Daisy Fancourt
Art Cure
The empirical case — from 30,000 studies — that sustained engagement with art is a pillar of health: the science behind what elegance already knows about beauty and well-being.
Celadon Books / Cornerstone
2025
Domain IV
V
Beauty
After Roger Scruton
Beauty: A Very Short Introduction, 2009.
From the Source§ in preparation
“Beauty is not a luxury, but a necessity in which we measure our humanity.”
Roger Scruton
4 principles forthcoming
The Central Argument
Beauty is not decoration. It is a form of judgement — a quiet act of recognition in which a particular thing is permitted to stand for the order it belongs to.
“Beauty is not a luxury, but a necessity in which we measure our humanity.”
Forthcoming Principles
- I.
Beauty as Judgement
Beauty is not a quality of the object alone — it is an act of recognition in which we commit ourselves to what we perceive.
- II.
The Distinction of Kitsch
Kitsch offers the experience of beauty without its cost. It is beauty for those unwilling to be moved.
- III.
On the Human Figure
The human form is the founding object of aesthetic attention. All else is understood in relation to it.
- IV.
Beauty and the Sacred
The beautiful thing always gestures beyond its own particular order, toward something it cannot name.
This chapter is in preparation.
From the Reading List
Mark Dooley
Conversations with Roger Scruton
The most candid account of Scruton's intellectual life — architecture, music, religion, beauty, and the philosophy of home — in his own words, at Sunday Hill Farm.
Bloomsbury / Continuum
2016
Roger Scruton
Beauty — A Very Short Introduction
The philosophical case that beauty is not decoration but judgement — a quiet act of recognition in which a particular thing is permitted to stand for the order it belongs to.
Oxford / University Press
2009