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In philosophy, especially that of Aristotle, the golden mean is the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency. The philosopher Socrates about to take poison hemlock as ordered by the court. ...
Aristotle (Greek: Aristotélēs) (384 BC – March 7, 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. ...
To the Greek mentality, it was an attribute of beauty. Both ancients and moderns realized that "there is a close association in mathematics between beauty and truth". The poet John Keats, in his Ode on a Grecian Urn, put it this way: For beauty as a quality of a persons appearance see: Physical attractiveness. ...
A common dictionary definition of truth is agreement with fact or reality.[1] There is no single definition of truth about which the majority of philosophers agree. ...
John Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – February 23, 1821) was one of the principal poets of the English Romantic movement. ...
Ode on a Grecian Urn is a poem by John Keats, first published in January 1820, inspiration for which is considered to be a visit by Keats to the exhibition of Greek artifacts accompanying the display of the Elgin Marbles at the British Museum. ...
Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. The Greeks believed there to be three concomitants of beauty: symmetry, proportion, and harmony. This triad of principles infused their life. They were very much attuned to beauty as an object of love and something that was to be imitated and reproduced in their lives, architecture, Paideia and politics. They judged life by this mentality. To the ancient Greeks, Paideia (παιδεία) was the process of educating man into his true form, the real and genuine human nature. ...
History of the golden mean in philosophy
Crete The earliest representation of this idea in culture is probably in the mythological Cretan tale of Daedalus and Icarus. Daedalus, a famous artist of his time, built feathered wings for himself and his son so that they might escape the clutches of King Minos. Daedalus warns his son to "fly the middle course", between the sea spray and the sun's heat. Icarus did not heed his father; he flew up and up until the sun melted the wax of his wings. For the famous World War II battle, see: Battle of Crete For other uses, see Crete (disambiguation). ...
Daedalus and Icarus, by Charles Paul Landon, 1799 (Musée des Beaux-Arts et de la Dentelle, Alençon) In Greek mythology, Daedalus (Latin, also Hellenized Latin Daedalos, Greek Daidalos (Δαίδαλος) meaning cunning worker, and Etruscan Taitle) was a most skillful artificer, so skillful that he was said to have invented...
Icarus and Daedalus by Frederic Leighton In Greek mythology, Icarus (Latin, Greek – Ãkaros, Etruscan – Vicare, German – Ikarus) was son of Daedalus, famous for his death by falling into the sea when he flew too close to the sun, melting the wax holding his artificial wings together. ...
Front face of the MINOS far detector. ...
Delphi Another early elaboration is the Doric saying carved on the front of the temple at Delphi: "Nothing in Excess". Doric, a synonym of Dorian, may refer to any of the following: The Dorians, one of the ancient Hellenic races, Doric Greek, the dialect of the former, the Doric order and its distinctive Doric column, in ancient Greek architecture, the Dorian mode in music, also called the Doric mode, or...
Delphi (Greek Δελφοί, [ðe̞lˈfi]) is an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in a valley of Phocis. ...
Pythagoreans According to legend, the Greek philosopher Pythagoras discovered the concept of harmony when he began his studies of proportion while listening to the different sounds made when blacksmiths' hammers hit their anvils. The weights of the hammers and of the anvils all gave off different sounds. From here he moved to the study of stringed instruments and the different notes they produced. He started with a single string and produced a monochord in the ratio of 1:1 called the Unison. By varying the strings, he produced other chords: a ratio of 2:1 produced notes an octave apart. (Modern music theory calls a 5:4 ratio a "major third" and an 8:5 ratio a "major sixth".) In further studies of nature, he observed certain patterns and numbers recurring. Pythagoras believed that beauty was associated with ratios of small integers. A philosopher is a person who thinks deeply regarding people, society, the world, and/or the universe. ...
Pythagoras of Samos (Greek: ; circa 580 BC – circa 500 BC) was an Ionian (Greek) philosopher[1] and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. ...
Harmony is the use and study of pitch simultaneity, and therefore chords, actual or implied, in music. ...
With this discovery, the Pythagoreans saw the essence of the cosmos as numbers, so numbers took on special meaning and significance. Astonished by this discovery and awed by it, the Pythagoreans endeavored to keep it secret: they vowed that anyone who revealed the secret would be put to death. The Pythagoreans were a Hellenic organization of astronomers, musicians, mathematicians, and philosophers who believed that all things are, essentially, numeric. ...
The Ancient and Medieval cosmos as depicted in Peter Apians Cosmographia (Antwerp, 1539). ...
