Beauty and Its Relation to Form in Thomas Aquinas’s Philosophy

Fathi, Hasan; Shajari, Morteza; Gozali, Zahra

doi:10.22059/jop.2019.74454

Document Type : Scientific-research

Authors

¹ Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages, Tabriz University

² Professor, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages, Tabriz University

³ PhD student, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages, Tabriz University

https://doi.org/10.22059/jop.2019.74454

Abstract

In Thomas Aquinas’s philosophy, beauty is a metaphysical attribute and is connected to being; thus, being can be regarded as the origin of the beauty of objects. Form is a key concept in the aesthetics of Aquinas and is the basis of the beauty of all objects. Everything that Aquinas says about Beauty implies that it is based on form. In his philosophy, the form of an object is connected to the actuality of that object; so beauty is inseparable from actuality. The form of an object is the internal norm of its beauty; furthermore, the three conditions of beauty that Aquinas speaks of, i.e. integrity, harmony, and clarity, represent the concept of form. On the other hand, Aquinas connects beauty with knowledge and believes that the perception of a beautiful object is an epistemological perception, because beauty is connected to the form. Seeing or perception are acts in which the perceiver perceives a formal reality through the perception process. Therefore, in Aquinas’s opinion, the perceiver’s mental act generates beauty and form is the intermediate between the mind of the perceiver of beauty and the beautiful object so that the mind knows the object through its form. Thus, we can consider form as an intermediate between the reality and the mind, because form is both the intellectual side of a beautiful object and the basis of the concrete aspect of it.

Keywords

Main Subjects

philosophy

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Beauty and Its Relation to Form in Thomas Aquinas’s Philosophy

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Volume 17, Issue 1 - Serial Number 32September 2019Pages 1-20

Volume 17, Issue 1 - Serial Number 32
September 2019
Pages 1-20