It was Socrates who first attempted to explore the definition of beauty, and he felt that aesthetics was a form of purity. (Greenwald) His theory was if you found pleasure in objects, there were to be found beautiful. This idea can be considered a form of beauty, but can be restricted. During Socrates lifetime, beauty could be easily measured by the standard of the gods, which was a stately and proportionate sculpture. “Good looks and proper bearing were important to a man’s political prospects.”(“Socrates”) Beauty and god-like looks was linked into the popular imagination. Socrates himself was a simplest; he found pleasure in the effortless geometric shapes, single colors, and musical notes. …show more content…
But in Plato’s Philebus, beauty consists of symmetry and exactness. The measure of beauty is structured and related to intelligence. (“Philosophy of Beauty”) Plato thought beauty was defined by a property of the whole object, and this property remains in the same irrespective of whether someone admires the object or not. He also thought relative beauty exists only in the comparison with ugly objects. Plato came up with the most logical philosophy that beauty couldn’t be defined. If there are some things that have "ideal beauty," then no one can consider it not beautiful.