SIX GREAT IDEAS by MORTIMER J. ADLER

SIX GREAT IDEAS by MORTIMER J. ADLER

Author:MORTIMER J. ADLER
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TOUCHSTONE
Published: 1981-07-15T00:00:00+00:00


CHAPTER 17

The Goodness of Beauty and

the Beauty of Truth

IN THE MEDIEVAL CATALOGUE of the transcendental values, truth and goodness are among the six all-encompassing ideas accorded this status, but beauty is not. The reason given is that, viewed in one way, beauty is a special kind of goodness; and viewed in another, that kind of goodness is also a special kind of truth.

The special kind of goodness that is enjoyable beauty is marked by the character of the pleasure it affords—a purely disinterested pleasure. The ordinary things we regard as good please or satisfy us when we acquire or possess them, use or consume them. They are goods to have. We are practically interested in having them. The pleasure we get from having them is hardly disinterested.

In contrast, the enjoyable beauty of an object is a good we do not wish to acquire or possess; we are pleased simply to know it—to apprehend or contemplate it. Ordinary goodness and the special kind of goodness that is enjoyable beauty thus differ in the way in which the object is related to us.

When we consider the object in itself, quite apart from its relation to us, we are concerned with its admirable, not its enjoyable, beauty. As with enjoyable beauty, so with admirable beauty, beauty is a special kind of goodness.

All sorts of objects are ranked or graded according to the degree of their intrinsic excellence or perfection. As we observed in an earlier chapter, experts judge the merit of coffees, teas, wines, liquors of all sorts. The grading that results in a scale of merit can be interpreted as signifying which is most admirable for its intrinsic excellence as that kind of thing, and which others, in descending degrees, stand lower in the scale of admirability.

The degrees of admirable excellence or goodness that are assigned such consumable products as coffees or wines, or such usable products as knives, swords, or other tools, belong in the category of goods to have —goods we are interested in acquiring, either to consume or use. Admirable beauty is a special kind of admirable excellence or goodness. It belongs in the category of goods to know, not to have, consume, or use. The distinctive character of admirable beauty as a special kind of goodness, like that of enjoyable beauty, lies in the special way that the goodness of the object stands in relation to us.

Quite apart from its relation to us, the admirable excellence of an object (whether it is an object to acquire, for use or consumption, or an object to apprehend simply for the enjoyment of contemplating it) is a special kind of goodness in still another way. In an earlier chapter, we referred to this special kind of goodness as the goodness that is commensurate with the being of the thing itself.

The degree of such goodness that different modes of existence have is the same as the degree of being or existence that they have. That which has a higher grade of being,



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