The symbol of the Pythagorean brotherhood was the pentagram, the proportions of which embody the golden ratio. A pentagram A pentagram (sometimes known as pentalpha or pentangle) is the shape of a five-pointed star drawn with five straight strokes. ...
The golden section is a line segment sectioned into two according to the golden ratio. ...
Socrates Socrates teaches that a man "must know how to choose the mean and avoid the extremes on either side, as far as possible". Socrates (Greek: , invariably anglicized as , Sǒcratēs; circa 470–399 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher who is widely credited for laying the foundation for Western philosophy. ...
In education, Socrates asks us to consider the effect of either an exclusive devotion to gymnastics or an exclusive devotion to music. It either "produced a temper of hardness and ferocity, (or) the other of softness and effeminacy". Having both qualities, he believed, produces harmony; i.e., beauty and goodness. He additionally stresses the importance of mathematics in education for the understanding of beauty and truth. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...
Plato Something disproportionate was evil and therefore to be despised. Plato says, "If we disregard due proportion by giving anything what is too much for it; too much canvas to a boat, too much nutriment to a body, too much authority to a soul, the consequence is always shipwreck." For other uses, see Plato (disambiguation). ...
In the Laws, Plato applies this principle to electing a government in the ideal state: "Conducted in this way, the election will strike a mean between monarchy and democracy …" The Laws is Platos last and longest dialogue. ...
Aristotle In the Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle writes on the virtues. His constant phrase is, "… is the Middle state between …". His psychology of the soul and its virtues is based on the golden mean between the extremes. In the Politics, Aristotle criticizes the Spartan Polity by critiquing the disproportionate elements of the constitution; i.e. they trained the men and not the women and they trained for war but not peace. This disharmony produced difficulties which he elaborates on. Aristotle (Greek: AristotélÄ“s) (384 BC – March 7, 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. ...
Quotations - "In many things the middle have the best / Be mine a middle station."
— Phocylides - "When Coleridge tried to define beauty, he returned always to one deep thought; beauty, he said, is unity in variety! Science is nothing else than the search to discover unity in the wild variety of nature,—or, more exactly, in the variety of our experience. Poetry, painting, the arts are the same search, in Coleridge’s phrase, for unity in variety."
— J. Bronowski - "…but for harmony beautiful to contemplate, science would not be worth following."
— Henri Poincaré. - "If a man finds that his nature tends or is disposed to one of these extremes..., he should turn back and improve, so as to walk in the way of good people, which is the right way. The right way is the mean in each group of dispositions common to humanity; namely, that disposition whch is equally distant from the two extremes in its class, not being nearer to the one than to the other."
— Maimonides Phocylides, Greek gnomic poet of Miletus, contemporary of Theognis, was born about 560 BC. A few fragments of his maxims have survived (chiefly in the Florilegium of Stobaeus), in which he expresses his contempt for the pomps and vanities of rank and wealth, and sets forth in simple language his...
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (October 21, 1772 – July 25, 1834) (pronounced ) was an English poet, critic, and philosopher who was, along with his friend William Wordsworth, one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and one of the Lake Poets. ...
Jules TuPac Henri Poincaré (April 29, 1854 – July 17, 1912) (IPA: [][1]) was one of Frances greatest mathematicians and theoretical physicists, and a philosopher of science. ...
Commonly used image indicating one artists conception of Maimonidess appearance Maimonides (March 30, 1135 or 1138–December 13, 1204) was a Jewish rabbi, physician, and philosopher in Spain and Egypt during the Middle Ages. ...
Miscellanea - Jacques Maritain, throughout his Introduction to Philosophy, uses the idea of the golden mean to place Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy between the deficiencies and extremes of other philosophers and systems.
Jacques Maritain Jacques Maritain (November 18, 1882 – April 28, 1973) was a French Catholic philosopher. ...
References - Republic 619, Jowett p. 394.
- Laws, 691c,756e-757a .
- Eudemian Ethics, 1233b15; Loeb Classical Library, p. 351-355.
- Politics, Aristotle, 1270af and 1271b; Loeb p. 137 and p. 147.
See also To the ancient Greeks, Paideia (παιδεία) was the process of educating man into his true form, the real and genuine human nature. ...
Bibliography - The Greek Way, Edith Hamilton, W. W. Norton & Co., NY, l993.
- Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea, Why the Greeks Matter, Thomas Cahill, Nan A. Talese an imprint of Doubleday, NY, 2003.
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