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THE AGE OF ANTIQUITY

From the Pythagoreans to Vitruvius the Roman Architect & Engineer:

An introduction to the objectivity vs. subjectivity of beauty in

philosophical aesthetics

THE AGE OF ANTIQUITY

From the Pythagoreans to Vitruvius the Roman Architect & Engineer:

An introduction to the objectivity vs. subjectivity of beauty in

philosophical aesthetics

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THE AGE OF ANTIQUITY:THE AGE OF ANTIQUITY:

When the ancient Western philosophers stated “X” was beautiful were they

acknowledging a quality that X inherently possesses or did they confer

“beauty” upon it?

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Consider the question this way:Consider the question this way:

When you claim that X is beautiful, do you

simply mean that you find it pleasing?

Would you say that all things are by themselves

aesthetically neutral, neither beautiful or

ugly?

A bouquet of Tulips

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Consider the following questions:Consider the following questions:

Would you agree with Plato: “There are things

which are beautiful always and by themselves?

Would agree with Protagoras: “Man is the measure of all things: nothing else but the

pleasures of the eyes and ear”?

Plato ; School of Athens by Raphael

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Consider the following points.Consider the following points.

It is naïve to believe that the theory of beauty was “objective” and it was the impact of modern thought that made

the idea of beauty “subjective.”

We will see the subjective theory of beauty has always existed in Western

thought.

The objective theory of beauty was simply predominant in Ancient and

Medieval thought.

A bouquet of Roses

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ANCIENT HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF BEAUTY:

PERSONS DATES WORLDVIEW

OBJECTIVE SUBJECTIVE

1. Pythagoreans: Cosmocentric view

3rd

CentB.C.

Pre-Socratic.

X

2. Sophists: Anthropocentric view:

5th Cent. B.C.

Relativism;Skeptics;Empirical

X

3. Gorgias of Leontini:Extreme Illusionary view:

C. 483-376 B.C.

ExtremeSophist

X

4. Socrates: Combination, Middle-of-the Road view:

C. 470-399B.C.

“Founder” of Western Philosophy

X X

5. Plato: Objectivist, Reasoned view:

427-347B.C.

Father of Platonic

Philosophy

X

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ANCIENT HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF BEAUTY:

PERSONS DATES WORLDVIEW

OBJECTIVE SUBJECTIVE

6. AristotleCombination View: Modes of

Understandings.

384-322B.C.

“Father” of Aristotelian

Thought

X X

7. Stoics:Objectivist View:

Proportion determines beauty

333 B.C. -180 A.D.?

Virtue;Reason;

Natural Law

X

8. Stoic Diogenes of Babylon:Objectivist View:

Enlightenment brings objectivity

2nd century

B.C.

Stoic Philosopher

X

9. Philodemos, chief writer among Epicureans:

Aesthetic subjectivity w/o relativity

110 B.C- 30 B.C.

Epicurean philosophy.

X

10 Skeptics:Pyrrho school &

Academic Skepticism(Plato’s Academy)

360-270B.C. /

3rd-1st B.C.

Suspicion,Doubt, &

Antinomy of debate

X

X11. Marcus Vitruvius Pollio:

Symmetry & Eurythmy Combined:80/70 B.C.-

Circa 25 B.C.

Roman writer,

Architect, & Engineer

X X

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Pythagoreans: Beauty is the property of the

universe.

Pythagoreans: Beauty is the property of the

universe.Argument: Aesthetic view of objectivity was cosmocentric: beauty is the property of the universe; man doesn’t invent beauty; he discovers beauty.

Pythagoreans, a named after the Pre-Socratic Philosopher Pythagoras (570?-495?) B.C. the most famous pre-Socratic philosopher, the “father of numbers.” They believed that everything was related to mathematics and that numbers were the ultimate reality.

Harmony, proportion, and number are the objective basis of beauty because harmony derives from order, order from proportion, proportion from measure, and measure from number.

“Order and proportion,” they said, “are beautiful and useful while order and lack of proportion are ugly and useless.” ~ Stobias, Ecl. IV. 1.40 H, frg. D 4, Diels.

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Sophists: “Man is the measure of what exists” Nothing else but the pleasure of the eyes and ears.”

Sophists: “Man is the measure of what exists” Nothing else but the pleasure of the eyes and ears.”

Aesthetic subjectivism: Since man is the center of all things, the natural implication is that beauty is subjective. Their starting point was the relatively of beauty, which they extended to its subjectivity; beauty is a subjective experience.

Oldest & most famous Sophist: Protagoras,

490-420 B.C.

The same property is beautiful if it is the property of A and ugly if it is the property of B. For example: A dress is beautiful on a lady, but ugly on a man. The same property is beautiful for observer A and ugly for observer B.

