I urgently need a paper about 2000 words about "the beauty of harmony (guided by Pythagoras' aesthetic thought and theory)"

The aesthetic theory of Pythagoras School is the beginning of ancient western aesthetics. The formation of a series of important categories in the history of western aesthetics, such as imitation, purification, harmony, proportion and observation, are closely related to the study of mathematics and music in the school's mathematics and physics disciplines and religious beliefs. Unfortunately, such an important aesthetic theory is often ignored. This paper attempts to use the knowledge of modern aesthetic system to sort out the aesthetic theory of this school in a meaningful way, so as to re-form the aesthetic theory of this school in the eyes of the world and reiterate the importance of Pythagoras' aesthetic theory.

Keywords:: Pythagoras school aesthetic system number harmony

I. About Pythagoras and His School

Pythagoras (about 570 BC-499 BC) was born in Samos Island, which was a colonial city-state established by the Greeks along the coast of Asia Minor. He is keen on studying academic and religious ceremonies and has been to many countries. At the age of 40, because he couldn't stand the cruelty of the local rulers, he moved to the city-state of Croix in southern Italy, where he established a secret alliance organization engaged in religious, political and academic activities, most of which were mathematicians and astronomers. After Pythagoras' death, his disciples regarded him as a master and attributed their thoughts and theories to this master, so there was the Pythagorean school, which formed a group with religious significance, which was not a pure philosophical school. The activities of this school continued until the middle of the 5th century BC. If the content of Pythagoras aesthetics is summarized in the simplest language, it is the harmony of numbers.

Second, the ideological basis of Pythagoras' aesthetic theory.

1 The earliest philosophical school in ancient Greece-the thought of natural harmony of Miletus School became the theoretical forerunner of Pythagoras School's theory of harmony and the starting point of the latter theory. They explored the material origin of the universe, revealed the idea of harmony in the universe, supported the significance of aesthetics in the form of philosophy, and summarized the relationship, laws, internal structure and motion state of the unity of nature, truth and beauty, which predicted the profound and theoretical characteristics of ancient western aesthetic theories.

2. Strictly speaking, the aesthetic theory of this school belongs to the category of philosophical aesthetics, which is mainly based on mathematical research and constructs a top-down aesthetic system from the philosophical point of view. That's the point. To truly understand the aesthetic theory of this school, we must understand Pythagoras and his school's philosophy-the core of aesthetic thought, that is, "the origin of number is the origin of everything." In order to understand the original number theory, we have to discuss two interrelated issues: (1) What is a number; (2) Why number is the origin of all things. For the question of what number is, we'd better not start from our modern concept of number, but rely directly on the Pythagorean school's exposition. Philolous, a member of this school, wrote: "It can be seen that everything is neither finite nor infinite. Obviously, the world structure and everything in it are made up of infinity and finiteness. The most obvious example is the scene seen in the real field: one part of the field composed of boundaries (that is, ridges) defines lots, while the other part composed of infinite lots outside the boundaries is limited and not.

This combination of finiteness and infinity is the Pythagorean understanding of logarithm, which is not completely equivalent to the abstract concept of number in modern science. Infinity cannot be recognized, finiteness defines infinity, and finiteness can be recognized. Numbers have epistemological significance. They specify something to distinguish it from other things so that it can be mastered by people's consciousness and thinking. Number is the principle of the production of things and the principle of the composition of things. Philosophers before Socrates believed that number is the soul of things. Numbers are a kind of creativity and generating power.

And for the question of why numbers are the origin of everything. First of all, it is because the school realizes that everything has more similarities with numbers. Pythagoras school says that everything is no longer sensible, but also includes abstract existence such as justice, ideal, soul, opportunity and beauty. Therefore, it is difficult to explain them only by water, gas, fire and other material elements, and only by abstract principles. Secondly, we realize that everything has a certain quantitative relationship. It is said that Pythagoras was inspired by the homonym of the blacksmith in the blacksmith's shop. Through experiments, he began to discover the relationship between intervals and the frequency of chords, and attributed it to numbers, thus realizing that numbers are a higher level reality. Pythagoras realized that number is the origin of all things, not only from perceptual things, but also from the understanding of non-perceptual things. The number itself is static, it is a higher level reality, so it is considered that the number has great power.

Thirdly, the Pythagorean school's theory of the origin of beauty.

Philolous, a member of this school, asked: finite and infinite are so different, how can they be combined into numbers? What should their relationship be? The answer is: they should be in a harmonious relationship. The so-called harmony refers to the development of a thing to the point of "truth", that is, to determine its own boundary, shape and size in a certain form, out of the infinite background. Harmony is a structure, a digital structure. It makes finite and infinite the same, and makes things clearly defined. Harmony naturally comes from several original theories. Pythagoras school explained the composition of the universe with the harmony of numbers and founded the theory of cosmic aesthetics. Its main content is "the universe is the most important aesthetic object." Aesthetic objects are not only visible and tangible, but also fixed in shape and geometry, all of which are arranged by numbers. The visible universe is the highest beauty. This is the original theory of beauty contained in Pythagoras' aesthetic theory, and everything revolves around the harmony of numbers.

