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Society and the pursuit of beauty
Debate between physical and internal beauty
The importance of inner beauty
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Recommended: Society and the pursuit of beauty
Through the course of Plato’s dialogues, his vision of Eros evolves through different stages. Socrates says that the path to achieving a vision of true beauty is to follow stages which will lead to the highest form of beauty, through the development of reason. The author David Roochnik explains that “Philosophy attempts to articulate the vision of beauty itself and thereby to satisfy the highest human desire. Only beauty itself, understood as an object of human Eros, can produce a satisfying logos. Unlike all others, philosophical logos does not run out” (146). To Plato, physical beauty is external and therefore ephemeral. True beauty lies in the pursuit of wisdom and values that are beyond the boundaries the human physical senses – like seeing …show more content…
When one goes about this path, he/she acquires virtues that beautify their soul and are unchangeable by the earthly world. Also, physical beauty belongs to its holder only and cannot be transferred to others being. A beauty of a soul, however, can be passed on to others through knowledge and therefore beatify other souls along its path. For instance, a courageous soul can move others around them to be courageous. Fast-forwarding from the philosophers to today’s society, an example taken from current events is the Alicia Key’s decision to appear in open television without any makeup. The singer has decided to take the approach and incorporated it in her everyday life, without exceptions. She claims that she no longer wishes to hide who she really is in her soul, in her work or any aspect of her life. Her courageous decisions (for today’s standards) has inspired many other women to also embrace their true beauty and give space for their soul’s beauty represent them instead of the physical. In my eyes, she has become a more beautiful human being for taking such step and has inspired other souls, like me, to take the same action. That is an example of someone that sought to make their soul more beautiful through knowledge, took an action that transcended the usual earthy concerns, and was able to influence others with her wisdom of the meaning of true …show more content…
These people look to satisfy the Eros by seeking the most valuable definition of true beauty. It is the concept of content over matter. The content of the soul weighs more positively than the importance of the idolization of the body. Therefore in the matters of love, when one attempts to live an examined life, he/she finds true happiness in recognizing and loving the individuality in their partner’s
In the poems, “EΡΩΣ” by Robert Bridges and “Eros” by Anne Stevenson both have similar yet distinct concepts of the God of love. “EΡΩΣ” describes the concept of love as being conflicted between humans view of Eros as the god of love and lust; where as Stevenson’s poem describes Eros as being bruised and beat up as a result of this constant misunderstanding by humanity. Thus, both poems are similar with their description of Eros’ constant struggles with human nature. “EΡΩΣ” by Robert Bridges has a contradictory concept of what humans view as love, thus the negative and positive comparisons are between Eros different angles in love and lust. For instance, Eros is described as both having “exuberant flesh so fair” yet
EPÙÓ, Greek for Eros, is shown to be beautiful in Bridges’ poem: beautiful and adored, yet forgotten. Eros is venerated—called “idol”, and he plagues the heart as a “tyrant.” He is a “flower” of “lovely youth,” and an image of “eternal truth.” Through these strong words, Eros is portrayed to be the god that people all look up to in admiration for his credible honor and ideal beauty. Eros is so striking that only the famous Pheidias, the Greek Sculptor, can compare through his “marmoreal” works. Greek sculptors strove for perfection and this Eros was—perfection. Although giving thought and love to others, he received none back, yet continued his job without complaint. People recognize the youth and beauty of love with the vivid images that Bridges uses. “With thy exuberant flesh so fair,” people are able to see Eros’s outward beauty. At that instantaneous moment, people are enthralled by Eros’ splendor, but once they are satisfied, they forget, and their momentary enchantment disappears. “None who e’er long’d for thy embrace, Hath cared to look upon thy face.” All those who yearned for love, received it, but once having done so, neglected to see and look upon Eros. By using these beautiful words and...
Love and affection is an indispensable part of human life. In different culture love may appear differently. In the poem “My god my lotus” lovers responded to each other differently than in the poem “Fishhawk”. Likewise, the presentation of female sexuality, gender disparity and presentation of love were shown inversely in these two poems. Some may argue that love in the past was not as same as love in present. However, we can still find some lovers who are staying with their partners just to maintain the relationship. We may also find some lovers having relationship only because of self-interest. However, a love relationship should always be out of self-interest and must be based on mutual interest. A love usually obtains its perfectness when it develops from both partners equally and with same affection.
story points out that beauty has its cost as well, the power of being beautiful holds a great
The Symposium, The Aeneid, and Confessions help demonstrate how the nature of love can be found in several places, whether it is in the mind, the body or the soul. These texts also provide with eye-opening views of love as they adjust our understanding of what love really is. By giving us reformed spectrum of love, one is able to engage in introspective thinking and determine if the things we love are truly worthy of our sentiment.
