Ten Dialogues about Art and Beauty

What is beauty, and is it a necessary element of art? And what qualifies as a "work of art" in the first place? This book (which is part of the author's trilogy on interdisciplinary aesthetics) explores such questions, and a number of other issues related to beauty and the philosophy of art. Unlike traditional treatises on aesthetics, in this case the discussion is set in a "chat room", and is presented in the form of a conversation between two individuals who have been selected to test a personalized "match making app". Since this book represents a companion to The Beauty of Nature and the Nature of Beauty, it is natural to read them together. Those who do so will find that beauty binds together many disparate fields, some of which have no apparent connection to art. It often does so in ways that are subtle, and become apparent only when one adopts a broadly interdisciplinary perspective. This suggests that we must sometimes look beyond art itself to understand its true impact, and the many ways in which it enriches our lives.