“A dog considers a dog the most beautiful,” Epicharm wrote, “and similarly an ox an ox, a donkey a donkey, a pig a pig.” Laert. Diog. III 16 frg. B 5 Diels.

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Sophists: “Man is the measure of what exists”

Nothing else but the pleasure of the eyes and ears.”

Sophists: “Man is the measure of what exists”

Nothing else but the pleasure of the eyes and ears.”

Gorgias offers a very extreme, illusionistic notion of beauty. He argues that the effect of art, especially poetry, is based on illusion, delusion, and deception; it works through matters which objectively do not exist at all. Such extreme aesthetic subjectivism was maintained as early as the Fifth century B.C.

~ Gorgias, Helena 8 frg. B 11, Diels. Gorgias, 483-376B.C.

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Socrates:C. 470 -399 B.C.

Socrates:C. 470 -399 B.C.

Socrates distinguished two kinds of beautiful objects:

X is beautiful by itself (objective)X is beautiful for those persons who make use of them (subjective).

Beauty is in part objective and in part subjective; there exists both objective and subjective beauty.

~ Xenophon, Commentarii III. 10.10

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Socrates: C. 470 -399 B.C.Socrates: C. 470 -399 B.C.

Socrates offers a new definition of beauty: He explains it as appropriative to a purpose.

Different things have different purposes and thus a different beauty

• A shield has to protect• A spear to be thrown quickly and

efficiently.• The beauty of a spear is different from the

beauty of the shield.• And although gold is beautiful in other

things, a beautiful shield is not beautiful because it is useless.

~ Xenophon, Commentarii, 8.4.

The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David (1787)

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Socrates: C. 470 -399 B.C.Socrates: C. 470 -399 B.C.

The object appropriate to its purpose is called “kalovn-pulcrum-beautiful which later Greeks termed as prevpon which Romans translated as aptum or decorum.

Purposeful, subjective beauty became known as convenient (decorum) and the beautiful (pulchrum) as objective.

Thus, some things are beautiful by reason of their proportion and those which are so by reason of their purposefulness.

The School of Athens by Raphael (Right side) (1509-1510)

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Plato: 427-347 B.C.

Plato: 427-347 B.C.

“Nothing which is beautiful is without

proportion” ~ Sophist, 228 A.

“There are things which are beautiful always and

by themselves” ~ Philebus, 51 B.

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Plato: 427-347 B.C.

Plato: 427-347 B.C.

1. Catharsis; (cleansing of emotions, calibration of the emotions, or “incidents in structure/plot).

2. Mimesis (imitating; image-making; it is rational);

3. Mimesis as Action (active mode of understanding);

4. Important Role in life (instructs audience with values).

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Plato: 427-347 B.C.

Plato: 427-347 B.C.

In Philebus, 51b begins:

Protarchus: But, Socrates, what are the kinds of pleasure that non could rightly regard as true?

Socrates: Those that are related to so-called pure colors and to shapes and to most smells and sounds and in general all those that are based on imperceptible and painless lacks, while their fulfillments are perceptible and pleasant.

Protarchus: But really, Socrates, what are you talking about?

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Plato: 427-347 B.C.

Plato: 427-347 B.C.

Socrates: What I am saying may not be entirely clear straightaway, but I’ll try to clarify it. By the beauty of a shape, I do not mean what the many might presuppose, namely that of a living being or of a picture. What I mean, what the argument demands, is rather something straight or round and what is constructed out of these with a compass, rule, and square, such as plane figures and solids. Those things I take it are not beautiful in a relative sense, as others are, but are by their very nature forever beautiful by themselves. They provide their own specific pleasures that are not at all comparable to those of rubbing! And colors are beautiful in an analogous way and import their own kinds of pleasures. Do we now understand it better, or how do you feel?

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Plato: 427-347 B.C.

Plato: 427-347 B.C.

Protarchus: I am really trying to understand, Socrates, but will you also try to say this more clearly?

Socrates: What I am saying is that those among the smooth and bright sounds that produce pure note are not beautiful in relation to anything else but in and by themselves and that they are accompanied by their own pleasures, which belong to them by nature.

Protarchus: That much is true.

~ Philebus, 51:b-d.

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Plato: 427-347 B.C.

Plato: 427-347 B.C.

Plato is considered to be the father of & fiercest critic of aesthetics.

He is mainly concerned with the application of aesthetics, not offering a systematic understanding of it in a well-ordered society.

Like Xenophanes, Heraclitus, & Socrates, in Plato’s earliest dialogues,

He distrusts art, poetry, and theatre but at the same time has a strong fascination with it, esp. poetry because of its power to arouse emotions.

