This is a post by Filippo Contesi (University of Milan), Enrico Terrone (University of Genoa), Marta Campdelacreu (University of Barcelona) and Genoveva Martí (ICREA, University of Barcelona).

If we had a penny for every time we hear the saying “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”… Since at least the 18^th century, philosophers and common people alike have pondered the question of whether or not the proverb is true. Some have answered one way, others the other. However, philosophers have typically agreed that, in general, people often claim that the proverb is true and that our aesthetic preferences are indeed a matter of individual or subjective taste.