Winged chariot? — Tom Storm

Too over the top? This is an allusion to the revelation of beauty absolute in a speech by Socrates in the dialogue Phaedrus.

I don't think any subject in philosophy is undisputed and undebatable. — Tom Storm

Yeah, philosophy is endlessly debatable. What I meant to say was that debating this beauty, beauty absolute, is fruitless.

Beauty and goodness are the defining attributes of beautiful and good things — GregW

That's a circular argument. E.g., Truth is what true statements express. — Tom Storm

I was trying to distinguish beauty from beautiful things. Beautiful things are a part of beauty, just as true statements are a part of truth.

what exactly is beauty as you understand it and how do you access or recognise it? — Tom Storm

As I see it, beauty is a part of good, the part that is perceived by our senses. When we say that the sunset was beautiful, we are saying that the sunset looked good. When we say that the symphony was beautiful, we are saying that the symphony sounded good. When we say that the sex was beautiful, we are saying that the sex felt good. Beauty is sensible goodness.

As I see it, beauty is a part of good, the part that is perceived by our senses. When we say that the sunset was beautiful, we are saying that the sunset looked good. When we say that the symphony was beautiful, we are saying that the symphony sounded good. When we say that the sex was beautiful, we are saying that the sex felt good. Beauty is sensible goodness. — GregW

A serial killer could see beauty when his hands are around the neck of a victim taking their last breath?
There is a savage beauty in an apex predator despatching it's prey.

A serial killer could see beauty when his hands are around the neck of a victim taking their last breath? — Malcolm Parry

To answer your question, let me define some terms as the basis for our discourse. The beautiful is that which is nearest to beauty and the ugly is the farthest. The ugly is measured against the beautiful, and the beautiful is measured against beauty, and beauty is measured against what Plato called "beauty absolute", and beauty absolute have no part of ugliness. However, between the beautiful and the ugly is a range of measures. Let's call these measures not beautiful and not ugly.

By his measure, the serial killer sees the murder as beautiful. Let's take the victim's point of view, by his measure, the victim sees the murder as very, very, ugly. Now how should the beauty of the murder be measured? There is beauty and ugliness in most human endeavors. Most people would say, at best, the murder should be measured at the low end of the not beautiful and not ugly range. But beauty should not be measured by what most people say. The beautiful murder as measured by the killer, must be measured against beauty, and beauty absolute. The murder falls short of the beautiful because the ugliness of the murder falls short of beauty and beauty absolute which have no part of ugliness.

There is a savage beauty in an apex predator despatching it's prey. — Malcolm Parry

There are people who say that there is a beautiful world where all our needs are provided for, where we live a life of simplicity and contentment free from vexation and strife. A world where knowledge is forbidden, where savagery is banished, and where the lion lay with the lamb. Aren't you glad that we live in a world where savage beauty can exist?

and beauty absolute have no part of ugliness — GregW

Don’t want to against Plato but I’m not convinced there is a beautifully absolute. It is all relative to the beholder.

Aren't you glad that we live in a world where savage beauty can exist? — GregW

Absolutely. We need obstacles for fulfilment.

Love is an experience shared by all. — GregW

Do you know this for certain? I’ve worked with a lot of career criminals and gang members, and I would say that some people never experience love and, as a result, may not be able to give or receive it. — Tom Storm

Really enjoying this thread guys. Prior to joining TPF, I would never have chosen to read something with the title 'a discourse on ...'.

That is a remarkable experience Tom Storm. I imagine a philosophical mind would be a great help in such a situation?

There is a part of me that defaults to big broad questions like this with 'how would I explain this to kids'? Years of teaching high school and other things brought me to that state, and kids react to storms, heavy winds, thunder, lightning in a different way than adults finding the divine, but the joy appears to be universal, in some ways, with perhaps different expressions.

If my curious little neighbour were to ask me 'what is beauty?' I'd remind him of that crazy snow day we had a few months ago and the big fort he built in his front yard.

I experience love as a given. Walking along the river on a beautiful sunny day can intensify that feeling of love. I feel loved simply because I feel love. I can totally relate to the Christian notion that God is love, even though I think the Biblical explanation of God. Satan and sin are messed up. Believing in a personal God has unpleasant consequences, necessitating deifying Jesus as a personal savior. — Athena

I really enjoyed this comment, although I do know many religious people who do not subscribe to literal interpretations of Christian theology, some of them quite devout. We had an atheist minister here in Toronto a few years back, although that one goes too far for me.

