explains Denis Pelli, a professor of psychology and neural science at New York University and the study’s senior author. “To get it, we must think.”
“From Homer’s Iliad to today’s nearly-$500-billion cosmetics industry, beauty always matters,” adds Aenne Brielmann, a doctoral candidate in the psychology department and the study’s lead author. “Our study reveals what makes beauty special.”
The research, which appears in the journal Current Biology, tested twin claims by Kant. In his 1764 work Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, and later in Critique of Pure Judgment, he posits that experiencing beauty requires thought, but that sensuous pleasure can be enjoyed without thought and cannot be beautiful….