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Perfection is a state, variously, of completeness, flawlessness, or supreme excellence.
The term designates a range of diverse, if often kindred, concepts used in a variety of fields.
The Greek polymath Aristotle (384–322 BCE) distinguished three concepts of perfection:
The Polish philosopher Władysław Tatarkiewicz (1886 – 1980) notes that perfection is often confused with other qualities, such as "excellence". The German polymath Leibniz (1646–1716), who thought the world to be the best of all possible worlds, never called it perfect.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Perfection: the Term and the Concept", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VI, no. 4 (autumn 1979), p. 9.
This idea accorded with the Baroque aesthetic of Vanini and the French polymath Marin Mersenne (1588–1648): the perfection of an art work occurs when the spectator complements the work with an act of contemplation.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Paradoxes of perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 1 (winter 1980), p. 77.
Greek mathematicians regarded as "perfect" a number which equals the summation of its that are smaller than itself, such as the number 6, because 1 + 2 + 3 = 6.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Perfect Numbers", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 2 (spring 1980), pp. 137–138.
Euclid ( floruit 300 BCE) gave a formula for (even) "perfect" numbers:
After more than two millenia of study, it still is not known whether there exist infinitely many perfect numbers; or whether there are any odd ones.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Perfect Numbers", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 2 (spring 1980), p. 138.
A rigid body body is one that supposedly is not deformed by forces applied to it.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Perfection in Physics and Chemistry", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 2 (spring 1980), p. 139.
A perfectly plastic body is one that is supposedly deformed indefinitely as a load is applied to it.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Perfection in Physics and Chemistry", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 2 (spring 1980), p. 139.
A black body body would be one that absorbed, completely, radiation falling upon it.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Perfection in Physics and Chemistry", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 2 (spring 1980), p. 139.
A perfect fluid would be one that is incompressible and non-viscous.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Perfection in Physics and Chemistry", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 2 (spring 1980), p. 139.
A perfect gas would be one whose molecules did not interact with each other and had no volume of their own.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Perfection in Physics and Chemistry", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 2 (spring 1980), p. 139.
All these are fictitious ideals that do not exist in nature. They are useful insofar as they set physical extremes which nature can only approach asymptotically.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Perfection in Physics and Chemistry", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 2 (spring 1980), p. 139.
Christianity embraced the ideal of perfection. Matthew 5:48 enjoined: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Moral Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 3 (summer 1980), p. 117.
Saint Augustine (354 – 430), a Roman North African, wrote that not only that man is properly termed perfect and without blemish who is already perfect, but also he who strives unreservedly after perfection.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Moral Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 3 (summer 1980), p. 118.
Some Bible voices cast doubt on whether perfection is attainable by man. 1 John 1:8 says: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Moral Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 3 (summer 1980), p. 118.
As early as the 5th century, two distinct views on perfection had emerged within the Church: that perfection was attainable by man on earth by his own powers; and, that it may come only by special divine grace.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Moral Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 3 (summer 1980), p. 119.
The 14th century saw, with the Scotism, a shift in interest from moral to ontology perfection. The 15th century, particularly during the Italian Renaissance, saw a shift to perfection.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Moral Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 3 (summer 1980), p. 121.
The second half of the 16th century brought the Counter-Reformation, the Council of Trent, and heroic attempts to attain perfection through contemplation and mortification of the flesh.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Moral Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 3 (summer 1980), p. 121.
The first half of the 17th century saw the beginnings of Jansenism and a growing belief in predestination and in the impossibility of perfection without divine grace.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Moral Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 3 (summer 1980), p. 121.
The 18th century and the Enlightenment brought a sea change to the idea of moral perfection, from religion to secular. The perfect man was he who lived in harmony with nature.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Moral Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 3 (summer 1980), p. 122.
The mid-18th century saw a brief retreat from the idea of perfection, when the French Encyclopédie entry on "Perfection" discussed only technology perfection – the optimal matching of human handiworks to the tasks set for them; no mention was made of morality, esthetics, or ontology perfection.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Moral Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 3 (summer 1980), p. 123.
The 18th century otherwise saw declarations about the coming perfection of man from Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) and Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744 – 1803).Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Moral Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 3 (summer 1980), p. 123.
Other writers, of this and following periods, who expected perfection to come about via secular processes included David Hume, John Locke, David Hartley, Claude Adrien Helvétius, Jeremy Bentham, Charles Fourier, Francis Galton, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and the 19th-century Positivism and evolutionism including the polymath Herbert Spencer.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Moral Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 3 (summer 1980), p. 123.
From the 20th century, writes Tatarkiewicz, the goal has been not so much perfection as improvement aimed at attaining excellence.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Moral Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 3 (summer 1980), p. 124.
