Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy) in the context of "Romanticism"

Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that studies beauty, taste, and related phenomena. In a broad sense, it includes the philosophy of art, which examines the nature of art, artistic creativity, the meanings of artworks, and audience appreciation.

Aesthetic properties are features that influence the appeal of objects. They include aesthetic values, which express positive or negative qualities, like the contrast between beauty and ugliness. Philosophers debate whether aesthetic properties have objective existence or depend on the subjective experiences of observers. According to a common view, aesthetic experiences are associated with disinterested pleasure detached from practical concerns. Taste is a subjective sensitivity to aesthetic qualities, and differences in taste can lead to disagreements about aesthetic judgments.

Eurocentrism (also Eurocentricity or Western-centrism) refers to viewing the West as the center of world events or superior to other cultures. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire Western world to just the continent of Europe or even more narrowly, to Western Europe (especially during the Cold War). When the term is applied historically, it may be used in reference to the presentation of the European perspective on history as objective or absolute, or to an apologetic stance toward European colonialism and other forms of imperialism.

The term "Eurocentrism" dates back to the late 1970s but it did not become prevalent until the 1990s, when it was frequently applied in the context of decolonization and development and humanitarian aid that industrialised countries offered to developing countries. The term has since been used to critique Western narratives of progress, Western scholars who have downplayed and ignored non-Western contributions, and to contrast Western epistemologies with indigenous epistemologies.

Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, performing arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and social issues were all aspects of this movement. Modernism centered around beliefs in a "growing alienation" from prevailing "morality, optimism, and convention" and a desire to change how "human beings in a society interact and live together".

The modernist movement emerged during the late 19th century in response to significant changes in Western culture, including secularization and the growing influence of science. It is characterized by a self-conscious rejection of tradition and the search for newer means of cultural expression. Modernism was influenced by widespread technological innovation, industrialization, and urbanization, as well as the cultural and geopolitical shifts that occurred after World War I. Artistic movements and techniques associated with modernism include abstract art, literary stream-of-consciousness, cinematic montage, musical atonality and twelve-tonality, modern dance, modernist architecture, and urban planning.

Normativity concerns the standards of what people ought to do, believe, or value. It is a quality of rules, judgments, or concepts that prescribe how things should be or what individuals may, must, or must not do. Normative claims express what ought to be the case, such as "you should not smoke". They contrast with descriptive claims about what is the case, such as "you smoked yesterday". Normativity shapes many everyday activities, such as decision-making, evaluating outcomes, criticizing others, and justifying actions.

Researchers discuss many types of normativity. Practical normativity is about what to do, while theoretical normativity concerns what to believe. Deontic normativity deals with what is allowed, required, or forbidden, whereas evaluative normativity addresses the values underlying normative assessments. Objective normativity encompasses requirements that do not depend on personal views, in contrast to subjective normativity, which is about standards relative to subjective perspectives. A normative assessment is pro tanto if it is partial by only taking certain aspects into account, unlike all-things-considered judgments, which factor in all relevant aspects. Other distinctions are based on the domain of assessment, such as moral, social, legal, and linguistic norms. Some categories may overlap, and there are academic disagreements about whether all these types are genuine forms of normativity.

Social alienation is a person's feeling of disconnection from a group – whether friends, family, or wider society – with which the individual has an affiliation. Such alienation has been described as "a condition in social relationships reflected by (1) a low degree of integration or common values and (2) a high degree of distance or isolation (3a) between individuals, or (3b) between an individual and a group of people in a community or work environment [enumeration added]". It is a sociological concept developed by several classical and contemporary theorists. The concept has many discipline-specific uses and can refer both to a personal psychological state (subjectively) and to a type of social relationship (objectively).

Phenomenology is a philosophical study and movement largely associated with the early 20th century that seeks to objectively investigate the nature of subjective, conscious experience and world-disclosure. It attempts to describe the universal features of consciousness while avoiding assumptions about the external world, aiming to describe phenomena as they appear, and to explore the meaning and significance of lived experience.

This approach, while philosophical, has found many applications in qualitative research across different scientific disciplines, especially in the social sciences, humanities, psychology, and cognitive science, but also in fields as diverse as health sciences, architecture, and human-computer interaction, among many others. The application of phenomenology in these fields aims to gain a deeper understanding of subjective experience, rather than focusing on behavior.