The definitional problem as presented by a Platonist view of Beauty is a hard one to tackle. Platonists will say that a thing is objectively beautiful simply because it somehow takes part in the Form of Beauty, which, being created by God, has an ontological status specific and separate to itself. As I stated in Part I of this series, this seems to force the Platonist into a circular regression—to begging the question as to the objective nature of beauty. This is far from useful, and really only complicates matters. Now, as I also stated in the previous post in this series, instead of having a useful criterion for recognizing beauty when I see it, I now have to ask, “What is it about the Form of Beauty that I can recognize in beautiful objects?”
While Dr. Reynolds would warn us away from the Socratic fallacy and tell us that one can know a thing without being able to define it, I would say that it is very easy to know that something is beautiful in the abstract, or in particular cases where the particulars are as night and day on the Beauty scale as are a rose and an ogre. I completely agree that we must avoid the Socratic fallacy and that there is some intuitive sense by which we, as humans, can distinguish what objects are beautiful without having a distinct criterion for what makes them beautiful when the degree of separation is so large, but the recognition becomes much more difficult when the lines are not as clear-cut. In these particulars, this notion of the intuition of beauty on which a Platonic view hinges is unsatisfactory, and we must find some sort of objective criterion by which we can recognize what is objectively beautiful.
An example of this difficulty in the particulars lies in the recognition of the beauty in music, particularly in the recognition of the beauty in not only classical music, but also popular music as well. Thinking about this problem in light of this particular context has really brought the problem close to home for me, as a classically trained musician feeling the Holy Spirit’s call toward the popular music industry. It is very easy to say that one of these types of music is beautiful and one is not, or even that one is more beautiful than the other in the abstract, but once closely examined, it becomes much more difficult to determine what ACTUALLY makes Beethoven’s 5th Symphony or Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings more beautiful than a popular song such as Eisley’s “Marvelous Things”, Muse’s “City of Delusion”, or Thrice’s “Red Sky”.
Again, our Platonist friend might be tempted to simply say that a particular sonata simply partakes in the Form of Beauty more than these popular songs do, but to that, I say again that that conclusion merely leaves us in obscurity as to what that even means. How would he know that that sonata clearly partakes in the Form of Beauty than these popular pieces of music do, since the lines are not quite as clearly drawn as night and day would have them?
Perhaps then the Platonist would say that he knows that particular sonata partakes in the Form of Beauty more because he perceives that it does, without any objective criterion by which to judge so—it just DOES. Does this not, while not only sounding obscure, merely result in the subjectivity of beauty which we wanted to avoid in the first place? If we have no OBJECTIVE means of recognizing beauty on this scale except our individual perceptions (which is a very non-Platonic notion, by the way, since, to Plato, perceptions cannot always be trusted), then how is beauty NOT in the eye of the beholder here? How is this Platonic view not AT LEAST functionally subjective?
If the Platonist is telling me that this sonata is just simply more beautiful than a song by Coldplay or Sigur Ros without any sort of criterion for anyone else objectively recognizing it as such, then how is that any different than him telling me that this sonata is just simply more beautiful than a song by Coldplay or Sigur Ros because he perceives it or believes it to be so? Perhaps I were to suggest that this Coldplay or Sigur Ros song is actually more beautiful than this sonata; without an objective criterion, what else CAN the Platonist say to defend his belief that the sonata participates more in the Form of Beauty other than that I simply have POOR TASTE in music, reducing the issue to a subjective matter of personal taste? How does our Platonist friend NOT fall into the relativity trap and dissolve his belief in the absolute Forms into the fallacy of subjectivism in function?
So you see, not only is a Platonic view of Beauty as a Form rather esoteric and rather unhelpful, as I attempted to at least partially show in the first post of this series, its obscurity and overly-mystic response to the problem of definitions push it past a REASONABLE appeal to the majority’s intuitive sense of the beautiful, and into the territory of subjectivity—the very ground we wished to avoid treading on in the first place.
More on plausible alternatives, mainly Divine Conceptualism, in explaining and recognizing the objective nature of beauty will be in another post soon to come.
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6 comments:
Doesn't a Platonist (in fact Plato in "Republic") have recourse to non-subjective measures? For example, he might think that the best thing for humans to do is "philosophy." Beautiful objects (he might argue) would aid in creating the mental "harmony" to do philosophy. You could (roughly) measure the beauty of music (for example) by the ability to create such a disposition in normal persons.
