Hamza Tzortzis – Sapient Thoughts #41- Beauty & The Recognition of God – Part 3 – Conceptualizing beauty

			Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh brothers and sisters Welcome to sapient thoughts, where
we discuss the philosophical issues where we answer contentions against Islam, and where we provide
a robust case for the veracity of Islam. In today's episode, which is one of a multi part series on
beauty and the recognition of God. In today's episode, we're going to be continuing on from where we
left off last time. In the last episode, if you remember, we had discussed the idea of cognitive
limitations, and specifically the cognitive limitations of others. And we said that the information
that we take from other sources or other people when it comes to that, that they in turn are subject
		

			to their own cognitive biases and their own epistemic limitations. We gave the example of
cartography, the idea of mapmaking in that a person's worldview and you know, biases are going to
play a part in how they structure the map, what continent they place where, what landmass, they
placed, where, up or down. And we saw that that actually has real world consequences as well, when
we when we mentioned the study that spoke about the idea that when shipping companies when they they
can actually charge more for northbound travel. Due to this straight due to this apparent feeling.
One has that somehow northbound travel is more difficult than costlier than southbound travel. Now,
		

			that being the case, we also ended the last episode with the thesis, the central thesis that we had
started with, and that is, that in order for a person to see truth as truth, that one of the means
by which that can be achieved, is by exposure to natural beauty when one is exposed, natural beauty.
This can or this, what we're going to inshallah show is that this has an impact on two things.
Number one, one's cognition, exposure to natural beauty can enhance one's cognition. Number two,
which we didn't mention in the last episode, that is that exposure to beauty would cause one's ego
to be decreased.
		

			And one of the main impediments for a person to see truth as truth or see truth, to see truth as it
really is, is one's ego. And we're going to get into some details related to that just in a bit.
Now, if the idea of being exposed to beauty can enhance one's cognition and lower one one's ego, we
want to spend a few moments speaking about the concept of beauty or to conceptualize beauty. Now,
one of the one of the places we can start is by asking whether beauty forms part of our meta
language. Now what do I mean by meta language? Well, if you remember from the series on worldview
and the fifth rock, we said that there there are concepts that are known as axioms and first
		

			principles. And these concepts, there's a similar type of concept within language, in the sense that
just like a person can't rationally ask, why ad infinitum, a person can't speak with just
descriptive terms, they have to have evaluative terms by which they can move forward, let me give
you an example. So, you have terms that we would consider secondary, which are called evaluative
terms. In other words, other words are, these words are used as an evaluation of other words. So
primary words would be descriptive in nature, secondary words will be evaluative in nature, and you
need that evaluative word, to actually be able to give the descriptive word a value. So let's take
		

			an example. A secondary word would be a word like good or true. Now, a primary word or descriptive
word would be something like humility. And so therefore, when you want to describe humility, you
would use an evaluative term, humility is good. Or you could say something like generosity, being a
primary term, generosity is good. So you're using good as your evaluative term. But could you then
say, is good, good? Well, you don't really have anywhere to go after that. So in language, we have
to have this sort of this sort of structure in order for language to function. Now, this
categorization of primary and secondary or evaluative and descriptive, this is something that
		

			toshikazu Tzu speaks about in his book on ethical religious concepts in the Koran. So if we
understand
		

			That the question we want to ask is, we have as part of our meta language terms, which are
evaluative or terms which are secondary. So, we understood that those secondary terms or evaluative
terms could be terms like truth could be terms like, good, but is beauty part of the secondary
terminology, or secondary terms that we are taking into consideration, in other words, evaluative
terms. In other words, when someone says, Why do you believe x? You would say, because it's true.
		

			Why do you want, why? Because it's good.
		

