Aesthetics: From Platonic to Thomistic
Abstract
We can describe aesthetics as the science of beauty. And within
that field of discipline, we should understand that many other
topics are descended from it, like our concept of taste. Why can
something pleasing come immediately (a priori) and what are the
factors that come into play to bring out that immediacy? What are
the potential implications that make us interested in a specific
object (a posteriori)1? As much as experiencing a plurality of beauty
and whatnot on a daily basis, we also encounter a multitude of
questions arise regarding the authenticity of the aesthetic
experience. And I would further clause: because the norm of
subjectivity is dominant in our (imperfect) nature, we can never
have a genuine aesthetic experience.
Though, aesthetics did not become an independent philosophy
until the eighteenth century. And the concept of aesthetics (and 1 I borrowed the terms (a priori and a posteriori) from the epistemological discipline.It is to provide a preliminary connotation for aesthetic immediacy and interest.
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what constitutes it) has grown significantly in contrast, notably
as to how aesthetic moment can truly be identified. Questions like:
”does immediacy preclude critical analysis”? According to John
O’Brien, SJ in The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas, October 15, 2011, “Thomist
philosopher Jacques Maritain felt that this was precisely what
aesthetic experience was: “the repose of the intellect when it
rejoices without labour or discussion; freed from its natural
labour of abstraction, it ‘drinks the clarity of being’; for him,
“The [aesthetic moment] is contemplative, uncritical, blessed”2.
This may be relevant to the sometimes-perpetual feeling we get when
we view a specific artwork or listen to a particular kind of music.
Our innate desire to set aside intellectual activities other than
fully enjoying the art right in front of us. Again, I quote John
O’Brien, SJ in The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas, October 15, 2011. O’Brien
states:
But it was another 20th century Thomist, the philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco, for whom aesthetic intuition is intellectual intuition. In his doctoral dissertation, later published and still in print today as the book The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas, Eco reminds usthat the data of our senses give us intuitive knowledge of the sensible while it’s the intellect that gives us knowledge of the
2 John O’Brien, SJ, “The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas”, Fellowship of Catholic Scholars (October 15, 2011), http://www.academia.edu/5173364/The_Aesthetics_of_Thomas_Aquinas (accessed October 21, 2014), 2.
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universal. Working together, their operation is known as visio or vision. Eco notes that “Lightening knowledge, that is direct and immediate contact between intellect and sensible, does not exist inman.” The intellect with its universal principles is always working cooperatively with the sensible function.3
1. Plato’s Aesthetics
According to Nickolas Pappas in Plato’s Aesthetics, 2014, “If
aesthetics is the philosophical inquiry into art and beauty (or a
contemporary surrogate for beauty, e.g. aesthetic value), the
striking feature of Plato's dialogues is that he devotes so much
time to both topics but treats them oppositely”4. Platonic aesthetic
is a fundamental topic for us to probe on because our initial
understanding of aesthetics is grounded on Platonic concepts. And
just as any artwork’s end is to bear integrity and beauty, we
should take into account the definition of both. But Plato inquires
a contrast art and beauty as two separate topics. I quote Nickolas
Pappas in Plato’s Aesthetics, 2014. He states:
3
Ibid., 2-3.
4 Nickolas Pappas, "Plato's Aesthetics", ed., Edward N. Zalta, The Stanford Encyclopediaof Philosophy (Fall 2014 Edition), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/plato-aesthetics/, (accessed October 21, 2014), Introduction
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“To him, art, mostly as represented by poetry, is closer to a greatest danger than any other phenomenon he (Plato) speaks of, while beauty is close to a greatest good. Art, from evoking stark, concrete emotions even while it can (almost always) be abstract, iscloser to evil than to goodness. Beauty however, is a more or less an objective state, and is often associated with the divine, is closer to good5.