Second, he could also argue that the Beautiful would naturally lead to an increase in virtue. . . and so certain music could be judged on whether (law of large numbers) it generally increased virtue. This in fact seems to be the argument made in III and IV (and perhaps IX) though in a much more sophisticated manner than I have presented it.
In short, your claims about the trap of the Platonist do not seem adequate to the text.
I am increasingly confused by your desire to tackle Platonism. I suggest leaving it alone.
Also, your arguments are sloppy and I'm unsure as to how I should respond. You're writing on a blog, which is a genre that lends itself to rambling, but at the same you seem to want me to take your arguments seriously.
Assuming the later is appropriate, let me address several things.
To recap, I understand you to have said:
1) The problem with subjectivism in regards to beauty is that it can lead to relativism in regards to truth.
2) There are two ways to maintain an objective view of beauty--Platonism and Divine Conceptualism.
3) Platonism ultimately results in subjectivism, which is bad.
4) Divine Conceptualism is ultimately objective, because we can judge beauty based on God's revelation in Scripture.
Now, I am quite sure that you and I agree completely on this issue, but I really can't let you get away with #3 (and again I suggest you do away with it altogether). Dr. Reynolds has already proposed two ways Plato expressly addresses your concerns. I would like to add my two cents.
According to Plato's recollection theory, we've all seen the same Form of Beauty, and we will recognize it when we see in manifested in physical objects. As we recognize numerous beautiful things, we identify similarities and in seeing that the quality they share is different than either object, we conceive of Beauty as distinct from either object.
Recollection seems to answer how, epistemelogically, we are capable of recognizing beauty, and the Forms address Beauty's source. But there were a couple other questions you wanted answered.
First, how do we avoid subjectivity?
Forms are ideas which our conceptions may accurately or inaccurately conform to. In a conflict of conceptions (e.g. I think one type of music is ugly which you believe beautiful), how do we determine which conception adheres more correctly to the Form of Beauty?
This is a good question. Reynolds has suggested that the ability of a thing to draw one into philosophy or result in virtue are objective standards by which Beauty may be identified.
I would also add that because we have recognized more than one beautiful object, we can begin to define which characteristics, besides the "vague" property of "beauty", they share. This hopefully results in the "list" which you are so fiercely searching for.
Apart from divine revelation, I would guess that things are beautiful if they are harmonious within themselves and their context; they have form or shapeliness; they have design or order.
These seem to be more specific ways you can judge a thing's beauty. And asking "what is harmony? and what is form?" is fine, but Divine Conceptualism won't free you from answering the same questions yourself about whichever characteristics you choose to draw from Scripture.
By the way, the "generic muse" is Caitlin... Sorry I didn't sign that last post. :)
You: "I am increasingly confused by your desire to tackle Platonism. I suggest leaving it alone."
Me: Whatever for? This is waaay too much fun to leave alone. :)
More seriously, in the pursuit of Truth, why on earth would I leave alone ANYTHING pertaining to ideas that matter so deeply to our understanding of reality? In this case, even as I attack a Platonic view of Beauty, don't you think that at the same time I am most SINCERELY hoping that it will withstand all that I can throw at it, hoping that it will be the likely story I so desire?
Why would I so vehemently attack an idea I care nothing about, that mattered nothing to my view of reality, and contributed nothing to the state of my soul? I hope you don't think me to be merely stroking my EGO here, Caitlin, as I would rather NOT be thought of as some kind of Sophist who gets his kicks from arguing worldviews into absurdity for the hell of it. :)
I apologize for "rambling" about this, as you put it, but this MATTERS in my pursuit of Truth, and I don't think one can ever use too many words with that goal in mind.
You: "Also, your arguments are sloppy and I'm unsure as to how I should respond. You're writing on a blog, which is a genre that lends itself to rambling, but at the same you seem to want me to take your arguments seriously."
Me: Oooh, wow. Talk about a harsh critic. Sheesh. :)
You: "To recap, I understand you to have said:
1) The problem with subjectivism in regards to beauty is that it can lead to relativism in regards to truth."
Me: That, more or less, sounds about right.
You: "2) There are two ways to maintain an objective view of beauty--Platonism and Divine Conceptualism."
Me: I believe there are also other views on the matter, these are merely the two I'm focusing on at the moment.