Yet, when it comes to the pleasure of art, Plato is able to allow for “internal” aesthetic principles, such as those of form, organization, and coherence (Phaedrus 268-9; Republic 4.420c-d),esp. if it will contribute to a well-ordered society.

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Aristotle: 384 B.C. – 322

B.C.

Aristotle: 384 B.C. – 322

B.C.

Aristotle sees both the making and

reception of art as modes of

understanding.

Beauty is both objective and

subjective; they are modes of

understanding.

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Stoicism: Stoicism:Proximal to Plato’s concept of objectivity, the Stoics, members of a school of thought whose prime directives were virtue, reason, and nature law, they believed that proportion determines beauty. They applied this conviction to material as well as to spiritual beauty of which they highly valued.

Zeno of Citium: 333-264 B.C.

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Stoicism:Stoicism:

Though Stoics admitted that aesthetic judgments were irrational when based upon impression. But, the senses, wrote the Stoic, Diogenes of Babylon, can be trained and developed; impressions may be subjective; but when enlightened they acquire objectivity and become a base for the objective beauty of knowledge.

~ Diogenes Babylon.: Filodemos, De Musica 11, (Kemke).

Diogenes of Babylon: 2nd Century B.C.

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Philodemos: 110-30 B.C.

Philodemos: 110-30 B.C.

Philodemos, who may have taught Horace and Virgil at the Epicurean school in Naples, Italy, advocated aesthetic subjectivity without relativism.

Nothing is beautiful by nature.

All judgments about beauty are subject.

There is only subjectivity but men may agree in their subject judgments.

~ Philodemos, De Poem V. 53 (Jensen).

A scroll (copy) of Philodemos’ writings

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Skeptics:Skeptics:

Skepticism stress the divergences of aesthetic judgment

Skepticism stress the impossibility of expressing about beauty as being anything more than pure personal opinions.

Skeptics are different than the Epicureans in that the former is not concerned with subjectivity as much as they are with “impossibilities.”

“language, and therefore, poetry too, by itself is neither beautiful nor ugly, unanimity is inconceivable.” ~ Sextus Empir., Adv. Mathem. II 56

DID YOU KNOW?

360-270 B.C. Pyrrho is known to be the first skeptic philosopher:

Since we don’t have a criterion of truth, truth can’t be established.

Method of questioning: Suspension of belief, dialectic of doubt, and antinomy.

Two schools of Skeptics:

1. Followers of Pyrrho;

2. Academic Skepticism: Skeptical phase of Plato’s Academy (3rd to the early 1st Century B.C.).

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Division of Views: A Dual Solution

Division of Views: A Dual Solution

The Division of views became pronounced in the fine arts in ancient culture: it was disputed whether beauty exists in the sculpture that is admired or in the mind of the admirer, whether the mind creates or discovers beauty.

Therefore, in view of the controversy, new terminology developed before the Middle Ages

1. Objective beauty was called symmetry:

2. Eurythmy which means that X (object) does not need objectively good proportions as long as it arouses pleasant feelings in the beholder.

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Division of Views:

Division of Views:

“Their art gradually changed from symmetry to eurythmy. This process began early: the classic buildings of the 5th century already show a deviation from simple numerical proportions. Vitruvius, who based his theory on classical works of art, prescribed canons for the architect, but simultaneously advised tempering them with certain adjustments (temperature). He allowed them to make ‘additions (adiectnes) and ‘subtractions’ (detractiones) from symmetry. ‘The eye,’ he wrote, ‘looks for a pleasant view, if we do not satisfy it by the application of correct proportions as well as of an additional adjustment adding whatever necessary, we leave for the observer an unpleasant picture without charm’ [Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, De Architecture, III. 3.13]. In order to give a feeling of symmetry the building or monument must depart from symmetry.”

~ Wladyslaw Tatarkiewicz, “Objectivity and Subjectivity in the History of Aesthetics” in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 24. No. 2. (Dec., 1963), 161.

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Symmetry & Eurythmy Combined:

Symmetry & Eurythmy Combined:

Therefore, in the famous architect’s own words, Vitruvius, who lived from 80/70 B.C.-circa 25 B.C, we see that aesthetic objectivity is affirmed and combined with aesthetic subjectivity so that X will be pleasing to the eye.

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NEXT TIME:

THE MIDDLE AGES:

NEXT TIME:

THE MIDDLE AGES:

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Middle Ages:Middle Ages:

The Middle Ages continued the two views of the Antiquity with the objective view still dominant but more united than times past.

In sum, the Middle Ages believed that beauty is an objective property of things, but conceded that it is perceived by man by subjective means.