2. Three Concepts of Platonic Aesthetics
I will be discussing the three core-concepts of Platonic
Aesthetics: beauty, mimesis, and inspiration. The three core concepts are
the foundational body of thought that fabricated the concept of
Platonic aesthetics, and what is notable with these three concepts,
is the fact that they still exist today and are foundations for
determining aesthetic experiences and values.
2A. Beauty
This concept is widely accepted as being the most fundamental
factor in aesthetics, and experience. While emulation and
inspiration are also of high importance, they are not demanded as
much as beauty, which is a “must have” for artworks. In Crispin
Sartwell’s Beauty, 2014, “The classical conception is that beauty
consists of an arrangement of integral parts into a coherent whole,5 Ibid., Introduction
4
according to proportion, harmony, symmetry, and similar notions”6.
Although the ancient greeks postulate the adjective kalon with that
which approximates the beautiful, and claim it to be different with
what “beautiful” is. This is further explained in Nickolas Pappas’
Plato’s Aesthetics, 2014. He states:
The study of Plato's account of beauty must begin with one pronounced warning about terminology. The Greek adjective kalon onlyapproximates to the English “beautiful,” so that not everything Plato says about a kalon thing will belong in a summary of his aesthetic theories (Pappas 2014). Plato describes kalon as of a different from what is beautiful, and have overlapping but distinctranges of application7.
We can understand that since kalon only goes so far as to have
an approximation to what is beautiful, we can say that it does not
always apply to what “beautiful” does, and can be appropriated well
to human beings. In Nickolas Pappas’ Plato’s Aesthetics, 2014, “In many
respects for Greek popular morality—kalon has a particular role to
6 Crispin Sartwell, "Beauty", ed., Edward N. Zalta, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (Spring 2014 Edition), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/beauty/, (accessed October 22,2014), part 2.1
7 Nickolas Pappas, "Plato's Aesthetics", ed., Edward N. Zalta, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2014 Edition), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/plato-aesthetics/, (accessed October 25, 2014), part 1
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play as ethical approbation”8, and can connote a “noble” character
or even an “admirable virtue”. Why do I postulate a difference
between kalon and physical beauty (for instance, in his dialogue
anamnesis)? It is to give credit to the ancient Greek thought of
reducing ambiguity. This is worth mentioning, because, one of the
modern problems we posit today is the problem of ambiguity
(equivocations) in the sense that most people today tend to
interchange the meanings of terms which are not supposed to be
interchanged.
2B. Mimesis
According to Stephen Halliwell in The Aesthetics of Mimesis: Ancient
Texts and Modern Problems, 2002, “Far from providing a static model of
artistic representation, mimesis has generated many different models
of art, encompassing a spectrum from realism to idealism”9. Mimesis
or imitation immediately denotes to “emulation” or
“representation”. And when we say an object, or a phenomenon to be
emulated, we are not only referring to its end-form. We will also
8 Ibid., part 1
9 Stephen Halliwell, The Aesthetics of Mimesis: Ancient Texts and Modern Problems, (2002), Book Description
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be referring to the process it underwent. The process can also be
mimesis. Again, Nickolas Pappas in Plato’s Aesthetics, 2014 further
explains:
Besides mimêsis Plato sometimes speaks of a mimêma. “Imitation”like mimêsis can refer either to a process or to that process's outcome. You engage in the act of imitation in order to produce an imitation. A mimêma however is only ever a copy, not also the act that produced it.
And so if the function of mimesis is to emulate, or to “borrow” we
then ask, from which do we borrow? We take them from reality: From
physical objects to immaterial concepts. And we realize those
emulations through our creations, which can then be called works of
art. Walter Jackson Bate’s An Explanation of the term Classical, 1959, says
that, “Art, as an imitation of what is essential in nature, is therefore
concerned with persisting, objective forms”10.
