@misc{Lexicon of Arguments, title = {Quotation from: Lexicon of Arguments – Concepts - Ed. Martin Schulz, 28 Mar 2024}, author = {Plato}, subject = {Beauty}, note = {Gadamer I 482 Beauty/Plato/Gadamer: In Platonic philosophy [we] (...) find (...) a close connection and not seldom an interchange of the idea of the good with the idea of the beautiful. Cf. >Beauty/Ancient Philosophy. Both are beyond all that is conditioned and many: the beautiful in itself meets the loving soul at the end of a path leading through the manifold beauty as the one, unifying, exuberant ("Symposion"), just as the idea of the good is beyond all that is conditioned and many, which is only good in certain respects ("Politeia"). The beautiful in itself shows itself to be beyond all that exists as well as the good in itself (epekeina). Order/Being: The order of being, which consists in the order of the one good, thus agrees with the order of the beautiful. The path of love that Diotima teaches leads via the beautiful bodies to the beautiful souls and from there to the beautiful institutions, customs and laws, finally to the sciences (e.g. to the beautiful numerical relations of which the theory of numbers knows), to this "wide sea of beautiful speeches"(1) - and leads beyond all this. Gadamer: One can ask oneself whether the transgression of the sphere of the sensually visible into the real means a differentiation and enhancement of the beauty of the beautiful and not merely that of the existing, which is beautiful. But Plato obviously means that the teleological order of being is also an order of beauty, that beauty appears more pure and clearer in the intelligible realm than in the visible, which is clouded by the immoderate and imperfect. Middle Ages: In the same way, medieval philosophy closely connected the concept of beauty with that of good, bonum, so closely that a classical Aristotle passage about kalon was not understandable in the Middle Ages because the translation here simply rendered the word kalon with bonum.(2) Measure/Proportion: The basis of the close connection between the idea of the beautiful and the teleological order of being is the Pythagorean-Platonic concept of measure. Plato defines the beautiful by measure, appropriateness and proportion; Aristotle names as the moments (eide) of the beautiful order. >Beauty/Aristotle. Gadamer I 484 The Good/Beauty/Plato: As closely Plato (...) linked the idea of the beautiful with that of the good he also has in mind a difference between the two, and this difference contains a peculiar advantage of the beautiful. (...) the inconceivability of the good [finds] a correspondence in the beautiful, i.e. in the moderation of the existing and the revelation that belongs to it (aletheia) (...), inasmuch as a final exuberance also belongs to it. However, Plato can also say that in the attempt to grasp the good itself, the same flees into the beautiful(1). Thus, the beautiful differs from the absolutely intangible good in that it is more easily grasped. It has to be something appearing in its own essence. In the search for goodness, beauty is manifested. This is first Gadamer I 485 a distinction of the same for the human soul. Virtue/Appearance: That which shows itself in perfect form attracts the desire for love. The beautiful immediately takes on a life of its own, whereas the models of human virtue are otherwise only darkly recognizable in the murky medium of appearances, because they possess, as it were, no light of their own, so that we often fall into the impure imitations and illusory forms of virtue. This is different with beauty. Beautiful/Plato: It has its own brightness, so that we are not seduced here by distorted images. For "beauty alone has been granted this, that it is the most luminous (ekphanestaton) and lovable thing"(3). Ontology/Rank/Order: Obviously, it is the distinction of the beautiful from the good that it presents itself from itself, makes itself immediately obvious in its being. Thus it has the most important ontological function that can exist, namely that of mediating between idea and appearance. Appearance/Idea/Mediation: There is the metaphysical crux of Platonism. It is condensed in the concept of participation (methexis) and concerns both the relationship of appearance to the idea as well as the relationship of the ideas to each other. As "Phaidros" teaches, it is no coincidence that Plato particularly likes to illustrate this controversial relationship of "participation" by the example of the beautiful. >Methexis/Plato. Beauty does not only appear in what is sensually visible, but in such a way that it is actually there, i.e. that it stands out as one out of all. The beautiful is really "most luminous" in itself (to ekphanestaton). ((s) see above ontological rank). Thus "emergence" is not only one of the qualities of what is beautiful, but constitutes its very essence. The distinction of what is beautiful, that it directly attracts the desire of the human soul, is rooted in its way of being. It is the moderation of being that does not only let it be what it is, but also lets it emerge as a harmonious whole that is measured in itself. Alethia: This is the revelation (alétheia) that Plato speaks of, which belongs to the essence of the beautiful.(4) Shine/Appearance/appear: Beauty is not simply symmetry, but the appearance itself, which is based on it. It is of the nature of appearance. Appearance, however, means: to shine on something and thus to make an appearance of that on which the appearance falls. Gadamer I 491 Aletheia/Plato: [Plato] first of all, in the beautiful, has shown the alétheia as its essential moment, and it is clear what he means by this: the beautiful, the way in which the good appears, makes itself manifest in its being, presents itself. Cf. >Beauty/Thomas Aquinas. Representation/Presentation: What presents itself in this way is not distinguished from itself in that it presents itself. It is not something for itself and something else for others. It is also not something different. It is not the glamour poured out over a figure that falls on it from outside. Rather, it is the very condition of being of the figure itself, to shine in this way, to present itself in this way. It follows from this that, with regard to being beautiful, the beautiful must always be understood ontologically as an "image". Idea and appearance: It makes no difference whether "it itself" or its image appears. As we had seen, the metaphysical distinction of beauty was that it closed the hiatus between idea and appearance. It is "idea" for sure, that is, it belongs to an order of being. 1. Symp. 210 d: Reden Verhältnisse. I Vol. „Unterwegs zur Schrift“, Ges. Werke 7.1 2. Arist. Mead. M 4, 1078 a 3-6. Cf. Grabmann's introduction to Ulrich von Straßburg De pulchro, p. 31 (Jbø bayer. Akad. d. Wiss. 1926), as well as the valuable introduction by G. Santinello to Nicolai de Cusa, Tota pulchra es, Atti e Mem. della Academia Patavina LXXI. Nicolaus goes back to Ps. Dionysios and Albert, who determined medieval thinking about beauty. 3. Phaidr. 250 d 7. 4. Phil. 51 d. - - - Bubner I 35 Beauty/Good/Plato/Bubner: in the beautiful, we are content to have the illusion. In the good, we cannot be content with the illusion.}, note = { Gadamer I Hans-Georg Gadamer Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik 7. durchgesehene Auflage Tübingen 1960/2010 Gadamer II H. G. Gadamer The Relevance of the Beautiful, London 1986 German Edition: Die Aktualität des Schönen: Kunst als Spiel, Symbol und Fest Stuttgart 1977 Bu I R. Bubner Antike Themen und ihre moderne Verwandlung Frankfurt 1992 }, file = {http://philosophy-science-humanities-controversies.com/listview-details.php?id=737038} url = {http://philosophy-science-humanities-controversies.com/listview-details.php?id=737038} }