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The True, the Good, and the Beautiful: The Good
Last week, we began our conversation about this topic with the expression: I will seek the true, do the good, and love the beautiful. Our students commit this to memory. Today, we will cover the second part.
Plato believed that behind everything we see is what he called a form, a perfect ideal of what a thing should be. For every tree we see with its beauty and flaws, there is behind it a clear notion of what a perfect tree is. This concept applies to non-physical things as well. To Plato, we can know what courage is because it exists as a real idea, apart from our imagination. From this perfect form, we can agree what courage is and recognize it in others when we see it. We won’t achieve perfect courage because we have our limits, but because we can easily comprehend it, we can aspire to feats of great courage.
Importantly, this applies to the good as well. Cicero, the Roman philosopher and statesman, called it the Summum Bonum, or the highest good. After studying many different schools of thought, he came to believe that there was in fact a best way to live, a so-called “good life,” and that there was a perfect good to guide us there.
It’s important to note that neither Plato or Cicero was making a theological argument. They simply looked at the world around them, noted its characteristics (observation), contemplated the implications (reason), and knowing all things come from somewhere (intuition), concluded that there was a best way for human beings to act. Even in his related Prime Mover argument, Aristotle doesn’t delve into whether there’s a god or not. But like the rest, he could intuitively understand that there was more in play than molecules.
An Instructional Approach to doing the Good
In our program, we enjoy reading novels where characters clearly represent good and evil. For every hero there’s a villain. For every Hansel and Gretel there is a mean witch. For every Jim Hawkins, there is a Long John Silver. Children can see the difference between good behavior and bad in these characters. Meanwhile, parents teach the same things at home. We illustrate it for them at school. We talk about being trustworthy or a scoundrel. We debate the difference between courage and foolishness. Our students can, when presented with these ideas, discern right and wrong. They know it in their hearts. Our job is to help them love the good so that they will do what is right every day.
We don’t expect perfection. None of us can achieve that in this life. But when we love the good, we generally want it for ourselves and for others around us. This is an essential mindset for living a happy life and building a society that will thrive.
Mike Terry
Natl. Dir. of Classical Education
Founders Classical Academies
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