As an atheist, I feel not believing in a 'God', faith, personal spiritual practice or otherwise also has unpleasant consequences.

I feel not believing in a 'God', faith, personal spiritual practice or otherwise also has unpleasant consequences. — Jeremy Murray

I can totally relate to the Christian notion that God is love, even though I think the Biblical explanation of God. Satan and sin are messed up. Believing in a personal God has unpleasant consequences, — Athena

I believe that not believing in "the things of God", like beauty, truth, virtue, and love have more unpleasant consequences.

I’m not convinced there is a beautifully absolute. It is all relative to the beholder. — Malcolm Parry

Let me tell you why I believe that beauty is not relative to the beholder. I believe that it is our own measure of beauty that is relative to the beholder. Beauty, like truth, justice, piety, and the other virtues are a part of good; and truth absolute, true beauty, true virtue, and true love are a part of goodness absolute; and goodness absolute is a part of God.

Love is an experience shared by all. — Tom Storm

(This is my first time using the quote function, I'll see how it turns out.)
I think that it is not that everybody has felt love, but everybody can feel love.
My experience with philosophical thinking has mainly come from fiction books. That is why I bring fictional examples to the table to get an emotional connection, without denying the need for base.
For this example, like you said gangsters who haven't felt love can have problems with emotional development. However, do you think it is impossible for him to ever love or ever feel love again?
Many times in fiction you see a gangster have a child and 'soften up'. Though only a fictitious example with little base to it, it is quite relatable (at least to the heart.) It also shows a possibility which isn't impossible.
However, my argument still falls to the same question,
'Are you certain that everybody can potentially feel love?'
I cannot say for certain because I have never met every single person on the planet.
All of this brings me to the question,
Is the ability to feel love something you are born with?
In the example with the gangsters they were not given love growing up, they started with the ability to feel love, but their ability to love was not 'developed/nurtured'. (Words that do not quite fit)
Does the lack of love kill the sense of it? Or is it just dormant like a seed during winter? I think the later is correct, because no matter how little evidence I have of my workings, you have just as little to oppose them.
P.S I know that my argument is based on mere ideas, and I will not argue if you wish to deny it. Through reading fiction I have gained the ability to think on a deeper level than before. Using these examples is how I can argue without practical experience or quoting the words of others.
Greetings.

Do you know this for certain? I’ve worked with a lot of career criminals and gang members, and I would say that some people never experience love and, as a result, may not be able to give or receive it. — Tom Storm

Seems I did not use the quote function correctly, here is the other part.

Is the ability to feel love something you are born with?
In the example with the gangsters they were not given love growing up, they started with the ability to feel love, but their ability to love was not 'developed/nurtured'. (Words that do not quite fit)
Does the lack of love kill the sense of it? Or is it just dormant like a seed during winter? — Red Sky

Don't know. I was just reporting what I have seen. I suspect the ability to give and receive love is innate in most people. It takes many forms and does not always look the same across individuals, cultures or time periods. It's an emotion that has been hijacked by storytellers and marketing people who describe and promote specific and often commercial indicators of love.

There are people who are abused from infancy, and the way their understanding and behavior is shaped by this may preclude them from experiencing love. I have certainly met people who claim never to have experienced it.

I find it easy to believe that some people have never experienced love. Harder to believe that they have never experienced love or beauty.

Shouldn’t we also consider the evolutionary function of love?

Greg, could the “things of God” not simply be what many religious people mean by God, essentially? I’ve certainly known religious people who this statement feels true for.

Shouldn’t we also consider the evolutionary function of love? — Jeremy Murray

If you want. Humans are a social species who organise and flourish in family units. Not hard to see how love has survival pay offs. But what do we do with this frame?

Let me tell you why I believe that beauty is not relative to the beholder. I believe that it is our own measure of beauty that is relative to the beholder. Beauty, like truth, justice, piety, and the other virtues are a part of good; andtruth absolute, true beauty, true virtue, and true love are a part of goodness absolute; and goodness absolute is a part of God. — GregW

Expand on that, please. What is the frame of reference for true beauty etc?