Pythagoras believes that opposition is also the origin of all things. Then besides the harmony of numbers can be the origin of beauty, it can also be deduced that the opposition of numbers is also the origin of beauty. According to Aristotle's records, others in the Pythagorean school say that there are ten pairs of primitive elements: "finite-infinite, odd and even, more than one, left and right, male and female, dynamic and static, straight curve, light and dark, good and evil, square length." On the contrary, it is the origin of things. So Philolous, a member of this school, said: "Harmony always comes from opposition, because harmony is the unity of different factors and the coordination of opposing factors." This shows that the aesthetic thought of this school contains the factors of dialectical method. It is from this dialectical point of view that they explored the harmony from the individual to the country and even the whole universe.

Fourthly, the harmonious quantitative relationship and the generating mechanism of cosmic beauty.

The Pythagorean school believes that the quantitative relationship exists before the real world, which is a transcendental existence and belongs to the other side of the world. It provides principles, data, patterns and paradigms for the real world and the artistic world, thus creating harmonious beauty. That is to say, in Pythagoras school, this shore is the isomorphic unity with the other shore world, the fundamental and overall harmony and the ultimate aesthetics. The principle and quantitative relationship of numbers on the other side of the world are stipulated by God, and it is God's arrangement and will that things on this side of the world have a coordinated and appropriate quantitative relationship. In the Pythagorean aesthetic theory system, the concept of God transcends the concept of number and becomes the highest level and the ultimate source of harmony. Therefore, the harmonious quantitative relationship potentially frames and predetermines the harmony of all things. This is actually talking about the relationship between everything and numbers: how does everything derive from numbers? God stipulated the number, which is the model of everything, and everything is a copy of the number. A certain number forms a framework of a certain quantitative relationship and becomes a harmonious number paradigm imitated by all things, which in turn causes the joy and hunger of all things. For example, the quantitative relationship of 5: 8 constitutes a harmonious number paradigm, that is, the paradigm of the golden section law. Once it imitates other things, it produces harmony. As a cultural and aesthetic prototype, the number paradigm with harmonious quantitative relationship existed before copying, which is very similar to Plato's later thought.

From the above, the Pythagorean school believes that the harmony of quantitative relations is the universal law of creating all beautiful and harmonious things. The harmony between nature, humanity, art and aesthetic subject and aesthetic object is nothing more than nothing.

Fifth, the basic aesthetic form of Pythagoras school aesthetics.

Modern aesthetics believes that the so-called aesthetic form is the perceptual expression and existence state of the realm created by people in aesthetic practice. In the aesthetic system of Pythagoras school, harmony derives various aesthetic forms, which makes the essence of harmony special, rich and concrete, thus developing the general essence of harmony to varying degrees.

1, perfect. Perfection is a concrete form of reasonable, appropriate and coordinated quantitative relations, and an appropriate form of all-inclusive and all-arranged arrangements. The Pythagorean school not only uses the number "10" to express perfection, but also thinks that both the circle and the sphere are perfect, and according to this, it says: "The most beautiful figure in all three-dimensional figures is the sphere, and the most beautiful figure in all plane figures is the circle."

2. Proportion. This is an important contribution of Pythagoras school to aesthetics. From the perspective of harmonious proportion, this paper discusses the artistic problems in the modern sense. The aesthetic essence of harmonious proportion lies in that it explains the relationship between parts and the whole, and unifies the relationship between parts in the whole. Only a moderate proportion can form an appropriate quantitative relationship and form a harmonious beauty as a whole, such as the application of the golden section law in the human body. For the Pythagorean school's proportion theory, the skeptic empiricism in the 2nd century gave a general explanation: "Without proportion, there is no art, but proportion exists in numbers, so all art is produced by numbers ... So, there is a certain proportion in sculpture, just like painting; Because of the proportion, the works of art get the correct style, and every factor of them is harmonious. Generally speaking, every art is a system composed of cognition, and this system is number. Therefore, it is appropriate to say that "everyone imitates numbers", that is, everyone imitates the same judgment rationality as the numbers that make up everything. This is the Pythagorean view. "

3. Balance and symmetry. Pythagoras school believes that balance refers to the fact that all parts and elements of things are roughly equal and evenly distributed in quantitative relationship, which has a reasonable quantitative relationship, thus producing harmonious beauty. The beauty of the body is related to the symmetry of legs and hands.

4. Neutralization. Neutralization is a form of balance and a means to achieve it. Pythagoras school mostly talks about harmony in the moral field, such as the belief and proposition that poets should be fair, which reflects the aesthetic ideal of ancient Greek society.

5. reconciliation. Harmony is not only a form of harmony, but also a means to achieve harmony. In Pythagoras school, harmony means leading differences to unity, opposites to consistency, disorder to order and disharmony to coordination. Together with balance, neutrality and symmetry, it becomes a typical aesthetic form of static harmony, which represents the characteristics of Pythagorean harmony theory and early ancient Greek harmony theory.

6. Combination of opposites. The combination of opposites creates a harmonious form of contradiction and unity, matching and balance. In the Pythagorean school's harmonious aesthetic theory system, it has the significance of breaking through static harmony and evolving into dynamic harmony, which represents the development direction of the theoretical system.

7, rank, order, master and slave. For example, every celestial body is accustomed to rich levels and order, each running in its orbit, forming a clear sense of priority, thus forming a harmonious beauty.

8, rhythm, rhythm. Pythagoras school believes that "high and low, long and small sounds appear orderly, match reasonably, and are used to the complicated and coordinated quantitative relationship for many years, which constitutes the rhythm and rhythm of music and produces a harmonious movement." The same is true of other things.