Plato’s Views on Beauty
Can Beauty Be Objective?
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” A phrase said so often, it has almost lost meaning. While this saying may have become platitude in its own right, it remains a powerful statement. This phrase shows just how widely and deeply society (and therefore individuals) accept that beauty is relative, a subjective experience, an emotion unique to each of us. However, it may surprise you to learn that one of the most influential thinkers of all time and one of the pillars of western society as we know it, would not agree with this sediment; Plato argued that beauty was entirely objective.
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Background and Influence
To understand Plato is to understand Socrates. Widely considered the father of western philosophy, Socrates never put pen to paper, everything we know of him is through the writings of Plato (and Xenophon), and the accuracy of these accounts is still widely debated. From what we can deduce, Socrates showed little interest in metaphysics. However, he cared a great deal about things like justice and virtues and as such did comment on beauty. Socrates ultimately states that beauty is hard to define, but he does mention some things that beauty is not. Socrates spoke of relative beauty, in other words, something was not beautiful when compared to something of greater beauty. Socrates rejected beauty as function and said that expressions of beauty were unreliable or a deception of the senses. However, where he seemed to agree with or influence Plato is in his assertion that the ultimate beauty, without contradiction, would be beyond our senses or experience (Sartwell 2017).
To understand Plato’s view on beauty it is important to note the Greek word in question “Kolan” does not literally translate to “beautiful” and can often be used as a form/compliment of good or goodness or to mean noble and/or admirable. This may give a slightly different meaning to the famous quote from Thales of Miletus who said “Do not beautify your appearance but be beautiful in your way of life.” However, I believe it is used often enough in the context of our understanding of the word “beauty” that the distinction would not be detrimental to this writing.
I believe it is also fair to mention the possible influence of Greek myth and religion on Plato. Plato was undoubtedly influenced by Spartan ideals and society (Russell, 1945). But how much did the popular myth and legend of his time influence his ideas? The notion of objective beauty could be easily derived from Greek epics religion such as Aphrodite the goddess of beauty and passion, who could stand as an objective standard or “form” of beauty. Likewise, Helen of Troy, immortalized by Homer as “the most beautiful woman in Greece” and who indirectly caused the Trojan War could lead one to the idea of objective beauty. It is important to note that Plato, as well as Aristotle, did not necessarily believe the popular myth of their day; Socrates even speaks out directly against myth in Plato’s Euthyphro. However, I think understanding the common views of the culture can help one to enter Plato’s mind.
Plato seems to find harmony between the ideas of the philosophers he admired before him. Socrates was undeniably Plato’s largest influence. Many of his works are dialectical featuring a debate or conversation between him and Socrates. It seems that Plato’s metaphysics may have come from taking the Socratic idea of objective ethics and trying to apply it to the physical world. To achieve this goal Plato combines the starkly contrasting metaphysical theories of Heraclites and Parmenides. Hereaclutes who believed in a constantly changing world that could never be understood as is, and Parmenides who saw all change as an illusion cast on eternal forms.
Plato on Beauty
Plato finds a balance between the ever-changing “flux” of Heraclitus’ world and the unchanging, static sureness of Parmenides’s world; combined with his love of math and sense of “otherworldliness” inherited from Pythagoras we can draw a clear line to Plato’s ideas. Plato argued that there were two worlds, the physical/natural world and an undetectable world of “forms”, perfect eternal substances through which all objects derive their attributes. In other words, an object is blue because it participates, partakes in, or imitates the pure, eternal objective form of blue. Likewise, Plato applied his metaphysics to more abstract concepts such as Justice and beauty. In A History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russel sums up the logic that led Plato to this conclusion “it is self-contradictory to suppose that a thing can be both beautiful and not beautiful..and that nevertheless, particular things seem to combine such contradictory characters. Therefore particular things are not real.”
Plato believed that things were perceived as beautiful because they participate in the higher objective form of beauty. Therefore, beauty itself is objective and thus, not in the eye of the beholder or that of subjective experience, beauty exists beyond our senses, and exists regardless of whether anyone is around to sense it. As he argues in The Phaedo, (Argument from recollection) Plato believes in the eternal soul and that learning and perception is simply recollection, our body remembering the knowledge of the soul. This is why people can observe, recognize and appreciate beauty because of our supernatural knowledge of beauty’s true and perfect form, there to be recollected.
Aristotle and After
Aristotle was Plato’s student, and although much of his philosophy is influenced by and based on Plato’s ideas, he disagrees on many important points. While Plato gave ultimate value to his eternal world of forms, Aristotle thought that physical, tangible objects were the most “real” and the most important, what he called primary substances. The Form or essence of an object existed inside it rather than in an ethereal plane. Aristotle also believed in an objective form of beauty, but it was objective insofar as it was measurable and distinguishable by its attributes, not because of its connection to an eternal form. Aristotle believed beauty was objective because it could be defined by things like proportion and symmetry. Aristotle saw a connection between the beautiful and the virtuous, saying in Nicomachean Ethics that “beauty aims at virtue.”
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Plato was an incredible influence on Aristotle and on countless philosophers and politicians in the centuries since. Although many of his ideas are no longer accepted as viable, understanding Plato’s views is crucial to understanding the logic and ideology of much in the modern world. While I see no choice but to accept the timeless adage of beauty being in the eye of the beholder, I cannot shake the feeling that this stance is simply a path of least resistance taken by those who realize the difficulty in quantifying or defining what true beauty is. As with most issues addressed by Plato, this is one that is still worth discussing today.

