The Good, the True, the Beautiful...and Justice

From the mythical to the philosophical...





Homer's gods

 

Plato's Good


Olympic hierarchy
Zeus is supposed to be in charge. He boasts of being stronger than all the other gods together but appears to avoid putting it to the test. See 'the golden rope', Il. 8.19. Hera is number two with a bullet, Athena is Tritogeneia, third-born (Zeus' favourite daughter) and Aphrodite is fourth, though sometimes stronger than Zeus himself.

Plato's view of the Absolute Good

The solid red part is our Nomos, its border is Sophrosyne



concept:

the Good

the True

the Beautiful

Justice

god:

Hera

Athena

Aphrodite

Zeus

gift:

Power

Victory

Beauty

-

Homer:

status

cleverness (μῆτις), know-how,

know-when (boldness)

"have" beauty or "be" beauty

Fate

Plato:

Spirit(1), thumos(2)

Reason, calculation

Desire, Eros

-

class:

auxiliaries (soldiers)

rulers

working class

-

object(3):

status

success

pleasure

share

subject(4):

excellence (ἀρετή),

'unchanging'-ness

truth

beauty

proportion

virtue:

(Plato)

ἀνδρεία

courage, manliness

φρόνησις, σοφία

wisdom

σωφροσύνη

moderation

-

vice:

hubris

deception

indulgence

-

wife(5):

Χρυσόθεμις

"golden custom"

Λαοδίκη

"people (or army)'s justice"

Ἰφιάνασσα

"she rules by force"

-

trinity

God the Father -

the Good is first

the Holy Spirit -

we see that it's True

the Son -

the hero who dies for us like Achilles

-


With the Good, True and Beautiful is meant: the desire for those concepts. Justice is a rule, a duty that we have. Plato (or Socrates, in the Symposium) has some trouble dealing with the desire for the beautiful by itself so he redefines that as the desire for the Good and later additionally for the True. So Eros becomes a desire for all three. So its virtue becomes Sophrosyne, Moderation, the one that bounds the union of the three. There he finds the real beauty.




  1. Plato actually distinguishes two levels of 'the Good': the lower, which is 'Spirit', the declared aristocratic quality, and the higher, which is the highest Platonic Good, the source of everything.
  2. One can have too much of it, it is related to anger. It may lead to hubris (ὕβρις) and ἀγηνορίη, like the lion in Il 12.46, Achilles in Il 24.42, Hector in Il 22.457 or the suitors.
  3. "what it gives"
  4. "what it is about"
  5. One of Agamemnon's daughters, promised to Achilles if he will come back to fight (Il 9.287)