PIĘKNO JAKO KATEGORIA ANTROPOLOGICZNA W UJĘCIU KAROLA WOJTYŁY
Beauty as an Anthropological Category in the Thought of Karol Wojtyła

Summary/Abstract: The article addresses the issue of beauty as an anthropological category as seen from the perspective of Karol Wojtyła’s thought. The analyses are focused on the concept of the ‘beauty of the person’ to which all other meanings of the term ‘beauty’ are referred. Invoking the Christian interpretation of the Greek notion of pankalia (the beauty of the universe), the author describes God as absolute Beauty whose ‘refl exes’ are present in the world of nature and in the human being. The close connection of beauty and goodness, emphasized by the Platonic category of kalokagathia, is also important in this context. In his analyses, Wojtyła distinguished two types of beauty according to the sex of the person (the beauty of a man and the beauty of a woman) and pointed to different ‘layers’ of beauty (external beauty, i.e. aesthetic, sensuous beauty, the beauty of the body; and internal beauty that constitutes the beauty of the human being as person). Love for another person must not stop at his or her external beauty as his or her body must not be treated as an object of use. Love is a relationship that involves the person as a whole, and not only his of her physical beauty, sexual attractiveness, or practical skill. Anthropology of beauty addresses also a particular question of the creation of beautiful objects which leave their mark on their creator and, unless he or she has succumbed to an egoistic temptation of self-divinization, bear witness to his or her ‘immortality.’

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