Lovely pair of articles, Brittany! Thank you. I think we are starting to see more and more the influence of Stoicism on culture in the late seventeenth/early eighteenth centuries.
This is all true. But most of these ideas go back to the Pythagoreans and Plato. In terms of ideas about beauty, the Stoics were transmitting and adapting earlier ideas. While they gave those ideas a certain emphasis, I'm not seeing where they introduced anything new that wasn't already implicit in the earlier philosophers. Also, the idea of the cosmopolis can be traced back to Platonic and Pythagorean sources.
Well, you know a lot more about Plato and the Pythagoreans than I do, so I'm certainly not going to argue with you about that! 😆 But I don't think an idea has to be completely original to be valuable when it's renewed, reintroduced, or repackaged in a different context. (I always think about Confucius, who claimed that he was not introducing any new ideas but was just transmitting ancient wisdom.) As you know, that's probably one of the most important tasks facing us today: applying classical ideas in a way that appeals to contemporary sensibilities and speaks to contemporary problems.
That's exactly what Shaftesbury was doing in his day. So part of the reason I'm interested in his work is seeing how he very skillfully incorporated Stoic ideas in a format that was quite successful with his contemporaries. It obviously worked, because he was so influential in the century after his death. He's inspirational not only for his ideas (which are interesting in their own right), but also for how he presented them to others.
Of course ... I totally agree. Those ideas wouldn't be transmitted or adapted if they weren't extremely valuable. And we are carrying on that same tradition today, like when you write a wonderful article like this. 🙂
Inspiring articles, worthy of repeated readings. Many of these threads could be followed up on, such as Shaftesbury's journals, and more on beauty and virtue. You've created an accessible bridge to some very complex ideas!
Long before I was introduced to Stoicism and Plato's ideas on the connection between beauty and the good, I felt that certain styles of building and city layouts affected me for the better (changing even the type of thoughts I would think), while others lead to feelings of alienation.
The proportionate architecture of the Duomo does one thing to a human when we round a bend into the piazza and see it looming above us. Seeing a brutalist structure heave into view does quite another.
And so I wonder if we should view certain types of art, architecture, and city design as "being bad for the hive," as Marcus would say, when we know it can affect us so. Should the knowing creation of art/architecture without the classical proportions embedded in nature be viewed as a failure of virtue? Sort of like injecting a little poison into the hive, or throwing a wrench into a finely-geared machine?
@David Fideler — I'd love to hear your take on this too.
Thanks for the insightful comment, Andrew! Yes, I think David would be better placed to answer this than I am (I'm sure you've seen his excellent article at https://livingideasjournal.com/how-beauty-can-save-the-world). I would certainly agree that architectural beauty is a preferred indifferent and that good design is both functional and inspirational. As such, we should work toward it at both the individual and communal level.
I would hesitate to call bad design a "failure of virtue," but I might say it displays a lack of wisdom on the part of the architect, developer, and (especially in the case of public buildings) the decision-makers responsible.
Dear Britanny, thank you very much for this beautiful article. I couldn‘t agree more with your picture of the stoic conception of beauty and virtue. I also belief that such a picture could be very beneficial in modern settings. According to de Lacey‘s article about the stoic position towards poetry, even the stoics already understood, that beauty is an easier way to grasp virtue than the by philosophical discourse at least for the uneducated. So, I guess that the exposition to beauty could be a good preparation for the rational soul that is in the making. @David: The stoic conception of beauty is standing on its own feet with a systematic place in stoic physics and logic. If you compare them to Plato, they would not subscribe to the idea that beauty is a consequence of the form of beauty. The Pythagorean’s did introduce the idea of numerical harmony but did not have, at least not to my knowledge, the concept of functional harmony in their philosophy, which is a core element of the stoic idea of beauty as summetria.
Thank you, Alex! You might enjoy reading Michael Gill's full book. Shaftesbury had quite a lot to say about presenting philosophy through art, which I wasn't able to cover here. For example, he commissioned a painting (which you can see at https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-choice-of-hercules-37690) of the famous choice of Hercules, where he chooses virtue over vice. Shaftesbury directed the composition very carefully to concentrate the impact of virtue on the viewer. This is an area with much potential for exploration!
Lovely pair of articles, Brittany! Thank you. I think we are starting to see more and more the influence of Stoicism on culture in the late seventeenth/early eighteenth centuries.
