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Beauty

DOI
10.4324/9780415249126-M014-2
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Published
2011
DOI: 10.4324/9780415249126-M014-2
Version: v2,  Published online: 2011
Retrieved March 29, 2024, from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/beauty/v-2

3. Beauty as a response-independent property

The simplest form of realism about beauty takes it to be a property that belongs to things independent of any psychological response, though it may have strong de facto and de jure ties to pleasure or satisfaction when appropriately experienced. Let us call this strong realism. For Plato (see Plato §12) and Plotinus beauty is a supersensible abstract form, better exemplified by abstractions than by concrete particulars, and supremely exemplified by itself. Acquaintance with beauty begins in commerce with particulars, but only pure thought, on the model of mathematical and moral intuition and demonstration, can elevate the opinions gained through acquaintance to the level of knowledge. Though their theoretical framework does not by itself entail particular normative principles, Platonically minded thinkers usually favour Apollonian values of order, clarity, harmony and balance as opposed to Dionysian values of profusion, sensuality and vehemence.

A basic question left unanswered by theories of this type concerns the nature of the property of beauty. Neither Plato nor Plotinus offer to identify the property of beauty, and in their writings it tends to acquire a mystical air, due to the obscure nature of its purer exemplars (the forms) and the extreme breadth of its range. The latter makes it difficult to imagine how any completely response-independent property could account for all the indicated sorts of beauty, and the difficulty is compounded by suggestions of a single, universal rank-ordering. Answers to such questions are hampered by the vagueness of theorists’ accounts of the relation between properties and their instances, which is especially acute if one takes literally Plato’s claim that the property of beauty is supremely self-exemplifying. Platonic ontology aside, citations of primary values such as the medieval triad of clarity, splendour and proportionality invariably omit to supply a working criterion of any of the three, or a summation rule to decide between things which differ in more than one of them.

An idea frequently deployed by ancient and early modern realists is that of perfection, particularly in reference to natural beauty. Aristotelian teleology postulates degrees of perfection (1) within species in proportion to the realization of the potentialities proper to them and (2) among species depending on a further graduation of the potentialities of the various orders. But while knowledge of this sort suffices to make many valid distinctions (e.g. between diseased or deformed and healthy specimens), it still falls far short of what is needed for a full-scale ranking of natural beauty within a given species, let alone a hierarchical ranking of species relative to other species. The more we know about nature’s inner workings the more problematic the traditional ‘great chain of being’ becomes. Theories of divine creation vastly increase the difficulty by deeming the whole creation perfect including the inorganic part, where the case for perfection is much harder to document. With rare exceptions (Hume conspicuous among them) piety strongly disinclined thinkers to question the perfection of the creation or to probe the conceptual issues surrounding the idea of perfection. As a result the association of natural beauty with perfection throughout the centuries has yielded little in the way of credible criteria of beauty.

Strong realism also draws heavily on felicity of form in natural or artefactual things conceived as good structure or composition (unity in diversity, order, proportionality) or harmony of elements or aspects. In itself such value is entirely abstract in not being relative to any purpose, even as it suits the purposes of anyone seeking the satisfactions of beauty. The extent to which formal value is conceptually determined is an open question. Properties of order, proportionality and symmetry are definable by concepts but evaluation of specific forms of them as more or less beautiful is another matter altogether.

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Citing this article:
Brown, John H.. Beauty as a response-independent property. Beauty, 2011, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-M014-2. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/beauty/v-2/sections/beauty-as-a-response-independent-property.
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