MUSINGS ON TRUTH, GOODNESS, AND BEAUTY
Jason Caros | May 9, 2022
He who has not much meditated upon God, the Humane mind, and the Summum Bonum, may possibly make a thriving earthworm, but will certainly make a sorry patriot and a sorry statesman. – George Berkeley
I am the headmaster of a classical school. As headmaster I teach one class each day, in addition to my administrative duties. The class I teach is not any old class. By “any old class” I mean that I do not bounce around from grade to grade, discipline to discipline, and teach here and there, but I teach one group of students all year long. My role as an instructor is an essential one, and by teaching I take part in an old tradition of the classical school headmaster who is both the head of the school (i.e. principal administrator) and head teacher, or “master” in the older manner of describing an instructor in the English-speaking world. Modern schools have gotten so large and the responsibilities so numerous that it would be almost inconceivable for a principal to teach a yearlong course today.
I view my teaching as a blessing from above. Why? For one, a school leader should love to teach students, and I do. Teaching is one of the highlights of my day. Another is that teaching helps me in my relationships with our faculty as I’m doing what they are doing on a daily basis–creating lessons and presenting them to students, grading papers, updating our grade book, interacting with parents about their children’s progress in class, etc. Because of these responsibilities it is easier for me to relate to our teachers’ day-to-day experiences, both joys and concerns, and to stay grounded in our mission. Third, by developing relationships with students in class, I have a better pulse on student life.
With that background in mind, one day in class, my students and I were discussing Ancient Greek philosophy. In particular, we discussed the difference between philosophy and sophistry. You probably know that the word philosophy is derived from two Greek words and means “love of wisdom” (philo and sophia). Pythagoras, of Pythagorean Theorem fame, coined the word philosophy in the 6th century BC and it has been used ever since to describe the pursuits of a person who actively seeks wisdom and the summum bonum, or the highest good in life. This means that the professor who teaches about philosophy and collects a check, but who does not actually pursue wisdom and the good life, is not truly a philosopher. On the other hand, the clerk at a local retail store who seeks the greatest good in his life and orders it around the true, good, and beautiful is more rightly called a lover of wisdom.
The ancient sage we know as Socrates was a philosopher and teacher who walked the walk and talked the talk, as the saying goes. While Socrates was not the world’s first philosopher in chronological measures, he is one of the world’s principle philosophers in terms of the foundation he laid, the example he led, and the legacy he left behind. In his day there was a group of self-described “wise men” called sophists who taught young Greek men, not how to seek wisdom, but how to win arguments. You see, Socrates quickly figured out that sophists didn’t really care for truth, or perhaps believed it was rather subjective, but instead received payments from parents who wished for their children to get the best education in many things and to rise up the political ladder in democratic Athens. As a result of Plato’s and Aristotle’s writings, the word sophistry has come to mean the intentional use of fallacious reasoning, verbal flourishing, and moral unscrupulousness in the effort to persuade audiences. Sophists were able to wow their audiences with flowery language, seeming expertise, and strong sounding arguments, which on the surface seemed to make sense, but in fact included fallacious or erroneous reasoning. I asked my students if they thought sophists were still around today and the first response was, “Yes, politicians.” I let them know that politician is not synonymous with sophist. I do believe we have good and decent public servants of integrity in our country, but it is evident that some do not always serve the common good. In politics, sophistry is often at work in the arguments of candidates at political debates and in campaign ads, but sophistry is not confined to politics. It is, in fact, ubiquitous in our culture. It appears in day-to-day conversations, books, editorials, radio, films and television shows, and even in marketing advertisements that include television commercials. If you watched the recent Superbowl and didn’t DVR the game and skip the commercials, you saw a subtler form of sophistry at play. Think about those and other commercials. Are the companies who pay for these ads trying to convince viewers to purchase their products or services on the basis of 1) facts, 2) logic, 3) reliable experience, or 4) something else?