Is it your faith in God? If so, I'll stick with my original statement.

Expand on that, please. What is the frame of reference for true beauty etc?

Is it your faith in God? If so, I'll stick with my original statement. — Malcolm Parry

The frame of reference for true beauty and true goodness is perfection. If we define perfect beauty and perfect goodness as beauty and goodness to the highest degree, then the measure between beauty and goodness, and between perfect beauty and perfect goodness is just a matter of degrees. We know that beauty and goodness exist because we can measure the beauty and goodness of beautiful and good things with our senses. So true beauty and true goodness exist as beauty and goodness to the highest degree.

As for faith, I choose to believe in the God of perfection. The God who is not only perfectly good but also perfectly powerful, which means that He cannot use His power for evil.

The frame of reference for true beauty and true goodness is perfection — GregW

What for you is perfection?

As for faith, I choose to believe in the God of perfection. The God who is not only perfectly good but also perfectly powerful, which means that He cannot use His power for evil. — GregW

He seems nice

The frame of reference for true beauty and true goodness is perfection
— GregW

What for you is perfection? — Malcolm Parry

As I see it, truth, beauty, virtue, and such are a part of goodness; goodness is a part of true goodness; true goodness is a part of perfection; and perfection is a part of God.

As for faith, I choose to believe in the God of perfection. The God who is not only perfectly good but also perfectly powerful, which means that He cannot use His power for evil.
— GregW

He seems nice — Malcolm Parry

He is perfectly nice.

I have come up with some thoughts, after a review of our discourse. I would like to offer an apology of my statements of love, beauty, and good. Like the ancient Greek poets and the ancient Greek philosophers, I think that we may be speaking past each other by speaking in two different languages. The language of mythos and the language of logos. So how do we reconcile the differences in how we present our arguments?

BC suggested that there are different kinds of love, such as philia, eros, agape, storge.... etc.

These are not different parts of love, they are different kinds of love. All the various kinds of love, in your phrase "love as a whole", are what attaches us to one another, and without which we would not exist. — BC

The Greek poets and the Greek philosophers also speak of different kinds of love. The poets suggest that "love is divine" or that love is at least something between the mortal and the divine. The philosophers suggest that "love is a desire.... the desire for the beautiful and good". This sounds true but it is not the complete truth. Love is not the same as desire. Love is a part of desire just as the lover is a part of the non-lover. While the non-lover may desire many things including the beautiful and good. The lover desire only the beautiful and good, of the ugly and bad there can be no love.

Tom Storm suggested that there are some people who never experience love. Is it possible that there are people so immersed in ugliness and evil that it precludes the beautiful and good and love can never be experienced?

I’ve worked with a lot of career criminals and gang members, and I would say that some people never experience love and, as a result, may not be able to give or receive it. — Tom Storm

I believe this is possible only if love is just a desire. In a poem, Aristophanes described the origin of Love:

".... Black-winged Night
Into the bosom of Erebus dark and deep
Laid a wind-born egg, and as the seasons rolled
Forth sprang Love, the long-for, shining, with
wings of gold."

The poem suggests that even in the darkest and deepest part of Erebus, we will find love.

I’ve worked with a lot of career criminals and gang members, and I would say that some people never experience love and, as a result, may not be able to give or receive it.
— Tom Storm

I believe this is possible only if love is just a desire. In a poem, Aristophanes described the origin of Love:

".... Black-winged Night
Into the bosom of Erebus dark and deep
Laid a wind-born egg, and as the seasons rolled
Forth sprang Love, the long-for, shining, with
wings of gold."

The poem suggests that even in the darkest and deepest part of Erebus, we will find love. — GregW

I'm going by what I have seen. The excerpt doesn't speak to me.

Thsi form you -

I believe this is possible only if love is just a desire — GregW

If I read this correctly then i woudl have thought it was precisely the opposite. Love as desire is readily sought and found. I'm not sure I'd count this as love.

If you are referring to love as a deep concern for another’s good, their sacredness in relation to your own, then no.

