The Separation of Goodness and Beauty. Plato, Galip, Lacan

In the long history of Western thought there is a highly significant state of affairs: This is the fact that the range of meaning in Plato’s usage of the Greek term to kalon, which in his dialogue Symposium names the beauty that is goodness as the ultimate object of love, was apportioned across different terms in Latin translation, separating the good from the beautiful. Yet in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish (Ottoman and modern), beauty has been understood in the full Platonic range from at least the time of the Quran to the present day. I will give the example of the 18th century philosophical romance in verse, Beauty and Love (Ḥüsn ü Aşḳ) by the Ottoman poet Şeyḫ Galip (1757– 1799), who became Director of the Galata convent of Mevlana Rumi’s dervish order after writing his work. I will discuss what is at stake in the separation of goodness and beauty, and briefly give a sample from Jacques Lacan’s usages.