There is much to say about modern day sophistry and the many ways in which it is widespread in our society. For the sake of this writing, however, I will finish with a word about our focus at Founders Classical Academy where I serve. One of our goals is to prepare students to be both eloquent and wise—to shun sophistry and truly embrace philosophy. We accomplish this by first cultivating a love of the true, good, and beautiful in students. In short, we promote virtue. We also do this by teaching a knowledge-rich curriculum and by helping students to master the English language, for much of the allure of sophistry is in its use of language (grammar and syntax are really, really important). We also do this by not merely teaching students to think critically in some nebulous sense of the phrase, but by teaching students informal and formal logic passed down to us by the Socratic philosophers themselves, and by having our children study the art of rhetoric. That is, the art of persuading an audience of the truthfulness of one’s convictions by using the appropriate and available means to do so. This effort begins in earnest in kindergarten and continues through twelfth grade.
Before moving into the heart of this reflection, it is important to note that philosophers and theologians have thought deeply about truth, goodness and beauty, delving into what for Plato were archetypal forms and ideas, and for theologians, divine attributes or energies. Here, I will not reflect on cosmic as much as microcosmic considerations, and as the title of this essay suggests, while the topic is inscrutable, what follows are simply musings. With this introduction in mind, for the remainder of this essay I will consider each universal—truth, goodness and beauty, in turn.
ON TRUTH
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. – Winston Churchill
You can’t handle the truth! So said Colonel Jessup to Lieutenant Kaffee in A Few Good Men. Above, I described the pursuits of a person who actively seeks wisdom and the summum bonum as being that of a philosopher, the one who actually pursues wisdom and the good life. At Founders, we are helping to educate philosophers—that is young men and women who, no matter their future vocational paths, will seek to understand what it means to be human and to live well. In the paragraphs that follow I will emphasize an essential part of this pursuit, the universals.
The image just above, on the left, is my school's crest. At the center is an American Bald Eagle who grasps a key in its left talon; this is the key to wisdom. The eagle holds three arrows in its right talon. Those arrows represent what are known as the universals: the good, true, and beautiful. The universals appear in another one of our school symbols, our student motto poster. The first part of the motto is “I will honor those things which are good, true, and beautiful.” All this begs the question, "What does it mean to say truth, beauty, and goodness are universals?"
By referring to truth, beauty, and goodness as universals I mean that they are timeless, transcendent, and form the basis of reality, and for this reason should form the foundation of our human pursuits. Additionally, I mean they describe objective realities, not subjective ones. On this note, one might ask a simple question like “what is truth?” and "in what way is truth objective?" The Socratic philosophers provided us with a good response to this question when they taught with clarity and conciseness that that which is, is, or that that which is not, is not; and that our opinions are false when they claim that that which is, is not, or that which is not, is. When the is or is not statements agree with the way things truly are then our statements are true and agree with the facts of reality, or the way things really are. Reality, whether in a small thing or a transcendent one, is what we mean by “the true.” So, truth includes, but goes beyond, mere facts.
The opposite of truth is falsehood. Sometimes these falsehoods are the result of innocent errors, and other times they are intentionally made. Developing the ability to test truth claims and discern whether or not they are actually true is a key to rational inquiry; Socrates was a master at seeking truth and testing claims and we should follow Socrates in this regard. In some instances, when things are not evidently true, determining whether something is true can be difficult. For this reason, some people are contented with what they believe. For others, the pursuit of truth is a life-long endeavor.
I noted earlier the importance of a knowledge-rich education and the mastery of our language to attaining wisdom. Here I would like to add something else in the context of knowing and defending truth. The reason why a classical education is a liberal arts and sciences education is because the arts (i.e. the tools of learning) and the sciences (i.e. the disciplines of knowledge) are liberating or freeing. They help us to break free of enslaving ignorance, delusions, and passions. They help us to arrive at and understand truth so we can live within the realm of reality. The liberal arts and sciences help us to not only discover the truth, but to handle the truth, and to bring our lives in alignment with the truth.
ON GOODNESS
It’s not living that is important, but living rightly. – Socrates
“How are you?” “I’m good.” At the beginning of each school year I enjoy asking students a very typical question, “How are you?” To my normal inquiry, I usually receive a common response, “I’m good.” This reply is ubiquitous in our culture so I’m prepared for it. I then ask, “Are you sure you are good?” Perplexed is their normal reaction, and from that point on the students make strong efforts to respond differently to the greeting.
