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Aesthetics is the subdiscipline of philosophy that explores the nature and value of beauty, often with an emphasis on the beautiful work of art. In this course, we shall pursue the following questions, and doubtless many others: Why do human beings produce works of art? What “counts” as a work of art? What is beauty, and why do we value it so highly? Are aesthetic judgments purely subjective or is there an objective (or intersubjective) standard against which beauty might be measured? Is there a relationship between beauty and morality? What is “taste”? What role does the work of art play in education, in our emotional lives, and in the relationships that we form with one another? Included among the philosophers who shall serve as our points of reference, we will be reading: Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Hume, Shaftesbury, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Goodman, and Danto.