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Single Idea 21488

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

Full Idea

In the beautiful we always perceive the intrinsic and primary form of animate and inanimate nature, that is to say Plato's Ideas thereof. …When an aesthetic perception occurs the will completely vanishes from consciousness.

Gist of Idea

The beautiful is a perception of Plato's Forms, which eliminates the will

Source

Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], XIX:205)

A Reaction

An essential Schopenauer idea. Iris Murdoch said something similar.

Book Reference

Schopenhauer,Arthur: 'Essays and Aphorisms [from Pand P]', ed/tr. Hollingdale,R.J. [Penguin 1970], p.155