Early Conceptions of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness in Classical Greece

Antonio Canova - The Three Charites

The conception of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness (TBG) in Western Civilisation has very deep roots indeed, long in development with notable contributions from a variety of cultures. Some of the strongest influences were undoubtedly bequeathed to us by the ancient Greeks. In this initial post I would like to briefly explore the initial striving towards a clear conception exhibited in ancient Greek religion and how these ideas came to be refined by the earliest known philosophers becoming modified by their emerging views of the cosmos.

Greek Religion

Many of the religious practises of the ancient Greeks had an aura of mystery. Being only for the initiated, the rites of the cults were not written down rather memorised, acted out, thus embodied. Much of what we do know comes from the poetry of Homer and Hesiod and the theatrical productions of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Their works were not seen as simply forms of entertainment, rather extensions of the religious life. The Mythos they expounded upon was intended to reveal truth; nevertheless, not truth of a literal nature, instead by the manner in which they were presented: in a fictive, poetic, naturalistic transmission of concepts of the sacred as well as life lessons of piety that were both acted before and performed with the audience.

Always prominently featured in these stories and performances was the cultivation of Arête, often translated as Virtue with the emphasis on excellence, the good. The preeminent virtues were courage, temperance, and justice. These were guided by a further virtue of prudence, or right reason in their exercise. In relation to the gods was the virtue of piety or grace. The goddess Kale, the head of the trinity of Charites or Graces, was beauty personified. It was therefore the beauty of the gods, their splendid excellence of form that provided the mortal attraction and motivating force for their worship. Nevertheless, the precise nature of those gods, the cosmos they perhaps had a hand in, or the chaos from which all being was thought to emerge remained deeply mysterious.

Early Greek Philosophy

Perhaps it was from the cultivation of prudence, the virtue of practical reason, which led to a search for an enduring wisdom. Whatever the origins, Aristotle credits Thales of Miletus (6th century B.C.) as the first philosopher, a lover of such an enduring, transcendental wisdom. With Thales a couple of suppositions began to be emerge. First, that the cosmos was typified by order and secondly, that order could be understood by human reason. From this seemingly inauspicious beginning off the coast of Anatolia, an human explanation for all that is began its long development.

The notable philosophers that followed until the time of Socrates placed differing emphases on the the nature of truth, beauty, and goodness. Although a few of them make specific reference to TBG, more often they are embedded in a point of view, if considered at all. The definitions below are for the words in Greek most often corresponding to our own concepts:

Alethiea (truth) - that which is unconcealed, evident
Kallos (beauty) - outer excellence, splendid as well as erotic in that it elicits desire
Agathos (goodness) - inner excellence, the most actualised from potential

“the good comes to be… 
through many numbers” 
- Polykleitos

Pythagoras was quite an interesting figure as his cult (not used in a pejorative sense) retained much from Orphism and the earlier Dionysian mysteries. However, a benefit of this was the confidence that mankind's inheritance from Dionysios bestowed upon them a measure of divine intellect. The Pythagoreans developed a committed belief to the ordered harmony of the cosmos. The gods had created order by setting limits upon chaos, thus weaving a cosmos and it was beautiful! The ritualistic practise of geometry, number, and music could reveal these patterns of being. His was a philosophy of mystic aspiration yet tangible results and later followers would ascribe all truth in philosophy to Pythagoras, a truth that was to be found in number and right proportion through which the universe could be unconcealed and made comprehensible.

"To God everything is beautiful, good, and just; humans, however, think some things are unjust and others just."  - Heraclitus

Here we begin to see something approaching the unity of truth, beauty, and goodness in Heraclitus. He is the first to characterise the generative principle of order as the Logos or world-soul. Subsequent philosophers, notably Aristotle, would begin to develop their systems on logical principles, that is to say according to the Logos.

Parmenides shares the Pythagorean notion of the Monad. For him truth was eternal and revealed through reason whilst opinion as gained through the senses was illusory. This view of truth as incorporeal and pertaining to timelessness was to permanently attach itself to philosophical inquiry, being greatly expounded upon with Plato.

At this point certain difficulties in acquiring true knowledge begin to be expressed. Anaxagoras notes, “Owing to feebleness [of the senses], we are not able to determine the truth.” This was not to say that truth did not exist or that we couldn't access it, just that the senses were going to present an obstacle. Perfect knowledge rested in an ultimate mind or Nous somewhat akin to Heraclitus' Logos. Although not clearly defined, Anaxagoras does introduce the concept that there is some telos, purpose to existence.

Democritus is famous for his atomistic, mechanical model of existence; nevertheless, for him also difficulties of true knowledge acquired through the senses arise, “We know nothing truly about anything, but for each of us opining is a rearrangement of soul atoms.” However, he does posit a way out that Aristotle would later utilise, coming to distinguish between what Democritus describes as bastard (sensual) and legitimate (rational) knowledge. Instead of discounting what is acquired through the senses, he suggests using reason to verify and refine it thus to approach truth in a primitive inductive process.  

The Sophists

With consideration of the Sophists we enter the Athenian scene contemporaneous with Socrates. The Sophists were professional rhetoricians who sold their services as tutors or as counsel in legal disputes. A Sophist held with a modicum of respect by Socrates was Protagoras. He connected Anaxagoras' concept of telos or purpose with the virtues of temperance and justice, concluding that these amounted to the good for man, an earthly telos. On the other hand, Protagoras promoted the idea of relative truth at least in earthly matters. One opinion could be better than another for practical purposes but not truer than another in any meaningful way. His famous dictum echoes this view, “Man is the measure of all things.”  

Whereas a handful of the Sophists such as Protagoras might have engaged in philosophy, for the most part they were using the faculties of reason for instrumental ends; they were teaching pragmatically, not truthfully or according to logic: rhetoric as power to persuade and manipulate. Their focus tended towards appeals to emotion in lieu of reason. Morals and virtues began to be taken as merely relative or a matter of convention. Truth was something to be manufactured not discovered. This scepticism reaches a crescendo with the Sophist Gorgias who claimed first, that nothing exists and even if it does, it's incomprehensible; concluding that even if it's comprehensible, it remains incommunicable. No truth. No understanding. No communication. The Sophist Thrasymachus' contribution to this is that justice amounts to nothing more than, "the interest of the stronger."

At this point, in the hands of the Sophists we find the concept of beauty abandoned, goodness limited to the individual, and truth nothing more than relative opinion. We certainly seem a long way off from any profound respect for truth, goodness, and beauty as transcendental guiding aspects of human life or universal existence. However, in my next essay we'll witness the philosophical foundations for an apotheosis of truth, beauty, and goodness as a bound trinity being laid in one dialectic proof after another with the successive works of the three greatest philosophers of Greek antiquity: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.


Contributed by Patrick Webb