Another notable thing we must grasp concerning the notion of
emulation, we pause and take note of the word “integral”. By
integrity, we are referring to the object’s uniqueness and of the
10 Walter Jackson Bate, “An Explanation of the term Classical”, Prefaces to Criticism (1959), http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/batewj/class.htm/ ,(accessed November 8, 2014)
7
“unreplicable virtue it radiates”11. A fine example of this
unreplicable virtue is understood in music. According to Andrew
Kania in The Philosophy of Music, 2014, “Music, unlike painting, has works
that often have multiple instances, none of which can be identified
with the work itself12.
2C. Inspiration
In my opinion, the third core-concept is much more difficult
to grasp, because we now take into consideration an external
source. Furthermore, if we take into context the intervention of
something divine, inspiration will also connote to the notions of
providence and virtue. This, in my opinion, is one of the main factors
that spurred Thomas Aquinas to formulate his own theory on
aesthetics and its correlation to morality.
11 By unreplicable, I don’t necessarily mean that a specific artwork cannot be emulated per se, but it has its own individuality that even when emulated, makes it what it is.
12 Andrew Kania , "The Philosophy of Music", ed., Edward N. Zalta, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/music/, (accessed November 8, 2014), Introduction
8
In modern context, inspiration can be provided by almost
anyone or anything. Nature can very well provide inspiration. A
person dear to us (can be in the form of a lover or a family
member) can serve as inspiration to us. But even as modern
ideologies on the notion of inspiration go so far as to stray away
from the idea that it comes from a divine source, we go back to
God. Let us look at the idea of causality. If another person was
the catalyst, what caused that person to subsequently act as an
inspiration? If we claim that nature inspired us to do this
specific kind of artwork, what caused nature to give us that
impetus? According to Nickolas Pappas in Plato’s Aesthetics, 2014, “The
cause behind inspiration is unimpeachable, for it begins in the
divine realm”13. As contrasted to the first two, it is crystal clear
that inspiration comes from an external source: in Plato’s
philosophy, it could very well be a divine being.
3. Aquinas’s Aesthetics
13 Nickolas Pappas, "Plato's Aesthetics", ed., Edward N. Zalta, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2014 Edition), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/plato-aesthetics/ (accessed October 21, 2014), part 4
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As we go forward in time, we will encounter the writings of
St. Thomas Aquinas, who is, undisputedly, considered as one of the
brightest Philosophers of his time. Aquinas, who was also a
clergyman by profession, associates the aesthetic experience to
goodness and morality. According to Ananda K. Coomaraswamy in
Mediaeval Aesthetic II. St. Thomas on Dionysius, and a Note on the relation of Beauty to
Truth, March 1938, “And when he speaks of ‘the beautiful as being at the
same time most beautiful and superbeautiful, superexistent in one
and the same mode,’ he shows how the beautiful is predicated of
God”14.
4. Beauty and Goodness
Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae Translated by Fathers of the
English Dominican Province. Westminster: Christian Classics, 1981, puts it as: “Id
quod visum placet” 15 – that which pleases by being seen”. His
(Aquinas’s) idea of aesthetics and the beautiful are then brought
14 Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Mediaeval Aesthetic II. St. Thomas on Dionysius, and a Note on the relation of Beauty to Truth, The Art Bulletin VOL. XX (March 1938), University of Chicago (ed.),69
15 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1274, Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Westminster: Christian Classics, 1981 (The text actually says, “pulchra enim dicuntur quae visa placent.”)
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back to the divine properties of God: His integrity, goodness,
authenticity, and beauty (His Beauty as beauty surpassing the
limitations of the humanly concept). According to Ananda K.
Coomaraswamy in Mediaeval Aesthetic II. St. Thomas on Dionysius, and a Note on the
relation of Beauty to Truth, March 1938, “Aquinas claims that non-existent
things ‘participate in the beautiful and the good’ since the non-
existent primal being (ens primum non existens, Skr. asat) has a certain
likeness to the divine beautiful and good”16. Here, we understand
that Aquinas’s philosophy is that beauty and goodness are two
separate themes. Moreover, they are the two basic themes in
Thomistic aesthetics, and how they make their appeal is different.
