By Kelly and Amy

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Socrates Beauty

• By Kelly and Amy

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The view of beauty

• The earliest Western theory of beauty can be
  found in the works of early Greek philosophers
  from the pre-Socratic period, they have a strong
  connection between mathematics and beauty.
• Socrates was a classical Greek Athenian
  philosopher. He is as one of the founders of
  Western philosophy and an enigmatic(?????,???)
  figure known chiefly through the accounts of
  later classical writers, especially the writings
  of his students Plato, and the plays of his
  contemporary Aristophanes.

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• These definitions come from Hippias Major (is one
  of the dialogues of Plato)
• In the Hippias Major, Socrates and Hippias set
  out to find a definition for "beauty"

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Socratess four definition
beauty is that which is appropriate
hypothesis
The second hypothesis is tempting even a
ridiculous man, dressed in nice clothing, will
appear more beautiful. But inside he would still
be ridiculous thus appropriate and beautiful
are not the same.
Does the appropriateness Make things
beautiful? Or Does it simply make them Appear to
be beautiful?
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• Second definition beauty is that which is useful

• But here again problems surface it is through
  power that men make things useful. Nevertheless,
  as is well known, power can as much serve evil as
  it serves good.

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• Identifying the beautiful and the favorable leads
  to a paradox the favorable procreates the
  beautiful, as a father procreates a son.

• Third definition beauty is that which is
  favorable

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• Fourth definition beauty is the pleasure that
  comes from seeing and hearing

• This hypothesis, while appealing, contains
  according to Socrates himself a fundamental flaw
  that it ignores the beauty of the more noble
  pleasures, drawn from the studious occupations or
  the study of laws.

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• Direct experience, Socrates claims, is
  unreliable. It reveals a complex of contradicting
  qualities that cohabit in the same object any
  beautiful object is at the same time not
  beautiful when compared with a higher beauty.
• Appearance can be misleading. A person may
  appear beautiful when wearing suitable clothes,
  although he is not truly beautiful. Socrates in
  fact dismisses all expressions of physical beauty
  as untrustworthy. The ultimate beauty that
  contains no contradicting elements is beyond
  earthly experience.

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• Plato portrays such absolute beauty in the
  Phaedo, where Socrates sees its heavenly form.
  Socrates rejects further the idea that beauty is
  that which functions properly an object may
  function well, but if its purpose is evil, the
  object is not beautiful.
• He also disagrees that beauty should be defined
  as a cause of delight. The good, Socrates argues,
  also causes delight, and the two should be kept
  distinct.

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Socrates quotes about beauty

• By means of beauty all beautiful things become
  beautiful .For this appears to me the safest
  answer to give both to myself and others and
  adhering to this, I think that I shall never
  fall, but that it is a safe answer both for me
  and any one else to give that by means of
  beauty beautiful things become beautiful.
• Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.
• Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man
  to enlarge his kind.
• Give me beauty in the inward soul may the
  outward and the inward man be at one.

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• SOCRATES Is all that is beautiful good, or is
  all that is good beautiful?
• ATREUS All that is beautiful is good.
• SOCRATES Yes, but what about the second part of
  the question, Atreus? Is all that is good
  beautiful?
• ATREUS No, Socrates. All that is good is not
  beautiful. For example, we might say that
  Pythagoras is good at math, but it would be
  inaccurate to say that Pythagoras is beautiful at
  math. So good and beauty are not interchangeable
  terms.
• SOCRATES Very good Atreus. So we shall say that
  beauty must be good in order to be rightfully
  considered beauty. But let me ask you this
  Atreus. Do you consider plays to be beautiful?
• ATREUS Of course Socrates, there is great beauty
  in plays. A play is a work of art. A play is a
  beautiful thing, it expresses raw human emotion,
  it teaches, it entertains, etc.

• Socratic dialogue investigating the meaning of
  beauty

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The explanation

• What I have intended to show here is an example
  of a Socratic dialogue. Like most other
  dialogues, Socrates, or one of his friends is
  confronted with a dilemma of a philosophical
  nature. At the heart of this dilemma is the true
  meaning of the term "beauty."
• In this dialogue, Socrates claims to have no
  clear notion about what beauty is, yet his
  interlocutor, Atreus is considered somewhat of an
  expert in this area. Atreus, feeling confident he
  knows what beauty is, gives in to Socrates' plea
  to define the term. In Atreus' attempt to define
  beauty, Socrates finds problems with each
  definition.