More on Teleology, including the Final Cause of Beauty.

A lawyer - but not me - writes:

Jim and Peter,


Jim introduced the words vs. meaning discussion in response to my proposition that,

“First, the fact that we choose (some would say, are evolutionarily driven) to assign meaning to something, doesn’t prove that there’s any meaning there beyond our arbitrary assignment of meaning.”

My point was really pretty simple-minded, and I hope that it’s not necessary to get into the linguistic tall grass on this issue, because I haven’t given the linguistic aspects a great deal of thought, much less study.

When I refer to “objective” or “arbitrary/subjective” meaning, I am referring to the question of whether the meaning that was assigned represents a truth that should apply to everyone similarly situated, or just to the person who assigned the meaning. (N.B., I typically use “arbitrary” and “subjective” interchangeably, but am open to being persuaded that one should distinguish between them.)

In these terms, objective meaning exists when a proposition has falsifiability (a la Popper). Jim mentioned the proposition that “It is raining.” While it may or may not, in fact, be raining, the proposition that it is raining is a testable one, so regardless of whatever words are used to express that proposition, it is one that has an objective meaning.

I do not know whether he miswrote or I misread, but I interpret Peter’s second paragraph in his email below to define all meaning in terms that I would describe above as objective. Perhaps Peter does not include statements of values, opinions, etc. as being “propositions”.

However, we all know that there are statements that reflect meanings that are subjective. Just try answering a woman’s question, “Do these pants make my butt look fat?” Or, a more current example: “Millionaires and billionaires should pay their fair share of taxes!”

Statements or propositions of opinion, judgments, values are inherently subjective: reasonable, informed people can disagree. The exception would be where there is some external authority (logic, revelation) that converts them into universal truths.

Craig has raised an interesting point in this area, when he talks about elevating beauty to a status above truth (or, perhaps, knowledge). In my terms, in order to do that he must believe that there is an objective standard of beauty. I do not share such a belief in objective beauty – it really is in the eye of the beholder, and judgments on beauty differ among cultures, individuals within cultures, and over time. Nonetheless, I love the image that Craig poses of, “Dame Beauty stands there with a ferule smacking the knuckles of Truth.” My world is so much more prosaic! Alas.

In sum, I think that all of us in this discussion probably agree that materialists act as though there are propositions that are very important in their lives (such as moral judgments that others should live by), which they treat as objective, but which science cannot reach one way or the other. I also suspect (but cannot prove) that science never will be able to do so, because the nature of those propositions is not falsifiable in a Popperian sense.

Where Jim and I tend to disagree is the extent to which logic can suffice, or revelation is required, to deal with that sort of proposition, and that’s a different discussion entirely.

An English professor responds:

Let me say rather that Beauty raps our idea of Truth on the knuckles to push us in the direction of greater Truth. In describing reality, physicists are right to distrust ugly equations.

On the fat buttocks issue, it is much more politic to go with the idea that beauty and truth are subjective, but line up a panel of experts and they'll be at least as close in their assessments as olympics diving judges.

I don't think that beauty is merely subjective. Has anyone read Umberto Eco's The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas? That looks like a good place to start thinking.

My response:

Russ, all -

Subjective, objective and arbitrary -

The point I was making is that all propositions/meanings are discovered outside the person for who experiences the meaning or states the proposition. Things are meanings or propositions because they are about something, and that something is not arbitrary or pure subjectivity. Even the proposition contained in the statement like "I like ice cream" is about something - ice cream and my preference for it - and however much it may be about my subjective preference, it is not "arbitrary."

A point here is that propositions that are apparently "subjective" are still "objective" in the sense that propositions are truer or falser to the extent that they are a product of the mind and the mind seeks the truth, which means the conformance of the mind to reality. The reality in the statement "I like ice cream" is that I really do prefer this thing called ice cream.

Beauty -

Classical philosophy recognized that truth, beauty, goodness and being are fundamentally the same thing. Something cannot be good without actually existing. Something cannot be beautiful without existing. Something cannot be true without existing. Something cannot be beautiful without also being good. Something cannot be beautiful without also being true.

And something cannot be true without being beautiful.

As Gilson, and others. point out, an odd meta-principle used by scientists in deciding the truth of a theory is whether it is beautiful. In this sense "beauty" means simplicity, elegance, fruitfulness and the ability to explain facts without ugly epicycles.

This is one indication that beauty is not "arbitrary" and that it is an objective fact of reality.

Another indication is illustrated by the question of whether a beautiful sunset would be any less beautiful if no one was there to appreciate it?

A third indication is that there are things that are universally understood to transcend time and culture in their beauty.

I suspect that before the Modern era the assertion that beauty is purely a matter of taste would be incomprehensible. In the Modern era, it seems apparent that art has seen a departure away from the classical ideas of beauty that has sent it in search of idiosyncratic meanings.

There can be beauty in such art because there can be art and goodness in such art, but it may be more debatable because such art is not trying to ascend the ladder of existence to the highest place where beauty, truth, goodness and existence are unified.

Modernity denies the unity of truth, goodness, beauty and existence or that there can be an ordering of beauty or truth or goodness or existence. A casualty of this attitude is that Modernity denies people the virtues by which they can decide whether something is more beautiful than another thing.

This attitude leads us to our confusion about subjectivity and objectivity of beauty. Let's say there is a questionable bit of Modern Art. I say it is ugly; an art critic says it is beautiful. Who is right? The answer is not that we are both right. The answer is that there is beauty in the art - and there has to be because the art exists and therefore has being and therefore has goodness insofar, at least, as it exists - but neither one of us may be properly ordered with respect to our appreciation of beauty.

Let's consider the clear case of disorder and the good and the beautiful. In movies and books about serial killers, it is a cliche to have the killer describe their deeds as being works of art. This seems like nuts - and it is - but insofar as executing a plan efficiently and cleverly can be called beautiful, then the precise, meticulous murders of serial killers of fiction are beautiful.

The problem is that serial killings are not ordered toward the human good or to love. Because they aren't ordered to the human good and love, whatever "beauty" there is in such things is warped, distorted and disordered. Things that are warped, distorted and disordered are things that essentially lack existence or the good that is proper to them, and things that lack their proper good also lack their proper beauty. They are, in a word, ugly.

Similarly, because Modern Art denies the traditional ordering of beauty toward love or humanity it creates things that are distorted, warped and disordered. It seems obvious to any objective person that Modernity has been singularly responsible tor generating the most mediocre and ugly art ever created in the history of man.

In other words, the denial of telos leads to the belief that all things are subjective which leads to the loss of meaning and leads to ugliness.

An English Professor's additur:

Taking Yosemite Valley as a less fraught example than the human form, isn't the fact that so many people are astounded by it, and that they have to go to Yosemite Valley itself to be fully astounded, no matter how many memories they have, indicate that the beauty and sublimity of the place reside there, with at least a measure of independence from the minds that apprehend it? What Peter says makes sense to me. Beauty reveals an underlying order, which is itself intellectually beautiful, and also true. Keats got the right message from the Grecian Urn.