Goodness makes its appeal in appetite; for the good is what all
humanity desires. Ethically, man’s ultimate goal is the summum
bonnum – the ultimate good. An online article PHIL 4304 Aesthetics: Thomas
Aquinas, n.d., states “And by achieving this ultimate good, man will
have his appetite satisfied, seeking nothing else17. How then, does
the beautiful make its appeal? The beautiful appeals not to
16 Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Mediaeval Aesthetic II. St. Thomas on Dionysius, and a Note on the relation of Beauty to Truth, The Art Bulletin VOL. XX (March 1938), University of Chicago (ed.),7217 Retrieved from http://www3.dbu.edu/naugle/pdf/4304_handouts/Thomistic%20aesthetics.pdf/, (accessed November 9, 2014)
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appetite, but to cognitive power; for the beautiful consists in due
proportion and property belongs to the intelligible character of
the formal cause, and which when perceived gives pleasure and is
called beautiful. Again in PHIL 4304 Aesthetics: Thomas Aquinas, n.d.,
“Cognition finds its rest in the beautiful”18. As the saying goes:
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, we are not only referring
to the subjectivity of pleasure. We are also referring to this
distinction of beauty as being realized through the immediate
cognitive senses.
To summarize, Aquinas’s aesthetics consist of two themes that
we initially thought were interchangeable, but were approached
differently: beauty and goodness. According to the online article
PHIL 4304 Aesthetics: Thomas Aquinas, n.d., “Goodness appeals to the appetite,
while beauty gives pleasure when apprehended”19.
5. Aquinas’s requirements for beauty
Similar to how Plato cited concepts that ultimately formulate his
aesthetic theory, Aquinas also postulates three concepts (or in 18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
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this case, requirements) for beauty. They are revealed in the
revealing quote in Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica, 1a pars, question 39,
article 8:
For beauty includes three conditions, ‘integrity’ or ‘perfection,’ since those things which are impaired are by the veryfact ugly; due ‘proportion’ or ‘harmony’; and lastly, ‘brightness’ or ‘clarity,’ whence things are called beautiful which have a bright color.10
5A. Integritas
Integrity as a requirement for beauty is described as
perfection. Of course, any mortal man cannot achieve perfection,
and it is only God that can personify truest integrity. However,
Integrity also speaks of actuality. According to Michael Spicher in
Medieval Theories of Aesthetics, n.d., “Everything has its ultimate source (or
being); therefore, actuality (or being) is the basis of
beauty20. Aquinas claims that integrity is a ground for beauty and
that one “cannot exist” without the other. Actuality exists in all
tangible things. An object must exist, in order for it to be
beautiful.
20 Michael Spicher, “Medieval Theories of Aesthetics”, University of South Carolina (n.d.), http://www.iep.utm.edu/m-aesthe/#H2/, (accessed November 10, 2014).
13
According to Armand Maurer in About Beauty: A Thomistic Interpretation,
1983, “Actuality is used in three ways when referring to beauty:
existence, form, and action”21. An object must first exist before it
can be deemed beautiful. As different objects have varying degrees
of integrity, that is beside the point. What should be clear for us
is that an object must first come into being, before it can be
deemed integral. The second aspect of actuality is form. The form
of an object is integral to its own and in a sense, separates it
from another object which has a different integrity of its own. For
instance, if we compare an animal to a plant, we can both say that
both possess beauty: but at different degrees. An animal’s quiddity
defines its own beauty, as well as separates itself from that of
the plant that has its own sense of quiddity. The third aspect is
action. According to Armand Maurer in About Beauty: A Thomistic
Interpretation, 1983, “Action completes the actuality of existence and
form”22. For instance, we have a pianist. A pianist who is currently
not engaged in any musical activity (for instance, eating) is still
a pianist, in a sense that s/he still possesses the skills required
21 Armand Maurer, About Beauty: A Thomistic Interpretation, Houston: Center for ThomisticStudies, 1983, 6ff.
22 Ibid., 8
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of that of a pianist. Yet s/he is most completely a pianist when
s/he is engaged in the act of playing the instrument. We’ve now
understood that the mind plays three roles before it can define
integrity. And according to Michael Spicher in Medieval Theories of
Aesthetics, n.d., “We can conclude that Integrity is not only a
characteristic of beauty, but also rather a necessary condition for
grounding beauty”23.