There was also a common belief that certain proportions and shapes were perfect in themselves. Plato felt that the most perfect proportion was the ratio of the side to the diagonal of a square.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Aesthetic Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 4 (autumn 1980), p. 146.
Aristotle (384–322 BCE) regarded the circle as the perfect, most beautiful form. Roman politician and orator Cicero (106 – 43 BCE) wrote: "Two forms are the most distinctive: of solids, the sphere ... and of plane figures, the circle..."Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Aesthetic Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 4 (autumn 1980), p. 146.
Renaissance aesthetics placed less emphasis than had classicism aesthetics on the unity of things perfect. Italian courtier Baldassare Castiglione (1478 – 1529), in his Il Cortegiano, wrote of Leonardo, Andrea Mantegna, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Giorgione, that "each of them is unlike the others, but each is the most perfect in his style."Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Aesthetic Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 4 (autumn 1980), p. 147.
Perfection gradually came to be seen as but one of many admirable qualities. Italian Renaissance scholar Cesare Ripa (ca. 1555 – 1622), in his Iconologia, placed perfezione on an equal footing with grace ( grazia), prettiness ( venustà), and beauty ( bellezza).Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Aesthetic Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 4 (autumn 1980), p. 147.
Still, Leibniz's pupil Christian Wolff (1679 – 1754) wrote in his Psychology that beauty consisted in perfection and that this was the reason why beauty was a source of pleasure. No such general aesthetic theory, explicitly naming perfection – writes Tatarkiewicz – had ever been formulated by any of perfection's devotees from Plato to Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio (1508 – 1580).Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Aesthetic Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 4 (autumn 1980), p. 150.
Wolff's theory of beauty-as-perfection was elaborated by the school's chief aesthetician, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714 – 1762). Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729 – 1781) considered both beauty and sublimity to be ideas of perfection.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Aesthetic Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 4 (autumn 1980), p. 150.
Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) wrote much about perfection in his Critique of Judgment, but in the realm of aesthetics he concluded: "The faculty of taste is entirely independent of the concept of perfection".Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Aesthetic Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 4 (autumn 1980), p. 150.
Earlier in the 18th century, France's leading aesthetician, Encyclopédie editor Denis Diderot (1713 – 1784), had expelled the concept of perfection from aesthetics. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778) had treated perfection as an unreal concept and had written to the polymath and Encyclopédie co-editor Jean le Rond d'Alembert (1717 – 1783) : "Let us not seek the of perfection..."Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Aesthetic Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 4 (autumn 1980), p. 151.
In England, in 1757, aesthetician Edmund Burke (1729 – 1797) too had denied that perfection was the cause of beauty.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Aesthetic Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 4 (autumn 1980), p. 151.
In the 19th century, perfection ceased to be a leading concept in aesthetics. French dramatist, poet, and novelist Alfred de Musset (1810 – 1857) held that "Perfection is no more attainable for us than infinity."Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Aesthetic Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 4 (autumn 1980), p. 151.
In the 20th century, French poet and philosopher Paul Valéry (1871 – 1945) saw perfection as an impracticable goal.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Aesthetic Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VII, no. 4 (autumn 1980), p. 151.
Parmenides ( floruit in the late-6th or early-5th century BCE), however, considered being (existence) to be " tetelesmenon" ("finished"); and Melissus of Samos ( floruit in the 5th century BCE), his successor in the Eleatics, said that being (existence) "is entirely" (" pan esti"). Thus both saw perfection in being (existence). Parmenides moreover thought the world to be , limited in all directions, and like a was a mark of its perfection.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Ontological and Theological Perfection," Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VIII, no. 1 (winter 1981), p. 187.
Parmenides' view was embraced to some extent by Plato (late-5th to mid-4th century BCE), who thought that the world was the work of a good Demiurge, and that this was why order and harmony prevailed in it. Plato believed that the world was the best, the most beautiful, perfect; and that it had a perfect shape (spherical) and a perfect motion (circular).Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Ontological and Theological Perfection," Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VIII, no. 1 (winter 1981), p. 187.
But Plato said nothing about the Demiurge himself being perfect. Perfection implied limits; whereas it was the world, not the Demiurge, that had limits.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Ontological and Theological Perfection," Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VIII, no. 1 (winter 1981), pp. 187–188.
A similar view was expressed by Aristotle (384–322 BCE), who held the world's primum movens, or "first cause", to be pure form, pure energy, pure reason – features which were superior to all else. The first cause had the highest attributes, but perfection was not one of them.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Ontological and Theological Perfection," Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VIII, no. 1 (winter 1981), p. 188.
