Aesthetics in Stoicism and Stoicism in Aesthetics

Abstract

The Stoic definition of beauty and the way in which beauty vocabulary is used in various arguments are remarkably consistent. This coherence suggests that the Stoic engagement with this area of philosophy must have been thorough and substantial. The chapter also presents a discussion of various prominent beauty theories in antiquity and compares them with the Stoic views. The figures discussed include Polycleitus, Vitruvius, Philolaus of Croton, Plato, Aristotle. The comparisons show that the Stoic definition of beauty as summetria was a distinct theory that accounted for aesthetic properties in reductive terms, that is, as a functional structure. It rivalled the Platonic accounts in which Forms played the central role. Plotinus’ attack on Stoicism shows that this rivalry lasted for a long time, and that while Platonism dominated the philosophical scene in late antiquity, Stoic views survived in other contexts. An analysis of the account of beauty found in the medical writings of Galen is used to support this claim.

Delineating beauty: On form and the boundaries of the aesthetic

“…The idea that beauty and form are linked is not new. Indeed, in antiquity, beauty was identified with properties that are quintessentially formal, like symmetry, proportion, harmony, and order (Čelkytė, n.d.; Tatarkiewizc, 1972). Nor was this link severed by eighteenth‐century thinkers who otherwise instituted a break with the classical theory of beauty; though they no longer saw beauty as consisting in form, they still thought that it was somehow dependent on it (see, e.g., Hutcheson, 2008/1725; Hume, 1975/1771, p. 291; Shaftesbury, 2001/1711, p. 226).…”