Beauty as a Specific Aesthetic Concept: A Response to Panos Paris

Panos Paris develops a theory of beauty in terms of ‘wellformedness’. Two kinds of wellformedness are key, namely functional and categorial wellformedness. Both kinds would correspond to types of beauty: functional and categorial beauty. The free or abstract beauty of artworks would depend on abstract wellformedness. This is a matter of giving rise to associations of wellformedness of either the functional or categorial kind. In developing this theory, Paris inverts the Kantian tradition in which free or abstract beauty has explanatory priority to other types. In this article, we argue that Paris has not made the case for this inversion and take issue with his tripartite understanding of beauty and wellformedness. In doing so, we hope to contribute to a goal we share with Paris: to carve out beauty as a specific aesthetic concept.