The elusive splendor of beauty

Beauty is something most of us experience intensely but struggle to understand reflectively. We glimpse beauty all around us: in nature, art, the human body, and even in the rules of thought and number. But what can we say, if anything, about the character of beauty as such? Thinkers who tried their hand at this question ended up with contrary conclusions. Some thought beauty resided in the eye of the beholder; others thought beauty is not just external to us but higher than us. Some considered beauty to be akin to virtue; others considered beauty to be morally suspect. How can something so timeless provoke such contrary claims? What is beauty’s relation to being, truth, and goodness? How can it lead us to transcendent values or the divine? In this seminar series, we will examine six different accounts of beauty, and seek to understand its elusive splendor.

This series is open to all undergraduates, graduate students, and recent graduates. RSVP by the individual events below.

SCHEDULE

• Wednesday, February 9: Bad Music and Bad Books I (related event)

• Wednesday, February 16: Bad Music and Bad Books II (related event)

• Monday, March 21: Plotinus (Dr. Nathaniel Peters)

• Monday, March 28: Scholasticism and the Splendor of Form (Dr. Matthew Rose)

• Monday, April 4: Kant and Schiller (Dr. Matthew Rose)

• Monday, April 11: David Bentley Hart & Hans Urs von Balthasar (Dr. Nathaniel Peters)