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Word Gems
exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Soulmate, Myself:
Omega Point
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Plotinus
On Beauty
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Why do we judge certain objects, sounds, ideas, or virtues to be beautiful? Is beauty symmetry and proportion, a charm of color, a display of light, or more than this? Is beauty in the thing itself or merely our estimation of it? Does beauty represent a translucence, a shining through, of a remoter principle? Plotinus, probably more than any other of history, attempted to explain the mystery of beauty.
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Plotinus (204-270 CE)
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Editor’s prefatory comments
Plotinus’ students asked him to put his teaching into written form, the result of which became “the Enneads”; literally, “the nines,” or groups of nine. The Enneads offers 54 essays, 6 books or groups of 9 essays.
The present WG writing features Plotinus’ essay on beauty, designated as “Ennead 1:6,” that is, book 1, essay 6.
resources
Mackenna translation of Ennead 1:6
Taylor translation of Ennead 1:6
Paraphrase of Ennead 1:6
Video, 9 minutes, summary of Plotinus
Video, 10 minutes, summary of Plotinus
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Plotinus has done well explaining the nature and meaning of beauty. Some of it, I would say, conforms to what we know about natural law in Summerland; some of it, however, does not reflect ultimate reality, as revealed in “the scientific evidence of the afterlife.”
But let us take the good where we find it; for, where Plotinus is good, he’s very good.
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capsule summary of Plotinus’ concept of beauty
It all begins with “the One,” sometimes called “the Good,” a divine principle superintending and transcending all reality.
All things in the universe both emanate from and represent the essence of the One.
The One constitutes an archetypal perfection of all aspects of the world. These highest-order attributes are Plato’s Ideal Forms.
Beauty, as with all things, is a reflection of the One.
Not all representations of beauty are equal. There is a hierarchy of beauty’s Ideal Forms, an ascent from lowest to highest, beginning with beauty as mere sensuality and bodily pleasure, rising to beauty as virtues of the soul, universal truths, and mystical perceptions of the One’s perfection.
This means that beauty and art might become much more than depictions of the physical. Beauty and art, via contemplation, can transport us to hidden empyreal realms of the One’s domain – a divine order of things eternal, far removed from the ephemeral gross matter of our world.
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where to begin
The 54 essays of Plotinus contain too much for us to review here. Even to focus on the entirety of just one essay, Ennead 1:6, is unwieldy.
Instead, let us center on a few important ideas from Ennead 1:6. We might begin by discussing what beauty is not.
See the following inset box, three interviews of young couples:
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You say what!?
The following was posted on X.
Picture the scene. A reporter seeks to interview twenty-something couples. It’s a busy sidewalk with people milling about restaurants and cinemas for some evening entertainment.
Three conversations went something like this:
Couple #1
The reporter: (addressing both) “How much money do you have in your bank account?”
The fellow: “$750”
The reporter: “Do you guys share the expenses?
The fellow: “No, I pretty much pay for everything.”
The reporter: (speaking to the girl) “And how much do you have in your bank account?”
The girl: (hesitant, but big small on her face, looks nervous, finally speaks) “$80,000”
The fellow: (looking very shocked and confused, now blurts out) “You have $80,000 in the bank!!? – and I’m working all day at a hard job, and you’ve never offered to help with the expenses!!?
The girl: “Well, I’ve always thought it’s your responsibility to pay the bills.”
The fellow: (gasping for breath) “And where did you get the $80,000 from!!?”
The girl: (big smile, not wanting to speak, getting flustered) Finally makes a vague statement but indicating clearly enough that she’d been selling her body and stashing away money.
The fellow: Glares at her, but then, without saying a word more, leaves her, right on the spot, right there on the street, walks away into the night, with body language shouting, “We’re all done here.”
Couple #2
The reporter: (speaking to both of them) “Would you cheat on each other for $1,000?”
The fellow: (unruffled and speaking confidently) “No, no, I would never do that, I wouldn’t even be tempted.”
The girl: (big smile, looking as if she’s on a quiz show about to win what's behind door number two) “Well, wait a minute – you know we could use the money!”
The fellow: (jaw drops, looks at her like she’s an escaped alien from Area 51) “How can you say that!!? You mean, you would!!?