			Can we apply the same idea when we say, Why do you look at z? Because it's beautiful? Well, from one
sense, we could say, yes, and from another sense, we say no, because one of the hangups that
happens, and one of the one of the things that we may find that this would be problematic is when
one considers that perhaps beauty is subjective. And so you hear people say, well, beauty is in the
eyes of the beholder. Now, I'm going to hang that particular issue in abeyance just for now, and
we'll come back to it. But for now, in our conceptualization of beauty, I wanted to continue on and
present certain platitudes related to the concept of beauty. These platitudes come from Roger
		

			Scruton, his book called beauty, that's the name of the book. And so Roger Scruton offers some
platitudes. And it's interesting that he calls them platitudes and not principles, because the idea
is when we're talking about something like beauty, if it is indeed part of our meta language. And we
understand that because it's part of our meta language, there's no sort of concept of offering a
proof. So you have to kind of just say, their platitudes and not principles as in some sort of
absolute way. Now, that being the case, let's take a look at some of his platitudes. First of all,
number one, he says that beauty pleases us. Now, this type of pleasure, we're not talking about a
		

			sensual pleasure in the sense that the pleasure you drive from a hot bath, which is related to, you
know, relaxing in terms of your senses, or the you know, the pleasure you get from a steam room, or
from my mom, or whatever it might be, those are sensual pleasures, but beauty pleases us, but in a
way, that's distinctly different. So we understand number one, beauty pleases us, but that that
pleasure that we derive is distinctly different than direct sensual pleasure.
		

			Number two, one thing can be more beautiful than another. And so we can compare two things and give
a comparison to say this particular thing that we're looking at, you know, this painting from Van
Gogh is more beautiful than this painting from my five year old, right? There's a, there's a
comparative this ability to compare, you know, beauty. The third
		

			platitude that he puts forth, is that beauty is always a reason for attending to the thing that
possesses it. And this is very interesting, because when you look at something, the reason why
you're looking at that particular thing, when we're calling it beautiful, is because of the beauty.
So why you're looking at the painting from Van Gogh? or Why are you attending to or listening to the
poetry from Emily Dickinson? Well, because it, that's the you're, you're attending to it, because
it's beautiful. Okay, the fourth platitude that he offers, he says, beauty is a subject matter of a
judgment, the judgment of taste. So here is where we may, you know, understand this from the idea
		

			that a person is going to have an opinion about something, they're like you're going to when you
when you talk about beauty, it is it is that you're gonna make, you're gonna make a judgement about
something that is beautiful, or that is not beautiful, or deep, or that is less beautiful than this
particular thing. But that judgment is a judgment of taste. That judgment of taste is based on you.
Okay, the fifth platitude. He says the judgment of taste is about the beautiful object and not the
subject state of mind. In other words, when you make a judgment, you are going to make a judgement
based on the object. The painting of Van Gogh is beautiful, the painting is beautiful, not your
		

			perception of the painting is beautiful, right? Now, the thing is, if that's the case, there's one
more platitude that he offers he says Nevertheless, there is no second hand judgments of beauty. In
other words, I am going to look at that painting directly and make a judgement. I cannot not look at
the painting and then make a judgement. In other words, there's no sort of syllogism or discursive
reasoning or some sort of, you know, deductive argument that I could place in the abstract, and I
can put forth and bring it to someone who's never seen the painting and say, Look, isn't that
painting beautiful? And they never
		

			looked at it? No, it is there's no second judgment, it has to be firsthand. Now having covered a
brief conceptualization of beauty, we want to now ask the question or move into the realm of beauty
being connected to meaning. Because if we remember the central thesis, and that central thesis was
that beauty or exposure to beauty can allow us or aid us in seeing the truth as it really is. And we
spoke about two elements related to that, that beauty would cause us to have an increased cognition
and beauty will allow us to have a lowered ego. And both of these are elements that can allow us to
see truth as it really is. So having conceptualized beauty now, we want to understand the idea of
		

			beauty being connected to meaning. And in the next episode, we're going to be looking at how beauty
is, is connected to meaning and give examples of the connection of beauty and meaning. So with that
said, this is for HUD this lien and these are sapient thoughts.