Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Herodotus, Plato and Tim Button

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10 ideas

21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 4. Beauty
Beauty and goodness are the same [Plato]
     Full Idea: What is good is the same as what is beautiful.
     From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 201c)
Beauty is the clearest and most lovely of the Forms [Plato]
     Full Idea: Only beauty has the privilege of being the most clearly discerned and the most lovely of the forms.
     From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 250e)
     A reaction: the motivation in Plato's theory
People who value beauty above virtue insult the soul by placing the body above it [Plato]
     Full Idea: When a man values beauty above virtue, the disrespect he shows his soul is total and fundamental, because he argues that the body is more to be honoured than the soul.
     From: Plato (The Laws [c.348 BCE], 727e)
Beauty is harmony with what is divine, and ugliness is lack of such harmony [Plato]
     Full Idea: Ugliness is out of harmony with everything that is godly; beauty, however, is in harmony with the divine.
     From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 206d)
     A reaction: This remark shows how the concept of 'harmony' is at the centre of Greek thought (and is a potential bridge of the is/ought gap).
If goodness involves moderation and proportion, then it seems to be found in beauty [Plato]
     Full Idea: Moderation and proportion seem, in effect, to be beauty and excellence. So now this property we're looking for, goodness, has taken refuge in beauty.
     From: Plato (Philebus [c.353 BCE], 64e)
What is fine is always difficult [Plato]
     Full Idea: The proverb says 'Anything fine is difficult'.
     From: Plato (Hippias Major [c.392 BCE], 304e)
     A reaction: attributed (as usual) to Solon
Love of ugliness is impossible [Plato]
     Full Idea: There cannot be such a thing as love of ugliness.
     From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 201a)
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 5. Natural Beauty
Stage two is the realisation that beauty of soul is of more value than beauty of body [Plato]
     Full Idea: The second stage of progress is to realise that beauty of soul is more valuable than beauty of body.
     From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 210b)
Progress goes from physical beauty, to moral beauty, to the beauty of knowledge, and reaches absolute beauty [Plato]
     Full Idea: One should step up from physical beauty, to moral beauty, to the beauty of knowledge, until at last one knows what absolute beauty is.
     From: Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 211c)
     A reaction: Presumably this is why Socrates refused sexual favours to Alcibiades. The idea is inspiring, and yet it is a rejection of humanity.
Non-physical beauty can only be shown clearly by speech [Plato]
     Full Idea: The bodiless things, being the most beautiful and the greatest, are only shown with clarity by speech and nothing else.
     From: Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 286a)
     A reaction: Unfortunately this will be true of warped and ugly ideas as well.