Beauty, Truth, and Being

Abstract

Chapter 9 discusses Proclus’ concepts of truth and beauty in mathematics, science, and ontology. He accepts both Plato’s claim in the Philebus that the good is present in the thinkable in beauty, truth, and symmetry, as well as Aristotle’s assertion that beauty is exemplified in mathematics through order, symmetry, and definiteness. Proclus then demonstrates that in mathematical objects beauty transpires in four ways: in the beautiful shape of a sensible reproduction of a geometrical figure; in the beauty of the perfect geometrical figure existing in the intelligible matter of the imagination; in the mathematical object’s definition, with all its properties becoming explicit in constructions and demonstrations by discursive reasoning; and in the beauty of the form in the intellect. On this account, science brings the knowledge, beauty, and goodness of its objects to completion within the unity of the intellect.