Platonic proportions: beauty, harmony and the good life

Despite the strict censorship of the arts advocated in the Republic, beauty is of central importance throughout Plato’s works. This entry examines in particular the role of harmony in Plato and considers how, when internalized in the psyche, it equates to virtue, mental health, and flourishing. What does Plato mean by harmonia and its cognates? How does he reach this notion of psychic harmony in theory, and how does he think it can be achieved in practice? What are the dangers inherent in his views on harmony and could there be any Platonic responses to them? I argue that Plato’s thinking on proportion and harmony has its roots in the Pythagorean application of mathematics to musical theory and the cosmos as a whole. Plato develops their work and extends it to the human psyche and society, arguing that early aesthetic education—both formal and informal—is vital: the child must first be taught to appreciate ‘true’, objective outer beauty before reason can understand the mathematical underpinnings of both outer and inner harmonies. The influence of Plato’s thinking about proportion and harmony on many traditions in western culture is briefly touched on, and challenges are raised. Do his theories open the door to psychiatric and political abuse? And if immersion in artistic beauty helps create inner harmony, how is it that some very wicked people have claimed to love the arts? I conclude by suggesting that Plato’s tripartite psychology can address some, but not all, of these challenges.