I’ve worked with a lot of career criminals and gang members, and I would say that some people never experience love and, as a result, may not be able to give or receive it.
— Tom Storm

I believe this is possible only if love is just a desire. — GregW

In the 1970s Prof. Harry Harlow, University of Wisconsin, deprived one group of baby chimps of anything resembling a mother--nothing soft, nothing warm, nothing stroking the babies. Another group of baby monkeys were provided with mother surrogates -- a warm cloth dummy. Both groups were provided bottled milk (but were not held during feeding). The second group of monkeys, the one with the surrogates fared much better -- their behavior was more normal; they grew faster; etc. The ones who were not provided with so much as a surrogate dummy did not fare well at all. (I heard about this about 50 years ago, and am relying on memory.)

After the 1985 fall of the Nicolae Ceaușescu regime in Romania, a similar but "non-experiment" was found in a number of orphanages where human infants had lived, in some cases for years, with very minimal human nurture. They were victims of extreme neglect. Like Harlow's chimp babies, these human children not normal; they hadn't thrived, their development was poor, their personalities had not developed well at all. Many of the children were placed in foster care and many of them were rehabilitated to a large extent. (That was all 40 years ago--I'm relying on memory here.)

So there is experimental and observational evidence that primates infants (that includes us) who do not receive love and adequate care fail to develop normally, and in turn are not able to attach to partners or infants.

Humans are normally and naturally capable of love, and it's essential that we receive it in infancy going forward. We are able to love because we have received love--maternal and paternal love given readily and abundantly. You might say that 'love is the chain of being'.

I think the concept of Love is far too amorphous to say anything about it. Affection? That works.

Thsi form you -
I believe this is possible only if love is just a desire
— GregW

If I read this correctly then i woudl have thought it was precisely the opposite. Love as desire is readily sought and found. I'm not sure I'd count this as love. — Tom Storm

Tom, let me present an apology of my arguments. This is what I said in my post.

Love is not the same as desire. Love is a part of desire just as the lover is a part of the non-lover. While the non-lover may desire many things including the beautiful and good. The lover desire only the beautiful and good, of the ugly and bad there can be no love.

Tom Storm suggested that there are some people who never experience love. Is it possible that there are people so immersed in ugliness and evil that it precludes the beautiful and good and love can never be experienced?

I’ve worked with a lot of career criminals and gang members, and I would say that some people never experience love and, as a result, may not be able to give or receive it.
— Tom Storm

I believe this is possible only if love is just a desire. — GregW

Let me ask this. The career criminals and gang members that you say never experience love and, as a result, may not be able to give or receive it. Do they love themselves?

Humans are normally and naturally capable of love, and it's essential that we receive it in infancy going forward. — BC

BC, I agree with you. Infants who are not nurtured or loved are prone to become psychotic. But isn't the treatment for neglected infants nurture and love?

I think the concept of Love is far too amorphous to say anything about it. Affection? That works. — AmadeusD

AmadeusD, isn't affection just love to a lesser degree?

Let me ask this. The career criminals and gang members that you say never experience love and, as a result, may not be able to give or receive it. Do they love themselves? — GregW

I don't know what you mean by "do they love themselves?" It's certainly not a topic that comes up. In my world the term, "love yourself" has a tinny, American, self-help book ring to it. But if you mean whether they respect themselves, take care of themselves, take pride, and hold their own survival and life in high regard, then I would say it’s a mix.

What did you mean by love as desire? I'm still unclear about that one.

Not in the terms here bandied about. Love seems to be some emergent property of affectionate relationships. That said, there seem forms of 'love' which are not actually to do with affection, and to do with some "solidarity" notion. Hence, far too amorphous.

isn't the treatment for neglected infants nurture and love? — GregW

Yes. What else but nurture and love would help?

One problem is that such therapy can't be delayed for 20 or 30 years and still be effective. While the brain is famously plastic, as far as I know it isn't readily plastic in all ways at all time. Just for example, paralysis from injury to the CNS is best treated right away. I suppose that the best time for therapy vanishes over time. 30 years later, therapy might not help much.

Can 30 year olds, who are very disturbed personalities with poor mental development resulting from pervasive neglect in their first years, be emotionally rehabilitated? I doubt it, but I have little expertise about the matter.

One problem is that such therapy can't be delayed for 20 or 30 years and still be effective — BC

Real big problem. Emotional dysregulation is something that's extremely hard to overcome. As I understand, having no example of some fundamental behaviour prior to the age of four roughly precludes that from being assimilated.