Beauty and its Relation to Goodness in Thomas Aquinas’s Philosophical System

Beauty is a metaphysical concept in Thomas. Such an attitude about beauty necessarily will relate it to the other philosophical concepts. It can be said that the understanding of beauty – which separated from Good- is impossible in the Hellenistic and middle ages thoughts- which are a kind of metaphysical one - because Beauty and Good are often enumerated as the objective properties of Beings in these thoughts. Thomas as other predecessors accepts the same idea about Beauty too and connects it with the Being. So we can enumerate beauty as one of the Transcendentals; one of which necessarily connect with Goodness; because the Transcendentals not only have connected with the Being but also with each other. Beauty, in Aquinas' philosophy, is an objective property and at the same time has connected with apprehension and with the soul too. Because of this, the appetitive power of the soul will owe the beauty by the mediation of the intelligence.