Let’s now imagine that we sit them down so that they are all facing east. Let’s imagine that we put a Muslim, a Protestant, a Catholic, a Buddhist and an atheist in a field in the middle of the night. This can be illustrated through the employment of an imaginary experiment. And such knowledge transcends our preferences, prejudices and opinions. When we see a sunrise, or leaves washed with sunlight, we know that we are experiencing something beautiful that reflects something that is also good and true. This transcendent aspect of beauty is present to an even greater degree in the primal art of Creation. There is something about what it is that transcends our opinions and prejudices. It violates our sense of reality to say that Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is ugly or bad it is clearly neither, whether we prefer it to other forms of music or not. By way of contrast, one doeslikes Rachmaninov because of its beauty, which is inseparable from our sense that it is also good and true. One doesn’t like rap because of its beauty but because of its message, the ugliness and brutality of the rap reflecting the ugliness and brutality of the message. I suspect that many young people prefer rap to Rachmaninov but this says nothing about the relative merits of either form of “music”. Preference, which is often kindled by prejudice, has nothing to do with beauty. From a realist perspective, it is simply untrue its so-called “truth” being the usual relativist error of confusing and conflating goodness, truth and beauty with preference, prejudice and opinion. From a relativist perspective, it is only true if you believe it to be true the truth of the adage is itself in the eye of the beholder.
![beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder meaning beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder meaning](http://image.slidesharecdn.com/viesproverbs1-140901215841-phpapp01/95/proverbs-36-638.jpg)
In essence, we san see and say, therefore, that this particular adage is an expression of philosophical relativism which is another way of saying that it has no objective validity. The truth doesn’t exist except insofar as I find it true, which usually means that it justifies my behaving in any manner that I wish. The good doesn’t exist except insofar as I find it good, which usually means that it makes me feel good.
![beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder meaning beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder meaning](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4a/83/c2/4a83c21c8e98f2a1d9a1f39e8a6e401e.jpg)
It is no mere coincidence that those who claim that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, also proclaim that goodness is equally in the eye of the beholder, and so is truth. It does not exist except as a thing perceived through the lens of the individual’s pride and prejudice.
![beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder meaning beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder meaning](https://itsevalicious.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/IMG-20140410-WA0023-1.jpg)
This reduces beauty itself to nothing but a figment of the individual’s imagination, having no objective existence. It implies that everyone’s perception of beauty is equally valid it’s a personal relationship between the thing beheld and the individual beholding it. Such a belief makes beauty subject to the beholder, and not the beholder subject to beauty. One such adage is the belief that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We begin to assume that they are true without really thinking about them, making truth itself both trite and trivial. Some adages are so well-worn by constant use and abuse that they are considered truisms.