"(Citing the Metaphysics of Aristotle) ‘The good and the beautiful are different because the former is always in praxis, while the latter is also in immovable things.’ [...] For Aristotle, a true good must be achievable through practice. Beauty, on the other hand, is not always achievable; there is one aspect of beauty that is achievable, which is achievable through practice and is therefore an action, but there is clearly another aspect of beauty that is not achievable and which places it in the realm of immutable realities, i.e. realities that do not depend on human action. [...] “Beauty is always order, symmetry and determinacy”. [...] These characteristics – according to Aristotle – also belong to immobile realities such as mathematical objects. Mathematical objects are beautiful because they are orderly, symmetrical and determinate. Think of geometric figures, think of geometric theorems. Mathematicians themselves say today that a theorem, a proof, can be beautiful, can be elegant. And this confirms Aristotle's idea of beauty as belonging to immutable realities. Mathematical objects are not practicable, they cannot be realised through action; they are there, they must be described, they must be proven, but they are not the product of our action, so they are immutable realities, but that is why they are beautiful. [...] For Aristotle, there are many goods: for example, health is a good, strength is a good, wealth is a good. Therefore, many human actions have these goods as their end. [...] However, some actions are good because they procure goods, but they are not beautiful actions, there is no reason to consider them beautiful."
Enrico Berti

January 1, 1970

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