You: "3) Platonism ultimately results in subjectivism, which is bad."
Me: No, I'm just exploring the possibility that a Platonic understanding of beauty does.
You: "4) Divine Conceptualism is ultimately objective, because we can judge beauty based on God's revelation in Scripture."
Me: I am at least hoping it does, since we know that God is beautiful, as per divine revelation. What I am hoping is that there are certain characteristics of God's that we can recognize (also per divine revelation in Scripture) that contribute to His beauty, and apply them to earthly beautiful things.
You: "According to Plato's recollection theory, we've all seen the same Form of Beauty, and we will recognize it when we see in manifested in physical objects. As we recognize numerous beautiful things, we identify similarities and in seeing that the quality they share is different than either object, we conceive of Beauty as distinct from either object."
Me: This works until people disagree about their recollections of the Form of Beauty, or at least what they PERCEIVE to be their recollections of the Form of Beauty. In this way, the recollection argument really only amounts to a way to recognize beautiful objects when one sees them, and NOT a way to recognize what, in fact, makes them beautiful, other than the fact that they participate in the Form of Beauty, and this, again, tiptoes the line of subjectivity.
You: “Reynolds has suggested that the ability of a thing to draw one into philosophy or result in virtue are objective standards by which Beauty may be identified.”
Me: I’m not yet totally convinced of his arguments, as I will soon comment on.
You: “I would also add that because we have recognized more than one beautiful object, we can begin to define which characteristics, besides the "vague" property of "beauty", they share. This hopefully results in the "list" which you are so fiercely searching for.”
Me: One would think so, wouldn’t he? However, it seems that, though I can and HAVE recognized many beautiful objects to be beautiful, I still wonder and am sometimes baffled as to what actually makes these objects beautiful, hence this series. Therefore, it seems like your point here is simply not the case in reality.
You: “Apart from divine revelation, I would guess that things are beautiful if they are harmonious within themselves and their context; they have form or shapeliness; they have design or order. These seem to be more specific ways you can judge a thing's beauty.”
Me: It’s interesting that you jump to this conclusion… I was actually considering this as a possible criterion to argue for later on in this series, but you beat me to the punch. Well done. :)
You: “…but Divine Conceptualism won't free you from answering the same questions yourself about whichever characteristics you choose to draw from Scripture.”
Me: Well, I suppose we will find out when I get there, won’t we?
Dr. Reynolds: Though it seems as if you have shut the door to the slip of Platonic Beauty into subjectivism, I think I would argue that you have only closed it partially.
While both the criterion you have brought up severly limit what we can consider as beautiful into two categories (of "creating mental harmony" and "leads to increase of virtue" respectively), it still seems as if both of these categories are still outside of the beautiful object, not inherent within the ontological status of the thing. In saying that these are criterion for which we can know the NATURE of Beauty, one would be superimposing effects, of which the beautiful object is the cause, onto the BEING of the object itself, and these two distinctions are not synonymous. It would seem, then, that these effects cannot be characteristics that Beauty itself has (making the beautiful object objectively beautiful from all vantage points), but that there must be some further characteristic that Beauty does have that would cause these effects to occur.
All this to say that since your proposed criterion are not themselves present ontologically in the beautiful object, but are merely effects of another characteristic and outside the object itself, they could still be manipulated by individual responses and conditions, since the effects inherently rely on the conditions of the individuals they are affecting. In other words, it seems that the effects would be determined both by their causes, and by the condition of the affected, still allowing for a degree of subjectivism in accordance with said conditions.
Still, the criterion you give do really put a substantial limit on what we can consider beautiful (because of the law of large numbers and general responses to what is beautiful, etc). I'm not even sure that the characteristic of Beauty behind these effects would matter at that point, since, under these effects, most people could distinguish degrees of beauty at this level (with slight subjective variance), and to try to objectively go deeper than that may just be trying to describe small levels of variance that don't really matter. It is possible, then, that your proposed criterion ARE really all we need to distinguish the beautiful from the ugly, but I haven't given that enough thought yet to decide.
On a side note (and please don't feel the need to respond to this, my responses are long enough, haha):
1) This is really not dealing with the present problem at hand at all, but it was something that popped into my head at one point. If Plato thought that "the Beautiful would naturally lead to an increase in virtue", as you put it, what would he think of Satan?
2) Could I get that statement about me being the paradigm Torrey student in writing? ;)
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