Single Idea 184

[catalogued under 21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 5. Natural Beauty]

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.

Clarification

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

Gist of Idea

Progress goes from physical beauty, to moral beauty, to the beauty of knowledge, and reaches absolute beauty

Source

Plato (The Symposium [c.373 BCE], 211c)

Book Reference

Plato: 'The Symposium', ed/tr. Hamilton,W [Penguin 1951], p.94


A Reaction

Presumably this is why Socrates refused sexual favours to Alcibiades. The idea is inspiring, and yet it is a rejection of humanity.