Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Platonism, Beauty, Justice

Some have characterized Plato's Just Polis as a Kallipolis--a beautiful city.  But, regardless of whether or not Plato himself is among them, the characterization is problematic.  For, it suggests a kinship between Justice and Beauty, most likely that each is a kind of Hylomorphic Harmony.  But, Beauty is specifically a Harmony of some Sense-Experience, so to abstract from that dimension of it is to falsify it.  Beauty is a thorny problem for Platonism in general, since that Sensibility is abstracted from in the Intelligible Form of Beauty.  So, the concept of a Kallipolis complicates, not clarifies, the as is convoluted Republic.  More instructive is the formulation that Justice is Harmonious, constituted by the commensuration between needed Division of Labor and the natural abilities of the Citizenry.

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