Antithesis of Absolute and Relative, here brought into debate by Plato, in regard to the Idea of Beauty.
One other point deserves peculiar notice, in the dialogue under our review. The problem started is, What is the Beautiful — the Self-Beautiful, or Beauty per se: and it is assumed that this must be Something,[48] that from the accession of which, each particular beautiful thing becomes beautiful. But Sokrates presently comes to make a distinction between that which is really beautiful and that which appears to be beautiful. Some things (he says) appear beautiful, but are not so in reality: some are beautiful, but do not appear so. The problem, as he states it, is, to find, not what that is which makes objects appear beautiful, but what it is that makes them really beautiful. This distinction, as we find it in the language of Hippias, is one of degree only:[49] that is beautiful which appears so to every one and at all times. But in the language of Sokrates, the distinction is radical: to be beautiful is one thing, to appear beautiful is another; whatever makes a thing appear beautiful without being so in reality, is a mere engine of deceit, and not what Sokrates is enquiring for.[50] The Self-Beautiful or real Beauty is so, whether any one perceives it to be beautiful or not: it is an Absolute, which exists per se, having no relation to any sentient or percipient subject.[51] At any rate, such is the manner in which Plato conceives it, when he starts here as a problem to enquire, What it is.
[48] Plato, Hipp. Maj. 286 K. αὐτὸ τὸ καλὸν ὅ, τι ἔστιν. Also 287 D, 289 D.
[49] Plato, Hipp. Maj. 291 D, 292 E.
[50] Plato, Hipp. Maj. 294 A-B, 299 A.
[51] Dr. Hutcheson, in his inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, observes (sect. i. and ii. p. 14-16): —
“Beauty is either original or comparative, or, if any like the terms better, absolute or relative; only let it be observed, that by absolute or original, is not understood any quality supposed to be in the object, which should of itself be beautiful, without relation to any mind which perceives it. For Beauty, like other names of sensible ideas, properly denotes the perception of some mind.… Our inquiry is only about the qualities which are beautiful to men, or about the foundation of their sense of beauty, for (as above hinted) Beauty has always relation to the sense of some mind; and when we afterwards show how generally the objects that occur to us are beautiful, we mean that such objects are agreeable to the sense of men, &c.”
The same is repeated, sect. iv. p. 40; sect. vi. p. 72.
Herein we note one of the material points of disagreement between Plato and his master: for Sokrates (in the Xenophontic Memorabilia) affirms distinctly that Beauty is altogether relative to human wants and appreciations. The Real and Absolute, on the one hand, wherein alone resides truth and beauty — as against the phenomenal and relative, on the other hand, the world of illusion and meanness — this is an antithesis which we shall find often reproduced in Plato. I shall take it up more at large, when I come to discuss his argument against Protagoras in the Theætêtus.