Single Idea 4026

[catalogued under 21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 4. Beauty]

Full Idea

Ugliness is out of harmony with everything that is godly; beauty, however, is in harmony with the divine.

Clarification

'Beauty' is the Greek word 'kalos', which also translates as 'fine'

Gist of Idea

Beauty is harmony with what is divine, and ugliness is lack of such harmony

Source

Plato (The Symposium [c.373 BCE], 206d)

Book Reference

Plato: 'Complete Works', ed/tr. Cooper,John M. [Hackett 1997], p.489


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).