5B. Proportio
We’ve just described Integritas as an object’s completeness; its
solidarity that makes it beautiful. Alongside integrity, three
particular usages are considered before an object can be considered
integral. According to Jonathan McIntosh in The Three Properties of
Thomistic Beauty, n.d., “Is of Pythagorean extraction and designates in
Aquinas’s usage a sense of qualitative proportion that he
calls convenientia24 or what Hugh Bredin and Liberato Santoro-Brienza
23 Michael Spicher, “Medieval Theories of Aesthetics”, University of South Carolina (n.d.), http://www.iep.utm.edu/m-aesthe/#H2/, (accessed November 10, 2014)
24 Jonathan McIntosh, “The Three Properties of Thomistic Beauty” (n.d.) http://jonathansmcintosh.wordpress.com/2012/09/22/the-three-properties-of-thomistic-beauty/, (accessed November 11, 2014)
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in their book Philosophies of Art and Beauty: Introducing Aesthetics, 2000, describe
as “An ‘intrinsic attunement’ or ‘correspondence between inner and
outer reality, appearance and essence, matter and form’.”25
When we say that Proportio is of a Pythagorean extraction,
implications such as mathematical formulae come into play.
According to Robert Wood in Placing Aesthetics, 2000, “Pleasing
correspondence obtaining both between the parts and metaphysical
principles within the object and between the object and the sensory
faculties of the perceiver”26. In Aquinas’s Summa Theologica Translated by
Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Westminster: Christian Classics, 1981, Ia pars,
question 12, article 1:
Proportion is twofold. In one sense it means a certain relation of one quantity to another, according as double, treble and equal are species of proportion. In another sense every relation of one thing to another is called proportion. And in this sense there can be a proportion of the creature to God, inasmuch asit is related to Him as the effect of its cause, and as potentiality to its act; and in this way the created intellect can be proportioned to know God27.
25 Hugh Bredin and Liberato Santoro-Brieza, Philosophies of Art and Beauty: Introducing Aesthetics (2000), 72
26 Robert Wood, Placing Aesthetics, Reflections on the Philosophic Tradition, (2000), 109.
27 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1274, trans., Fathers of the English DominicanProvince.Westminster: Christian Classics, 1981, Ia pars, question 12, article 1.
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Aquinas posits the qualitative and quantitative properties of
proportion. When we attribute an object’s symmetrical property and
all of its statistical, geometrical or triogonometrical
characteristics, we refer to its quantity. Quality however, is
derived from the object’s “habitual”, which Umberto Eco in The
Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas, 1988, explains “As a relation of ‘mutual
reference or analogy, or some kind of agreement between them which
subjects both to a common criterion or rule’” (Eco, 1988,
82)28. Paraphrasing Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Contra Gentiles, I pars, question 16,
article 8; I pars, questions 80-81, article 7, “This is simply the relationship of
an object to its source (in causal terms, ultimately points back to
God): A ‘cause to effect’ or ‘Creator to created’”29.
5C. Claritas
According to John O’Brien, SJ, in The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas,
October 15, 2011, “Clarity or brilliance, comes from an ontological
28 Umberto Eco, The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas, trans., Hugh Bredin, Harvard UniversityPress, 1988, 82
29 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, 1260-1264, University of Notre Dame Press,1975, I pars, question 16, article 8; I pars, questions 80-81, article 7.
