Truth and Beauty as Paths to Goodness

How attending to truth and beauty can teach us to embody goodness

Of all that I have learned from the western philosophical tradition, one theme that continues to stay close to my heart and orient my life is the emphasis on truth, beauty, and goodness as the basis, not only of a meaningful life, but of reality itself. Plato understood the reality we perceive to be a manifestation of a set of conceptual forms that are representative of what we fundamentally care about. Whether we are engaging with a simple physical object, discussing our life aspirations with a friend, or creating a work of art, our actions and thought processes are inevitably manifesting through and as a set of shared conceptual categories that our community uses to communicate with each other and orient themselves in the world. This interconnected set of conceptual categories which structures our actions and perceptions moment by moment was referred to the Greeks as the Logos. It is easy to misunderstand this idea, thinking that there is a bare individual with a private inner life that then makes use of these culturally conditioned categories and values as a means to communicate the contents of that inner life to others who share those categories. This would be a misunderstanding. Rather, any conceptual distinction or determination, including even that of a bare individual or the notion of an “inner life,” arise within a particular cultural manifestation of the Logos at a particular time in history. Our most fundamental concept of who we are and what matters to us is defined through this network of meaning which we inherit from the trajectory of the entirety of history.

According to Plato, one who is interested in wisdom and virtue must trace these conceptual categories back to their ultimate grounding in the Good. Or to put it another way, rather than getting caught in self-centered desires, the virtuous individual understands the way that the categories which structure our private and public lives, from the simplest concept of a physical object, to the language we use to describe our emotional landscape, to abstract concepts like justice or love, are originally rooted in the purpose of creating a shared, interconnected network of meaning which allows the community to come together in set of shared values and a shared sense of world. In this sense, we can see how a cognition of truth can inspire an orientation towards a virtuous and meaningful life. If we only ask what the values and categories that make up our cultural landscape of meaning can do for me, we will likely end up in conflict, as their original purpose is to create a sense of a shared set of values and world that we can contribute to with our individual talents, not take from. When we instead perceive that the origin of any way we make meaning has its roots in this vast interdependent network of the Logos that connects us to all humanity, both past and present, it can show us the unsubstantiality of self centeredness, nihilism, and apathy. A true commitment to using our reason to see the deepest truth of the appearances within our immediate experience reveals a meaningful life rooted in an intimate connection to all that is and a responsibility to act in line with the good of that totality. 

As helpful as this can be, in my own experience, this intellectual approach has its limitations. For years, no matter how clear this cognitive understanding of connection, meaning, and true responsibility was, the habits of my body still remained rooted in self centeredness, apathy, or isolation. To really orient our entire soul to the Good, as Plato puts it, is the work of a lifetime and will likely take significant work across many different modalities. However, one suggestion that Plato offers which can at least start to give us a sense of how this process can move out of the intellect and into an embodied sense is the path of beauty. I recently saw the new movie American Fiction and, as good art often does, it did a great job of portraying the movement of these fundamental forces or truth, beauty, and goodness in a way that is not overly cognitive. In fact, one of the things I loved about the movie’s portrayal of the redemptive power of beauty and how it can encourage an embodying of the Good is that although beauty and goodness were weaved throughout the visual content of the film and the character’s actions, there was no explicit discussion of these forces and their redemptive power. No character ever discussed these concepts explicitly or made a sustained attempt to mold their character in line with an intellectual idea of the Good, yet the film made a powerful statement concerning their importance nonetheless. (Spoilers follow so if you don’t want spoilers, then see the movie before you read further; it is certainly worth seeing) 

If we list just the facts of the film, it may seem like a tragic story. Of the two main plot threads, the one that is relevant to this post is the family drama, which is rife with tragedy, conflict, and pain. Our main character, Monk, is a struggling writer who is somewhat distanced from his family and struggles with relationships. At the beginning of the movie, Monk’s sister dies suddenly of a heart attack. Cliff, Monk’s brother, has just come out as homosexual and is struggling with the lack of acceptance of his mother. The mother is in the process of falling into  severe Alzheimer's. To top it all off, the father of the family committed suicide some time before the movie begins. We never see a clean resolution to any of these issues throughout the movie. By the end of the movie, there is not even a strong sign that any of the character’s have dealt with their inner demons. Even so, the movie does not feel like a tragedy at all. In fact, there is a strong thread of redemption which weaves itself throughout the narrative. You might miss them if you aren’t paying close attention, but interspersed throughout the movie there are shots of simple but breathtaking beauty: a sunset as Monk is driving home, a lingering shot of the moon lit sky reflecting on the ocean. This beauty does not eradicate the suffering of the characters or perfect their emotional state. In fact, there is no indication that they even notice it. However, it does give the viewer a sense that there is something vast within which these challenges are occurring, something holding them.

 This same sense of something vast, expansive, and beautiful that shines through the drama of human suffering occasionally can also be found within the family story itself. After the whole family walks in on Cliff in the middle of his sexual and drug fueled hedonistic exploits, one member dissolves the tension by simply embracing him, opening up a space of connectedness and openness which the whole family shares together for a time. A similar space temporarily opens when Cliff confides in Monk concerning his grief that his father never knew he was homosexual so never knew the “full him,” and in this moment of vulnerability, encourages Monk to “let himself be loved” rather than closing himself off. These moments do not solve the characters' problems and the space that is opened up closes back again but, like the moments of natural beauty, they act as a window into a deeper, natural, and more simple space of intimacy and connectedness which the characters can drop into only when they allow themselves be vulnerable with the totality of their environment, including the pain.

In this way, this movie illustrates how receptivity and sensitivity to beauty can teach how to naturally embody goodness. A natural scene is beautiful when we notice the way each part contributes to a greater, unified whole. Goodness moves in the same way. To act in line with the good, we must learn to open to our whole context and remain sensitive to what it is asking of us. This movie shows us that the way to translate that aesthetic wholeness to our embodied way of living requires the courage to open to the entirety of our context, whether that be our family, our community, or simply the physical conditions we find ourselves met with. This openness and receptivity is what allows us to move with that whole in a fluid and mutually supporting way. When we do this, instead of following a preconceived idea or image of the Good, we are able to sense what the ground of the Good is calling forth in us, what action will allow this particular moment to return to its natural state within the totality of the Logos. As Plato writes, “When he looks at Beauty in the only way that Beauty can be seen - only then will it become possible for him to give birth not to images of virtue, but to true virtue. The love of the gods belongs to anyone who has given birth to true virtue and nourished it, and if any human being could become immortal, it would be he.”

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Please feel free to leave a comment if you have clarification questions, feedback, critiques, or anything to add. Philosophy is all about dialogue! I will do my best to respond to all questions and concerns.