Philosophy - In Search Of Absolute Beauty From Platos Symposium Essays

Philosophy - In search of Absolute Beauty From Plato's Symposium Webster defines beauty as the quality or the aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit. Is this correct? Cannot one person's definition of beauty differ from another person's definition? One person may find beauty in something another person finds repulsive. When someone says a woman is beautiful and another person says that a type of music is beautiful are he or she talking about the same kind of beauty? Everyone has a different idea about what is beautiful, so how are we to know what true beauty is? If everyone has his or her own opinion about what is beautiful is there a standard on which to base beauty (Dye 1)? Plato said that we see beauty in its simplest form, but with the right guidance we can see beauty in its purest form. He put forth the notion of ideal forms as a way for us to view the world in which we live. In Republic, Plato used a myth, the Allegory of the cave, to explain ideal forms. In the Allegory of the cave, prisoners are chained in a dark cave and facing the back wall of the cave. A fire casts shadows of the outside world on the wall of the cave and these shadows represent the real world to the prisoners. They assume that the echoes from the outside world are made by the shadows and they even gave names the shadows, just as we have names for objects in the real world. The prisoners are released and led to the surface of the earth and are very confused. They are unable to comprehend the true forms of things, which cast the shadows in the cave. And when the prisoners looked into the sun this new, foreign light, which is so brilliant, would blind them. The prisoners must grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. ?At first, he will see shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves. Last, he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another, and he will contemplate him as he is.? This myth can be used to explain absolute beauty. We are like the prisoners, living in a dark cave, only seeing the shadows of what is real. If we have proper guidance, we can see the world in its true, pure form and not just a world of appearance. You cannot see the true forms at first, just as the prisoners could not see the real world at first because of the blinding sun. But they took small steps and were able to see and understand more and more as time went on. We too can see the world in its pure form if we take the right steps toward ideal forms (Plato 514a-521b). We still don't know what pure beauty is, only that we cannot see it without being enlightened. In Symposium, Diotma explained to Socrates what absolute beauty is and how to attain it. It cannot be explained in one idea, but many which described the different aspects of absolute beauty. To understand absolute beauty you must perceive beauty as itself and by itself, not as an object or idea. Human ideas, perceptions, and actions can partake of it but they cannot improve upon or lessen it. Absolute beauty is eternal. It has no start or no end. It does not come to be or cease to be and it doesn't increase or diminish. Absolute beauty is unchanging. It isn't attractive at one time, but not at another or attractive in one setting, but repulsive in another. Once absolute beauty is achieved, everything else in the world will pale in comparison. True beauty itself can make life worth living (Plato 211a-211d). Diotma says that things in the physical world can partake of absolute beauty, but nothing is absolutely beautiful itself. I find this hard to believe. I have experienced many things in my