All posts by Seana He

Aesthetic, Encyclopedia

Seana-Aesthetic-Plato and Beauty

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Introduction:

We all know that Plato was an great philosopher during the Classical period in Ancient Greece, and he is famous for “Republic”, and Plato also founded the Academy. Plato also has his own unique understanding of Aesthetics. In this following paper I will introduce with: “What did Plato say about Beauty? ” “Does Plato think Beauty is objective or subjective?”     

According to Plato, Beauty was an idea or Form of which beautiful things were consequence. By comparison, beauty begins in the realm of comprehensible objects, because beauty has a form. He thought that all the beautiful things have in common. Plato argues that we also have a general idea of beauty itself, that we can recognize the beauty of a person or a painting only because we have this abstract idea of beauty. This form of beauty itself is invisible, eternal, unchanging, unlike the tangible world where things grow old and lose their beauty. That is to say, people will grow old and then become ugly, but the beauty in our mind, this is not an object, so it is always beautiful in spirit.

Symposium: 

In Plato’s “Symposium” , it depicts a friendly contest of extemporaneous speeches given by a group of notable men attending a banquet. Beauty is associated with responses to love and desire, but beauty itself is positioned in the domain of the forms and the beauty of certain objects participating in the forms. Sometimes the distinctive of beauty shows the good side or the good consequences, and Plato think even its identity with “the good”. In Plato´s Symposium, it mentioned about Beauty Theory: “Beautiful is an objective quality which is more or less intensified in and exemplified by beautiful or less beautiful objects respectively. Beauty itself exists independently of the object’s relationship to a perceiver or of its being a means to some end.” 

Plato points out that in a set of beautiful things it is not just the man and the body that are beautiful. Aesthetics is not only a philosophy of beauty, but also a philosophy teaching or art theory. This is the modern understanding and understanding of aesthetic objects. In Plato’s philosophy, the question is raised in a completely different way. His aesthetics, at least, are a philosophy of art. There is no opposition between the transcendental nature of Plato’s idealism and the concept of the real phenomenon (but beyond the limits of all the senses). Truly great art appreciation, in principle, is rooted in the sensuous nature of the world. Furthermore, these features preclude the idea that the object of aesthetics is art. Plato’s aesthetics is the mythological ontology of beauty, that is, the theory of the existence of beauty, rather than the philosophy of art. Because of Plato’s original place of teaching, its beautiful expression transcends the boundaries of art and places it within the realm of the existence of the world. 

Subjective and Objective

Beauty is internal, independent of things. It becomes a beauty by sharing the existence of beauty.A beautiful thing is internal and external. Its beauty has nothing to do with the perceiver, and its beauty or ugly has nothing to do with personal evaluation. So, Is beauty subjective or objective？

Plato regarded beauty as objective in the sense that it was not localized in the response of the beholder. He thought beauty is objective, it is not about the experience of the observer. The world of Forms is “ideal” rather than material; Forms, and beauty, are non-physical ideas for Plato. He think that  it is a feature of the “object,” and not something in the mind of the beholder.

Compare to some Subjectivist views, many other philosopher, such as Immanuel Kant, David Hume. They thought that was aware that subjective judgments of taste in art engender debates that do actually lead to agreement on questions of beauty. 

Reference：

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symposium_(Plato)

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-aesthetics/

Encyclopedia, Reality

Seana-Reality-Epicureans

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    The idea of Epicureans

Introduction

Firstly, let me briefly introduce who is Epicurus:  A major philosopher of the Hellenistic period, he is a great philosopher, and he that views worries as unnecessary and unnatural desires. if we can avoid those desire, he believes that all worries will be eliminated.  For him a good life is to avoid all the suffer, pain and torture, if we can perfectly avoided, than is the ideal of life. He largely relied upon Democritus for his materialistic and atomistic theory of nature. However, he does modify Democritus’ metaphysics because of its skeptical and deterministic implications. Epicurus founded his physics based upon Democritus but discovered that Democritus had no distinguishing ethical doctrine and, therefore, had to formulate his own objective ethics. Epicurus went on to formulate a self-centered moral philosophy in which the individual person is the realm of moral enterprise.

About Death

Secondly, the point of fear of death pretty interesting and convincing, and pretty famous. He made two arguments to against fear of death, first one is No subject of harm. In the text, he said “Death is nothing to us, when we are, death is not come, when death come, we are not. ” I think this point is really persuasive for me, we fear of death because that mentally and physically hurt, but in fact, when we are alive, death are not going to come,S but if we died, which means death came, and our body were not feel the pain, because our body is made of atoms, plus, when we died we lose all the senses of feelings, and we are not pratically feel what pain of death feels like. 

Another of his point also famous and convincing, which known as “symmetry” argument, “being death is the same as being born”, which means “I had been dead for billions and billions of year before I was born”. There is no any awareness before you born, so you are not going to feel anything else, all the things were void, so just don’t be afraid of death, they were not going to be any hurts or pain of die. Our attitude towards life and death should also be symmetrical between the two time boundaries of our existence.

About Happiness
 “Epicurus believes that the more we can limit our pleasures and desires, especially to those that are the most necessary and most natural, the more likely we are to attain sustainable pleasure and happiness.”

Where does Happiness come from? Desire. Epicurus divides pleasures and desires into natural and necessary and natural but unnecessary. He argues that the more we limit our pleasures and desires, especially those that are most necessary and natural, the more likely we are to achieve sustainable pleasures and happiness. The inner and outer conditions each person needs to survive are part of Epicurus’ view of nature and the necessary pleasures or desires. Some things are necessary for one to get rid of distractions and personal life itself. According to Epicurus, happiness is objective because it arises from the satisfaction of natural and necessary desires.

That is what Epicurus believe, many people lived in this world were not happy, the reason of that is afraid of death, it is too terrible for them, because death will kill everything. I asked some of my friends, most of them told me they afraid to lose everything. I totally agree with that, but in contrast, what do you really own? Sooner or later, your possessions will run out, your children will start new families, and your friends will have other friends. Although these things are suitable for you to have a connection with, it can’t be said that you completely own them. Everything will be out of your control. Just like what Epicurus said, “the purpose of our life is happiness”

The difference between Epicureans and Stoicism

Epicureans and Stoicism represent two different schools but founded at same time. Stoicism is the unfeeling, emotionless brute instead of Epicurean as the pleasure-loving, self-indulgent hedonist. They both appealed that we should avoid excessive pleasure and desires. But Epicureans did not advocate for excessive self-indulgence the way we may think they did, and Stoicism were not unfeeling and reject emotions. The Stoicisms were concerned with moral behavior and living according to nature, while the Epicureans were concerned with avoiding pain and seeking natural and necessary pleasure.

Reference:

https://dailystoic.com/epicureanism-stoicism/

https://www.iep.utm.edu/epicur/#SSH5g.i

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicureanism