“Truth, Goodness, and Beauty” have been themes of philosophy from antiquity to the present, but the meaning these three words have for people seems to have changed in certain ways.
In the eyes of the ancients, “truth, goodness, and beauty” represented the highest “pursuits.” Just as philosophy is “the love of wisdom,” the pursuit of wisdom, people pursued “truth, goodness, and beauty,” regarding them as supreme ideals.
For example, the question traditional ethics asks is: for the sake of “goodness,” what ought we to do? What kind of behavior is worthy of goodness? Modern so-called “normative ethics,” represented by utilitarianism, asks instead: for what purpose do we do good? For the sake of what is behavior good? Utilitarianism’s answer is: goodness is “the greatest happiness,” and behavior that promotes the greatest happiness is good.
These two ways of asking seem more or less the same, but there is a fundamental difference. The former takes “goodness” as a pursuit; the latter takes “goodness” as a requirement. In the former, “goodness” means a kind of “yearning”; in the latter, “goodness” means providing a “norm.”
When the ancients urged people that they “ought to do good,” they meant: “For the sake of ‘goodness,’ you should do what is worthy of it.” When modern people urge others that they “ought to do good,” they mean: “For the sake of . . . (for example, for the sake of the greatest happiness), you should do behavior that conforms to ‘goodness.’”
For the ancients, the question of why one should pursue truth, goodness, and beauty was another matter. Aristotle said that “the desire to know is part of human nature,” and Mencius’s statement that “human nature is originally good” likewise means that the pursuit of goodness and the inclination toward goodness are part of human nature. For the ancients, human beings ought to yearn for truth, goodness, and beauty; this was a basic starting point, after which one discussed what kind of conduct would be worthy of such yearning. Modern people, under the influence of the so-called critical spirit of skepticism, are more often preoccupied with understanding the question of “what is truth, goodness, or beauty?” as “what is the definition of truth, goodness, and beauty?” In fact, as we should already understand from Socrates, questions such as “what is goodness?” cannot be given a clear-cut definition; what matters is the discussion and pursuit of this question, not the delivery of a final conclusion.
The modern way of thinking is: only when one knows the exact meaning of a thing, knows its definition or stipulation, is it possible to pursue it. But in fact it is rather the opposite: perhaps precisely because we do not know the exact meaning of “truth, goodness, and beauty,” yet everyone has some notion of “truth, goodness, and beauty,” and everyone feels that these concepts are “good,” though no one has clearly possessed them, that we pursue them so relentlessly. To inquire into their meaning is part of the “pursuit” of them; and the earliest and most fundamental status of the concepts “truth, goodness, and beauty” is that of human beings’ highest pursuits and yearnings. But when “goodness” enters normative ethics, it becomes the lowest requirement and criterion.
Utilitarians believe that behavior oriented toward “increasing happiness” is “good,” while opponents of utilitarianism may argue: “happiness” cannot be the yardstick for measuring “goodness”; behavior that promotes . . . is what is good . . . But the paradigm of these disputes is utterly different from that of traditional virtue ethics.
Similarly, modern science has dropped the “pursuit” in the “pursuit of knowledge”; science is no longer the pursuer of “knowledge,” but has become its provider. The question “‘What is’ truth?” discussed in epistemology and philosophy of science means: what is the definition of “truth”? What is the criterion for measuring “truth”? — “What is it that conforms to the standard of ‘truth’?” and “What is it that is worthy of the pursuit of ‘truth’?” are two questions that may yield similar answers, yet differ in essence. The former regards “truth” as the lowest requirement; the latter regards “truth” as the highest ideal.
Compared with the others, the idea of “beauty” is relatively more stable, but it still undergoes similar changes to a greater or lesser extent—“aesthetics” increasingly becomes entangled in setting “standards” for what is beautiful and what is ugly, and discussions of “the aesthetic” gradually turn into discussions of “the anti-aesthetic.” The artist’s and the aesthete’s first identity should be that of a “seeker” of beauty, not a “dealer” in beauty.
Philosophers should always keep in mind the distinction between a “lover of wisdom” and a “wise man”; philosophers are the most fervent seekers of “truth, goodness, and beauty,” but not their dealers.
October 2, 2006
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Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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