Note: Here’s where it all morphed into something ten times worse. In the course of this short group discussion, it suddenly became apparent that the girl thought the reporter said “$100” not “$1,000”!
The fellow: (looking even more exasperated and incredulous at her statement) “You mean, you’d do this for a hundred bucks!!?”
The girl: (big smile, but doesn’t answer)
The fellow: Glares at her, but then, without saying a word more, leaves her, right on the spot, right there on the street, walks away into the night, with body language shouting, “We’re all done here.”
Couple #3
The reporter: (some general discussion with the couple but then asks a very pointed and invasive question) “Have either of you ever been with more than one partner in one night?”
The fellow: (somewhat embarrassed by the question but then, gathering himself, asserts calmly and confidently) “No, I’ve never done that.” (slightly annoyed that he had to answer this)
The reporter now asks for her true confessions.
The girl: (big smile, acting like she’s about to confide in her girlfriends about some excellent adventure) “Yes… I have.”
The fellow: (perplexed and very bothered) “You have!!? I didn’t know about this!”
The girl: (big smile, looking like she just completed a risqué sorority-house initiation ritual; but doesn’t respond to the fellow)
The reporter: (unwilling to let this die, he presses on) “And what’s your record? – how many guys have you been with in one night?”
The girl: (big smile, looking like a debauched Shirley Temple) “Ten!” (spoken triumphantly)
The fellow: Glares at her, but then, without saying a word more, leaves her, right on the spot, right there on the street, walks away into the night, with body language shouting, “We’re all done here.”
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baby, shame on you, you were so bad, and shame on me, I let your misery keep me company
Anne Murray, Shame On Me (1996)
I hope for the best but expect the worst
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I was not blind, baby, I could see, every little thing you were doin' to me, but I let you be cruel, love´s the kind of game where both sides share the blame for losin', shame on you, you were so bad, shame on you, for driving me mad, I let your misery keep me company, so baby, shame on me, my poor heart´s got a checkered past, I'm still searchin' for a love that will last, I want someone true and steady, don´t you know I´m ready and willing, I hope for the best, I expect the worst, you'd like to think I´ll never get over you, a fool for love sees what he wants to see, so baby, shame on me, but you were so bad, honey, so shame on you
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Elenchus. A long time ago, I learned that Aquinas defined beauty as a comely interplay of symmetry and proportion. Without thinking a lot more about it, I considered this to be the last word on the subject.
Kairissi. It does sound like a reasonable way of defining beauty.
E. But, a thousand years before Aquinas, Plotinus said he really hated this idea. Symmetry and proportion are not bad standards when talking about something made of parts, but it doesn’t work well for the beauty of singularities, like a pebble, a lightning flash, a piece of gold, a star, a single note of music, or the noon-day sun.
K. To say nothing of the beauty of higher order concepts. Where are the moving parts in courage, love, and fortitude?
E. And that’s a problem. So, we can see right off there’s a lot more to beauty than symmetry and proportion.
K. Elenchus, let’s explain why we like some things that Plotinus said about beauty. Wouldn’t you say it’s more than just academic philosophy?
E. It’s like finding the true self – it’s more than rationality and logic. We can actually feel and sense the life within. It’s not theoretical. It’s a throbbing vitality. And some of the investigation of beauty is also of a visceral nature.
K. Let’s give some examples.
E. The one I like best has to do with a kind of surprise when we encounter the beautiful. Plotinus speaks of a gasping, a momentary sense of jarring, when we meet beauty. This inadvertency might be subtle or it can be exaltation.
K. As if to indicate, we’ve stepped over a threshold into an enchanted new world of sublimity and ecstasy. This is interesting because, despite the suffering of planet Earth, it’s a keyhole glimpse into the true nature of things – which seems to be different than the world we live in.
E. I think it’s a brief flash of insight revealing the perfection of “the One.”
K. Elenchus, for many years you’ve said that every time you see me, or even a photo of me, you experience a subtle surprise, a near-imperceptible jolt. Does this still happen for you?
E. Yes, it does. I’d like to say more about this later.
K. Is there another example of the “visceral nature”?
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