Beauty (1)
I warned you: don't get me started. Someone got me started, and now I feel restless and squirmy untill I have at least said something on the topic. I've decided that this shall be the first of a series. Yes, I'm very aware of the fact that I will ride the waves of many great philosophers, and no, I do not pretend to be able to add anything to what has already been said or written, however i do believe that philosophy should be owned by the people to contribute to a more meaningful, considered existence.
Beauty... wouldn't it be wonderful to start with a nice definition, putting the subject into it's appropriate box to make sure we don't wander of(f?)? I must say I do like the more recent developments in philosophy where language has been given a more prominent place, after all, just by choosing words we define, confine and shape the world around us. In this case however I don't quite see how a definition would help out. I think every single soul on planet earth will have some sort of understanding of the concept 'beauty', so my problem isn't as much what is beauty but rather why it is. I'll have to restrain myself though: let's take it one step at the time.
So today: Beauty in platonic idealism.
Don't expect too much here, I'm just gonna improvise and besides that I've studied philosophy in Dutch, so my vocab is limited at the best, none-existent at the worst.
Just to sum it up to remind ourselfes. Plato is famous for his allegory of the cave (although there is doubt that he ever thought of this allegory in the first place). A good old philosepher sitting in a cave facing the rear wall and lighting a fire at the entrance to the cave. Al he sees is his own shadow. He figures out: what I see of myself is a shadow. Likewise we, on planet earth(the so called perceptual world), see but a poor reflection, a shadow so to speak, of what is there in the 'intelligible' world. So there is a storehouse filled with 'ideas', and we as humans have in our conscienceness a list of those ideas. Eg. we know a horse is a horse because we see four legs, a big nose and a hairy tail we tick the boxes and remember, this is the idea 'horse'. (I know I put it very simple, but I'm trying to get trough this as quick as I can).
Allright, in this dualistic worldview...beauty.
Say there is the idea 'beauty' in the intelligible world. We come across a random object and 'remember' this idea beauty. So we say 'wonderful'. Even in our christian worldview this might not sound so bad. Let's say the intelligible world, is the ideal world, the world that God meant in the beginning. God created the concept beauty, and we still recognise it around us. That ideal world is replaced by a world subject to sinfulness and therefore no longer perfect. In a similar way our understanding of beauty is distorted et voila: That's why there's different opinions on what is beautiful.
That doesn't really answer all my questions though. Why is it, for example, that Christians, even though reborn as children of God and made perfect (yes, i know, beING made holy, but still), so in a sense restored to the perfect creation that Adam was, why is it that there's so few radical, reborn Christians that make beautiful music, write good books, make good music, draw beautiful painting etc.?
Another question it doesnt quite answer, one that i will develop in my next episode:
It seems that there is not just a random variety of opinions on beauty. In most cultures there's more or less a general agreement on what is beautiful and what's not. So there is some sort of connection between culture and beauty...
Next time I want to look at some of those cultural aspects of 'beauty'.
Beauty... wouldn't it be wonderful to start with a nice definition, putting the subject into it's appropriate box to make sure we don't wander of(f?)? I must say I do like the more recent developments in philosophy where language has been given a more prominent place, after all, just by choosing words we define, confine and shape the world around us. In this case however I don't quite see how a definition would help out. I think every single soul on planet earth will have some sort of understanding of the concept 'beauty', so my problem isn't as much what is beauty but rather why it is. I'll have to restrain myself though: let's take it one step at the time.
So today: Beauty in platonic idealism.
Don't expect too much here, I'm just gonna improvise and besides that I've studied philosophy in Dutch, so my vocab is limited at the best, none-existent at the worst.
Just to sum it up to remind ourselfes. Plato is famous for his allegory of the cave (although there is doubt that he ever thought of this allegory in the first place). A good old philosepher sitting in a cave facing the rear wall and lighting a fire at the entrance to the cave. Al he sees is his own shadow. He figures out: what I see of myself is a shadow. Likewise we, on planet earth(the so called perceptual world), see but a poor reflection, a shadow so to speak, of what is there in the 'intelligible' world. So there is a storehouse filled with 'ideas', and we as humans have in our conscienceness a list of those ideas. Eg. we know a horse is a horse because we see four legs, a big nose and a hairy tail we tick the boxes and remember, this is the idea 'horse'. (I know I put it very simple, but I'm trying to get trough this as quick as I can).
Allright, in this dualistic worldview...beauty.
Say there is the idea 'beauty' in the intelligible world. We come across a random object and 'remember' this idea beauty. So we say 'wonderful'. Even in our christian worldview this might not sound so bad. Let's say the intelligible world, is the ideal world, the world that God meant in the beginning. God created the concept beauty, and we still recognise it around us. That ideal world is replaced by a world subject to sinfulness and therefore no longer perfect. In a similar way our understanding of beauty is distorted et voila: That's why there's different opinions on what is beautiful.
That doesn't really answer all my questions though. Why is it, for example, that Christians, even though reborn as children of God and made perfect (yes, i know, beING made holy, but still), so in a sense restored to the perfect creation that Adam was, why is it that there's so few radical, reborn Christians that make beautiful music, write good books, make good music, draw beautiful painting etc.?
Another question it doesnt quite answer, one that i will develop in my next episode:
It seems that there is not just a random variety of opinions on beauty. In most cultures there's more or less a general agreement on what is beautiful and what's not. So there is some sort of connection between culture and beauty...
Next time I want to look at some of those cultural aspects of 'beauty'.
posted by Jesse at 20:21
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1 Comments:
intersting stuff dude. i see you almost went down the road of linguistics which would have been a false trail. well avoided. the word 'beauty' did not create the concept, it tried to express something already recognised... beauty is an attempt to name that which elicits a reaction from within. in n.t. wright's book 'simply christian' he lists beauty, justice, and relationships as three unexplainable 'echoes' that point to a voice, and its invisible speaker. interesting stuff. the possibility of beauty messes with our modernist worldview because it can't be explained scientifically, and yet we intuitively know it to be true in the deepest sense. keep it comin!
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