The beautiful and the good
On the axis: Beauty in life · a beautiful act
Are the beautiful and the good one, or are they rivals: does beauty raise the soul toward the good, or seduce it by flattering appearances against duty?
Justification
Beauty plays a unique anagogic role: it is the only Form that shines forth in the sensible and, through erōs, sets the soul moving toward the intelligible. Yet it remains subordinate to the Good and to justice: seductive poetry is banished from the city if it corrupts the soul, and the beautiful is valuable only insofar as it leads to the true and the good.
Phaedrus, 250d-251b · Republic, III, 401b-403c
Justification
Art is never judged by the pleasure it gives but by its truth and its moral effect: mimetic poetry is condemned for flattering the soul's lower part and straying from the truth. Conversely, the admits a regulated music and stories that shape character and tune the soul to harmony, making art an instrument of formation.
Republic, X, 605a-608b · Republic, III, 398c-401d
Anchors: Schiller · Shaftesbury · Plato · Kant
leads to: Purpose of art