Defining beauty: the Hippias major and contemporary musings

Hindsight can be a great teacher. The purpose of this editorial is to outline briefly a 2500-year-old debate about the importance of providing, or at least searching for, accurate definitions, particularly about the nature of beauty, and how the debate is relevant to modern dentistry owing to its emphasis on dentofacial aesthetics, followed by a brief discussion regarding the potential relevance of this debate to modern dentistry, including some comments on the ethics of current practice.

A philosophical way of thinking involves questioning everything, including any values which may be ingrained in us and appear ‘normal’, primarily due to general societal acceptance. History demonstrates how many such deeply-held or traditional standards change over time as humanity progresses towards greater ethical values. The link with modern dentistry is discussed.

Many specialties of dentistry and medicine are concerned with external dentofacial and bodily appearance, which are often inextricably linked to internal psychosocial health and quality of life. Congenital, developmental, traumatic and pathological conditions may all affect a patient's dentofacial appearance. A key issue for clinicians is that an individual's appearance, and visible differences from the average, are all connected, potentially through evolutionary processes moulded by cultural forces and standards, to our understanding of beauty.¹ It thereby follows that understanding the concept of beauty begins by attempting to define it.