Thank you, Judy! Truly a fascinating time, and an inspiration for our own time as well.
This is all true. But most of these ideas go back to the Pythagoreans and Plato. In terms of ideas about beauty, the Stoics were transmitting and adapting earlier ideas. While they gave those ideas a certain emphasis, I'm not seeing where they introduced anything new that wasn't already implicit in the earlier philosophers. Also, the idea of the cosmopolis can be traced back to Platonic and Pythagorean sources.
Well, you know a lot more about Plato and the Pythagoreans than I do, so I'm certainly not going to argue with you about that! 😆 But I don't think an idea has to be completely original to be valuable when it's renewed, reintroduced, or repackaged in a different context. (I always think about Confucius, who claimed that he was not introducing any new ideas but was just transmitting ancient wisdom.) As you know, that's probably one of the most important tasks facing us today: applying classical ideas in a way that appeals to contemporary sensibilities and speaks to contemporary problems.
That's exactly what Shaftesbury was doing in his day. So part of the reason I'm interested in his work is seeing how he very skillfully incorporated Stoic ideas in a format that was quite successful with his contemporaries. It obviously worked, because he was so influential in the century after his death. He's inspirational not only for his ideas (which are interesting in their own right), but also for how he presented them to others.
Of course ... I totally agree. Those ideas wouldn't be transmitted or adapted if they weren't extremely valuable. And we are carrying on that same tradition today, like when you write a wonderful article like this. 🙂
Inspiring articles, worthy of repeated readings. Many of these threads could be followed up on, such as Shaftesbury's journals, and more on beauty and virtue. You've created an accessible bridge to some very complex ideas!
I enjoyed these articles, Brittany.
Long before I was introduced to Stoicism and Plato's ideas on the connection between beauty and the good, I felt that certain styles of building and city layouts affected me for the better (changing even the type of thoughts I would think), while others lead to feelings of alienation.
The proportionate architecture of the Duomo does one thing to a human when we round a bend into the piazza and see it looming above us. Seeing a brutalist structure heave into view does quite another.
And so I wonder if we should view certain types of art, architecture, and city design as "being bad for the hive," as Marcus would say, when we know it can affect us so. Should the knowing creation of art/architecture without the classical proportions embedded in nature be viewed as a failure of virtue? Sort of like injecting a little poison into the hive, or throwing a wrench into a finely-geared machine?
@David Fideler — I'd love to hear your take on this too.
Thanks for the insightful comment, Andrew! Yes, I think David would be better placed to answer this than I am (I'm sure you've seen his excellent article at https://livingideasjournal.com/how-beauty-can-save-the-world). I would certainly agree that architectural beauty is a preferred indifferent and that good design is both functional and inspirational. As such, we should work toward it at both the individual and communal level.
I would hesitate to call bad design a "failure of virtue," but I might say it displays a lack of wisdom on the part of the architect, developer, and (especially in the case of public buildings) the decision-makers responsible.
Dear Britanny, thank you very much for this beautiful article. I couldn‘t agree more with your picture of the stoic conception of beauty and virtue. I also belief that such a picture could be very beneficial in modern settings. According to de Lacey‘s article about the stoic position towards poetry, even the stoics already understood, that beauty is an easier way to grasp virtue than the by philosophical discourse at least for the uneducated. So, I guess that the exposition to beauty could be a good preparation for the rational soul that is in the making. @David: The stoic conception of beauty is standing on its own feet with a systematic place in stoic physics and logic. If you compare them to Plato, they would not subscribe to the idea that beauty is a consequence of the form of beauty. The Pythagorean’s did introduce the idea of numerical harmony but did not have, at least not to my knowledge, the concept of functional harmony in their philosophy, which is a core element of the stoic idea of beauty as summetria.
Thank you, Alex! You might enjoy reading Michael Gill's full book. Shaftesbury had quite a lot to say about presenting philosophy through art, which I wasn't able to cover here. For example, he commissioned a painting (which you can see at https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-choice-of-hercules-37690) of the famous choice of Hercules, where he chooses virtue over vice. Shaftesbury directed the composition very carefully to concentrate the impact of virtue on the viewer. This is an area with much potential for exploration!
Thanks Brittany, I just ordered his book! The painting is really interesting!