As you might imagine, I have an ulterior motive in asking students this seemingly mundane question. I’m trying to help them to think about the words they use and the meaning of those words, and to enculturate them on a topic of importance. I want them to consider two things. First, is “I’m good” a correct response to the greeting, assuming a positive response is in order? Second, what does it really mean to say “I’m good?”
The English word “good” comes to us from Old English. It meant “god.” The etymology helps us to understand the early meaning of a word like goodbye as a departing blessing rather than a simple saying that means “see ya later.” While the Old English meaning may have implications for goodness as a universal, what can be said about the word good in today’s common usage?
The word good, used as an adjective, can be understood in a hierarchical way, as in ranking the order of good, better, and best. In this case, it is used to describe value or degree. When I ask someone how he or she is doing, I’m not inquiring about “good” in this sense. As a noun, the word good can refer to an object or idea that is desired, a good that is sought after or wanted. Again, when I ask how someone is doing, I’m not considering good in this material or ideal manner. There is a third way to understand good. That is, as an ontological and intrinsic good (ontological refers to the reality of being or real essence). This third meaning is connected to something I will discuss below; namely, that the beautiful thing is intrinsically beautiful. Its beauty is not projected onto it from the outside. Likewise, goodness has an intrinsic nature; it is objectively good because of its nature. In fact, this is the meaning of the Greek word for good, agathos (ἀγαθός), used by the ancient Greek philosophers and other thinkers ever since. On this note, in point five of the characteristics of beauty listed later in this essay, the beauty of goodness is the beauty found when a thing has the type of goodness that is relevant for its nature: a tree has beauty when it is a good tree... Following this understanding, the good is really the thing inside each thing that makes it what it is. With this in mind I can pick up a glass of water and use it to its proper end and think “This is a good glass.” I can use a hammer that I use to drive a nail into wood and describe both the hammer and nail as good. But how about us? What about humans? Can we use the word to describe ourselves?
Shortly, I will pick up on the topic of human goodness and what classical education has to say about how to promote goodness in students, and in humans in general. As for the original question, “How are you?,” when I ask it I am not asking about goodness in the three definitional ways described above. For this reason, it is appropriate to respond, “I’m well,” “I’m fine,” or some similar reply that might include some modifiers. Reserve “good” for another context and start to observe how people respond to your greeting…
MORE GOODNESS
As children, learn good manners. As young people, control your passions. In the middle age, be just. In old age, give wise advice. Then you can die–with no regrets. - Wisdom from Delphi
“It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood. A beautiful day for a neighbor, would you be mine? Could you be mine?...Won’t you be my neighbor?” You may recognize these lines from the long-running children’s television program, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Fred Rogers, a Presbyterian minister and TV celebrity, was an iconic figure who touched the lives of millions and millions of pre-school aged children through his show which ran from 1968 through 2001. I suspect many who read this grew up watching him interact with children and adults in a kind and civil manner, teach both life and academic lessons, and entertain and instruct through his music and puppeteering. He was a man who truly left his mark. Mr. Rogers’ overarching emphasis was on lifting up children of all backgrounds, encouraging them to strive to be their best, and teaching them the importance of being good neighbors. His lessons were significant, and it seems to me that our society can use a booster dose of Mr. Rogers’ medicine every now and then.
