Philosophical Writings

Author(s): Hemant Shah
Publisher: Academy of Philosophy

Page 90

The Role of Beauty as a Value in Everyday Life
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2.5.2. In the Middle Ages :
Of the most prominant writers of this age and the most significant personalities among the Christian philosophers are St. Thomas Aquinas. According to St. Augustine, “Any beautiful object, whatsoever is more worthy of praise in its totality as a whole than in any one of its parts. So great is the power of integrity and unity that what pleases as a part, pleases much more as a unified whole.”!9 The key words in St. Augustine's theory are unity, number, equality, proportion and order. St. Thomas Aquinas give slightly different meaning. According to him “beautiful things are those which are apprehended with pleasure. In his view beauty includes (i) Integrity or perfection, (ii) due proportion or harmony, and (iii) brightness, clarity or briliance, "20 2.5.3. The Renaissance Concept :
In the Renaissance age the theories formulated about beauty are based on rhythem, symmetry, harmonious relations between part and part, and part and whole. Both the subjective and objective Idealist of the time, “Rejected the contention that beauty could be reduced to mathematical proportion. They thought that the essence of beauty lies in expressiveness of human face, the reflection of man's inner word in external form."21 The axiological conception - beauty as a value, and the sementic concept - beauty as a property was also presented by a number of writers.
"Renaissance art was dominated by Aristotle - (art is an imitation of an action) and Horace - (art aims at delighting and instructing)."22 At this point of time Descartes appears as an important philosopher. Descarts' elements of reason and the Aristotalian element of imitation paved the road for the future aesthetics. Baumgarten, a german writer, who first coined the word aesthetic, made a more systematic attempt of the mataphysics of art. The age records Bacon, Thomas Hobbs, the third Earl of Shaftsbury, Joseph Addison, Coleridge, F. Hutcheson, David Hume, Edward Burke, Ben Jonson, Dryden, Dr. Johnson were among the main front row contributors who developed aesthetics and concept