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Reader comment on:
The Uncertainty Principle of Beauty

Submitted by Jim Lilly, Feb 17, 2007 17:41

Fine review (really more than a review--a mini-essay, which in my experience nearly all very good reviews are). I was struck by the description of the spectrum of the power of one's experiences with beauty, from pornography to Proust; it resonated with me. Last year I finished reading In Search of Lost Time. When I am asked to describe it, I find it difficult to do so. As a reader, one knows that he or she is in the presence of artistic genious, unrivaled in literature. How does one meaningfully describe this? There is nothing to compare it to.

As a sometime reader of philosophy, I also decry the superspecialization and move away from broader themes affecting the human condition that were the chief concerns of philosophers from the Greeks forward, beauty among them.

Finally, perhaps most significantly: you've made me want to buy and read the book.

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Other reader comments on this article

Comment	By	Date
Desire has a cognitive aspect. It is difficult to imagine a passionate pursuit of pleasure without the curiosity to know... [MORE]	Dilip Chitre	Mar 25, 2007 00:07
Perhaps the pursuit of beauty has been abandoned because of our abandonment of the pursuit of truth. We now live... [MORE]	Arthur Pontynen	Feb 22, 2007 13:25
"beauty is identical to desire, that desire longs for engagement". Engagement with the object? And we desire this engagement because... [MORE]	James Kirwan	Feb 21, 2007 09:32
From personal experience, the diagnosis that philosophy departments have given up, not only on the idea of beauty, but of... [MORE]	Alex Dunn	Feb 18, 2007 19:45
Actually, Plato states clearly in the Republic and related texts that beauty is strongly linked to virtue and the good;... [MORE]	Philosopher	Feb 18, 2007 12:14
My teacher, Thomas Hora, M.D., defined beauty as "that which is uplifting to the spirit." Inciting desire, which is always... [MORE]	Bruce Kerievsky	Feb 18, 2007 11:49
I wonder if our inability to consider or engage with the question of what is beautiful can be construed as... [MORE]	Cyril Reyes	Feb 18, 2007 02:36
It seems to me that there is one major error in this article i.e. the claim that philosophers have long... [MORE]	Shalom Freedman	Feb 18, 2007 01:41
I am a girl of 18 from The Neherlands, and my experience of the never ending discussion about beauty is... [MORE]	Daphne Andersen	Feb 17, 2007 23:44
Fine review (really more than a review--a mini-essay, which in my experience nearly all very good reviews are). I was...	Jim Lilly	Feb 17, 2007 17:41
"There is no a priori judgment that might reveal what will prove evanescent and what sustaining." "As a reader, one knows... [MORE]	Christopher Orloff	Feb 18, 2007 22:52

Reader comment on:The Uncertainty Principle of Beauty

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Reader comment on:
The Uncertainty Principle of Beauty