display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
8 ideas
| 52 | We choose things for their fineness, their advantage, or for pleasure [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: (roughly) Three pairs of factors cause choice or avoidance: fine/base, advantageous/harmful, pleasant/painful. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1104b29) | |
| A reaction: I love the Greek idea that we choose actions for their 'fineness' [kalos, nobility, beauty]. We sometimes celebrate fine deeds in the media, and even award honours for them, but we don't talk about them much. |
| 5851 | Pentathletes look the most beautiful, because they combine speed and strength [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The pentathletes are the most beautiful, being at the same time naturally suited to both speed and force. | |
| From: Aristotle (The Art of Rhetoric [c.350 BCE], 1361b09) | |
| A reaction: This is still true. Watch the Olympics. The bodies we envy most belong to those who do a variety of disciplines. The most beautiful music fulfils a variety of functions (structure, as well as melody, drama, rhythm, harmony, novelty). |
| 2837 | Nothing contrary to nature is beautiful [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Nothing that is contrary to nature is fine. | |
| From: Aristotle (Politics [c.332 BCE], 1325b09) | |
| A reaction: This seems a rather conservative view, since it rules out submarines, mountaineering and heart transplants.. It depends what we count as 'natural'. |
| 636 | Beauty involves the Forms of order, symmetry and limit, which can be handled mathematically [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The major Forms of the beautiful are order, symmetry and delimitation, and these are very much objects of the proofs of the mathematical sciences. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1078a31) |
| 16566 | Poetry is more philosophic than history, as it concerns universals, not particulars [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of universals, whereas those of history are singulars. | |
| From: Aristotle (The Poetics [c.347 BCE], 1451b05) | |
| A reaction: Hm. Characters in great novels achieve universality by being representated very particularly. Great depth of mind seems required to be a poet, but less so for a historian (though there is, I presume, no upward limit on the possible level of thought). |
| 2824 | The collective judgement of many people on art is better than that of an individual [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The many are the best judges of poetry and music; some judge some parts, some judge others, but their collective judgement is a verdict on all the parts. | |
| From: Aristotle (Politics [c.332 BCE], 1281b08) | |
| A reaction: No one seems to believe this in modern times, but it was a lot easier to spot good art before the invention of the camera, and Duchamp's wretched Fountain. |
| 635 | The good is found in actions, but beauty can exist without movement [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The good is always in some action, whereas the beautiful can also be in things without movement. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1078a26) |
| 2846 | Music can mould the character to be virtuous (just as gymnastics trains the body) [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We must regard music as a stimulus to virtue, capable of making a certain kind of character (just as gymnastic training produces a body of a certain type). | |
| From: Aristotle (Politics [c.332 BCE], 1339a20) | |
| A reaction: He makes a sustained claim for this, but without explicit justification. I am totally convinced that the music of Bach improves us, but I have no idea why. |