The physical self

What is physical self?

According to Sanjay Singh, “the physical body refers to the body, a marvelous
container and complex, finely timed machine with which people interface with the
environment and fellow beings. ”

What Philosophers Think About Beauty

Beauty is a objective quality.

• St. Augustine asked whether things were beautiful because it gave delight, or
whether it gave delight because it was beautiful. He believed it to be the latter.
• Beauty is considered as pure manifestation of the good. • God is the supreme
good, and the source of all beings, and all of beauty. • He further examined the three
negative forms of the absence of beauty: (1) The absence of metaphysical beauty,
(2) The absence of moral beauty, and (3) The absence of physical beauty.

• Plato • Beauty is a response to love and desire. • The concept of beauty exists
in the world of Forms. Objects are beautiful because they are reflections of the idea
of beauty that already exists in the realm of Forms. • Beauty can exist independently
of its perceiver, and being beautiful does not depend upon personal evaluation.

• Aristotle asserted that the chief forms of beauty are order, symmetry, and
definiteness that can be demonstrated by mathematical sciences.• “to be beautiful,
a living creature, and every whole made up of parts, must … present a certain order
in its arrangement of parts” • Beauty can be measured through order, symmetry,
and definitiveness (mathematical sciences). • The Golden Ratio, formula of beauty
which is a set of proportions found in nature and applied by man to all manner of
visual culture.

Beauty is a subjective quality.

• David Hume - "Beauty is no quality in things themselves; It exists merely in the
mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty. One
person may even perceive deformity, where another is sensible of beauty; and every
individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending to regulate
those of others"

• Immanuel Kant - "The judgment of taste is therefore not a judgment of

cognition, and is consequently not logical but aesthetical, by which we understand
that whose determining ground can be no other than subjective".• Four
distinguishing features of aesthetic judgment: (a) disinterested, (b) universal, (c)
necessary, and (d) purposive without purpose or final without end. • Beauty is
purposive and pleasurable.
 • Francis Hutcheson - "The perception of beauty does depend on the external
sense of sight; however, the internal sense of beauty operates as an internal or
reflex sense. The same is the case with hearing: hearing music does not necessarily
give the perception of harmony as it is distinct from the hearing" • Involvement of
internal and external senses. If there is no internal sense of beauty, then there is no
perception of it

COGNITIVE BIAS • It is an error in reasoning , evaluating, or any other mental

process that is often a result of holding on to one’s preference or beliefs regardless
of contrary information.

HALO EFFECT -The halo effect (also known as the physical attractiveness
stereotype and the "what is beautiful is good" principle) refers to the tendency of
people to rate attractive individuals more favorably for their personality traits or
characteristics as compared to those who are less attractive.

EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY • Beauty or attractiveness is a function of the

genetic quality of an individual. • Factors that influence attraction: symmetry,
averageness, and sexually dimorphic traits • Physical attractiveness has important
social consequences, for instance, people and animals rely on external traits to
attract mates

How Cultural Traditions Shape Body Image?

Beauty and body image have been subjected to transformation, reflecting

cultural values, norms, and historical context. Being a part of a cultural group plays
an integral part of who people are.

Does your Body Image have an Impact on your Self-Esteem?

The term self-esteem was coined by William James in 1800. James presented
self-esteem as the number of successes a person achieves in the domains of life that
are important to him or her, divided by the number of failures that occurred on
those areas. In the 1960s, behavioral scientists defined self-esteem in terms of an
attitude concerning one's worth as a person.
Self-esteem- refers to a person’s beliefs about his or her own worth and value. It is
often associated with one’s self-confidence.
Body image It is the way one sees the physical self and the thoughts and feelings
that result from that perception.