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Notes on the Need for Beauty: An Intimate Look at Essential Quality

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As I approached my reading of J. Ruth Gendler's "Notes on the Need for Beauty," I immediately put on my hat as a student of philosophy for over half a century. After all, "beauty" is the subject of a branch of philosophy called "aesthetics," a sub-discipline which, unfortunately, does not seem to generate a great deal of attention in the college curriculum of departments of philosophy in our colleges. In fact, as I recall, the department of philosophy where I did all my undergraduate work did not even offer a course in aesthetics. The great idea of "beauty" was discussed -- I went back and checked my undergraduate textbooks -- in exactly one chapter of the text we used for a course in "ontology" (philosophy of being). That was it. Thinking back now, as close as I came to considering aesthetics was a graduate course I took in "philosophy of literature," wherein we studied "beauty" in things literary. We have all heard the familiar phrase "the true, the good, and the beautiful." The "true" gets lots of attention, since it's the object of a controversial branch of philosophy called "epistemology." The "good" also gets lots of attention, since it's somewhat the object of another controversial branch of philosophy dealing with "ethics." But it seems that the "beautiful" does not get much attention from students of philosophy. I now wonder why.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. While Gendler's book is not a philosophical treatise on the subject of "beauty," at least in any strict sense a professional philosopher would recognize, it is, I think, a clarion call to get back to the basics of beauty as an awareness of what we experience in everyday life. The book is a strictly "empirical" approach to the subject which is, of course, necessary at the beginning of any discussion about things (qualities in this case) in the "world-out-there" as well as the "world-within-us." The "measures" of beauty have traditionally been unity, order, and clarity; these are the concepts which have been applied to evaluations of the beautiful since the ancient Greeks. These concepts, however, have to be applied to something that actually exists, either as real or ideal, and it is here where Gendler directs most of our attention: to the simple things around us which we so often just take for granted. We rarely really "see" them, we hardly spend time contemplating them, and we, in our busy and messy contemporary world, ignore them for the most part and wonder if we're not missing something.

Gendler certainly makes an important "philosophical" point (unwittingly or not) when she says that "Beauty, like every other quality -- courage, fear, ugliness, trust, truth, wisdom -- is a part of us and apart from us, inside us and outside us, personal and impersonal. Beauty invites us to build bridges and make connections between the senses and the soul, between contemplation and expression, between ourselves and the world." The great debate in aesthetics has always been the argument over subjectivity versus objectivity: Is beauty merely in the eye of the beholder, or is there something "out there" which, in fact, possesses the quality of beauty regardless of the beholder? Gendler appears to take the middle road on the issue and I agree with her: "Beauty . . . is a part of us and apart from us, inside us and outside us." Her book provides numerous examples to support her observation.

Beauty is, however, a most elusive quality. Its nature is no tenuous that it always seems to escape in the very moment of its capture. There is hardly a term in any language which is used more and abused more than "beauty." The conflicting varieties of its definition are truly amazing -- a sure indication of the complexity of its nature and of the many-sided character of its appeal. Beauty manifests itself in so many and in such divergent forms that it is extremely difficult to discover the general element common to them all. Gendler simply asks us to "look" around us and "consider" ordinary things: light, darkness, mirrors, windows, faces, masks, clothes, the human body, and even cups, bowls, and baskets. She takes one on an adventure into the "obvious," although in this case the obvious may have been missed all the time. Here, there is no mere glossing over the beauty that is present in our lives. This is an "intimate" confrontation. The reader is compelled toward an encounter with the quality of beauty anywhere and everywhere.

"Notes on the Need for Beauty" is a book to be enjoyed at leisure; it is not a book to be read quickly. It contains prose to be reflected upon; images to be savored quietly; ideas to be considered over time. From a strictly philosophical point of view, I think the instances of beauty that Gendler provides in her work, commonplace as most of them may be, do satisfy perhaps the best definition of beauty that I've ever come across: "Pulchra sunt quae visa placent," that is, "things are beautiful which please when perceived." That definition is courtesy of St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest classical realistic philosophers the world has ever produced. I suspect that Aquinas would have enjoyed Gendler's book since he was, contrary to the view of all too many "modern" philosophers, a most empirical and "down-to-earth" thinker who did not disdain nor dismiss the "beauty" which surrounds us in our most common, conventional, and everyday life.

Finally, the media bombard us daily with the ugliness in the world: the useless deaths, the unnecessary destruction, the epidemic diseases, the multitudinous disasters, the unconscionable crimes of humanity. Now is the time to take some "time-out" and reflect on the beautiful, on those things, simple as they are, that make a full life worth living. Gendler's book is a good guide to doing just that. And that is why I highly recommend this work to all readers.

This is a lovely book. It reawakens us to the real, uncontrived beauty all around and within us -- the kind you get for free -- and gently urges us toward awareness of how it can nurture us, if only we'd let it. Gendler's book is a meditation,a balm, a book to savor. Her quiet drawings match her gentle tone. Keep it on your night table.