The world of advertisement and media industry is the epicenter of our cultural life, it is the place where ideals of beauty and success are being born. It has a tremendous impact on how the women are represented worldwide and how they view themselves, especially when our socio-cultural standards constantly draw fine line between what is acceptable and what is not. Philosophical interpretation of the Plato’s “Allegory of Cave” can be applied to many real-life issues, thus it can also be used to explain and understand the problem of sexual objectification and degradation of women in the society. The metaphorical meaning of the allegory can draw the attention to women’s issues that are socially acceptable, often overlooked and should be
As the last speaker, and the most important one, Socrates connects his ideas with Diotima of Mantinea’s story of Love’s origin, nature and purpose. Different from the earlier five speakers who regard Love as an object and praise different sides of it, Socrates, referring to Diotima’s idea, considers Love as a pursuit of beauty gradually ranging from “physical beauty of people in general” (Symposium, Plato, 55) to the “true beauty” (55). The first five speeches bond with each other. Each of them mentions the opinions of the former in order to either support or against them. However, just like the elements of a beautiful picture, they fail to show us the integration of love.
Love and beauty is another theme that recurs in Greek discussion, especially in Plato’s dialogues. In the Phaedrus and especially the Symposium, Plato discusses the nature of erotic love and give the argument for the ultimately transcendental object of love: Beauty. In both dialogues, Plato presents Socrates as a quintessential philosopher who is a lover of wisdom, and through his great speeches we are able to grasp Platonism and Plato’s view on the interesting theme.
First, to get back on track, it is important to look at the three separate levels of love, and it would make sense to first look at eros. Eros is a romantic love, the kind of love one would have towards a beautiful object, or person. It is that sexual drive that is most apparent at the early stages of a relationship. This could be considered to be the first definition people would think of when questioned about the meaning of love. In fact in a more layman attempt at understanding eros one can think of the feeling one has during a crush, where a person’s affections are aimed at a single individual.
Perhaps one of the most defining and easily identifiable aspects of the ancient Greek culture was the immortalization of humans and gods in sculpture. Sculpture had existed in the world for thousands of years before the ancient Greeks made their stake in the art, but the Greeks added an entirely new set of aspects to their sculptures. Unlike the Egyptian and Mesopotamian sculpture centuries earlier, the Greeks set forth not just to capture the image of a man but to capture that which made him a man. The Greeks set in place three base tenants to display the tone of a sculpture. Through the use of Humanism, Realism, and Idealism the ancient Greeks were able to capture humans and gods forever in marble.
In classical Greek literature the subject of love is commonly a prominent theme. However, throughout these varied texts the subject of Love becomes a multi-faceted being. From this common occurrence in literature we can assume that this subject had a large impact on day-to-day life. One text that explores the many faces of love in everyday life is Plato’s Symposium. In this text we hear a number of views on the subject of love and what the true nature of love is. This essay will focus on a speech by Pausanius. Pausanius’s speech concentrates on the goddess Aphrodite. In particular he looks at her two forms, as a promoter of “Celestial Love” as well as “Common Love.” This idea of “Common Love” can be seen in a real life context in the tragedy “Hippolytus” by Euripides. This brings the philosophical views made by Pausanius into a real-life context.
As stated by Emerson, beauty cannot be found unless carried within one’s self first. In the novel by Alice Walker, “The Color Purple”, Celie finds out that beauty is not real unless it is first found within, so that that beauty felt can reflect for others to see. [Celie went through traumatic struggles before she ever felt beautiful starting with the treatment of influential men in her life. Although she felt more connection with women in her life, her early encounters with Shug greatly accounted for her self worth at the time. However, Celie could not be beautiful to others unless she found beauty within herself, for herself.]
...he sweat and painstaking talent artists put into a piece of art. Likewise, when an onlooker sees a couple in love, how are they to distinguish whether it is true love or merely youthful, immature love? For this reason, only experienced lovers are capable of detecting true love in others. The potential beauty of love is held at the mercy of the two lovers. Thus the extent to which the love will mature depends on the unpredictable course the journey of love takes throughout its progressive stages. As with a painting, at it’s beginning, love has the potential to be something powerful and immortal. Easy love is happy, immature love. For love to be deep and meaningful, it must face challenges and overcome adversity. Love is the artwork of nature. Like the beautiful and serene calm after a vicious storm, love is often dangerous and uncomfortable before it can be lovely.
First, Plato believed that ideas are the realist things in the world. What we see in our daily life is not reality; sense perceptions are only appearances. And appearances are unreliable material copies of the immaterial pure ideas. Thus to him the world of the ideas is reasonable and fixed and holds the truth. While the world of physical appearances is variable and irrational, and it only bears reality to the extent that it succeeds in capturing the idea. To live the best life that you can and to be happy and do good, as a person you have to strive to understand and imitate the ideas as best as you can. So, with this philosophy in mind we can understand why Plato considered art as just a mindless pleasure. He viewed art as just an imitation.
According to the principles of Hippocratic medicine passionate love almost invariably turns into ‘love melancholy’ - a form of depression. Moreover, anybody who has experienced falling in love will know something of love’s illness- an emotional roller coaster that seems to carry the occupant between the two extremes of heaven and hell (Paul, 1993, p. 91). Even a superficial examination of artistic works on the theme of love will reveal a striking duality. Love is rarely described as a wholly pleasant experience. It is an amalgam of seemingly incompatible