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splendour, in which the object is clear in itself. It shines forth
from the form of the object or person”30. It posits to its capacity
to radiate not only in the corporeal sense, but also in the
spiritual sense. O’Brien, SJ further states that “Thomas would say
that clarity is not of emanation of being– a Platonic idea – but of
participation of form in being”31. The criterion of claritas also has some
relations to the medieval notions concerning light. Michael Spicher
in Medieval Theories of Aesthetics, n.d., says “For example, in terms of natural
light, there is a sense in which the paintings in a gallery lose
some of their beauty when the lights are turned off because they
are no longer being perceived” 32. Light is an important catalyst,
for it gives due radiance to the object. But another catalyst that
should be taken into consideration is the object’s color. Just as
light would be the benefactor, color would be the receptacle.
Gilson (2000) further suggests that “Radiance belongs to
being considered precisely as beautiful: it is, in being, that 30 John O’Brien SJ, The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas, Fellowship of Catholic Scholars (October 15, 2011), 7
31 Ibid., 7
32 Now in its original denotation of illumination.
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which catches the eye, or the ear, or the mind, and makes us want
to perceive it again” 33. In this regard, we also refer to
brilliance with the object’s power of sustainability.
Sustainability can further be understood when we talk about music.
Music, as we all know it, is not a visual art. It is aural,
complex, and more than that, since purely instrumental music lacks
any obvious semantic content34 we cannot deny its ability to linger
in our memory. We take, for instance, the 9th Symphony of Beethoven.
Other than the entrance of the choir, there is no doubt that
radiance is evident in that melody.
Main melodic theme from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony (Fourth Movement). Retrieved
11.5.2014 from
http://88.198.78.90/lily/good_res/110508666313.4052565659175.preview.png/.
Whenever we hear of the phrase “Ode to Joy”, we associate it
with Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, as well as associate it with the
melody. In retrospect, when we hear this iconic melody, we
33 Etienne Gilson, The Arts of the Beautiful, Dalkey Archive Press, 2000, 35.
34 Semantic content is a strong factor in determining any piece of work’s sustainability.
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immediately associate it with Beethoven’s 9th. The fact that this
melodic motif has the capacity to sustain in our minds, we prove
that the piece itself possesses radiant quality. Now that the three
requirements have been explained, I close with a quote from John
O’Brien, SJ in The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas, October 15, 2011:
Integrity and proportion are criteria of ontological perfection, and pertain to the
work’s essence and existence, not to the aesthetic, while claritas is the capacity of a form to signify itself as something with integrity and proportion – but only by means of a subject’s perception of it. Thus will Thomas say that beauty in itself is “a state of equilibrium between a perfect object andthe intellect”; beauty is therefore both objective and subjective.
6. Judgment of Beauty: Universality and Subjectivism
In Kant’s view, universality and necessity are the two
indications of a claim that has an a priori character. In his Critique
of Pure Reason 1781, he says:
Experience teaches us, to be sure, that something is constituted thus and so, but not that it could not be otherwise. First, then, if a proposition is thought along withits necessity, it is an a priori judgment; if it is, moreover, also not derived from any proposition except one that in turn is valid as a necessary proposition, then it is absolutely a priori. Second: Experience never gives its judgments true or strict but only assumed and comparative universality (through induction), so properly it must be said: as far as we have yetperceived, there is no exception to this or that rule. Thus ifa judg- ment is thought in strict universality, i.e., in such
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a way that no exception at all is allowed to be possible, thenit is not derived from experience, but is rather valid absolutely a priori35.
And Immanuel Kant launches his discussion of the matter in The Critique of Judgment, 1790, at least as emphatically:
The judgment of taste is therefore not a judgment of cognition, and is consequently not logical but aesthetical, bywhich we understand that whose determining ground can be no other than subjective. Every reference of representations, even thatof sensations, may be objective (and then it signifies the real [element] of an empirical representation), save only the reference to the feeling of pleasure and pain, by which nothing in the object is signified, but through which there isa feeling in the subject as it is affected by the representation36.
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21
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22
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