The first lecture of [[PA The Primacy of Beauty]] by [[John Vervaeke]] at [[Peterson Academy]] ## The Fall of Beauty Alluding to [[Byung-Chul Han]]'s book Saving Beauty. ### Hermeneutics of suspicion Hermeneutics of suspicion, found in the like of Nietzsche and Freud, render appearances as illusory. Vervaeke points out that illusion and reality are comparative terms, and the ability to judge something as an illusion is dependent upon there being something that is non-illusory, namely that which is real. Hence, appearances can be deceptive, but they cannot be just that. A hermeneutics of suspicion precludes an opposing hermeneutic, namely a hermeneutics of beauty, that renders appearances to not be deceptive, but be the very means by which reality is disclosed to us. While the hermeneutics of suspicion brings with it moments of revealing untruths by going behind appearances, the hermeneutics of beauty is bound up with moments of realisation and insight, or what Vervaeke calls occurrences of truth. Beauty, or precisely moments of beauty, are precisely those moments of insight when reality is disclosed to us. However, Han diagnoses that suspicion has disabled us from experiencing beauty, and has made us forgotten what beauty is. ### Aesthetics of the smooth What has then replaced beauty is aesthetics. More specifically relevant is the aesthetics of the smooth. #in-progress