Certain philosophers have written considerable bodies of work on aesthetics. Kant comes to mind. Hegel. Probably no one more than Schopenhauer, although his aesthetic sense was bizarre at best. Other than him, it seems to me that aesthetics have been afterthoughts, even after ethics.
As everyone knows, classical Western philosophers have tended to dwell interminately on metaphysics in general and ontology in particular. Traditionally, there was much written with a sort of theological context for everything from ethics to politics.
It wasn't really until the existentialists emerged — most notably Sartre — that philosophical ethics, politics, and certainly metaphysics was developed in a non-theological context. I do understand, and am aware, that there were a couple or three Greek philosophers who, even by today's standards, could be considered atheist or agnostic. But they were minor players. (And please don't hijack the thread with a debate about whether Aristotle was an atheist. Jesus, that just winds round and round.)
Today, the fixations seem to depend on whether the philosopher is bent more toward existentialism or essentialism. For those following along who happen not to know the difference, the easy way to look at it is this. The existentialist will say, "Existence precedes essence." The essentialist (which is the traditional view, going back from just prior to Satre all the way to Plato) would say, "Essence precedes existence."
What they're saying is this. In the case of the existentialist, he is saying that something (say, a planet) must first exist before it is essentially a planet (as opposed to, say, a bowl of pudding). The essentialist, meanwhile, is saying that something (the planet, let's say) cannot exit without first being essentially a planet (and not a bowl of pudding). Putting it another way, the existentialist believes that without existing, a thing cannot be the thing it essentially is. The essentialist, then, believes that without having an essential nature, a thing cannot come into existence.
(The origin of the word "essence" is of enough interest for its own thread. It came about when the Romans encountered Aristotle's enigmatic phrase, 'to ti ên einai". Literally, "that which it was to be'. The Romans invented the word "essentia" to convey its meaning.)
Anyway, these days, it seems we have the existentialists, like Daniel Dennett — as fine a representative for atheism as one could hope for — rather fixated on epistemology. And the essentialists, like Alvin Plantinga, seem rather fixated on ontology — particularly serious attempts to resurrect the ontological argument for the existence of God by way of S5 modal logic. (In my opinion, Hawthorne makes the best argument for it, while Suber makes the best argument against it.)
But that's neither here nor there. What I want to discuss is aesthetics — in the philosophical sense. Not in the sense of what's purty, but in the sense of what's valuable. As I see it, every philosophical principle, from metaphysics to epistemology to ethics (especially ethics) can be best explained in the context of aesthetics. And if there is some decent current writing on the topic, I haven't seen it.
My question is whether this would be something anyone might be interested in pursuing. If I attain permission to register a reasonably named sock, I would be interested in arguing both sides. What do y'all think? I do understand that the assertion is broad — waaaaay broad — but it strikes me as true. And though I am mindful of the pitfalls of inductive reasoning, it does seem that in this case, the particulars suggest the general to such a degree of regularity and certainty that, with reasonable premises, one could develop a deductive treatment of the notion that all things philosophical are essentially a matter of aesthetics.
Speaking of Daniel Dennett, by the way, he is the source of one of my favorite quotes: "There's nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view that I hold dear."