So, what of human goodness and what does classical education have to say about how to promote goodness in students, and in humans in general? So here it is in a nutshell—we essentially do what Mr. Rogers did, and what wise parents and teachers have done for millennia. We follow a three-fold path described by Aristotle in Ethics. First, you promote goodness, or virtue, by forming good habits in children. Mr. Rogers was a man who promoted good habits, some of which were on display from the moment he starting singing at the beginning of the show while putting away his jacket, changing his shoes, greeting people with courtesy, etc. At home and at school, habits are academic in nature, what one might call “habits of mind.” These habits include those related to work ethic and practice, a spirit of inquiry, and a sense of wonder. Additionally, there are more mundane or everyday habits we promote in both places like putting one’s things away after using them, or saying thank you after someone has said or done something worthy of gratitude, etc. Second, you promote goodness by teaching precepts. In other words, when learning about noble men and women, prudent decision-makers, people who display courage and other virtues, parents and teachers can highlight them, directly or indirectly, and discuss virtuous speech and actions as templates for our own lives. Mr. Rogers’ programs were full of this type of instruction—through songs, book readings, skits, field trips and special visits from notable people. Third, you promote goodness by modeling it. Mr. Rogers was universally admired as a man of integrity and his goodness was on display in each of his shows. Students must see their parents and teachers speaking and behaving in virtuous ways if the goodness is to be actualized in them. As you well know, the saying “Do as I say and not as I do” is a false maxim. The habits and precepts we teach children will most likely be undone by our negative examples. This is not to say we adults must be perfect. There is no such perfect person among us. But we should strive to model goodness at all times and when we stumble, pick ourselves up and make things right so our children can learn the importance of metanoia, a precursor to virtues.
An important thing to keep in mind about goodness or virtue is that it is not static. The habits, precepts, and examples work on the human soul in a cumulative way, and to prevent backsliding, consistency and longevity are critical as the nurturing of virtue, like cultivating a beautiful garden, is a process that begins at an early age and needs to be tilled throughout our lives.
At Founders, we strongly endeavor to support parents, the first and most important educators of their children, to raise up young men and women to become noble, well-educated people who understand what it means to be human and who understand our complex world, so that they can live well in it.
Post script: Mr. Rogers responded to “How are you” with “I’m fine,” or “I’m well.”
ON BEAUTY
If you wish to destroy a people you must first sever them from their roots.
- Aleksandr Solzhenitzyn
Heroes sometimes come from unlikely places. Aleksandr Solzhenitzyn was born in 1918 in Russia. As a young man he supported a form of Marxism known as Bolshevism, but after realizing the falsehood of this radical communist ideology, and seeing firsthand the cruelty wrought by its proponents, he became a vocal critic of the movement and its leaders. During portions of his life he spent time as a prisoner in a forced labor camp, or gulag, and was later exiled from Russia. He was unable to return to his homeland until after the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990’s.
Solzhenitzyn was a novelist, an historian, and a philosopher. He authored a number of well-known and powerful works including a history called The Gulag Archipelago and a novel our seniors read entitled One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Both reveal the cruelty and injustice of the Russian gulag system and life under a tyranny. In 1970, the philosopher-writer was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for the ethical force with which he had pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature. Among those traditions was a commitment to objective truth, beauty, and goodness. To this end, in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech Solzhenitzyn repeated an enigmatic line from the work of an earlier and most famous Russian novelist who said: “Beauty will save the world.” After quoting Dostoevsky, Solzhenitzyn continued:
What does this mean? For a long time it used to seem to me that this was a mere phrase. Just how could such a thing be possible? When had it ever happened in the bloodthirsty course of history that beauty had saved anyone from anything? Beauty had provided embellishment certainly, given uplift—but whom had it ever saved?... (I)f the too obvious, too straight branches of Truth and Good are crushed or amputated and cannot reach the light—yet perhaps the whimsical, unpredictable, unexpected branches of Beauty will make their way through and soar up to that very place and in this way perform the work of all three. And in that case it was not a slip of the tongue for Dostoyevsky to say that “Beauty will save the world,” but a prophecy... [emphasis added]
Solzhenitzyn’s Nobel speech is as meaningful today as it was fifty years ago as the universality of truth and goodness are called into question daily, and things that were once citadels of civilization are deconstructed brick by brick. Ironically, as a man who had experienced cruelty and ugliness the likes of which most would never see, he found in beauty an antidote to the growing subjectivity and moral relativism of the age. To counter falsehood, he promoted literature and art. To defend truth and goodness, he offered beauty.
