15. History of Aesthetics: Avicenna

Avicenna’s Influence on Aquinas and the Nature of Beauty

What does it mean to say something is beautiful? Is beauty found in perfect symmetry, radiant light, or moral goodness? These aren’t just modern questions—they’ve been asked for centuries by thinkers who sought to connect the beautiful with deeper ideas of truth and perfection.

Thomas Aquinas, one of the most influential theologians of the Christian tradition, was shaped by a wide range of thinkers. Among them was the Arab philosopher Avicenna (originally spelled Ibn Sīnā), who lived from 980 to 1037. Avicenna brought together ideas from Aristotle and Plotinus to frame his theology, and his influence can be seen in Aquinas’s own synthesis of thought.

While neither philosopher wrote extensively about aesthetics in the way we might expect today, both offered powerful insights into beauty—what it is, where it comes from, and how it relates to the divine.