The Nature of Beauty and the Influence of St. Thomas Aquinas

The podcast episode explores the nature of beauty and the influence of St. Thomas Aquinas on the understanding of aesthetics. It emphasizes that aesthetics is the philosophical study of beauty and presents St. Thomas Aquinas' thoughts on the subject. While Aquinas never wrote a formal treatise on beauty, his principles on the nature of beauty and the human person can be inferred from his other works. Aquinas distinguishes between beauty and goodness, stating that beauty relates to the cognitive faculty and consists of due proportion. He also discusses how spiritual beauty in a person relates to virtues like honesty. The episode highlights the importance of appreciating spiritual and intellectual beauty and the role it plays in art.