MORE BEAUTY
“The contemplation of beauty causes the soul to grow wings.” - Plato
In a previous section I began a discussion of the universals (i.e. truth, beauty, and goodness) with an emphasis on truth. Just above, I included the words of a heroic and modern author who offered a remedy to the maladies of our day—beauty. Now, I will continue this theme by discussing the role of beauty in drawing us toward goodness and truth, and I will begin with a question: Are you attracted by Muses or Sirens?
Aleksandr Solzhenitzyn wrote and spoke on the importance of beauty. In the excerpt above he said that if the branches of truth and goodness cannot reach the light then perhaps the branches of beauty will make their way through and soar up to perform the work of all three. In other words, when truth and goodness are hidden or obscured, sometimes intentionally, there is a saving quality to beauty that can bring them all to the fore. So, what is it about beauty that helps to save the day? What is beauty’s relationship to the true and good?
To discuss the saving element of beauty I will borrow a metaphor about Muses and Sirens from Steven Turley’s Awakening Wonder. In Greek mythology, the Muses were nine daughters of Zeus who inspired beauty and truth; they were brought into the world to help others forget the evils of the world and their beautiful voices helped to relieve sorrows of the past. The Sirens, on the other hand, were attractive in appearance but dangerous creatures that enchanted sailors with their singing, thereby luring men to their deaths (think of the Sirens of Homer’s Odyssey or those in Apollonius’ story about Jason and the Argonauts). The Muses and Sirens both used what appeared to be beauty but with different ends. One attracted listeners with beauty and led them to life, while the other seduced listeners with a counterfeit (false beauty) and led them to death.
Attraction vs. seduction—what’s the difference? The connection between beauty and attraction can be found in the etymology of the Greek word for beauty, kalos (καλὸς). Kalos is related to the verb kalein, which means “to call.” In the context of Solzhenitzyn’s words about beauty, as well as the mythological role of the Muses described above, we can say that beauty calls, or has a gravitational attraction. Counterfeits also attract us, to be sure, but toward the negative or vices; they lure and seduce us. Beauty, on the other hand, pulls us toward goodness and truth. This understanding of beauty helps to make sense of Plato’s famous words: “The object of education is to teach us to love what is beautiful,” for if we can cultivate our affections such that we desire the beautiful, then we are more likely to find the good and true. This perspective should inform the way in which we raise and educate our children, both in the formal school setting and during the school of life. With this in mind, it really, really matters what we have our children read, watch, and listen to. Are they reading edifying books and other print materials? What comes across their eyes and ears as they watch television and films, surf the Internet, or pass their time on social media? What melodies and lyrics are making an imprint on them while they listen to music? Are they good? Are they true? Are they beautiful?
But how do we know what is beautiful? And, isn’t beauty in the eye of the beholder anyway?
My son and I typically listen to music while traveling to school. One day while listening to Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 Prelude in G-Major (listen here) I said, “I love this.” My son replied, “yeah, me too.” To which I added, “this cello suite is beautiful.” My son smiled…
We live in an age of subjectivity, a time characterized by relativistic attitudes about mundane topics as well as larger philosophical and moral concerns that at one time were almost universally approached with objectivity. At Founders, we believe in and promote objective realities. Are we wrong? Are truth, beauty, and goodness really objective? Do truth, beauty, and goodness even exist? If so, says whom?
While it is true that humans can and should be partial at times, we do face ambiguities, and there are plenty of topics up for debate (e.g. Which is the best flavor, chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla?; Who had the better voice, Ella Fitzgerald or Sara Vaughan?; or Who was the greatest president, George Washington or Abraham Lincoln?), there are also universals that transcend our opinions, desires, and bellies. The important thing is to have the tools to discover the universals, to build affections for them, and to defend them.
On the subject of beauty, let’s consider music from Bach for a moment. Is it beautiful, or as the saying goes, is the beauty in the eye, or ear, of the beholder? For the subjectivist, the one who believes beauty is relative or subject to the individual, Bach’s masterpiece is not intrinsically beautiful. It is only beautiful insofar as the listener himself believes it is beautiful. In this mode of thought, when a person asserts that something is beautiful or ugly, he does not say something concrete about the object in question. Instead, he suggests that the individual’s response to that object is beautiful or ugly. In the same way, a person’s response to a rose, to a sunset, or to another human being is what makes each object beautiful or ugly (i.e. in the eye of the beholder).
