نسبت زيبايي و خير در هستي‌شناسي افلاطون

The Relationship between Beauty and the Good in Plato’s Ontology

بنابر تفاسير گوناگون، نسبت ميان خير و زيبايي در انديشه افلاطون در طيفي ميان تساوي و تغاير نوسان دارد و هركدام از اين تفاسير سرنوشت متفاوتي را براي زيباشناسي و اخلاق افلاطوني و نسبت آنها با مابعدالطبيعه او رقم ميزند. بسياري از مفسران، حقيقت و خير در نظر افلاطون را يكي ميدانند، در حالي كه نسبت زيبايي و خير دقيقاً روشن نيست. با بررسي ويژگيهاي هريك از اين دو در محاورات مختلف و زمينه ها و دلايل توصيف اين رابطه از زبان خود افلاطون، ميتوان علاوه بر يافتن اين نسبت، حدود زيباشناسي افلاطوني را ترسيم نمود و به جايگاه زيبايي بمثابه حقيقت وجود در هستي‌شناسي افلاطون پي‌برد. در اين جستار براساس روش تجويزي افلاطون در نامه هفتم براي معرفت نسبت به هر موضوع، به رابطه زيبايي با مفاهيم مترادفش يعني لذت، هماهنگي، تناسب، نظم و وحدت ميپردازيم و ميكوشيم با پاسخگويي به دلايل مغايرت خير و زيبايي نشان دهيم كه ساير تعاريف و معاني زيبايي به وحدت تاويل‌پذيرند و حقيقت زيبايي همان خير بمثابه وحدت است. در نتيجه، زيبايي علت وجود و غايت همه چيز است و بر اين اساس، اخلاق و زيباشناسي دو وجه هستي‌شناسي واحد افلاطون محسوب ميشوند.

Based on various interpretations, the relationship between the good and beauty in Plato’s philosophy fluctuates between being identical and different, and these interpretations lead to different consequences in Platonic ethics and aesthetics and suggest different relationships between the good and beauty and his metaphysics. Many interpreters believe that the truth and the good are the same in Plato’s view, while the relationship between beauty and the good is not clearly known to them. Through a study of the features of each of these two entities in various dialogs and contexts and the arguments adduced to describe the relationship between them, one can not only learn about the quality of this relationship but also determine the borderlines of Platonic aesthetics and, as a result, discover the place of beauty as the truth of being in this philosopher’s ontology. In this study, based on Plato’s prescriptive method in his seventh letter regarding the knowledge of every subject, the writers deal with the relationship between beauty and its equivalent concepts, such as pleasure, harmony, proportion, order, and unity. Then, by responding to the questions related to the difference of the good from beauty, they demonstrate that the other definitions and meanings of beauty can be interpreted in the same way, and that the truth of beauty is the same as the good in the sense of unity. Finally, they conclude that beauty is the cause of existence and the end of everything. Therefore, ethics and aesthetics are considered to be two dimensions of Plato’s unitary ontology.