However, the pantheism Stoics – Greek and Roman followers of Zeno of Citium, Cyprus (ca. 334 – ca. 262 BCE) – thought the divinity to be perfect, precisely because, as , they identified it with the world.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Ontological and Theological Perfection," Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VIII, no. 1 (winter 1981), p. 188.
Roman politician and orator Cicero (106 – 43 BCE) wrote in De natura deorum (On the Nature of the Gods) that the world "encompasses ... all beings existences... And what could be more absurd than denying perfection to an all-embracing being existence?..."Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Ontological and Theological Perfection," Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VIII, no. 1 (winter 1981), p. 188.
Eventually Greek philosophy became bound up with the Christianity religion – the concept of first cause, with the concept of God the Creator deity. Christian theology united the features of the first cause in Aristotle's Metaphysics with the features of the Creator in the Book of Genesis. But the attributes of God did not include perfection, for a perfect being must be finite.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Ontological and Theological Perfection," Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VIII, no. 1 (winter 1981), p. 188.
Another reason to deny perfection to God originated in a branch of Christian theology that was influenced by a Greek Platonism, Plotinus (204/5 – 270 CE): The absolute from which the world derived could not be grasped in terms of human . Not only was that absolute not matter, it was not spirit either, nor idea. it was incomprehensible and ineffable; it was beyond all that we may imagine, including perfection.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Ontological and Theological Perfection," Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VIII, no. 1 (winter 1981), p. 188.
Italian Scholasticism Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225 – 1274), indicating that he was following Aristotle, defined a perfect thing as one that "possesses that of which, by its nature, it is capable." There were, in the world, things perfect and imperfect, more perfect and less perfect. God permitted imperfections in Creation when they were necessary for the good of the whole. It was natural for man to go by degrees from imperfection to perfection.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Ontological and Theological Perfection," Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VIII, no. 1 (winter 1981), p. 189.
To Duns Scotus (ca. 1265/66 – 1308), perfection was not an attribute of God but a property of Creation, and all things partook of perfection to a greater or lesser degree. A thing's perfection depended on what sort of perfection it was eligible for; and that was perfect which had attained the fullness of the qualities possible for it. Hence "whole" and "perfect" meant more or less the same.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Ontological and Theological Perfection," Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VIII, no. 1 (winter 1981), pp. 189–190.
This, notes Tatarkiewicz, was a teleology concept, for it implied a " telos" (an end – a goal or purpose). God created things that served certain purposes – created even those purposes – but He himself did not serve a purpose. Since God was not finite, He could not be called perfect: for the concept of perfection served to describe finite things. Perfection was not a theology concept, but an ontology one, writes Tatarkiewicz, because it was a feature, in some degree, of every being (existence).Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Ontological and Theological Perfection," Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VIII, no. 1 (winter 1981), p. 190.
The concept of perfection, as an attribute of God, entered theology only in modern times, through French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician René Descartes (1596 – 1650).Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Ontological and Theological Perfection," Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VIII, no. 1 (winter 1981), pp. 190–91.
Leibniz (1646 – 1716) wrote: "As Descartes states, existence itself is perfection." Leibniz also construed perfection in a different way in his Monadology: "Only that is perfect which possesses no limits – that is, only God."Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Ontological and Theological Perfection," Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VIII, no. 1 (winter 1981), p. 191.
Leibniz's pupil and successor, Christian Wolff (1679 – 1754), however, ascribed perfection not to existence as a whole, but once again to its individual constituents. He gave, as examples, an eye that sees faultlessly, and a watch that runs faultlessly.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Ontological and Theological Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VIII, no. 1 (winter 1981), pp. 191–92.
Wolff's pupil Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714 – 1762) derived perfection from rules, but anticipated their "collisions" leading to exceptions and limiting the perfection of things. Eventually he arrived at the conclusion that "everything is perfect".Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Ontological and Theological Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VIII, no. 1 (winter 1981), p. 192.
Tatarkiewicz writes that Wolff and his pupils had returned to the ontology concept of perfection that the Scholastics had used; and that the theology concept of perfection had lasted only from Descartes to Leibniz, in the 17th century.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Ontological and Theological Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VIII, no. 1 (winter 1981), p. 192.
Thanks to Wolff's school, the concept of perfection endured in Germany through the 18th century. In other western countries, especially France and Britain, the concept was already in decline and was ignored by the French Encyclopédie.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Ontological and Theological Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VIII, no. 1 (winter 1981), p. 192.
In Christian Wolff's school, perfection was an essential property of every thing, without which the thing cannot exist. "This", says Tatarkiewicz, "was a singular moment in the history of the ontology concept of perfection; soon thereafter, that history came to an end."Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Ontological and Theological Perfection", Dialectics and Humanism, vol. VIII, no. 1 (winter 1981), p. 192.
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