In Paideia, one of the courses taught by our philosophy instructor, Dr. Tutuska, he discusses with tenth graders philosophical questions and ideas from the great books of the Western Tradition. In the past he has used the following five characteristics to discuss how something is beautiful for its own sake. In other words, why a beautiful thing is inherently beautiful (notice how these are not dependent on the whim, fancy or taste of the individual):
1 Beauty of function: the beauty that is found when a thing is well suited to accomplishing its relevant purpose. When an instrument or tool is well suited to carrying out a certain type of work, we recognize it as 'fine,' as a beautiful member of its kind. The knife that is perfect for functioning as a knife has beauty as a knife. The pen that writes with perfection, gracefully, and smoothly, with a good weight in the hand, has a type of beauty as a pen.
2 Beauty of goodness: the beauty that is found when a thing has the type of goodness that is relevant for its nature: a tree has beauty when it is a good tree, which means a healthy, strong tree. A rabbit is beautiful when it has the goodness that is relevant for a rabbit, when it is a healthy and strong rabbit that performs all the activities of a rabbit.
3 Beauty of truth: the beauty that is found when a thing is true to its kind or nature. When a particular eagle is true to the nature of eagle, showing the fullness of eagle-ness, it has beauty.
4 Beauty of integrity, proportion, clarity: Integrity refers to the wholeness (unity) of the thing, proportion to balance and harmony among the parts that make up the thing, and clarity to the way in which the order or pattern of the whole can be found by one who reflects upon the thing.
5 Beauty of variation and noble extravagance: the beauty that comes from the possession of noble features that are striking, prominent, and extreme. The uniqueness and difference of these noble and striking features contribute to their appeal. This is how one makes sense of 'sublime' beauty, beauty such as is found in things that are overwhelming, immense, and overpowering (for example, the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, the Alps, etc.).
Using these objective criteria, one can recognize beauty in many things. Here are a small handful: a rose, a sunset, a musical composition (of various genres), a fine painting, a Greco-Roman building, a human body, a mathematics equation, and a well-executed basketball play. Regarding a basketball play, I was watching a game recently and heard the announcer say “that was a beautiful play.” I’m not sure if he meant to say “beautiful” in the philosophical sense, but he was right, by definition, in calling it beautiful. It was well executed, beautiful to behold, and resulted in two points.
To review, beauty has a gravitational pull; it attracts us to the true and the good as opposed to a counterfeit, which may seduce or delude us and draw us toward falsehood, vice, or something dangerous. Beauty is discernable and objective. Regardless of how I feel about, or how much I appreciate or do not appreciate beauty, beauty is intrinsic to the nature of the beautiful thing. Beauty and taste, or preference, are two different things.
I would like to share one more consideration about beauty through a simile and a brief anecdote. The thought is that beauty reigns over counterfeits—just as gold is cherished over fool’s gold, the greater overcomes the lesser. And, returning to Greek mythology, there is a story told that Hera, the wife of Zeus and queen of the gods, persuaded the Muses and Sirens to enter a singing contest. The truly beautiful Muses defeated the seductive Sirens and plucked out the Sirens’ feathers. The Sirens fell into the sea and seduced men no more. Now, the story is symbolically instructive. But if true, it is certainly good.
To end, Toynbee and others have said that we are always only one generation away from barbarism. In an era marked by uncertainty, deconstructionism, and relativism, it is unclear what our nation will look like a generation from now. If we are to remain civilized and free, we must pass on to our children the good, true, and beautiful elements of our culture and encourage them to love and preserve the principles, traditions, and practices that ought to be loved and preserved. We must help them to become truly human and live well in a state of liberty. This is our aim at classical schools. Our endeavor is a countercultural one. It is an arduous one. It is a necessary one.
Jason Caros is a husband, father and classical school headmaster.