Antiquity - Philosophy and Aesthetics

Philosophy
- Systematic study of general and fundamental questions of human existence and the world around us.
- Derived from Greek "philosophía" meaning "the love of wisdom".
Aesthetics
- Branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty, taste, and art.
- Emerged during Antiquity, forming the basis for Western philosophical thought and terminology.

Focused on Ethics: virtue, knowledge, and utility in relation to beauty.
No writings of his own; known through accounts by Plato and Xenophon.
Developed the Socratic method, involving dialogue, questions, and answers to explore problems, often using irony.
Died by forced suicide via poison.

Student of Socrates; teacher of Aristotle.
Founded the Platonic Academy in Athens, which lasted nearly 900 years.
Developed the Theory of Forms:
- Proposed that the tangible world is a reflection of a higher reality of forms or ideas.
- Ideas are absolute, perfect, and unchanging, embodying harmony and order, akin to the Pythagoreans' focus on numbers.
Critique of art:
- Described art as mere imitation of the real world, which is itself an imitation of the world of forms.
- Viewed art with skepticism, considering crafts as inferior to true philosophical thought.
Influenced later philosophical traditions through Neoplatonism, which impacted Byzantine, Islamic, and Medieval philosophy.
Rediscovered during the Renaissance following translations of his works by Marsilio Ficino.

Student of Plato; tutor to Alexander the Great.
More empirical and practical approach to philosophy compared to Plato.
Emphasized the philosophy of art in his work Poetics.
Proposed the theory of mimesis (imitation):
- Art need not represent reality literally; metaphors and allegories can still be ethical.
- Art has a therapeutic function, providing catharsis for emotions.
Discussed creation as a process involving matter and form:
- An artist (as a craftsman) shapes matter into meaningful forms (e.g., turning material into functional designs).
His writings had a significant impact on Medieval philosophy as a foundational figure.

Founder of Neoplatonism, emphasizing spiritual and idealistic philosophy.
Associated God with the ultimate divine principle.
First philosopher to recognize the artist as a creator, driven by the artist's vision though limited by material constraints.

Pythagoreans posited that beauty lies in harmony and order, primarily noted in music.
Polyclitus (5th century BC), a Greek sculptor, theorized aesthetics based on body proportions:
- Introduced quantifiable measures of beauty based on balance and ratios.

Established ratios for the human body:
- Total height defined as 7 heads tall.
- The arm equals 3 heads in length, etc.

A Roman architect noted for his work De Architectura, the only surviving treatise on architecture from Antiquity.
Influenced architectural standards well into the Renaissance, notably referenced in Leon Battista Alberti’s De re aedificatoria.

Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci (1490) illustrates later approaches to ideal canon of proportions, following Polyclitus’ foundation.
Other artists including Lysippus and Albrecht Dürer contributed revisions to the standard of human proportions, demonstrating the ongoing evolution of aesthetic theory in art.