Answer: Beauty is largely seen as subjective—shaped by personal experiences, cultural influences, and individual tastes. While some argue for objective standards, the prevailing view is that beauty varies from one observer to another.

Plato believed in an ideal, objective form of beauty beyond the physical world, while David Hume argued that beauty is a matter of personal taste in his essay “Of the Standard of Taste.” Immanuel Kant, in his Critique of Judgment, proposed that although judgments of beauty are subjective, they carry a claim to universal validity, reflecting a unique interplay between personal feeling and common sense. Friedrich Nietzsche also examined beauty, often linking it to broader cultural and existential themes.

Nietzsche approached beauty as more than a static ideal; he saw it intertwined with the vitality and dynamism of life. For him, beauty wasn’t just about harmonious forms but was deeply connected to the creative and transformative energies of existence. Nietzsche emphasized the Dionysian aspect of art—a celebration of chaos, passion, and the raw, unmediated forces of life—suggesting that beauty emerges from our engagement with these powerful experiences rather than from fixed, objective standards.